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  • Writer's pictureMartyn Offord

January 21st Biden, Bog People and Me

For much of yesterday we watched the Presidential Inauguration of Joe Biden. American patriotic ceremonies of this sort I always find moving and noticed on Facebook that other people found it moving too, even though we’re supposed to be cynical, jaded Europeans – at least that’s how we’ve often been presented in the American fiction of the early 20th century: Henry James, Scott Fitzgerald. We know it’s corny and glitzy and often insincere but we’re all so relieved about what it means in terms of a new beginning and the end of something dreadful. Deirdre and I felt it all as a personal triumph. We’ve been fairly frequent visitors to the USA over the last 40 years, but we boycotted it during the Presidency of George W Bush and he lost power, and we’ve boycotted it since 2015 and Trump lost power. We’re now planning to boycott North Korea.


This morning I was contemplating the possibilities of people and situations changing dramatically. I reflected how St.Paul and Ian Paisley turned around. Would Mike Pence? What about the Trump supporters interviewed last night in their trailer park, or the Covid deniers outside the Royal Derby Hospital? I wish the media would starve them of coverage. Then Storm Carlos disappeared over the horizon and the sun came out. We have a new President and, incidentally, we have a new electric blanket. Scott Fitzgerald wrote a short story called ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’ about a man who grows backwards from age to babyhood. So noting the power of my boycotts of American presidents I have decided to boycott old age.


For the last thirteen years I have been trying to persuade my grandchildren that I am interesting, that my past is interesting, my present is interesting and my future...well, regrettable. Under pressure our 8 year old did admit I was ‘cool, but that was only in comparison to her Granni. Occasionally they have a homework, alleging to be history, where they have to find out what entertainment, school or toys their grandparents experienced, and they duly note down minimal information in a glassy eyed sort of way. They never say, “Let’s dress up as Granddad,” or ask, “Tell us about the Cuban Crisis,” or what did the barber mean with “And something for the weekend, Sir?” This I might add was never addressed to me, which is as well because I was probably 40 before it clicked with me what he was getting at. But now you mention it, I do recall men sidling in and a series of winks and nudges while I sat in the chair and Bernie Rose (our barber) reaching into a glass fronted cupboard behind some jars of Brylcreem and smuggling them past my inquisitive eye. I suppose I thought they were biscuits.


However, someone obviously thinks I’m interesting because I have just read a book about childhood in the Fifties and to be honest, I could have written it, because I don’t think there was anything there I didn’t know or hadn’t experienced. It may have been the cast of Dixon of Dock Green or the advertising slogan for Murray Mints or the efficacy of Vick’s VapoRub for colds. Then there were those winter mornings with ice on the inside of the bedroom window or the marble slab or net-fronted meat-safe that pre-dated the fridge. I didn’t need telling of any of these things but it’s good to have them all together in a book in case I want to devise a quiz which militates against younger people who can always answer questions about the participants of Love Island. I’m not sure at whom the book is aimed – it’s more or less a list of facts with one or two very simplistic conclusions designed to make grandchildren go glassy eyed.


It is however another incarnation for we baby-boomers; we are specimens disinterred from lockdown and presented as being of anthropological interest, on a par with the Viking Museum at York complete with its recreated smells of dung pits. P.V.Glob published a book back in the 1970s with wonderfully detailed pictures of the Bog People, Tollund Man and Grauballe Man, perfectly preserved and exhumed from the peat bogs of Denmark. This is one of the most memorable books I have read, except I can’t remember what happened to my copy. I’m beginning to feel a bit like one of these, except less well preserved.



So well preserved were these bodies that archaeologists were able to identify their last meals, which were tasties like gruel, mistletoe pollen, seeds and fruit. It could be incontrovertibly ascertained that they had not been in a lockdown because of the absence of binge Bombay Mix and Kettle Crisps in their guts. It’s also suspected that they didn’t use moisturising cream. Early in my days in Crich I was assured that Raspberry Vinegar was good for most things. I offer my view on that below with the recent accretion of a Covid verse.


THE CRICH PANACEA


Hilary Wellby gave me the recipe and was the first to extol its limitless virtues to me. I have heard it recommended as a guard against cancer and as a salad dressing.


The first time in Crich I had a sore throat,

Or used a tube t’ inseminate a goat,

Sealant to the guttering tried to apply

Or deter mosquitoes and tsetse fly,

Or from bathroom grouting washed the black mould,

I was quickly taken aside and told –


You don’t need no surgery, you don’t need no pills,

You don’t need professionals, you don’t need no skills,

Your aches and your pains, well-being and drains

Raspberry vinegar cures humanity’s ills.


CHOR: Raspberry Vinegar will bring you long life and great wealth

Fill a glass with it now and raise a toast to itself.


To cure constipation or haemorrhoids,

Deflect meteorites or asteroids,

To marinade tuna, as antifreeze,

Disinfect your greenhouse or stop a sneeze,

Enrich uranium, remove your nail varnish,

Keep cats off the garden, a dressing, a garnish,

Shave hair from your armpits, be moisturised,

I was taken aside and quickly advised –


You can sniff it or snort it, mull it or brew,

Distil it or chill it, swallow or chew,

Inject it, inhale it, download or email it,

Raspberry Vinegar is the thing for you.


For enemas, purgatives – fill a syringe,

Mix it with gin or oil a hinge,

Making gravy or more poshly a jus,

To caulk an old boat or baste a roast goose,

A memory aid when you have dementia,

Or put in a glass to soak your denture,

To clean toilet bowls or brickwork rendered,

I was taken aside and soon recommended –


You won’t need no supplements, vitamins or oil,

You can medicate or embrocate, simmer it or boil,

Make it, prescribe it, filch it, imbibe it,

Raspberry vinegar is the remedy right royal.


To vandal proof drainpipes or cure gangrene,

Fuel for your car, drizzle over ice cream,

Deal with depression and hysterical laughter,

Spike people’s drinks and for the morning after,

Make syllabubs, custard, repair punctured tyres,

Treat wrinkles and acne and extinguish fires.

It will also cure herpes, and cauterise warts.

I was taken aside and imparted these thoughts –


Raspberry vinegar’s the magic of wizard and druid

Your duty is to honour it, preserve it and steward;

So you’ll never die, but in case you do, try

Raspberry Vinegar as an embalming fluid.


So over the years I’ve taken plenty,

But then we arrived in Twenty Twenty.

All these years it has been my sustenance and salvation,

Now recommended by the World Health Organisation.

Raspberry Vinegar is the indisputable vaccine

To eradicate once and for all this Covid-19.

All the finest clinical and pharmaceutical minds converged -

12 weeks isolation in raspberry vinegar – completely submerged.

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