(no subject)
My mother said to me, when I was leaving home, she said: do this one thing for me. Be happy.
Also, she said, please don't become an estate agent. (This is really true.) And then she said, because she is a writer and knows that wise old crones have to give their advice in threes even if they've kept their looks and have all their own teeth and aren't even retired yet and frankly if they got a fourth bit would probably go for "Don't you dare call me a crone on livejournal", she said: Be truthful.
Well, fair's fair, I'm not an estate agent, and that does make me happy. Two out of three and all that. But I think it's high time I admitted, in the blessed absence of both my mother and Philetas of Cos, that I'm a goddamned fucking liar.
Honestly, I don't know what's happened to me lately. (The jocular among you may like to suggest 'puberty'.) I'm sure there was a time when I... well, actually, no, that was itself about to turn into a lie: I was going to claim that I used to have a stout-hearted respect for truth, only then I remembered some of things I've written in this journal. Perhaps it's fairer to say I have a profound respect for basing things on truth. Or at any rate on anecdotes. Or occasionally just lying, that's good too. A profound and stout-hearted respect for basically, you know, me saying stuff. That's what I used to have.
But these days... I don't know. It's like I relish it. I've even started lying to the furniture. I've strayed so far from the path of the righteous I might as well be a Tory.
As a wildly topical example, someone emailed me three months ago and asked if I knew any Anglo Saxon stories, and if so, did I want to come and tell them to people at a museum. I do not, I should make it clear, know any Anglo Saxon stories. So what I could have done is - and I am literally only now just realising this, as I write it - I could have gone away and learnt some. Or I could have written back and said "No, but I could learn some, if you like". But I didn't do that, because... oh, I don't know. Because I knew I'd never get around to it, and so needed something to motivate me? Well yes, that's rational, that's logical, that's plainly not the reason. No. What I did was, I wrote back and said yes, I know loads of Anglo Saxon stories, I am an expert at Anglo Saxon stories, what time do you want me?
And of course they said marvellous, we'll lend you a tunic, and suddenly I was plunged into a week of hellish, desperate revision, plunging in and out of wikipedia and boning up on Beowulf and staggering desperately around the University Library (where I learned, incidentally, that Anglo Saxons considered storytelling an oral medium, they didn't write the fuckers down, we've literally only got Beowulf) before turning up at a reconstructed Anglo Saxon village in borrowed boots and a hasty beard, going Hello! I'm your storyteller, and don't worry, because I am totally prepared.
It's a funny thing, re-enactment. Well no, it's deadly serious: just ask a re-enactor. But despite looking from a distance quite like a funny thing, very nearly in fact like a downright ridiculous one, it possesses one very peculiar characteristic. When you're dressed in Anglo Saxon costume, in an Anglo Saxon meadhall, in a perfectly recreated Anglo-Saxon village, people think you know stuff about Anglo Saxons. Like, properly know stuff. "So what sort of wood would they have made those spears from?" they ask. Or "Whereabouts would they bury their dead?". Or "What would they have used this building for, then?".
And you know what? I don't think they care, really. I mean who gives a shit about different sorts of wood, they're just expressing an interest, so they can feel they've used their Sunday productively, like they've been educated. All they want is someone in Anglo Saxon costume to tell them things authoritatively so they can nod earnestly, and we can all go home feeling a little bit more middle class. That's my defence, anyway. That's what I had in my head when they asked me these quesions - all weekend, hours of them, wearing me down - and instead of saying "I have no idea, I've read half an article about Beowulf and this isn't even my tunic", I would take a deep, guilty breath and go: Well!
That's never a good sign. It's right up there with "That's a really interesting question...", and I said that too: too many times. I told them where they buried their dead, and why. I gave complicated lectures about different types of thatch. I explained, with actions, how you might hunt a boar, and who would come to their feasts, and what they ate, and where they went to the toilet, and why they didn't have chimneys, and who would sit in the big chair, and how their funeral arrangements compared with Sutton Hoo, and, basically anything else that came into my head. And I did this to children. They asked excited questions about Anglo Saxon life, and I told them exciting answers about Anglo Saxon I Haven't A Clue But This Sounds Plausible. I have committed a grievous crime against future school projects. Wikipedia itself might find its accuracy undermined by my carefree wittering on.
And worst of all. Worst of all, and best of all, because I have no shame. I told stories. Ohh, all sorts of the bastards. The Everlasting Battle of Heoden and Hild, because it's mentioned fleetingly in a tedious poem and it's got zombies in it. Weyland and the Love of Iron, because there's a googly eyed picture of him on a box somewhere, and it's probably not far off the Norse version. Heremod the Hot Headed, and Sigemund the Dragon-Slayer, who implausibly turns out to be Heremod's son so I can do that bit with the anvil, it's shameless. Scyld Scefing - Thunor's Neighbour - the Raven Banner - stories conjured out of tiny glimpses of nothing in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle, or a name and nothing more in Beowulf, bigged up and messed about and turned into beautiful lies, because, oh, and here it is. Because she said to me: be happy.
I do like storytelling, see, that's the thing. Whether it's standing in a spotlight declaiming to strangers, or whispering about Tikki Tikki Tembo to my niece, or claiming to the elderly that actually they coppiced ash for these spears in that very wood over there (or, indeed, to the very gullible on the internet, that I have started lying to the furniture), I just like to say stuff. And the bigger, the more dramatic, the more structured-around-threes and thoroughly nonsensical, the better.
So, yeah. Maybe there's a reason my mother started trotting out this guff. She's a writer too, after all. And maybe that's the real trouble with wise old crones: whatever else happens, one day you're doomed to turn into them. And what happens then, I wonder?
Well! That is an interesting question...
Also, she said, please don't become an estate agent. (This is really true.) And then she said, because she is a writer and knows that wise old crones have to give their advice in threes even if they've kept their looks and have all their own teeth and aren't even retired yet and frankly if they got a fourth bit would probably go for "Don't you dare call me a crone on livejournal", she said: Be truthful.
Well, fair's fair, I'm not an estate agent, and that does make me happy. Two out of three and all that. But I think it's high time I admitted, in the blessed absence of both my mother and Philetas of Cos, that I'm a goddamned fucking liar.
Honestly, I don't know what's happened to me lately. (The jocular among you may like to suggest 'puberty'.) I'm sure there was a time when I... well, actually, no, that was itself about to turn into a lie: I was going to claim that I used to have a stout-hearted respect for truth, only then I remembered some of things I've written in this journal. Perhaps it's fairer to say I have a profound respect for basing things on truth. Or at any rate on anecdotes. Or occasionally just lying, that's good too. A profound and stout-hearted respect for basically, you know, me saying stuff. That's what I used to have.
But these days... I don't know. It's like I relish it. I've even started lying to the furniture. I've strayed so far from the path of the righteous I might as well be a Tory.
As a wildly topical example, someone emailed me three months ago and asked if I knew any Anglo Saxon stories, and if so, did I want to come and tell them to people at a museum. I do not, I should make it clear, know any Anglo Saxon stories. So what I could have done is - and I am literally only now just realising this, as I write it - I could have gone away and learnt some. Or I could have written back and said "No, but I could learn some, if you like". But I didn't do that, because... oh, I don't know. Because I knew I'd never get around to it, and so needed something to motivate me? Well yes, that's rational, that's logical, that's plainly not the reason. No. What I did was, I wrote back and said yes, I know loads of Anglo Saxon stories, I am an expert at Anglo Saxon stories, what time do you want me?
And of course they said marvellous, we'll lend you a tunic, and suddenly I was plunged into a week of hellish, desperate revision, plunging in and out of wikipedia and boning up on Beowulf and staggering desperately around the University Library (where I learned, incidentally, that Anglo Saxons considered storytelling an oral medium, they didn't write the fuckers down, we've literally only got Beowulf) before turning up at a reconstructed Anglo Saxon village in borrowed boots and a hasty beard, going Hello! I'm your storyteller, and don't worry, because I am totally prepared.
It's a funny thing, re-enactment. Well no, it's deadly serious: just ask a re-enactor. But despite looking from a distance quite like a funny thing, very nearly in fact like a downright ridiculous one, it possesses one very peculiar characteristic. When you're dressed in Anglo Saxon costume, in an Anglo Saxon meadhall, in a perfectly recreated Anglo-Saxon village, people think you know stuff about Anglo Saxons. Like, properly know stuff. "So what sort of wood would they have made those spears from?" they ask. Or "Whereabouts would they bury their dead?". Or "What would they have used this building for, then?".
And you know what? I don't think they care, really. I mean who gives a shit about different sorts of wood, they're just expressing an interest, so they can feel they've used their Sunday productively, like they've been educated. All they want is someone in Anglo Saxon costume to tell them things authoritatively so they can nod earnestly, and we can all go home feeling a little bit more middle class. That's my defence, anyway. That's what I had in my head when they asked me these quesions - all weekend, hours of them, wearing me down - and instead of saying "I have no idea, I've read half an article about Beowulf and this isn't even my tunic", I would take a deep, guilty breath and go: Well!
That's never a good sign. It's right up there with "That's a really interesting question...", and I said that too: too many times. I told them where they buried their dead, and why. I gave complicated lectures about different types of thatch. I explained, with actions, how you might hunt a boar, and who would come to their feasts, and what they ate, and where they went to the toilet, and why they didn't have chimneys, and who would sit in the big chair, and how their funeral arrangements compared with Sutton Hoo, and, basically anything else that came into my head. And I did this to children. They asked excited questions about Anglo Saxon life, and I told them exciting answers about Anglo Saxon I Haven't A Clue But This Sounds Plausible. I have committed a grievous crime against future school projects. Wikipedia itself might find its accuracy undermined by my carefree wittering on.
And worst of all. Worst of all, and best of all, because I have no shame. I told stories. Ohh, all sorts of the bastards. The Everlasting Battle of Heoden and Hild, because it's mentioned fleetingly in a tedious poem and it's got zombies in it. Weyland and the Love of Iron, because there's a googly eyed picture of him on a box somewhere, and it's probably not far off the Norse version. Heremod the Hot Headed, and Sigemund the Dragon-Slayer, who implausibly turns out to be Heremod's son so I can do that bit with the anvil, it's shameless. Scyld Scefing - Thunor's Neighbour - the Raven Banner - stories conjured out of tiny glimpses of nothing in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle, or a name and nothing more in Beowulf, bigged up and messed about and turned into beautiful lies, because, oh, and here it is. Because she said to me: be happy.
I do like storytelling, see, that's the thing. Whether it's standing in a spotlight declaiming to strangers, or whispering about Tikki Tikki Tembo to my niece, or claiming to the elderly that actually they coppiced ash for these spears in that very wood over there (or, indeed, to the very gullible on the internet, that I have started lying to the furniture), I just like to say stuff. And the bigger, the more dramatic, the more structured-around-threes and thoroughly nonsensical, the better.
So, yeah. Maybe there's a reason my mother started trotting out this guff. She's a writer too, after all. And maybe that's the real trouble with wise old crones: whatever else happens, one day you're doomed to turn into them. And what happens then, I wonder?
Well! That is an interesting question...