“Peter! Susan!” cried Lucy, “Edmund has been to Narnia too now, and he can tell you all about it!”
“Edmund – is this true?” asked Peter.
Edmund shuffled his feet in a shifty sort of way. “Ah no, we were just playing a game about her imaginary country, Peter. We had fantasy Narnian Lions v British & Irish Lions teams.”
Lucy turned pale, and ran out of the room.
Peter was very angry with Edmund for encouraging Lucy in her apparent silliness. Susan, also concerned, scowled at Edmund. Such a scowl he had never seen before, barring seeing Peter O’Mahoney once, and he also left the room.
“Peter,” said Susan, earnestly, “I think we should speak to the Professor. Lucy is going mad.”
* * *
“Bless me, me bairns,” said the Professor, taking off his glasses and wiping them, “Whatever makes you think that Lucy is mad?”
“But … but … Professor, we have told you about her imaginary country and Lions,” gasped Susan.
“Have you ever known Lucy to tell lies before?”
“Well … no,” admitted Peter, “She’s always been particularly truthful. That’s why we fear for her sanity.”
“The young lassie seems very sane to me, and we’ve established that she doesn’t tell lies. Perhaps she is telling the truth, hmm?” answered the Professor. “There are more things in space and time than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
As soon as the children had closed his study door, the Professor took a favourite memento out of his drawer, and stroked it absently. “Thank ye, Karlus, for the Narnian Lions medal,” he whispered to himself.
* * *
Things rumbled on for another week or so, with Lucy morose, Edmund gloating in a sulky sort of way, and Peter and Susan concerned.
Another wet day ensued, and the housekeeper, Mrs Weir, was showing another lot of visitors around the house. This was really a bit naughty, but they were all doing their best to maintain social distancing, which made it even harder to dodge the party.
No matter which way the children went, there seemed to be visitors wearing face-masks heading in their direction, and they were inexorably pushed towards the dusty gym. Assembled inside, they could hear voices approaching. It was as if some magic were pressing them into a hiding-place in the gym.
“All right, Lucy,” said Peter, “Show us where to go.”
Lucy pulled open the rustiest locker with the Lions shirts, and led them inside. Soon they found themselves gazing at snow-covered conifers.
They wandered around in amazement.
“I say,” said Edmund presently, “If we’re heading for the lamp-post, we should be going that-a-way.”
Peter and Susan stopped dead in their tracks.
“So you have been here before!” said Peter. “You absolute rotter. You bounder and cad. You … you Saracens fan, you!”
“Lucy,” said Susan, “I do apologise.”
“That’s all right,” replied Lucy. “Let’s go and see Mr Iknus.”
* * *
Lucy led them towards Mr Iknus’ cave, but as they neared its entrance, she gasped in dismay. The door was wrenched off its hinges. She spotted something white, and rushed forward.
There was a note pinned to the door.
To Whom It May Concern,
The Traitor Iknus has been arrested by the order of the Queen of Narnia for fomenting rugby enthusiasm against Her Majesty’s express wishes.
Any fellow enthusiasts will also be hunted down and arrested.
Signed,
Maugrim
Chief of Her Majesty’s Very Secret Police
* * *
As Lucy stared, dumbfounded, at the notice, Peter caught a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye.
“Oh Peter, Susan, Edmund,” wailed Lucy, “We must help Mr Iknus! It is probably my fault that he was caught!” She explained to the others all about Daughters of Maeve.
“That’s odd,” said Susan, “My mother’s name is Maeve too. I’m not sure why, because she is from the Valleys.”
“Well, my mother’s name isn’t Maeve,” said Peter. “It’s Eve, and my Dad’s George. But he’s always called Hamish on account of being born in Glasgow.”
Edmund’s eyes boggled.
* * *
Mr Beaver burst out of the undergrowth.
“Two Daughters of Maeve and two Sons of George, upon my word!” he cried.
The children all took a step back, because they had never seen a large Talking beaver before, and were a little surprised. But they were soon reassured by his smooth patter (“Call me Clyde”), and gratefully accepted the invitation to his lodge for tea, because they were getting right peckish.
“Shh!” said Mr Beaver, putting his paw to his teeth, “We must be very quiet and careful. The Witch’s spies are everywhere.”
They all crept cautiously after him through the forest until they came to the river, and scurried into the lodge under the cover of the fallen darkness. To their delight, Mrs Beaver, who didn’t seem at all surprised to see them, was just laying out a large feast, and they all tucked in heartily, along with the three Beavlets. (The Middle One occasionally made some disturbing pronouncements, but not disturbing enough to put them off their food. They were very hungry.)
As they all pushed back from the table, replete, Mr Beaver lit a fag, which he sucked through his teeth.
“Please, Clyde,” said Lucy, “tell us what you know of Mr Iknus!”
“Ah, my dear,” sighed Mr Beaver, “That’s a very bad business.
“We last saw him being taken by the Witch’s Secret Police towards her castle. Few who enter those gates come out again. They say that the whole castle is furnished with statues – but these statues are Narnians who have been turned to stone by the Witch’s evil spells. Some of them are even Narnian Lions.
“But there is a prophecy in Narnia that when two Daughters of Maeve and two Sons of George sit on the High Thrones of Cair Paravel, then we shall be freed. And lo, we hear that our true ruler – the great Narnian Lions Captain Paulan – is on the move from his long exile, and we shall meet him tomorrow at the Stone Stadium.”
Unnoticed by everyone else, Edmund had sneaked away to find the Witch’s castle.
Ovally Balls 
That Scotland team from the 1990 Calcutta Cup contained two players from tiny wee Dunbar, Derek White and Chris Gray.
White went to the local school whereas Gray went to public school in Edinburgh. He was soft as shite until one of the Edinburgh Accies coaches, made him hard enough to move on and become an international player.
Derek White was always hard enough for that, he moved on from our wee toon team to play for a very good Gala team at the time
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“God, that’s good soulful music.”
Never took you for an AB de Villiers fan. But that’s what living in Pretoria will do to you. May the Czech Republic heal you quickly.
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Just someone with eclectic taste, Deebee, who appreciates soulfulness no matter who’s playing. Look beyond your prejudices and embrace a man and his guitar and a woman without a guitar.
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I will post this without comment
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That is genuinely uplifting.
They’re such a beautiful couple. I hope they have a long and happy life together.
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Ben Foden may be better than Ben E King:
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I need to find a copy of Matt Stevens’s cover version of NWA’s Fuck Da Police. Real hairs on the back of the neck that.
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Me too. It’s nothing more than he deserves
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Just someone with eclectic taste, Deebee, who appreciates soulfulness no matter who’s playing. Look beyond your prejudices and embrace a man and his guitar and a woman without a guitar.
No.
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Quick quiz. What do the “it”s in this sentence refer to?
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@tomp
Covid-19?
Neighbours?
Ben Foden singing?
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Has Ovally Balls rugby hit the heights of popularity in Italy that AoD did in Argentina?
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Could it be European Beaver spotting?
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I have found the quote. The answer is both non obvious and heartwarming.
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@OT – so even though European Beaver spotting fits the bill it’s not right? In that case it must be clandestine illegal duck feeding.
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@cmw
It carry a certain Glaswegian flavour to it
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*carries
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Found it too now, it’ll halp them forget about more than just the things mentioned.
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@OT – thanks for putting that version of Dancing in the Dark up again the other day. It’s one of my favourite things anyone put on AoD. Not sure it isn’t just you and me that like it though…
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The only surprising location in the stats is Hong Kong.
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I’m also surprised the Hong Kongers need to forget about pineapple on pizza and the mafia. Perhaps they have another reason.
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If it’s who I think it is, they most definitely have another reason.
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@Thaum – If it’s just an individual then how much Tennents Super are they actually buying?
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Snowing again.
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Beautiful (though cool) sunny day here. This allowed Mrs BB to let loose with the power hose and clean the slabs on the back patio. Yours Truly was relegated to brushing.
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Desperately trying to avoid looking at Deebees Squidge report on the world cup final, but watched thru a couple of full games and highlights of Engands 2003 six nations the other day. Apart from the interesting turnover and development of players during the tournament, six motnhs out from the World cup, its quite surprising how good the handling among the pack is. For all the much vaunted soft hands of Kyle and Mako, there is one clip that puts it into perspective. Vickery takes the ball from deep at inside centre, draws a man and passes to Thompson at pace, how does a textbook take and feed in one movement to Julian White outside him. Looks like a well drilled backline. Jamie George ain’t no Steve Thompson. ( I had forgotten quite how mobile he actually was).
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It’s an excellent analysis. View it dispassionately and it’s time well spent. That’s what I did. Completely dispassionate. Didn’t giggle at Youngs once.
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I don’t know, you have the English watching old footage of their lot thrashing people and our South African representative just watching his team thrash England in the World Cup final on loop. And then there’s the rest of us watching the close exciting games of the past…
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Would love it if England could have made it close and exciting. Been watching some of the 6N matches on Supersport here and some of the older World Cup matches, but haven’t actually watched much sport at all.
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Entering into the spirit of things, CMW, I have just watched squidge, and have decided that I can blame Eddie, so everything is alright again. Got a Wales vs England you would like me to watch ?
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@SBT – the problem there is that other than a couple in the last two or three years we’ve tended to win the close ones, it’s just a shame there haven’t been more of them. I’m not actually expecting you to watch your team lose…
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The ’03 World Cup quarter is probably the best exciting game I can remember England winning against Wales.
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Rugby news! Maggie Alphonsi on Celebrity Mastermind.
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She only got 3 points on her specialist subject. Oh dear.
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Q: Which Shakespearean character has become a nickname for an amorous young man?
A: Macbeth
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Q: Of which European country was the currency the drachma before it joined the euro?
A: Germany
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Ouch! Although I had to pause for a moment on the drachma answer.
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You wouldn’t have guessed Germany though, would you?
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Er, nope. Global Citizen concert off to a slow start.
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Any of you guys listened to this yet?
I read a poem and try to put inflexion, tone and personality into my interpretation – and then I hear something like this:
https://www.ancientmarinerbigread.com/reading/1
I know I’m going to look forward to every installment now…………..
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Maggie Alphonsi was also on Ninja Warrior this evening. She fell in the water disappointingly early though.
She’s still my favourite England number 7 mind.
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That’s good, Slade. A friend of mine’s get me on to Patrick Stewart reading Shakespeare’s Sonnets:
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@Slade – I think it would get a bit much if you had to listen to the whole thing read like that.
Anyway you should hear my reading of “The Pobble Who Has No Toes”…
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Ninja Warrior and Celebrity Mastermind back to back on the same day is a tough ask.
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My favourite thing with my lad is to get him to say “Star Wars” in English and then in Czech. He says Star Wars both times but the Czech version is longer thanks to a very very nice fricative trill and the [w] sound comes out like a [v]. It’s a joy to hear him switch between the 2.
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He’s not a toy, TomP.
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I used to have Krieg der Sterne and Die Rückkehr der Jedi-Ritter on VHS, sadly gone now.
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I think the only other non-German film I had in German was Der Club der toten Dichter which was no worse than it is in English.
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@CMW
The beauty is, a different reader every day………………..
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