PINS - Rule Thirty-five: Rallying Round
(I lost me boot in a bog on Pen-y-ghent, had to hobble down!)
Sometimes in PINS we get lost and need to know we are on the right track. This can be confusing because we know PINS is a game that can be played at any time or in any era. We could be in the wrong century when we don’t want to be. So it’s important to buck yourself up and stop moping. Moping comes from having years of being able to afford only one pint in the pub and having to make it last! Not good for your head, that.
So, sit down and listen. Especially if you are thought of as being morbid and soft or - silly! - have gone to a fortune teller, or are spending too much time mooning uselessly over the Wrong Type of girl.
[Directions: before reading the following passage, stare intently, suck teeth, and roll eyes.]
TRUE VIBRATIONS [Elongate the vowels to impart the spiritual significance of this phrase.]
“No matter how beautiful a piano, harp, or other musical instrument may be to look at, if the vibration of its strings is not in accordance with its proper scale, the instrument will be considered out of tune and useless for all practical purposes.”
[The word useless should be emphasised.]
“It is the same with human beings; if their vibrations are not true in the harp of life, their thoughts and actions will cause discords and the unseen force of Nature prefers to leave them silent, or inactive, rather than have inharmony in the great scheme of harmony.”
[Of course, the word “discords” should be imparted with a roll of the eyes, to infer we are talking about unsuitable women.]
So don’t be such a fool, you really are being like a big baby. And don’t spend all your time being artistic, we don’t like Owt for Nowts, or sponging gets here. We pay our taxes and work with our hands. Not like you, sat on your arse all day colouring in and drinking tea paid for by honest people’s taxes.
Don’t worry they’re all numb round here. Don’t listen to any of them, like animals they are, ignorant and crude. We only want you to be happy. Your great granda was artistic, too, he painted pub signs. You have his talent.
You know it was very difficult with him, he just went away, he wasn’t sensible like you. We didn’t know where he was, we were so worried. But you both steered your own course. Neither of you has ever done anything like other people do. Not many can do that, you know.
On the last day of the holidays you can play with the Lee Enfield and the Martini Henry. I’ll get them down off the wall for you. You’re like your dad!
[The quality of the soft western light, the faint but warm blue of the skies on a clear day, a permanent soft focus, the glint of red brick and the feeling of the soot-blackened stone, it feels like they’re on your side.]
Oh, when I was in hospital I would read my Tom Puss annual and that saved me I think, it made me so happy to look at the magical drawings. Did you know I had a heart attack at 12? And your aunt went to hospital because she wouldn’t go to the toilet! I’m glad I am out of hospital, they kill you there.
Do you like Duran Duran? I do. You don’t? Can’t sleep? Don’t worry about tomorrow, it's only a small operation, you won’t know anything about it. Just a little bit of discomfort. We have to know what’s going on in your stomach.
She must be the only dog who shrinks in size when she goes to kennels. But she comes home and then she grows again! Don’t you, old girl?
The party is awful. 1989, and all the promise of a new decade coming, you feel it, but the girl you have been ringing on the telephone for weeks, and who sounded so nice and in tune with your ideas turns out to be totally uninterested in you, it’s obviously a case of total boredom at first sight. And this party, in this terrace behind Dill Hall Lane, is a hell; loads of people are singing along to TheThe and The Levellers and passing joints around. One lanky slightly older bloke is strumming a guitar and has a joint, he’s just said “there’s enough for everyone” in this caring sharing voice which he probably thinks is what things were like in 1967, but it makes you hate him, as the response he got was a lot of cooing and sighs which makes you feel embarrassed to be here and very jealous, too; jealous of the fact that people can have simple, uncomplicated fun and make those kinds of noises without feeling so self conscious that you wish the ground would swallow you up. You can’t be that, just do things without knowing of the awful consequences of the world. You have known that since you were three and sat on the steps of the house and cried because you remembered all the people in this world who had died. But how the fuck do you tell anyone that? So you sit on the stairs and drink from a bottle of Banks mild and leave and no-one bats an eyelid: you can make yourself invisible when you need to. You walk up the hill, and cut through towards the cemy, up past the old allotments and the council estate feeling strangely defiant. “You’ll never be happy,” that tiny old bloke said when you went to see him, just after he asked, without a prompt, “I see a baby, who’s pregnant?” Maybe not, maybe you won’t but it’s your business, and you have a strange glow, you think, “I’ll never be like them with their silly, affected ways of talking and their parading of emotions and easy friendships. I’m not that, I’m just me, I’ll always rally round, however bad it gets.”
I shagged the club captain on the stairs wearing the cat’s collar round my ankle. He didn’t know, revenge!
Take this tupperware round to next door but one’s, he’s on the strike for three months now, needs feeding. And smile!
You’re eating the dog’s pig's ear.
The record cover may show the flash of fireworks against a near-black sky but you stare hard at the image and watch as it gradually transforms into the velvet cushion on which the head of Charles I was placed and with this knowledge, you cry. You are six. Later you wonder how you knew all that about Charles I.
We can play catch. That’s a nice game, it’s not rough.
Living here isn’t great, painting the walls to keep the damp out. But you are going to leave, especially after they all came back from the pub and had a barking competition, for hours. That made you realise, you were just wasting your time there. It was a big relief. You’d been in a fever in the months before, like you were in a spell, thinking you had to stay.
If you are good, we can sit in the front room and I’ll turn the radiogram on.
Who would true valour see,
Let him come hither;
One here will constant be,
Come wind, come weather
There's no discouragement
Shall make him once relent
His first avowed intent
To be a pilgrim.
Whoso beset him round
With dismal stories,
Do but themselves confound;
His strength the more is.
No lion can him fright,
He'll with a giant fight,
But he will have a right
To be a pilgrim.
Hobgoblin, nor foul fiend[,]
Can daunt his spirit;
He knows he at the end
Shall life inherit.
Then fancies fly away,
He'll fear not what men say,
He'll labour night and day
To be a pilgrim.
I've been to London too, Leicester Square and to the zoo,
In the tube and even down the Strand,
But no matter where I went I had no accident
I always had my whistle in my hand.
But once near Waterloo a near squeak it's true
I trembled and my hair it seemed to bristle,
A lady smiled and stopped and then she nearly dropped
When I blew a little blast on my whistle.
When in a country lane, while sheltering from the rain,
I soon found out that I was not alone,
I heard a sound like this (kiss), it must have been a kiss,
Two lovers thinking they were on their own.
They carried on disgraceful, I went all goosey like,
But when the lady shouted “stop it Cecil!”
I took it for a hint, and I had a little squint
And I couldn't blow a blast on my whistle.
Ah well, I'm married now, and I really don't know how,
To tell you of the news that came today,
I've a little son and heir, yes one, no not a pair,
No wonder that I'm feeling bright and gay,
I'm feeling very proud, but I mustn't talk so loud,
I've been celebrating at the Rose and Thistle,
He's a lovely little kid, and the first thing that he did
Was to blow a little blast on his whistle!
Don’t take this wrong, pet, but you really are a dinosaur in a young man’s body.
An accompanying post to this Rule, with relevant illustrations, can be found in the Museum of Photocopies.
