December 2011
27 posts
A Christmas Pavel. Part XXII
Music. O Come All Ye Faithful http://bit.ly/umAH9S
Upwards and onwards they flew, through ever more wondrous scenes and glorious sights.
Everywhere George looked, wealth was on the march again. See, a great magnate buys plenteous repast for inspectors of custom and excise. Wise investment! By the time the meal is ended, those good officials – so underpaid, let ‘em eat, for shame! – would be slowed...
A Christmas Pavel. Part XXI
Music. Ding Dong Merrily on High http://bit.ly/uclfcv
They flew up through the ceiling, and through the next, and through all the ceilings of the Treasury, and crashed uninjured through the roof, then soared away, higher and higher into strange and beautiful places and uncharted dimensions. George was exhilarated, as he found himself enveloped in the majesty of space and time. Past, present and...
A Christmas Pavel. Part XX
Music. I Saw Three Ships Come Sailing In http://bit.ly/sddcdB
“George,” said the Lady. “Our time together draws towards its end. Yet I see from your face that you would behold some few more triumphs to come. So.”
She raised her talons and George found himself restored to his office. There, he saw his future self seated at the desk. Mr Alexander stood alongside. George (past, present and future)...
A Christmas Pavel. Part XIX
Music. The Angel Gabriel http://bit.ly/8nox0G
“Tell me Mother,” shouted George, clinging onto the horse, “How is it that Mrs Brooks regains her eminence in the future you have shown me? Will it come to pass?”
Before the Lady could answer, the horse had swept back down to earth, charged into the Old Bailey and trotted into a courtroom. Mrs Brooks was due to watch some associates give evidence to a...
A Christmas Pavel. Part XVIII
Music. O Christmas Tree http://bit.ly/tTcQQt
George felt no pain from the stave upon his head. Yet it did affect him. For the riot and fray swirled about him for a moment, and then all was a dizzying confusion of colour and light. He sensed himself recover his rightful condition of middle-aged worldly wisdom and flaccidity of neck and girth, and felt the Lady’s hand upon him. Soon the spinning...
A Christmas Pavel. Part XVII
Music. Away in a Manger http://bit.ly/fSaDwj
“Mother,” said George, perched on top of the Speaker’s Chair. “I begin to understand what our future host meant about restrictive measures.”
“Yes,” said the Lady. “And do you understand how all these things will come to pass?”
“We can say one thing yet do another. Our stated wish to compassionate people in one matter may fall foul of what we do...
A Christmas Pavel. Part XVI
Music. Unto Us Is Born a Son http://bit.ly/vSeWBv
George was soon riding with the Lady and the Peeler along one of the many High Streets of our majestic capital towards congregations of young people. They were shouting and hurling stones. It was a weekday afternoon. Yet all was noise and rampage. The tintinnabulation of shrill bells and the hollering of alarums were unceasing. Bitter smoke, which...
A Christmas Pavel. Part XV
Music. We Three Kings http://bit.ly/v2NEZV
From his vantage on the mantelpiece, George watched as the host, the Master of the Feast, quelled the excitement generated by the forthcoming war with France and indicated he had a final matter to address.
“In thanking you all earlier for the things you have done, I asked you to forgive me if I mentioned two people to whom we owe especial thanks. One of...
A Christmas Pavel. Part XIV
Music. The First Nowell http://bit.ly/4GYTJf
The dais was removed, the applause died away, the guests resumed their seats, and the host explained the meaning of the entertainment.
At long last, he said, we had heeded the stern warnings of the magnificent Mr Cash, hero of the Nation. Continental drift, glaciation, a thin strip of water, the simple joy of giving someone a novelty singing sea bass...
A Christmas Pavel. Part XIII
Music. Stille Nacht http://bit.ly/icMU4f
“For on that glorious day,” resumed the host, when he smote the dwarven Frenchman on his nose and bade the Prussian Hausfrau shed some pounds – yes, good friends, pounds, he had said, pounds! – on that day when he stood up for Britain as indomitably as he once had braved Stinky Bantock, who tried to cheat at the Eton Wall Game – “I told him I wouldn’t put...
A Christmas Pavel. Part XII
Music. In the Bleak Midwinter http://bit.ly/119IRG
“Mother,” whispered George (the one upon the mantelpiece, not the fat one at the feast). “Our host says wondrous things. How has this come to pa – ” But the Lady bade him be silent. The lambent orator had further things to share.
“Why did we do all this?” he asked. “Was it because we hate the poor?”
There was silence in the dining hall, followed...
A Christmas Pavel. Part XI
Music. Halleluiah Chorus for Handel’s Messiah http://bit.ly/gid0nv
“Yet,” resumed the host, “though the poor forgot their obligations, we did not.” The feckless indigents had spurned the precepts of FACT and the dictates of MARKET. So, knowing that if the benefactions of FINANCE were not humbly, promptly and repeatedly repaid, then the arteries of commerce and industry – yea, of PROFIT...
A Christmas Pavel. Part X
Music. Good King Wenceslas http://bit.ly/sYFnsP
“Ladies and gentlemen,” began the host, for he was nothing if not conservative, and welcomed his guests to his new home. All applauded gratefully, and when the noise subsided, the host explained the benign purpose behind this exalted dwelling.
It had troubled him that the nation’s interests were ill-served by Prime Ministers who fretted upon what...
A Christmas Pavel. Part IX
Music. Masters in This Hall http://bit.ly/sQM6xy
Then the Lady pointed towards an extraordinary personage. George saw at once that this man was the chief guest. For he walked closer to the host than any, and was enveloped by his radiance. Quite literally enveloped, for the host’s face glowed with solar brilliance, and some of those nearby viewed him only through smoked glass. Yet the chief guest’s...
A Christmas Pavel. Part VIII
Music. Wassail Song http://bit.ly/eSrKb8
There was Mrs Brooks! And, thought George, what is this? Is she restored to her former eminence? How can this be? For she rode upon a magnificent dark charger, called Rupert – even in the dining hall! And she seemed once more every inch the Artemis or, should we say, the Athena of Newsprint. Later, after dinner, George saw her converse intimately, but most...
A Christmas Pavel. Part VII
Music. Diving Home for Christmas http://bit.ly/v0U7Ad
There was Mr Clarkson, the master of the mechanised Phaetons. Not that he makes them, mind. Those magical conveyances are assembled now in faraway places. Yet Mr Clarkson’s opinions on them are LAW, and he governs which carriages are purchased for velocity, which to compensate for microscopic organs of increase, and which to render a man,...
A Christmas Pavel. Part VI
Music. The Twelve Days of Christmas http://bit.ly/th2XmN
It was Christmas Day, some five years hence. George found himself within the cavernous, richly ornamented dining hall of a great house. He heard a confident, self-satisfied hubbub, and turned towards the majestic entrance doors, half open, through which he saw the outlines of luncheon guests exchanging gossip in the receiving room. George...
A Christmas Pavel. Part V
Music. Coventry Carol http://bit.ly/3WmTmj
George found himself in a smaller home than ever he had entered. It was the woman’s: a single room serving as kitchen, sitting room, dining room and bedroom, abutting a water closet she shared with the tenement’s other households.
The Lady told George this was Christmas morning, one year hence. The room was cold. Two little girls, twins, about six years...
A Christmas Pavel. Part IV
Music. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen http://bit.ly/vtVeyV
The place was noisy, crowded with its regular, exclusive patrons, enjoying their seasonal celebration at this their home from home. They were Great Ones of the City. Not the Greatest, but those who aspired one day to replace them. Jobbers, clerks, lawyers, arithmeticians. They shouted, laughed, opined, certain of their ground, brooking no...
A Christmas Pavel. Part III
Music Walking in the Air http://bit.ly/89s7K6
The Lady - for it was she – drew in her wings. She leaned her tall frame forward and arched her head down towards George. Then she cradled his face gently in her talons.
“Faithful one,” she intoned huskily, quieter now. “You know me for what I am. True child! You reverence me. Ah son, my misery!” The Lady let go of George, stretched again to her utmost...
