About being comfortably numb ...

Saint Anley has endured a bad couple of weeks.
I guess it's no worse than anyone else.
You know: interpersonal abuse, family disputes, impending bankruptcy etc. ... nothing of global nor historical significance.
Of course, all his tribulations are utterly trivial, albeit they cause him sleepless nights.

To digress ...
Saint Anley very rarely engages with contemporary popular music.
(Who is Lady Gaga, anyway?!)
However, on Sunday, while Saint Anley was trying to look at the inside of his eyelids, Mrs St.A insisted on listening to BBC Radio 2: Johnny Walker presenting Sounds of the Seventies.
Jane is a rock-chick who likes that sort of thing.
Saint Anley was forbidden to watch Songs of Praise.

Then he heard this ...

"Wow!" he said, "Where was I in 1979?"

"What did I miss?"

Now, one wonders, how can one achieve 'comfortable numbness' without the aid of illicit substances?

Saint Anley has some difficulty in adopting this position ...

Now, empty your mind and chant with me ... "ommmmm."

That doesn't look comfortable at all!

How many wives?

Now it is time to explain ...

Last week, before visiting the Mary Rose Museum, St. Anley attended a folk music club in company of somebody else's wife.
My friend Barry was there.
I introduced Laura.
Assumptions were made.

It was two days later that St. Anley, accompanied by two wives, visited the aforementioned museum where he recognised Barry in Tudor apparel.

"Hello, Barry," said St. A, "This is my wife, Jane."
Barry took a pace back. His thinking was evident ...
"That's not the wife who accompanied you on Tuesday."
Melanie, Jane's college friend, joined us.
"Oh, and here's Melanie."
Melanie being another man's wife.

Thus are sown the seeds of confusion.

It gets even more complicated ...
Yesterday I attended the same folk song club, initially unaccompanied.
I performed The Ballad of Mary Rose, after an explanatory preamble. It was rather well received, though Barry's response was ambivalent.

Then a lady arrived.
I recognised her as a near-neighbour and friend.
I embraced her warmly, (thinking, "Here's my lift home!")
The gathering gasped, "What ... another wife?!"
"I will explain later, dear," I whispered to my warmly-embraced friend.

It gets worse ...
Lucy, a lovely lady of my long-time acquaintance, asked, "Can we sing Pleasant and Delightful."
"Yes!" said I.
I stumbled slightly when it came to the line:
...and if ever I return again, I will make you my bride.

Oh dear, there's an unsavoury reputation in the making here!

The Ballad of Mary Rose ...

Last week St. Anley, in the company of two wives, visited the Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth's Historic Dockyard.

He met a friend who was an official guide.

Barry was barely recognisable in his Tudor attire: cap, tunic, breeches, hosen and shoon.

Barry took us in hand and delivered an eloquent account of the Battle of the Solent, (1545.)

A large crowd gathered to listen.

Saint Anley was thereafter inspired to poetry ...

The Ballad of Mary Rose

As I walked through the dockyard to see Mary Rose,
I spied an old man wearing very strange clothes.
The old man was erudite ‘bout maritime things:

Of historical seamen and ships of the Kings

He adopted a most magisterial pose,

Went on to declaim in eloquent prose.

*[His language was strange, archaic you’d say.

For ‘S’ he’d use ‘F’ like they did on that day.
(Be careful if you mean to say ‘suck!’)]

On 19th July, MDXLV of our Lord,

Mary Rose weighed her anchor, 400 on board.

Little room for manoeuvre, a very slight breeze,

She made for the French fleet upon the high seas.

She tacked onto starboard, her port side went down.

Gun-ports left open, so now they must drown.

Thirty-seven crewmen survived on that day

To speak of the chaos and dreadful affray.

On 19th July, in those days of yore,

The old man survived … he’ll tell you more.
The cabin-boy survived ... he'll tell you more!

CT, July 2014

It scans, with only a little shoe-horning, to the tune Shores of Old Blighty, (Graham Miles.)

* I might miss out that unsavoury interjection about 'S' and 'F'.

With many thanks to Barry who enlightened our visit considerably.

I suppose we should have tipped him a groat-or-two, but we'd run out!