Links to Chapter One and Chapter Two
Edmund slipped and shivered through the snow until he eventually found the Witch’s castle. It looked quite creepy, but bolstered by thoughts of Turkish Delight (oh, his Saracens – and the Scarlets were his favourite Welsh side), he crept through the imposing main gate.
He found himself in a courtyard filled with statues. They had snow settling on them, and they all looked very sad. Near the gate, there were a couple of magnificent Lions, and then he spotted a statue that looked very like Lucy’s description of Mr Iknus. There was a collection of stone rugby balls, and what looked like a few referees. (“Those referees probably deserved it,” thought Edmund.)
Suddenly, Edmund was rooted to the spot by a chilling low growl. He turned his head to find himself staring into the eyes of Maugrim, chief of the Witch’s Very Secret Police.
“Come,” said Maugrim, “Her Majesty is expecting you.”
* * *
“What!” said the Witch, not at all friendly like the last time, “Have you come alone? I told you to bring the Daughters of Maeve and the other Son of George.”
“B – b – but,” stammered Edmund, afraid of her icy stare and stern manner, “I couldn’t get them away from the Beavers. They were all talking about the return of Paulan to Narnia.”
The Queen turned even paler, if that were possible.
“Paulan!” she muttered to herself, “No, it cannot be possible. My spells are strong.”
Before Edmund knew what had happened, she had crossed the room and spear-tackled him with one strong arm. “Tell me all,” she said, preparing to drive his head into the ground.
Edmund, quaking with fear, told her all that he knew.
The Witch released him with a thump on the floor, and clapped her hands to summon her minions.
“Harness the springboks and prepare my sledge immediately! Get my dwarf! Maugrim: take the swiftest of your wolves, go to the Lodge, and kill the children and the Beavers. If they have already gone, then proceed to the Stone Stadium.”
In the twinkling of a drop goal, the sledge pulled up, driven by a dwarf who looked suspiciously like a scrum-half. Edmund was bound, and unceremoniously dumped into the bottom of the sledge. There wasn’t even any Turkish Delight.
* * *
“Susan,” said Peter, “Where’s Edmund?”
“I – I don’t know. Now that you mention it, I haven’t noticed him for a while.”
“Ah, children,” said Mr Beaver, “I’m afraid he’s gone to see the Witch. We must be on our way quickly.”
“What?”, said Lucy, “No, surely Edmund would never betray us.”
“Daughter, I’m afraid he has the look of one who is in the Witch’s favour. How long that favour lasts is another matter.
“Did anyone notice when he left? Did he hear that Paulan is on the move?”
Nobody was quite sure.
“Then we must be off at once. Mrs Beaver, please pack us up as quickly as you can.”
Mrs Beaver – for of course it’s always the females who are prepared for anything – had already got nearly everything ready for travelling. She had a pack ready for everyone, and they were off in less time than it takes to reset a scrum.
* * *
They had a long, cold and weary journey, and stopped after some hours at a safe hiding place, where they cast themselves down on the floor, covered themselves with the blankets kindly provided by Mrs Beaver, and fell asleep immediately.
They were awakened at dawn by some faint voices, which became clearer as they drew closer.
“Ho, ho ho! Go left! It’s on!”
“I’m straighter than that throw-in.”
The children rubbed the sleep from their eyes and looked in confusion at the Beavers.
“It’s Father Jiffy and Father Nige,” beamed Mr Beaver. “The Witch’s magic has kept them from Narnia for so long, but her enchantment is fading. The voices of rugby have returned to the land.” They rushed outside to find a volley of rugby balls flying through the air, and the snow at last melting.
Ovally Balls 
Chimpie said:
And nobody Karled him. Standards *have* slipped.
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Yes, said the other day it wasn’t going to be a problem getting them. What they are is another matter. it’s not as if regular smokes do you much good but those boys, oy.
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Its more a question of why we have to all sneak around now buying contraband, when there’s little evidence that it’ll stop the spread of the virus. Just puritanical idiots on a crusade.
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I can see how you could justify it in terms of unwanted journeys and social distancing etc but it’s tough for smokers (like me).
Where are you getting yours from? If it’s from a dealer, then it should take you back to your glory days as a drug user.
Spaza shops might still sell them – I went in one once and asked for my usual but they weren’t selling them, There must’ve been 10 different brands and I think Camel was the only one I recognised.
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@Brookter
Not a Karl. It’s a well known [1] insalubrious area of Embra
[1] Allegedly
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There’s a samba club there I think. Certainly got a Brazilian vibe to it.
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TomP – we got today from a friend of a friend who’s a car salesman, but doesn’t have an income at the moment because he’s not allowed to sell cars. Since late March. So he’s fencing cigarettes and booze to pay the bills. No idea where he sources the stuff from. He’s just one of many.
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@Chimpie,
Well, I’m shocked, that’s all I can say. How rude.
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Its these Embra types, Brookter. All fur coats and nae knickers.
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I always wear knickers under my fur coat.
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You could always go commando beneath your fur coat if you wanted BB. Set yourself free!
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So it’s a choice between a fur coat and ladies underwear only or a fur coat and nothing else?
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There’s the option of ladies underwear only if that floats your boat
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Sometimes you just want to scream:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/may/12/uk-rail-worker-dies-coronavirus-spat-belly-mujinga
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So it floats your boat Chimpie. Getting close to full picture of your character now.
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Tomp – I hope they have cctv of the cynt and I hope the family take her employers to court.
Won’t bring her back but the actions of the company are fucking outrageous.
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Any software types might want to look away now…..
The company my daughter works for uses software called ‘Epoque’ (I think, might not have heard that correctly, but something like that). Apparently, they were doing some work on it and failed to back it up! Not sure how major the work was, but it does seem to have buggered things up majorly for her company.
Now, I’m no software engineer, but I would have thought that was a fairly basic and important thing to remember to do?
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Live sport!!!!
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BB – I’m not an expert on the programming but shirely they would have done the change in development, performed adequate UAT, and then done a back up before making the changes in the live environment.
Can’t have too many change management controls imo.
*tuts*
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craigs, it’s a horrible horrible story. I’m normally an understand a little more and condemn a little less type but on that … jeez.
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@BB – it’s a thing you do just once.
Not familiar with Epoque so can’t speak in specifics.
But….
Normally, you’d have at a minimum – DEV and PROD (if you’re small). UAT gets added (and possibly a STAGE environment) as you get more sophisticated and able to afford more hardware (or better able to manage the migration processes). Even if you’ve only a “live” environment – so sort of backup mechanism is required – even if it’s just saving a copy of the thing you’re working on – so you can restore
Change control is a real pain – both ways. If you do it – slows up changes and even trivial changes go through a heavyweight process.. If you don’t – stuff doesn’t get adequately tested / validated and fingers get pointed….when it all goes wrong.
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Tomp – there doesn’t seem much to understand.
At my place we are all talking about getting back to work and a thorough strategy is being put in place to minimise the risk to staff.
Of key concern is how to avoid using the tube*. I’d have thought that the staff who work on public transport would have been risk assessed (I.e. Pre conditions identified) and given basic ppe at a bare minimum. Perhaps even rotated to ensure that they don’t spend too long in one position.
Further, there are a lot of arseholes in London. Lots of them use the tube. Some kind of protection / policing isn’t a big ask. Especially given the higher anxiety we all face.
This was completely avoidable. I hope the company get sanctioned for it.
*going to use my own bike.
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Trisk – I used to work for a large Swiss Bank and asked what would happen if all the systems died. Apparently all the records were kept on tape so yesterday could be reconstructed if it happened.
Made me laugh to think about all the expensive systems relying on something like VHS.
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Well, my daughter now says the system has ‘speeded up to a crawl’, but that her boss has been kicked out of the system ‘about 40 times’. So, going well….
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Trisk – thanks for your post. Barely understood a word, but then I don’t live in that world. I think basically you mean someone buggered up?
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@craigs
Tape is pretty robust to be fair. The more modern your storage medium the less robust it is. I remember a story about a project to put the Magna Carta on some digital disc format in the 1980s. By the mid 90s they no longer had the technology to read the disc so had to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds and ~6 months reverse engineering a device that could read it. Meanwhile the paper copy is still available and able to be read.
That’s the reason the nuclear industry stores everything on paper in massive underground archives.
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Anyway how are we all today? Feeling happy? Positive? Glass half full?
I have the perfect antidote to that. Whenever I feel too dangerously optimistic I go and read a bit of John Gray (the philosopher). Here’s his latest offering. Interestingly the Russians have two different words for cannibalism. Apparently flesh killed for the express purpose of eating is preferred, due to its freshness.
https://unherd.com/2020/05/are-we-living-through-an-apocalypse-now/
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Maybe i’m not reading it right but the concourse at Victoria station sounds like the overground to me.
But you’re right about the large number of people whose behaviour is overly aggressive. There was a tube strike about 10 years ago and I had to go from Notting Hill Gate to Caledonian Road. Decided to get the bus to Kensal Rise and then go on the overland. The train was packed absolutely solid, people were scrunched up, twisted into horrible shape. Then some character tried to get on the train with his bike and delayed the departure by another couple of minutes. He was shouting his head off about how it was his right to get on the train with his bike. One of the passengers on board hit him and he fell back.
There was another time on a night bus, again packed pretty solid, and this guy turned his mobile up full blast and started playing some music. Distorted horrible sound. I asked him to turn it off as it was very uncomfortable. He said next time he saw me he’d kill me and that I should watch myself.
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It’s 2 months to the day since my last non-skype/non-zoom class. Usually I get around by public transport – we have good trams and buses and a fast efficient metro here. I’ve been on 1 bus journey – lasting 8 minutes – in 9 weeks. Masks are mandatory on public transport but then they are pretty much always if you’re outside. From the 25th you’ll still need them on public transport but not on the street.
Prague city transport have apparently been treating their vehicles with some magic stuff:
https://www.radio.cz/en/section/curraffrs/pragues-public-transport-vehicles-get-anti-viral-coating
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OT, James Meek’s The People’s Act of Love is *spoiler alert* features acts of cannibalism in Siberia. There’s a line about how it was better to escape prison in a pair as one of you wouldn’t die of starvation.
A brilliant book. Also, has a character that shares his name with one of the Czech Republic’s most important water resource specialists.
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No one should be going back to work right now, the only reason, in my opinion, that workers are being “encouraged” (max euphemism, there) back to work is that some rich Tory donors are losing money. If you look at the national debt since 1800, the UK could ride this out to a point in time where we are safe to resume business are usual, or as close to usual just by borrowing more and more. https://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/spending_chart_1800_2017UKp_02c1li011mcn_G0t_UK_National_Debt_Since_1900
It’s only numbers on a computer screen, take it back long term by insisting on companies and individuals paying tax on the huge profits they make in this country, get rid of brass plaques false head offices and all the rest. Or if the bosses insist you come back to work, perhaps they should get on a fecking tube train with you
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The only safe way to teavel is in a conga line. But you need to be singing Vera Lynn songs* while doing so.
* I say songs I mean “We’ll Meet Again”.
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@tomp
Going on about Vera Lynn simply shows up your anti-Gracie Fields bias.
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Old Mother Reilly is the Queen of that era of female artisties.
Gracie Fields, lovely lass, never forgot her roots as she sunbathed at her villa on the Isle of Capri.
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Tomp – both overland and tube. My train gets diverted to Victoria sometimes if they completely fuck up at London Bridge and I’m an hour late for work if it does.
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Ticht – I heard somewhere that if we waited until there was a great recession then people would die from the economic hardship too (suicide, poor health etc).
I’m not sure how this compares to covid but I think that is the musk argument anyway.
Tbh, I think that, with adequate precautions, most people could return to work safely.
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Get back to fucking work!
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“ I heard somewhere that if we waited until there was a great recession then people would die from the economic hardship too (suicide, poor health etc).”
That would only happen if we choose to borrow to prop up billionaires as opposed to creating a safety net for those without incomes.
Looking at the graphs and figures in that link, public borrowing rocketed whilst we built the NHS and welfare state, inc pensions, council housing and extending education through three tiers for all etc.
We paid back huge amounts of debt to the US at the same time, all because there was an understanding that companies paid their taxes and executives didn’t have to to be paid 1000x the salaries paid to those making things or providing the services they sell.
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https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/may/13/tesco-chief-executive-handed-642m-pay-package-dave-lewis
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‘andsome, mate
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Ticht – sooooo, we should borrow money to give to people to pay bills, rent and mortgages?
I agree with your general point around corporations paying their taxes and fat cat pay but I’m a little sceptical about borrowing long term to finance everyday stuff.
I think getting as many people as possible back to work safely whilst looking after those in high risk categories is the way forward. I doubt the government can do this effectively and I’m lucky that I work somewhere where this is taken very seriously but stopping the majority seems extreme.
There are other things to consider; alcoholism, domestic abuse, depression etc etc
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Seems on the low side.
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Propping up Tory donors is not the only reason for people to get back to work. Many people want to, and many people don’t want their businesses to collapse as well. Safe work can be done if people are sensible (see below). In most cases it will be, but in some it won’t be . Where it isn’t done sensibly the government needs to act accordingly, and if it doesn’t we can judge them on that.
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craigs,
Borrowing is going to cost the government next to nothing at the moment. The government isn’t a household. That particular story has caused no end of trouble in the last 40 years. What was that nonsense Cameron came up with – the credit card being maxed out?
I get the equivalent of a thousand quid paid into my bank account yesterday by the Czech government. It’s given us a bit more peace of mind as my income has been cut by 66% in the last two months. Doesn’t make up for what I haven’t made but it’s a big help. It took 5 minutes to fill in the form, print, scan and send.
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@tomp
Correct. If I stop spending my household income doesn’t fall. If a government stops spending then government income does fall. Very different.
This spending at the moment is a very good way of stopping businesses from going bust and throwing people out of work, and granting them time to find new ways of working to be able to be viable in future.
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Tomp – Cameron said we should all pay off our credit cards which was megalolz to his banking friends.
I think that what the Czech and other govts are doing in the short term is a good thing but it needs to be balanced against other factors is all I’m saying.
Plus, the government has already borrowed money. This has a downstream impact on existing bond holders which also needs to be factored in. Those bond holders are generally rich wankers or institutions but the knock on effect will be considered.
Finally, as OT alluded to, muh civil liberty should also be taken into consideration. If I can safely go to work and the risk to me and others can be minimised then I don’t think I should be stopped.
At least in my opinion.
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OT, if people don’t have to travel in packed tube trains then working in that sort of environment looks safe, although the guy in the white, bottom right isn’t 2m away from their colleague.
Craigs, extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures, as a crude comparison we found over £20Bn to fight wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I’m looking for ways to keep people safe in this extraordinary time.
TomP, I’m pretty sure I remember Thatcher comparing balancing a chequebook with a national budget, and these people win on “The Economy” ticket, fuck me.
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Hey Craigs, just a minute dude :-
Ticht – sooooo, we should borrow money to give to people to pay bills, rent and mortgages?
What Ticht ACTUALLY said was:-
-public borrowing rocketed whilst we built the NHS and welfare state, inc pensions, council housing and extending education through three tiers for all etc.
You are Boris and I claim my 5 quid.
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@ticht
I don’t think many people catch public transport to Ford Dagenham as it’s just off the A13 and the people that work there tend to live in places it’s easier to drive from. I agree about the tube – I wouldn’t touch that for a long time myself yet. I have a tube station behind my back garden and I don’t intend to visit it again this year. I’m lucky that I am posh and middle class which means I can work from home, and it’s important I don’t lose sight of that.
That guy on the bottom right is wearing a face mask – I gather distancing is less of an issue if you are wearing one as it massively cuts down the velocity of coughs and sneezes.
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