The End is where we start from…

There is an imperceptible change from tsimtsum to tikun. Yesterday Magritude Feather appeared and released Sevalanz and Emelda, who stumbled off to complain to the lorry driver, who moved forward to the parking bay, thus ensuring Kolya’s safety. Yumble, unable to use his mobile crossed the roundabout and bumped into Indrek who he directed towards the Mews where he was welcomed by Felix. As a result, today the players in the grand drama have been disarmed, and all is well. Prigentia’s dreams of retaliation are dissolved. For now she is distraught, but in time, with the help of the young Kimrock she will realise that things happen, and all is for the best in the best of all possible gardens.

Amplification

Tomorrow is the culmination of Prigentia’s plan of revenge. Everything is unfolding in exactly the manner that Loretta Garsten-Manir predicted. Indrek Karlosoroff is lost on the way to make peace with Felix and Frab. Sevelanz Grimple and Emelda Bush are still tied to the Great Elm (in protest), Hamentash Yumble stands by the roundabout trying to get a signal on his mobile phone, and infant genius Kolya Quinine is unknowingly walking into mortal danger by toddling along behind the articulated lorry that is unloading crates of non-Iftic beer at McGonagall’s. All is set for the final disaster. But suddenly in the midst of Oud Ramonides’ Reikarian Meditation there is a shift in the amplification of the gigul, and all changes.

Into the Crowned Knot of Fire

Of all people, it is Zebedee Thurlough who finally manages to arrange an interim cease-fire in the sudden war between the Karlosoroff brothers. Felix promises that if Indrek is prepared to visit and apologise, then he will forgive him. Looking into her crystal onion, Prigentia is alarmed. The feared but necessary shvirah is threatened. Fratricidal warfare is essential for the fulfillment of the Ptolomaic prediction. By weaving a few infinitesimal calculations she throws into confusion Indrek’s normally accurate navigational sense. The ether quivers. All that remains now is to sacrifice an innocent child. For this Prigentia’s thoughts turn to the infant genius, Kolya. Meanwhile the residents of Seven Dials are only dimly aware of the portentous dangers that face them.

The Intricate knots of Holy Hemp

Lucien Jung has proposed a grand day of demonstrations against Irrational Superstitions. At first there is grand indifference to the plan, until the rumour spreads that he includes amongst his targets the Lurian Gilgul.  The coordinator of the Seven Dials Ladies’ Kabbala Tsimtsum Circle  arranges an emergency convention, and it is agreed that Sevelanz Grimple and Emelda Bush will spearhead a protest. As the clock strikes seven, their colleagues securely tie the two veteran activists to the gnarled trunk of the Great Elm, with thick ropes spun from Holy Hemp. Confronted by intricate knots that were devised by the ancient magi, the local community policewoman Sergeant Alicia Drublick is unable to release them. A crowd assembles to watch the action.

Resolving the Perturbations

Something is disturbing the equilibrium in the mystical world of Rabbi Oud Ramonides. He is browsing through two books, the one that his daughter Kugarita has given to his son (the Idiot’s Guide to Macrame Theory), and Frab’s Illustrated Reikarian Meditation. The latter looks more relevant. He resolves to practice the essential meditation exercises for twenty minutes each day until the perturbations are resolved and the direction of the tikun corrected. Meanwhile at Little Porrit, the nuns’ at the Cruxicogentian Retreat are arranging a Giggle (Sister Berberabilia who is slightly hard of hearing) misheard one of Oud’s weekly lectures about Kabbala. Over time the Giggle will acquire a life of its own, and become a national tradition, like a Ceilidh. 

Strife and Sacrifice

Prigentia finalises her plans and predictions. The Ptolomaic charts of Eusebius have made explicit the cognitive and field force links between the Mamre Oak and the Great Elm (the ladies of the Seven Dials Ladies’ Kabbala Tsimtsum Circle would appreciate this). From this, four events are necessary. The forces of belief will be opposed by the forces of reason. Two women will be bound forever to the tree of energy. Strife will strengthen between brothers. The last requisite is the sacrifice of an infant genius.  Prigentia casts her final spells, and utters the fateful incantations, then she goes to the local Coffee Republic for a latte and porridge. As she has a fully stamped loyalty card, her coffee is free.

The moving finger writes...

Time moves on relentlessly. Frab pleads with Felix to go easy on Indrek. He offers him extra reikarian therapy time but Felix is adamant. He does not show Frab the crumpled letter he received from Prigentia stirring up the issue with her interpretation of Indrek's comment. She warns that Indrek is trying to undermine his brother's relationship. To Felix, who is undoubtedly over sensitive, this is only too plausible. This was the case since they were children. So Prigentia's plan  unwinds as planned. Again we recall Tom Stearns' observation that what we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from. Prigentia certainly hopes so.

Inventing the Paperback

At Yifitsin Print Bookshop, Samuel Quinine is preparing an exhibition celebrating the life of Aldus Manutius (1449-1515) printer, publisher and inventor of the semicolon and the prototype of the paperback. He promoted italic type (and was also into Garamond and Zapf's Palatino). In his desire to preserve ancient Greek literature, Manutius introduced personal or pocket editions of the classics in Greek and Latin that anyone could own. He founded the Aldine Press in Venice, which continued to produce finely illustrated books until 1597. Today, antique books printed by the Aldine Press are referred to as Aldines, and Samuel Quinine owns a seventeeth share in a rare edition of the previously mentioned Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. To Quinine, Manutius is a personal god.

The origins of militancy

Milton Ridley is not happy. He feels let down by Sevalanz Grimble who he had thought of as a friend. However, far from enthusing at his winning the part of Dr Faustus (in the new Global Brickworks Production) she is actively campaigning against the show. 

‘Well, I too can be militant!’ exclaims the old war-horse, and he starts a major campaign against Irrational Superstitions directed at both the Militant Moralists, and the Seven Dials Ladies’ Kabbala Tsimtsum Circle (no association, merely a commonality of membership).

Magritude Feather, who is now babysitting the infant genius Kolya, finds one of Ridley’s pamphlets, headlined, ‘What is to be done?’  Obscurely it turns out to be a diatribe against ‘West Side Story’. 

A tangled web

Life is a confused mix between order and disorder (or as Mandible Winkworth refers to it whenever he talks to Samuel Quinine, between maat and isfet. Only Magritude Feather would understand his conceptual referents, but she is ignorant of Egyptian mythology). Quinine believes that the arbitration of the Ibis-headed Thoth forms the synthesis, to the thesis of Seth and the antithesis of Horus. As he struggles to make this wooden trichotomy explicit, he loses track of time, and loses track of Kolya, who has in recent days become obsessed with the movement of articulated lorries. Mrs. Feather shakes her head when she finds the infant genius toddling along behind a Waitrose lorry which is inching forward through a traffic jam.

Thoth has big problems

No-one is expecting it. Without warning, a quarrel erupts between Felix and Indrek over a critical comment the visitor has made about Felix's husband, Frab Lotus. The loud altercation echoes through the streets, and eventually becomes a violent brawl in the comfortable Snug of the Never a True Word pub. Someone calls the discreet Community Policewoman, Alicia Drublick, while Malvolio Claxendell tries to bring peace between the two brothers. When he sees the flashing blue light, Malvolio suddenly remembers the bedtime tale his old nurse used to read him (she was keen on Ancient Egyptian pornography) about the Contendings of Horus (him of the Eye) and Seth (of the painful testicles). Today's conflict between the Karlozoroff brothers is no less sinister.

The skilled scribe whose hands are pure

Out of the blue, Sonia Quinine (née Labrador) appears on the threshold of Yifitsin Print Bookshop. There are serious problems in her fashion business (trendy ‘supportwear’ for the fashion-conscious over eighties is not doing too well). However she merely tells her father-in-law that she has a window in her schedule, and has decided to take her little ‘Wobbly’ (her name for Kolya) out to town for an ice-cream. Unlike most of his generation, the infant genius is not delighted by the prospect and bawls his eyes out for twenty minutes. However Grandpa Samuel calms him down with a beautifully illustrated volume of the Egyptian Book of the Dead (he loves the picture of the ibis headed Thoth in Spell 183).

The Idiot’s Guide to Macrame Theory

Rabbi Oud Ramonides is worried. His son, Yachin, has suddenly developed an interest in left-wing trendy things, and is trying to reconcile Higgs boson with String Theory. Kugarita Zinfandel (daughter and sister respectively) assumes it is a talmudic thing - and indeed there was much advanced mathematical thinking amongst the brethren (even before Maimonides) that still remains to be rediscovered. Unfortunately, when the revered scholar Oud appears before his son and daughter, he forgets he is still wearing his shorts (an unheard of precedent). Luckily, far to the north, the Thane of Baile na Drochaid has (with the help of Demon Baal) written the definitive Idiot’s Guide to Macrame Theory, which he sends Kugarita, who passes it on to her brother.

Poor Sister Bebarabilia

The poster announcing today’s pubic prayer meeting has been corrected, and the nuns’ chorus from the Cruxicogentian Retreat at Little Porrit arrive on their quad bikes (Sister Bebarabilia, from Huddersfield, is in mourning for Hull’s defeat in the Cup Final, but the others as Arsenal supporters are all hung over). Frab, a devout atheist counter-tenor, has agreed to accompany them. The traffic at the new roundabout grinds to a halt as the nuns start singing. The Seven Dials Ladies’ Kabbala Tsimtsum Circle are perplexed. They had not predicted such a happening (the reader will recall that the roundabout has very special properties). However all is resolved when everyone (including Oud Ramonides who is unbelievably wearing shorts) joins in the singing.

The Metaphysics of Magritude Feather

At the Global Brickworks Arts Project, Lucien Jung is rehearsing a modern day version of Doctor Faustus, with Milton Ridley in the eponymous role. Ridley is trying to include extra improvised lines to emphasise his own ideas on queer politics, but Lucien wants him to stick to the script. As yet they are unaware that Mrs Magritude Feather has learned of the project from Grapella Colswain, and has recruited the Militant Moralists (including Sevelanz Grimple and Emelda Bush) to set up a petition to the local council opposing the production on grounds of ‘Common Decency’. (They fear that the play will be a bad influence on the younger generation who might also try and sell their souls to the devil).

The Onomasticon of Euebius

Talmudic sources talk of idolatrous practices at the Oak of Mamre. In the Onomasticon, Eusebius, the church historian, describes the cultish site. However his writings, especially those about the Book of Revelations (which he says reflects the religious persecutions under Domitian) are thought to be exaggerated. Nevertheless from the depths of her incarceration, Prigentia, also waiting for things to happen, consults the Ptolomaic charts of Eusebius, and reads the same predictions as Loretta. This will indeed be the day of her revenge. Understanding the association between the Mamre Oak and the Great Elm, she realises that she only needs to persuade two people to link their fate to that of the Great Elm and all will unfold as she wishes.

Smile!

Today is the day that Colin from Ireland forgot. His proctologist was not so fortunate.

Stay Close

For Ahmed Savi it is an in-between day: waiting for things to happen. And of course, when you wait, things don’t happen. As he keeps telling himself, the proverbial waiting drum doesn’t beat (not even a kettle-drum). But there is disquiet amongst the customers at Moudi’s Emporium. Loretta Garsten-Manir, is explaining Predictive Ptolomaic Astrology to the sceptical Colin. What begins to convince him is the detail with which she describes the fate of each individual that enters the Emporium. He orders another glass of Ahmed’s Tantric Iftic tisane, and gazes at Loretta, in veiled anticipation. When Mandible Winkworth enters, the spirited astrologer turns pale. ‘What does this foretell?’ asks Colin. ‘It is perhaps the beginning of the end,’ she replies. 

Colin from Ireland

The miserable newcomer, Colin, is sitting in the snug at the Never a True Word, in front of him a double vodka. His companion, Mandible Winkworth, is enjoying a large Red Leicester ploughman's. He glances at Colin's glass. 'Is that permitted?' The grim reply, 'Oh yes. I'm allowed alcohol.' For a few moments there is silence until Winkworth asks, 'And you're from Ireland?' Colin considers before answering. 'So, my grandfather was from County Sligo. And he met my grandma at the local market.' He stops and thinks. Suddenly his face cracks into a wide smile. 'That's the first time I've ever used the word 'so'  at the beginning of a sentence. I guess I've finally joined the twenty-first century.'

Prelude to the End

It is evening. The infant genius (Kolya) has wandered off (as he is prone to) and as he meanders along the street he is counting. In fifty-two of the houses people are watching television, in twenty they are sat at computers (his rough estimate is that sixteen of these are laptops or large tablets). One couple, who have neglected to close their curtains, are engaged in an activity without clothes which Kolya is too young to understand. Thirty curtains have been drawn shut. At number 104 there is an argument, and next door a bearded man called Santos is playing the drums. And now a gusty shower wraps the grimy scraps of withered leaves about his feet. It is time.

Momčilo Gavrić

Stella Sopling has fond memories of her grandfather, who used to tell her stories of his childhood in Faversham. He had not been a model student at the old grammar school, and he had many anecdotes that he should not have passed on to her. Stella’s favorites concerned his classmate,  Momčilo Gavrić,  who had been the youngest soldier to fight in the First World War. Orphaned when Austro-Hungarian soldiers had massacred his family, he joined the Serbian army, aged eight, and effected his revenge by revealing the location of the imperial unit.  Eventually, at the age of ten, he was promoted to the rank of Corporal. Stella still owns an exquisite silver filigree brooch that Gavrić designed thirty years later. 

The Cycle of Reincarnation

Despite her interesting history, Loretta now devotes her free time to matters more moral - in particular her interest in Predictive Ptolomaic Astrology. At first this is a light amusement, but as she delves and establishes links with kabbalah (which she has discussed intensively over many glasses of vodka with Oud Ramonides) she begins to understand the eventual fate of the people of the Seven Dials Community and the vicissitudes of their hopes. Today however is the Revelation. As part of the Lurian gilgul, the godly constriction (tsimtsum) has begun again, and before the tikun (rectification of existence) can occur, there will have to be a ferocious shattering of the universe (shevirah). Then she gets an email from her mother.

Beware the Ides of March

Malvolio Claxendell has generously invited Indrek Karlosoroff to use the study facilities at the library of the Institute of Lyrian Archeology, so that he can press on with his translation of the middle section of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra.  He finds the company amenable. There are two other readers today. Opposite him at the window table  is Sister Metamoreful who walks  to the Institute from the Cruxicogentian Retreat at Little Porrit  every Wednesday to compile the French version of Sister Porigami’s weekly prayer tweets (on twitter) for blessed retweeting on Friday. At the far end of the table is Loretta Garsten-Manir, taking annual leave from her job at Featheral Upholstering to start work on her Handbook of Predictive Ptolomaic Astrology. 

Document of Authentication

For a long time Cortally Bakewell has been concerned about the brass ornament that Stella Sopling bought at the church jumble sale. He knows it is valuable, and suspects that within its crevices is hidden a document of authentication. He mentions this to Indrek Karlosoroff who is visiting his brother Felix, and eventually word gets through to Yamima, who has been having qualms of conscience having found that very parchment under the table whilst sweeping up at Moudi’s. She confesses to Indrek (a buddhist Bodhisattva with whom she is translating the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra) who suggests that she returns it to Stella. Since it indicates that the ornament is worth £45000, Stella is delighted, and offers Yamima a significant reward.

Kolya's Version

Ruham Alif and Leporello Swanson are at the Old Chapel Arts Centre studying Winkworth’s boustrophedonic text.  Beyond its essential symmetry, it is difficult to decipher, so they await the arrival of Samuel Quinine with his semitic multibabel dictionary. When he appears, he is accompanied by his young grandson, Kolya, who is clutching his brightly coloured digital neurometer (to which he has added a music player).  This distracts Leporello (who still wants to persuade the child genius to lend it to him for his research). As Leporello gently prises the equipment from the chubby fingers, Kolya glances at the ancient text and in his clear high voices translates the ancient Safaitic into a modern English equivalent of  Ruba'i  rhymed quatrains.

The Oleograph

Behind the row of gardens that backs onto the railway, very visible from passing trains, stretches a long white wall. Its inaccessible location means that it is seldom sullied by extensive offensive graffiti. On Sunday however, whilst all the local residents are nosing around other people's houses (in the name of Art) the Young Kimrock breaks into Number 27, and climbs over the undergrowth to scale the wall. Once over, he decorates it with remarkably exaggerated claims and biological drawings of Guthrie Cotton and Yevgeny Huxtable.  As he returns through the house, he spots a beautiful painting (actually an oleograph) portraying a bluebell wood. The scene is so calming that it dissipates his anger, and he regrets his recent vandalism.

Ruham Alif's Boustrophedon

To some extent Ahmed’s pacification strategy works. It is May, the sun shines, and the crowds are out and about in Seven Dials. Festival-goers mingle with hen parties from London, writers and artists prepare for coming glory,  and part-time gardeners venture out to survey their dandelioned lawns. At the Old Chapel Arts Centre Writing Exhibition, an ancient boustrophedonic text is on display. On loan from Mandible Winkworth, it is his prize possession.  Many ancient scripts, such as Safaitic and Sabaean, were  written boustrophedonically, that is in both directions, alternating lines, left to right and right to left. Ruham Alif (the handsome electrician, locally known as 'the ox') stands and gazes at the wooden incised artefact for it represents his heritage.

Sister Perfectry's Medicine

A delivery van from the Cruxicogentian Retreat at Little Porrit draws up outside Moudi’s. Sister Perfectry gets out and fetches a carton of her medicinal herbs (yes, she still consults the 1721 edition of the London Pharmacopoeia). Ahmed greets her enthusiastically. He has a plan. There is conflict  around Prigentia’s exile. Those who engineered it are feeling guilty, but meet criticism with hostility.  Those sympathetic to the teenage miscreant (is she really a miscreant anyway, asks Tabitha) led by the Young Kimrock, are intensifying their campaign. Ahmed has set up a street food stall in the middle of the Seven Dials roundabout and is offering free cups of one of his exotic tisanes. It contains a powerful concentrated pacifying tincture.

Even Renoir got wet in Montmartre

It was Leporello Swanson who spotted the young Kimrock spraying orange and green graffiti on the wall of the old Chapel Arts Centre.  The scrawled comments about ZebedeeThurlough (landlord of the Never a True Word pub) were both unfair and untrue, and deliberately misspelt. Later on people would say that he was trying to incriminate Augustus Albi (since the young Kimrock excelled in writing words according to the rules). When Zebedee hears the breaking news he is dumbstruck.  His friend Nicely-Nicely shrugs his shoulders. ‘But why?’ Zebedee asks his buddy.  ‘I just don’t understand.’ N-N leans over and whispers, ‘Call it sad, call it funny, but it's better than even money that the guy's only doing it for some doll.’

Chairman Mao's Hypothetical Graviton

It is suppertime at the Quinine residence. Child-genius, Kolya is working out whether he should favour a force mediated by a hypothetical graviton, or a discrete structure of spacetime (as in loop quantum gravity) while his grandfather (Samuel) tries to solve a more taxing problem -  how Jorvik Stilten can produce 36,811 copies of this week's Nordic Newsletter for the Chinese market. It is Leporello Swanson who rides to his rescue. His Shanghai friend's grandmother made her fortune in the 1970s printing several million copies of a 'Lin Biao endorsed' edition of Mao's Little Red Book. She retired in 1986 to raise satin Angora rabbits, but her press is still in operation printing poundshop catalogues, and it has spare capacity.

The Return of Scabby Felix

It is Zebedee Thurlough, landlord of the Never a True Word pub, who becomes the stringent victim of young Kimrock's poster campaign. At first the strategy appears to target the pub, warning potential customers that they are entering an area of Political Insensitivity and Moral Turpitude. Several casual passers-by do indeed divert to the Local Coffee House or to MacGonagall’s Writer’s Café when they see the flags, banners and graffiti that Kimrock has positioned around the entrance. However tonight the Iron Grunge Octet, Scabby Felix, are performing live, and Thurlough, confident that all publicity is good publicity, doesn’t expect takings to be down. The gig is indeed a triumph, however the poster messages outside begin to take on a darker tone.

100 mg a day

Far away, Prigentia settles in to her new home, aided by more than a smidgeon of ritilin (even she thinks 50 mg twice a day is a bit much).  Her smartphone is plugged permanently into the mains in order to cope with the volume of uploads, downloads and crossloads (for the lay reader this is not a Chinese soap, but a method of re-transferring data, analogous to retweeting). But in Seven Dials a collective sense of guilt is growing. Had the worthies condemned a defenceless child to exile in a remote institutional hell. The young Kimrock certainly believes so, and starts a condemnatory publicity campaign against (in particular) the mature men-folk of the area. Posters start to appear on the walls.

Mass Circulation

Jorvik Stilten is interrupted as he continues his recording of the recent history of the Seven Dials community. Until now his regular Nordic newsletter has been circulated to about 1720 homes in the area, with an additional 263 subscribers online. 

On Tuesday, however, he receives an order from Hangzhou ( 杭州 )in China for 36,811 copies a week for the months of May and June. He rushes around local printers to ascertain whether or not he should agree to fulfil the order. Sadly, he listens to the advice of Hedre, who offers to print them on his home printer. They start the process, but after 712 copies the printer catches fire, destroying the printer itself, and the 712 copies.  

Normalisation

In the Never a True Word pub, there is a hastily convened meeting. Zebedee Thurlough, the curmudgeonly landlord, usually refuses to serve food, but on this occasion he sells falafel on sourdough bread. The difficulty is Prigentia who is seen (by most residents) as the cause of all the difficulties in the area. They plan a collection to find a long-term placement or incarceration in a distant boarding school in remote Northumberland, not far from Bamburgh Castle. As the meeting breaks up, Prigentia herself appears on the door of the Snug, and starts an eerie incantation, capturing the following words. 'I know you all, and will awhile uphold The unyoked humor of your idleness; Yet herein will I imitate the sun'.

Kimrock's despair

So what of Prigentia? Intellectually, she soars above all, those she meets. Initially when you encounter her, she appears much older than her years, but emotionally, she is an adolescent sea gull, squawking for attention, unfocused, and scrabbling in the rubbish bins of other people's needs, sabotaging the relationships she desires. Her absent father despairs whilst her ever-present mother pulsates with misguided intention. Amongst those she magnetises, the poor young Kimrock is the most despondent. Prigentia turns to him for advice, and truly values him as a friend, but her attentions are always directed elsewhere, and he can only trail behind, attendant and yearning. By virtue of their ages (and often for other reasons) many of her other admirers seem inappropriate.

Things to come

Some time still remains before the final conflagration facing our characters is approached (a month perhaps), but for the sake of the ever-tolerant reader, it is perhaps a suitable opportunity to draw together the various macrame strands that have woven intricate but disturbingly black expressionist designs across these pages. We are moving towards the final scenario when the fate of the main characters is played out. 

So let us recap. We have reached the current state. Jorvik Stilten, chiropractic, has set up the Nordic Cutural Newsletter to record the life of the inhabitants of Seven Dials. Into this strange mix lands the Colswain family, in particular Prigentia, who’s views and adventures will come to affect all those who she encounters.

Turn my water into wine

When Kugarita Zinfandel returns home, she finds a letter from her brother, Boaz, who is planning to visit the Isle of Canna in the Inner Hebrides, with their older brother Yachin. The two artists hope to get inspiration (and stone) for their latest sculpture project called 'macrolepidoptera and the wedding' (Kugarita calls it Moths Bross). They plan to drive there in their VW T5 motor caravan, and stay at a four star hotel. Kugarita thinks that there is a weakness in her brothers' plans. The population of the Island is less than twenty (though there are three churches and broadband), and the only accommodation for visitors, though charming and comfortable, is an old Edwardian guest house, and vehicles are restricted.

Kolya's marmite soldiers

Leporello Swanson takes one look at the cloned digital neurometer that Samuel is showing Milton Ridley and lets out a piercing shriek.  When Samuel tells him that Kolya made it with his technical lego Leporello is amazed, not because it proves that Kolya is an infant genius, but because it is the key instrument that will prove his theory of sustainable management of  Eduard Čech’s cohomology within the new paradign of Hyoaxic spatial music. He begs to discuss it with the child, but Samuel is unwilling. He is worried that too much attention  will go to the boy’s head.  He suggests that Lepo pens a few questions which Samuel will put to Kolya as he is eating his marmite soldiers.

The care of Kolya Quinine

If you’ve been puzzled by the appearance from time to time of Kolya, grandson of Samuel Quinine (proprietor of Yifitsin Print Bookshop) and wondered what his parents are doing leaving him so frequently with the somewhat aloof grandfather, the family set up needs to be explained.   Samuel’s only son, Lustral (named after Samuel’s own father who had once been engaged to Missikin Yentol, in the days before she became a nun) is a very quiet scholar, researching Magyar Literature whilst his rather errant wife, Sonia (nee Labrador) travels the world promoting her fashion business (she designs trendy ‘supportwear’ for the fashion-conscious over eighties).  So Samuel takes on the care of Kolya, who has just managed to clone a digital neurometer.

Hot Gossip

Sevalanz Grimble gets a text message from Lazarus Colswain. He is worried about the rumours of his daughter’s well-being. He asks Sevalanz (an old flame) for any news. Sevalanz is taking tea with  Milton Ridley who repeats the views of the locals about Prigentia. He suggests that she has a split personality, and is therefore not fantasising at all. If there are two personalities, he explains, then it follows that there must be two real experiences of life.  They chew this one over for a while, and Sevalanz sends a reply to Lazarus telling him that everything is fine. In the corner, Kolya, the young grandson of Samuel Quinine, for whom Sevalanz is babysitting, is playing with a circuit board.

The Timing and Choreography of Sexual Attraction

Again Prigentia steals the show. The assembled chevra are gathered around her at the snug of the Never a True Word pub, as she explains her theory that she was 'harvested' by aliens, but bravely fought her way back home. "Theory' because in fact she has no memory of the events of the last 24 hours, having had one of her inexplicable turns. From the corner Augustus Albi gazes in resignation at the insufferable precocious princess, and he watches the range of local worthies, young and old, besotted by her performance. He is sad for he still remembers the day long ago when, uncharacteristically he momentarily lost his equilibrium and overcome with desire made a pass at a beautiful stranger.

Pesach with Prigentia

It is of course much ado about nothing. As the young Kimrock celebrates the Passover meal with his family, at the point when the front door is thrown open to welcome  the prophet Elijah, who should be waiting there but Prigentia Colswain, faint and a little dizzy, but otherwise unharmed.  They bring her in, and ply her with charoseth (the ceremonial mortar blended from dates, nuts, apples, cinnamon and wine). She adopts her most ever-suffering pose (which she has taken great care to copy from old images of Sarah Bernhardt) and asks for a moment of silence while she regains her strength. Once she has gained the full attention of all, she embarks on a lusty rendition of Chad Gadya.

Photofit

Nowhere in the area has there been any sign of Prigentia. She was last been seen wearing an outrageous eighteenth century outfit which she has hired from a fancy dress shop in Hove. The local police are issuing idisyncratic photofit images drawn up from reports by her nearest and dearest. The young Kimrock is, of course, beside himself. He was hoping that she would accompany him to the family Passover seder meal. Meanwhile Hamentash Yumble has been planning to take her to visit Verona, and Leoprello Swanson is hoping to impress her with his CD and accompanying newly-bound thesis on Hyoaxic spatial music. Escorted by Ruham Alif, Grapella Colswain is giving the police full details of her daughter's appearance.

The value of painted signs

The thin and bony Hamentash Yumble is exhibiting his latest collection of chiaroscuro drip-fired miniatures.  His wealthy sponsors have showered him with money but here at the Sussex Avant Garden Gallery (SAGG) no-one is particularly impressed. 


As result Yumble sits in a tawdry bar drowning his sorrows.  Over his third pint he vents his anger on the comrade who befriended him when he was still unknown.  ‘ Give up trying to tell the locals that your style is a fusion of Braque and Pollock,’ the man suggests. ‘ Tell them you painted it for your grandma.’ 

Yumble paints a multicoloured sign to that effect, and immediately sells twelve pieces. He offers his companion a generous contract as his PR consultant.

Reconciliation

Finally it seems there is a reconciliation between Leporello Swanson and Grapella Colswain. The perspicacious Ruham Alif (handsome electrician and Tychonoff fan, locally known as the ox) has invited both sides to his house for a drink. He serves them a rough brew of scrumpy-based cocktails, and soon they are all rolling about singing the praises of Urysohn’s lemma (that old familiar normal space in which merry but disjoint subsets can be separated by a joyful function). The next day all three nurse hangovers, but the experience has solved a major problem in Leppo’s research.  He can introduce the cohomology discovered by Eduard Čech (much referred to in this blog) into the formula around which Hyoaxic spatial music is derived.

Stesichorus talks of Ululation

In his latest attempt at transcribing scientific text into spatially modulated music in Hyoax mode, Leporello Swinson has been examining musical references in ancient texts. In an extra-canonical book from Terpsicore by Herodotus for example he found that it was the norm in Thrace during funerary orations for polyphonic dialobes to be interspersed with primitive ululation (as mentioned in the Stesichorus’s palinodic account of the Trojan War). Leppo now makes the crucial mistake of assuming that the assembled company in the Snug at the Never a True Word Pub will be interested in his findings, and he is dismayed when after twenty minutes of his detailed explanation someone puts a coin in the juke box and Paolo Nutini blares out.

Mrs Papworth's pineapple chunks

Around Seven Dials even the older shops date back only a few decades. In one corner however time has stood still. Here is Mrs Papworth’s sweetshop, still selling pineapple chunks and aniseed balls. When Leporello Swanson first wandered in, he was greeted by the  rasping sound of the owner, dressed in Victorian black, short and old as the hills, asking what he required. She peered at him from behind the counter, and wielding a silver hammer she broke off shards of toffee from a shiny solid block. Leppo had never seen anything like it. Now he goes in daily to discover some new delight. But even the saintly Mrs Papworth is not interested in the diatonality of Hyoaxic spatial music.

Esoteric research into the Golden Dawn of the late 19th century

Strange things happen in normal spaces. Several days ago Ophelia Hedre looked in her cupboard for the old tweed jacket that she wanted to wear as the weather was unseasonably cold.  As she opened the door there was a vague whiff of lavender, and a sudden rustle. Pushing aside the jackets and blouses, she could just discern a forest glade in the place where the back of the cupboard should be. It was however too dark to advance, so she went back to grab a torch. But when she returned there was nothing there – just an ordinary cupboard,  with someone squatting down beneath the clothes, doing what one always does in cupboards. No lions and not a witch in sight.

Biography of Jack Hughes

Despite the rain, there is a sense that spring has arrived at Seven Dials, and the residents are discussing their holiday plans. At the library Tom Purdue  is studying the maps. He is not sure why the Isle of Man is so closely linked to velosports, nevertheless he is planning a cycle tour of the island.  In preparation he is reading Emile Zola’s biography of one of the greatest  Manx cyclists, Jack Hughes, who was an early recipient of the traditional Manx three-footed championship medal.  Tom recently purchased a replica from an antique shop in Berlin (though there was some confusion when he tried to ask for it in German).  Jack Hughes  is a bit older than Tom Purdue.