Bizarre Friendships, Papercuts and Long Views

When looking for comedy entertainment I watch funny cat videos, but when I am looking for more general entertainment, my current favourite is Bizarre Animal Friends.  What could be nicer than seeing the friendship between a dog ad a dolphin, or a dog teaching a donkey how to throw sticks for him?  A dog and a deer can just be good friends.  Friendships between wild cats and deer, or in one case, an owl, are slightly more fraught.  Will the cat "forget" the other animal is its friend and accidentally eat it?  It's always a possibility.

But that aside, Bizarre Animal Friends illustrates my pagan view of the world, it's all about friendliness.  Why have gods when you can have friends?  Why have artificial divisions between animals and people; plants and people; the land and people, when you can be friends?  That's the way I like to see the planet, and what I try to express in my art.

We did visit Kirkharle Courtyard on Saturday, and walk around the "picturesque" lake.  What it is, in fact, is a landscape which was planned by Capability Brown, but never carried out until now.  The trouble is, with landscape art, there isn't much to see in the first ten years or so.  Old Capability was in it for the long view.  At the moment you can see a rill, a lake, plantings of trees and wildflower meadows; but it will be a long time before these are a landscape.  It's very pleasing to see people carry out work for the long view in this way.  To see people who can get gratification, not only not instant, but so long term that it is future generations who will see the results of the "capabilities".

In the courtyard shops we saw the work of John Speight, who works in papercuts:

Bizarre Animal Friends at a Funeral

His papercuts are miniatures, and quite amazing.  He is a man who takes a minute, close-up view of the world, but that works too, as well as the long view.  I love this animal funeral.  There is, I think, a human friend at the back?

Luboks and Leaves

As part of my research into the best way of producing some Fleamsy books for your delectation and delight, I have been looking again at luboks.  Unlike Western European woodcuts on broadsides and pamphlets, luboks were in colour.

I have tried some linocuts in colour, and am next going to see about linocuts which fake a lubok style.  Here are some examples of my work with colour:

Plain Brown

Green and Brown

Green and Dark Green

Green and Teal

I think there are definite potentials there.  Or capabilities as my hero Capability Brown would have said.  That reminds me, this weekend we are going to Kirkharle to see the Capability Brown visitor centre there.  I'll take some photos for you.  Toodles!

Badgers, Books and The Curse of Amen-Ra

Some more notes about Norwich: taxidermy seems very popular.  Miss Aimson had spotted a bookshop with a stuffed badger in the window, and a teashop with a stuffed fox, and we saw a stuffed razorbill in one antique shop.  There seemed quite a taxidermy-vibe in the town as a whole. 

The bookshop with the badger is called The Book Hive.  It is a fantastic old building.  There are tiny stairs to the top floor, where a couple of papier mache hives hang:

Hold You Hard!

A Book Hive

What a perfect bookshop!  We also wandered round The Book Man, which Miss Aimson directed us to, it already being a favourite of hers.  I was thrilled to find these pulp fiction horror and startling mystery magazines:

Horror!

Startling Mystery!

More Horror!

Even More Horror!

I am totally in love with them and I haven't even read them yet!  Another perfect bookshop and we still have Tombland Books to try another time.  Hold you hard!  More books than you can shake a stick at!

Giants, Tombs and Whistlefish

So where have I been?  We went to Norwich to see Miss Aimson at the weekend, then I have been stuck in the house with a cold.

Norwich - what can I say?  First impressions are that it is the Canada of England: really, really nice, polite, unhurried, the kind of place where bad things don't happen very often.  Loads of old stuff, loads of bookshops, the kind of things Aimsons like.  And a HMV.  You don't see many of them about these days.

There seemed to be some sort of Bolsover connection which I haven't looked up yet.  But they like big things in Norwich too:

A Bolsover-style Big Portico



Some Bolsover-style Giants



A Giantess

Oh no, that last one isn't a giantess; it's Miss Aimson standing in a tiny doorway.

Norwich's speciality seems to be great street names.  Try Whistlefish Road or Upper Goat Lane (and of course, Lower Goat Lane)

And, as I have asked on other occasions: Where are all the Goths?  Norwich has an area of town called Tombland:

Where are all the Goths?

Gothland

In Tombland we spotted Tombland Alley, Tombland Antiques and Tombland Books.  Miss Aimson hasn't been in that one yet, but surely she needs to work there?  Tombland Books would be perfect on her CV.

Tombland is the area immediately around the Cathedral.  We went in for a look round.  It isn't too good for art history as it was well and truly cleansed by the Puritans, so there isn't much to see.  I did spot a coat of arms which included the three crescent moons of the Ogles.  There is the possibility then of a real connection to Bolsover Castle, not just in their mutual love of Big Stuff.  Although I must say Bolsover still has them beat on the Big Stuff front.  Obviously Norwich is too modest and gentle to go for really big stuff, and certainly not for balls and boobs.  Far too polite for any of that sort of thing.  More the gentle humour of silly place-names.  I think I agree with them for long-term amusement.

A Fleamsy Manifesto and Funny Cats

The Fleams Manifesto has been succinctly summarised (by Liz) as : If someone is being a bit grumpy, or just generally a nob, they should be required to watch funny cat videos.  That is the theory of Fleams summed up in a sentence, but there is a vast background argument supporting this.

I am just finishing Vol. 2 of The Lord of The Rings, and will then be slowly carrying on with Vol. 3.  I am enjoying reading them, but, knowing of them beforehand, I am also comparing what they are to what I thought they were.  I have found myself surprised at the pleasure I have had from parts of them, especially Tom Bombadil and Goldberry, Elrond, and Treebeard.  I love those mystical passages of the story.  It has made me realise why the books were so popular and influential.

After a trying couple of weeks here at Aimo's House, I have decided to stop hankering after The Land of Cockayne, with its promise of effortless ease, and concentrate a bit harder on real life.  Tolkien presents a true picture of real life; it  is a mixture of struggle, endurance, fate and unexpected pleasures.  To be searching for Cockayne is to be constantly dissatisfied.  As The Buddha says "Life's shite, get over it".  Paganism, as I define it, says "Life's shit sometimes.  Life's great sometimes.  Life rocks, because the alternative is non-existence".

Thanks Tolkien for reminding me of this truth.  That is why making art, fiction, escapism and eye-candy are valid jobs.  They strip away the lies The Man tries to confuse us with, and make us remember what is real life.  So, onward pagan soldiers!  Fight when you need to fight, endure when you can't fight, and have some fun when you can.  Life's too short not to watch funny cat videos.

Bibliographies, Eye-candy and String

I love bibliographies.  When I get a new non-fiction book I always look at the back pages for the bibliography.  More books!  The only thing I like better than a bibliography is a glossary of obscure words.  I bought this book in Chesterfield the other week:

Great Bibliography!

I haven't read much of it yet, just some of the appendices and the bibliography.  I spotted this title as pretty cool:

Leechdoms, Wortcunning and Starcraft of Early England. Three vols. 1864-6

How cool is that for a title?  Then I spotted the author:

The Rev O Cockayne!  Further clues on the trail of Cockayne!  One day I will get to Easy Street, Cockayne and there will be no more banks hassling me, no sister-in-laws making trouble, no redundancy threats, no malfunctioning boilers.  It's gonna be great.

In the meantime, titles with the words wortcunning, leechdoms and starcraft will have to do.  I know what wortcunning is, and what leechcraft is, but what do the others involve?  Pondering such things helps keep the world of boring reality at bay for a while.  Escapism is a dirty word in literature and art.  I don't know why.  It's a bit like the sneering term eye-candy in art.  Like it is offensive for art to be pleasurable to the eye.  Personally I give my eyes all the candy they want.  I don't know how else to approach being an artist.

But back to the bibliography.  Some more cool titles I spotted:

Cats' Cradles From Many Lands, Kathleen Haddon, London 1911

String Figures, C F Jayne, New York, 1906.

Whole books about Cats' Cradles and String Figures!  Life may be too short for fiction, but surely not too short for those!

It reminds me of a note I have seen from Kate W Aimson to her publisher:  "Is a readership of witches with a keen interest in needlework scholarship and wordplay to narrow a market to aim for?"

We'll see.

Alphabets and Fleams

I wrote a rhyme for an alphabet of Fleams.  This is how it goes:

A is  A cat with a fiddle (haven't they all?)
B is  Button Sarah, leaning on a wall
C is  Canholes Asylum, for the permanently off-beam
D is  Dickey, the skull who likes to scream
E is  Eagle and Child, a strange way to be found
F is  Fenny flying to Fairholme, under the mound
G is  Gracie Sweetheart, and her rescue-supplying rocket
H is  Haunting hare, with a key in her pocket
I is  Drum's Iron, spouting a tail of flames
J is  Jawbone band, known by many names
K is  Kibble, full of lead
L is  Long Meg, never really dead
M is Mermaid, sewing under the pool
N is  Needleworkers and their rule
O is  Oracle stones, made to divine
P is  Pie-Tree, they serve beer and wine
Q is  Quill, and ink made of gall
R is  Rush-bearing to freshen the hall
S is  Spinning Jenny spinning in the wood
T is  Toady Old Man with his safety hood
U is  Uncle Erik, a very wicked man
V is  Violets, Parma, I'm certainly a fan
W is  Winking Man, driven by pistons and steam
Y is  Yarb doctoring, don't leave it too late
Z is  ZZ dreamz of Fleamz, spied through the gate

This rhyme was written to be illustrated with my woodcut-style linocuts.  However, I have over-reached my current capabilities in this skill.  Although I can picture the required illustrations in my mind, I am not sufficiently capable at the moment to reproduce them to show them to you. 

I have been wrestling with the problem until it all became clear this morning.  Fuck Robert the Bruce and his spider, if at first you don't succeed, give up and move on, I say.  In Fleams they say "If it's too hard, it ain't worth a fuck".  No, hang on a minute, I may be misleading you.  I think, in fact, in Fleams they say  "If it ain't hard, it ain't worth a fuck".  But that's another story.

Vampires, Kilts and Arguments

This weekend I have been thinking about Vampires.  I was reading about the emergence of the vampire as a character in English literature, and the surprise was that early English readers would have expected a vampire to be Scottish.  This because The Vampyre - A Tale written by John Polidori in 1816 featured Lord Ruthven as the villain (anti-hero?) of the story.

A Booklet from Newstead Abbey

Although the aristocratic Lord Ruthven is usually assumed to be a thinly disguised Lord Byron, readers would associate the name with Jacobite troubles in Scotland.  I did intend to show you a picture of Ruthven barracks in Scotland, a huge imposition of English military might in an invaded land, but I couldn't find the photo, so here is a piper instead:

A Piper on the Border

So English readers in 1817 would expect a vampire to be illustrated in a kilt.

This made be think about kilts and tartans in general.  A little tip of mine is if you want to start a fight with a Scotsman try saying clan tartans were invented by the English.  That will usually do it and get you into a good old argument.  Before you start though, get your argument straight by reading this book first:



A Good Book for an Argument

It should equip you with all the facts you need.  Happy punch-ups!

Chicken Shit and Brown Ale

You can tell we live in the country because last night in the pub the conversation turned to chicken shit.  Chickens really do produce an awful lot of it.  This was the general gist of the small talk. 

Some Chickens

I was also talking of an interesting little-known fact.  When reading a regency-time draper's catalogue (don't we all?)  one of the colours listed in fabrics was goose-turd.  From my personal experience of goose turds, I would hazard a guess that they were talking about green and white speckled fabric.  It did amuse me that all these Downton Abbey fans who think that the past, especially in Jane Austen times, was so refined are all wrong.  There I've proved it, anyone who watches any programme by Julian Fellowes is just wrong.  And probably a secret southron too. 

Talk then turned to drinks which used to be our regular drink in times long past.  Aimo remembered Mann's Brown Ale, which he thought was served in Vaux pubs in Sunderland many moons ago.  Mark said how years could go by now without him even thinking about Newcastle Brown Ale, whereas once anybody drinking anything other than a bottle of dog would routinely get their head kicked in for being some kind of chicken-shit southron.  So long ago...

Yet we wandered down the booze aisle at Morrisons today, and there Mann's Brown Ale was.  It had never gone away, it was just sat there waiting to be bought. 

We didn't buy any.

Seasick Steve and A Piano-player in a Whorehouse

I don't know if it's thinking about roads and travelling, but I have been listening to Seasick Steve all morning:

A Good Album

Another Good Album

Another Good Album

Another Good Album

I can particularly recommend:

Started Out With Nothing
St Louis Slim
Dog House Boogie
Diddley Bo
Seasick Boogie

especially to wash up to.  I can't understand why anyone would want a dishwasher when you could put some rockin boogie-woogie on loud in the kitchen and wash the pots.  When we arrived at Aimo's House there was a dishwasher installed as it is a new property.  The dishwasher has never been used (except as a cold storage cupboard for booze).  We always wash the pots in the old-timey way, and Miss and Master Aimson have been brought up that way.  Miss Aimson favours Them Crooked Vultures and The Dead Weather VERY loud while washing up, but they're too heavy for me.  Some Seasick Steve, a bit of ZZ Top or maybe Alternative 80s does for me.

I really enjoy the corny puns, humorous innuendo and silly wordplay of classic rock 'n' roll.  In fact, the first record I ever bought was My Ding-a-Ling by Chuck Berry.  A fairly classy choice for an 8-year-old and certainly nothing to be ashamed of, unlike The Bay City Rollers or Donny Osmond who were around at the time.  Anyway, back to the wordplay.  I like:

I started out with nothing, and I still got most of it left...

I also like wordplay in books, e.g.

Don't Tell Mum I Work on the Rigs (She Thinks I'm a Piano-player in a Whorehouse)

by Paul Carter.  My aunt had sent the audio-books over from Australia some years ago and I enjoyed them.  I saw yesterday in Macc that they are available in shops over here now.  Listen to them for some hair-raising adventures, shaggy dog stories and fleamsy puns.

Roads, Highwaymen and Birthdays

This year our road is The Most Dangerous Road in Britain again.  And it is more dangerous than ever:

Our Paper

In Fleams the road is also dangerous but for other reasons.  Like outlaws, cut-throats, cut-purses, cannibals, highwaymen and the like.  Very few attempt to travel The Docksey Pass after dark for this reason.

The road is named after the famous inn at the head of the pass, The Doxey's Arms.  Rather than face the perils of the road in darkness, most travellers are forced to spend the night in The Doxey's Arms.  At least that's what they tell their wives.

Famous outlaws of the area include Poole, who lived in a cave with his cat when he wasn't robbing people.  You can learn more about him at Poole's Cavern visitor centre and café.  I just celebrated a friend's birthday there with a spicy sweet potato soup.  We didn't meet an outlaw or highwayman, but I suppose it was daylight.

Happy Birthday Cheryl!  & Emma!  & Aimo! & Laura! & Bernard! & Cordelia! and my friend from uni Claire!  Busy week for birthdays.

The Old Jawbone

In researching my book about Fleams, I have been looking up the jawbone as an instrument.  I was first alerted to this possibility by the film Silent Tongue.

A Good Western by Sam Shepherd

This film is highly recommended, with a brilliant Fleamsy travelling medicine show/circus.  Alan Bates (a Derbyshire native) is the leader of the medicine show.  The medicine show band are played by real-life band The Red Clay Ramblers.  They have a song called The Old Jawbone.  I bought one of their CDs and then found out some more about the jawbone as an instrument.

The jawbone is classified as an idiophone, shaken idiophone, rattle idiophone and percussion instrument.

The jawbone has been used as an instrument for several centuries in many cultures.  this instrument was originally created from the jaw of a horse, mule or donkey.  When the bone was removed from the skull, cleaned and thoroughly dried, the teeth became loose and when shaken or struck, produced a loud rattling sound.  this instrument continues to be popular in Latin American music and will often be adorned with small bells to add a different character to the sound.  It was also used as a type of tambourine in the minstrel shows of the late 19th century in the United States.

I am working on a lino-print of a jawbone musical instrument currently for my Fleams ABC project.

 

Ogles, Moons and Lover's Leaps

When we were at Bolsover Castle, we noticed several of the coats of arms contained a symbol that looked like a crescent moon.  I have been doing some checking...

 

Three Stags' Heads and a Moon

I knew the three stags' heads is the crest of the Devonshire family (as in Chatsworth House).. It is seen around here locally.  It is the name of a great pub in Wardlow Mires.  I could tell you some tales about nights there.  Well, one of them I couldn't because it's probably libellous.  Say no more...  Pub well-recommended anyway.

I looked up the crescent and it is the crest of the Ogle family.  In a way, I thought that it was quite amusing that "Big Billy" Cavendish, he who liked boobs so much, should have married an Ogle and gained an Ogle family crest; but then I knew that Ogle is a long-standing family in Northumberland and you're not allowed to make jokes about the name, unless you want to sound like a Southron.

I'm not sure what the crescent moon is doing in the Ogle family crest, we will have to see what further research brings up.  It did cross my mind that it might be linked to the pub name The Moon in Stoney Middleton.

Stoney Middleton has some interesting history.  The pub is haunted by the ghost of a Scottish pedlar who was murdered in the pub while the landlord failed to intervene.  His body was disposed of in a cavern or mine-shaft.  The medieval packhorse track or holloway which the pedlars, or jaggermen or chapmen would have used, still exists. 

The villagers of Stoney Middleton co-operated with the village of Eyam during The Plague, when they quarantined themselves to avoid spreading the disease.  They left food and provisions at the boundary stone, and the villagers of Eyam left payment in hollows in the boundary stone filled with vinegar.  The villagers of Stoney Middleton were happy to co-operate with this, but they did stone any villagers from Eyam that were spotted trying to leave their village boundaries.

Later, Stoney Middleton became famous for the story of Lover's Leap.  A jilted girl tried to commit suicide by leaping from the cliffs, but her skirt became a parachute and saved her.  Miss Aimson did a large painting of said event in her Art "A" Level, and the picture hangings on our stairs.  Buxton also has it's Lover's Leap, but I'm not sure about that one.

Further reading required...

Dirty Parsnips and More Cockayne

Another drive in the rain today.  Started off at Leek with a Staffordshire oatcake (double with crispy bacon) and a look at The Longworth Gallery.  It was so posh prices were NOT displayed.  There was a really good taxidermy dome (dead bird and chandelier) in the window.  I didn't ask if it was a Polly Morgan.  I wouldn't be surprised if it was because everything was pretty top-notch.  We didn't actually speak inside the gallery except to say "Hello" and "Goodbye" to the nice man.

Then back into the rain.  Hurried past the market, pausing only to look at some Dirty Parsnips.  Yes, they were actually labelled Dirty Parsnips.  They were quite big.  And not really that dirty, I thought, but then my dad has a vegetable garden, so I've seen dirty vegetables before.  Onwards to Cromford via Onecote and Bottomhouse.  Any excuse to go to Bottomhouse.  I'm childish like that.  Past Wetton and Thor's Cave which I have just been reading about in Legendary Britain by John Matthews and R J Stewart, where The Lair of The White Worm was set by Bram Stoker, and where Ken Russell filmed The Lair of the White Worm.  His clever filming makes the cave seem a whole lot bigger than it seems when you're actually in there.

At Cromford, we were headed for Arkwright Mill, and my favourite shop Arum-Lilie Designs. 

A Very Cool Shop

Browsed the great stuff in the shop, planned a few Christmas presents, talked to the very nice Lizzie and Tim, and bought a Halloween special chapbook from Candlestick Press:

A Chapbook which Contains Spookiness

Then drove (in the rain) to Bakewell via Stanton-in-the-Peak (home of The Nine Ladies), past Haddon Hall (home of Jane Eyre and Mr Rochester) to visit The Old House Museum.  Said hello to my favourite smock, Newark woad-dyed, amazing embroidery on the boxes, and saw a 1840s wedding dress that would have quite suited Jane Eyre, and a couple 1810 dresses.  Beautiful.  Then there was a section on church music in pre-Victorian times, and there had a musical instrument called a serpent on display.  Great place to see a serpent in the flesh as it were.  Loads of good stuff, all donated by local people to the museum of local stuff.  Well-recommended.  One of the samplers was by a 13-year-old girl with the surname Cockayne.  More clues to The Land Of Cockayne.  I'll get there one day.


Hello Brazil!  Come back soon!

Worms, Skeletons, Plague and Piggins

Aimo and I had a trip to Eyam in the rain today.  On the way there we passed Wormhill, presumably the ancient site of some worm-related legend.  We were going to Eyam to see the wall-paintings in the church, that Cheryl had recommended:

Death with his Scythe?

There was a good memento mori  figure of Death.  The other surviving wall-paintings are shields representing the 12 tribes of Israel.  While we were there we photographed some gravestones in the rain:

Skull and Cross Bones Gravestone

Time Flies on the other side of the Gravestone

Unusual Carving - Laurel leaves?

In the church are information boards about the history of the village and the Plague.  There is the very touching love story of Emmott Sydall, who died in the plague, leaving her sweetheart from Stoney Middleton heartbroken.

We went to have a look at Eyam Hall, which just passed into the care of The National Trust this March.  The Wright family had lived there from some time shortly after The Plague until this February, some there are some great items preserved there.

I saw samplers, needlework bed-coverings, tapestries, and some great furniture.  In the Tapestry Room the walls are completely covered in a patchwork of tapestries, cut up to fit the room exactly.  The effect is very cosy, and really gives the idea of why people liked tapestry furnishing.  One of the samplers was by Emily Cockayne in 1827.  Did she come from The land of Cockayne? (see earlier posts about Cockayne)

As you walk in the entrance door, you see straight ahead of you two remarkable pieces of furniture, either side of the fireplace - two bacon settles.  They are settles, with, in addition to storage in the seats, cupboards at the back to hold flitches of bacon.  Master Aimson's dream furniture - seating with bacon storage!  Settees with added bacon! 

During The Plague one villager had buried all of her family one by one, then was ill and weak herself, too weak to cook for herself, so she heated a piggin of lard and drank that.  She recovered from the plague.  So could she have found a bacon fat cure for the plague?  Also, how cool is a piggin as a name for a container - a small wooden container, with one the staves long like a handle - a piggin.

When Master Aimson has his own house one day, I bet it will  be full of bacon settles and piggins.