On Striking a Heroic Pose

A mere couple of years ago, I stood in the swirling clash of a melee, my mighty enemy all but vanquished in front of me and for once I was neither dead, nor concussed by a tankish foe and by some miracle my balls had not had a massive foot descend upon them from heights to heady to imagine. It had been a long road but it had all been worth it. My glorious return to the field was complete, my heroic pose struck, and I was about to land the final blow. 


How had this incredible event come to pass you ask? Oh go on, you know you want to. What do you mean that you couldn’t care less? Tough, you’re getting the story anyway. 

And the background. 

So there.

Anyway I now actually had some spare time (if very little or no spare cash) had kicked my World of Warcraft habit (I am now a fully fledged member of WOW addicts anonymous and have been clean for 5 years now) so I’d come home and stare into space for hours while my brain put itself back into some semblance of order. Typically my lone brain cell had been ritually turned into scrambled egg during the course of the day, and it took me hours or processing time while I tried to remember what being a ‘bit of a character’ was like, or maybe I was just preparing to be patient zero for the inevitable zombie apocalypse. I’ll leave you to form your own opinion.

A while back I’d had to close my beloved comic shop, done a stint as a shop assistant as Waterstones and was very lucky to get a job as a drone paying bills. Yep that’s what I did all day. Scrutinised an invoice for all the things I had to scrutinise it for, check whether it was right, argue with the supplier if it wasn’t, establish the required audit rail in red ink (no other colour would do and *Green* ink was right out) write it up put it on a database, put it on the payment system, put it here, put it there, sign it, file it, sign in triplicate, send in, send back, query it lose it, find it, subject it to public enquiry, lose it again, and finally bury it in soft peat for three months and recycle it as firelighters.. It went like this again and again and again and again (and yet again and again) on and on and on with no end in sight. Forever and ever. Amen.

However one of the advantages of this is that I was working regular hours. Actually that’s not fair. I was working regular hours before, it's just that an average working week consisted of about 70 of them. 

So, rather than practise my best zombie poses, I decided that (for reasons I really can’t quite figure out) that I would try to get back into re-enactment. Insanity can’t be ruled out, but I missed the way I felt whilst swinging a sword and perhaps felt a need to be not quite as politically correct as work demanded. I also ‘felt a need’ to sound the odd Barbaric Yawp across the castles of the world.' Barbaric Yawps are an important part of the re-enactment scene and don’t believe anyone who tells you otherwise – even if it is ever-so-slightly American and just possibly not medieval. Millions of SCA members The Dead Poets Society and Walt Whitman can’t be wrong!

I started the long, long, long journey to try and get fit enough and because there’d been a lot of water under the bridge, not a few Maccy D’s to contend with (and the wonders of modern medicine keeping me alive but having some not-so-good side effects) it wasn’t easy. As a result when I started this particular journey I really didn’t know whether I could cross the finishing line. However, I felt the attempt was worthwhile. As I write (after some more water under the bridge but no Maccy D's) I am trying to do it all again.

With plans afoot to be phased back in for the following year it was actually going quite well until a crisis struck the Lion Rampant (the re-enactment group I’d been a member of since pretty much the dawn of time) in that they didn’t have enough people for a show in Sheffield, and would I agree to come along. Yes, they had scraped the bottom of the barrel and after that, well there I was, all covered in barrel scrapings and sh!te..

So it became a literal race against time to get fit enough to maybe do a bit of training and talk some, which in my fevered imagination was, fight loads, look amazing and have thousands of dusky odalisques fall adoringly at my feet. I was on board at the fight loads part and the dusky odalisques were just a massive bonus. I was off!

In the usual vain attempt to bring truth, objectivity and mum’s apple pie to this tale, the reality might just have been ‘can you come along and make up numbers - a bit’ but as you must know I am not about to let the truth get in the way of a good story!

It was then I found that a lot of my old kit had vanished over the years since I last used it, eaten in spite of mothballs by lepidopterans with exceedingly good taste . Fortunately the modern re-enactment marketplace came to my rescue and it was a matter of making a called to Mr Duke Henry Plantagenet (that is his name) plus his mate Phil Fraser and everything I needed (hose (trousers) arming stuff, hat, belts and shirts) was delivered in about two days. I was not about to step onto the field for the first time in ages without being properly accessorised. My manly image would have been ruined!

For your reference back in the day when everything was made for you by friends who made things in the evenings and at weekends, the watchwords we lived by were ‘Ordered at the Dawn Of Time’ so this was a bit of a culture shock for me. When it all arrived there were a lot more bits of cord to tie things on with, no elastic in sight and I really wasn’t sure about this separate leg business but it was all there and exactly what I’d ordered.   

So after a bit of existential angst and heartache, the weekend began. The Sheffield venue was a far cry from the castles of old, being a rather nice hill surrounded but the town and the show itself could not have contrasted more with the old days, being a big multi-group event with periods from Ancient Rome to World War 2 and pretty much everything in between being well represented. There was an American Civil War encampment (which was huge) and a ton of other stuff which I’ll try to show in the pictures.

I have to say that the weekend didn’t start well. It was bloody freezing and the sleeping bag which my mum had kindly bought me was not at all up to the job so I was wearing pretty much every stitch of clothing I had brought with me and I was still damned cold.

But I gradually unfroze as the day went on and I did get to talk for the training bit but given the numbers worked out odd with me on the field I couldn’t take part in that so no fighting so far, and no sign of dusky odalisques either! I had clearly been brought in on false pretenses.

We then did the script of the day which was a fairly simple affair in which the bad guys interrupted a marriage ceremony, carried off the bride for tea and cake from which dreadful fate she was rescued because well, no gentleman can allow a lady to be seen in public partaking of tea and cake unless it’s the right sort of tea and cake in the correct company. After the rescue everyone lived happily ever after except for the big pile of dead guys who were an obligatory part of these things.   

My part of it was to be a component of the pile of dead guys, which it must be said was not new to me, so I manfully turned  up to do my bit, except that I ended up against the lead bad guy, Sir Lance. Yes really, Sir Lance Du Lac. Lance is about the biggest ham bone since preserved meats were invented and also a great bloke. The fact that he’s at least a foot taller than me and has a black belt in Tae-Kwan-do does not in any way factor into my assessment.

Now normally coming up against a lead man in a script is not good for your future prospects, but I have killed king Edward IV at the Battle of Tewkesbury once or twice and therefore altered the course of history, and besides Lance’s ‘Aura of Invulnerability’ tm had worn off since he’d served the wrong tea and cake to a lady in a public venue, so I could go for it.

So….we fought and in the swirling chaos of the melee I stood alone, my mighty enemy all but vanquished in front of me and for once I was neither dead, nor concussed by a tankish foe and by some miracle my balls had not had a massive foot descend upon them from heights to heady to imagine. It had been a long road but it had all been worth it. My glorious return to the field was complete, my heroic pose struck, and I was about to land the final blow…..

It was at that exact point fate decided that my wonderful new trousers bought from Duke Henry Plantagenet were to fall down around my ankles rendering me more hors de combat than any mortal wound ever would..

You see I had omitted to buy the special thing that they were supposed to hang off (which is a bit like a waistcoat and probably is the origin of the garment) and had had to improvise. Sometimes it’s definitely not good to be a man. Oh yes.

So Sir Lance recovered from is near death experience, and while the field erupted into gales of laughter he struck his own heroic pose, without the dire consequences I had just suffered from (which is would have been just, if fate happens to be reading this) and mercifully put me to death. I am still quite impressed he managed that, because I’m not sure I could have, what with the pointing and the laughing… Especially the laughing…

So in dying I staggered off to a convenient tent (via a bench it has to be said) and expired because I was myself laughing so much I couldn’t breathe. Amazingly the audience had not (by some miracle) run away in terror, possibly paralysed by their own laughter, and the show got to end in more or less the way it should. Only more or less because the biggest ham bone since ham was invented was there after all and was unfairly assisted by his two daughters who applied the cute factor in spades.

So here’s another fate worse then death for my two readers. Perhaps the blog title should read. Strikes heroic pose.. unstrikes heroic pose when trousers fall down. Thank you Mr Milligan!

Postscriptum

I nearly froze that night and was saved from literal hypothermia by being lent spare bedding by friends. Phew! I am glad however that I was not a brass monkey. (and if you don’t know that saying look it up- I am not explaining it here.)

The following say I was selected for a single combat which is far more than I expected. I suspect that I was chosen in the hope that I would re-enact the scene from the previous day’s script. I am truly glad to say that I didn’t, but when I challenged my foe of the day who I called ‘Knock-Kneed Nick the Nancy Boy from Nockington’ he did smack me (with a sword) over the back of the head while I bowed to him, which got a good solid laugh, if not quite the same gales of hilarity as my previous days antics. Thank you Nick!

Life lessons form the weekend were….

Even if what you are/do is a pale shadow of what went before sometimes a pale shadow is enough, even if it’s for the wrong reasons (at least in part).

When the forecast says ‘damned cold’ make sure you buy the bedding you need even if you don’t want to offend your mum!

If someone mentions dusky odalisques to you when you’re old and ugly – its probably a lie. Years laterI am still waiting for some to turn up.

And finally, they say ‘belt and braces’ for a reason. If you don’t use both your trousers *will* fall down at the worst possible time.

PPS. Just in case you're thinking of bringing this up in conversation may I remind you that even with no trousers I still have a mighty sword ...

The Court of Silent Justice

After the events detailed in my last blog post ‘The Longest Journey’ (which you should read first if you haven’t already – it’ll make things clearer and of course is destined to be a modern classic) we found ourselves ensconced at Sudely Castle and absolutely dog tired. Speaking purely for myself I set up my tent and went straight to sleep, only being woken in the night by the flock of sheep which had got out of its field and was wandering around ours.

This is the field, the fence and the tree where it happened

Just so you know, getting out of your tent and yelling ‘MINT SAUCE!’ at a flock of sheep and waving your arms around like a demented windmill doesn't do much. You’d think that such a graphic reminder of a sheep’s ultimate fate would at least cause it to run for this hills but clearly sheep share a collective brain and the more there are of them in one place the stupider they get. (I have noticed that football supporters demonstrate a similar phenomenon by the way, a fact particularly relevant to this tale.) Anyway the ‘mint sauce’ war cry didn’t endear me to the people who had been woken by said sheep, though I have to say it did raise a laugh or two. Back to sleep I went, being woken again by the local Society of Sheep ‘Shearers’. Being in the Cotswolds and surrounded by axe-murdering madmen this was clearly what passed for normal behaviour round here. BAAA!  

That morning we were setting up for the show, and the lovely lady who ran the castle told us we couldn’t have our usual spot by the wooden fort and we’d have to go round the back of the castle in a field full of thistles and stuff deposited by animals who eat thistles. Awesome! After yesterday that was exactly what I needed and this woman was not going to be taken alive if I had anything to do with it! I had a preliminary statement all prepared which had to do with sex and travel (if you get my meaning) and had my membership application for the local axe murdering nutters society all ready. Being at that point a fully-fledged ‘Wild-Eyed Nutter In Dodgy Kit’™ I felt it was a natural progression. I even had a convenient axe to hand. Fortunately Mark, the society’s show coordinator was on hand and was able to convince the poor woman to act in her own best interest, decline the free membership of the Henry VIII wives Club that I was about to offer, and let us play in the castle grounds. That was a lot more like it!

So we set up in a wonderful, intimate location inside the castle grounds, arranged other elements of the show in other equally wonderful places and off we went for the day. It started quite well. I wasn’t quite as graceless as usual in the dancing and I even managed to get a willing partner for the ‘have a go bit’. To put that in context, in my entire re-enactment career that happened about twice. I managed to cheat death yet again as we danced ‘La Volta’ which was a minor miracle (and the subject of another story) which meant that once again I could again put my career option of singing falsetto for the Bee Gees on hold. Phew! The script was great and we had a really good appreciative audience for it so all so far was good.

However. You knew there was a ‘however’ coming right? However, being in charge of fighting and fight training for the society I was in had a curious effect on some people. Some would fall before you like wheat before a scythe and others would be infected with the invulnerability virus and wouldn’t go down no matter what. So what happened today was my first opponent in the melee was one of the former. He fell to my Yoda like abilities with me even touching him with my mighty blade. Thus, in the immortal words of Samuel L. Jackson .............

The second (who shall remain nameless) definitely was in Main Battle Tank mode as he faced me and nothing in my vast arsenal of Jedi Powers or Ninja Moves was going to make him go down no matter how many times I hit him. It became therefore a matter of picking my moment to take one and go down myself. Of course, as you know, I was in no way angsty or egotistical about the whole thing.

No really.

Honest.

I took one on the head, reasoning that it would miss my brain by some feet as we’ve previously discussed and down I went, observing the battle playing out around me as if I’d been poleaxed (which has it happens was closer to the truth than I realised at the time). You see my tankish foe had put really quite a huge crater-like dent in my helmet, making it resemble the moon even more than it did before, and while of course I hadn’t noticed it, oh boy was it there!

In due course I recovered from my death blow and stood up. For the record, previously having had my balls trod on when I was dead absolutely, definitely and indubitably in no way influenced my decision to get up again.

And it was glorious.

I had several great fights with the then Top Swords These fights, as I write about them, are playing out in my head. I was totally focused and felt truly vital in a way I really don’t have the words for. For those flashing instants I felt at one with everything around me, and while I know it’s a cliché its one that happened to be entirely true. I still feel the palest shadow of it when I ‘fight’ today and its pretty much the only time I even feel vaguely alive these days. 

Inevitably it came to an end. My end came in the shape of Sir William Marshall, the icon of English Chivalry, who’s been the subject of his own documentary and played a huge part in the Plantagenet saga (also the subject of a documentary).

(I’d like to mention that ‘our’ Sir William Marshall very nearly emulated the fighting history of his namesake, and only retired from the craft at the age of seventy, only two years less than the original, after having had to endure an dastardly assault from behind by a signpost which fell on his head while he was fighting evil hordes at a nameless battlefield in some high street or other. Huge respect Trevor. I’m sure your namesake didn’t have to put up with that!)

Back to the story. He caught me quite nicely over the head and frankly that would have been a great way to finish my part in the melee except that he caught me right in the huge crater-like dent in my helmet. Even with my brain being several feet away from the point of impact, I felt that, and down I went, observing the rest of the melee playing out around me in a trance like stupor from my usual position, though I’d had enough presence of mind to fall on my side this time. You see, even I am capable of learning given sufficient incentive!

I would like to say at this point that my being a dribbling fool later in the evening was of course entirely down to this head blow.

I honestly can’t remember who won the melee – not that it matters really but I know a good time was had by all, and having merely been hit over the head a couple of paracetamol had me sorted in no time flat. Having your brain in another place does help sometimes.

The party that night was just awesome. I think we had complaints about the noise from 5 miles away and as we did our usual epic sing-song around the campfire I am certain that the Crimes Against Music Division of the local force was called constantly and were entirely too afraid to approach us lest they bleed to death from their ears, or possibly were afraid of being beaten to death by a frozen chicken whilst stood on a barrel of radishes. The jury is out on that one.

When we got sufficiently drunk we decided to play a couple of games. The first was The Blanket Game, in which someone had to hide under a blanket and name an article of clothing. If it was the wrong article of clothing it had to be removed and thrown outside of the blanket. It’s a great game if you’re sufficiently drunk and can’t figure it out, because of course the correct article of clothing was the blanket. I will say no more than Rebecca (not her real name) was a fantastic sport about the whole thing and gave us guys a wonderful ‘it is good to be a man!’ moment. Sometimes it is just good to be a man. Oh yes.

Then we played the ‘Court of Silent Justice’ (which of course is the point of this blog) and my good and dear (also at that time very young) friend Barney was picked to be the accused. Actually my memory says he volunteered but I wouldn’t want to swear to that, in the interests of truth and objectivity of course and also because I am absolutely certain that genuinely genius level intelligences like his would never willingly fall for something so totally daft.

So who the hell is Barney? I suppose I had better introduce him. I first met Barnaby when he came to a Lion Rampant show when he was fifteen. He was a gangly youth with very silly ears which were to have dire consequences for him later in life, but I will tell that story in a little while, and if you think you know what's coming there, think again! His nervous laugh was also something which he became famous for, especially when he went through his regrettably brief 'Barnaby the Barbarian' phase. I hope its been transferred to DVD, in which case ask my brother-in-law for a viewing. RAAAR! It's a classic. (More about Barney in the postscript.)

Back (again) to the story. The accused stood in front of the court clad simply in his jeans and ‘t’ shirt and was arraigned.

‘THIS IS THE COURT OF SILENT JUSTICE!’ we all yelled. ‘YOU, BARNABY WALLACE NOW STAND BEFORE US. YOU ARE ACCUSED OF HAVING VERY SILLY EARS! HOW DO YOU PLEAD?’

Barnaby was of course a genuine genius who understood the nature of his plight straight away. He knew what he had to do.

‘I plead GUILTY!’ he declaimed proudly. The evidence was clear, after all. Just look up!.

‘YOUR PLEA IS INCORRECT!’ Said the court. ‘AS PUNISHMENT YOU MUST REMOVE AN ARTICLE OF CLOTHING AND STAND BEFORE US AGAIN!’

Barney looked confused. Even a genius would struggle with such a conundrum. Off came his shoes.

‘THIS IS THE COURT OF SILENT JUSTICE!’ we all said. ‘YOU, BARNABY WALLACE STAND BEFORE US. YOU ARE ACCUSED OF HAVING VERY SILLY EARS! HOW DO YOU PLEAD?’

At this point Barnaby was understandably flummoxed. Given the nature of the evidence how could he be anything other than guilty as charged? However plea options were limited so after a pause for deliberation he spoke.

‘I plead INNOCENT!’ He declaimed, not quite as proudly as the last time. Logic, even-p*ss*d-out-of-your-brains logic dictated that this was the only other option.

‘YOUR PLEA IS INCORRECT!’ Said the court. ‘AS PUNISHMENT YOU MUST REMOVE AN ARTICLE OF CLOTHING AND STAND BEFORE US AGAIN!’ Off came the socks.

I don’t doubt that all of you reading this have figured out the correct plea by now. It is after all The Court of SILENT Justice, right?

However, poor Barney could not figure it out. So more and more outrageous pleas were brought before the court and each was rejected in turn. In no time it seemed he stood before us, clad only in his Y fronts, an expression of abject terror on his face.

‘FOR THE FINAL TIME, BARNABY WALLACE, THIS IS THE COURT OF *SILENT* JUSTICE!’ we all said. ‘YOU, STAND BEFORE US ACCUSED OF HAVING VERY SILLY EARS! HOW DO YOU PLEAD?’

You really can’t say we didn’t try, can you.

The penny finally dropped. Unfortunately a passing coachload of football supporters happened to come within critical networking distance and even Barnaby’s enormous intellect could not stand the massive drain and all conscious thought just vanished down the proverbial plughole. The poor guy really had no chance. At all.

‘I PLEAD SANDWICHES!’ He said, clearly desperate. 

‘YOUR PLEA IS INCORRECT!’ Said the court. ‘AS PUNISHMENT YOU MUST REMOVE YOUR LAST ARTICLE OF CLOTHING!’

And he was off like his arse was about to be spanked with a frozen chicken, pursued by 3 lovely women motivated by the sole aim of ripping off his last vestiges of clothing and having their evil way with him.

I have a couple of observations to make at this point. The first is; from the shrieks, cries and wailing I could only assume that the banshees, furies, maenads and/or the wild hunt (pick the wild women of your favourite religion, they were all there) had come to earth and that very moment were riding the wind like the elemental forces they were.

The second is that, speaking as a lesser mortal, my reaction to having three beautiful women pursuing me with the sole intention of removing my last vestiges of clothing and having their evil way with me would have been to take that as proof as the existence of a benevolent divinity and surrender to my dreadful fate.

Alternatively I could I suppose take it as a second ‘Its good to be a man’ moment. Two in one evening would be an event of some note in my experience. I’ll leave you to take your pick but I must say I do most strongly prefer the first option!

However, Barnaby was and is not a lesser mortal had other ideas. Faced with the prospect of having his clothes ripped off by visions of pulchritude, he tried manfully to outrun the pursuing Maenads and rather than surrender to their tender mercies ran through about 15 feet of very active stinging nettles, a barbed wire fence and from there ran straight into the very flock of sheep which had shown no reaction whatsoever to my ‘mint sauce war’ cry the night before. I’d consider this as solid evidence of my theory that there was at least one coach full of football supporters in the vicinity, or possibly that Barney had joined the local sheep ‘shearers’ society on the q/t and was expressing a preference. I really shouldn’t speculate but you know this is my blog so I will do as I please!

The wailing of the Banshee ceased and some semblance of normality descended on the field. They returned with their trophy. You know what it was right? That’s when we heard about the 15 feet of nettles and the barbed wire; oh and the sheep. Even extreme measures like these weren’t enough to stop these amazing women and if I didn’t believe in the Sidhe riding the wind before then I most certainly did after that.

Barnaby turned up soon after with some semblance of his dignity restored, and a bloody great wound (from the barbed wire) all down his front, which was not so tenderly dressed with neat dettol. By that time he had regressed evolutionarily to probably about the level of a sponge (which has no nervous system) and just laughed uncontrollably at treatment which at any other time would have had him writhing in enormous pain. He still carries the scars of that encounter by the way.

I did pick up a few words from his nurses which I didn’t understand. Something idiot possibly? I have no idea what they were talking about..

And from there we partied the rest of the night away. I had been getting quietly drunk on mead and after I consumed all three bottles I’d brought for use over the whole weekend I was buzzing pleasantly. Of Ken Bennett (from the previous story) there was no sign but he came back from that weekend with a whole girl so I can only guess he was happy. I guess he had his own ‘it is good to be a man’ moment. Oh yes.

Just so you know that the account is totally unbiased and humiliation is spread wherever it is deserved you should know that I made the mistake of not stopping after three litres of mead. I followed all that up with a diet coke. Pretty harmless you’d think – except that is dissolved the honey lining my stomach and all that alcohol hit me at once. I was so far out of my tree that I circumnavigated whatever world ‘my tree’ lived in and was back in it (my tree I mean). I was evolutionarily regressed to a state far worse than a sponge at that point and possibly had about as much intelligence as a whole stadium full of football supporters –which is to say less than your average single-celled organism. I most certainly crashed and burned in epic style but thankfully the two girls looking after me bore the whole episode with commendable grace and didn’t remind me about it at every opportunity. Not quite every opportunity..

And I woke the following day feeling refreshed and not at all hung over. That is not even slightly exaggerated. My first hangover was thankfully years away back then. We had another glorious day in the sun, and topped it all off with a visit to a wonderful little place on the way back home which dealt with 30 or so people descending upon it all at once without any sort of warning demanding huge steaks with  surprising aplomb. A fine way to finish an amazing weekend.

As well as having a great time, I learnt a couple valuable life lessons over that weekend.

One was that being a slobbering idiot only makes you more attractive or witty in your own mind. Others will not share your opinion. Trust me on this.

The other was that just sometimes the best endings come out of the worst beginnings, which I guess is really rather the theme of this blog.

POSTSCIPT.

On The Dangers Of Having Very Silly Ears

Barnaby is really a genius. He still has very silly ears though. However, after a solid grounding in the Lion Rampant he went to Canterbury university prepared by us to make a fool of himself in a way which the word epic does no justice to whatsoever. I am certain that it is still remembered in the annals of that august body! Here’s a little of his story after the trauma of the Court of Silent Justice

While the Great Lamppost Destroyer of Old Canterbury town is marked 'case unsolved' by the local constabulary, there are still lampposts in Canterbury which fear Barnaby's tread for all sorts of reasons and bucket sales have taken a steep dive on Friday nights in Canterbury since he left. I have no idea why. Unfortunately I was only able to visit him once a year while he breezed his way to a First Class Degree at the University, and time prevents me from getting all the details of these wonderful stories from his university friends, but I'm sure they will filter out in spite of Barnaby's best efforts to supress them.

Barnaby liked Canterbury I think. He certainly stayed there long enough, designing face recognition chips and other stuff that’s way beyond me, but one summer he was off on a trip round the world.

After lots of drinking in places around Europe we made his way to Russia, and whilst in Moscow he was arrested for the serious crime of having very silly ears, bundled into an Ice Cream van painted grey by a bunch of armed men in no discernible uniform and whisked of somewhere else, where he was actually relieved to have men pointing machine guns at him, because at least it was happening in a police station. I do believe he didn’t plead ‘sandwiches’ in response to whatever accusations were made and was in due course allowed to leave, underwear intacto.

Later, on the Trans-Siberian railway something similar happened, for it appears that they take silly ears very seriously in Russia, when a bunch of security guards armed with AK47's accosted Barni while he was sleeping. After a heated debate, which we assume had something to do with whether said ears should be removed or not, Barni was given a stern telling off, which he didn't understand a word of, and (fortunately for him) allowed to continue. No banshees were heard wailing in the vicinity.

Of course there were many more stories, but I regret I have yet to hear them so I can't relate them to you. After his trip across Russia, Barni made his way to Japan via Vladivostok. My understanding is that he was broke and eating food cooked over dung fires in Mongolia, which had an 'interesting' flavour. He then worked his passage from Vladivostok to Japan on some dodgy tramp steamer and somehow got his friend Shean (who was living in Tokyo) to pick him up! A few week later he was earning huge sums of money working for a blue chip company in that metropolis, where he stayed for some years.

I was only able to visit him once there, but on several occasions during the course of my visit we solved world poverty, invented cheap renewable energy and discovered the true origin of the universe only to be completely unable to remember anything the following day! I am sure that our inability to remember was nothing to do with our state, just the sheer enormity of the ideas, but I will leave the judgement of that to those of you who know either or both of us.

It was after that he met Satchiko, and relatively recently that he got married. Barni and Satchiko chose not to have a big wedding, opting instead to have a life which is to consist of one long beach party after another, which sounds like a good idea to me, however impractical it may prove to be when they live in New Zealand, beaches being a rarity inland.

They are currently building the Last Homely House in which they intend to spend their days. It is an absolute mansion! I haven’t told them yet that I intend to take it over in my capacity as Tony, Lord Of Evil and make it my own. I shall surprise them with the takeover one day. Do NOT give the game away.

In conclusion, Barni was, and is, one of my very best friends, somewhat less crazy these days, but still prone to odd moments of insanity, with an unfortunate tendency to have it recorded! Ask him to tell you about the older woman in Kaz' bar in Kyoto sometime. (He was unattached at the time). The Bartender recorded the whole thing. Sometimes it’s not so good to be a man. Oh yes

The Longest Journey

Here's one of those stories, set before the events of the 'Court of Silent Justice' weekend at Sudely Castle, which is one of (if not the) best weekends I ever had in the Lion Rampant and there were a lot of those! Photos of the Event Courtesy of Trevor Pilling.

Sudely Castle was our second ever castle venue if memory serves – and for the longest time it was actually pretty crap by modern standards. We weren't allowed to perform in the castle grounds and had to do our thing in front of a kiddies wooden fort which was attached to the edge of the castle. Being Wild Eyed Nutters in Dodgy Kit (tm), we didn't really care about that so much because what Sudely did have was ok-ish acoustics, and (most importantly) a decent, responsive, interested audience. For those of you who've done shows like Chartridge School fête and more recently that one up in one of the junior schools in Flackwell Heath – let alone the REALLY crap ones it was still a great big step up. It was no Wingfield but it was the best we had otherwise.

Well, we were setting off for Sudely in sort of convoy – Ken Bennett and I were in 'G-Force' his bright metallic green Austin Princess and the OWWP and her mercenary crew in her yellow Renault thing which looked like a rancid banana. We were in good company!

I suspect there's only a few of you who remember Ken Bennett. He was a big, strong and extremely nice guy who was my next door neighbour but one, for a longish time one of our very best fighters and all the better for not having an ego about it. I remember an absolutely cracking fight with him at Reading Abbey later that year where he struck sparks off my helmet (safely) but that's a story you should ask Ken Polton about, he tells it far better than I ever could with just the right degree of exaggeration.

In the spirit of this article, another story about Ken Bennett which you should hear was one from that year'’s Tewkesbury (the Arthur one) when he went after a guy who was laying into us when we were already fighting and counting on reverse invulnerability to save him – this complete a**hole wore nothing except woad, swords, a pair of leather trousers and sported the kind of legendary bad hair which gets you inducted into the Mullet Hall of Fame. He hurt Ken (quite badly actually) so Ken went after him and kneed him in the balls (quite gently according to the story I got from him later – just enough to say 'OI that's not on matey' but I'll let you be the judge of the veracity of that statement!) 

When this trousered twerp's society seized the opportunity to go after Ken he took them all on and beat them. Yes he was really that good and to be fair they were really that bad. I didn't get that part from Ken by the way, I heard it in the guys loo later on that day from a member of the society concerned, who said 'and then we all went for him and he got really mad!'

Back to the convoy – Ken's G-Force had this legendary brutal acceleration, the kind that pins you into your seat, risks constant blacking out and sees you go from 0-60 miles per hour in about 3.5 hours (on a good day). Added to this it had one of the only tow bars in the society, so for that weekend we were responsible for a trailer full of the society kit – the pavs (which are the kitchen pavs today) peoples weapons and armour – that sort of thing  - so the epic acceleration was made even worse if that were at all possible. Add to that the kind of rain which only a suicidally depressed England can give you and you have a recipe for something – I'm not sure what but it was definitely something!

We were, at this stage enjoying the unrelenting grey of the rain-lashed English countryside somewhere on the M40 past that part where you drive though that gorge like cleft. In G-force terms this would normally be about 40 mph, but with a following wind and a longish downhill stretch, plus the crucial addition of Ken and I screaming 'G-FORCE!' at the top of our lungs we were at the heady heights of around 55 mph.

It was sometime around then my attention was inexplicably drawn to a large spinning object in the sky. Was
a bird, was it a plane, was it a mysterious, scantily-clad superheroine come to rescue me? Sadly, no. It was a Rover, spinning lazily along its long axis as it flew over the central reservation of the motorway, as it finished it's all too brief attempt to be the first Rover V8 to land on the moon and plunged towards the ground; straight at us!

You'll have heard people say that their whole life flashes before their eyes in these sorts of situations. Well mine didn't; or perhaps I just needed a life, but the time slowed to a veritable crawl as I thought 'this is it' whilst trying to come up with something desperately profound and failing miserably. Having sought and failed to find some world shattering insight, the only coherent thought I could muster was 'OHHHHH SHIIIITTTTT!!!!'.

Fortunately G-Forces powers of braking were greater than it's acceleration, and as Ken slammed on the brakes, our tyres screamed, and the trailer did it's absolute best to force us to jack-knife, while the moon-bound rover landed in front of us (by some fortunate fluke on its wheels) bounced over car and trailer – it really was one of those Matrix Moments which no-one should have to experience – landed again, this time on its roof and rolled over onto its now broken suspension looking rather worse than the car in the picture below.

We did a number of things very quickly from there. We, phoned the police and ambulance services, stole some cones from the roadworks which were just down the motorway, coned off the Rover (which probably prevented yet another accident from what seemed to be a huge number of cars travelling far too fast) and tried manfully to get into the wreck of a once nice car.

With its roof crushed we couldn't do much, so we also asked for the fire brigade. We could see the driver, and he wasn't moving. We could smell him too – the reek of alcohol was quite incredible!  We could also see the ignition, which was switched on, but thanks to the crushed roof we couldn't get to it.

Fortunately by this time the police had turned up, so having done pretty much everything we could we gratefully let them take over. We were of course were wetter than a haddock's swimsuit and were clearly going to be here for a while, so we sent the OWWP Bananamobile onwards, but not before we got a steaming hot cup of coffee/tea and food. Boy did we need it!

While we gave our statements, such as they were, the fire brigade and ambulance turned up. They got the roof off with some electric saw thing and extracted the driver from the crushed ruin of his car. During the procedure he woke up, but he wasn't doing much for some strange reason. Well at least he wasn't dead!

The had to do some procedural bit of course. While the driver was tended by the paramedics, they had to go through the formality of breathalysing him (I swear the chemical stuff changed colour before he even breathed into it) and they tried quite hard to get a coherent statement out of him and I think pretty much failed; surprise surprise!

As for his injuries, they were extensive, amounting to a bruise on his arm. Yes that's right, a single tiny bruise on his arm. I felt slightly deflated after all that – one the one hand glad that it wasn't more serious – on the other hand that sort of stupendous  idiocy deserved a far worse punishment  in my uncharitable view at that time. I later found out that he lost his license, but no more because no-one was hurt. We weren't needed any more so having taken our statement and given us a crime number they let us go.

And that was the beginning of our journey. Just the beginning.

I'd love to be able to tell you that was the only thing that happened on the trip. Of course it wasn't, how could it be! While G-force slowly wound itself up to the heady heights of 50 mph (we had no chance at the mythical 60 without the downhill stretch and we were far too tired to yell G-FORCE! in the proper way)  and we discussed what had just happened; that discussion being something on the lines of ; 'WOW! That was lucky – we’re going to need a lot more booze tonight!!' We were young, what can I say?

However, somewhere on they way, post M40, we got lost. Totally, completely, utterly lost. We were deep in Cotswolds’ Country, which is a bit like Deliverance country, only worse, lacking banjos and having way more madmen. We were very conscious that we were late, that we had a number of people's tents and a great deal of kit. Oh and it was really, really, REALLY wet!

It was a combination of all those things, plus the steep hill and very narrow road, which caused the trailer to come off the road and pull the car with it.

'Jolly bad show!' we said.

Well, you get the idea, right? It quickly became obvious that even the strongest of curse words and even the G-Force mantra weren't going to get the car and trailer back on the road. So we unhitched the trailer and chopped some bits of bush for the wheels with a convenient hatchet (don't ask me why we had one – it was for the campfire -honest!) and with me pushing and shoving (and cursing) we somehow got the car back on the road.

However, the trailer wasn't coming up that hill no matter how hard we tried. In the end we had to take everything out, cart it up the hill and into the mighty G-force, then drag the thrice-damned trailer up and re-hitch it. I still take pride in the fact that we did this without getting peoples gear wet (but on mature reflection I think the Wrath of Ken (the other one) might have had a little something to do with our ingenuity).

I was not in a good state at this point. Soaking wet, mud spattered, tired, pissed off, really really really pissed off and most put out! If we had met some deranged axe-wielding woodsmen playing banjos at that moment, I'm pretty sure they would have been running away screaming from me, not the other way round! Muahahaha! Heeeeeres’ss Tony!

It was perhaps unfortunate that the DJ of the radio station we were listening to decided at that time to play a Smith's medley. I imagine that one at least of my two readers is going to be saying 'Who the hell are the Smith's?' so a brief explanation is perhaps in order. I'll quote here; 'The Smiths were the definitive British indie rock band of the '80s, marking the end of synth-driven new wave, breaking from rock tradition by singing in a keening, self-absorbed croon, embracing the forlorn, romantic poetry of Oscar Wild.' What a load of bollox! They defined the word ‘emo’ and not in a good way. Most of the so-called songs we heard were variations on the theme 'Won't somebody pleeeaseee cheer me uppp!' exactly the thing you need to hear when, you're soaking wet, mud spattered, tired, pissed off, and in fact most put put. That medley had the pair of us itching to slash our wrists; the only thing stopping being some tired remnant of self-respect. We weren’t going out to the Smiths! No way!

The follow up, however, really hit the spot. It was a song called 'You'll never take me alive' by a group called Spear of Destiny. Look it up on Youtube if that intrigues you -I have it bookmarked and am listening to it as I write. Oh the memories; oh the pain! It didn't embrace the forlorn, romantic poetry of Oscar Wild, but it did cause the ultimate horror, as the two worst voices in the known universe joined spontaneously in the chorus. Our despair was complete! No-one was ever going to take us alive (or indeed come anywhere near us at that moment).

Perhaps fate had decided it had had enough fun with us at that time, or perhaps whichever greater force created the universe had had enough of the singing. However, at the bottom of the next hill we saw a sign. SUDELY! And the sun chose that moment to show its face! Awesome!

So, in a few minutes time we were roaring down Sudely village High Street. And I do mean roaring – I was leaning out of the car waving my hand-and-a-half sword, screaming the inevitable  'You'll never take me Alive! While Ken had his arm out the driver side window with the hatchet adding his voice to the awful cacophony.

It was a moment of insanity which would get you an armed response team and a bullet between the eyes today, fortunately missing my brain by some feet, but back then all it got was a few curious glances from the Sudley Villagers. We didn’t even get the Crimes Against Music Division coming after us though we richly deserved whatever punishment they could have meted out!

I imagine the villagers’ conversations (if there were any)  went something like this;-

Wild-Eyed Nutters in Dodgy Kit (tm) 'YOU'LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE!' *waves sword*

Sudely Villager #1 (FRED) 'oo’s that? Adn't we better do something George?'

Sudely Vallager #2 (George) 'It's they re-enanctors. They be 'armless Fred'

Fred 'Arrrr. That they be'

George 'Arrr.. well mostly 'arrmless anyways'

So, having somehow negotiated the dangers of Sudely high Street, which it seems was mysteriously transported into the West Country, we made it to the castle without further incident. We had just enough time to get the tents up and ready before dark.

The rest of the weekend was pretty bloody awesome. As I've said it was one of the absolute best in my memory. The weather was glorious, and in the genetic memory, it became the court of Silent Justice Weekend. Clarendon got us into the castle grounds for the first time , and Ken came home with the then Catherine Swynford (so I know he had fun) but those are tales for another time.

The Smiths of course were mysteriously murdered by Wild Eyed Nutters with dodgy Banjos (tm) some years later whilst they were lost in the Cotswolds. As for  Spear Of Destiny – I'm not sure they ever got fame and fortune, but they did sell at least two records. I found their album with ‘You’ll Never Take Me Alive on it’ and gave it to Ken for Christmas, while he in turn gave me a 12” remix of the same track which still has a place in my music collection. Years later I found a CD called ‘The Best of Spear of Destiny’ which had never been taken alive and still gets the odd outing on my highly sophisticated music system. Good times.