Desirable Residence?

When you tidy up you discover a lot of mess. When you have not tidied up for a while…. you might discover one hell of a mess! Spend all night trying to clear my cottage for a 0800 hhrs appointment with the council contractors. Well, by 0800 the windows where cleared and there was space for them to work. The cottage now has double glazed windows. But living in a bridge of sighs bed-sit is driving me nuts! Onwards and upwards to re-housing I hope.

Anyway, what should I discover in old paperwork but an accommodation advert I had spotted up in the University last summer and noted down. Here it is, with original punctuation:-

*******************************************************************

WANTED

********* ALIVE

Two Laid-Back Tokin Housemates Needed To Move In With Well-Adjusted and Studious Third Years next year

Beautiful house equipped with a private cinema, Olympic-size swimming pool, Gymnasium, herb garden, Turkish Bath, Sauna and live-in Swedish masseur with loose morals, surrounded by fourteen acres of barley fields, a helicopter pad, marble en suite bathrooms and a carrot patch, all for just £53 a week! Interested?

Call (two mobile phone numbers given)

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Well, being in social housing, I was not tempted. The thought of compulsory “Tokin” did not appeal, smoking is bad for your health! Don’t do it Kids! And problem with the live-in Swedish masseur of loose morals is that his husband is a tall stocky jealous bastard. :)

Bashing the Bishop (non-violently)

Not sure where I acquired a copy of “Christians and Sex – A Quaker Comment” by Harold Loukes (Friends Home Service Committee 1962).

Anyway, on page 16 under masturbation he says

“The day is now mercifully gone when adults could threaten the young with the terrible consequences of masturbation: future impotence, venereal disease, madness. We know now that masturbation has no consequences except tiredness and a sense of guilt.”

Yay Friend Harold! He continues

“At the same time, it seems an unsatisfactory affair,….”

Well, not being able to get laid is always an unsatisfactory affair

“…. even to it’s victims.”

Friend Harold no doubt speaking from experience which I am unable to do having never “Bashed the bishop” (non-violently) myself.

So Harold continues after a couple of paragraphs which can be skipped:-

“We should today regard masturbation as a symptom of a disturbed and disorganised personality”.

You know, I am not so sure we should. Not even in 1962.

Well, three further things are interesting in this pamphlet.

The first is the date. The following year was published the pamphlet which some older Friends reckon should never have been published, viz “Towards a Quaker View of Sex” a bit of a mixed bag as I personally think it was reactionary in places, but did move Britain Yearly Meeting forward.

Secondly, the title, “Christians and Sex”. I suppose I do have a complex against “Christianity” or more specifically “orthodox (small o and so called) Christianity”. Isn’t Christians and Sex a contradiction in terms? “No Sex please, we are Christians”

Thirdly. No mention, to the best of my knowledge (no I am not going to slog my way through said pamphlet, if anyone would like this work you can have it! get in touch before it ends up on a bonfire) of what was becoming a burning issue viz homosexuality. “Towards a Quaker view of Sex” was written to address the issue of homosexuality, but, to the annoyance of some Friends did dig deeper and look at other issues.

And funnily enough Quakers are now seen, rightly I believe, as at least better at discussing sex than other churches.

Hey, maybe the occasional “hand shandy” could be seen as not only healthy and natural but also religious piety…..

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Footnote

Any serious student of the English language should have a copy of “Roger’s Profanisaurus”, the premier dictionary of the vulgar tongue, commissioned by the editors of Viz. But since it could be a bit tricky to get hold of for any lovely readers who’s mother tongue is not English I include the following definitions to make everything clear.

Bash the Bishop v. To pull the Pope’s cap off, to box the Jesuit. To bank with Barclays.

Hand shandy n. A frothy one, pulled off the wrist

For whom the bell tolls

Ok. I know it is a cliché. But it will have to do.

I collected a letter today from the Kabal pigeon hole but addressed to me personally (in my capacity as a member of the University Senate).. It was from the University Secretary. Sally Macgill, Professor of Integrated Environmental Management is missing presumed dead in Thailand.

So far as I know all my immediate family are safe and sound. Am in the process of checking up. Not sure if any of my family have ever even been to the Indian ocean shores.

Anyway, never met Professor Macgill. But the University of Leeds is sort of home. And although I would not wish to diminish the lives lost and ruined of those I never knew and never had any connection with apart from “mere” common humanity. And although the University of Leeds is a large firm. I feel the loss all the more personally. A University should be a multi cultural multi national community, and PROUD to be so.

“No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee”

John Donne

sharing (was RE:waiting for the workmen)

hi Kay

> the main thing i'm fed up about is being on my own

interesting. what part of being on your own are you fed up with?

For me. I am living alone for the first time in my life, have been for 2 and a half years. Still not got used to it. But feel that I must. Would love to have housemates, but my previous housemates drove me nuts. Slightly unfair of me to say, what I mean is. House sharing requires structure. And most of my former housemates did so for what where for me, the wrong reasons, viz, sharing the bills. For me the whole point of house sharing is to share something of each others lives and to have fun (without living in each others pocket and accepting that life together is not all beer and skittles).

And yes, I do need more people to share my life with. And more sex ;)

An old acquaintance who lost contact with me said that Schopenhauer had said that the human condition is like being like freezing porcupines, as we huddle together for warmth we are impaled on our quills. Schopenhauer was a miserable bastard. Whether or not he said that, I know not. Where people any less cold in the past I wonder....

I could rant a bit about in and through true community lies the salvation of the world. But best not.

How about I put this on my blog?

love and liberation

Bluebell xx