First chop up some new potatoes and trim a handful of green beans (I don't have any means of weighing my ingredients, so I'm using measures like your granny used to). Then take a couple of slices of bread - depends on the thickness; if you use too much you can always throw away the surplus - and cut off the crusts. White, even-textured bread is best. Tear up your slices and crumble them into a bowl. If you have a basically violent and destructive nature - and come on, of course you do, we deal in Scottish literature around here - this is a very socially-acceptable way to give it vent.
Now grate in most of the zest of a lemon and add about a tablespoon of oregano. Mix it all up, and squeeze half the lemon-juice into a vessel of some kind. Coat a pork-chop in the juice - a pastry-brush is good, but otherwise just dip it - and then shoogle it about in the breadcrumb-mixture until coated. Be sure and keep the juice.
Put a frying-pan on a high-heat and drop in a thin shaving of butter, then plonk the chop right down on top of it as it melts. Turn over frequently, adding new shavings as required. You may well have to make running repairs with more juice and mixture. While you're at it boil those potatoes in salted water.
Once your pork is well-coated and ready to eat, pop it onto the plate to cool. By this point you can chuck in the beans with the potatoes, since they should be nearly ready. As they finish off, squodge mayo (it's good for you!) into the lemon-juice and mix until the result has the consistency of single-cream. Then mix in a spoonful of finely-chopped parsley.
Drain the veggies, put them on the plate, and spoon the lemon-mayo over everything. Then eat, like so:
Now, a writer whose not appreciated enough: the Irish humorist Flann O'Brien, who also wrote as Myles na g'Copaleen. Very precise language, very funny, and suffused at times with sinister rainy malevolence. Definitely worth a look under both names.
One of the regular features in his column for the Irish Times were episodes concerning the poets Keats and Chapman. In these vignettes, narrated with a wonderful economy of style, the due go on anachronistic slapstick adventures, always ending in a gut-wrenching pun from Keats which the whole thing was supposed to set up.
Owing to an incurable mental condition resulting from irresponsible parenting, I think puns are really funny, so I had a shot at the form myself, taking for my characters George Orwell and Harold Pinter because whyever not? I have chronicled their adventures in many countries, but I'm going to post them all in a oner because if this blog turned into a regular pun-venue I'd have to give up the sordid remnants of my dignity.
Here, then, are the implausible adventures of Orwell and Pinter. Small doses recommended.
Orwell and Pinter in: Do svidaniya, Rodina!
The time was the late 40s, and Orwell and Pinter were for some reason or other residing in a steel-making town in the northern part of Lanarkshire, an orbital of the Greater Glasgow conurbation and home to a famous football club who play in claret and amber strips. But their quiet existence among the steel-men was cut short when a telegram arrived from the government. It was urgently necessary that the men should travel to the USSR and perform, under the guise of a literary tour, a mission of such absolute secrecy and importance that I won't be able to include it in this story until the secrecy classification expires in thirty years time.
Then, in contrast, there was altogether too little time. The two men had a few weeks only in which to prepare: for this span they went around the house always in Russian costume, using the Russian language and affecting Russian mannerisms and modes of thought, as it would eventually be necessary to assume false identities. These habits began to stick, with Orwell especially: Pinter found it necessary to remind him from time to time that they would begin the mission as bona-fide Englishmen. But then, he reflected, Englishmen were known to be eccentric, so it would probably be alright.
The day came for them to board the train that would transport them to a port on the east coast, from there to take ship for Murmansk. As it pulled out, Pinter looked wistfully back at the chimneys of the Scottish industrial town.
"It may not be the kind of place hymned in rapturous lyrics," he mused aloud, "But there will be much to miss about the old town, much of what is best about our country. Its people: their practical minds and intuitive friendliness, their robust sense of humour, their touching faith in some basic system of justice in life. Theirs is a harsh home. And yet to me, for all its soot and granite, all its fog and slag and weeds, it has a certain hardy beauty of its own."
Orwell jerked his head in a small nod, adjusted his fur cap, nibbled some black bread, took a draft of vodka, and spoke – gruffly, but with a strange tenderness, and in a marked Slavic accent:
"Fair land, Motherwell."
Orwell's Burmese Days
During his time as sub-divisional police officer in Moulmein, George Orwell was compelled against his will to shoot an elephant. His description of the event is now well-known - but what is not so well-known is that, taking pity on the dying creature as he so movingly records in his famous essay, he decided to take from its corpse a grim memento. He selected its wiry tail, at once the easiest part of the body to remove and that least coveted by the Burmese.
The brush-like tail went with Orwell on all his travels. Though coarse, it served the spartan author well enough as a shower-brush when he was down and out in Paris and London; he used it to beat the accumulated coal-dust and crushed dreams out of his clothes along the road to Wigan pier; in Catalonia he gave homage to it as a fine tool for applying grease to his rifle and for repelling the fascist forces at close quarters. There are rumours (never substantiated, I would stress) that bits of 'Animal Farm' were written with a quill improvised from this versatile souvenir.
When he settled down back in Britain, Orwell made it his custom to hang this trusty companion from a particular one of his brass coathooks – but it so happened that one evening when Orwell's chum Harold Pinter came round for a cup of tea, it was not there but in its owner's hands as he sat by the fire, reminiscing of Burmese days. On hearing the doorbell, Orwell left his keepsake and rushed to open the door for his friend. They exchanged cordial greetings as Pinter removed his raincoat and tried to hang it up.
"Would you mind putting that on another hook, old chap?," said Orwell. He had seen that Pinter was draping his anorak over the hook reserved for the precious memorial of the elephant!
"Any reason?," Pinter asked, complying.
Orwell cast his eyes upwards. "Well, Harold," he said sadly, "Thereby hangs a tail."
Orwell and Pinter flying high
Harold Pinter once found himself invited to take part in an odd competition: various old boys connected to the RSC were to gather at a famous restaurant. After a lavish meal, the contest would begin: each guest was to produce some curious artifact or person, and a panel of judges would decide which was the most interesting, unusual, or amusing.
The evening promised a nice dinner, a few pints, and some laughs - but while Pinter objected to none of these things he was also anxious to secure the prize money (which came to a considerable sum), being at that time in financial distress. He felt sure that his old pal George Orwell could provide some item of historical interest or celebrity friend that would ensure victory.
But alas, Orwell was empty-handed! The frugal author had nothing out of the ordinary in his possession (save his elephant-hair shower-brush, with which he was unwilling to part even for a short while: see previous episode). In vain he phoned his old BBC colleagues: all had urgent business of their own. Poor Pinter, forced to make do with some antique editions of novels, set off to evening's revels in low spirits.
Orwell, feeling sorry for his friend, went to console himself in the pub. Upon entering the Moon Under Water – good heavens! Who should he spy at the bar, making easy, breezy conversation with the landlord, but Flying Officer Sir Arthur Spicer-Saxon! Who, in those days when much of London still lay in bombed-out ruins, could forget the wartime exploits of the dashing, red-blooded young pilot? Who could forget that his squadron, the elite East Finchley Silly Buggers, had shot down more enemy planes than any other during the Battle of Britain? Who had not rejoiced in their hearts at the news of his daring escape from Nazi captivity?
Orwell at once saw the hero's unlikely appearance at the Moon Under Water for what it was: a chance to deliver his friend Pinter from his unfortunate predicament. Hurrying over, Orwell exchanged a few hushed words with the death-defying aviator.
Pinter, who had hardly touched his roast chicken, was pleasantly surprised to see his friend slip into the restaurant where the contest was then reaching its final stages.
"Why so glum?," said Orwell, helping himself to the chicken. "Say, this is good."
Pinter explained with resignation that the contest was all but decided already: smarmy thespian Roderick FitzRoderick had with him the left thigh-bone of Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron! All other entries were put to shame in comparison.
Orwell smiled mysteriously and made some obscure signal, as if to a man watching the proceedings from outside the room.
"Fear not, Harold," he said. "We've got an ace in the whole."
Orwell and Pinter beyond the Iron Curtain
Pinter and Orwell went on an investigative journey behind the Iron Curtain. Eager to impress the famous intellectuals, the officials of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic organised a carefully stage-managed day-tour of Prague. In the morning, the pair were shown around the organs of the Czechoslovak state: boring old codgers in suits discoursed dryly on the perfection of the Czechoslovak socialist constitution. They laid particular emphasis on the way in which its executive, legislative, and judicial arms worked together like components of a well-oiled machine, each preventing any abuse of power by the others.
The real fun came in the afternoon, when an exhibition of Slavic culture was laid on. Adding some variety to all the Dvořak and Smetana and the interminable folk-dancing by red-cheeked lads and lassies in large embroidered skirts and larger embroidered trousers were the famous acrobats, trampolinists, and trapeze-artistes of the Prague circus. These performers put on a wonderful display: there were human pyramids many layers high, and the cooking of traditional Czech meals in the middle of tight-ropes. Though Pinter was still pre-occupied by the base hypocrisy of the communist regime, Orwell was delighted by the spectacle.
At the end of the day, their Czech guide asked Orwell and Pinter what they thought of the great socialist endeavour in Czechoslovakia. Pinter's face turned red and he ground his jaw, but Orwell diplomatically put the first word in.
"I was very impressed by your system of Czechs and balances," he said, truthfully.
Pinter maintained a dignified silence.
(The duo later carried on to communist Poland and witnessed a similar Slavic folk extravaganza, in the course of which Orwell got terribly drunk on plum-brandy. He started attempting to stuff wads of złoty down the bodice of a stout Polish peasant girl, who was showcasing the lively traditional dances of the Galician village.
"What do you think you're doing, George?," said Pinter under his breath.
"Well," said Orwell, affronted, "Is she or is she not a Pole dancer?")
Orwell and Pinter on holiday
Harold Pinter was holidaying in the Mediterranean, enjoying some sun on the largest of Greece's Dodecanese islands and making mental notes for a savagely critical play inspired by the Greek junta that he would pen upon his return to England. He was lying in a deck-chair, meditating on the relationship between sexual impotence and political repression, when along came George Orwell!
"George! I had no idea you were in this part of the world!"
The two friends fell to conversation, and the details that emerged became stranger and stranger. Both had left Great Britain with no particular destination in mind, and yet both had come by roundabout routes to the same island – and not only that, but each had already encountered several other countrymen in the exact same condition! The island seemed to exert some strange magnetic force on travelling British authors.
"All roams lead to Rhodes," mused Orwell philosophically.
Pinter and the press
As part of his never-ending quest to keep out of debt, Pinter once took up an offer of sub-editorial work at a major national newspaper. The job was not to his liking. The non-existent social graces of the unshaven, hard-drinking, chain-smoking, machismo-obsessed media bandits who reported to him were bad enough, but what really infuriated Pinter was their lack of appreciation - never mind respect! - for the subtleties of the English language. There were a few hard-boiled cases who cared about nothing save the thrill of the scoop, even leaving to the beleaguered sub-editors such basic tasks as spell-checking. Some of the journalists were, in Pinter's opinion, teetering drunkenly on the edge of illiteracy.
"They have no understanding of the most basic homonyms!," he burst out one day on returning to the flat he was sharing with Orwell at the time, owing to his financial woes. Orwell looked up sympathetically: he knew all too well by this point who 'they' were. "They cannot tell 'it's' from 'its', nor 'who's' from 'whose', nor even 'your' from 'you're'! How can I be expected to work with such people, George? How?"
At this Pinter collapsed into his battered armchair, head in hands, and began to sob loudly.
Orwell went to the counter which served the duo as a kitchen and set about brewing a bracing cuppa.
"Cheer up, old lad," he said. "Come on, show us a smile. It's not so bad. At least you know your way around a homonym, eh, Harold? Come on, chin up. There, their, they're."
Pinter bit his lip.
Moral lessons from Orwell and Pinter
This historian of those great master-craftsmen of the English language, Orwell and Pinter, has alluded in the past to their flat-sharing arrangement. They were generally harmonious flat-mates, but sometimes tensions would arise over the eccentricities of one or the other. Orwell's incessant smoking, or Pinter's habit of pausing at significant moments in every conversation, may seem trivial quirks, but try living with them for months on end! Still, whenever such things became too much to bare, the duo had out like adults and adjusted their ways, and were the better for it.
One of Orwell's slightly odious habits about the house was of picking things up whenever he needed them, putting them to whatever use had crossed his mind, and then leaving them far from their proper place, or else keeping them in his well-stuffed pockets. He was forever scratching his back or picking his nose with random household articles, some of them very valuable. Pinter let this pass until he took up the hobby of carpentry. Having his files, planes, and saws vanish into Orwell's pockets whenever he needed them most was simply not acceptable to Pinter.
He made this clear, and Orwell obligingly began to keep a pencil on him for such purposes as previously mentioned. Then he went further: feeling remorseful, he tidied up the disorderly rooms, making everything spic and span. Pinter was so absorbed in his carpentry that he took no notice, which left Orwell feeling rather taken for granted.
Though usually a very fastidious person, Pinter was like all of us subject to occasionally attacks of absent-mindedness, and working at his bench one day (a good fortnight after Orwell reformed his ways), he reached out for a hand-vice and found that it was not in its station on the shelf. The reason was that it was in his idle left hand.
"George!," he called into the living room, "Have you gone and pinched my vice?"
Orwell looked up from his writing and over his shoulder into the workshop. His keen eyes at once spotted the forgotten tool in Pinter's grasp.
"Search others for their virtues, thyself for thy vices," he said irritably, and returned to his work.
Orwell and Pinter in Germany
Orwell and Pinter were invited to an international gathering of noted pen-pushers organized in Hamburg. They passed an enjoyable week in the great port at the mouth of the Elbe, attending lectures and debates on various literary and political topics in the mornings and indulging in a bit of sight-seeing in the evenings; thus, though the conference was held largely in English, both men started to pick up some rudiments of the German language.
The meeting of minds dissolved on a Saturday. The Hull steamer did not run on the Sabbath, leaving the duo with a day to themselves. Partly out of habit and partly to test their command of German, they attended a Sunday service at the nearest Lutheran church. Alas, they couldn't follow the sermon very well; though they did join in with the last hymn, a stirring and well-known anthem written by Martin Luther himself.
After the service was over they were rather surprised to see the whole congregation file into some attached land where tables and benches had been set up and, under the direction of the mild-mannered Reverend Doctor, tuck in to a full hot lunch. They'd heard of custard-creams and tea with the vicar, but this was something else: beer flowed freely, and the city's famous meat-cakes were consumed in bulk, yet it all went on in near-silence, with Teutonic efficiency.
"My," said Pinter quietly in English, "They all look so serious, you'd think this was a part of the liturgy."
"Ein burger fest ist unser Gott," agreed Orwell.
Orwell and Pinter in the Highlands
When he was living on the isle of Jura Orwell struck up a friendship with a man named Alasdair MacUispig. This man was a fiery land-language-people agitator and his default view of Lowland and English holiday-makers and summer-home-owners of all kinds was exceedingly dim; but he liked Orwell and his clear-headed, un-romantic sympathy for the Highland plight. They shared not only socialist politics but also a love of jazz: many an evening's discussion of crofters' rights or Gaelic education over the whisky was closed by the playing of a favourite record, or else a duet on the trombone and sax (the Englishman of course playing the latter instrument). I regret to say that both men had more enthusiasm than skill when it came to their music and, on the small island, you could indeed hear it all over the land. Fortunately the locals held Alasdair in great esteem thanks to his worthy political activities, and forgave him such eccentricities.
Much later, Orwell and his friend Pinter were aboard the ferry on their way to some business on the isle of Skye. Orwell was at the onboard bar purchasing a couple of pints, when who should he meet but Alasdair!
They soon caught up. Orwell was keen to introuduce his two old friends - perhaps to discuss the relevance of Pinter's chilling drama 'Mountain Language' to the Gaelic cause - but Alasdair, on hearing that Orwell had for reasons best known to himself packed his saxophone, would hear nothing else until a duet had been played for old time's sake. Orwell weakly suggested a venue on deck, so as not to disturb the other passengers. Each man nipped away to find his instrument.
Alasdair was the first onto the wind-whipped and spray-lashed deck, where a few brave souls were airing or watching the approaching silhouette of the Misty Island. His warm-up, however, was enough to drive them below, to wear Orwell, beer deposited, was buffing up his sax.
"There seems to be some commotion on deck," Pinter remarked.
"Yes, I'd not go up there if I were you," said his friend. "There's a fierce Gael blowing."
Orwell goes to war
Orwell and Pinter were sitting in the Moon under Water one evening, enjoying some stout after a hard day's intellectualising. It was mid-winter and there was a sharp chill in the air, and so the fire was lit and the regulars were all huddled about it. Pinter noticed that, in the rather fierce heat of the flames, Orwell kept nursing a particular part of his leg.
"Are you all right, George?," he asked his friend.
"Fine, fine," said Orwell. "Might as well be stoic. It's just an old wound of mine."
Pinter nodded and wondered whether it would be tactless to press any further, but curiosity won out. "War wound, is it?"
"Yes," said Orwell levelly. "Spain, '37. I was damn lucky, actually."
This aroused curiosity from the pub-goers, and Orwell was soon prevailed upon to tell his grisly story.
During his service with the International Brigades in Catalonia, Orwell had been cut off from his unit and fallen in with a Republican regiment. These men were a long way from home, for all of them were from Bilbao; though they hadn't a word of English, their fiery dedication to the twin causes of socialism and autonomy for their native home were clear nonetheless.
It was a dark time for the forces loyal to the Spanish Republic, and the same disorganised retreat that had separated Orwell from his compatriots had left this outfit in an isolated position: they were occupying an old hilltop church lying forward of the main Republican line. The soldiers were in high spirits, however, being assured that loyalist machine-gunners on the ridges behind them could command their flanks. Puffing their dog-ends, they explained to Orwell (in mime) that if the fascist rebels wanted to capture their impromptu fortification, it would have to be by a costly frontal assault.
Orwell had been prompted to question them on seeing that the whole detachment were dug in along one wall of the church's attached graveyard. All the heavier weapons available had been arranged to cover this same angle of approach, and only one of the gates into the church land was guarded.
At first it seemed that the Republicans' bravado was justified: all through the morning, the enemy threw himself fruitlessly against their line. The action became momentarily famous at a time when Republican victories were few to speak of, and soon the newspapers in Barcelona were variously reporting that the men involved were communists, anarchist, anarcho-communists, communo-anarchists, American or German brigaders, or Catalonian nationalists; the only version not aired was the true one, that they were perhaps sixty Bilbaoers and an Englishman.
But alas, the Nationalists were conducting a ruse. By cruelly wasting the lives of their troops, they were able to pin down the defenders of the church while putting pressure on Republican defenders on both flanks. Soon, unbeknownst to them, the loyalists were entirely encircled. Late in the afternoon – just as the sun began to set and preparations were made to withdraw in the night – the Nationalists fell upon the heroic platoon from all sides, pouring in through the three unguarded gates. It was a massacre; Orwell received his scar grappling with an enemy soldier in a ditch, where he was able to take refuge until the hours of darkness.
Silence attended the conclusion of his tale, until Pinter spoke up. "There's a lesson there, isn't there?," he mused.
"Quite," said his friend, "It's just as the proverb says. Never put all your Basques in one exit."
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