Money never hugs you back

 

I’ve been hugged many times, but there are hugs and hugs, and there are some that can be overwhelming. One such was a week or two ago and brought to mind something I experienced in 1982.

In 1982 I visited Sousa Junior High School in the Bronx as part of my one-year teacher exchange in New York. Its principal was Dr H Wilson Brindle. At first glance he looked an avuncular, middle-aged black man, but as I walked in and he rose from his desk perception radically changed. He radiated an invisible charge, growing stronger as he approached me. When he offered his hand, the effect was almost electric. You can read (and it’s worth reading)  more about him here. 

So back to the hug. I give them and I take them now as a matter of course. In fact, when I think of it, that too is largely a result of that year in America when everyone seemed to hug at the drop a hat. I on the other hand was a cold Northern fish. Hugging was something done between consenting adults, which in a sense it is. All this was new to me at the time, but I learnt and adapted and never looked back. Thank you, America!

Hugs aren’t meant to be rated, as in Strictly Come Dancing, but there are hugs that unaccountably transcend the normal. They possess a strong and mysterious power creating an immense sense of well-being—so much so you don’t really want it to end. They are few and far between, perhaps mercifully; they could be some kind of gateway drug to something else entirely. But seriously, what on earth is it? 

Spiritual? For Hildegard of Bingen there is no doubt in the matter, and I rather think I’d like being hugged by her. ‘The mystery of God hugs you in its all-encompassing arms.’ Anoir Ou-Chod thinks on similar lines. ‘A hug is the bridge between two souls.’ Though I have less inclination to be hugged by him. 

Politicians, perhaps predictably, approach hugs more warily. ‘Once a bear’s hug has got you, it is apt to be for keeps.’ Harold MacMillan.

Lyndon Baines Johnson thought much the same thing. ‘Hug your friends tight but your enemies tighter – hug them so tight they can’t wriggle.’ 

Clearly some hugs come with health warnings, but whether spiritual or unexplained charisma on tap they can be a force to be reckoned with. 

Biggus Dickus

 

 

The penis has dominated man’s thinking for millennia. Thousands of small bronze amulets or carvings have been found of a winged phallus—the Fascinus—a minor Roman deity. Used to ward off the evil eye, one presumes they were effective. Then there is the Secret Figurine, peculiar to Anglo-Romano Britain. Found all over England, these were pocket sized figurines depicting a small man in a pointed hood. When unlocked, the outer coat opens to reveal that the entirety of the body is a penis with legs. I swear, if I was a young and thrusting entrepreneur I’d be manufacturing thousands of these little beauties. If you ask me, the market’s wide open. 

Even landscape is affected by the noble penis. The famous Cerne-abbas-giant with his impressive appendage was once a resting place for young woman seeking a husband. In Irish myth and legend, glens and valleys were caused not by glaciation but the far more satisfactory story of ancient giants gouging the earth with their dangling appendages. 

The Gaelic name for one Cairngorm mountain is Bod an Deamhain or Penis of the Demon. It was changed to Demon’s Peak when the easily offended Victoria came to visit it.

Similarly, The Old Man of Hoy has proved a more acceptable name than its Gaelic original.

  In fact the last great manifestation of the penis is to be found in the noble codpiece exemplified by that of Henry VIII. Since then, it seems to have withered away in  a manner of speaking.

That is until the recent furore surrounding the Bayeaux Tapestry! And boy, has it excited academics. In case you need to know and can’t afford the £33 to see the actual thing, there are 626 human figures, 190 horses, 35 dogs, 37 trees 32 ships, 33 buildings—and 93 penises on display!

Four of them are attached to men. Others detect five or even six men wih them,  though one of those is only a pair of testicles, the penis itself obscured by an axe handle. Talk about excitable dons!

As in most things, there is a serious point to be made and these dedicated and sharp-sighted men go about it. They note that every  male figure on the large middle panels display nothing but their modesty.

The only penises shown here are equine—88 of them—and used to denote status. King Harold rides a well-endowed stallion. William, the ultimate victor rides a more impressively endowed stallion. His half-brother Bishop Odo rides a modestly endowed stallion more befitting to a man of God. None of the 35 dogs are endowed, which seems a shame. 

So, where are all the well endowed men? They are to be found in the smaller top and lower panels and offer a sly commentary to the main events or the ‘official version’ in the middle. They are believed to be based on those Aesop’s Fables denoting sexual trickery and deceit and provide a nudge-nudge, wink-wink aside to a particular event shown in the main panels.

Unfortunately, your £33 entry fee is based on a ‘conveyor’ belt system allowing each visitor a bare 40 minutes. So many penises, so little time. 

Girls' Shoes!

My first Holy Communion I remember as a bit of a disaster. Hospitalisation meant I missed much of the painstaking preparation and what little I had was rushed. I just knew it was immensely important without fully appreciating why. More importantly I was wearing ‘hand-me-down’ sandals. And even worse than that, girls’ sandals one of which wouldn’t buckle.

 

It was many years later when things finally fell into place. In particular: John 6. 35 – 57.

‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and who ever believes in my will never go thirsty…and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. . . For my Father’s will is that everyone that looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and will raise them up on the last day. . . . Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood …remains in me, and I in them.’

This is both powerful and unambiguous. Even so, for a long time I found it difficult to fully appreciate why priests and Catholics took such risks in C16th England: ruinous fines, broken bones and death for the sake of Holy Communion. 

If I had been GK Chesterton, I would have had no problem. No problem at all.

After his reception into the Catholic Church, Chesterton went to High Wycombe to be prepared by Father Thomas Walker for his first Holy Communion. Father Walker remembered the preparation as ‘one of the happiest duties I had ever to perform. . . It certainly did not take long to prepare him for he evidently knew as much as I could tell him. Nevertheless, he said I was to treat him as any child whom I was teaching…I went through the catechism very meticulously explained all the details, to which he lent a most vigilant and unswerving attention. (So aware was Chesterton) of the immensity of the Real Presence on the morning of his First Communion. . . that he was covered with perspiration when he actually received Our Lord. When I congratulated him, he said, “I have spent the happiest hour of my life.” But, at least to begin with, he found it difficult going to Holy Communion, his ‘best happiness.’ He was ‘too much frightened of that tremendous reality on the altar. “I have not grown up with it, and it is too much for me.”’  

        

Deep down, I regret feeling none of what Chesterton experienced that first time, but then I have grown up with it. In fairness, too, I suspect Chesterton may have been feeling something else if he had been wearing girls’ shoes, one of which was unbuckled.