The Very First Noel has become one of the Peterson family Christmas time favorites. This 23 minute animated cartoon is from the makers of the hit DVD series BOZ (another Peterson family favorite). With Andy Griffith as the voice of Melchior (one of the Three Wise Men). He narrates the story of his travels in search of a magnificent star pointing him to a newborn King. The animation has good humor for all and the music is great. It will keep the attention of you’re 4 year old for sure!! We really enjoy watching our children watch this DVD!!

Yes its Friday again and I’ve had an enjoyable session learning how to whip my widgets into shape. I have a fab tag cloud  developing now as well. There are so many things to play with- I could get addicted.

Today I heard  that Boz Scaggs and Michael Mcdonald are coming to  Leeuwin in Feb. I can’t wait ; it should be a great concert. I love going to Margaret River for a weekend of music, wine and good food.

I started to do a brief series on Sunday School Curriculum options. After finishing Buzz and David C Cook, I was a bit distracted by other things and never quite got back on track.

Although I should be getting back on track now, I’m going to take a few moments to highlight a product from Group called Sweet Life Cafe. We’ve received a lot of requests for info and orders (especially with the 20% discount on materials). So, what exactly is it?

Sweet Life Starter Kit

The publisher describes it as:

Treat yourself! Step into the Sweet Life Cafe and satisfy your cravings for friends, God, and spiritual growth. Women at your church stay engaged and feel a sense of belonging as they enjoy a buffet of refreshing group experiences – and reflective alone time with God. After all the fun, women will leave with a “sweet” reward…they’ll be encouraged and renewed in their relationship with God and others, and they’ll relish knowing that Jesus is the bread of life! Relational and personal – women share their stories and become friends Women grow spiritually and leave able to live out what they’ve learned Fun & easy! No speaker needed – the focus is on the women, not a speaker. Flexible for any time or setting Reproducibles included!

The Sweet Life Cafe Starter Kit Includes: Director Manual Director Cd-ROM Worship Leader Guide 3 Large-group Leader Guides 3 Breakout Leader Guides Promo And Training DVD Publicity Poster Samples Of These Individual Participant Items: Journal, Prayer Devotion, Charm, Music CD, And Tote Bag.

Of course the question is, does it live up to the advertising? Well, I’m a guy. How would I know?  OK, that was silly – but yesterday was a long day and this was an early morning…

I did look at the kit back in April for a radio interviewwith Amy Nappa, the Executive Editor of the material. I was very impressed with what I reviewed. Once again, Group has researched, tested and produced something that is excellently designed to teach and equip women.

As a tool, this kit will allow the facilitators of the retreat to quickly and easily put together a comprehensive time of fellowship with a clear Christian focus. If you are in charge of either finding or developing this type of event, please give it a look. I think you will be very pleased!

Yours in Christ,
Marty

Flora Doehler is one of those artists whose work gets your attention, and then you fall in love with her life. Or the other way around. Either way, if it hasn’t happened to you ~yet~ I feel compelled to warn you that Our Bear River Adventure is an irresistible read.

If Boz (otherwise known as Charles Dickens) was alive today, I’m sure he would subscribe to Flora’s blog.

Charles Dickens

It all begins with this compelling précis:

In the fall of 2007, Flora and Larry moved from Toronto (population 2 million) to the tiny, beautiful tidal village of Bear River in Nova Scotia (population 800) seeking a life filled with creative pursuits such as organic gardening, painting, and silversmithing.

Life in Bear River is frugal, but rich in all the important ways – beauty, music, artists and friendly souls…that’s “Community” with a capital “C”!

Having been thoroughly immersed in much of Flora’s blog, I think there are many “capitals” that grace her life. She lives Life with a capital L. All the evidence indicates that she also Loves that way. And she makes Art with a capital A. I must add a capital F, because Our Bear River Adventure reads like a Fairytale, and is a lot of Fun, if you choose to ignore the long hours of sweat equity that have been invested in the house Flora and Larry are renovating. On the other hand, when it’s not your sweat, and the house is taking shape ~beautifully~ before your eyes, the renovation still qualifies as magical.

Whether sipping tea at a lighthouse in Gilbert’s Cove, playing the roulette wheel at Cherry Carnival, scoring fashion finds at Frenchys, or swimming in secret locations she has sworn not to reveal, Flora quietly makes wry comments and paints delicious word pictures of all that she experiences.

Of course, word pictures are not all she paints. I first caught a glimpse of Flora’s work on a Ning called Creative Awakenings.  I loved her spirit, and noticed she was a Canadian (as I am). We became online friends, and curious to explore her art further, I visited her blogs. The rest, as they say is history, which is especially apt because that’s exactly what Flora is writing. She is writing her history as she lives it.

The following video shows a woman who is willing and able to share her creative inspiration, and training. It’s also posted on my Ning, Cracked Paper Quilts, and Flora has a blog post which provides further information.

Do you want more? (It is impossible to resist that question after a Dickens reference.)

It is not surprising that someone as thoughtful and insightful as Flora belongs to a weekly meditation group:

We take turns reading pieces on inspiration, mindfulness, and creativity. Our discussions attempt to connect the reading back to ideas like living-in-the-moment, and acceptance-of-what-is and letting go of ego-driven attitudes that filter our experiences. An example of this is me wasting energy on worrying about what might be instead of just enjoying the moment.

I have spent a lifetime practicing “worry” to know that it doesn’t solve anything but it’s tough to give up!

If Our Bear River Adventure is any indication, Flora Doehler is excelling, thank you very much, at learning to live life “just enjoying the moment.” Witness this stop motion of 5 photos of a beautiful Willow Tree moving in the wind, which Flora honors as an entity:

Her art, exuding a joyous exuberance, is further proof. Thank you, Flora, for the inspiring ways you have offered your life and art for our delectation.

The Ancestor ~ by Flora Doehler (used with permission)

Into the Light ~ by Flora Doehler (used with permission)

Yeah, I know, but while I was out and about in Bloombury, I found this place:

As you can see, it possesses yet another blue plaque (there’s about two per street in Bloomsbury on average), which commemorates yet another Dickens location.

This makes an appearance in one of Charles Dickens’ lesser known works, ‘The Bloomsbury Christening’. Dickens’ first published work was a series of sketches in the Morning Chronicle under the pseudonym “Boz”. These were collected and published under the title Sketches by Boz, which does exactly what it says on the tin.

The building you see before you was the residence of Mr Charles Kitterbell in said tale, introduced to us thus:

In addition to these characteristics, it may be added that Mr. Charles Kitterbell was one of the most credulous and matter-of-fact little personages that ever took TO himself a wife, and FOR himself a house in Great Russell-street, Bedford-square. (Uncle Dumps always dropped the ‘Bedford-square,’ and inserted in lieu thereof the dreadful words ‘Tottenham-court-road.’)

It’s a very Londony story, condensing pretty much everything I said about Dickens and London yesterday. Could have saved me a lot of trouble if I’d known about it earlier. Hi ho.

Further reading:

Here’s the story. http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/7854/

Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (1836 – 1837)

better known as The Pickwick Papers

Charles Dickens

Wordsworth Classics, 804pp

Okay, my first admission. This is the first Dickens novel that I have read. As a writer, approaching the age of thirty, this is disgraceful. By now I should have read them all. Dickens is one of those writers with whom I’ve had a bad relationship. As a teenager I started Bleak House and couldn’t get past the first few pages. I started Our Mutual Friend and read barely a chapter. I just didn’t get him. Whatever that meant. I didn’t like this style. I didn’t think he offered anything for me. Reluctantly I began The Pickwick Papers, without telling anyone I was, and suddenly found myself fifty pages in, laughing with it, enjoying it. Did I, after twelve years of trying to read Dickens, finally get what he was all about?

I read something interesting Maugham said about Dickens the other day. He is talking about Matthew Arnold’s insistence that for poetry to be truly excellent it must have a high seriousness, and he goes onto say that: “It is because this high seriousness is lacking in Dickens’s novels that, for all their great merits, they leave us faintly dissatisfied. When we read them now with the great French and Russian novels in mind, and not only theirs, but George Eliot’s, we are taken aback by their naïveté. In comparison with them, Dickens’s are scarcely adult… I find myself still immensely amused by Dickens’s humour, but his pathos leaves me cold. I am inclined to say that he had strong emotions, but no heart.” Maugham qualifies this with: “He had a generous heart, but it was an actor’s heart.” That is to say Dickens played to the crowd. This, as I read it, was where my problem with Dickens lay. I enjoy his humour, but his pathos is cold. He is good in scene setting, the theatricals of a novel, but the humanity seems engineered. It is as true in The Pickwick Papers as it is in Bleak House.

Only The Pickwick Papers has further faults. First some history. The Pickwick Papers was the first novel-length commission Dickens’s was given. It was published in 19 issues over 20 months. It had illustrations by Robert Seymour for the first two issues, but Seymour killed himself and was replaced by R.W. Buss for one issue, but the relationship did not work, and Buss was replaced by Hablot Knight Browne, better known as Phiz. Phiz became Dickens’s illustrator for the next 23 years. He chose the name Phiz over Nemo, his original choice, because it sounded better when paired with Boz, Dickens’s original nom de plume. The Pickwick Papers was not an immediate hit. It was only with the introduction of Samuel Weller as Mr Pickwick’s valet in chapter ten that the novel truly took off, and a publishing phenomenon was created, with Sam Weller joke books, theatrical performances and bootleg copies. It is true that the novel does transform with his appearance.

For the first hundred or so pages it is clear Dickens is uncertain where this work is going. It is filled with all sorts of asides, rambling stories, and a generally unfocussed attitude. It is full of jokes, many of which are still funny, and it reads like someone’s long winded tale. The appearance of Sam Weller, and his subsequent popularity, provides Dickens with focus, a narrative drive, but at the expense of Mr Pickwick who seems to become sidelined through the middle part of this novel. The readers wanted Sam Weller, so Dickens’s give them Sam Weller. Perhaps because he, as a character, as been much imitated, I found him less fresh than perhaps initial readers would have done. I admit to preferring the incompetent, but ever-so genial Mr Pickwick and the enthusiasm of his club, which is almost all but forgotten about until a few lines to tidy the novel off at the end. It is interesting to see, though, a character so overwhelm a narrative.

I feel another problem The Pickwick Papers suffers, especially in its middle, is the lack of a villain. Mr Jingle is a wonderful creation whom also becomes sidelined because of Sam Weller’s popularity, and his ending is nowhere near the joy it should be. It seemed to me that Dickens was lining us up for a conflict between these two men, Mr Pickwick and Mr Jingle, which would run through the whole novel, but it does not materialise.

Perhaps The Pickwick Papers failings are because Dickens as a novelist was finding his feet with this work. After some time writing sketches and short stories, a novel of such a length, and The Pickwick Papers is massive, written to such a tight schedule, it is only understandable that some elements would get away from him, but he came back with Oliver Twist, and I’ve heard nothing but good things about that novel. For the first time in my life I’m looking forward to reading a Dickens, so perhaps The Pickwick Papers isn’t all bad (it really isn’t). At times I thoroughly enjoyed this novel; it just needs some heavy editing. It’s also interesting to note that Dickens came back to these characters three years later with Mr Humphrey’s Clock.

For those looking to read this novel I would advise you choose an edition with the illustrations in. Phiz’s work is excellent. The Wordsworth Edition I chose had not included them, and though you can see them if you search around the Internet, it is better to have them in the text.

So I love my family!

And I love being right!

What do you do when the two are at odds with each other?

The other day my daughter was singing the words to one of her favorite shows, Boz. Boz, if you don’t know, is a big green bear that lives right next door to the Baxter family. He’s sort of like Barney but his songs are catchier and his life lessons have a deeper meaning.

So my daughter was singing the theme song and she substituted the word “Baxter” with “Faster.” Being the kind father I am I stopped her and told her that the name of the family was “Baxter” and not “Faster.”

Well, my daughter loves being right as much as I do and insisted the name of the family was Faster and not Baxter. Mom was called in to officiate and daddy just got “the look” if you know what I mean.

Being the genius I am I suggested we listen to the DVD to see what the words say. The first time we listened, my daughter sang with song. Of course she said and heard “Faster.”

The second time I suggested that we just listen to the song.

This time she left the room crying…

I know what you’re thinking. Was it worth being right?

Hehehe, I’m such a meanie!

Disclaimer - My kids are past the Barney stage and I am VERY grateful for that fact! While the purple dinosaur was a part of our lives for a bit, I am quite incredibly happy not to hear that voice any more. (Although I have been told my impersonation is passable.)

So – what’s this about Boz? When Boz made his debut a few years ago as a Christian alternative to Barney, I was happy that the Christian market had done something with this much quality. Boz is animated, but the production is good, the songs are well done and the topics are appropriate. If you have children 5 and under, I would encourage you to take a look at the material. It’s not “preachy.” It’s educational material with a Christian worldview.

What does that mean? The ABC’s don’t change. The words you choose to teach the ABC’s can. The colors don’t change. The words you choose to teach them can. The One you give credit for creating the colors can also be important. That is why – if I still had kids that age – I’d look at the Boz material for supplementing their education.

There is lots of stuff available. Obviously, there are basic DVDs, storybooks, etc. These cover topics already discussed as well as numbers, shapes, friends, helping and more.

BRAND NEW – For churches, David C Cook has just released a new Boz Preschool curriculum. It uses familiar the Boz character to help kids understand things about God and His love. Cook also offers it as a preschool option for their Wildwood Forest VBS program.

(Obviously, you could also use it with Group [Rome or Crocodile Dock], Gospel Light [Son Rock Kids Camp or Kingdom of the Son], Standard [Studio Go], Concordia [Gadget's Garage] or any other Vacation Bible School program.)

Parents who wish to introduce Jesus and God’s love to their children and families from a very young age should definitely check out the material offered. I think you will be very pleased and encouraged by the material!

Yours in Christ,

Marty

Charles Dickens

Boz.
The Sunday Morning News says the Reporters of N. York are taking measures to give Mr. Dickens (Boz) a slendid public entertainment, on his arrival in this country, which it is expected will be early in January next. – From present prospects, the dinner will be a magnificent affair.

Bangor Daily Whig and Courier (Bangor, Maine)  Nov 6, 1841

Arrival of the Britannia — Twenty eight days Later from England — Arrival of Charles Dickens — Twenty eight Thousand Russians killed or taken Prisoners by the Circassians, &c. &c.

As good luck would have it, just as our paper was going to press E. HARRIS, Esq. handed us a copy of the Evening Gazette, containing the news by the Britannia…

The Britania arrived at half past four o’clock on Saturday in 18 days from Liverpool. She experienced very heavy weather, having had her Paddle boxes much impaired and her Life Boasts stove? to pieces during a severe gale on the night of the 15th. In entering the harbor of Halifax she grounded but was got off again in a few minutes and anchored for the night. She brings an unusual large number of passengers, among whom is CHARLES DICKENS, the principal literary writer of the age.

Bangor Daily Whig and Courier (Bangor, Maine) Jan 25, 1842

Charles Dickens, in behalf of the passengers of the Britannia during her last voyage on Saturday, last, presented Capt. Hewitt several pieces of plate as a testimony to the skill and gentlemanly conduct of that gentleman during the passage. The address was delivered at the Tremont? House, Boston, and was very neat.

Charles Dickens, Esq. alias “Boz,” as you will have heard before this reaches you, is now here. A complimentary dinner is to be given him next week. He is decidedly a good looking fellow wears long hair, and is of course the “lion of the city.” The Earl of Mulgrave is entirely eclipsed by him. It is stated that the tickets to the “Boz dinner,” are to be put at the moderate price of ten dollars, and I make no doubt the company will be sufficiently select.

Mr. Dickens is a pleasing writer, and I have no doubt is an amiable man, but, I question the propriety of feasting any man or set of men. There are a thousand as good men as Dickens in Boston, and probably double that number men who are in all respects his equals, if not his superiors. If they visit England, are they feasted, and worshipped? No. And here the people of that country shew their good sense. Let us receive distinguished strangers with cordiality and a hearty yankee greeting, and with all those little civilities which should characterise the meeting of friendly strangers, but at the same time eschew all that foolish and disgusting parade, which is but too common at the present day. Besides, I am so much of a republican, that I would no sooner honor a lord, a duke, a prince, or a literary man, than I would a mechanic who had become famous in his calling. A skilful engineer, or cordwainer, if he is a gentleman, is as deserving of homage, (and frequently more so,) as is a representative of the aristocracy, or of the literature of a country. However, as I shall not attend the ten dollar fete, I will say nothing more.

Bangor Daily Whig and Courier (Bangor, Maine) Feb 1, 1842

Groupies, circa 1842

Several Plymouth girls made a request of Dickens for a lock of his hair. In a letter to them says the Rock, he declines a compliance with that request, because it would afford a precedent, which, if followed, would shortly result in total baldness. Boz concluded his letter in very pretty terms, and his reply was a very proper one.

Bangor Daily Whig and Courier (Bangor, Maine) Feb 15, 1842

Charles Dickens.
At a late dinner given to Mr. Dickens at Hartford about 80 gentlemen, and among the, Gov. Ellsworth, Bishop Brownell, Mr. Niles and other distinguished men sat down to the table. After several toast had been given, the president of the day introduced, with some appropriate complimentary remarks, the following toast.

The health of Charles Dickens Elected by the world’s suffrage, to an elevated station in the great republic of letters, his fame is written on the heart, and the head approves the record.

This toast was received with enthusiastic and long continued applause. Mr. Dickens, when the applause had subsided, rose and in feeling and unaffected terms thanked the company for the kind feelings which they had expressed towards him…

Bangor Daily Whig and Courier (Bangor, Maine) Feb 19, 1842

You can read his speech here:

SPEECH: FEBRUARY 7, 1842.

N.B. — Mr. BONNER has the pleasure of announcing that CHARLES DICKENS, who is universally conseded to be the most popular author living, has been engaged to write a Tale expressly for the columns of the LEDGER; and that he is now at work upon it. Advance sheets of Mr. DICKENS’ stories have at different time been obtained by American publishers, but this is the first time that a tale has been written expressly and solely for an American periodical by such an eminent author as Mr. DICKENS; and yet Mr. BONNER would not have the public suppose that he thinks there is anything very remarkable about this engagement — it is only part and parcel of his policy.

The New York Times (New York, New York) Arp 25, 1859

Congratulations

A translation of Charles Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities is to appear in the feuilleton, Le Pays, the semi-official journal of the French Government.

The New York Times (New York, New York) May 26, 1860

Literary Humor:

A facetious correspondent sends us a query — Which is the most industrious writer, Dickens, Bulwer Lytton, or Mr. Warren? to which he answers Dickens; for he writes All the Year Round, while Bulwer has written Night and Morning, and Warren Now and Then. In justice to the latter gentleman our friend should have remembered that when he was merely writing novels, Mr. Warren wrote Ten Thousand a Year.

The New York Times (New York, New York) June 30, 1860

This Dickens fan was a bit extreme:

A boy of fifteen lately committed suicide in London because the servant maid took away his candle while he was reading “Pickwick Papers.” Mr. Dickens should immortalize him in his next novel.

Galveston Daily News (Galveston, Texas) Sep 30, 1865

CHARLES DICKENS FOR PARLIAMENT.
Charles Dickens is being again importuned to become a candidate for Parliament. Says an English contemporary: “Mr. C. Dickens should be heard by every one who wishes to hear oratory. In vain will he listen in the House of Commons for the like. Gladstone and D’Israeli have not a tithe of the command of the brilliant spirit, flowing, uninterrupted words, beautiful and truthful thoughts, of our great English novelist. He has been asked over and over again to stand for some place or another. He knows any part of London would return him, free o’ cost, and give him a statue in precious metal at the same time to commemorate the event. But he will not. It is his pride, perhaps, to wash his hands of any institution he has so freely rediculed; but there is good still in it, and he might honor the House and the country by taking his seat there.”

Galveston Daily News (Galveston, Texas) May 17, 1866

Dickens Reading

HOW CHARLES DICKENS READS.
Mr. Dickens’ method is thus described in the Philadelphia Ledger:
He takes one of his works, “David Copperfield,” for example, and in about an hour and a half tells the whole story of the book, occasionally selecting a favorite passage, which he repeats in full, making all the characters act and talk precisely as he fancied them at the time of their creation in his own mind. All this is done with the finest dramatic effect, as Mr. Dickens, among his other intellectual qualities, has those of a finished actor of the highest grade. He has, too, the great advantage of knowing all about the characters he personates in his readings. To use one of his own expressions, he “knows their tricks and their manners.” It is on account of these elements that the “Dickens readings” are said to excel all other entertainments of the same general character.

Galveston Daily News (Galveston, Texas) Sep 22, 1867

BOSTON, Nov. 18. — The sale of tickets to Dickens’ course of readings, which took place at Ticknor & Fields’ to-day, cause no little sensation. At sunrise the crowd begain to gather, and the aid of a strong police force was required to enforce fair play among the eager applicants. Nearly all the tickets for the course, about 8,000, were sold, and hundreds were disappointed in securing any. A few tickets got into the hands of speculators, who offer them at $20 each.

Galveston Daily News (Galveston, Texas) Nov 30, 1867

The Philadelphia correspondent of the London Times says that Mr. Dickens will have to pay $20,000 of his receipts for reading, in this country, as an internal revenue tax.

St Joseph Herald (Saint Joseph, Michigan) Mar 14, 1868

Dickens

Mark Twain is lecturing to crowded houses in California and Nevada.
Dickens is writing a $10,000 Chirstmas play for Jarrett, of Niblo’s, New York.
For $60,000 in gold, Strauss has consented to make a concert tour in this country.

Mrs. Ann S. Stephens has written a new fiction which is “Doubly False.”

Anna Dickinson is going to England to lecture.

St Joseph Herald (Saint Joseph, Michigan) June 6, 1868

$$$$$$$$$

The London Court Journal says that Charles Dickens made more than $260,000 in America, and has just concluded an engagement for 100 farewell readings in England, for which he is to receive L8,000 without risk.

St Joseph Herald (Saint Joseph, Michigan) Sep 26, 1868

Tom Thumb

Personal and Literary.
Charles Dickens’ only surviving brother died, a few weeks ago, in England.
Emerson is getting deaf.
Tom Thumb is growing taller.

St Joseph Herald (Saint Joseph, Michigan) Nov 28, 1868

$$$$$$$$$

Dickens is coining money by his farewell readings inthe large cities of England, and only one-quarter of the applicants for tickets are successful. After reading in Scotland and Ireland he goes to Paris, where his audiences have heretofore been large and enthusiastic.

St Joseph Herald (Saint Joseph, Michigan) Jan 23, 1869

Humorous letter to the press, asking for a correction, after they incorrectly reported his sister-in-law had DIED!

The following is the text of Charles Dickens note to the London News, a summary of which was received by the cable: “Sir– I am required to discharge a painful act of duty imposed upon me by your insertion in your paper of Saturday of a paragraph from the New York Times respecting the death, at Chicago, of  ‘Mrs. Augustus N. Dickens, widow of the brother of Charles Dickens, the celebrated English novelist.’ The widow of my late brother, in that paragraph referred to, was never at Chicago; she is a lady now living, and resident in London; she is a frequent guest at my house, and I am one of the trustees under her marriage settlement. My temporary absence in Ireland has delayed for some days my troubling you with the request that you will have the goodness to publish this correction. I am, &c., CHARLES DICKENS. “Belfast, Jan. 14.”

St Joseph Herald (Saint Joseph, Michigan) Feb 20, 1869

Declining Health?

Charles Dickens suffers from palsy in the right hand, induced by writing too much.

St Joseph Herald (Saint Joseph, Michigan) Mar 6, 1869

AND

Dickens has suspended his readings under medical advice.

St Joseph Herald (Saint Joseph, Michigan) Mar 20, 1869

Charles Dickens was banquetted in Liverpool on the 11th. About 700 persons sat with him at the table. In responding to a sentiment, Anthony Trollope intimated that the appointment of Mr. Dickens as Minister to Washington would be beneficial to both countries.

St Joseph Herald (Saint Joseph, Michigan) Apr 24, 1869

Dickens Writing

Mr. Dickens is again reported to be writing a novel.
It is reported that Anna Dickinson is worth $100,000.

St Joseph Herald (Saint Joseph, Michigan) June 5, 1869

In a recent speech at Birmingham, Charles Dickens alluded to the fact that a former speech of his had been misunderstood, and he would therefore take this occasion to restate his political creed. He had no faith in the people with a small “p” governing, but entire faith in the People with a large “P” governed. He put entire trust in the masses, none whatever in the so-called ruling class.

St Joseph Herald (Saint Joseph, Michigan) Jan 15, 1870

EVERY SATURDAY, No. 15, for April 9, contains the first installment of Mr. Dickens’ new story, “The Mystery of Edwin Drood.” This 1st published from advance sheets, by special arrangement with Mr. Dickens, and appears simultaniously with its publication in England. It is accompanied by the illustrations drawn for the English edition by Mr. Fildes, under the supervision of Mr. Dickens himself. Those who desire to read this great story in its earliest and only authorized form in America, can find it in Every Saturday. This number of Every Saturday is rendered additionally attractive by an excellent new portrait of Mr. Dickens, and views of his residence at Gad’s Hill Place. A supplement is issued with the number, entitled “Mr. Pickwick’s Reception,” drawn expressly for this number by Mr. S. Eytinge, Jr. It represents the numerous personages of Mr. Dickens’ novels passing before Mr. Pickwick, to whom they are pointed out by the trusty Sam Weller. The admirers of Mr. Dickens will easily recognize their favorites and aversions, — Mr. Pecksniff and his daughters, jolly Mark Tapley, Mr. Micawber and the twins, Fagin, the Artful Dodger, the Fat Boy trying to grow fatter, Little Nell and her Grandfather, Dombey, Bob Cratchit with Tiny Tim, and indeed almost the entire roll of characters that throng Mr. Dickens’ unequalled stories.
FIELDS, OSGOOD & Co., Publishers, Boston.

St Joseph Herald (Saint Joseph, Michigan) Apr 9, 1870

Charles Dickens

It is said that the advertisements which will be printed at the end and beginning of each part of Mr. Dicken’s new novel will not only pay the cost of the novel’s “composition,” but leave a very handsome overplus. The only cost, therefore, to the author will be the paper and press-work. Mr. Dickens is his own publisher, and allows the trade publishers a commission on sales made, in this way reversing the usual relations between authors and publishers.

St Joseph Herald (Saint Joseph, Michigan) May 14, 1870

Nathaniel Parker Willis

I read somewhere, and can’t find the link now, that Boz, Dickens’ pen name, originated from someone called Moses, was shortened to Mos, then Boz.

Boz in Embryo.
We extract the following sketch of Charles Dickens, when he was not famous, from the last published letter of Mr. Willis, in the National Intelligencer; –

I am sorry to see by the English papers that Dickens has been ‘within the rules of the Queen’s Bench,’ realizing the prophecy of pecuniary ruin which has forsome time been whispered about for him. His splendid genius did not need the melancholy proof of improvidence, and he has had wealth so completely within his grasp that there seems a particular and unhappy needlessness in his ruin. The worst of his misfortune is that he has lived so closely at the edge of the flood-tide of his prosperity that the ebb leaves him at high water mark, and not in the contented ooze of supplied necessities where it first took him up. And, by the way, it was in tht same low-water period of his life — just before he became celebrated — I first saw Dickens; — and I will record this phase of his [chrysalis] — (the tomb of the caterpillar and the cradle of the butterfly as Linnaeus calls it) — upon the chance of its being as interesting to future ages as such a picture would now be of the ante-butterflevity]of Shakespeare.

I was following a favorite amusement of mine, one rainy day, in the Strand, London — strolling toward the more crowded thoroughfares with cloak and umbrella, and looking at people and shop windows, I heard my name called from a passenger in a street cab. From out the smoke of the wet straw peered the head of my publisher, Mr. Macrone,* (a most liberal and noble-hearted fellow, since dead) After a little catechism as to my damp destiny for that morning, he informed me that he was going to visit Newgate, and asked me to join him. I willingly agreed, never having seen this famous prison, and, after I was seated in the cab, he said he was to pick up on the way a young parapraphist for the Morning Chronicle, who wished to write a description of it. In the most crowed part of Holburn, within a door or two of the ‘Bull and Mouth’ Inn — the great starting and stopping place of the stage coaches — we pulled up at the entrance of a large building used for lawyers’ chambers. — Not to leave me sitting in the rain, Macrone asked me to dismount with him.

I followed by long flights of stairs to an upper story, and was ushered into an uncarpeted and bleak looking room, with a deal table, two or three chairs, and a few books, a small boy, and Mr. Dickens, for the contents. I was only struck at first with one thing — and I made a memorandum of it that evening, as the strongest instance I had seen of English obsequiousness to employers — the degree to which the poor author was overpowered by the honor of the publisher’s visit. I remember saying to myself, as I sat down on a rickety chair, ‘My good fellow, if you were in America with that fine face and ready quill, you would have need to be condescended to by a publisher.’ Dickens was dressed very much as he has since described “Dick Swiveller — minus the ’swell’ look. His hair was cropped close to his head, his clothes scant, though jauntily cut, and, after changing a ragged office coat for a shabby blue, he stood by the door collarless, and buttoned up, the very personification, I thought, of a close sailer to the wind.

We went down and crowded into the cab, (one more than law allowed, and Mr. Dickens partly in my lap and partly in Mr. Macrone’s) — and drove on to Newgate. In his works, if you remember, there is a description of the prison, drawn from this day’s observation. We were there an hour or two, and were shown some of the celebrated murderers confined thee for life, and one young soldier waiting for execution, and in one of the passages we chanced to meet Mrs. Frye on her usual errand of benevolence. Tho interested in Dicken’s face, I forgot him naturally enough after we entered the prison, and I do not think I heard him speak during the two hours. I parted with him at the door of the prison, and continued my stroll into the city.

Not long after this Macrone sent me the ’sheets of Sketches by Boz, with a note saying that they were by the gentleman who went with us to Newgate. I read the book with amazement at the genius displayed in it, and, in my note of reply, assured Macrone that I thought his for[tune] was made as a publisher if he could monopolize the author.

Two or three years afterward I was in London, and present at the complimentary dinner given to Macready. Samuel Lover, who sat next me, pointed out Dickens. I looked up and down the table, but was wholly unable to single him out without getting my friend to number the people who sat above him. He was no more like the man I had seen than a tree in June is like the same in February.

He sat leaning his head on his hand while Bulwer was speaking, and with his very long hair. his very flash waistcoat, his chain and rings, and withal a much paler face of old, he was totally unrecognisable. The comparison was very interesting to me, and I looked at him a very long time. He was then in his culmination of popularity, and seemed jaded to stupefaction — since I had seen him, I longed to pay him my homage, but had no opportunity, and did not see him again tell he came over to reap his golden harvest and upset his hay-cart in America. When all the ephemera of his imprudences and improvidences shall have passed away — twenty years hence — I should like to see him again, renowned as he will be for the most original and remarkable works of his time.

Bangor Daily Whig and Courier (Bangor, Maine) March 8, 1844

*John Macrone (1809-1837) Dickens first publisher (Sketches by Boz). After Dickens’ fame skyrocketed be was able to buy out his agreements with Macrone. Macrone died unexpectantly at age 28 and Dickens helped to publish a book (Pic-Nic Papers) to benefit Macrone’s widow and children.

It would have been a miracle if all the slippers had gone when I returned from Ambleside. They hadn’t. Over the weekend one after another, like Magi logging on to LastMinuteMyrrh.com, Citizens came to collect their orders. Big Trevor had ordered no fewer than six pairs. For his mother he’d ordered some lambswool moccasins in dusky pink. For his mother-in-law the same, but in a more restrained natural light tan. His two sisters and sister-in-law all got shiny silk sequined mules with a low heel in silver, black and red. His daughter got a pair of Winnie the Poohs, which Margaret says have been one of the best sellers over Christmas. Interestingly Trevor didn’t order any slippers for himself and nor did anyone else order any for him. Perhaps Trevor’s a barefoot sort of man at home, I thought. Or perhaps he’s hoping to get a pair for himself in the Slipper Sisters eBay shop sale, which was starting on Christmas Day (because that’s when Marks and Sparks start theirs, Margaret explained).

While I was away the Widow Middlemiss returned home. Her brother and sister-in-law are staying with her until the New Year. It seems she had been quite anxious about returning and had feared that when she got back she would find her house overrun with a plague of frogs. Fortunately this was not the case, although it did occur to me that as was it was winter now and the heating in the house hadn’t been on for months there could be any number of them hibernating behind her settee or under her bed. She sent Margaret a glittery white Christmas card with a picture of an angel on it. Inside the card she thanked Margaret for all her help at the time of the flood. She also gave Margaret a similar card to pass on the Brenda. On Sunday morning Maureen and the Whelp turned up at the Widow’s door. How do they do that? How did they know she had returned? Do doorstep evangelists have some sort of special radar which enables them to detect the presence of people like the Widow? Are they for instance like sharks, which are said to be able detect a single drop of blood in the ocean from more than five miles away and without fail to always find their way to its source within a matter of seconds? How do they do that?

At work most of the toys from the Salvation Army and other charities were delivered and distributed in my absence. We don’t get as many as we used too, though, and there are always a number of parents who turn up at our door in the days before Christmas asking if we can help. For the most part the answer is no. Whatever other Christmas bonuses he gives out there is no allowance for toys for the children of the poor, perhaps because that whole process would look a bit Dickensian and evoke images of the Poor House. The Poor House is not the sort of image New Labour is really looking for.

Lily took Boz’s kids through to the hospital to see him. He’s no longer on a secure ward and expects to be discharged early in the new year. Lily said he was very calm and ‘absolutely lovely’ with the kids. He had bought them presents and had a little Christmas party with them on the ward. They all wore Christmas hats and played pass the parcel and musical chairs with some of the other patients. Angie asked if the Mad Hatter had been there. Lily said he hadn’t. Apparently he’s on Prozac now and not half as much fun as he used to be.  As I listened to this conversation I recalled that the Mad Hatter had been found guilty of murdering time and his stopped at teatime watch came to mind. I wondered if Margaret would be resetting the time on her twenty three clocks for 2009.

On Christmas Eve Angie visited Mandy, Apple and Sparky. Mr Zee was still there and the situation was calm and settled. Mr Zee’s job interview was cancelled because the company went into liquidation and so the possible crisis has been averted, as least for the time being. Angie asked Sparky what he was hoping to get from Santa, and he said a Zorro suit just like his ‘daddy’s’. Unfortunately Flinty has become aware of this development in the relationship between Mr Zee and the children. He rang Angie on Christmas Eve, ostensibly to ask again how he was supposed to get his presents to them. Angie reminded him that he’d already been told several times that if he got them delivered to the office they we would see to it they got to the children in time.

‘Aye, but how can I do that?’ Flinty said. ‘I’m not allowed to enter Ashington, am I? What are you saying, that I should break the conditions of my parole?!’

‘No, Mr Flintoff,’ Angie said. ‘I am not suggesting you do anything of the sort. I would suggest that it would be very irresponsible for you to ever do such a thing.’

‘Aye, exactly,’ Flinty replied. ‘So how are the kids going to get their presents?’

‘Last time we spoke you said you could get your sister to drop them off. I thought that’s what we agreed would happen.’

‘But what if she doesn’t want to do that?’

‘You said she wouldn’t have any problem doing that. Did you ask her?’

‘That’s not the point, though, is it? What if she’d said no?’

‘So she said yes? So she can drop them off and we’ll make sure they’re delivered.’

‘Any way there’s another thing I’m not happy about. Someone tells me that that freak is making my kids call him dad. Is that true?’ It better bloody well not be.’

‘So far as I am aware Mandy’s current partner is not making the children call him anything,’ Angie said.

‘Hey, listen, pet. Them’s my bairns and I’m telling you now that neither you nor anybody else in this world has the right to let them think some weirdo from a fancy dress parlour is their dad. Got it, pet? I’m their dad, not that freak.’

‘Mandy’s partner has a very good relationship with the children, Mr Flintoff,’ Angie said. ‘It would be quite wrong to judge anyone merely by the way they dress. But for your information I can assure you he does not dress the way he does as a form of fancy dress. He’s actually a very serious person.’

‘Serious person, my arse! What sort of serious person needs to dress up as some sort of fictional Mexican bandito?! Eh?! If it isn’t just fancy dress, what is it, eh? Is he in disguise or something? Is he being hunted down by the Federales or something?!’

Flinty had a point, of course. There is a big difference between dressing up and being in disguise. A man dressed as an Arab to evade the attention of the police is a good example of the latter, and his behaviour is obviously open to explanation by reference to his predicament (although the reasons for his choice of disguise might be less clear). The reason why someone would simply want to spend all his or her waking hours dressed as Count Dracula, Mickey Mouse, Snow White, Godzilla or Zorro is rather less obvious, and in any case if someone did the term ‘wearing fancy dress’ would probably not be an adequate account of their behaviour. But Angie wasn’t wanting to debate the complexities of this issue with him or to provoke him further by raising The Arab question with him, an identity which in any case he’d simply categorically deny he’d ever assumed.

‘I think you’ll find, Mr Flintoff, that we all have a right under Human Rights legislation to dress as we choose, just so long as it doesn’t offend public decency or break some other law.’

‘And you don’t think that a geezer dressed up in cowboy boots and a cape living in the same house as my kids offends me?! What planet are ye from, pet?’

‘Obviously not the same one as you, Mr Flintoff,’ Angie replied. ‘Can I suggest that this conversation is getting us nowhere. If you get your sister to bring the presents in I’ll make sure they are delivered in time for Christmas.’

‘Hey, don’t bother, pet. I’ll tell you what, I’ll deliver them myself!’ he said, and hung up. Flinty’s sister brought the presents in to the office an hour or so later.

Every morning on the days before Christmas I noticed there was a lot of sand around the photocopier, especially on Christmas Eve morning. ‘Morning, Frodo,’ I said as I passed him. ‘How’s tricks?’

‘Is Tom having any holiday this Christmas?’ I asked Jesse from admin when she came up with a letter for me to sign.

‘No, I think he’s in every day,’ she said. ‘I don’t think he’s very big on Christmas.’

‘Has he got any family?’

‘Actually, I’m not sure. Tom’s a very, very private person. He never talks about his home life at all. He’s a sort of international man of mystery.’

‘So he doesn’t have a partner?’

Jesse shrugged. ‘If he does it’s not one he’s ever told anybody about,’ she said.

‘Kids?’

Jesse shrugged again.

‘Parents? Grandparents?’

She shook her head.

‘A girlfriend, a boyfriend, a best friend, a confidante?’

Another shrug.

‘A cat? A budgie? A goldfish?’

Late that afternoon there was only a skeleton staff left in the building. Tom had let all the other admin workers finish early and was in the main office, manning the telephones. I wandered through and sat down at one of the desks.

‘You all ready for Christmas, Tom?’ I said.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I am. I’m looking forward to a few days off.’

‘So do you do anything special at Christmas? Are you a party animal or a stay at home kind of guy?’

‘Oh, I’m not one for parties.’ he said, and smiled.

‘No, me neither,’ I said. ‘And doesn’t all this present buying business drive you loopy?! There’s supposed to be a recession going on. I don’t know about you, but to me it still seemed like Bedlam again out there this year! Still, what’s the point of having money if you’re not going to spend it on anyone, eh?’

Tom smiled, meekly. I noticed a parcel lying on his bag. It was wrapped in fine silver paper with gold spots on it and tied up with a blue satin ribbon. From its size and shape I would have said it looked very much like a new toner cartridge for a Xerox M35. There was also a ream of Premium Ivory Bond and a brand new green extendable leash on the floor near him, as well as another big gift wrapped bundle which looked to me as if it probably contained a quilted stable rug coat for a small horse.

‘Do you want to get away?’ Tom said. ‘I’m happy to hang on here. We can always get you on your mobile, can’t we?’

‘Thanks, Tom. That’s very kind of you. Yeah, I might do that.’

I suspected Tom wanted everyone to go so he could take Frodo home for Christmas. I sat for a minute or so. I got up, leant over towards Tom and shook his hand.

‘All the best to you and yours, Tom,’ I said. ‘Have a really good Christmas.’ What I was wanting to do of course was to remind him that a Xerox is for life, not just for Christmas.

‘Yes,’ Tom said. ‘All the best to you too. Merry Christmas.’

When I got home the house was full of the smell of the sweet onions Margaret was cooking for Christmas Day. I fed De Kooning a plate of prawns and sat for a while flicking through Bill Smith’s book on D Y Cameron. Then I went out for a walk. I crossed Broadway Circle and went along to the top of Waterloo Road to look at the house with the Christmas lights and the inflatable Homer Simpson dressed as Santa. I walked down past the still unfinished market place refurbishment and the bus station and on down to the quayside. It’s easy to convince yourself on a night like this that all is well with the world and that good will really does stalk the earth.

When I got back home Margaret was wrapping up the last of her presents.

‘Did you get Brenda something?’ I asked.

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I got her a pair of winter gloves and a matching muff in leopard skin faux fur and a sweet little Radley purse with a lime green dog. I also got her a Chanel Coco Mademoiselle Gift Set – perfume, body cream, body wash, everything. Coco‘s her favourite. She’ll really love it. Oh, and I got her some silver earrings from The Biscuit Factory, handmade ones with little birds dangling down.’

‘Did you get anything for Tristan?’

‘Of course. I wouldn’t leave him out, would I? I got him a three-pack of striped socks from Topman.’

‘Hmmm, good choice,’ I said. ‘Troskyists are really big on stripes this year.’

‘Oh, by the way, that’s your present from Brenda over there,’ Margaret said. ‘The one beneath the tree in the holly and mistletoe paper.’

I picked it up. It was a cube, each side being perhaps twelve inches in length. I shook it. It rattled a little and I fancied it might have slurped or gurgled too. I very much wanted it to be an electric screwdriver set, but its weight and sound told me it wasn’t.  I wondered if I stared at it long enough and wished hard enough I could change the contents of my unopened gift into what I wanted it to be. I wondered if it was a Plaster of Paris Paint It Yourself horse’s head or an illuminated world globe showing the map of the British Empire at the end of the Nineteenth Century. It was probably not a good idea to entertain such thoughts though, just in case. Be careful what you wish for, as they say.

‘Do you know what it is?’ I asked Margaret.

‘No, of course not,’ she replied.

I decided to open it. It was a battery powered Zen-style Feng Shui Windchime Table Fountain. That’s what it said on the box. I took it out. It somehow reminded me of the whale’s jawbone arch at Whitby, although of course that isn’t made of silver plastic. The Table Fountain is obviously meant to be a therapeutic ornament, something to soothe me.

‘Oh, isn’t that lovely!’ Margaret said. ‘It’s so unusual, isn’t it? You must remember to thank her for it.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I will. By the way, you did put my name on her present, didn’t you?’

‘Yes, of course. Why? You haven’t bought her something on your own, have you?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I haven’t. Not this year. I only wish I had.’

 .

The clocks went back last night. British Summer Time is over, the dark nights are here. It was a sunny morning, cool and windy. As I left the house to go for a walk and get the newspapers, Hugo was getting out of his car. He had a small plastic giraffe under his arm.

‘Here, mate, that tree of yours has suddenly gone yellow, hasn’t it?’ he shouted.

‘Happens every autumn, Fletch,’ I said, laughing.

Maureen and the Whelp were knocking on the Widow’s door.

‘She’s gone away,’ I said.

‘Oh?’ Maureen said. The Whelp gawped superciliously over her shoulder.

‘No, no,’ I said, seeing that my remark had an ambiguity which those who were religiously minded might find especially confusing. ‘I mean she’s gone to stay with her brother in Derbyshire. We’re not sure when she’ll be back.’

‘Oh,’ Maureen said again, but this time with a relieved smile. She got out her note book and wrote something in it. Perhaps she was noting that the Widow hadn’t escaped doing business with them by grabbing an early flight to heaven with the Methodists.

Boz went completely off the rails last week. He came to the office several times with one query after another about his children and his rights and the stupidity of the law.  On Wednesday he was arrested for stealing seed from a bird-feeder in a garden on the Fallowfield estate. It appears that he had been reliably informed that commercial bird seed contains cannabis seeds.

Boz had estimated that there are probably about five hundred bird feeders in Ashington, mostly hanging from trees and bird tables in the new private estates. He reckoned that there would be on average a pound of seed in each feeder. If ten percent of that was cannabis seed that would be fifty pounds of the stuff.  Boz reckoned a shrewd dealer would surely pay a tidy sum for fifty pounds of cannabis seed. All he had to do was to break the town into manageable harvesting districts – each district being about the right size for one night’s work – and systematically gather the seed from the gardens. He couldn’t fail.

On Wednesday night he found himself with his back against a six foot lattice fence in a garden in Magnolia Drive, cornered behind the garden pond by a Rottweiller called Dexter Dan. Dexter Dan’s owner, Geoffrey Harrison, a retired seaman and Chief Storekeeper by trade, shone his high-powered torch into Boz’s face and told him the police were on there way. Rather uncharacteristically Boz said nothing and instead began eating the seed from his pocket. He later explained that he’d calculated that trespass was a less serious offence than possession of more of a Class C drug than he could reasonably argue was for personal use only.

Boz was released the following morning and came in to see Lily at about lunchtime.  He told her of the idea he’d had and how he’d been apprehended on his very first seed gathering expedition.

‘They kept me in a cell all night, Lil,’ he said. ‘The police have no right to do the things they do, you know. Do I look like a criminal to you, Lil? Do I?’

Lily shook her head ambiguously. ‘So did they charge you with anything?’ she asked.

‘They’re complete numpties, complete bloody wassocks.’

‘So you were charged with something?’

‘They charged me with criminal damage to a bird feeder.’ Boz looked Lily straight in the eyes. He was very serious. He was saying loud and clear that this was no laughing matter.

‘Well, that’s not serious, Boz,’ she said. ‘I mean, it might never get to court.’

‘They also charged me with the theft of ten ounces of birdseed with an estimated value of two pounds fifty.’ He paused.

Lily put his hand on his shoulder.

‘I’ll be a laughing stock, Lil,’ he said. ‘The numpties from Newbiggin will call me Birdseed or Pecker or something else just as stupid that they’ll think is absolutely bloody hilarious. I’ll never be able to hold my head up in Ashington again. Never.’

‘Forget about it,’ Lily said. ‘Listen, no-one will ever know about it in any case if it doesn’t get to court. And I’m sure it won’t, Boz. It’d be a waste of public money.’

‘Can I have the kids this weekend, Lil?’ Boz asked, very calmly. ‘I need them with me right now. You can come and inspect the caravan if you want.’

Lily shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, Boz’, she said. ‘You know that can’t happen. It’s just not the right thing for the kids.’

Boz shook his head slowly. But he didn’t get angry at all. In fact, Lily felt he accepted this very easily. He looked very composed, as if he’d finally gained control of himself. As if, as Lily put it, the penny had finally dropped. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I just needed to ask you. You understand that, right?’

‘Yes,’ Lily said. ‘I do understand.’

What happened in the next few hours is somewhat unclear. However, at about eight thirty on Thursday evening the police were called to Bubbles where Boz was being restrained by the doorman and a couple of lads from North Seaton. Boz had gone into Bubbles and announced to everyone there that he was a suicide bomber and that he was about to blow the place up. He pulled open his jacket and revealed a belt which he claimed was packed with explosives. The doorman sauntered over, head-butted him and threw him to the ground. The lads from North Seaton then helped out by putting in the boot. They removed the belt and found it was packed with Rowntree’s Table Jelly.

The police arrested Boz and initially considered holding him under Schedule 8 of the Terrorism Act 2000. However, it struck the duty Sergeant that a man who had just one day earlier been arrested for stealing birdseed from a garden feeder and who at the time of arrest had nothing more dangerous on his person than some unopened packets of Rowntree’s Table Jelly, probably wasn’t a member of Al Qaeda. In fact, he probably wasn’t at all well. Later that night Boz was sectioned. He is now in St George’s Hospital.

On Friday night I went to a working men’s club in Cramlington for the retirement do for Rosie Lake, who has managed long-term placements for children since time began. I don’t like these sort of does and, while I like and respect Rosie, I would normally have given it a very wide berth. Unfortunately I was roped into being a late replacement for Jack Verdi, who was going to play the piano for some of Rosie’s colleagues who wanted to sing a few songs for her. Jack rang me up and told me that for personal reasons he wouldn’t now be able to play. He asked me to stand in for him. I reluctantly agreed. I said I was surprised that he wasn’t able to go as he and Rosie had once been rivals for the same post and had been through a lot together. He said he genuinely regretted not being able to play for her.

Jack Verdi used to be a professional musician before he gave it all up to become a social worker and raise a family. Jack was in a band that made one or two chart-topping singles. He lived the rock and roll lifestyle to the hilt and in his younger days had quite a reputation as a hell-raiser. The story of how he once threw the ironing board out of the window of the Chelsea Hotel is still recounted in music circles to this day. Jack was hot tempered and quite notorious for getting into fights with other musicians about apparently insignificant issues. One story relates how he once threw a pint of cider over a sound engineer who’d suggested that B-flat was a better key than G for a particular song. This propensity for fighting led to Jack acquiring the nickname of ‘Scrapper’, and again even now from time to time in Q or Mojo or Rolling Stone you will see Scrapper Verdi invoked as the paradigm for the wild man of British rock.

On more than one occasion in recent years Jack has been expected to play at departmental leaving does, but for one reason or another he has never yet done so. Some people believe this is because Jack very much prefers the electric organ to the piano, and because he cannot bear to play anything but a top class instrument. It’s said he has a really wonderful organ, but that it’s far too big to bring along to a do. Someone once told me it’s a Hammond organ – complete with bass pedalboard and every other bell and whistle – and that it once belonged to Billy Preston. What people say is that Jack’s reputation depends upon his organ and that without it he’d be very ordinary. They say this is the reason he never plays in public nowadays.

I think that may be a little harsh. Jack has in fact sometimes turned up at a do but when he has he has always done something other than play the piano. It is true of course that he has sometimes chosen to do something unexpected and slightly eccentric. When Sally Chaudry left the Adoption Unit, Jack went along to her leaving do, stepped up to the microphone and read aloud for her selected passages from Moby Dick. Then, completely unaccompanied, he sang in their entirety two long Greenland whaling songs. The urge to perform really is irrepressible in some people.

I went along to Rosie’s do at about seven. I checked out what songs we were doing with Betty Gormley, who was the main singer for the evening. Betty – known to her colleagues as “Butterbeans” – is a bluff sort of woman from Rotherham. As a young woman she worked in a textile mill and used to sing in local pubs at nights to make some extra money. Like Jack she got a taste for the limelight and even though she moved on in her life – she married a man who ran a betting shop and got herself an education – she too is still drawn back there sometimes.

There was a reasonable turn out for Rosie’s do, including one or two notable faces from the past.  There were also some notable absentees, of course, not least among them Gilmour, who had told Rosie he’d be there for sure.

Once everyone had arrived Freddy Fotheringay, Rosie’s senior manager, made an amusing if somewhat predictable speech about the great service she has given the Department. He then presented her with her leaving present. Rosie took to the mike and did her bit, paying warm and generous tributes to colleagues past and present. She also took a few well-aimed shots at the pernicious effects that managerialism is having on the services provided for vulnerable children. Freddy smiled and took it on the chin. The Inspectors will be back soon and there’s not a blind thing he can do about it. It occurred to me at that point how Rosie suddenly looked older than she did just a week or so ago, and somehow much smaller. When someone’s working life comes to an end does something physical suddenly happen to them?

I took to the piano and Betty along with one or two of her colleagues took to the mike, most notably Talullah Hudspith, the youngest woman in the room, who has a strange penchant for feathers and platform shoes. We banged out three or four numbers from the Chas and Dave Songbook, which always goes down well this kind of audience. We then did one or two of Betty’s personal favourites – ‘When I’m Cleaning Windows’ and ‘Pedro the Fisherman’ – before ending with a rousing version of ‘Wish Me Luck (As You Wave Me Goodbye)’. Betty knew her audience well; it all went down perfectly.

Performance over, I sat at the back of the room with a plate full of crisps, the only guaranteed vegetarian option from the buffet table. I was sitting musing on the meaning of retirement and the loss of purpose that it sometimes brings. I was also musing about how suddenly it can alter our perception of a person, especially if that person has been powerful at work. That loss of power seemed to me perhaps the thing that stripped the person of their aura, that made them suddenly seem physically different. I was wondering if that is why my dad sometimes seems so small to me nowadays. He never did when I was a kid. Do we always instinctively equate size with power and does this affect our perception? Do we imagine a big person is powerful and therefore imagine a powerful person is big?

I was pondering how I might make my getaway when Butterbeans Gormley got back on to the stage and called for everyone’s attention. There had been a complaint made to the police and they were on their way over now. They wanted to interview Rosie, she believed, and possibly some others. No-one should leave the room. Rosie shook her head. She was genuinely aghast at this prospect. Everyone present was stunned into silence.

And then the policeman entered the room. He had his hat on and a truncheon at his side and walked purposefully into the middle of the darkened room. And at that point Butterbeans must have pressed play on the CD player. ‘You Sexy Thing’ by Hot Chocolate began blaring out. The policeman looked up and threw his helmet across the room.

It was Jack Verdi. One or two gasped, one or two covered their faces, one or two cheered. Most pinched themselves to see if they were awake and tried desperately to get their hands to make a clapping motion. Jack began gyrating sinuously in front of Rosie.

Jack looked flushed to me, but he was clearly still in remarkable condition, the result no doubt of the obsession with jogging he has had in recent years. He ripped of his Velcroed on jacket. We all know where he got this routine from, and it wasn’t Herman Melville. He ripped off his shirt, ripped off his policeman’s trousers. He writhed around shamelessly to the relentless music, dressed only in shiny black boots, black socks and a black leather thong. Jack was giving it his all, turning back the clock to give Rosie a send-off she’d never forget. There was only one question now: were we about to see the Full Monty Verdi?

Jack’s a friend, so let me spare his blushes. But I will say this: sometimes there’s a lot to be said for a Greenland whaling song. There’s a lot to be said for the Hammond Organ too.

Yesterday I finished my painting of Corby’s Crag. It has a certain roughness to it that I like, and the palette is wider than I’ve been using in the last year or so. I’ve got too many paintings lying around the house now. Perhaps I should try to sell some of them.

This afternoon I went out on the bike for an hour or so. I rode out across the reclaimed land from the old Isabella Colliery and then on up to Bebside and up the Heathery Lonnen to the Three Horse Shoes. It was hard work riding into the strong westerly wind, but it was a beautiful autumnal day. In places the roads were laminated with brown and yellow leaves and blowing down all around me. I rode up into Cramlington. It began to rain lightly and for a few minutes I stopped in a subway, where I read the graffiti and reflected again on Jack’s performance on Friday night. Once a rock star, always a rock star, I thought.

When the rain stopped I decided to head for home. With the wind at my back I flew down the Laverock Hall Road, past the bruised blackberry bushes and the tattered hawthorns. I came down Plessey Road with the late afternoon sun at my back and could see my long shadow pedalling ahead of me. In the pale blue sky over the sea there were a few ragged dark grey clouds. One of them was shaped like a West Highland Terrier.

I sat with De Kooning in the conservatory as I ate my rice and broccoli. I was trying to reset my watch, to turn it back an hour. It’s a complicated multi-function digital device and I still hadn’t discovered how to do it when Margaret came into the room. She was waiting for a pan of onions and turnip to cook.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

‘Trying to set my watch,’ I replied.

‘Oh, of course,’ she said. ‘The clock’s have gone back.’

‘So are you going to reset all the stopped ones?’ I asked. ‘Make then quarter past two instead of quarter past three? You should really.’

‘Why?’ she said. ‘The time on a stopped clock is meaningless.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ I said. ‘It seems to me that you’ve now got twenty two clocks that are all an hour fast.’

Margaret shook her head and tutted.

‘Well, what about the Napoleon in your room?’ I said. ‘Are you going to put that back to the same time as the others again?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t think so. Some things are best left alone.’

Which reminds me, I must go out and see where Hugo’s put the small plastic giraffe.

 .

My computer’s been down. In a way it was if the world had stopped. A bit like not going to work. A bit like being without a television.

Last week Boz got himself locked up. At the beginning of the week he was in the office talking to Lily about abducting his children and hiding away with them in the caravan at Sandy Bay. Lily pointed out that he had already sabotaged his own plan by disclosing his secret whereabouts. Boz threw a wobbler and stormed out. He went into the car park and began methodically ripping the wing mirrors off cars. This is no easy task – a bit like pulling out a rhinocerous tooth, I thought. Once extracted he threw the detached mirrors over the wall into the street. He detached five in all, including both the driver’s and passenger’s side from Meg Bomberg’s BMW. At least no-one will notice the wiggly scratch now, as Lily said.

Boz then went and sat on the wall and had a cigarette. He was sitting there almost serenely when the police arrived in their Ford Focus panda car. They rolled down the window. The officer asked him if he knew anything about the five broken mirrors lying in the road.

Boz shook his head. ‘Me?’ he said. ‘Naw, nowt to do with me, mate. Do I look like a vandal? Naw, it must be the numpties from Newbiggin.’

Lily walked out into the car park at this point. Boz glanced at her.

‘So do I look like a kidnapper to you?’ he asked the police officer. ‘Do I? Do I have the look of a man who would abduct children? Well, come on – do I?’

The police officer glanced across at his colleague. He had a wry smile on his face. Lily hadn’t said a word.

‘You think that’s funny, do you? Eh?’ Boz said, throwing his cigarette down and standing up. He scrunched his stub into the pavement. For a moment he stood looking at the police officer, nodding his head slowly. Then like a leopard he suddenly pounced on the Focus wing mirror and began riving at it.

The police officers leapt out, twisted his arm up his back, slapped him in handcuffs, and threw him in the back seat of the panda, its passenger side mirror dangling like an almost severed limb. Boz bellowed and sang that they were numpties, numpties, numpties, that all policemen are numpties. They took him away to the station.

Lily looked at me and shrugged. ‘Do you think it’s time to cancel the anger management sessions?’ she said.

That night when I got home the clock was still ticking. The global economy was in a state of chaos. De Kooning wanted me to pick him up and carry him to the kitchen. I did so and then went for a walk before night fell.

On Thursday morning I caught the beginning of In Our Time as I drove to work. By sheer coincidence, I would suggest, the programme was looking at miracles. In the introductory part they looked at the Jewish and Christian versions of the idea and the way it was bound up with the idea of God and His power to intervene in the world. It seems that the Hebrew word used in the Bible means both ‘wonder’ and ‘sign’. It interested me that these two concepts could be separated. The programme moved on to the Hindu and Taoist view of miracles, where a miracle can just be a wonder and not a sign at all. It seems that someone with these world views can witness as a miracle and regard it with a sense of wonder – and be fully aware that it defies the laws of nature – but not think it has a meaning. Such things are not signs. The Taoist has no idea why they happen and isn’t much bothered in any case. They just do. This is an attitude that is alien to the west, I was thinking. Western cultures are heavy on ‘the need for cognition’, so much so that some Western psychologists consider it to be one of our fundamental traits.  We need to know why things happen. We want explanations. Everything happens for a reason. We need to give an event a meaning.

The programme mentioned the case of the Hindu milk miracle, which occurred in 1996, and involved a stone statue of Ganesha the sacred elephant drinking milk. Or seeming to drink milk, depending on your point of view. This caused great excitement in the Hindu community and Hindus from far and wide came to witness the phenomenon. Even in Britain sales of milk near Hindu communities soared as people went off to get a bottle and feed a spoonful to their local stone elephant. The excitement was about something wonderful happening and the desire to witness a supernatural event. There was little concern about what the event might mean, it seems. Of course even in India the need to explain quickly asserted itself in some quarters. Scientists rapidly came up with the explanation that the stone elephant appeared to drink the milk because of capillary action: the stone was porous. Hindus resented this wonder being taken from them. Why is it that things that have an explanation cannot still be wonderful?

I was thinking, of course, about the Napoleon in Margaret’s bedroom. Its tick was nagging at me. Maybe I should just regard it as a wonder, a clockwork Ganesha. Maybe I should try to persuade Margaret that this magic ticking really had no meaning, that it was a sign of nothing at all. What in fact was the evidence that it had a meaning, and what was the evidence that it had any particular meaning? Was there a message in the ticking, a secret language of ticks that a suitably inspired listener might translate?  Is there a Rosetta Stone of ticking? I doubted it somehow.

When I got in De Kooning ran up to me, as if he had great news. Had the Napoleon stopped? I picked him up, but before I got to the door of Margaret’s bedroom I knew it hadn’t. I pushed open the door and looked over at it. It gazed back smugly. It was ticking steadily, indifferently, like a cow chewing the cud of time.

‘I think I’ll have a cappuccino,’ I said. ‘Do you want a few prawns?’

I sat in the conservatory with my cappuccino, trying to read The Guardian. I wondered if I should ring the Greek, but I knew what he would say: the clock will stop, be patient. I began to think I would have to take matters into my own hands and take a spanner to this insolent clockwork wonder. I began to fear that once word got out about the Napoleon’s perpetual motion, miracle freaks from around the globe would flock to our house for a glimpse of this wonder. They would come with camcorders, digital cameras and mobile phones and probably pay for the thrill of recording it, although what the value of a recording of a ticking clock – albeit an impossibly ticking one – would be was a little unclear to me. What would be important, however, was that Margaret and Brenda didn’t realise the money making potential of this freak clock.

Scientists and horologists from around the world would descend upon us. Theories would proliferate. The government would call for calm. Gordon would have to decide upon some Calvinist neo-liberal position on the question, a view with which all cabinet ministers would be bound to agree. It would have to be made very clear that even if this miracle is a sign, it’s not a sign of anything about the economy. There were clear dangers that it would be read that way in the current climate, given that the miracles the unregulated global markets have brought to us are now falling apart around their ears. Gordon would have to act to marginalise and neutralise the miracle of Margaret’s Napoleon.

It was becoming clear: a miracle can lose its gloss fairly quickly. Miracles might not be all they’re cracked up to be. Naturalists and supernaturalists, deists and atheists and Seventh Day Adventists, Neo-Druids and a host of other New Age pilgrims would squabble and debate night and day at our gate. Makeshift camps would spring up on the grass verges, mini-Glastonburies. The faithful would be found asleep or urinating in gardens. The neighbours would complain. Geraldine would probably go to the press. The miraculous clock would be as bad as the Citadel – worse possibly – another dreadful blight on their peaceful existence. The police would put permanent traffic cones down the street. Celebs would arrive for a photo opportunity. Robbie Williams might arrive. Or Jade Goody. My mind went back to the spanner: surely it would be better to nip this curse in the bud? But how could I do that without admitting that a miracle may have occurred? How could I destroy the evidence that I might be wrong about the nature of the world?  I was in a cleft stick. I’d have to hold firm and wait. The Greek was surely right: the Napoleon would stop any day now.

I spent a lot of last weekend out and about, walking or cycling. I was avoiding the ticking, I suspect. When I was in the house I’d sit in the Conservatory staring at the dark dreadful matrix of the Citadel with De Kooning, playing music loudly enough to make absolutely sure not a tick could be heard. I listened a lot to Teddy Thompson’s latest album. It turns out to be an especially good record to drive away unwanted ticks. I think De Kooning liked it too. From time to time I got up with him and we danced a little as we looked out together at the darkening world.

On Monday I was going first thing to a meeting in North Shields. Margaret asked me to drop off another box of slippers at Brenda’s on the way.  I got there at about half nine. Tristan answered the door. He came to the door in pale blue pyjamas and a pair of checky brown slippers, which looked brand new to me. His hair was tousled.

‘Morning, Tristan,’ I said. ‘Are you not working today?’

‘No jobs,’ he said. ‘Business is slow. It’s the cwedit cwunch, mate.’

Yes, of course, I thought to myself, the cwedit cwunch. It has consequences for us all, even a Trotskyist plumber from Whitley Bay.

‘So is this the beginning of the end for capitalism, do you think?’ I asked. ‘Is this the way the system collapses?’

‘It’s in sewious twouble, mate, that’s for sure. But they can’t afford to let it fall. They’ll pwop it up no matter what it costs. No point in expecting miwacles, as the man said. And as my father always weminded me, capitalism is adaptable. It’s wuthless. It’s survived this long and it’ll survive a while yet. And he was wight. I’m beginning to think the world will be on its knees before we’ll see socialism.’

It was nice to be reminded of the illustrious Wupert. Tristan, of course, is probably right.

‘So is Brenda in?’ I said. ‘I’ve got a box of mules for her.’

‘Yes, she’s just getting weady.’ Tristan said. ‘She’s got a client in about ten minutes. She’s been away for the weekend and she got back late last night.’

‘So where’s she been? Anywhere special?’

‘A poetwy festival. She loved it. She seems to get a lot out of mixing with poets. She finds it exciting. It’s a load of pwetentious wubbish to me. But each to their own, eh? ‘

I nodded. ‘So what kind of client does Brenda have this morning, Tristan – someone for acupuncture?’

‘No, weiki, I think.’ Tristan replied. ‘Mr Armitage. He’s been having twouble with his kidneys. Or is it his knees? Anyway, here he is now.’ Tristan nodded towards the road. An old man in a blue Rover was pulling up. I gave Tristan the box of slippers and bid him farewell.

‘Say hello to Brenda for me,’ I said. I was wondering what kind of poetry she reads. I was wondering if she reads Lorca. Perhaps she prefers Bukowski.

I drove on the North Shields, listening to some more Teddy Thompson. I was noticing the ways he reminds me of his dad, something that wasn’t very obvious to me at first.

When I arrived at the office Boz was sitting in reception.

‘So they let you out, Boz, did they?’ I said.

‘Of course they did,’ he said. ‘Do I look like a criminal? I hadn’t done anything in the first place. It was their fault, not mine. That’s the trouble with the police, they show people no respect.’

Mandy Potts was in the interview room with Debs. Debs told me she was worried because the phone calls had started again. Over the weekend they’ve had Yvonne Fair on three separate occasions. Someone has also told her that a white Mercedes was driving around the estate in the early hours of Sunday morning and that Elephant Carmichael’s been released on bail.

‘And she says Molly Armstrong’s on the game,’ Debs said. ‘Mandy says Flinty always tried to get her to go on the game when he needed money for drugs. She thinks he must be desperate. When he can’t get drugs he’s unpredictable.’

‘So what does she want you to do?’ I asked.

‘’Nothing, I think. She just wants to talk about it. She wishes he would just disappear, but she knows I haven’t got a magic wand.

‘Is she still with Mr Zee?’ I asked.

‘Yeah,’ Debs said. ‘The kids were with him while she came in.’

I listened to Teddy Thompson again as I drove home that night. When I got in I heard the Napoleon ticking. I let De Kooning out and got changed. I went out for a walk. I walked over to the old campsite beside the reservoir at South Newsham and then down to the beach. I walked along the promenade and then followed the beach road and Wensleydale Terrace to the park. I went along the quayside and through the footpath on Ballast Hill. I walked along York Street and from there through Morrison’s car park. I went all the way up Bowes Street and then along Renwick Road and past the council offices on my way home.

When I got back Margaret was in. As soon as I came through the door she asked me if I’d done anything to the Napoleon.

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I won’t touch it, I promise.’

‘It’s stopped,’ she said.

‘It’s stopped?!’ I said. ‘Your Napoleon’s stopped?!’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It’s stopped. Have you done anything to it? Please tell me the truth. Have you?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘No, I swear I haven’t. I’d thought about, of course, more than once. But, no, I haven’t touched it.’

Margaret shook her head. ‘I can’t believe it,’ she said. ‘I can’t believe it. What am I going to tell Brenda? Why would it suddenly stop?’

This was an odd question, the exact opposite of the question that had been bothering me. I had ideas, but I didn’t think Margaret was in the mood for them. What I wanted to tell her was that Teddy Thompson was to blame. But I didn’t.

De Kooning came trotting in from the garden. It was almost dark. I picked him up and went into the kitchen. I stood him on the bench and put the kettle on.

‘So what do you think of that?’ I said to him, almost gleefully, scratching his head for him in that way he likes so much. ‘The clock’s stopped. Just think – no Robbie Williams, no Katie and Peter, no Jade Goody. It’s a miracle, isn’t it, an absolute bloody miracle!’

.