This is for everyone, everywhere, who indulges in life drawing.

Thought for the Day, from Justin Webly, more or less Arch of Cant

Hullo,

        

I do hope your summer is being as blessed as mine. I’m still not used to all the dressing up, having to sit in the back of cars and not get to drive, and being followed by the young man with a wire in his ear and a bulge in his jacket, but I’m relishing the new challenges being placed before me.

          

The other day I met one Patrick McLoughlin, the chap responsible for the ongoing development of the High Speed Train system. I had asked for this meeting to highlight the many concerns of homeowners whose property is now blighted by the HST building corridor. Mr McLoughlin said that whilst he understood their worries, they counted for very little in the face of such a shiny, sexy, government-saving project. When I further pressed him about the plight of those whose homes would be compulsorily purchased, he appeared not to hear me and kept muttering, “Whoosh! 225mph! Whoosh! Whoa! Sexy!” I was not impressed by the HST. Utterly bereft of any real character, it cannot hold a candle to the steam locos of yesteryear, or the wonderful atmosphere they engendered. Rachmaninov, Brief Encounter! The dear dead steamy days beyond recall.

I am soon to serve on a Parliamentary Inquiry into Banking Ethics. Now this I am really looking forward to. I have experience in this field. I can name greedy, bent names and warmly anticipate handing out quite a few excommunications. Failing that, a spell in chokey. Ethics need strong backup. So I will not hesitate to, in the words of Dame Edna Everidge, give the little bleeders a good hiding.

Pip pip,

Justin.

Pangolin Stars

Capricorn

You are conventional and hard-working. If it weren't for your goatee beard (if you're female) and your cloven hooves (if you're male) you'd be a right boring old fart.  Sometimes people look at your head, notice that you're horny and this gives your street cred a monumental boost.

Most illegal immigrants working in McDonalds are Capricorn people.

Aquarius

You have very good upper body strength from carrying a Grecian urn everywhere you go (even W H Smith's).  You are sometimes unpredictable and have been known to climb aboard fire engines shouting 'This is my water!  Come and get it - if you think you're hard enough!'

All Aquarians are addicted to prescription medications, codydramol being the most common one.

Pisces

You are sensitive and romantic, and school bullies would come along and dump bucketfuls of dirty water on you while you were talking to the daffodils (who were going 'Ping!' at the time). Unfortunately you usually smell of ageing haddock and this hampers your social advancement somewhat.

Pisces people have ingrowing toenails.

Aries

You are impulsive and liable to butt into others' conversations. You are also inclined to turn your back on people you've never met before, and widdle, until you've been properly introduced.  On the plus side, you are the proud owner of a particularly authentic sheepskin coat.  Which sometimes smells of old dog.

Aries people are inclined to leave their shoes on the window sill overnight.

Taurus

You have a predilection for fine china but have never been particularly successful with it, and have sometimes ended up having to pay for the whole shop. You like to eat, and eat, and eat. You go to weightwatchers purely for the purpose of spectating and because it gives you another excuse to think about food.

Most people who ride their bikes on the pavement instead of on the cycle track are Taureans.

Gemini

You have a vague yet strangely persistent feeling that there are two of you in one body, and you find it confusing when people come up to you and say things like 'Look - we're wearing the same skirt!' Especially if you're a bloke.

Gemini people will sit up talking all night, including when the host has put on their pyjamas and turned off all the lights.

Cancer

You find it difficult to come out of your shell; this is actually quite sensible as you'd be liable to be eaten by herring gulls if you did. Your best friend is probably a barnacle. Sometimes you find your family is mistaken for an unpleasant parasite which lives in the pubic region.

People who try to re-use others' discarded chewing gum are usually Cancereans.

Leo

You are dramatic and dignified, but people have been laughing at you ever since you wore that crown into the Working Men's Club, Worksop, on the night of the darts match. You were a very keen member of the Cubs when you were young.

Most Leo people leave the toilet seat up.

Virgo

You are neat, precise and suffer from OCD.  Well, more accurately, the people whose bus tickets you try to nick before arranging them in numerical order, attaching them with bulldog clips to the back of the seat in front of you, suffer from your OCD.  Especially when the inspector arrives. You have strangely orderly paper clips.

Virgo people are usually employed making those little plastic things you get on the end of shoe laces.

Libra

You are indecisive and fickle, and often have more than one department store loyalty card. You are well balanced in that you have four carrier bags in each hand - and not necessarily full of stuff you've actually paid for. You once sold the Polish War Memorial to an American tourist.

If a Libran gives a festive bouquet, it will comprise flowers nicked from a municipal floral arrangement.

Scorpio

You are completely money and groin orientated, and have been known to charge three pence for a tuppenny upright. If a woman, you will keep your tights on and then claim you were a virgin; if a man you will carry a bunch of fairly large cucumbers with you at all times.

All Scorpios have dandruff.

Sagittarius

You are blunt and argumentative. You have been known to hold up supermarket queues for hours while you argue with the person on the checkout about the best way of opening those carrier bags. Sometimes people just give up in despair and put your head down the bog.

Sagittarians do terrible things to other peoples' window boxes.

On This Day

Nine Years Ago

In London, members of the Worshipful Company of Poulticemakers gathered in Strangefellows Hall for the traditional Pricking of the Flea. Proceedings were presided over by Grand Master Most Worshipful the Revd Dibden Purley, who delivered the Final Grace and Parting Oath.

Fifteen Years Ago

A new exhibition, of interest to food-lovers everywhere, opened in the Leicestershire village of Snarthole, birthplace of the world-famous Snarthole Scone. Spread across three walls of the Reading Room and an overflow annexe, the display told the story of the celebrated delicacy through an unusual collection of wrappers and till receipts, some dating back more than half a century. One thing missing from the exhibition (entitled 'Snarthole - Our Contribution to World Cuisine') was any account of the scone's ingredients, a secret held by one family over many generations. Believed to have been created in a time of need, the scone first gained mention in history around the Siege of Ratby in the Wars of the Roses. Since then the scone's recipe has been protected by local bye-law from adulteration of any kind.

Twenty Years Ago

The local tradition of Sodding Sunday was continued at St Chardonnay in the Quantocks when, in an outdoor service held beneath umbrellas, the Revd Wilmot Proone blessed six new turves laid either side of the church's ancient southern entrance.

Fifty Years Ago

Members of the Surrey Young Communists' League met on Box Hill for a Chablis and Cucumber sandwich picnic. After a short talk on collectivisation in the production of turnips, there was a Primrose Path ramble, ending with the popular Treasure Hunt.

One Hundred Years Ago

Apprentice stringcutter Ernest Boaks, of Stringsnippers' Yard, Walsall, worked a 143-hour week for no wage and a polite refusal of the payment in string sometimes awarded to trainees who show outstanding promise. Praising his young employee, Cllr Meanwood Pinch, proprietor of West Midlands Bindings Ltd, told the press, 'He's a grand lad, young Ernie, and keen as mustard. We could do with more of his sort around.'

Jobs of Yesteryear: String Fettling

In a time before sticky tape, Velcro or staples, string was the universal fastener.  It quite literally held the Empire together, used as it was to hold up diplomats' trousers in foreign parts where braces were regarded as unclean, or to secure ladies' heavy bustles which, if they became detached, could easily crush a suitor's foot.  During WW1, several of our Dreadnought warships were held together with stout British string during the rivet blight of 1915.

Pictured are orphan boys being trained as string fettlers, a skill whereby lengths of string carelessly discarded by the upper classes and often bearing stubborn knots, were rendered re-usable, saving the economy more than £3/2/9 a year.

Examples of early Christian knotted string still fetch good prices at auction.

*Also pictured in the instructor, a Mr R J Thynnge, holding the Cape of Shame which had to be worn by any boy caught using his teeth.

Many children 'think cheese comes from plants'

 A survey conducted by British Nuclear Fuels (BNF), also known as British Nutrition Foundation (BNF), has been shocked to find that almost a third of UK primary pupils think cheese is made from plants.  The two organisations have long worked together to turn school dinners back into food, and have now concluded that kids need better teaching about cooking and healthy eating.

Some of their findings are highly dubious, however, or else the kids' confusion is totally understandable in the light of mixed messages they're receiving from the mejia.  For example, the implication that cheese ISN'T made from plants requires further scrutiny.  If they really believe that, then what on earth do they think THIS is?

That's right - a SWISS CHEESE PLANT. Other cheeses, such as sage derby, appledore and wild garlic yarg, quickly reveal their vegetal origins too.

Luckily the survey participants weren't asked where they thought that well-known and doughty cheese, 'stinking bishop' actually originated, or what his name was.

The kids ranged in age from five to sixteen, with a definite tapering off of knowledge towards the upper end of the range.  This is probably due to the older ones being in a cheerful state due to ingestion or smoking of vegetal substances, and their only interest in nutrition, therefore, being due to attacks of the munchies.

Some 19% of this age group did not realise that potatoes grew under the ground, thinking that they came from bushes or trees.  A similar number thought that tomatoes had a subterranean gestation, too.  However these scientists have ignored the fact that this is a common misapprehension, celebrated in folklore and song, where the despair concerning these issues is immediately apparent:

"You say tomato, I say tomato
  you eat potato and I eat potato
  tomato, tomato, potato, potato
  let's call the whole thing off"

The survey, produced to coincide with the BNF's healthy-eating week, also revealed that more than three quarters (77%) of primary school children and nearly nine in 10 (88%) secondary pupils knew that people should eat at least five portions of chips each day.

Unfortunately they don't know how to make them.

Thought for the Day, from Justin Webly, more or less Arch. of Cant.

Hullo!

My lady wife and I don’t watch a great deal of television, what with official engagements, dressing up, opening things, blessing things and generally being seen about the place, we simply don’t seem to have the time.

Recently, on one of the rare occasions we were able to spend an evening toasting muffins and watching “the box” (we’re both particularly fond of “Flog It”. My lady wife often remarks on the programme’s enthusiastic presenter’s come to bed eyes, whatever that means. It probably refers to the hard work he puts in valuing peoples’ knick-knacks), we took one of our rare forays into commercial television. We tend only to view the BBC, because those commercial channels are so bound up with Mammon.

That said, you can imagine my shock, nay horror, when, commercial break after commercial break there appeared advertisements for MONEYLENDERS! – companies offering something called “pay-day loans” whereby comparatively small amounts are made immediately available to honest, hardworking folk who have, in the words of the young man with a wire in his ear and a bulge in his jacket who follows us everywhere, come up a bit Royal Mint. Apparently, this means “skint”, which my driver tells me means to have no money. On the surface, this appeared to me to be a worthy, nay philanthropic business until I noticed the interest rates! Thousands of percents! Thousands!

As you might imagine, my first thought was, “What would Jesus have done?” and of course Our Lord did indeed encounter this sort of leechery and he took the moneylenders and physically grasped them, and threw them out of the Temple. He was like that, Jesus. Contrary to the meek and mild image put forward by some religious agencies, there was something of the Jack Reacher about him in certain circumstances.

The following morning I suggested to Jocasta that I might do the same thing; that I and a few burly curates, male and female could turn up at Wonga.com and throw their personnel out into the street. Both Jocasta and the young man with the wire in his ear thought this terribly funny. They explained that most of these sorts companies didn’t have offices as such and that they only existed on line and probably operated out of Liechtenstein or somewhere equally obscure.

So for the moment, I am stumped. But I am determined to do something about this shameful state of affairs wherein rich people exploit poor people. This very afternoon I shall pen a letter to our Prime Minister informing him of my findings. I feel sure that he will be as horrified at this rampant – for want of a better word – Capitalism as I was.

Blessings,

Justin