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.

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.

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.

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.

Ah taci, ingiusto core

Leporello Swinson finally arrives in Seven Dials. He had originally been intending to stay with Grapella and Prigentia, but it appears that since the holiday in Gundelfingen some frostiness has developed between him and the Colswains. Since Samuel Quinine has a room to let, Cortally Bakewell suggests that he let it to Swinson.

Leppo moves in, and enthuses around the area like an eager puppy. Unfortunately it is not long before he bumps into Grapella. Ignoring her cool indifference he explains that he is currently transcribing Zemelo’s Axiom of Choice into Urdu in order to set it to a complex arrangement of Hyoax Spatial Music. She dismisses this as a precocious chat-up line (and who can say she is wrong?)

Antisceptic shock absorbers no doubt

It is well known amongst fans of the Persian King, Cyrus, that he was  exceedingly skilled in horsemanship. Some even say that he invented the scythed chariot, which was described by the Greek general Xenophon (430−354 BC), an eyewitness at the battle of Cunaxa. He wrote that these chariots "had thin scythes extending at an angle from the axles and also under the driver's seat". Serated bronze blades like this for chariot wheels have been excavated from Chou-era pre-imperial Chinese sites, so perhaps the attribution to Cyrus is erroneous. Malvolio Claxendell, who is still preparing his concordance of Da Vinci's inventions, is certainly a so-called 'Cyrus sceptic', and he explains this loudly to the customers of the Local Coffee House.  

The fourth gender

Whilst Felix Karlosoroff  (moody but creative silk-screen-printer) and Frab Lotus – (Reikarial Therapist and part-owner of Zangwill’s Bazaar of Curiosities) are  pragmatic about their sexuality, their friend, Milton Ridley is an avid proponent of Queer Political Theory.  He is currently writing a dissertation on Gender and Grammatical Syntax. Whilst drawing up a concordance of the gender of various nouns in different  Indo-European languages, he discovered a secret papal document from the 15th century that advocates a fourth grammatical gender, namely the ‘seraphic’ gender for nouns such as ‘calculus’, ‘granite’ and ‘non-Island whisky’.

Tonight Ridley is giving a public talk about 'Seraphic options in the twenty-first century' to the  Literary Circle at the Never a True Word Pub in Seven Dials.

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope

Today is young Kimrock's birthday.  He puts money on a horse that comes in eighteen to one. It brings him no joy. He is going through adolescent angst. He looks at Prigentia who is strutting her brilliance, and thinks 'I could have been someone. Well, so could anyone.'  Over an extended cappuccino he scribbles his thoughts on a paper serviette. 'You took my dreams from me when I first found you. I kept them with me babe, I put them with my own. Can't make it all alone. I've built my dreams around you.'

At his Creaive Thuikning evening class he shows his writing to the teacher (Augustus Albi) who reads it and asks if he’s still singing ‘Galway Bay’.

Axiom of Choice (Music)

When Prigenitia tries to explain Russell's paradox to young Kimrock as he is being shaved by the local barber, he suffers a severe migraine, and she has to take him home to rest. Her mother, Grapella Colswain, is uncertain about allowing the boy to remain unchaperoned in the house with Prigentia, as she has a date with the ox-like electrician Ruham Alif, who is taking her out for a romantic meal followed by an informal talk on the need for Zemelo's Axiom of Choice in Tychonoff's theorem. The soundtrack at the restaurant that evening proves to be a southern Californian world music group of Iranian émigrés who perform a fusion style incorporating Persian classical music and modern Western musical concepts.

Fin de Ciecle

According to Tom Purdue (who is widely known to be obsessed with Memory) our earliest experiences are locked deep within our hard drives (he is also a technology geek), and are mapped closely to their contemporary emotions. So encountering a close childhood friend activates both memory and emotion.  Underground strikes and other traumatic events can prove disruptive to memory and emotion and whatever is was that Tom was thinking about. As he stands watching the swollen breakers crashing down on the seashore, Tom suddenly remembers the strange conversation he was having with Prigentia who explained to him the crucial involvement of the Amygdala and the Hippocampus in memory functions. Turns out that despite her outrageous behaviour Prigentia is quite bright.

A first consideration of Palingenesia.

In her idiosyncratic nun-training, Veracitude was schooled in the ideas of the psychologist, G. Stanley Hall who (in his studies on adolescent girls) was much taken with Van Rensselaer’s observation that 'women are prone... to desire what they have not, and for that reason alone they particularly need absorbing occupations, and are spoiled by idleness and vacuity of mind, which makes them lazy, phlegmatic, and unambitious'. Veracitude applies these ideas to her scheme to 'improve' Prigentia Colswain. She asks Ruham Alif, the electrician, to offer Prigentia a work experience placement. Alif doubts if a precocious twelve year old 'princess' could do much in the way of electrical repairs, but agrees, provided Ethel will supervise the girl. Ethel declines the offer.

Metempsychosis

Until the barbarian depredations, the City of Mediomatrix was one of the principal towns of Gaul. It was the birthplace of Freda Weekly (born Emma Maria Frieda Johanna Freiin, Baroness von Richthofen.)  She was an inveterate walker, translator and novelist. For a time she lived at the Tinner’s Arms in the village of Zennor in Cornwall, not far from St Senara's Church where she saw a carved bench-end depicting a mermaid.  Her lover, the radical psychoanalyst Otto Gross, championed an early form of anti-psychiatry, sexual liberation and depth psychology all of which have influenced Ferabdurus Lotus, Reikarial Therapist, and part-owner of Zangwill’s Bazaar of Curiosities. Freda Weekly died in Taos in 1956. (She was also a friend of David Eder).

Honour and Courtesy

A voice rings out across McGonagal’s Writers Café. ‘It’s the cat stupid.’

Malvolio Claxendell hurls this accusation at Yevgeny Huxtable who is morosely finishing his macchiato.  

In the middle ages the duel arrived in Britain with the influx of Italian honour and courtesy literature (notably Book of the Courtier by Baldassare Castiglione). This stressed the need to protect one's reputation and social mask and prescribed the circumstances under which an insulted party should issue a challenge. However it is rare today, even in Seven Dials. Nevertheless, Claxendell throws down his gauntlet, and Huxtable does not hesitate to pick it up. ‘If you’ve touched a hair on the head on my Charisma you’re a dead man.’  Claxendell smiles grimly. ‘Too late!’

א גוט וועטשערע

Huxtable's meal begins with a bang when the lights fuse. Felix, who is not practical, attempts a repair which blows the mains. They eat in darkness and Sister Veracitude tells them of her decision. She is to establish the Cruxicogentian Elocution and Grammar centre, for children whose parents are distressed about the epidemic of High Rising Terminals (AQI). Frab protests that this is unwarranted interference in  people's language choice. The others disagree, but aren't sure if he isn't asking a question (except Hedre who thinks they are talking about Hormone Replacement Therapy). When Ethel and Frida arrive to mend the electricity meter, everyone relaxes and the evening progresses well, with much drinking of vodka (and strangely Marsala Vergine e/o Soleras).

Frabjous day!

Having established the obvious connection between the ischial tuberosities and Kyi (the Slav leader who founded Kiev) we look around and take stock of daily life in Seven Dials now that the festive season and extreme conflagrations are over. The residents have mostly survived the unusual weather, and the localised flooding has subsided. The proprietors of Moudi's and McGonagal's are eying up the empty plot of land where the ruins of the old convent have been cleared for development. Both plan to put in a bid, as does Lucien Jung from the Old Chapel Arts Centre. Life has returned to normal, and the doctor's surgery is again heaving with complaint-ridden hypochondriacs for whom Christmas is the worst of times.