LET NOTHING YOU DISMAY

This refrain from that hearty carol “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” is all very well but there’s plenty to dismay us right now. An epidemic of strikes by those who never go on strike like nurses. Ambulance workers saying they’ll only attend heart attack and stroke incident emergencies where there’s a “time issue”….I  don’t like the sound of that one little bit.

These are disputatious times, quite unlike the festively, riotous prelude to Christmas I’m used to. Not least it’s very cold. I recall that magical poem of T.S. Eliot “The Journey of the Magi” the story of an endless freezing journey to confront the paradox of the Christian Story – of birth and death - with  that sense of discomfort and cold – surely no wise man would do this:

“A cold coming we had of it,

Just the worst time of the year

For a journey, and such a long journey:

The ways deep and the weather sharp,

The very dead of winter.”

I love that “very dead of winter” as I watch the winter-flowering Salvia in our garden giving up the ghost and withering in the face of the very dead of winter. Eliot’s poem is the much needed antidote to the vision of these jolly Kings on their sprightly camels (Eliot’s are “galled, sore-footed, refractory.”) Christmas can be horrible – just ask yonder peasant, gathering winter fuel three miles from home – he probably won’t make it back through this cruel frost.

 

Yet there are things which signal the essence of Christmas. A few days ago as the wind howled and the icicles formed I lit the first log fire of the year. It crackled and burst into glorious flame (“Get a peasant to gather more fuel” I shouted before apologising to my wife, not amused at this in the current cost of living crisis.) The sound of Carols – great tunes like Jesus Christ the Apple Tree, Adam Lay Ybounden and the Sussex Carol “On Christmas Night All Christians Sing”. If they did the census in December there’d be new headlines in the press about the shock revival of Christianity in the UK. Somehow the sound, smell and mystery of Christmas binds us all together in a traditional Christmas culture.

 

Our houses are festooned with garlands, wreaths, crackers and that special smell of Christmas food. The aroma of ginger and orange peel and the constant appeal of TV chefs advising us on perfect Christmas food because “let’s face it, this is the season of indulgence.” Who otherwise would we eat something like Stollen except now? But sadly this will not be a season of indulgence for quite a lot of people this year. Maybe, unlike many calls to our sense of charity, this Christmas will make more people reflect on things that really matter.

  

A few days ago I saw a thrush feathers pluffed up against the cold. Not a timid bird, no peasant bird, a bruiser, the sort from whom a cat would retreat muttering in feline “Sorry, something to attend to at home.” Like that doughty bird we need to pluff up our feathers and do our best to enjoy and bring joy. King Wenceslas is a good place to start. Or St. Rocco who was the Franciscan sainted for helping plague sufferers, refugees and travellers in Venice in the 14th century. 

In these current years of Covid, pandemics and of refugees I think we should look to see how they both got it so right back then.

 

Have a happy Christmas and, in 2023, a New Year to enjoy.

 

Richard and Kate Hall

THE MULTITASKING PARADOX

I’ve written frequently on the pernicious effects of multitasking. Focus, I instruct, focus on one thing at a time and stop juggling.

At a talk I gave at Portsmouth University a lady upbraided me for this:-
“But what do I do when my son wants help with his homework, my husband wants his supper and I need to finish my essay? How can I not multitask?”

I was kind but firm in insisting an orderly queue was formed and that each task was exquisitely performed and then everyone would be happy.  I knew as I said this I was talking bollocks. Apart from anything else I was talking to a woman. And women actually can multitask better than men. Fact.

This week I had to become a woman.

We’re moving house…multitasking women’s work…where they excel.

But disastrously my wife was very unwell - had to stay in bed - as unusual a thing as Netanyahu and Obama doing a man hug - she became a shivering germ-bag - a pretty one but nonetheless if it sneezes, groans and closes its eyes it’s a class A germ-bag.

So I was in charge.

f my wife’s plan; inheriting her way of doing things…. I had to think like her. Removal men, solicitor, BT, Bank, Estate Agent, Council, Royal Mail, Builder, Cleaners, an army of people all recruited and briefed by her who, she being unable to speak, meant I was their new CEO.

And they all spoke to me at once and rushed around me doing things and if I didn’t instantly respond to:- “this to go on the lorry Mate? …is this one to pack or stay? … can you return the deeds now please? … can you confirm that postcode?”… then they showed their initiative and that was usually a catastrophe.

It wasn’t that hard but it was an unremitting exercise in doing what I’d been telling people to stop doing, as the brain is not designed to do it - multitasking. And moving house or dealing with anything that is existentially critical is almost by definition one requiring multitasking skills.

My experience in multitasking came to a head as I took off my pyjamas on Saturday morning. A trivial thing which one can easily do whilst concurrently doing another task like reading a checklist, moving items around on a shelf…top off easy…trousers off on one side and using my toes to pull off trouser leg two I suddenly became aware that leg one and leg two had inexplicably both got trapped in trouser leg one causing me to lose balance and fall heavily to the ground. This multitasking has got a lot of minor injuries to answer for.

Yet, it’s simple enough.

Have a detailed plan. Any of us can manage to multitask up to a point but there’s no point in saving five seconds on trouser removal when the consequence is so silly.

And plan succession management. Or blame your poor wife.

Or simply be away.