I Wish It Could Be Christmas Once A Decade

The Christmas season now seems to commence on or around October 24^th. It is around then that we are first subjected to the brutally sentimental and abjectly cynical Christmas adverts by the major retailers; it is around then that the first tawdry tinsel is draped feebly in shop windows. It is also around then that the first tingle of anxiety and foreboding start to wriggle into my consciousness. It is approaching remorselessly and there is nothing I can do about it and it is going to get far more intrusive.

When young, I regarded it as a magical time. Although I never fell for the Santa propaganda, it did seem a period bedecked in bunting and fantastical with fairy lights. Even rushing down in the morning to prise open a tiny square on my Advent calendar, revealing a deeply unconvincing depiction of the birth of Christ, could send me into paroxysms of fevered excitement. As I grew older, the Christmas period was more often besprinkled, if not drowned, in oceans of booze; from about the 22^nd December to the 2^nd of January, I was mired in a miasma of alcohol fumes. All I had to show for it was the odd vague, confused memory – an ill-judged remark on the 23^rd; falling down in an alleyway on the 27^th; a mysterious, livid bruise on my inner right arm gained some time on the 29^th. Nowadays, Christmas Day feels like an amalgamation of all the dreary and uneventful Sunday's of the year. Even the so-called comedy 'Christmas Specials' on the box are usually woefully lame, seeming to consist of all the jokes considered too unfunny to appear in the original series.

Can music save Christmas? It is, after all, the time for the traditional beloved Christmas carols and the old pop favourites of yesteryear, resurrected and played to death on the radio and in shops. However, now that I harbour a far more jaundiced and world-weary approach to Christmas and all its irksome trappings I find myself reacting in the following irascible manner to these festive tunes:

“It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” - please furnish me with incontrovertible evidence for this unfounded and arbitrary assertion

“Ding Dong Merrily on High” - cease your interminable and overpoweringly annoying ding-dongery

“Jingle Bells, Jingle All the Way” - you leave me no alternative but to inform the local noise abatement officer. Expect a visit shortly.

“The Holly and the Ivy” - what do you expect me to do with such wretched foliage? Move along please.

“Christmas Time, Mistletoe and Wine” - the wine is corked and of an inferior vintage and the mistletoe is frankly inedible. Poor show all round.

“Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” - don't bore me with the colour scheme of this ghastly quadruped's proboscis.

“Hark the Herald Angels Sing” - I refuse to pay heed to the ceaseless trumpetings of those cumbrously-winged beings

“Last Christmas I Gave You My Heart” - I fail to recall you proffering such a distasteful and almost certainly illegal gift. Socks please this year

“Once in Royal David's City” - I expect once was more than enough in that contemptible metropolis

“Don We Now Our Gay Apparel” - Not so. I am clad in drab and unostentatious garb, thank you very much

“All I Want for Christmas Is You” - the very fact this atrocity is brayed by Mariah Carey is enough to chill the blood.

“Simply Having A Wonderful Christmas Time” - highly unlikely at the McCartney residence, with bracken sandwiches, roast hay and grass kebabs on the menu. He may also inflict a ditty upon you proving once again the complete ruination of his voice. Avoid at all costs.

“Little Donkey Carry Mary Safely On Her Way” - clambering aboard a malignant, malnourished ass while heavy with child verges on the criminally negligent. See you in court.

“Oh, I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day” - such a longing renders you unfit to hold public office. Bother us no more.

“Silent Night” - a vain hope with police helicopters droning overhead, car alarms screeching, foxes emitting unearthly yelps, revellers bellowing inanities beneath my bedroom window. Don't be facetious.

“Are You Hanging Out Your Stockings on the Wall?” - I possess no such garment and, even if I did, wouldn't put it on public display for voyeurs to gawp at.

“Fairtytale of New York” - OK, I'll let you have that one, it's a classic

“In Dulce Jubilo” - Eh?

Despite this parade of negativity, I still hope that this year's festivities can actually pass without too much mental struggle and emotional turbulence. I may regain some of that childhood magic and wonder and find some joy and happiness. It is possible, especially if I avoid the Birds of a Feather 'Christmas Special'.

King Richard III, Scoliosis and Me

The first half of the room is wooden floored but the second half is glass, allowing the viewer to look down into what appears to be the foundations of a previous building on the site. On the far left is a shallow depression that is quite clearly the imprint of a former grave. Upstairs, one can see a replica of the skeleton that was discovered lying in this grave – and what is immediately and painfully apparent is the remarkable serpentine curve of the spine. Surely the person in possession of such a deformity would have been in constant, terrible pain and subject to an obvious physical deformity? Could the person with such a spine have conceivably lived a normal, healthy life?

I am, of course, describing the recently discovered remains of King Richard III, as displayed at the new and absorbing King Richard III Centre in the heart of Leicester, built directly above the site of the former Greyfriars Priory where the battered, mutilated body of Richard III was brought, slung unceremoniously over the back of a horse. I have long been fascinated by, and attracted to, the character and 'legend' of Richard III as I, too, was born with the same spinal curve, or scoliosis. Not only did we share a first name but we also shared the same vertebrae! This interest was galvanised when I studied Shakespeare's famous play, the source of much of the negative modern image of Richard – a shuffling, scheming, murderous hunchback; an image given malevolent form in Laurence Olivier's portrayal in the 1940's film. As I surveyed this labyrinthine coil of bone, my memories flooded back to my experience of scoliosis.

I was diagnosed with scoliosis when I was four years old, back in the early 1970's. The treatment at that time involved virtually my entire body being encased in plaster, save for my face and fingers and toes. I vividly remember that two small iron bars supported the plaster on either side of my face, impinging constantly on my vision. This treatment was only available at a hospital for sick children in Liverpool, a considerable distance from my home in Derbyshire – to this day, the sound of a Liverpudlian accent instantly transports me back to that time.

Memory, as neuroscientists inform us, is a fickle, malleable entity. We tend not to remember actual incidents, but our last memory of the incident, and these are constantly reconfigured, remoulded, even re-imagined throughout our lives. Experiments have shown that people can have very different memories of exactly the same event. With this caveat, I still possess certain specific and vividly haunting memories of that time. The strongest is of me crying and screaming for my parents not to leave me, not to abandon me to this strange and threatening environment, inhabited by people with strange costumes and even stranger accents. This is the earliest memory of my life and it is one of trauma and separation. Allied to this is the even more threatening memory of being subjected to numerous X-rays. I have in my mind's eye now, the imprinted image of me lying on a hard, cold bench, surrounded by looming figures wearing masks, subjecting me to an alien and utterly mystifying procedure. Finally, there is the memory of the terrible itches and pricklings which afflicted my skin beneath the plaster shroud. When I finally left hospital,after a period of roughly six months, I had to wear a brace around my neck and back which, weirdly, reminded me somewhat of the suit of armour that Richard III would have worn on Bosworth field.

I have often wondered whether the seeds of my lifelong battle with depression were sown during those lonely, bewildering and frightening days and nights in a Liverpool hospital ward. I have certainly inherited an ineradicable feeling that I am somehow physically repellent – misshapen, deformed, unlovable, even a mutant. Shakespeare famously has his Richard III determine “to prove a villain” as he “cannot be a lover”. I know for certain that when I am in the depths of my mental troubles, I can feel like a small, abandoned and malformed child, crying out for warmth and protection from a overpoweringly hostile, irredeemably intimidating and downright sinister world. The fear and distress I felt when a child invades my adult brain and leaves me as helpless and as rejected as I felt then. This now seems such a part of my mental and emotional make-up that I find it impossible to imagine being free of this fear and dread. In some profound sense, I am psychologically frozen at that time, still a broken child.

The type of scoliosis Richard III suffered from, I learned, is known as idiopathic adolescent onset scoliosis, meaning in layman's terms that it wasn’t, unlike mine, present at birth, but developed after the age of ten. No Liverpool hospital, X-rays and fearsome matrons for him. As I took my leave of the museum, though, I felt a definite affinity, across the centuries, with the defeated king. Perhaps the allegedly dark and suspicious aspects of his character were, quite simply, the outward expressions of a man battling with the psychological consequences of his disability in a world lacking sympathy and understanding, while still trying to exude the majesty of monarchy.

Facial reconstruction of King Richard III

Animal Magic

Despite rumours of rain encroaching from the East, the morning dawned brightly so I determined on a spot of wildlife watching. I ventured forth, clutching rather inadequate binoculars in my sweaty medium-sized hand. The weather was truly glorious, the sky an intense, cloudless blue, a couple of acrobatic swifts overhead, screaming and diving with effortless aerial agility. I was heading for a nearby nature reserve, or 'mosaic of habitats', sandwiched between the River Erewash and the Erewash Canal on one side, and the clanking, grinding expanse of Toton railway sidings on the other. On previous visits I had been overjoyed to witness the lightning bejewelled flash of kingfishers along the river bank, so I was hopeful of another glimpse of the halcyon bird.

(A kingfisher perched on a branch, embarrassed by its dowdy plumage)

My first glimpse of the reserve, though, caused a temporary disappointment as somebody had obviously been very busy with the lawn mower/scythe as a considerable area of the thistles, nettles, and brambles near the path had been severely denuded. This had previously provided ideal fluttering ground for butterflies and their absence would be unacceptable! I spotted a path of sorts between the remaining greenery and stumbled clumsily along, immediately feeling that most enjoyable of sensations, the burning sting of nettles scraping along my bared shins. It was worth the momentary discomfort, though, as I spied a Painted Lady (the butterfly, not a woman covered in emulsion sprawled amidst the foliage). This is a migratory butterfly, hailing originally from North Africa ("coming over here, laying eggs on our nettles....") and was a large specimen, the orange and white patches on its wings gleaming in the cleansed light. A sudden fusillade of birdsong behind me caused me to spin round - one hand feverishly scratching the nettle rash on my shapely leg, the other fumbling for my binoculars - but it had fled before I could establish a clear sighting; a Wren, I surmised.

(Painted Lady, Vanessa cardui, latter from Greek: kardos = thistle)

The river was flowing gently, idly along, murmuring gently as it navigated round a boulder in mid-stream. A dog was cavorting with a stick further upstream, two lads egging it on to further frivolity. Despite being shallow, there were a lot of fish swimming in its clear waters, some quite large. That is as far as the natural history of fishes goes on this blog as my knowledge of them is sadly deficient. Similarly, there were dragonflies and damselflies aplenty but my identification skills are hazy; I did spot the distinctive needle-shaped Common Blue Damselfly, and there was a Brown Hawker around too. Banded and Beautiful Demoiselles are more delicate and intensely coloured and seemed engaged in some form of combat (or mating).  I always think these delightful insects have such a primeval air about them; one can imagine them gliding around some prehistoric swamp with dinosaurs lumbering around and going extinct in the background. Sadly, though, there were no kingfishers on the river today; they must be way of exuberant youths.

I was hungry for more lepidoptera and trained my laser-like gaze at the surrounding verdancy. There were Meadow Browns in profusion, and the ubiquitous Large Whites but no Peacocks, my favourite, a quite stunningly iridescent insect. Then, another beautiful species, the Small Tortoiseshell, hove into view. This butterfly has declined a lot in the South but I have seen many in recent years so they must be fluorishing in the East Midlands. Butterflies, of course, are so damned difficult to identify sometimes without the requisite equipment; I imagined myself equipped with a huge butterfly net, flailing wildly and inexpertly around, getting it entangled in power lines or wrapped around a thug's shaven head. No, best just rely on the visuals. I was able to identify a Comma through my eyes, principally by the rather frayed, irregular outline of its wings. The UK Butterflies website correctly if rather harshly describes it as looking like "a tatty Small Tortoiseshell".

(Comma Butterfly basking in its tattiness)

Rabbits are rife in this reserve and, sure enough, I soon caught the briefest of sights of a white scut disappearing in the undergrowth. Further along, I saw a pair of large ears sticking above the grass and a hint of staring rabbit eye. I stopped a fair distance away and pointed the binoculars in tits direction, only to be confronted with the sight of a pair of legs disappearing once more out of view. Rabbits are such a familiar animal yet I still get a twitch of excitement when I see a wild specimen - I blame Art Garfunkel.

Birds were present in numbers, as their sweet trills and melodies signified, but sightings were meagre (save a proud Whitethroat venting its song from the treetops) until, leaning over the parapet of a bridge looking into river, some indefinable commotion behind me caused me to turn round to be confronted by a Song Thrush looking quizzically at me from atop a concrete pole. Then, as I turned to move on, a flash of scarlet out of the corner of my eye before it was enfolded by the shadows. I focussed my binoculars on the depths of the bush and there was a Bullfinch, preening its feathers in the gloom, its chest puffed out like a regimental sergeant-major. A beautiful bird and well worth the admission fee, even though there was't one.

(Photo of a Bullfinch that I didn't take)

It was a thoroughly enjoyable walk, sweeping the debris of the torrid night from the alcoves of my mind. However, the new high-speed rail line, HS2, will come right through Toton and the East Midlands Hub station is due to be built near here. I hope this little patch of wildlife-rich rus in urbe doesn't fall victim to this development.  As Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote in 'Pied Beauty':

GLORY be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim

Requiem for Satao

On Friday it was confirmed that one of Kenya's largest male elephants, Satao, an enormous 'tusker', had been brutally slain by poachers for his ivory. I found the killing of this noble animal profoundly depressing and a savage indictment of humanity. It is therefore a lament for an individual elephant but, if the poachers and the ivory-seekers have their way, it may ultimately turn out to be a requiem for elephants in the wild. If this were to come to pass, it would be one of the most shameful and unforgivable moments in mankind's already blood-soaked record of decimating the wondrous biodiversity of our fragile planet. Thankfully, there are numerous people and charities working untiringly to prevent this dread scenario from coming to pass - we owe them a great debt of gratitude.

This poem was inspired by reading about Satao and, although I recognise that it is extremely far from being decent poetry, it is heartfelt and the only tribute I can really offer.

This was your domain, your empire, your land;

The land where you made the mountains shake,

The land that trembled at your imperious command.

The sky paid homage to your regal presence,

The earth knelt before your tumultuous majesty,

The trees bowed in supplication before your rampant charge.

Your joyous, triumphant cry echoed to the stars:

"I am Satao, Kenya's greatest son".

Your tusks shone like pristine snow in the molten glare,

Spearing the heavens with ancient pride.

Now they lie on a far away shelf,

Carved with care into a worthless trinket.

Now you dwell in a different land

The ancestral home where your forefathers roam

The land of eternal splendour,

Where your victorious fanfare will resound for evermore:

"I am Satao, Kenya's greatest son!".