I have been mulling over some ideas about moving the early-to-mid 1500's to later years and venturing across the Atlantic.
Catharine of Aragon would have been Elizabeth Edwards - placed in an unhappy but sympathetic situation, though more popular than her character might strictly have merited.
Anne Boleyn would have been Christine O'Donnell - an evangelist with witchcraft, purity and motherhood issues, and it's a neat parallel between having Protestant Bibles smuggled into England in consignments of French underclothing and flirting with Bill Maher on Politically Incorrect all to further the glory of the Saviour's Alliance for Lifting the Truth.
Jane Seymour would have been Newt Gingrich's wife, neglected and left to die just when times ought to have been most prosperous.
Anne of Cleves would have been Caroline Kennedy, whose brush with being a Senator worked out about as well as Anne's with being Queen, although at least Anne got a really happy ending.
Catherine Howard would have been silly enough to marry Rush Limbaugh. Had she not been rather stupid, I might have been tempted to say she'd have been Camille Paglia.
Katherine Parr would have been an ideological survivor - Barbara Boxer, perhaps?
Mary Tudor would have been either Nancy Pelosi or Sarah Palin. NP had tenure of about the same length trying to reverse the course of her country, but SP had the pregnancy issues. A toss-up.
Elizabeth Tudor would have been one of those cagey bipartisans like Mary Landrieu or Olympia Snowe.
Mary Stewart, given her silliness and taste in husbands, would have been Arianna Huffington.
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This week, the questions are irritating enough that I shall declare a Faux Outrage Day:
L1: This letter is an outrage. If the LW had been male and revealed that the outline of one of his particular private parts had been inadvertently outlined through his clothing, the Prudecutor would have called him a pervert and a child molestor and demanded that he be run out of polite society in perpetuity. Additionally, we have the Prudecutor once again injecting her own preferences and sexuality into the situation in a completely inappropriate manner, and to the effect that I am feeling it necessary to go boil my eyeballs. Fortunately, I had no particular acquaintance with the person she names; had it been Stephane Lambiel, I could never have watched figure skating again.
For genuine advice on LW1's situation, I refer the question to the Submariner, who doubtless has far more experience than I on the subject, and is doubtless prepared to give a far more appreciative response. I shall only add that Claude Erskine Brown would completely support LW1's position, which is as good an argument as any I can recall for adopting the contrary viewpoint.
Moral: Anne Boleyn would have had a garment for this situation.
L2: This letter is an outrage. If the brother who hates his job and is deeply in debt had been a sister, LW2 would not have been so quick to write the sibling off as a complete failure or to have been so disgustingly judgmental about what he would likely do with the money. A sister would have been offered free room and board with LW2 along with a generous salary that would doubtless far exceed what has been ladled out to the brother in dribs and drabs by way of a token of gratitude. And the parents would have beenn investigated as abusers and blamed for ruining their daughter's life in perpetuity instead of their son's being called a blank-up for not getting with the program. In the Prudecutor's defence, however, she would most likely have made the assumption that everything has to be due to a diagnosable condition whether the sibling were male or female.
As for a real assessment of the situation, it seems reasonable for LW2 to offer to settle particular debts, not that that will really have any effect in the long run. I am a little reminded of those irritating people who fret endlessly in newspaper columns over whether they should retire credit card debt or student lines or contribute to their retirement accounts instead. They waffle on for paragraph after paragraph as if the whole of their moral worth would ride on whether they net an extra $1.67 to leave in their wills. Will it really make that much difference? Even if LW2 pays off her brother's most crippling debts, then he'll probably just live more on credit for a while as he racks up new debts instead of his taking a considerable cash sum and squandering it himself.
LW2 is more or less half there, and cannot be faulted too severely for not being able to get past the rigours of a severe upbringing. At least LW2 adores her little brother (with good reason, as he doubtless made her shine when she was facing the most critical of juries), and recognizes the value of his coming through for her in her time of need. But I would rather like to cross-examine her on exactly what she thinks maintaining the same parental attitude towards her brother as was upheld by their parents for all his life would accomplish. Does she seriously think her brother is suddenly going to become successful and motivated if she pushes him down the same path their parents tried for years and years to push him? Such hubris!
Moral: There are far worse things than hating one's job. Those who work to live instead of the other way around develop skills that can be of considerable value.
L3: This letter is an outrage. Mr Savage expresses it best. He recently received a letter from an infuriating woman who signed herself Serial Cheater in Love. She has been having an affair with her first love, who wants her to leave her second husband. The second husband has become much more attentive and loving since learning of the affair, when she was hoping he would divorce her and make the decision for her. She wrote to Mr Savage hoping that he would wave his magic wand and solve all her problems. His reaction to the letter was summed up eloquently in this sentence:
"This ***** can get legally married and I can't?" LW3 may not be quite that bad, but she's not a whole lot better.
If this were my novel, LW3 would hire someone (or convince a friend) to seduce her husband and arrange for her to catch them in the act. She would then be able to get a divorce without his feeling any right to feel ill-used, she would retain the affection and sympathy of his family, and everything would be lovely forn a while as she went off to pursue her desired adventures. After a year or so she'd want him back, only to find that he and his seductress had fallen genuinely in love.
But I really long for the sort of world in which one could tell such an idiot as LW3 that this is what happens to people who rush into making lifetime commitments without anywhere near the appropriate amount of serious consideration, and that it was too bad she didn't think before she opted for the Bridezilla path but now what was done was done, her husband had done nothing wrong, and just to grin and bear it. But that sort of thing only works in an ideal world. LW3 would doubtless punish her husband up the east coast, across Canada and down the west coast. I suppose really the only answer is for her to have an affair. That ought to get her vague lust for adventure out of her system. If she isn't caught, she may be sufficiently grateful to make sure that she treats her husband well. But I suppose she will probably be caught, and then he and his family will have a reason to resent her which will make them all feel a good deal better about themselves than if she simply doesn't want to be married at all and ruins things almost without any meaning.
Moral: If only LW3 could take Catherine Howard as a role model.
L4: This letter is an outrage. The fund collects an equal amount from everyone in the office and then doles out presents to those workers who become PREGNANT? This is discrimination of the clearest variety against men. I suppose LW4 and her female associates will try to cover their derrieres by claiming that they will spend just as much on whatever present they buy any man who happens to become pregnant as they do for any woman, but this is just another variation on the old trick of offering benefits to married couples and then telling same-sex couples that it's not discrimination, as unmarried heterosexual couples don't get preferential treatment, and if ever... well, at least some of those discriminators have gotten theirs.
As for this situation, it is interesting that a higher-up in the office would be the one to refuse to contribute to the fund in question. That just seems so typical. But I am more interested in LW4 putting herself in the role of the New Broom determined to change the entire corporation to suit her own sense of what might be right or appropriate. It might be fun to see her receive what she has coming to her.
Moral: Katherine Parr at least knew how to treat Mary, Elizabeth and Edward.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Thursday, January 20, 2011
1/20 - Up the Down Staircase
Some of the comments from Monday about the question of a retroactive confession of cheating have really depressed me. I suppose I'm just alien; it has almost never happened, but when I was last cheated upon (by someone even more torn apart by misery and guilt than the LW in question) my one strong or lasting instinct was to comfort him and to make sure he was thoroughly comforted and back to normal before holding a discussion about all the ramifications and what to do in future. All the prognostications of fury depress me, as do the claims that the husband in question had not maintained his end of the bargain. [See: Spencer, Diana] My take on the situation of the LW in particular is that she wants the friend with whom she cheated back in her life as a friend, and she thinks that confessing her transgression will get her over her guilt enough to allow her to reopen the friendship, even if she genuinely means not to slip again. I advise Divorce.
On the positive side, Kim Clijsters has perhaps set a new standard for how to treat questions of a Particular Nature. Interesting that Rennae Stubbs showed KC the message from Todd Woodbridge to begin with, but it seems to have ended all as a bit of good fun.
This week we visit Calvin Coolidge High School.
L1: This letter would certainly have more impact had it been written by H1 instead of LW1. There are two main issues. How much foundation does LW1 have for her claims against MIL1's sanity? As a side line, one might wonder what H1 and his brothers have been doing propping up their mother in all her delusional insanity for all their lives. Then there is the matter of how much justification if any MIL1 had for contacting the authorities about suspected baby abuse, and what she has done since she has been proved to be in error. There are ways in which people act when their conduct has been doubtful that demonstrate responsibility. From what we have to go on thus far, MIL1 is not acting in such a manner.
At least LW1 and H1 are sufficiently in accord to stick to their agreement, but why is H1 continuing to mope so? What does it matter which side of the family supplies any grandparents worthy of being known? And why would H1 continue to mope if MIL1 continues to behave in an outrageous way, making increasingly unreasonable demands? Something is just off.
I cannot see LW1 as Miss Barrett, the protagonist in UtDS, for all her railing against the insanity of the system. She might be the embittered Mr Barringer, Miss Barrett's fellow English teacher, who cannot treat a student in love with him with common decency. MIL1 might at a stretch be the battered Linda Rosen, who, asked by Miss Barrett if she can do anything for her, asks if Miss B can arrange for dancing in the cafeteria. But I think I settle for H1 as a cross between the school nurse, who cannot touch a wound or remove foreign particles from the eye and must accordingly settle for giving Linda Rosen a cup of tea, and the guidance counselor, Miss Friedenberg, who might have served as a role model for sound bite politicians. In her zeal, Miss F can produce at a pinch a Pupil Personality Profile for every student in the school with all his/her teachers' Capsule Characterizations, producing with pride about a thimbleful of empty generalization by way of insight into the characters and troubles of the members of Miss Barrett's class.
The solution to LW1's situation is simple enough: Divorce. C1 do not really see eye to eye. H1 is yielding to his wife now, but he will soon resent doing so.
Moral: "You have devoted... a whole generation of time to this work, haven't you?"
L2: The Prudecutor is at her most irritating. It may be reasonable to assume that meeting and marrying LW2 might be the best thing that ever happened to H2, but there may well be other things that have happened to H2 that could well vie for the honour, or at least sufficiently appear so to do as to make it unwise to make the bold declaration advocated by the Prudecutor. And it is a bit much for the Prudecutor to be so aggressive in her assertion that C2 have done Nothing Wrong when it is clearly a point of conduct that anyone could have predicted would have been considered questionable by the small-minded in a conservative community. Do we even know for sure that LW2 objects only to what she perceives to be entirely unjustified and malicious attacks, or whether what stings ios that some part of her inner self is not entirely convinced she has in this matter acted in strict accordance with the dictates of her own moral code. Personally, I'd be inclined to be content with congratulating C2 on beating the odds against rebound romances. Then again, I know so little of religions that I cannot pronounce with the glib assurance of the Prudecutor that it is ridiculous to disapprove of a separated but not yet divorced person dating or boinking. Religions contain many prejudices with which one might disagree while allowing that, given the basic premise of the faith group involved, a particular prejudice X or Y is understandable.
It might help to know whether LW2 entered into the campaign as an ostrich, or whether this particular race is an exception to the usual manner in which local politics tend to be conducted there. Is this the first race in which the incumbent has run a negative campaign, or one reaching so far as the personal lives of opposing candidates? I am almost inclined to guess that LW2 just did not foresee the campaign taking this particular turn, and that she is basically at peace therefore with her own conscience, but cannot be certain.
LW2 does seem to fit Miss Barrett's model, that of the innocent fumbling in the unexpectedly complex arena into which she finds herself drawn, coming to the brink of surrender, but just in time embracing her situation. Not a bad role model for a Candidate's Wife. LW2 could choose worse.
As to what C2 ought to do, one potential idea is to run on the truth, own what they have done, acknowledge that some people will vote against H2 accordingly, respectfully disagree with the wisdom of such a vote on such a basis, and perhaps reap a reward in a harvest of votes from those who choose to stand against prejudice. Then again, such a plan might not be feasible in their community. But it is possible.
Another course, and the one I prefer, is either a sham or a real divorce. A pretence of yielding to community standards might serve H2. However, given the odds against toppling a popular incumbent, however bad the local economy, I am inclined to favour a genuine divorce. Either H2 is as green as LW2, in which case he ought to have had better sense than to offer himself up as the sacrificial lamb, or he (or at least his party operatives) had some sense of the questions that would arise and did not enter the race on condition of dropping out at the first sign of LW2's discomfort. She doesn't care for the attention she's barely started to receive, and he's a real soldier. Not a match. Note that LW2 only mentions that she is considering asking him to drop out, despite her acknowledgment of the time and effort invested in the candidacy already. There is no hint that he has actually offered to drop out if she so desires. That may make a genuine divorce quite reasonable.
Moral: "Just walk slowly and think of the odds, 18 to 6."
L3: How has such a robot as LW3 actually managed to have an emotional relationship in the first place? It's easy enough to see why he's divorced, but I feel rather deprived, as I now cannot advise him to take such action. He has preceded me. On the other hand, it is interesting to encounter a male legal version of Dr Lilith Sternin Crane.
In his defence, at least he does not intend to boink more than one partner concurrently. And given that he has shown the ability to have sex with the same partner ten times while being willing to undertake an eleventh, we might even infer possible longevity for an individual partner. It would be interesting to delve into his relationship with partners who happened not to be age-appropriate - or would that be mean-spirited?
As I cannot tell LW3 to divorce when he has already done so and intends never to wed again, I can only advise him to date professionals with top-grade references. Who would be more likely to be more careful to guard against nasty litle diseases?
LW3's parallel in UtDS seems rather clearly to be the bureaucratic vice principal, Mr McCabe, who has neither vision nor insight nor compassion, but can be relied upon to uphold rules to the best of his considerable ability.
Moral: "It's the sound of thinking."
L4: A curious situation, which I can only compare to Mr Barringer's receipt of a love letter from Alice Blake. How does one cope? He didn't choose a clever method, opting to go over it line by line with the poor girl as if it were a poorly composed homework assignment. She ended by jumping out the window of his classroom some time afterwards.
Moral: "A love letter..." "Which I corrected for grammar and spelling and returned to the student..."
On the positive side, Kim Clijsters has perhaps set a new standard for how to treat questions of a Particular Nature. Interesting that Rennae Stubbs showed KC the message from Todd Woodbridge to begin with, but it seems to have ended all as a bit of good fun.
This week we visit Calvin Coolidge High School.
L1: This letter would certainly have more impact had it been written by H1 instead of LW1. There are two main issues. How much foundation does LW1 have for her claims against MIL1's sanity? As a side line, one might wonder what H1 and his brothers have been doing propping up their mother in all her delusional insanity for all their lives. Then there is the matter of how much justification if any MIL1 had for contacting the authorities about suspected baby abuse, and what she has done since she has been proved to be in error. There are ways in which people act when their conduct has been doubtful that demonstrate responsibility. From what we have to go on thus far, MIL1 is not acting in such a manner.
At least LW1 and H1 are sufficiently in accord to stick to their agreement, but why is H1 continuing to mope so? What does it matter which side of the family supplies any grandparents worthy of being known? And why would H1 continue to mope if MIL1 continues to behave in an outrageous way, making increasingly unreasonable demands? Something is just off.
I cannot see LW1 as Miss Barrett, the protagonist in UtDS, for all her railing against the insanity of the system. She might be the embittered Mr Barringer, Miss Barrett's fellow English teacher, who cannot treat a student in love with him with common decency. MIL1 might at a stretch be the battered Linda Rosen, who, asked by Miss Barrett if she can do anything for her, asks if Miss B can arrange for dancing in the cafeteria. But I think I settle for H1 as a cross between the school nurse, who cannot touch a wound or remove foreign particles from the eye and must accordingly settle for giving Linda Rosen a cup of tea, and the guidance counselor, Miss Friedenberg, who might have served as a role model for sound bite politicians. In her zeal, Miss F can produce at a pinch a Pupil Personality Profile for every student in the school with all his/her teachers' Capsule Characterizations, producing with pride about a thimbleful of empty generalization by way of insight into the characters and troubles of the members of Miss Barrett's class.
The solution to LW1's situation is simple enough: Divorce. C1 do not really see eye to eye. H1 is yielding to his wife now, but he will soon resent doing so.
Moral: "You have devoted... a whole generation of time to this work, haven't you?"
L2: The Prudecutor is at her most irritating. It may be reasonable to assume that meeting and marrying LW2 might be the best thing that ever happened to H2, but there may well be other things that have happened to H2 that could well vie for the honour, or at least sufficiently appear so to do as to make it unwise to make the bold declaration advocated by the Prudecutor. And it is a bit much for the Prudecutor to be so aggressive in her assertion that C2 have done Nothing Wrong when it is clearly a point of conduct that anyone could have predicted would have been considered questionable by the small-minded in a conservative community. Do we even know for sure that LW2 objects only to what she perceives to be entirely unjustified and malicious attacks, or whether what stings ios that some part of her inner self is not entirely convinced she has in this matter acted in strict accordance with the dictates of her own moral code. Personally, I'd be inclined to be content with congratulating C2 on beating the odds against rebound romances. Then again, I know so little of religions that I cannot pronounce with the glib assurance of the Prudecutor that it is ridiculous to disapprove of a separated but not yet divorced person dating or boinking. Religions contain many prejudices with which one might disagree while allowing that, given the basic premise of the faith group involved, a particular prejudice X or Y is understandable.
It might help to know whether LW2 entered into the campaign as an ostrich, or whether this particular race is an exception to the usual manner in which local politics tend to be conducted there. Is this the first race in which the incumbent has run a negative campaign, or one reaching so far as the personal lives of opposing candidates? I am almost inclined to guess that LW2 just did not foresee the campaign taking this particular turn, and that she is basically at peace therefore with her own conscience, but cannot be certain.
LW2 does seem to fit Miss Barrett's model, that of the innocent fumbling in the unexpectedly complex arena into which she finds herself drawn, coming to the brink of surrender, but just in time embracing her situation. Not a bad role model for a Candidate's Wife. LW2 could choose worse.
As to what C2 ought to do, one potential idea is to run on the truth, own what they have done, acknowledge that some people will vote against H2 accordingly, respectfully disagree with the wisdom of such a vote on such a basis, and perhaps reap a reward in a harvest of votes from those who choose to stand against prejudice. Then again, such a plan might not be feasible in their community. But it is possible.
Another course, and the one I prefer, is either a sham or a real divorce. A pretence of yielding to community standards might serve H2. However, given the odds against toppling a popular incumbent, however bad the local economy, I am inclined to favour a genuine divorce. Either H2 is as green as LW2, in which case he ought to have had better sense than to offer himself up as the sacrificial lamb, or he (or at least his party operatives) had some sense of the questions that would arise and did not enter the race on condition of dropping out at the first sign of LW2's discomfort. She doesn't care for the attention she's barely started to receive, and he's a real soldier. Not a match. Note that LW2 only mentions that she is considering asking him to drop out, despite her acknowledgment of the time and effort invested in the candidacy already. There is no hint that he has actually offered to drop out if she so desires. That may make a genuine divorce quite reasonable.
Moral: "Just walk slowly and think of the odds, 18 to 6."
L3: How has such a robot as LW3 actually managed to have an emotional relationship in the first place? It's easy enough to see why he's divorced, but I feel rather deprived, as I now cannot advise him to take such action. He has preceded me. On the other hand, it is interesting to encounter a male legal version of Dr Lilith Sternin Crane.
In his defence, at least he does not intend to boink more than one partner concurrently. And given that he has shown the ability to have sex with the same partner ten times while being willing to undertake an eleventh, we might even infer possible longevity for an individual partner. It would be interesting to delve into his relationship with partners who happened not to be age-appropriate - or would that be mean-spirited?
As I cannot tell LW3 to divorce when he has already done so and intends never to wed again, I can only advise him to date professionals with top-grade references. Who would be more likely to be more careful to guard against nasty litle diseases?
LW3's parallel in UtDS seems rather clearly to be the bureaucratic vice principal, Mr McCabe, who has neither vision nor insight nor compassion, but can be relied upon to uphold rules to the best of his considerable ability.
Moral: "It's the sound of thinking."
L4: A curious situation, which I can only compare to Mr Barringer's receipt of a love letter from Alice Blake. How does one cope? He didn't choose a clever method, opting to go over it line by line with the poor girl as if it were a poorly composed homework assignment. She ended by jumping out the window of his classroom some time afterwards.
Moral: "A love letter..." "Which I corrected for grammar and spelling and returned to the student..."
Thursday, January 13, 2011
1/13 - Operative Questions
What IS it with all these women who insist on playing coy games with The Proposal? Waiting Around for Him to Ask - my Aunt Fanny! And in the Monday case the Everything-but-the-Ring couple has already experienced what stereotypers would term Lesbian Bed Death. Part of me insists on thinking that it couldn't happen to a nicer couple. Another part of me has been continuing my little discussion about Eleanor Butler with Dr Susan. I used to be very White Richard, backing the Duke of Buckingham as the agent behind the murder of the Princes in the Tower. Recently, however, R3 has reminded me of Macbeth, and I have wandered into the Grey Richard camp.
Today I shall devise a few Operative Questions.
L1: LW1 confuses me somewhat. The tricky part with secondhand letters is that it's not alwas easy to discern what a LW is calling something and what the other person is calling the same thing. One is so inclined to reword things. Which of them called anal a Fetish? It certainly sounds as if he did, but I still want to make it absolutely clear that that is his own thinking and not just her mental association. The F word gets thrown about almost recklessly these days. If it originated from him, my guess would be that he is trying to manipulate her into making it their primary entree on the menu, as it were. If it originates from her, I suspect that she wants to make it into something seen as an exotic activity that is far outside the range of what a Normal Person might Reasonably Be Expected to Do. In a way, this is almost like watching a Cutthroat Defence when one knows one of two accused parties must be guilty and each accuses the other.
Another important question is, How has he presented the matter to her? He seems to have been a bit clumsy about it, not laying the groundwork properly and ensuring his partner's comfort along the way. Is he inconsiderate, just not very good at it, or has he made a reasonable effort and just met with a badly mismatched partner? The dealbreaker matter is sort of a side issue to this. Presumably he does not have to have it that way every time. It seems more a question of reasonable accommodation.
The question I like best is, Why has LW1 written to the Prudecutor instead of to Mr Savage, who is a good deal more expert in these matters? One possible answer is that she might not be aware of Mr Savage, but that seems not the most likely. She might have decided in advance that Mr Savage would definitely tell her to be GGG and that his comments section would, to be punny, savage her. Interestingly, just yesterday or so he pointed out in response to a young gay man that anal isn't automatic. Especially if LW1 pinned the F word on this of her own volition, I suspect she consults the Prudecutor because she knows just what answer she'll get back and she feels confident of a sympathetic reception. And it certainly seems that she got more or less what she expected.
I can go on and cross-examine the Prudecutor a bit. Just exactly when is exactly the right time to introduce a non-vanilla interest? Particularly with somewhat bland partners, advancing in small steps is much more likely the way to go. If anything, ABF1 has jumped the gun a bit or gone too fast for LW1. It likely depends on the exact meaning of dealbreaker (people are so like Humpty Dumpty and expect words to mean exactly what they pay them to mean). Unless the construction of the letter is rather off, he appears capable of functioning without indulgence. If he doesn't require it every time, then isn't it simply a question of whether he can be accommodated, and, if so, how often they should agree to do it?
And how, oh how, does the Prudecutor know exactly what is Standard Operating Procedure in bedrooms where her participation would not be required or welcomed? I would hesitate to spout myself, having Retired from Romance, but I should still venture to think myself a good deal more knowledgeable on this topic than the Prudecutor.
Moral: "What many men desire/That many may be meant/By the fool mutitude that choose by show/Not learning more than the fond eye doth teach"
L2: This time I shall begin with the most interesting question. Just when did The Father morph into My Fiance?
FSIL2 may have a good deal in common with more than one person or character, but the one who comes most definitely to mind is the Prodigal Son's Older Brother. Has FSIL2 basically played by Mamma's rules all her life and been rewarded very sparsely for it? Seems plausible enough to me. This does not justify her attack on LW2, but one can understand resentment on the part of someone who has done The Right Thing for year after year and barely been thanked for it when in swans someone who has done what would seem to be Clearly a Wrong Thing (or at least the Right Thing in the Wrong Order), and off she waltzes with a Big Reward.
There are so many questions one could ask. In many respects, this is reminiscent of the holiday questions we had featuring a LW and her MIL - where oh where has the Little Dog Gone? What is F2's contribution to LW2's decision-making process? It seems a bit much that he should be pushed out of the Family Interaction Prototype or get to check out on his own volition before the pair of them are even legally wed. Has FSIL2 had rather a hard time of it for someone with a rich mamma? Or perhaps did FSIL2 have a similar situation of her own in which Mamma behaved rather differently? Has FMIL2 always favoured her dear little boy over his two sisters (or at least the one who's complaining)? Is FSIL2 just badly behaved in general, greedy-grabby and wanting to keep her hands on as large an inheritance as she can? How is the Other FSIL2 taking the whole situation? Does FMIL2 tend to inject money into social transactions on a regular basis? There is just way too much one doesn't know to be truly comfortable with any particular line. My working hypothesis would be that FMIL2 typically is used to being on the receiving end of a good deal of sucking up - Miss Crawley in Vanity Fair, perhaps? And we all know that regular Sucking Up puts one at risk for turning into Goneril or Regan.
Then again, it is at least possible to look at the proposed gift as a Lovely Gesture. One hardly wants one's first grandchild to be raised by parents who are Financially Insecure. And there do exist young women who become Pregnant on Purpose, taking, as it were, Lucy Steele for a role model. Not that LW2 necessarily seems to be one of this type, but FSIL2 might have reason to think her so that has been Conveniently Omitted from L2. And some people do hold hat it matters whether a future child is the result of a commitment or the cause of one.
My working hypothesis is that FSIL2 has behaved more or less in a manner that she thinks worthy of being rewarded by FMIL2, although I'm torn on the question of whether FSIL2 particularly thought she deserved a bit of assistance, or that it would have been nice, or whether she hadn't had any particular thought about her mother's money until suddenly a large gift to a stranger pops up on her radar. This has the feel of L1 from last week and the ex-wife kept dangling for seven years about a child, and then LW1 got someone else pregnant and was thrilled forty ways to Sunday about everything. I wish F2 had written the letter; then we might know much more about his relationship with his sister. Has FSIL2 deliberately passed up the chance to become pregnant herself because it would have been financially imprudent (or even perhaps terminated a pregnancy for reasons of financial responsibility)? That seems a decent first guess, considering how little we've been given.
Should LW2 accept the offer? I can't bring myself to care either way. I don't really have a sufficient read on whether she'll earn every penny of it, and I cannot entirely settle on how much I dislike LW2. It is very curious that she first describes F2 as The Father, and then later calls him My Fiance without any mention of when the engagement occurred and any pertinent circumstances. I think I'm inclined to hope that the siblings and LW2 will all live unhappily ever after.
Moral: "Edwina said she was d****d if she was going to be Queen Lear."
L3: How on earth did this not all come out at the time of the estrangement? And why on earth would LW3 feel she ought not to tell the truth now? The only reason that comes to mind is that she thinks she might not be believed. But this whole letter just comes across as off. It could be a lot of fun; we have all the requisite characters, but we have the wrong LW. LWs calling a stepmother a total witch are rather a cliche. I think I'd most enjoy the perspective of the stepsister, quite the most original character in the piece. What has she been doing in all of this? Why has she now apparently aligned herself with her stepfather, presumably against her mother? What have her motives been? I so want a different LW that I just can't bring myself to go on with the current one.
No moral deserved.
L4: Well, who died and made her Queen Latifah? Why on earth is the whole neighbourhood so afraid of someone so ill-behaved? After all, it takes a village to kowtow to Hyacinth Bucket.
Moral: "Now, Emmett; if you're rude, she won't invite you again."
Today I shall devise a few Operative Questions.
L1: LW1 confuses me somewhat. The tricky part with secondhand letters is that it's not alwas easy to discern what a LW is calling something and what the other person is calling the same thing. One is so inclined to reword things. Which of them called anal a Fetish? It certainly sounds as if he did, but I still want to make it absolutely clear that that is his own thinking and not just her mental association. The F word gets thrown about almost recklessly these days. If it originated from him, my guess would be that he is trying to manipulate her into making it their primary entree on the menu, as it were. If it originates from her, I suspect that she wants to make it into something seen as an exotic activity that is far outside the range of what a Normal Person might Reasonably Be Expected to Do. In a way, this is almost like watching a Cutthroat Defence when one knows one of two accused parties must be guilty and each accuses the other.
Another important question is, How has he presented the matter to her? He seems to have been a bit clumsy about it, not laying the groundwork properly and ensuring his partner's comfort along the way. Is he inconsiderate, just not very good at it, or has he made a reasonable effort and just met with a badly mismatched partner? The dealbreaker matter is sort of a side issue to this. Presumably he does not have to have it that way every time. It seems more a question of reasonable accommodation.
The question I like best is, Why has LW1 written to the Prudecutor instead of to Mr Savage, who is a good deal more expert in these matters? One possible answer is that she might not be aware of Mr Savage, but that seems not the most likely. She might have decided in advance that Mr Savage would definitely tell her to be GGG and that his comments section would, to be punny, savage her. Interestingly, just yesterday or so he pointed out in response to a young gay man that anal isn't automatic. Especially if LW1 pinned the F word on this of her own volition, I suspect she consults the Prudecutor because she knows just what answer she'll get back and she feels confident of a sympathetic reception. And it certainly seems that she got more or less what she expected.
I can go on and cross-examine the Prudecutor a bit. Just exactly when is exactly the right time to introduce a non-vanilla interest? Particularly with somewhat bland partners, advancing in small steps is much more likely the way to go. If anything, ABF1 has jumped the gun a bit or gone too fast for LW1. It likely depends on the exact meaning of dealbreaker (people are so like Humpty Dumpty and expect words to mean exactly what they pay them to mean). Unless the construction of the letter is rather off, he appears capable of functioning without indulgence. If he doesn't require it every time, then isn't it simply a question of whether he can be accommodated, and, if so, how often they should agree to do it?
And how, oh how, does the Prudecutor know exactly what is Standard Operating Procedure in bedrooms where her participation would not be required or welcomed? I would hesitate to spout myself, having Retired from Romance, but I should still venture to think myself a good deal more knowledgeable on this topic than the Prudecutor.
Moral: "What many men desire/That many may be meant/By the fool mutitude that choose by show/Not learning more than the fond eye doth teach"
L2: This time I shall begin with the most interesting question. Just when did The Father morph into My Fiance?
FSIL2 may have a good deal in common with more than one person or character, but the one who comes most definitely to mind is the Prodigal Son's Older Brother. Has FSIL2 basically played by Mamma's rules all her life and been rewarded very sparsely for it? Seems plausible enough to me. This does not justify her attack on LW2, but one can understand resentment on the part of someone who has done The Right Thing for year after year and barely been thanked for it when in swans someone who has done what would seem to be Clearly a Wrong Thing (or at least the Right Thing in the Wrong Order), and off she waltzes with a Big Reward.
There are so many questions one could ask. In many respects, this is reminiscent of the holiday questions we had featuring a LW and her MIL - where oh where has the Little Dog Gone? What is F2's contribution to LW2's decision-making process? It seems a bit much that he should be pushed out of the Family Interaction Prototype or get to check out on his own volition before the pair of them are even legally wed. Has FSIL2 had rather a hard time of it for someone with a rich mamma? Or perhaps did FSIL2 have a similar situation of her own in which Mamma behaved rather differently? Has FMIL2 always favoured her dear little boy over his two sisters (or at least the one who's complaining)? Is FSIL2 just badly behaved in general, greedy-grabby and wanting to keep her hands on as large an inheritance as she can? How is the Other FSIL2 taking the whole situation? Does FMIL2 tend to inject money into social transactions on a regular basis? There is just way too much one doesn't know to be truly comfortable with any particular line. My working hypothesis would be that FMIL2 typically is used to being on the receiving end of a good deal of sucking up - Miss Crawley in Vanity Fair, perhaps? And we all know that regular Sucking Up puts one at risk for turning into Goneril or Regan.
Then again, it is at least possible to look at the proposed gift as a Lovely Gesture. One hardly wants one's first grandchild to be raised by parents who are Financially Insecure. And there do exist young women who become Pregnant on Purpose, taking, as it were, Lucy Steele for a role model. Not that LW2 necessarily seems to be one of this type, but FSIL2 might have reason to think her so that has been Conveniently Omitted from L2. And some people do hold hat it matters whether a future child is the result of a commitment or the cause of one.
My working hypothesis is that FSIL2 has behaved more or less in a manner that she thinks worthy of being rewarded by FMIL2, although I'm torn on the question of whether FSIL2 particularly thought she deserved a bit of assistance, or that it would have been nice, or whether she hadn't had any particular thought about her mother's money until suddenly a large gift to a stranger pops up on her radar. This has the feel of L1 from last week and the ex-wife kept dangling for seven years about a child, and then LW1 got someone else pregnant and was thrilled forty ways to Sunday about everything. I wish F2 had written the letter; then we might know much more about his relationship with his sister. Has FSIL2 deliberately passed up the chance to become pregnant herself because it would have been financially imprudent (or even perhaps terminated a pregnancy for reasons of financial responsibility)? That seems a decent first guess, considering how little we've been given.
Should LW2 accept the offer? I can't bring myself to care either way. I don't really have a sufficient read on whether she'll earn every penny of it, and I cannot entirely settle on how much I dislike LW2. It is very curious that she first describes F2 as The Father, and then later calls him My Fiance without any mention of when the engagement occurred and any pertinent circumstances. I think I'm inclined to hope that the siblings and LW2 will all live unhappily ever after.
Moral: "Edwina said she was d****d if she was going to be Queen Lear."
L3: How on earth did this not all come out at the time of the estrangement? And why on earth would LW3 feel she ought not to tell the truth now? The only reason that comes to mind is that she thinks she might not be believed. But this whole letter just comes across as off. It could be a lot of fun; we have all the requisite characters, but we have the wrong LW. LWs calling a stepmother a total witch are rather a cliche. I think I'd most enjoy the perspective of the stepsister, quite the most original character in the piece. What has she been doing in all of this? Why has she now apparently aligned herself with her stepfather, presumably against her mother? What have her motives been? I so want a different LW that I just can't bring myself to go on with the current one.
No moral deserved.
L4: Well, who died and made her Queen Latifah? Why on earth is the whole neighbourhood so afraid of someone so ill-behaved? After all, it takes a village to kowtow to Hyacinth Bucket.
Moral: "Now, Emmett; if you're rude, she won't invite you again."
Thursday, January 6, 2011
1/6 - Take Two
Sadly, my seven hour post was lost when my connection went out. Of course, this box does not permit one to Copy. Great start to the year. I shall recapitulate as briefly as possible.
L1: Dislike all the prevarications coming from C1. Do they originate from SB1 or S1? Is LW1 really that sure the lawyer was such a good one, and that he really gave time and attention to the case? After all, some people think Claude Erskine Brown a good lawyer. Advised LW1 to send C1 and assorted family to the Dr Phil show to have C1 sorted out; odds are they will be. Was reminded of various cases involving offences against minors that were less clear-cut than appeared, but it's hard to imagine this being truly well looking for the Prevaricator.
L2: Asked FIL2 whether he knew he should take his wife to be checked unless he's enjoying her finally mistreating everyone else and not just him; MIL2 how LW2 was supposed to know about her allergies (or is it really H2's fault?), LW2 why she didn't insist on gifts to her being bought at the same budget to which she had to restrict herself, and H2 why he didn't supplement his wife's gift fund, as well as why, if she's returning the purse, his gift isn't going with it. Am fairly sure this is largely H2's fault. Advised Divorce.
L3: Was really irritated with the DIM LW3 wringing hands and worrying about how intrusive it would have been to have suggested to CW3 that he consult a doctor. It might have been intrusive or inconsiderate to suggest the diagnosis LW3 suspected, but really, would it have been that hard when there was a clear track record of trouble and CW3 had appeared quite open to suggestion? Was reminded of how all of Chambers tiptoed around not telling Wendy Crump that Claude was in trouble for having called her fat, and Wendy taking the final revelation without turning a hair.
L4: Advised Deception. Either bring in a professional poker player to the next game or decide to stand by the friend and pretend to believe that the accusers had been cheating for some time, and that part of the fun of the game was outwitting the cheat. Was reminded of Albert and later Henry fiddling with petty cash and Henry only being saved because Claude had been deducting the price of two pairs of pinstriped trousers from his income tax every year when he hadn't had new bags in a decade at least.
L1: Dislike all the prevarications coming from C1. Do they originate from SB1 or S1? Is LW1 really that sure the lawyer was such a good one, and that he really gave time and attention to the case? After all, some people think Claude Erskine Brown a good lawyer. Advised LW1 to send C1 and assorted family to the Dr Phil show to have C1 sorted out; odds are they will be. Was reminded of various cases involving offences against minors that were less clear-cut than appeared, but it's hard to imagine this being truly well looking for the Prevaricator.
L2: Asked FIL2 whether he knew he should take his wife to be checked unless he's enjoying her finally mistreating everyone else and not just him; MIL2 how LW2 was supposed to know about her allergies (or is it really H2's fault?), LW2 why she didn't insist on gifts to her being bought at the same budget to which she had to restrict herself, and H2 why he didn't supplement his wife's gift fund, as well as why, if she's returning the purse, his gift isn't going with it. Am fairly sure this is largely H2's fault. Advised Divorce.
L3: Was really irritated with the DIM LW3 wringing hands and worrying about how intrusive it would have been to have suggested to CW3 that he consult a doctor. It might have been intrusive or inconsiderate to suggest the diagnosis LW3 suspected, but really, would it have been that hard when there was a clear track record of trouble and CW3 had appeared quite open to suggestion? Was reminded of how all of Chambers tiptoed around not telling Wendy Crump that Claude was in trouble for having called her fat, and Wendy taking the final revelation without turning a hair.
L4: Advised Deception. Either bring in a professional poker player to the next game or decide to stand by the friend and pretend to believe that the accusers had been cheating for some time, and that part of the fun of the game was outwitting the cheat. Was reminded of Albert and later Henry fiddling with petty cash and Henry only being saved because Claude had been deducting the price of two pairs of pinstriped trousers from his income tax every year when he hadn't had new bags in a decade at least.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
12/30 and Done
So, the Prudecutor simply substituted a column on Monday with former LWs sending in updates to prove how well she did. While updates are often welcome (it encourages that Mr Valium Drip's friend was able to overcome his initail reaction, if only a little), it struck me as self-serving when I reached the end of the column to discover that it consisted entirely of the accolades. As others have posted that it was not always the habit for an update column to be thus, I conclude that there might be some insecurity stemming perhaps from IGBP envy. It may well be a bit disconcerting when a colleague in a field where one habitually expects to do small bits of good in dribs and drabs at best suddenly does something that catches on more than expected and becomes genuinely big. While I was overemphasizing to call the Prudecutor's one reference to the IGB videos sniping, it would not surprise me if some part of the Prudecutor, whether or not she acknowledges or even recognizes so, is seething that that punk (Mr Savage) stumbled into the middle of a pot of gold. (I must be in a charitable mood to have the Prudecutor's Inner Fiend imply calling Mr Savage a Punk and not anything a bit less P.C.)
L1: Well, so much for holding charitable thoughts about the Prudecutor. Although I have long retired from softball pitching in real life, here we have, in commentariat terms, one of the biggest softballs at one of the slowest speeds of the year, and she does not come anywhere near a foul tip. Saying how wrong it was the first time around and how right it is now? Oh, good grief. Of course this is almost the *ideal* way to start a family. Meet someone after a bad protracted breakup and fall in love extremely quickly, produce a pregnancy within the first six months of the acquaintance, and then propose on the spot during a holiday without taking any time to reflect and probably with circumstances under which a refusal would have done serious damage to the future of the relationship. The only thing that would have made this better would have been if it had begun within a month or two of the breakup of the marriage.
LW1 makes this one too easy. It's all in the Alpha and the Omega. What is the first quality he cites about his fiancee? She is more sexually adventurous than his ex-wife. Even Claude Erskine Brown on a good day could figure this one out. And how does he conclude; what is the final and most important question the letter asks? Is she right to be angry with him because he's happy about his impending fatherhood! Now that is almost subtle. Out of all the possible reasons for her to be angry with him, he manages to pick the one reason that an outside observer can hardly approve without tearing up the oh-so-cuddly picture of the sweet little baby with Mommy and Daddy. Well, it was sufficiently well played to take in the Prudecutor - not that that necessarily indicates bowling out of the top drawer.
Now one might give the Prudecutor a little latitude on the grounds of her hearing en masse from the spouses of the Undecided, had she not made such melodramatic twaddle out of the ex wasting her only chance to be a mother. There are people whose reaction is that over the top, I am quite willing to grant, but they are the people who are so twisted in knots by the issue that they are writing to the Prudecutor about it. LW1's ex, for all the seven years during which he probably yanked her about like a yo-yo dangling his indecision and acting like a boat that keeps going out and coming in again towards someone trying to get on, did not consult the Prudecutor, or, as far as we know, anyone else. That would be an important line in the cross-examination of both of them. She didn't request counseling or anything in that line, and it took seven years for her to catch on that he was just using the issue as a way to jerk her around. And again, if she'd really invested all that in having children with him, she'd have picked some other response than to guarantee the end of the marriage by shutting off their sex life without actually ending the marriage herself. Who knew how much more time on her biological clock might have run down while she was already two touchdowns and a field goal behind?
I am quite happy to submit to the Jury that the real cause of LW1's state of being overjoyed is that he knew from the first that his ex would be driven right up the wall by the pregnancy (not to mention the engagement and the way in which she learned of the whole state of affairs). The Midsomer Murder in which an amateur actor playing Salieri is murdered during a performance (*Death of a Hollow Man* if memory serves) contains just this sort of situation, with the added bonus (unless LW1 cannily omitted to mention the fact; he must be asked) that the pregnant wife is a good deal younger than the ex (who would probably still take him back). But LW1 himself reminds me of the LW past whose old flame's husband could no longer be a husband to her either physically or emotionally and who was determined to provide her all the boinking necessary to sustain herself in her difficult position. One might recall that he could not go a sentence and a half without mentioning how hot she was and how she still had physical needs. LW1 is not quite so bad, but he seems at least partially cut out of the same cloth. I for one would be well amused if it turned out that the new woman's sexual adventurousness decreases almost totally after childbirth. Then Wife #2 will have the baby that she really wanted all along, LW1 will find himself not only miserably landed both with a wife who lost her sex drive and a baby he was right all along not to be sure he wanted, and the Ex can either tear her heart out over it all or be entertained by his misery. Apt all round. Of course, it's perfectly possible that by some bizarre fate LW1 has found Hos One True Love and they will live blisfully throughout eternity, but in that case he could at least have the compassion to have a bit of consideration for the loser.
This is not to state or suggest that XW1 handled the situation at all well. I do not blame her for putting up with LW1's indecision for seven years. It perhaps mattered more to her as a sort of confirmation of the solidity of the marriage than dealt a cruel and vicious blow to her saintly instinct to parent. She saw he'd bailed on the marriage, but could not resist the chance to be punitive on the way out. But the immediate pregnancy (which one might think extremely likely to be highly deliberate on his part; I am quite happy to submit that he was only too thrilled to get a different woman pregnant as quickly as possible just to twist the knife), the way the letter tries to slip in the Ex's still being single, and LW1's picking the one thing about his current picture for which people will not be inclined to convict him as the card he forces on the Prudecutor of her cause for justified anger... oh, he has the Ex in a neat spot and is probably winning the majority of the friends in common now that he's clearly a Winner and has established that it was all XW1's fault that they never had any children because somehow he always just knew it wasn't right. Okay. LW1 1, Prudecutor 0.
Moral: One does not have to be a great admirer of Ms Long to have developed a taste for declining annoyingly contrived marriage proposals in as devastating a manner as possible.
L2: Well, one must give the Prudecutor credit for finally taking the correct approach. There might be better comparisons out there, but she does at least make the effort to solve the situation through analogy. It strikes me that this might be largely a technical question. The exact chain of events seems a bit fuzzy. Should not LW2 have been told at the time of deposit that the check would not clear in its unsigned condition? Then, too, one must imagine that LW2 paid off some bills early rather than keeping the funds reserved for expenses related to the proposed trip, while F2 was busy making secret travel arrangements in LW2's name, in which case why F2 even bothered to send LW2 the check for the thousand dollars in the first place just confuses me to pieces. What LW2 ought actually to do I could not begin to say without having the facts before me much more clearly.
F2 reminds me rather of an old bucket (pronounced bouquet, of course). Quite the little controlling angel, isn't she, as she spreads her largesse far and wide (where others spread invitations to Candlelight Suppers)? One can almost hear Hyacinth phoning Elizabeth and issuing a command invitation to coffee at 3:25. The situation seems to justify the view expressed by Joanna Southwood in *Death on the Nile* that she finds it best to drop her friends when they lose all their money, thus to avoid having to buy terrible clothes from the boutiques they start up. Joanna only likes successful people, and claims that others just are less honest about it, and go on about how they just can't stand poor Emily or Pamela any more because her troubles have made her so *bitter,* poor dear.
I once saw advertised in a catalogue a book titled *Hyacinth Bucket's Guide to Etiquette for the Socially Less Fortunate*. Thinking that it would live in a variety of catalogues for years to come, I deferred purchasing it - and it never appeared again.
Moral: "You remember my sister Violet - the one with her own Mercedes, and a Jacuzzi, and room for a pony - but not in the Jacuzzi, of course (ha ha ha)!"
L3: Is LW3 male or female? It perhaps ought not to matter, but it may provide options for what LW3 does about BP3's ongoing difficulty. The early phrasing seems more or less male, although it's difficult to tell these days when *married* is not quite so broadly definitive an adjective as it once was. On the other hand, LW3 has sttod by and been supportive some five to seven times already without bringing up the issue, which does, although I apologize for stereotyping, sound a bit more in line with the way women are socialized.
My guess, if I absolutely were forced to make one right at this moment, is that LW3 is male and BP3 is perhaps making use of that or at least being given a generous slice of benefit from a rather small portion of doubt. If so, there are two ways LW3 can approach this. He can try ever so gently and supportively reminding her that she has been playing up gender stereotypes and asking her to be the strong feminist with whom he went into business, or he can have a little collapse of his own and give her a taste of her own medicine. If LW3 is female, it becomes a bit more tricky, although the call to be the Strong Female Role Model might still work.
BP3, with all due allowance made for her grief, reminds me a bit of Liz Probert, who does occasionally get to have it both ways in her full head-on political correctness.
Moral: "No; how would you describe me physically?" "Well, you're fat." "And should you be persecuted for saying that about me the way Claude is being for saying that about Wendy Crump?" "Of course not - you're a man!"
L4: If LW4 wants to study to be a Shakespeare professor, will the Prudecutor change her answer?
As I am calling a major foul and three jams in the penalty box for the Prudecutor, I think I shall waive either further elucidation or a moral.
L1: Well, so much for holding charitable thoughts about the Prudecutor. Although I have long retired from softball pitching in real life, here we have, in commentariat terms, one of the biggest softballs at one of the slowest speeds of the year, and she does not come anywhere near a foul tip. Saying how wrong it was the first time around and how right it is now? Oh, good grief. Of course this is almost the *ideal* way to start a family. Meet someone after a bad protracted breakup and fall in love extremely quickly, produce a pregnancy within the first six months of the acquaintance, and then propose on the spot during a holiday without taking any time to reflect and probably with circumstances under which a refusal would have done serious damage to the future of the relationship. The only thing that would have made this better would have been if it had begun within a month or two of the breakup of the marriage.
LW1 makes this one too easy. It's all in the Alpha and the Omega. What is the first quality he cites about his fiancee? She is more sexually adventurous than his ex-wife. Even Claude Erskine Brown on a good day could figure this one out. And how does he conclude; what is the final and most important question the letter asks? Is she right to be angry with him because he's happy about his impending fatherhood! Now that is almost subtle. Out of all the possible reasons for her to be angry with him, he manages to pick the one reason that an outside observer can hardly approve without tearing up the oh-so-cuddly picture of the sweet little baby with Mommy and Daddy. Well, it was sufficiently well played to take in the Prudecutor - not that that necessarily indicates bowling out of the top drawer.
Now one might give the Prudecutor a little latitude on the grounds of her hearing en masse from the spouses of the Undecided, had she not made such melodramatic twaddle out of the ex wasting her only chance to be a mother. There are people whose reaction is that over the top, I am quite willing to grant, but they are the people who are so twisted in knots by the issue that they are writing to the Prudecutor about it. LW1's ex, for all the seven years during which he probably yanked her about like a yo-yo dangling his indecision and acting like a boat that keeps going out and coming in again towards someone trying to get on, did not consult the Prudecutor, or, as far as we know, anyone else. That would be an important line in the cross-examination of both of them. She didn't request counseling or anything in that line, and it took seven years for her to catch on that he was just using the issue as a way to jerk her around. And again, if she'd really invested all that in having children with him, she'd have picked some other response than to guarantee the end of the marriage by shutting off their sex life without actually ending the marriage herself. Who knew how much more time on her biological clock might have run down while she was already two touchdowns and a field goal behind?
I am quite happy to submit to the Jury that the real cause of LW1's state of being overjoyed is that he knew from the first that his ex would be driven right up the wall by the pregnancy (not to mention the engagement and the way in which she learned of the whole state of affairs). The Midsomer Murder in which an amateur actor playing Salieri is murdered during a performance (*Death of a Hollow Man* if memory serves) contains just this sort of situation, with the added bonus (unless LW1 cannily omitted to mention the fact; he must be asked) that the pregnant wife is a good deal younger than the ex (who would probably still take him back). But LW1 himself reminds me of the LW past whose old flame's husband could no longer be a husband to her either physically or emotionally and who was determined to provide her all the boinking necessary to sustain herself in her difficult position. One might recall that he could not go a sentence and a half without mentioning how hot she was and how she still had physical needs. LW1 is not quite so bad, but he seems at least partially cut out of the same cloth. I for one would be well amused if it turned out that the new woman's sexual adventurousness decreases almost totally after childbirth. Then Wife #2 will have the baby that she really wanted all along, LW1 will find himself not only miserably landed both with a wife who lost her sex drive and a baby he was right all along not to be sure he wanted, and the Ex can either tear her heart out over it all or be entertained by his misery. Apt all round. Of course, it's perfectly possible that by some bizarre fate LW1 has found Hos One True Love and they will live blisfully throughout eternity, but in that case he could at least have the compassion to have a bit of consideration for the loser.
This is not to state or suggest that XW1 handled the situation at all well. I do not blame her for putting up with LW1's indecision for seven years. It perhaps mattered more to her as a sort of confirmation of the solidity of the marriage than dealt a cruel and vicious blow to her saintly instinct to parent. She saw he'd bailed on the marriage, but could not resist the chance to be punitive on the way out. But the immediate pregnancy (which one might think extremely likely to be highly deliberate on his part; I am quite happy to submit that he was only too thrilled to get a different woman pregnant as quickly as possible just to twist the knife), the way the letter tries to slip in the Ex's still being single, and LW1's picking the one thing about his current picture for which people will not be inclined to convict him as the card he forces on the Prudecutor of her cause for justified anger... oh, he has the Ex in a neat spot and is probably winning the majority of the friends in common now that he's clearly a Winner and has established that it was all XW1's fault that they never had any children because somehow he always just knew it wasn't right. Okay. LW1 1, Prudecutor 0.
Moral: One does not have to be a great admirer of Ms Long to have developed a taste for declining annoyingly contrived marriage proposals in as devastating a manner as possible.
L2: Well, one must give the Prudecutor credit for finally taking the correct approach. There might be better comparisons out there, but she does at least make the effort to solve the situation through analogy. It strikes me that this might be largely a technical question. The exact chain of events seems a bit fuzzy. Should not LW2 have been told at the time of deposit that the check would not clear in its unsigned condition? Then, too, one must imagine that LW2 paid off some bills early rather than keeping the funds reserved for expenses related to the proposed trip, while F2 was busy making secret travel arrangements in LW2's name, in which case why F2 even bothered to send LW2 the check for the thousand dollars in the first place just confuses me to pieces. What LW2 ought actually to do I could not begin to say without having the facts before me much more clearly.
F2 reminds me rather of an old bucket (pronounced bouquet, of course). Quite the little controlling angel, isn't she, as she spreads her largesse far and wide (where others spread invitations to Candlelight Suppers)? One can almost hear Hyacinth phoning Elizabeth and issuing a command invitation to coffee at 3:25. The situation seems to justify the view expressed by Joanna Southwood in *Death on the Nile* that she finds it best to drop her friends when they lose all their money, thus to avoid having to buy terrible clothes from the boutiques they start up. Joanna only likes successful people, and claims that others just are less honest about it, and go on about how they just can't stand poor Emily or Pamela any more because her troubles have made her so *bitter,* poor dear.
I once saw advertised in a catalogue a book titled *Hyacinth Bucket's Guide to Etiquette for the Socially Less Fortunate*. Thinking that it would live in a variety of catalogues for years to come, I deferred purchasing it - and it never appeared again.
Moral: "You remember my sister Violet - the one with her own Mercedes, and a Jacuzzi, and room for a pony - but not in the Jacuzzi, of course (ha ha ha)!"
L3: Is LW3 male or female? It perhaps ought not to matter, but it may provide options for what LW3 does about BP3's ongoing difficulty. The early phrasing seems more or less male, although it's difficult to tell these days when *married* is not quite so broadly definitive an adjective as it once was. On the other hand, LW3 has sttod by and been supportive some five to seven times already without bringing up the issue, which does, although I apologize for stereotyping, sound a bit more in line with the way women are socialized.
My guess, if I absolutely were forced to make one right at this moment, is that LW3 is male and BP3 is perhaps making use of that or at least being given a generous slice of benefit from a rather small portion of doubt. If so, there are two ways LW3 can approach this. He can try ever so gently and supportively reminding her that she has been playing up gender stereotypes and asking her to be the strong feminist with whom he went into business, or he can have a little collapse of his own and give her a taste of her own medicine. If LW3 is female, it becomes a bit more tricky, although the call to be the Strong Female Role Model might still work.
BP3, with all due allowance made for her grief, reminds me a bit of Liz Probert, who does occasionally get to have it both ways in her full head-on political correctness.
Moral: "No; how would you describe me physically?" "Well, you're fat." "And should you be persecuted for saying that about me the way Claude is being for saying that about Wendy Crump?" "Of course not - you're a man!"
L4: If LW4 wants to study to be a Shakespeare professor, will the Prudecutor change her answer?
As I am calling a major foul and three jams in the penalty box for the Prudecutor, I think I shall waive either further elucidation or a moral.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
12/23 - Very Short Indeed
I begin still in a terrible mood with the Prudecutor about Monday and the MAF candidate. The incredible presumption that students in a Shakespeare class are disinterested teenagers in which she indulged her distaste for the fine arts might just have managed to insult more people who never did anything to deserve such an insult than any of her ill-chosen comments before. I stick by my hope that one day she will be tried for murder before a judge who has taken Mr Justice Bullingham, Mr Justice Graves or Mr Justice Oliphant as a role model by a jury consisting entirely of former Shakespeare professors who were all made redundant when people like the Prudecutor convinced all their deans and provosts to drop Classics for Business Studies.
L1: Here, alas, I find it necessary to recuse myself. I think I did rather fancy a kilt at that age or therabouts, although nowhere nearly to the extreme of the boy in question. But it really seems quite unfair on the column to present a LW of whom I might actually have to approve. What sort of sneaky trick is this? I might manage to avoid spoiling my mood by dwelling on the large number of small boys whose lack of such a parent (or presumably even pair of parents) and need thereof is one and the same. And happily I am not one who is automatically reminded of how his parents responded to such youthful inclinations every time he sits down. Perhaps LW1 deserves to be this year's annual recipient of the advice to Donate Large Quantities of Sperm.
L2: In this case, I can be even shorter and more to the point than I was with the previous letter. The solution to LW2's situation is a simple one. In a long life of change and infiltration, one is bound to encounter spouses of this particular nature. LW2 might be inclined to be somewhat grateful that the spouse in question is attached merely to a sister-in-law instead of to herself. Or perhaps she might be inclined to give herself credit for being a better selector than her sister-in-law. But the situation is clear. When the spouse in question inevitably calls to mind a much more widely known spouse, LW2 or some other family member need only proclaim in a loud voice that He Who Must Be Obeyed Has Spoken. If that fails to contain him...
L3: A sort of half-recusal seems in order on this one. Mainly, though, I get to restore all my lack of fondness for the Prudecutor. One notes the presumption that LW3 and the boyfriend's family celebrate Christmas, which may not have great significance here in its own right but which serves as a nice accent to the heterocentric air created by the Prudecutor's response. Of course the Prudecutor would think that family is formed only by blood ties and the promise of the perpetuation of the same. It ties in neatly with her assumption regarding the daughter-in-law who didn't like her husband's ex and ex's children (of unspecified fatherhood) being included in family gatherings that her husband could simply explain to his mother that she could no longer invite the ex and that such an explanation would automatically constitute the Last Word on the subject. And of course the possessor of a mediocre soul would think it appropriate to reduce a relationship that may well have ventured into the Family Relam for both LW3 and possibly the boyfriend's mother also (presumably it appears to have veered back, or perhaps LW1 shares the limited nature of soul enjoyed by the Prudecutor) to the virtual nothingness of the Impersonal Christmas Card Displayed on the Mantlepiece. How ghastly.
Of course, LW3 could do with a good deal of cross-questioning. How much can be she trusted merely to be motivated by a desire to make sure her however-close-to-nearly-mother-in-law understands that LW3 would never, ever, ever have done anything to jeopardize HCTNMIL's good opinion rather than by a desire to make sure that the cheating cad is exposed before all his family in the most uncertain and embarrassing way possible could take a long time to ascertain with confidence. Exposing the cad will not do. However, even if neither LW3 nor HCTNMIL have any inclination for each other's presence during actual holidays, there is no necessity to demean the relationship to the level of ICCDOTM.
Moral: I can just restrain myself from foreseeing a future in which the Prudecutor's daughter dates a series of charming and delightful young women who will shake the Prudecutor's beliefs to their core before marrying someone quite like the spouse in question in L2 (not wanting to be homosexist, I shall not specify a male spouse).
L4: Again I must recuse myself, as I have had such success borrowing a roulette wheel and layout I once gave as a present that I cannot proceed in complete confidence. It would be vastly entertaining to demand of LW4 exactly how exacting the labour involved in the production of the chef d'oeuvre might have been, but the exact nature of what conclusions I might reasonably have drawn is not something I can declare with comfort. I am quite content with the cross-examination submitted by the good Submariner.
L1: Here, alas, I find it necessary to recuse myself. I think I did rather fancy a kilt at that age or therabouts, although nowhere nearly to the extreme of the boy in question. But it really seems quite unfair on the column to present a LW of whom I might actually have to approve. What sort of sneaky trick is this? I might manage to avoid spoiling my mood by dwelling on the large number of small boys whose lack of such a parent (or presumably even pair of parents) and need thereof is one and the same. And happily I am not one who is automatically reminded of how his parents responded to such youthful inclinations every time he sits down. Perhaps LW1 deserves to be this year's annual recipient of the advice to Donate Large Quantities of Sperm.
L2: In this case, I can be even shorter and more to the point than I was with the previous letter. The solution to LW2's situation is a simple one. In a long life of change and infiltration, one is bound to encounter spouses of this particular nature. LW2 might be inclined to be somewhat grateful that the spouse in question is attached merely to a sister-in-law instead of to herself. Or perhaps she might be inclined to give herself credit for being a better selector than her sister-in-law. But the situation is clear. When the spouse in question inevitably calls to mind a much more widely known spouse, LW2 or some other family member need only proclaim in a loud voice that He Who Must Be Obeyed Has Spoken. If that fails to contain him...
L3: A sort of half-recusal seems in order on this one. Mainly, though, I get to restore all my lack of fondness for the Prudecutor. One notes the presumption that LW3 and the boyfriend's family celebrate Christmas, which may not have great significance here in its own right but which serves as a nice accent to the heterocentric air created by the Prudecutor's response. Of course the Prudecutor would think that family is formed only by blood ties and the promise of the perpetuation of the same. It ties in neatly with her assumption regarding the daughter-in-law who didn't like her husband's ex and ex's children (of unspecified fatherhood) being included in family gatherings that her husband could simply explain to his mother that she could no longer invite the ex and that such an explanation would automatically constitute the Last Word on the subject. And of course the possessor of a mediocre soul would think it appropriate to reduce a relationship that may well have ventured into the Family Relam for both LW3 and possibly the boyfriend's mother also (presumably it appears to have veered back, or perhaps LW1 shares the limited nature of soul enjoyed by the Prudecutor) to the virtual nothingness of the Impersonal Christmas Card Displayed on the Mantlepiece. How ghastly.
Of course, LW3 could do with a good deal of cross-questioning. How much can be she trusted merely to be motivated by a desire to make sure her however-close-to-nearly-mother-in-law understands that LW3 would never, ever, ever have done anything to jeopardize HCTNMIL's good opinion rather than by a desire to make sure that the cheating cad is exposed before all his family in the most uncertain and embarrassing way possible could take a long time to ascertain with confidence. Exposing the cad will not do. However, even if neither LW3 nor HCTNMIL have any inclination for each other's presence during actual holidays, there is no necessity to demean the relationship to the level of ICCDOTM.
Moral: I can just restrain myself from foreseeing a future in which the Prudecutor's daughter dates a series of charming and delightful young women who will shake the Prudecutor's beliefs to their core before marrying someone quite like the spouse in question in L2 (not wanting to be homosexist, I shall not specify a male spouse).
L4: Again I must recuse myself, as I have had such success borrowing a roulette wheel and layout I once gave as a present that I cannot proceed in complete confidence. It would be vastly entertaining to demand of LW4 exactly how exacting the labour involved in the production of the chef d'oeuvre might have been, but the exact nature of what conclusions I might reasonably have drawn is not something I can declare with comfort. I am quite content with the cross-examination submitted by the good Submariner.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
12/16 - Wall. Head. Intobang. Repeat.
I was tempted to save my thoughts on the Heterocentric Bisexual Male from Monday for today's opening, but luck is with me. Having posted about him, I then had a few extra ideas float around, and one strikes me as not all bad. Thinking that it might be fun to get the perspective of being on the najority side of presumed universality, it then occurred to me that it might be made into a formal thing and given a particular duration of time. Eventually, the idea fleshed itself out into the possible adoption of Homocentric August, treating everyone and everything under the assumption of homosexuality until admitted otherwise for one month, which is close enough to proportional in terms of population. I thought of August because it occurred to me that the closest one might ever come to being right in such presumptions might be during summer holidays in such a place as Provincetown or somewhere similar.
I have practised one or two of the likely conversations. "A recent groom? Congratulations! Your husband is a very fortunate person. Oh - a WIFE! I'm sorry, I just would never have guessed... well, good for you! In fact, I am entirely in favour of opposite-sex marriage, and if we ever have a referendum on it here, I will definitely support it." "You wore this dress to prom? How lovely. Did your girlfriend's dress match? Oh - a BOYFRIEND! I'm sorry; I just never realized that schools around here allow opposite-sex couples at proms now. That's really great!"
There may still be a snag or two, and I may well find I haven't quite the nerve to follow through, but the idea has considerable charm.
But now, moving on to this week's crop of letters, it may be observed that one of the letters deals with the subject of diet, a topic on which I always recuse myself. Accordingly, I have arranged for the column to be undertaken by my regular substitute, C.E.B.:
Greetings to all you readers of Points for Cross-Examination who have been eagerly waiting for my return. As I have had astounding luck lately in getting my clients to settle their cases rather than make me stand up in Court and advocate for them, I have the spare time to assist dear old Rumpole with his weekly column. And who knows, a word or two in the appropriate ear and - hint, hint - we might even persaude Rumpole to reitre to Florida again, and then it might not prove a bad thing for this column to be taken over by a dashing Queen's Counsel with an encyclopedic knowledge, not of bloodstains like Rumpole, but of something much more uplifting, such as the works of Wagner. But now to the letters.
L1: Now, LW1, I am entirely on your side. Even Rumpole has frequently maintained that one is entitled to a degree of privacy, even in married life. I am reminded of the occasion when I took Liz Probert to the Opera back when Sam Ballard, our Head of Chambers, wanted us to go into partnership with solicitors. Naturally I only took Lizzie to the Opera to discuss the future of Chambers, but then unfortunately she left her program behind and bolted away at the final curtain, so that I took home two programs and left them sitting on a table where they were found by my wife. Rumpole told me at the time I should have claimed my right to silence and refused to say a word. But, facing the stern cross-examination of my wife (and some people think that Phyllida has had a more glittering career at the Bar than I have had, although I don't think they make enough allowance for the unfair advantage she has had for being a woman when the Lord Chancellor has been eager to appoint new women silks and judges), I naturally felt that I had to tell her somethijng. And, as she would surely misinterpret the truth, I told her I had taken Uncle Tom to the Opera. Actually, Liz Probert and I had met Uncle Tom on our way to Covent Garden, which was why I thought of him. Unfortunately, when I put it to Uncle Tom that I'd appreciate his backing me up, he cooperated only rather too enthusiastically, telling Phyllida I had taken him to a Show with lots of Happy Tunes. She naturally refused to believe that Wagner had written If You Were the Only Girl in the World, and the whole thing might have ended in disaster had I not thought to tell Phyllida that the whole idea of taking Liz to the Opera in the first place came from Rumpole. She thought that it would be the sort of idea he might have, and the incident more or less blew over.
Anyway, lie detector tests are not admissible in Court, so that I fail to understand what good it would do if you took it, whether you passed or failed. Now, Rumpole would have a good many questions for you. He would wonder how the question of marriage and the condition of the lie detector test had arisen in the first place. Did your boyfriend spontaneously mention this requirement, or was it something he only said because you were bringing up matrimony and wondering when he intended to propose to you. (Rumpole would also wonder why on earth you were sitting around and waiting for himj to ask you to marry him, but that's neither here nor there.) He would ask about your use of the word pinpoint, and whether it would be reasonable to assume that you might have been a bit fuzzy about strict truth on occasion, despite your testimony of your fidelity and honesty. He might go on for some time about why you didn't have the firmness of mind you appear to have now about what was or was not his business regarding your past. He would doubtless take great interest in your phrasing with regard to your compromises and sacrifices in the name of a happy partner, and why there have not been any on his side that you cared to mention.
Most of all, Rumpole would wonder why on earth the first mention of the test would not be enough to make you run for the hills. Personally, I don't think the occasional polygraph is too great a price to pay for what might be considered a more or less happy marriage overall. Only next time, do make sure that, whatever you might be suspected of doing, you've actually done. That's much more satisfactory, I can assure you.
L2: This letter, of course, is what caused Rumpole to recuse himself from the column this week and ask me to write it for him instead. You may remember the terrible dietary restrictions that were inflicted upon Rumpole by Hilda, acting in league with his physician, Dr McClintock. Of course, I don't think it right to judge Rumpole for being, well, corpulent. After all, it's not every barrister who can remain as trim as, well, need I say it, your humble servant. And he certainly had no better luck at remaining on his diet of Thin-o-Vite than your father, LW2. I cannot think how often Liz Probert or I would catch Rumpole sneakily adding a large sugar bun to his breakfast at the Tast-E-Bite Cafe.
Rumpole would no doubt have a good deal to say about the wisdom of choosing athletic holidays for a large family party in such a remote location. Then again, he might add that there could be considerable opportunities on this holiday. After all, who wants to live with a father who eats your sister's entire birthday cake all by himself? Go on your holiday and hike to your heart's content, and somehow just find an excuse to leave your father behind somewhere, no doubt after he picks a quarrel (after some judicious prodding). Leave him with a lengthy hike back to the hotel. Given the correct altitude involved, that should solve your problem. It's reminiscent of Patrick Seton's plan to take his diabetic pregnant girlfriend Alice to a chalet in Austria where she would at the inappropriate moment find herself alone without her insulin in *The Bachelors*, or Nevile Strange's nipping into Mr Treves' hotel and hanging an Out of Order sign on the lift, thus requiring that the old man with a dicky ticker would have to risk his life by walking upstairs in *Towards Zero*.
L3: Dear LW3, I am entirely on your side again, just as was the case with LW1. I too am being constantly dictated to by our Head of Chambers, Sam Ballard, as to how I am required to spend my hard-earned fees in keeping up the best traditions of the Bar. Members of Chambers are constantly being obliged to purchase tickets to the Inns of Court Dinner or the Scales of Justice Ball, or go to hear the Bishop of Sidcup giving a talk on the moral abivalence of the Rent Acts. And I must recall how, when I was defending in a case of assault in the Kitten-a-Go-Go Club, how Rumpole told me to investigate the locus in quo in order to cross-examine the witnesses on the terrain, which led to a photographer taking my picture. The picture was published in the Daily Beacon with a paragraph suggesting that such was my usual practice in the afternoons. Sam Ballard insisted that I sue the Daily Beacon for libel, despite my protest that the expense would be extreme. But nothing else would due, but I must sue, in order to uphold the Best Traditions of the Bar. As it happens, that worked out rather well, as the Daily Beacon settled the case and I received substantial damages, which, as I reminded my clark Henry, were entirely free of tax.
If he were advising you, Rumpole would compare your lot to his marriage. After all, once you've survived the first ten years, why abandon ship now? There are always little ways around these things without quitting. Are you really willing to toss it all away simply over a mandatory voluntary charitable contribution?
However, we have in Chambers someone with much greater knowledge of the true inner workings of charities than Rumpole or even Sam ballard himself. I refer, of course, to Liz Probert. Even if she has never displayed that natural taste for the Opera which I might have wished to awaken in her, Liz has an encyclopedic knowledge of the true inner workings of charitable organizations. After all, her father, Red Ron, practically ran all of his part of South London for years, and doubtless is behind a number of charitable concerns. I took the liberty of putting this question to Liz in a general way, and she said it was sure to be simple. This charity encourages corporations to mandate voluntary employer contributions. Such a charity must naturally be run on corrupt principles and practices. They are sure to have violated the sacred tenets of political correctness in a dozen ways. Find but a few, and you will have an unanswerable argument in favour of ending these enforced contributions forever. You will be a heroine to others as well as yourself.
L4: Once again, I find myself remarkably in sympathy with the LW. How could your parents even have considered selling your ancestral home? My own mummy would never have permitted such a thing. And I was always loyal to her, going back to stay with her whenever I had a little row with Phyllida, and taking her to the Opera every time I had two tickets and for some unaccountable reason everyone else in Chambers had a previous engagement for the evening...
I am convinced that your parents have found someone whose company they prefer to yours, who has cleverly insinuated his or her way into their lives, and who is now doing everything possible to push you out. For a parallel case, I would consider Tuppence's great-aunt Primrose in *By the Pricking of My Thumbs*, an elderly woman who took in a young man named Mervyn whom she claimed to be quite a kindred spirit. When Great-Aunt Primrose let her relations know that she had made a will in Mervyn's favour, the family acted in some haste, discovering just in time that Mervyn had an unsavoury past and putting the police on his tail in time to prevent anynthing happening to Great-Aunt Primrose.
I advise you, LW4, to make it quite clear to your parents that you find their conduct unacceptable, that you won't have it, and that, if they think they can replace you in the family with someone who make them more proud, they can think again. Rumpole would doubtless just tell you to grow up, stay at an hotel when you go to visit them, and be thankful they are being reasonable about your having an adult life with which they have nothing to do. But I think this situation is far too important. You must fight to get them back, even if it means you have to go so far as to get yourself fired and move back in with them.
I have practised one or two of the likely conversations. "A recent groom? Congratulations! Your husband is a very fortunate person. Oh - a WIFE! I'm sorry, I just would never have guessed... well, good for you! In fact, I am entirely in favour of opposite-sex marriage, and if we ever have a referendum on it here, I will definitely support it." "You wore this dress to prom? How lovely. Did your girlfriend's dress match? Oh - a BOYFRIEND! I'm sorry; I just never realized that schools around here allow opposite-sex couples at proms now. That's really great!"
There may still be a snag or two, and I may well find I haven't quite the nerve to follow through, but the idea has considerable charm.
But now, moving on to this week's crop of letters, it may be observed that one of the letters deals with the subject of diet, a topic on which I always recuse myself. Accordingly, I have arranged for the column to be undertaken by my regular substitute, C.E.B.:
Greetings to all you readers of Points for Cross-Examination who have been eagerly waiting for my return. As I have had astounding luck lately in getting my clients to settle their cases rather than make me stand up in Court and advocate for them, I have the spare time to assist dear old Rumpole with his weekly column. And who knows, a word or two in the appropriate ear and - hint, hint - we might even persaude Rumpole to reitre to Florida again, and then it might not prove a bad thing for this column to be taken over by a dashing Queen's Counsel with an encyclopedic knowledge, not of bloodstains like Rumpole, but of something much more uplifting, such as the works of Wagner. But now to the letters.
L1: Now, LW1, I am entirely on your side. Even Rumpole has frequently maintained that one is entitled to a degree of privacy, even in married life. I am reminded of the occasion when I took Liz Probert to the Opera back when Sam Ballard, our Head of Chambers, wanted us to go into partnership with solicitors. Naturally I only took Lizzie to the Opera to discuss the future of Chambers, but then unfortunately she left her program behind and bolted away at the final curtain, so that I took home two programs and left them sitting on a table where they were found by my wife. Rumpole told me at the time I should have claimed my right to silence and refused to say a word. But, facing the stern cross-examination of my wife (and some people think that Phyllida has had a more glittering career at the Bar than I have had, although I don't think they make enough allowance for the unfair advantage she has had for being a woman when the Lord Chancellor has been eager to appoint new women silks and judges), I naturally felt that I had to tell her somethijng. And, as she would surely misinterpret the truth, I told her I had taken Uncle Tom to the Opera. Actually, Liz Probert and I had met Uncle Tom on our way to Covent Garden, which was why I thought of him. Unfortunately, when I put it to Uncle Tom that I'd appreciate his backing me up, he cooperated only rather too enthusiastically, telling Phyllida I had taken him to a Show with lots of Happy Tunes. She naturally refused to believe that Wagner had written If You Were the Only Girl in the World, and the whole thing might have ended in disaster had I not thought to tell Phyllida that the whole idea of taking Liz to the Opera in the first place came from Rumpole. She thought that it would be the sort of idea he might have, and the incident more or less blew over.
Anyway, lie detector tests are not admissible in Court, so that I fail to understand what good it would do if you took it, whether you passed or failed. Now, Rumpole would have a good many questions for you. He would wonder how the question of marriage and the condition of the lie detector test had arisen in the first place. Did your boyfriend spontaneously mention this requirement, or was it something he only said because you were bringing up matrimony and wondering when he intended to propose to you. (Rumpole would also wonder why on earth you were sitting around and waiting for himj to ask you to marry him, but that's neither here nor there.) He would ask about your use of the word pinpoint, and whether it would be reasonable to assume that you might have been a bit fuzzy about strict truth on occasion, despite your testimony of your fidelity and honesty. He might go on for some time about why you didn't have the firmness of mind you appear to have now about what was or was not his business regarding your past. He would doubtless take great interest in your phrasing with regard to your compromises and sacrifices in the name of a happy partner, and why there have not been any on his side that you cared to mention.
Most of all, Rumpole would wonder why on earth the first mention of the test would not be enough to make you run for the hills. Personally, I don't think the occasional polygraph is too great a price to pay for what might be considered a more or less happy marriage overall. Only next time, do make sure that, whatever you might be suspected of doing, you've actually done. That's much more satisfactory, I can assure you.
L2: This letter, of course, is what caused Rumpole to recuse himself from the column this week and ask me to write it for him instead. You may remember the terrible dietary restrictions that were inflicted upon Rumpole by Hilda, acting in league with his physician, Dr McClintock. Of course, I don't think it right to judge Rumpole for being, well, corpulent. After all, it's not every barrister who can remain as trim as, well, need I say it, your humble servant. And he certainly had no better luck at remaining on his diet of Thin-o-Vite than your father, LW2. I cannot think how often Liz Probert or I would catch Rumpole sneakily adding a large sugar bun to his breakfast at the Tast-E-Bite Cafe.
Rumpole would no doubt have a good deal to say about the wisdom of choosing athletic holidays for a large family party in such a remote location. Then again, he might add that there could be considerable opportunities on this holiday. After all, who wants to live with a father who eats your sister's entire birthday cake all by himself? Go on your holiday and hike to your heart's content, and somehow just find an excuse to leave your father behind somewhere, no doubt after he picks a quarrel (after some judicious prodding). Leave him with a lengthy hike back to the hotel. Given the correct altitude involved, that should solve your problem. It's reminiscent of Patrick Seton's plan to take his diabetic pregnant girlfriend Alice to a chalet in Austria where she would at the inappropriate moment find herself alone without her insulin in *The Bachelors*, or Nevile Strange's nipping into Mr Treves' hotel and hanging an Out of Order sign on the lift, thus requiring that the old man with a dicky ticker would have to risk his life by walking upstairs in *Towards Zero*.
L3: Dear LW3, I am entirely on your side again, just as was the case with LW1. I too am being constantly dictated to by our Head of Chambers, Sam Ballard, as to how I am required to spend my hard-earned fees in keeping up the best traditions of the Bar. Members of Chambers are constantly being obliged to purchase tickets to the Inns of Court Dinner or the Scales of Justice Ball, or go to hear the Bishop of Sidcup giving a talk on the moral abivalence of the Rent Acts. And I must recall how, when I was defending in a case of assault in the Kitten-a-Go-Go Club, how Rumpole told me to investigate the locus in quo in order to cross-examine the witnesses on the terrain, which led to a photographer taking my picture. The picture was published in the Daily Beacon with a paragraph suggesting that such was my usual practice in the afternoons. Sam Ballard insisted that I sue the Daily Beacon for libel, despite my protest that the expense would be extreme. But nothing else would due, but I must sue, in order to uphold the Best Traditions of the Bar. As it happens, that worked out rather well, as the Daily Beacon settled the case and I received substantial damages, which, as I reminded my clark Henry, were entirely free of tax.
If he were advising you, Rumpole would compare your lot to his marriage. After all, once you've survived the first ten years, why abandon ship now? There are always little ways around these things without quitting. Are you really willing to toss it all away simply over a mandatory voluntary charitable contribution?
However, we have in Chambers someone with much greater knowledge of the true inner workings of charities than Rumpole or even Sam ballard himself. I refer, of course, to Liz Probert. Even if she has never displayed that natural taste for the Opera which I might have wished to awaken in her, Liz has an encyclopedic knowledge of the true inner workings of charitable organizations. After all, her father, Red Ron, practically ran all of his part of South London for years, and doubtless is behind a number of charitable concerns. I took the liberty of putting this question to Liz in a general way, and she said it was sure to be simple. This charity encourages corporations to mandate voluntary employer contributions. Such a charity must naturally be run on corrupt principles and practices. They are sure to have violated the sacred tenets of political correctness in a dozen ways. Find but a few, and you will have an unanswerable argument in favour of ending these enforced contributions forever. You will be a heroine to others as well as yourself.
L4: Once again, I find myself remarkably in sympathy with the LW. How could your parents even have considered selling your ancestral home? My own mummy would never have permitted such a thing. And I was always loyal to her, going back to stay with her whenever I had a little row with Phyllida, and taking her to the Opera every time I had two tickets and for some unaccountable reason everyone else in Chambers had a previous engagement for the evening...
I am convinced that your parents have found someone whose company they prefer to yours, who has cleverly insinuated his or her way into their lives, and who is now doing everything possible to push you out. For a parallel case, I would consider Tuppence's great-aunt Primrose in *By the Pricking of My Thumbs*, an elderly woman who took in a young man named Mervyn whom she claimed to be quite a kindred spirit. When Great-Aunt Primrose let her relations know that she had made a will in Mervyn's favour, the family acted in some haste, discovering just in time that Mervyn had an unsavoury past and putting the police on his tail in time to prevent anynthing happening to Great-Aunt Primrose.
I advise you, LW4, to make it quite clear to your parents that you find their conduct unacceptable, that you won't have it, and that, if they think they can replace you in the family with someone who make them more proud, they can think again. Rumpole would doubtless just tell you to grow up, stay at an hotel when you go to visit them, and be thankful they are being reasonable about your having an adult life with which they have nothing to do. But I think this situation is far too important. You must fight to get them back, even if it means you have to go so far as to get yourself fired and move back in with them.
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