Anton's Ideas

Anton Wills-Eve on world news & random ideas
09/03/2015

“UNACCUSTOMED AS I AM …….”


<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/id-like-to-thank-my-cats/”>I’d Like to Thank My Cats</a>

“UNACCUSTOMED AS I AM …….”

 

I was standing on the balustrade of the gardens of the villa Borghese overlooking the dome of Saint Peter’s in the distance  in Rome when I was given the news that the Nobel Peace prize for that year, 1961, had been awarded to Dag Hammerskjoeld the recently deceased secretary general of the  United Nations.

I immediately thought back to the plane crash in the Congo in which he died while on a peace mission earlier that year. That was one price I would never pay for being given one of the highest awards in the world. The price was far too high.  But over the years since then I have wondered which Nobel prize I would like to receive and how high a price I would be prepared to pay to get it. In all honesty when thinking about being given really important recognition for something I have done in my life I have always bordered on fantasy, not least because I can think of no field in  which I might ever merit a really high honour. I suppose the first thing most people do is review the Nobel options.

I could just about reach a high enough level of medical research to qualify for the physiology laureate because the amount of original work I have done on mental  illness, and the various ideas I have put forward for treating any form of anxiety neurosis, could certainly reach the top level when viewed from the question of ‘do I have a broad enough and original enough knowledge of the subject?’ while obviously being mentally unbalanced, where I might fall down is on convincing people that I could cure  many of the illnesses covered by this field. You see the price I would have to pay would be suffering from the anxiety levels myself and thus being able to empathise fully when treating them. Well in this case I do, but I doubt if I could  bring myself to think them through again while writing up a thesis and still remaining sane.

The physics prize is one I have always believed I could put in my pocket any day of the week, but only because I can prove that atomic physics can never be subjected to an auto-logical series of tests that would leave no question that quantum physics is a load of rubbish. I know that it is, as put forward by most leading physicists, but I would have to learn how to speak the language of physics in which scientists couch the lunacy of their ideas. Pity, because that one would have been a cert, but the price would have been learning something I thought was valueless. No, I could never do that.

Now chemistry is really up my street when considered from the point of view of the invention or discovery of new elements which can be unearthed through phenomenological tinkering with archaeological sites which may yet reveal new aspects of  the chemical make up of our world. However the price I would have to pay for that would be personal exposure to the natural climate of our planet,  which in snow or high winds I would not enjoy at all.

This brings me to the literature prize. This is the one prize that the laureate can never manufacture for themselves on purpose. This prize has to be the whim of others so all I can say is that I would put in as much research as I needed to write a definitive history of thirteenth century Western Europe. The price, the work load, would be enormous but I would embrace it whole heartedly.  However, there is no way I could ever guarantee ultimate success.

Now when it comes to economics I would have a very good chance if I were to win the prize jointly with my wife. Together we have an unequaled knowledge of the machinations of world financiers and financial procedures but to prove just how clever we are at manipulating global fortunes we would need to be given at least one billion US dollars cash up front to start with. There are many ways this can be acquired, but when I started to contemplate the options I realised that neither my wife nor I would stoop so low, or jump so high,  in the realms of chicanery to kick start our financial dealings.

So we are left with the peace prize. Well I would like to win it for setting up a world wide charity devoted to feeding the starving, sheltering the homeless and comforting all the bereaved people who make up some forty percent of the population of the world. There would be no price involved, all I would need to do would be to raise my level of oratory in each of the five languages I speak and, with golden tongued eloquence, convince the rich of this world that they should shower me and my charity with their geldt. Now that is fantasy, but you must admit it is also really nice, isn’t it?

So my acceptance speech would begin as follows,

“Unaccustomed as I am to doing, saying or writing anything worthwhile………..”

 

AWE

 

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08/03/2015

THE RIGHT PERSON FOR THE JOB


<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/we-can-be-taught-2/”>We Can Be Taught!</a>

 

         THE RIGHT PERSON FOR THE JOB

 

I really feel like writing something  I feel strongly about today so this prompt has given me the chance. The question is, what makes a teacher great? Well a teacher needs two  qualities and one piece of luck to be really great. He or she needs to know their subject backwards because a great love of what you teach, and the enjoyment it gives you personally, is essential if you are to communicate this to others.

Secondly a teacher has to accept that many pupils  have genuine problems understanding the basic concepts of some  topics, maths is the obvious one, and they have to be patient and persevere just as much as the student. If a child is too shy to admit ignorance in front of his peers, when the class seems to be finding something easy but the child doesn’t, a really good teacher spots this right away and takes the kid aside after a class or lecture or whatever and asks what the problems are. This is vital to solving pupil-teacher relationships that risk breaking down for no apparent reason, but ruins the chances of the child ever getting a grasp of the subject.

However the piece of luck the teacher needs much more than any other quality, is to have a class of students they like. Any teacher who allows prejudice or pre-formed opinions of what a particular set of students is going to be like, is doomed from the start. But if that luck is not there, and the teacher really does find a particular group of students an absolute pain in the backside, they have to practise the old English trick of keeping a stiff upper lip. This can be terribly difficult with a set of uninterested youngsters,  who as often as not have been written off  by family and previous teachers as slow witted, unhelpful and a whole string of adjectives that have no bearing on their true personalities at all. As often as not they are too scared to do anything but follow the pack.

A good teacher must risk life and limb, and sadly in this day and age this can often literally be the case, to combat this mass-bullying attitude of so many youngsters or they will struggle at everything all their lives. I have many friends who teach at all levels and ages and the job they do can be truly terrifying. Women  haven’t a chance in poor areas of inner cities and the lengths to which television soap operas go to encourage appalingly anti-social behaviour among the young is disgraceful. But the great teacher does rise above these problems on occasions, though sadly not nearly as often as they, their charges or their charges’ parents would like. But it is a triangular tragedy which will only be solved by multi-lateral co-operation which is sadly lacking in far too many schools today.

AWE

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06/03/2015

ESSENCE TYPIQUE


<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/time-capsule/”>Time Capsule</a>

 

en reponse du blog ‘essence typique de cette annee’

 

                                    ESSENCE TYPIQUE

Si, par hazzard, je me trouverais dans une capsule lunaire, la premiere pensee d’entrer dans ma tete aurait du etre “quel essence puis-je vendre plus facilement aux little green men?”.

Je suis convaincu que “Shell” soit le mieux connu aux habitants de mon nouveau monde, car c’est une espece de gas Texan que les petits hommes verts auraient du avoir vu souvent sur les avertissements televisuels de “chaine de l’espace de notre universe”. Les Americains  sont les meilleurs gasoliniatiques entre nous et le soleil, c’est indiscutable. Mais a mon avis l’essence “Total” contient un parfum si redolent de la France ques les automobilistes, petits, masculins et verts seront  ‘k.o’ par les memoirs de Kalvin et Coco. Mais ca c’est pour vous, mes blogs-mangeurs, de decider si on puisse voter sur ce sujet.

Alors, pour tous ces raisons j’ai choisi  le petrol Anglais, ‘North Sea Oil Derivatif’ de donner comme mon cadeau typique de notre epoque  pour tous les habitants de l’univers qui n’ont pas encore gouter cette boisson. C’est degoutant mes delicieux!

Et, pour terminer mon ‘post word press promptiste’,  je serai obliger de m’excuser pour l’absence de tous les accents grammatiques Francais qui sont hors de mont  ordinateur cyberesque. Bon soir mes petits et dormez bien en revant de votre Oncle Nous-Nours qui a peut-etre trop bu, meme si ce n’etait par essentialement de l’essence!

 

Anton

 

 

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05/03/2015

IF WILL SHAKESPEARE HAD BEEN A BLOGGER


<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/imitationflattery/”>Imitation/Flattery</a&gt;

 

                                    IF WILL SHAKESPEARE HAD BEEN A BLOGGER

it is rumoured that the following sonnet appeared on page eight of the Stratford Daily Bugle on the 4th of October, 1597. It was signed ‘anon’ and filled ‘poets corner’ for that day. But the author was not so averse to public acclaim that he did not mind prefixing the work with the words, “This is my 73rd go at writing these bloody things, will I never get one right?”

 

T’is that time again when I am wracked by ‘flu and cold

And yellow drops, hourly, from my red nose do hang

Next which my ‘kerchiefs have countered sneezes bold’,

Bare ruined nostrils next which no sweet notes ever sang.

In me thou see’st, therefore, at the closing of each day,

Like dim, grey twilight as the sun sinks in the west:

The sniffling posture of a poet, prisoner of his unwrit lay,

Left on life’s shelf, his coughing never allowing him to rest.

In me, all thou can see, are the carnal ashes of my years.

There, where my gorgeous youth often did lovingly lie,

Is now my death-bed as my passion is reduced to tears

For Anne mistook herself as nourisher of my evening sigh.

      This I know full well, who does himself despise. Oh shit,

      To be loved by she on whom I ‘oft, so shamelessly, did spit!

 

Anton Wills-Eve

 

6 Comments
03/03/2015

TO END LIKE THIS


<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/last-words/”>Last Words</a>

in reply to wordpress prompt, write your last ever blog.

 

        TO END LIKE THIS

 

The specialist came  to my bedside again that morning and she smiled at me in a twisted attempt to be cheerful while failing totally to hide her approaching loss. She had done so much for me, but it was what she had to say that nearly brought a tear.

“I promised I would be honest with you James, and I cannot break my word. I never have in the four years we’ve known each other so why start now? My dear friend, you have about two weeks left at the most and if there is anything you really need to do while you still can then make it today or tomorrow at the latest. After that the strength of pain killers you’ll need will prevent you from writing or possibly even speaking normally. But at least you shouldn’t suffer. I’ll be back later this morning.” And there I lay, alone in my my private ward, with my laptop by my side  and the image of someone I had known for fifty years. I had known her  since she was five years old, but not seen in the last forty. So as my final act that I had to perform I composed the following email to her.

‘Oh Glen, I know God should have been here as well, and yes I can feel that He is. St.Rita too is always keeping a very close eye on me and fulfilling her promise never to leave me. But it is your face, your smile your complete occupation of my body and soul that is all I am really able to see.  So this is the last email I will ever send you, Glen. Don’t keep it to cry over in years to come. No, do something much more important with it. Read it, try to do what it asks, and try to believe that I WILL see you when your earthly life has also run its span.

When you told me, nearly four months ago now, that you no longer believed in God and that this world was all there was, I cried myself to sleep every night for a week. I also prayed so, so hard for St.Rita, God, somebody in Heaven to show me somehow that you had changed your mind. Oh why, Glen? Why? There are only two choices logically possible to us. Either God made us, our souls for Him to love and keep, and our human bodies for us to use to show how much we love Him; or else He did not. One of those two options must be true, Glen, so why on earth would you not at least HOPE that the former is the truth? I can’t prove it to you, no one can. But neither can anyone prove to you empirically that God did not create you.  What comfort, what solace of any sort do you get from giving up on the only chance you have ever had, and ever will have, of being granted a place in Heaven if the alternative is so genuinely hopeless and full of absolutely nothing?

You may have had a terribly hard and very sad life, I can think of few biographies more depressing or sad than yours. But in that suffering I can also see is the greatest test of all. Keep on loving God and telling Him you know He has tested you beyond endurance, but still holds you so very close to His heart. He doesn’t give up on those he loves, and He loves you, Glen. Give Him one more chance, please, if only for my sake so that I may die in peace. But don’t lie to me if you answer this. I will pray for you with my last breath.

No matter what you reply, if you reply at all, you cannot stop me hoping that you will again see your creator. Maybe my purgatory is going to be dying without ever knowing for certain whether you have regained your Faith. I can live with that. I suppose I should say ‘die with that’, but I know it won’t be easy. You see, my love, I have one enormous doubt about my own concept of all I have been taught about life after death. It may be so heretical it bars me from paradise too, but I do hope not. You see, Glen, I cannot believe in Hell. It was the French atheist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre who described it best. I have never heard an absolutely correct translation of the aphorism on which he based his tenets but approximately it was this. “Hell is other people as they behave here on earth.” Think about it. That sums up my concept of hell perfectly. As Sartre only believed in earthly life then, for him, he could only have been talking about mortal people.  That is when people are evil, unspeakably cruel, selfish everything we dislike, despise and condemn in our fellow creatures: when they act in ways we cannot tolerate. That is the great mystery of life whether spiritual or just human, where did the desire to harm and upset others come from? Where, in short, did evil start if God created everything? I don’t know. But I do know one thing. God tests our ability to always love Him, and through Him everyone else no matter how they behave. We may judge men’s earthly actions, but forgiveness is God’s province not ours.

So where do I stand over Hell? I believe it is having to accept the agonising side of life and admitting our own participation in the the pain and sadness that we bring to others. To live with the full realisation of that side of our natures, and have to face God with it when we die is the most terrifying thing that we can experience. And as we deserve it, because we have played out part in being evil, then we must also have deserved all the misery that we have had to go through on earth ourselves. So we come to judgement day, I am obviously here assuming that this happens, but think how God feels when He looks at each single sinner, naked before him, all their evil deeds exposed for everyone to see. What is the only thing God can do? He can weep! Yes,Glen, weep when he sees the sorrow in the faces of those he has created, out of love, finally reduced to a state of abject sorrow at having failed their God so dreadfully.

That, my Glen, is when he puts his arms round us, kisses us, forgives us and offers us heaven forever as His reward. It is the one great mystery that is kept from us, why does this need to happen at all? I don’t know, but then if I did my faith would be a provable fact and not an act of faith.  This is my credo when faced with the one side of spiritual creation that I could not otherwise accept. But if God and His saints love me, they understand when I am tottering on the brink of worrying doubt. Every night I thank them for holding me back from falling over the edge. God Bless.’

I did not sign my email, I knew I didn’t have to. True to her words the doctor gradually upped my dose of morphine each day as the pain got worse and my poor family came to see me reduced to such a state. I prayed for them and I prayed for myself and of course I prayed for Glen. Charity is the virtue of living a good life when dealing with others. Faith is the degree of our spiritual belief in and depth of love of God, but the greatest virtue of all is Hope. It is always available and active and will be right up to man’s last breath. I wonder how many more I have?

 

AWE

 

 

 

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03/03/2015

NO CAN DO


<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/in-loving-memory/”>In Loving Memory</a>

 

NO CAN DO

An obituary is the the only thing one cannot write about oneself. You see you have to be dead first and, speaking purely personally, I’d rather remain as I am for as long as possible.

Sorry Word Press you’ve lost again. Now had you asked for an autobiography that would have been fine. I am already on chapter forty three and have written some six hundred thousand odd words. In about another four hundred thousand words time it will be finished and I shall cheerfully sell you a copy. The title? Sorry, that’s still under wraps.

 

AWE

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02/03/2015

JOHN DONNE’S ISLAND


<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/circle-of-five/”>Circle of Five</a>

Reply to prompt about being the average out of five people.

 

     JOHN DONNE’S ISLAND

Being a natural anomaly I can think of nothing I would like to be less than the average of any ‘thing’, or group of people, I have ever known. What an awful tag to carry through life. ‘Oh here come’s old meany!’. Can you imagine it? Seriously. ‘He’s a pretty average bloke,’ runs it a very close second. But the prompt asks me to select five people out of whom I would like to come third, starting from either end, so here goes.

Firstly there’s John Harrington, a chap I knew at school. You wouldn’t  have heard of him and I haven’t seen him since the flood, but that does not detract from his very pleasant personality, permanent smile and all round ‘good egg’ passage through life. Yes, John was a fellow you’d always be able to welcome into any circle you had to make up.

Then there’s Lucia Castricani, a beautiful little bit of crumpet from Tuscany with the most inviting eye’s I have ever seen. She would have to be around if only to bring out the true nature of everyone else around her. But how to fit her into this circle, where I have to be the average? I have no minority sexual predilections so I could never want to think people ever equated me with her, except in personal popularity. You’d have loved her though, so I suppose we have to leave her in. 

The third member of the pentumvirate – okay, okay, I know that word doesn’t exist (does it?), but it serves it’s purpose really well here so stop moaning! This will surprise you. I would immediately toss in Adolphe Hitler because then we would have a very definite and undisputed most unliked member of the gang. Nobody would talk to him, he’d be shunned, wonder what on earth was going on and keep saluting himself because none of the rest of us would. Come to think of it he’s starting to look quite attractive! But think of all the other things he was responsible for. No he’d be number five alright.

I spent a lot of time over number four and finally came up with Bill  Mazeroski because being a sports fanatic I had to have a games player in my circle and what he did in 1960 is still the greatest single sporting moment I have sat through in my life. Okay I was listening to the World Series on the radio in Paris, and it was some god awful time in the night, but when he connected with that hit and won my team, The Pirates, the greatest baseball match ever played I was on a high for weeks. Being at university in Paris meant nothing to me as I imagined what I had heard for eons afterwards. And now, in my autumn years, thanks to modern communications, I have actually seen a film of that moment  and it’s even better than it was when it happened. He was a bloody good fielder too, as we say in cricket, and by all accounts is a really nice guy.

So who gets the fifth place? Well this is where word press so often messes up these prompts dreadfully. It has to be me of course, because if I’m not in it I can’t win it! Well in this case come third. But as John Donne put it so well, no man is an island and that goes for Mr.Average just the same as Mr.First and Mr Last. In short we’re all equal when it comes to existence so, on average, we must all come third. But a bronze medal is no mean thing and if I have to settle for that in life I really don’t mind.

 

Anton Wills-Eve

 

 

 

 

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01/03/2015

DON’T ASK ME


Answer to prompt ‘plead the 5th’

<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/plead-the-fifth/”>Plead the Fifth</a>

 

    DON’T ASK ME

How old am I ?

Don’t ask! Why?

Well I know that I

Will always lie!

 

AWE

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01/03/2015

BUT WE CAN’T DO THAT NOW


in reply to ‘me time’ prompt

<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/me-time/”>Me Time</a>

BUT WE CAN’T DO THAT NOW

How I loved my bracing early morning run

Along the golden beach in the dawning sun.

Then a cup of chocolate and a croissant, piping hot,

At the little cafe where I once forgot

To bring any money so I couldn’t pay

But they laughed and left it to the next Saturday.

Followed an hour dong this on my new i-pad;

Telling all the world if I was happy or sad.

Then round the shops for our weekend food,

Including a treat if I thought I’d been good

At school that week. But the bit I  loved best

Was choosing my clothes as I got dressed

To meet Sandra for lunch. Next off to the game,

How her loving, cheeky smile was always the same,

Each week  we held hands cheering as our team lost or won:

And oh, that kiss, going home when the day was done.

But we can’t do that now. Why, oh why am I so young,

As cancer strikes me? My Sandra’s life has hardly begun.

 

Anton Wills-Eve

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25/02/2015

A HOLE LOT OF LOVIN’


<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/three-perfect-shots/”>Three Perfect Shots</a>

 

                                       A HOLE LOT OF LOVIN’

 

The top players all agree, golf is a game you play in your head. It’s all psychological.I’m so lucky. My study window just overlooks, if you lean out and use a pair of binoculars, the tenth hole at the Royal Liverpool Golf Club at the Wirral seaside town of Hoylake in North West England. It has staged the British Open golf championship twelve times, one of the world’s four ‘majors’, and so also more often than any other course in England. We had it again this year. The whole place was packed for a week with foreigners and it was all great fun.

But try playing Hoylake in mid winter. Gary Player, Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus all rate it the most difficult course in England and it probably also holds the world record for the most number of swear words uttered within a radius of 500 metres of any one spot in a year. I have probably contributed a high per centage.

But oh the short 13th (depending on how the course is set up) is a golf maniac’s dream. The only way you can do it in par three is to hit all three shots incorrectly. Play it as advised by the professionals and you will end up in a bird sanctuary, on a sandy shore with ten foot waves at the wrong time of day, or simply in a bunker in which you cannot even see your feet let alone the rest of the course.

Well if I MUST tell a ‘golfie’, let me take you back 28 years to that wonderful April day when I hooked my drive so badly it struck the pin on a neighbouring green and ricocheted  back onto the fairway, missing the dreaded bunker. This left me a delicate pitch into the wind, only 30 yards from the pin. I smacked it so hard it finished up 30 yards the other side of the green. My playing partner put his bag of clubs on the ground, we carried our own bags in those days. It was to the right of the flag, off the green of course, but towards my ball. He played a decent chip to within 15 feet from the hole and looked happy at the thought of a four. I decided to cut under the ball and try running it across the green and hope it went towards the flag. It didn’t. I tweaked it so badly it shot like a bullet into the the side of my friend’s bag, shot back onto the green and sped like lightening towards the hole. 

Oh wonder of wonders! I’d cracked it so hard it wedged between the flag stick and the side of the hole. I Knew I was allowed to remove the flag stick as long as I did not move my ball. I very carefully lifted the fluttering number 13 high into air and stood in stupor as my ball dropped into the cup for an unprecedented three. I really was on cloud nine.

Now if you wonder how I remember the details of that exploit so well imagine trying to perfect something and succeeding only once in 46 years. Anything at all, believe me you don’t forget a second of it. And every time you recount the feat the exaggerations get just that little bit more unbelievably brilliant. Ah  yes, the only way to play the greatest game really is in your head!

 

Anton Wills-Eve

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23/02/2015

WHENCE I CAME


<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/local-flavor/”>Local Flavor</a>

on ‘word prompt’ about where I came from.

WHENCE I CAME

 

My father and mother were fourteen thousand miles apart, give or take the odd furlong, when they first heard about each other. He was eight years younger and she was reputed to be looking for a third husband, preferably a toy boy, and was impatient that she should captivate someone suitable before the war broke out, as all expected. This was in September 1938. She happened to be lounging by the pool of her Thames side mansion in Buckinghamshire opposite Windsor, give or take the odd furlong.

She was very attractive, one of the highest paid female entertainers in Britain, and her colleagues and cronies, one did not have friends in the theatre and film world in England in those days, all placed bets on which current up and coming matinee idol  would suit her taste. She was reading the back page of an Australian newspaper, which a fellow thespian had dropped in her lap out of spite, and she was intrigued by the photograph of a young dentist who had recently qualified to practise his science, and even won a scholarship to go to England and  start his career there. She drew a red circle round his name and dropped the paper on the outdoor coffee table  where she envisaged alleviating her boredom later that evening.

By chance that same day a young, newly qualified dentist, in Brisbane, Australia, happened to see an advertisement for a new film about to take Australia by storm, or tornado or whatever things take Australia by, and was overcome at once by an attack of paroxsyzmal atrial fibrulation  which continued throughout the voyage to England, six weeks on a boat via the Suez Canal.

As happy fate would have it he was walking down Piccadilly shortly after his arrival in London, one never walks up  this thoroughfare though for the life of me I have no idea why not, when who should he bump into but the film star of his dreams.

“You!” She heart throbbed at him,  –  you know like mad; really hammed it up.

“You,”he replied, for Australians are a race of few words and soon, he hoped, to be of fewer teeth.

Well a week later before the glitter of Fleet Street cameramen and columnists they were wed amid unalloyed joy and the whole of the west End was in raptures. Thirteen months later they had a daughter, an absolute cherub who was just a weeny bit too young to star in a war picture, but fifteen months after that they had a son. He was a child of immense charisma and obvious talent, even at that age, so I am told. And who am I to dispute this tribute for that little boy was I.

THE END

Anton Wills-Eve

 

4 Comments
21/02/2015

BUCKETS AND SPADES 2035 AD


<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/tourist-trap/”>Tourist Trap</a>

tourist destination prompt.

 

                             BUCKETS AND SPADES, 2035 AD

 

“Oh, mummy, look! The sea. And a big match stick going up into the air at one end.”

Her mother laughed.”Anita, that’s not a matchstick it’s Blackpool Tower. It’s famous. All the poor working class people used to go there for their summer holidays  because there were donkeys on the beach and they lit the whole town up at  nine o’clock at night. And look, see that bit going out into the sea for miles, that’s called Blackpool Pier. There are games and things all down one side of it. Or so I’ve been told. I’ve never actually been on it myself.”

Ten year old Adam then asked, with a puzzled frown, “But why aren’t there any working class people playing at being tourists there now? Maybe that beach is all pebbles and you’d hurt your feet?” His father, behind the wheel of their Rolls Royce, chipped in. “No it’s not that, Adam, it’s just that nobody works in England nowadays. We don’t have factories or Northern families  any more, their not allowed by law. Well not in England. No, the last government banned them and gave them one thousand  pounds a head to go to Europe for three weeks every August so there’d be room for the illegal immigrants to have a good time in between working on the fiddle and not paying taxes. Well, we have to be good Christians and look after the destitute somehow.”

Adam was still very puzzled. He wondered what the plastic bucket and spade were meant for. He’d been given them when the Rolls entered “Blackpool, Gateway to the Sea”, nobody had told him what to do with them. He asked his mother about this. “Oh it’s all part of the fancy dress holiday we are having this year. Because daddy is rich, very rich, he has to wear a Fez when driving so we won’t be mistaken for English people. Especially in this hot bed of starving Lancastrians. If they thought we really were rich, white, English Christians our lives up here would be a nightmare. In fact I think we had better be getting back, don’t you Dear?” she suggested to her husband.

She did not have to. he had already turned back towards the exit to the motorway sign posted ” London and the South. Rich people only.” 

 

Anton Wills-Eve

 

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Quote | 19/02/2015

WHY HELEN?


In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Buffalo Nickel.”

<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/buffalo-nickel/”>Buffalo Nickel</a>

 

WHY HELEN?

 

William, who hated being called Bill but could just about put up with Will, was in a state of serious apprehension. Although he was considered one of the better ‘catches’ amongst the first year students at his university he could have murdered his twin sister for lining up a blind date for him. All he knew was that she was called Helen.

“Look tell me something about her, please. You’ve given me two good seats for the concert and you know I like classical music, but does she? Come on Sally tell me something about her. I mean why did you pick her, did she ask you to or do you feel sorry for her? She hasn’t got anything wrong with her has she?”

Sally laughed, “Will, you know where I met her. The only reason you haven’t met her is because this is our first term at university and she and I are doing biochemistry and you are doing modern languages. Our campuses are nowhere near each other! But she did tell me she loved classical music and you know I don’t. I merely said I’d been given tickets for this do and had given them to you, adding that you would like to take her as you didn’t know your fellow linguists’ musical tastes yet.

“We were lucky getting places at the same university weren’t we? I’ve put her phone number on the envelope with the tickets. She said to text her.”

With the concert only four days away Will sent a very brief text to the mysterious Helen. It read, ‘I haven’t asked Agamemnon’s permission yet but I do hope you can make it over the Hellespont on Friday to take in the concert and a bite later. OK? Paris.’

Her reply told him two things that roused his curiosity enormously. She was well educated and had a sense of humour.

‘I know a short cut, via Thebes and Thermopilye  – You see it keeps my togas dry :).  Shame it’s the first date though, Paris never gets a bite until vetted. No, I don’t mean that sort! A painless vetting 🙂 But a fig or two later would be lovely.  H.’

Will could not resist his reply. ‘ Meet @ amphitheatre front arch’ I’ll be wearing a smart, casual laurel wreath’ expect you to be carrying smart casual Grecian urn.’ At this point anything could happen. Go for broke and laugh along in the manner begun, or dress normally and carry a laurel leaf for identification. It was too tempting. Will borrowed a full Greek tragedy outfit from the drama department. But on arriving at the concert hall on Friday night he nearly dropped. Helen did not so much arrive as burst upon the scene.

A figure clad in a sweeping white gown with her dark brown hair wound round her head like Medusan snakes, descended from a chariot, spear in hand and each toe nail painted a different colour as it peeped twixt the thongs of her sandals. Will was in heaven and took up his part immediately. He swept up to Helen, bowed and handed her a ticket’ The vastly entertained onlookers just thought it all a student prank and clapped when they took their seats in the hall.

As they looked at the programme and the first item, an, overture, began Will suddenly realised that neither of them had spoken a word. He wondered what joke Helen was leading up to next. She certainly kept it up well, really well. The overture finished and over the noise of the applause Will heard his mobile phone go off. Embarrassed, he opened it in seconds and saw it was a text. It said ‘We Greeks have all the inventions of the world, mine just vibrates so we will converse thus’. Helen smiled seductively at him and Will felt the missile from Cupid’s bow which she had aimed at him strike home exactly as she had prayed it might. All he replied was the texted image of a shattered heart.

They kept up the joke thoughout the concert and a really nice dinner afterwards which Helen allowed Will to pay for. As he took the bill she sent a message and a grin. ‘Just checking your bank balance.’ It was only a short walk across a lawn to Helen’s rooms and they sauntered, ever more slowly, to her door. Nobody was in sight when Will could contain himself no longer and finally broke their evening’s silence.

“Helen, thank you for the greatest date of my life. I have slowly fallen completely in love with you, and you never even said a word. No bites, promise, but may Paris kiss Helen goodnight?” The embrace lasted twenty minutes but she had the last word, texting,  ‘see you at Sally’s for lunch tomorrow’.

Will arrived early at his sister’s next day and she asked him how the evening went.  While he described it he was surprised to see tears starting to roll down her cheeks. It was then she explained. “Will, Helen has been keen to meet you for weeks but had to find out how you felt about her first. We concocted last night’s charade because, Will, your lovely Helen has an awful impediment. The poor girl is stone deaf.  She can talk perfectly well, granted, but last night she never heard a note of that music!”

 

Anton Wills-Eve

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18/02/2015

MANY MOONS AGO


<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/undo/”>Undo</a&gt;

MANY MOONS AGO  

All the time that Adam spent learning to become a gardener would have been wasted if his huge tome had not included that chapter on fruit trees!

For a start  I could not even have written this post.

AW-E

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17/02/2015

CINQUE PASTA


word prompt Feb 17/2015 five foods

<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/five-a-day/”>Five a Day</a>

 

 

                                                     CINQUE PASTA

It was awful being flown to the island, especially as my kidnappers had hijacked a jet with nothing but first class seats on it. It was almost ready for take off to Florida when they threw me on board, the crew and stewards off board, and we were away into the scarlet sunset sky. I wondered who on earth they thought I was.

The US president? No my suit was obviously hand made in London or Milan. Emma Watson? Whoever made that mistake was going to get his face seriously rearranged! President of the European Bank? No that was obviously him flying the lane. Well Warren Buffet then? No I had no loan sharks with me. Then I got it. They had made a mistake!

“Wotta you take for me mister Bond? I noah spy in disguise anywhere. Saya your last words before I shoota you”

I had to play along. Well I’d been rumbled. I needed some last words quick. Oh God, and they had to be memorable too. “Dis guy’s what?”

“Dat guy’s Watt? You sure Mr Bond? Okay Watt, degame’s up.”

“I say’ what.” A voice whispered in my ear as I woke up over the Pacific. “The food’s very good on this airline’ isn’t it? Try the caviar’ But really old chap I do think you look like Bond.”

I was starting to like my traveling companion, and replied “Yes I have been taken for Daniel Craig once before.” As I was nodding off back to sleep almost at once I could have sworn he said, “Thinking of Sean Connery, actually.”

The highjackers brought the plane to a skidding halt on a deserted island and threw me into a wooden shack and grimaced, “Au revoir Senor Bondo. But we no starve you, wotta you ‘ave?”

“Well I’d love some crisply fried whitebate and some caviar. Then a tourndos steak Rossini, some very soft brie cheese and Strega drizzled creme brulee. For drinky poohs a Montrachet ’93 and a Crozes-Hermitage ’07……”

“Eh. Oo d’you fink you are? All we got is five Pizzas! An’ day are all da same!”

 

Anton Wills-Eve

 

 

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16/02/2015

BRING ON THE CLONES


Feb 16 prompt

<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/clone-wars/”>Clone Wars</a>

           BRING ON THE CLONES

If I could clone myself there would be three of me! The original me and my copies. Think of it, to put all my original self into a single clone would create nothing, like 1 x 1 = 1 (the original one) in maths.

Responsibility would then not come into the discussion because by definition if I did make two or more identical images they would still look, think and act exactly as I – the creator – would dictate. Of course by this simple logic this would probably not be true cloning at all.

In short, this is the most ludicrous prompt I have ever seen on this site.

AW-E

 

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15/02/2015

Nothing to speak of


reply to wall to wall prompt Feb 15th

<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/wall-to-wall/”>Wall to Wall</a>

NOTHING TO SPEAK OF

 

We have nothing on the walls of our house

And nothing on the ceiling or the floor.

And as every room is empty and deserted

We’ve nothing to admire from door to door.

 

You see we only bought it new last week

And as we don’t move in for seveal days.

The whole place is totally bare and boring’

Not even any furnishings or displays 🙂

 

Anton Wills-Eve

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14/02/2015

ODE TO MY WIFE


word prompt for Feb 14. St.Valentine’s day

<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/cupids-arrow/”>Cupid’s Arrow</a>

 

              ODE TO MY WIFE

 

To thee, my wife, my love, my life

I own all pleasure I have known.

My guardian through all harm and strife

Whose heart beats always with my own.

I offer you everything that is mine

And pray each day in gratitude

To God who made you so divine.

Adopting no hypocritical attitude

In praising your eyes, your hair, your face

Without which I’ll die each morn and night

When thou art taken to a higher place

To dwell forever in God’s loving sight.

 

But, my darling I well can see

T’is better mourning fall to me,

Than thou remain, thy tears to shed,

Each night without me in thy bed’

 

Anton Wills-Eve

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Quote | 13/02/2015

WHATEVER NEXT?


                                 WHATEVER NEXT?

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Sliced Bread.”

<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/sliced-bread/”>Sliced Bread</a>

 WHATEVER NEXT?

 “Put that bread knife down, Nicky! How many times do I have to tell you?  And don’t argue back. Seven year old little girls don’t use dangerous kitchen utensils.” Her nine year old brother was not so sure. He was a pompous little boy whom many people fantasised about strangling.

“I say mother, no really that is a bit much. Why only yesterday I caught you showing young Nicola  –  he never called his sister ‘little’, he thought it insulting  –  how to use the electric mixer to make cakes. Seriously, now, which is the most likely to harm her? An electric machine that could short circuit and kill her in seconds, or a blunt, outdated knife that might just scratch her if she’s unlucky?” 

Nicola said nothing. She was just beginning to realise the advantages of having a pompous older brother. She simply stared vacantly at her mother awaiting the court’s decision on whether or not she should continue hacking the loaf to pieces. She did a superb imitation of an angel.

“Christopher! How many times has your father told you not to start stupid debates with your elders?…..”

“Up to this morning at eight o’clock, seventy three times, that I can remember. He may of course have done so before I was two years and eight months old, but were that the case I fear my small brain would have been unable to recall such a censure. A shame, for I am certain I would have made a hilariously amusing reply, would I not?” His mother knew when she was losing and was letting the matter drop when little angel faced Nicola joined the conversation.

“Oh, Christopher. I can’t believe your brain was ever small. You are far too clever and must have said something if Daddy had told you off at that age. But he would not have done, surely?” Their mother was not the only family member becoming worried that her daughter was starting to imitate her brother’s way of talking.

Finally the parent took matriarchal control of the situation. “Christopher, your sister does not use a bread knife because her mother says so. That is the only authority either of you need in order to do what you are told in this house. Understand?” Christopher did not look as if he understood.

“Isn’t that a bit thick on poor papa?”He queried. “I mean to say if he can tell me how to behave seventy three times, and that on one subject only, he surely must have some standing in the judicial hierarchy of our little quartet?” Nicola liked ‘hierarchy’ and ‘judicial’, they were new words to her and she stored them up. Fortunately for all three of them the tone of the conversation changed as their father came in from doing an hour’s gardening. He looked none too happy.

“That bloody mower needs sharpening, I’ll have to take it to pieces again. The electric lead’s too short as well!”

Christopher looked at the head of the household with great disapproval.”Father, I may at times use words a little too esoteric for my audience in this house, but on your orders I never swear. Not very good at practising what you preach are you? Bad language, fiddling with a machine that will electrocute you and giving poor, innocent Nicola here the idea that she can play with really sharp things whenever she pleases. I don’t know what we are all coming to, I really don’t!”

At this point father and mother united to lay down the house rules once and for all. No arguing with elders, no swearing under the age of twenty one and no playing with or trying to use potentially dangerous tools and implements. The children meekly agreed, fully aware they had won the day. Their mother rounded off the talk with the following remark.

“That charter of behaviour  –  Christopher liked charter and looked at his mother with fleeting admiration  –  is the best thing to enter this house since sliced bread.”

Nicola looked at her stunned. “Mummy do you mean you can buy bread already sliced?”

“Yes, answered Christopher, and it is even rumoured they are soon bringing out self-sharpening lawn mowers that run on batteries and don’t swear!”

Anton Wills-Eve

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Quote | 11/02/2015

DAYBREAK


 

 DAYBREAK                               

The starless, sunless start of daybreak

Was not the sole sunless overture that day.

The place beside me, as I awoke early,

Was deserted. My lover had gone away.

The night before, as she seduced me,

I ignored my heart and placed my trust

In her passionate words of true devotion,

Believing they betokened love not lust.

Tears flooded down my sunken cheeks

As the sun appeared in the Eastern sky.

Yet even then I could not bring my mind

To picture her face and to say goodbye.

Now, I wonder, will my soul ever know

So cancerous an emotion or heart so sore?

If she never returns how can I forgive her?

For I would, she has only to open my door.

No note, no sign that all she wanted

Was carnal pleasure at my expense.

She was lovely, as only those we love are;

Against her smile I had no defence.

The dawn, to morning, fast is changing,

The heat of the day will soon burn all.

And yet my heart will stay cold as ice

And my hopes as empty as trees in Fall.

Darling, I beg you, return again to hold me

Please let us enjoy one more night of desire.

For then, if again you should try to leave me,

I will feel no chill while rekindling our fire.

AWE

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