CHARLES MOORE Since our parish newsletter does not
CHARLES MOORE Since our parish newsletter does not have a wide circulation, I feel I am justified in plagiarising an article in the latest issue by its nature correspondent (my wife). She provides useful, or anyway, interesting information for Christmas decoration, with the preface that unless you wait until Christmas Eve before hanging up your greenery and be sure to take it down by Epiphany, every leaf will spawn a goblin: i. Holly. Tradition holds that if the holly you bring in is smooth-leaved, the woman of the house will dominate. If it is prickly, the man will be in charge. The botanical fact, though, is that all berried holly is female. Many believe that it is bad luck to cut down an entire holly (cutting branches is fine). Round us in Sussex, this is said to be because hollies prevent witches from running along the hedge-tops. I knew a woodman once who told me he had cut down a holly in his hedge and found the fuel in his tractor turned to water. My wife also points out that holly was once used for making the white figures in chess sets, and suggests that, since ivory is disapproved, this should be revived.
ii. Ivy. Ivy is libelled for strangling trees. Not so: it clings, but is not a parasite. It manufactures all its own nutrients. Only its weight is a problem for trees. Being lateflowering, ivy is helpful for insects which need nectar, and allows bees to top up their winter stores and provides winter berries for birds. The Holly Blue butterfly colonises both the holly and the ivy. It lays its eggs on holly flowers in the spring, and moves to ivy in the autumn.
iii. Mistletoe. 'It is curious,' writes the correspondent, in a steamy, adult passage, `that the post-18th-century superstitions surrounding it are distinctly British. One might think that the French would have picked up earlier on the erotic potential of a plant with forking played branches, paired leaves and plump berries full of a white, sticky juice.' Then she explains that, because mistletoe grows neither on nor under the earth, it became the plant which alone could kill the beautiful Norse god Baldur. Druids (see Getafix inAsterix) cut mistletoe with a golden sickle; but if the plant touched the earth, it lost its power. Pliny is responsible for the error, still believed today, that mistletoe will not germinate unless it passes through the digestion of a bird. In fact, it is mostly spread by birds wiping their beaks on trees. My wife has germinated it, she says, by scraping post-Christmas berries into the bark of various apple-trees, though February berries are the best to ensure germination.
people sometimes warn against the idea that 'man is the measure of all things', but there is a literal sense in which he is, or should be — measurements themselves. This has been brought home very clearly to me by a short, sharp new book called About the Size of It, The Commonsense Approach to Measuring Things, by Warwick Cairns (Macmillan). The book identifies `the great, unwritten, unspoken unacknowledged Principle of Measurement', which is that 'people can't always be bothered to do things properly'. As a result, we measure things, for daily as opposed to scientific purposes, roughly. When we do this, in almost all cultures, we use our bodies. Thus a human foot measures out a building plot; the width of a human hand, working vertically in a way human feet find difficult, measures the size of a normal brick or the height of a horse; a yard is a stick as long as your leg; a pound is about the weight you can easily hold in your hand, and so on. The only system of measurement that is hostile to these human origins is the metric one. A kilogramme of apples, for example, cannot fit in your hand. Metric is an imposition; other measurements arise from the 'crooked timber of humanity', and therefore work.
Responding to a recent statement by Harriet Harman about her difficulties over donations, the Father of the House, Sir Peter Tapsell, told the Commons that her remarks had been 'charming'. This will have surprised most of those who listened to Ms Harman, but in fact Sir Peter was using a convention which, until I heard him, I thought had died out. Just as MPs who were regular soldiers are referred to as 'gallant' in the House, and MPs who are also QCs are called 'learned', and MPs who have courtesy titles are (or were) called 'noble', so the speeches of women MPs used automatically to be characterised as 'charming'. The word sometimes sounded strained but, when you think about it, it is no more so than the word 'honourable' or, also in the parliamentary context, the word 'friend'. Is it time for an epithet for those who have followed the profession of spin-doctor — 'eloquent'?
ast week, the Chief Constable of Merseyside, Ben Hogan-Howe, gave a powerful explanation of how health and safety law forces policemen to be less brave than the public, who are not governed by the same rules. His words made me think of the citations for medals such as the Victoria Cross, or for the George Cross (for which policemen are eligible). They often say that the winner 'displayed a complete disregard for his own personal safety'. This is intended as a commendation: today it could be part of a charge sheet.
Still thinking about the teddy bear called Mohammed, I wonder what rules, if any, govern the use of the name Jesus. It is a close relation of Joshua, which, in that form, all Christians and Jews, and many non-believers, use happily. But in Britain, at least, Christians would not call their children (let alone their teddy bears) Jesus, because it would be considered presumptuous and potentially blasphemous. This anxiety does not apply, however, in the Spanish-speaking world, where plenty of people are called Jesus. I wonder why there are different views. The maitre d'hôtel at the Caprice is called Jesus Adorn°, which combines religion and philosophy. The name fits him admirably.
Particularly warm Christmas greetings to Mrs P, of Kent, whom I shall not name for fear of reprisals against her. Responding to this column's occasional campaign against TV Licensing's rude letters ordering those who do not possess televisions to buy television licences or face prosecution, Mrs P tells me that she has not had a set since 1994. From November 2000, she decided to collect all the menacing letters that TV Licensing sent her, and has now accumulated 24. 'I am 84 years old,' she writes, 'and being an old, English and obstinate granny, I am not bothered, but regret the undermining of the rule of law which this behaviour causes.' Is it not illegal to send threatening letters?' she asks, and adds, 'I shall not allow anyone to search my house without a police warrant.'
Previous page
