Now Back to our Regularly Scheduled ProgrammeLIFE IN CAMBRIDGE

An odd collection of September days.  Awaiting fall like a leaf on a planetree.

On this 29th day of September 2011
(Cambridge, the United Kingdom)

   

Another freakishly hot day here in the UK; and, with the autumnal sun low to the horizon, it feels as though a miracle’s about to happen …     this can’t be good.

    

People are already leaving their clothes behind.  Granted, they’re sunning themselves on Parker’s Piece, where it’s like Miami Beach in the Winter  —  the Dutch descended, as a nation, upon the sands.   And, some folks are already rising toward heaven.  Yes.  Of course, they're only playing football (uh, soccer), doing headers, whilst others are straining to catch Frisbees.  As signs go, I take what I am given.

      

I haven’t seen any wolves lay down with lambs.  But, my dog pulled me into the shade of a plane-tree on the banks of the River Cam.  There he laid himself down, panting, beside the bulls that normally feed on the fen grasses.  No, and nor have I seen four horsemen.  But, the schools have just ended the day’s sessions; and, their munchkins are travelling in packs on bicycles in the spirit of emissaries of Mongolian Khans.   — No one is safe!

   

And, this being the United Kingdom, I can attest: everyone is speaking in tongues, the tongues both of these isles and those of their commonwealth together with those of the continent over which many Britons despair.

   

No, this cannot be good.

   

There is not a cloud in the sky.  And, come nightfall, Jupiter will again herald the hour when the NBC and CBS World News programs are broadcast.  They'll be carried live, like water from a well.  ... Broadcast well beyond bed-time, suggesting that the working day is done.

     

I bet that tomorrow will be hotter, still.  Hotter than bright.  Hotter than hell!

   

      

On this 28th day of September 2011
(Cambridge, the United Kingdom)

   
[while out walking the dogs, Max and Maya]

   

It’s a scream bloody murder night in my neighbourhood.

HELP ME! can be heard as I round the corner from City Road, which is less urban than the name might suggest, onto Fitzroy, a shopping street.  The call is loud.  It is persistent.  Oddly, it is male.

Fitzroy, by the way, is archaic English meaning son of a king; its translation, this evening, is somewhat closer to son of a queen.  Neither is exactly what I’m hearing as I approach the young man.  He’s speaking a bit of English mixed with Russian.  He is accompanied by three friends: one male, one female, and the other is a bottle of vodka.  In Russian, he’s asserting that his male companion, who has him in a headlock, is a Nazi.

We travel in proximity until we reach New Square, where Max has a rendezvous with the lawn.  The Russians continue on, loudly.  One of the young men will punch the lights out of a road sign, literally.  It is an internally lit road sign.  Regardless, the sign takes it well and fights back like a Weeble.

(I think Weebles, here in the United Kingdom, are known as “roly-poly men”, or, since the days of Noddy on kiddie TV, “wobblymen”.  But, that’s beside the point.  In Russian, they’re known as “tilting dolls” or “candidates not-named-Putin" in a Russian presidential contest.)

A bit later.  From the direction of the city centre.  Screams of RAPE! from a young woman and HELP ME! from a young man can be heard coming upon us as we head home.  I remind myself that Yob (that’s Boy spelled backward, an English invention, meaning poor wayward lad) … that Yob only sounds like a Russian word.  These are American voices.  They’re probably travelling with a silent friend, Jack Daniels; but, I can’t see them yet.  They’ll overtake us soon enough; Maya is taking forever to find just the right tree to fertilize.  It’s amazing how loud people, regardless their nationality, can be here after dark.  Anyway, the speed with which they are approaching suggests that the only rape presently occurring is that of a peaceful night.

The voices, Russian and American, are odd book-ends for what is heard on the return approach to Fitzroy.  English accents, this time.  No, you sodding arsehole! a male voice screams.  The English have a lovely way of intoning the word No, of elongating it to demonstrate insistence, as if in this case “sodding” didn’t lend enough support to the word "arsehold".  It’s followed by Get your own tree.  The sound of it is, well, incongruous without recalling childish conundra (erm [um], conundrums) such as Does a tree fall in the forest, if … and Does the Pope shit in the woods, if …  As I round the corner onto Fitzroy, I spy them. 

Three young Englishmen, plus one, the sodding one.  Each of them, lined up like Elgin Marbles.  Each of them, minus the sodding one, standing stolidly beside one of the line of trees fronting the Waitrose grocery store.  The sodding one seems aimless, like a just-fired pinball, banging about.

Inside the store, a sixth friend is buying a fifth friend for the evening; it looks like Lamb’s Navy Rum — amongst rums, a rather rough tasting liquor but very English.  It’s a pity that the sixth friend emerges from the store with a puzzled look on his face.  He doesn’t get the classical reference.   Athena Parthenos! shouts one of the tree men.  We are about to play a game of “See no evil.  Hear no evil.  Speak no evil.” with these cheeky monkeys.  Athena was the goddess of the forest! shouts another.  It's obvious; they've escaped from a classics degree for the evening.  And, the final of the three tree men, staring into the eyes of the emerging friend with his fifth of Lamb’s, screams Parthenos! … She was the VIRGIN, to which the fourth man — pin-ball man, the sodding one — adds sheepishly Parthenos.  That’s Greek.

Ah, college men.  I wonder if they know the old British naval saying.  Would it be too crass to remark upon it here?  I’m oddly tempted to scream it out, You need a cork at night to get any sleep!  Disappointingly however, I believe that the trees are London Planetrees.  Americans call them Sycamores.  No cork there.  And, none for The Night of Loud Voices either.

 

On this 25th day of September 2011
(Cambridge, the United Kingdom)

   
Max is developing a new habit.  On walks he pulls toward the Veterinary Surgery (that's "the vet’s office" in American English).  Max seems to have developed a fondness for the vet since his last check-up when sweet nothings were whispered, in German, into his ears.

It’s a curious development, as Maya has been known to run home from the vet’s office.  (It’s only three blocks away; and, she hates needles.)

Walks in the direction of the office are becoming painful.  Both Max and Maya are amazingly strong.  I often have one dog pulling me toward the vet, the other pulling me away.

[Meanwhile]

I’m trying to suppress cravings for German and Polish pastry, dairy-rich morsels that threaten early death by coronary.  (The English have never, apparently, mastered the dark arts of death by deserts.  English pudding, for example, is just under-baked cake.)

I’m wondering how a pastry run to Munich or Warsaw will look on my application for permanent residency in the United Kingdom.  The application requires one to state where one has travelled outside the UK, for how long and to what end.

    

On this 3rd day of September 2011
(Cambridge, the United Kingdom)

A well dressed, immaculately groomed older woman called to me from the coffee shop across from the Indian ladies news outlet this morning.  It took me a while, speaking with her, to realize that she was speaking well formed gibberish.

The coffee shop owner told me that she used to drop in irregularly.  She’s now become a regular.  Forced retirement pushed her over the edge.  He said that he doesn’t mind.  She drinks the coffee and draws in customers.

The shop is something of a mixed bag.  In the morning, it’s a French pastry and coffee shop.  It makes its own croissants and pastries each morning.  The shop normally draws a crowd of older men in casual-ware with nothing better to do.  They drive up in their expensive sports cars and park them on the pedestrian mall.  Come evening, it’s a traditional family style Chinese restaurant, drawing the mainly Chinese students of the English language school next to the Indian ladies news outlet.  Mid-day, it is a little French-colonial era Hanoi.

       

On this 1st day of September 2011
(Cambridge, the United Kingdom)

   
The Indian ladies at the news store have decided that I should learn Gujarati.  That’s one of the squiggle languages.  Fortunately, they’re not making me write.  Speaking it is quite enough.

I’ve had to take a rather bizarre approach just to wrap my head around it.  Just so: I made the Urdu-speaking Pakistani delivery men laugh — nervously, but laugh — when I gave the Indian women a very polite greeting, Jeshi Chreshna — literally, May God be with you.  I felt rather like a trained monkey, what with the bounding voice with which I spoke the words.  Their laughter actually followed my response to their question, How you know that?      Jesus Christ, I said courtly, It kinda sounds like 'Jesus Christ'.  I've a motion-picture in my head, playing a video of the Hare Krishna devotees back in Gainesville, Florida.  Everyone is happy, swaying to the beat of cymbals and drums.

Knowing that they were Urdu speakers, and likely Muslim, I then greeted them with Allah Ismarladik (which to me, in my quirky world of language-learning sounds like "Is-Marla-a-Duck?") — that’s Turkish actually, for God be with you usually meaning "Goodbye" rather than "Hello" — what can you do in a pinch?!, … anyway, since Turkish is close (geographically if not linguistically) to Arabic, I figured that Urdu would be close as well.  It was.   Or, at least the delivery men pretended that it was.

Fortunately — perhaps wisely — they didn’t ask, How you know that?  I might have told them something my mother loved saying, Lord (Allah) … Lord, love a duck!  That probably would have been a big no-no.  But, I’m learning.

Anyway, may God be with you too!