Dear Mr Kershaw, page 16
Finally, given that the unit is referred to as a collective noun, Oliver’s Army is on its way, surely, gentlemen.
We are also perplexed with regard to another declaration, vis-à-vis Every Day I Write The Book. Either one is to assume that a new tome is penned every 24 hours, or that, alternatively, you have been toiling upon the same project, which by your own admission boasts a mere six chapters, for some decades now. The former scenario suggests a work of dubious quality and a disappointed readership, the latter a severe case of writer’s block and an exasperated publishing house. Until such time as a literary standard reflective of a realistically befitting time-frame or deadline can be mustered, a continued revenue stream generated by pop concerts and ‘festival appearances’ alone is to be recommended.
Finally, it is with regret that I must request the particulars of your management company and/or legal representatives. Against my better judgement and the manufacturer’s guidelines detailed within the handbook in my glove compartment, and in accordance with your dubious instructions on Steve Wright (which I took to be borne of some pop star insider knowledge pertaining to this year’s model), I pulled my Nissan Juke into the Murco at Southbourne Grove this afternoon. After popping into the kiosk for Quavers I then inflated my rear and front tyres to just shy of 52 psi, 22 and 19 in excess of the recommended 30 psi front/33 psi back already within them. Said over-bloating saw all four inner walls ruptured just before Undercover Boss Canada. In the case of each Michelin, to pump it up when I don’t really need it has saddled me with an unwanted bill from my mechanic on The Nuffield Industrial Estate totalling £135 non-inclusive of VAT, which I insist upon being settled by your good selves without my resorting to civil proceedings. Whilst fully acknowledging that ‘Accidents Will Happen’, on this occasion I fail to see that all four explosions can be attributed to anything other than wanton and unqualified advice.
I bid you good day.
Yours,
Derek Philpott
PS ‘My aim is true’, you may claim, but my neighbour Wilf Turnbull is insistent that he spied a bespectacled gentleman and his three cohorts playing Crazy Golf in Boscombe Gardens last week, seemingly disproving this rather dishonest declaration; his putting was decidedly inaccurate, and at one point his wild approach shot on the fifth tee ended up in the pond after ricocheting off a miniature windmill.
Dear Mr Philpott,
I recently became aware of your letter to Elvis Costello and the Attractions. I’m sorry that your observations have so far elicited no reply from my erstwhile colleagues. I fear you may not be aware that his current supporting musicians are actually imposters – and I’m not even sure about yer man himself. While you await some official explanation, I am happy to try and illuminate matters for you. Consequently, and somewhat to my surprise, I now find myself in the uncustomary position of speaking up on Mr Costello’s behalf!
Incidentally, on the same topic, you may equally well have tackled the late Mr John Lennon who wrote: ‘And so this is Christmas. And what have you done? Another year over. And a new one just begun.’ Here, the late Beatle songsmith has New Year already begun when he has just said that it’s Christmas!
We need now to delve into the realms of esotericism in order to illustrate how events seemingly separated by time can co-exist …
It was in his 1884 novel Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions that the Victorian schoolmaster Dr Edwin Abbott offered us a simple analogy to show how the nature of time is dependent on our perception of it. In Flatland, Abbott describes what life would be like in a Flat world inhabited by figures something like ink blots that can slide around within a sheet of paper. The social order of this Flat world was such that the geometrical figures with most sides ruled over those with fewer. The most powerful had so many sides that they looked almost like circles.
One day, Flatland is visited by a Sphere. So we can imagine the sense of mystery and wonder as such a being suddenly begins to materialize in this world, appearing first as a small circle that steadily increases in size as the Sphere manifests in Flatland in the only way that it can – as a cross-section.
The Sphere moves in and out of the Flat world trying to demonstrate to the Flatlanders that there is a 3rd dimension of space. But all they see is a point that grows to a circle and then shrinks down again only to disappear. The Flat people can’t understand that these different circles, appearing and disappearing at different times, all belong to the same body in a higher dimension — that all these circles belong to one body, a Sphere that is present all of the time!
What Abbott is saying, of course, is that we ourselves are no better off than Flatlanders when it comes to recognizing higher dimensions. But his example of the entry of the 3rd dimension of space into the 2nd is one that can help us to understand the 3rd dimension of time.
Now, suppose a pencil was to pass vertically through this Flat land, then, as with the Sphere, only a thin cross-section would actually exist in it. Remember, the paper beings know nothing else but their ‘paper world’ and what lies in it. So they would only ever see the cross-section of the pencil that lies within it. All the rest of the pencil would be invisible to them, even though it exists all-at-once in our world.
As the pencil passed through their world they would see only successive cross-sections. What has already appeared would now be invisible and belong to their ‘past’. What hasn’t yet appeared would be in their ‘future’. It would be more like a series of events. They could never experience the pencil as an integrated whole or know that it had a form and purpose far beyond their imagining.
The scientists of Flatland could analyse the pencil, its chemical composition and so on until they believed they knew all about it – without ever looking for a higher explanation or realizing that their knowledge was only a very limited expression of a much greater reality.
Just as the Flatlanders can only ever see a cross-section of space, so our own human senses only ever experience a ‘slice of time’. It’s as if we see life like a film being shown frame by frame, even though the whole story is there in the reel in the projector. We have no experience of the 3rd dimension of time, which extends into a dimension hidden from our ordinary senses, where everything is present.
In the Flat world, as the pencil begins to pass through the paper the Flatlanders first see only a point, and then the small circle of graphite that begins to grow around it, before growing a thick coating of wood. The process of growth in our own world is the same; we can think of the growth of a plant or a person from a ‘seed’ in just the same way. We can’t make a plant or a person from a pile of chemicals; we can only watch them grow. This growth comes from a higher dimension that enters our world, over time, from a dimension where the entire plant – seed, bud, leaf, fruit – is present all at once.
The Flatlanders can only understand through their intuition and imagination what we can see naturally all the time. What we see with our senses they can only see in their imagination and insight. The analogy of Flatland says that we are no different. Just as the 2 dimensions of Flatland are contained in a 3rd dimension of space, so our own world exists in a higher, 3rd dimension of time. This 3rd dimension of time – this absolute whole of solid time – holds all possible pasts, presents and futures; everything that exists, has existed or could exist in any place, at any time. It means that, all at the same time, everything, everywhere, is present.
Our traditional idea of eternity is a false one. We usually think of time as an arrow coming out of the distant past progressing towards an equally distant future. And we assume that this thrust is somehow connected with ‘evolution’, ‘civilization’ or ‘progress’. The eternal life of religion pictures it as going on ‘for ever and ever… Amen’. All of these views are based on the idea of time as a kind of an endless one-way street. But just as a line extended infinitely into space can never produce a square or a cube, so a line in time will never reach eternity.
Paul Davies, professor of Theoretical Physics, University of Newcastle, says: ‘I am often asked what happened before the Big Bang. The answer is that there was no ‘before’, because the Big Bang represents the appearance of Time itself. People say “something must have caused it”. But cause and effect are concepts of time and cannot be applied to a state where time doesn’t exist. The question is meaningless. “Time, as we know it, begins with and emerges from the same source as the universe,” said St Augustine.’
So in the matter of the co-existence of all time, even religion and science agree! In eternity everything is present; we can’t ask what happened before creation as it would imply creation happened in some remote past of passing-time. The universe wasn’t made in time, but is made with time. In the process of creation, time itself is created. There can be nothing ‘before’ time; we can only say that there is time. And in Time, everything exists, all at the same time.
I hope this goes some way towards explaining how Oliver’s Army can be on their way at the same time that they are here today. As regards your other observations, rather than address these at this present time (I could of course address them at some ‘future’ present time) I think we might both need to put the kettle on and crack open a packet of Mint Viscounts.
Yours respectfully,
Bruce Thomas
Dear Jona Lewie,
Re: You’ll Always Find Me In The Kitchen At Parties
I recently heard you state on Top of the Pops 2 that you are no good, on account of always getting rebuffed, at chatting up. You added that this is enough to drive a man, referring almost certainly to yourself, to drink, and that you are also averse to washing up, but I will always find you in the kitchen at parties.
Throughout my life I have attended many social gatherings, from anniversaries, birthdays and charity fundraisers to the ‘leaving do’ of my erstwhile work compadre Willy ‘Won’t He’ Wallace and the ‘wrap bash’ of an ITV ‘situation comedy’ that I was allowed into because the father of one of my son’s friends was one of the show’s ‘schoolchildren’ in it at the time.
I can categorically confirm, Mr Lewie, that I have never encountered your good self in the food preparation area of any of these jamborees, the closest namesake being a John Lewis teatowel on a draining board at a 50th which I have deduced must be extraneous on the grounds of your frowzy aversion to post-meal asepsis, as languidly imparted within your above-adduced ‘Sprechgesang synthpop number’.
Didactically speaking, even were I to happen upon you in even one culinary area, such a singular congress could not in any way be construed as interminable.
By your own admission, Mr Lewie, you have taken assuagement in alcohol as a means of contending with latent courtier-spurnings causatum of exiguous savoir faire, and if you will exculpate my bumptiousness, your increasing dipsomania seems sadly to have addled you to the extent that you now believe yourself to have been a draftee in manifold conflicts hundreds of years apart. Thankfully for your fellow combatants, your befuddled misapprehension is delusionary. Were this not to be the case, should your feeble appeals to the Prime Minister regarding your dragoon cessation prove successful, I would be extremely concerned about the morale deflation and detrimental psychological effects caused to your colleagues on the front line, just so you can spend the festive period at home.
I would also sincerely hope that you would not attempt to alleviate the repressive atmosphere of your predicament by ensconcing yourself in the cooking zone of a ‘mess’ (not to be confused with the myriad of pots, pans and plates that you so resolutely refuse to rinse) whose regiment you have persuaded to partake in raucous merry-making. I would ask you to remember, Mr Lewie, that in a battle situation, complete silence when approaching or in auditory range of the foe is paramount in order to avoid the inevitability of giving one’s position away to said enemy.
On a lighter note, my wife Jean and I, accompanied by our neighbours Wilf and Olive Turnbull and Gordon and Nora Gillard, went for a most enjoyable Sunday lunch at a highly popular family ‘eatery’ on Christchurch Road last weekend. After a few too many ‘Toby Tasters’, followed by generously piling my plate high on no less than three visits to the heated buffet, Gordon asked me if I had room for one more sitting. I replied that, on the contrary, I was quite happy for them to ‘Stop The Carvery’!
Although I wish you luck with your new album, I will thank you to avoid the inclusion of further ‘New Wave Rock’ glorifying crapulence-induced slovenly housekeeping and/or court martialable offences, for people to dance to in ‘a new way’.
Yours,
Derek Philpott
Dear Derek (and Wilf),
Thank you for this opportunity to indulge in the dying art of writing a letter which is becoming a dim relic of a previous society.
In reply to your letter we could argue that, whether we are on the seafront, in the trenches or at a social gathering, I could recommend certain stuffs should be entered into the body in order that the promotion of health and happiness in one’s life may be facilitated. For example:
1. Beetroot
2. Raw Garlic
3. Tomatoes
4. Broccoli
5. Plus many more items
We could also enclose soft salmon and soft fillet steak if you don’t mind images of the poor cow or fish being slaughtered and then absorbed into your body; though at least by taking such protein your own protein is guaranteed a further tenure of existence before it again starts to crave more protein. Tofu, on the other hand, is one of various stuffs that can be used by those offended who feel staunchly for the poor beasts.
Not too recommended in the very long term view would be assuagement by alcohol. Water is a good Adam’s wine and is permissible, even though Prime Minister Churchill quite rightly claimed that he got more out of alcohol than alcohol got out of him.
Not to be too Spartan or a spoilsport, we would not be enamoured with enticing sugars, though dark or black chocolate is useful (but not as necessary as Adam’s Wine). One would also NOT take with a pinch of salt the notion that too much salt is dangerous to the mortal body.
Eating the right food stuffs in the kitchen, it can be suggested, will make for less need of trenches or the manufacture of cannon, rifles, torpedoes and other weapons, some of which are well known (for example, nuclear bombs). This is because the right food stuffs can encourage the right moods which are of an anti-belligerent nature. Amen and God Save America, plus all the other countries.
With regards to your letter and on a final note, I can reassure you that topics from the next album will go beyond the kitchen and the fallout zone in order to look at tears and joy derived from other soups and sauces, of which there are indeed plenty.
Take good care,
Jona Lewie
Dear The Mock Turtles,
I am most grateful to you, The Mock Turtles.
It was a particularly pleasant day today, of which my wife Jean and I took full advantage by having lunch on the patio with our neighbours Wilf and Olive Turnbull, accompanied by the splendid Ken Bruce on Radio 2 through an open window. As it was one of very few forays past the conservatory doors for some time on account of a rather dismal winter, we were sadly afforded only the first opportunity to observe the extent to which our garden had become overrun with brambles. After a second pot of Earl Grey and one too many Orange Viscounts, and whilst pondering the most effective method of loosening the sun-hardened soil at the roots of said unwanted vegetation, Wilf proffered several suggestions. He asked if I could ‘rotavate’ it – sadly not an option owing to a blown fuse – and then could I try a trowel, as he was confident that I would get it through somehow. This proved ineffective, however, owing to insufficient leverage and a clay-encrusted blade after too long unscraped which did little more than crumble the surface layer, rendering our intrusive perennial steadfast. Undecided as to our next option and fast becoming despondent, your excellent and persistent well-informed enquiry ‘Can You Dig It?’ sent me eagerly to the shed for my favoured spade, Lemmy, who eradicated the infestation with aplomb.
As well as your adroitness in horticultural matters, The Mock Turtles, I am sure that you will not mind me complimenting you upon your ecological sensibilities. I was extremely perturbed by Blondie’s assertion on Top Of The Pops 2 last week that she will give me her finest hour, the one she spent watching me shower. Leaving aside that time cannot be bestowed and, given that it takes me a fraction of this time to cleanse upright, my bathroom or front doors show no signs of forced entry, leading me to conclude that I must have been confused for somebody else. Nevertheless, her glorification of such a grotesque waste of water in stark contrast to your insistence that ‘someone turn the lights off’ only serves to enhance your awareness of the importance pertaining to pop stars educating us ordinary members of the public in utility usage-helmed affairs of the environment.
I confess, The Mock Turtles, that ever since seeing Buddy Holly on television and expecting his other musicians to be nocturnal grasshopper-like insects but finding them in actuality more redolent of three trainee bank managers, I have been unwaveringly fascinated by ‘band names’. As an animal lover, I was dreading, in your own case, that the employment of the definitive article serves merely as a superfluous juxtaposition inserted as a subtle subterfuge designed to encourage people (subliminally or otherwise) to mock turtles and/or, by extension, tease terrapins. I was therefore initially relieved to learn that a mock turtle is not a shelled reptile ridicule reference, but in reality, a soup; then dismayed to glean that the liquid sustenance’s stock ingredients are brains and organ meats – including the head and foot of a calf, branding it as a baby cow production.
If only your endorsement of such a cruel liquid mélange could have been reconciled by your agrological expertise and admirable ‘carbon footprint’, you would have been welcome at any time here at Philpott Place for tea on the newly-unimpeded decking.
