The Final Bottle

Bill was living alone in a little wooden house on the coast of Scotland. He wasn't living a healthy life, way too much whiskey and beer. And a heavy smoker on top of that.

 

One Saturday afternoon he set off for the village pub. It was two miles away, but he took a shortcut along the beach. That was when he noticed a bottle washed up on the shore. There's nothing special about that, but this bottle still had a cork in it. The cork was protruding a little from the opening in the bottle and Bill was not one to leave a bottle like that unexamined.

 

He managed to pull the cork out, but only to find that the bottle was empty. He was about to throw it in the sea, when suddenly there was a sound like some sort of gas flowing out the bottle. And then there was a voice:

 

"Master, you have released me from my glassy prison. I'm at your service. Command, and I will fulfil two wishes for you"!

 

Bill hesitated. Then he had an idea. "I would like a bottle of whiskey that fills up again every time you drink of it."

 

As soon as he had said that he stood there with a bottle of fine Scottish whiskey in his hand. He couldn't believe his luck. He took a liberal sip - and the bottle filled up again. He did this several times, and every time the bottle filled up. He was beginning to enjoy himself.

 

Then there was an impatient voice from the bottle. "Master, I must move on. What is your second wish?".

 

Bill thought hard for some time. Then a smile came on his face :"I'd like another bottle like that", he said.

 

The Garlic Eaters

You are what you eat we have been told. Personally I was brought up on boiled potatoes, gravy and variations of pork, and occasionally fish at the end of the month when money were running low. That was the stable diet of most people when I was a boy.

Things changed when I went to university. I was part of the large post-war generation who got the chance to study. There were many of us, the first from our families to go into higher education.

We were quick to adopt to new ways of life and, I must say with some shame, quick to reject the ways of our parents and hold them in derision. Arrogance is quickly learnt.

Food was a major change. We had to try out the cuisine of other countries. Globalisation started with food. In the students hall we shared a kitchen, and we did not often eat boiled potatoes. Although we were all for the working class, we were too sophisticated to eat what they ate.

One of the new ingredients that we learned to use was garlic. It was cool to eat garlic. If you eat a lot of it, other people are likely to find out if you are close to them.

One day I overheard a conversation between two of the girls in the hall. One was Marianne (this is, of course, not her real name), and I have forgotten the name of the other. They had been to the cinema the night before, after having had a meal with plenty of garlic in it. They were in a good mood. They didn't talk about the film. They had heard to elderly ladies sitting near to them complain to each other about the reek of garlic. That made their day.

 

Is there anything more rewarding than feeling superior to other people. Feeling more sophisticated.

 

From then on they never went to the cinema without first having a healthy meal with lots of garlic in it.

Where we come from - The Potato Eaters by Vincent van Gogh

Conventry Cathedral

There is fog for as far as the eye can see. And probably even further. I am standing on the deck of a ferry crossing the English Channel.

I have been to Coventry. If you ever go to Coventry you should visit the Cathedral. It is not hard to find, it is next to Primark. It was bombed during the Second World War and was never rebuilt. The bare walls of the roofless cathedral stand there to remind you of what once was. Like a wound that has hardened but never completely healed. I visited the Cathedral. I had been there once before. It was in the 1970s when my brother and I went on a bicycle trip to England.

 

I don't have a photo from then, because neither of us owned a camera. I do have a photo of the Cathedral though, with my mother in front of it. She went to England on trip with an Christian Women's organisation once. It was her only trip abroad ever, and she had been very impressed with all the things she saw. She was from a generation where travelling abroad was not a common thing at all. She didn't have a camera, and the photo of her in front of the Cathedral was a present from one of her friends who was also on the tour.

 

 A year later she died of cancer, much too young.

 

That photo was on my mind as I stood there in front of the Cathedral. And it was on my mind now when crossing the Channel. We have been to the same place. We have seen the same wound.

 

Optional Extras

God created the cat (or evolution did, if you prefer). A beautiful animal with a soft fur and irresistible eyes. The cat is very agile and one of its fine characteristics is its innate ability to move along almost without a sound.

Or that was how it was created (or evolved, if you like). Now we have improved on its design. We have added an optional extra. We have put bells on it, so that it will make a sound when sneaking through the grass. This makes it more difficult for the cat to catch its prey, not least the garden birds.

Mrs. Chritensi and I have an old, beautiful cat, and for Xmas it had a band to wear round the neck, and the band has a bell attached to it. At first the cat didn't like it, but now it seems to have gotten used to it.

Uncle Jack came around and heard the cat and saw it. He was amused, and I had to explain to him that the bell was there to save the birds.

- whenever has that fat and lazy cat of yours caught a bird? And do you still call it a cat, he asked. Cats move along silently, and this one surely doesn't.

I had to think. It wasn't this year that it caught a bird, and it wasn't last year. Maybe the year before that.

Admittedly, a bell for our cat maybe doesn't make much sense. But at least it shows the neighbours that we care about animals.

Cynics and Sentimentalists

I can't stand people being good to other people. I start crying. I happens all the time when I am watching television. The bad guy turns good in the end and tears come to my eyes. Somebody helps a helpless creature and here we go again. An organisation stages a charity show, and when the speeches are on I cry again. And it is not only about being good to people - the same thing happens, if someone treats an animal kindly.

I even cry sometimes when I hear the weather forecast for the weekend. I am most definitely a sentimentalist.

My Uncle Jack is different. He is a cynic. He only cries in the darkness of the cinema.