Village Life - the Charter Fair

Wooly decorations adorning the village on Charter Market day.

Many years ago, so long ago in fact that it was before the world was in black and white, possibly as far back as when the world was woodcut-coloured (predominantly black and white, but with the occasional full page of dazzling colour, with a giant letter somewhere in the landscape), some bloke with probably a beard and almost certainly a crown granted the village it's charter.
A charter for a village back in Ye Olde Days was a very big thing, as it was all about status.  The village went from being a collection of shacks at a muddy crossroads with a tavern where weary travellers could be waylaid and their bodies conveniently disposed of in the parsnip fields, to being a collection of shacks at a muddy crossroads with a tavern and a town hall, where decisions like taxing travellers could be taken, meaning you got to take money off them on a regular basis.  It didn't matter that the tavern had a hygiene rating of no stars, this was an age when everything had a hygiene rating of no stars.
Having a charter meant status, the ability to legally burn witches and, depending which way the ecclesiastical breeze was blowing, Catholics or Protestants and, most important of all, having something over on those bastards from the next 'village' along, which was just a collection of shacks at a muddy cross roads with a tavern.  Ha, losers.
Village rivalry a few hundred years ago was settled with the occasional pitched battle (well, 'battle' may be exaggerating things slightly, as it probably consisted of a couple of dozen peasants with assorted clubs).  Then it became all about who had the most peasants left standing after the plague hit town, then who had the biggest church, and so on.  There was a brief return to basics when, in the heyday of football hooliganism, things were settled once again by a battle, this time on the pitch.  In these much more civilised times, rivalries are settled by where beats where in the regional heat of 'Britain in Bloom', which is not to say that local pride does not occasionally result in action being taken in the dead of night with step-ladders and weed-killer resulting in mysterious blight in the neighbouring village's hanging baskets.
Local pride is very much alive and well in the village.  This was clearly exhibited a few years ago when the Post Office, in a misguided move, decided to give the village the same postal address as the nearest town.  The villagers sprang into action; sod 'Save our hospital', this was 'Save our house values'.  The villagers fought long and hard and eventually decided simply to ignore the Post Office, who subsequently also decided to ignore their own advice.  Honour was satisfied.
The crowning glory though was a couple of years ago when a Little Waitrose opened in the village.  Forget having the biggest church, and forget that the village already had an independent butcher, green grocers and bakery, this meant free coffee.  Yes, you heard, free coffee.
So villagers are proud of their village, and fiercely protective of it, including being protective of the charter that gives it it's status.
One of the requirements of the charter is that the village should have an annual charter market.  Back in the middle ages this would no doubt have been quite special, featuring tradesmen selling ribbons, hog roasts and possibly even a witch burning.  Today, it's still a big deal, and rather special in that as well as tradesmen, local people can have their own stalls, in their own front gardens.  It's like a cross between the biggest yard sale ever and the reaction to the council advising that for one day only they will come and pick up all the old crap you've been meaning to take to the dump for years.  Attics and garages are plundered and hugely optimistic price tags are attached to one-step-from-landfill items.
If nothing else, it provides a valuable insight into the mentality of your neighbours, especially the ones that think there's a market for VHS tapes, even one marked 'Derek & Anthea's Sex Tape', and included by mistake.

Awards, rewards, honours and disgraces - people of the year

It’s traditionally still just about the time of year where there are reviews of the past twelve months, and awards and honours are handed out to those that have made a positive contribution to society in general or the lives of the rich and influential in particular.

Here at G&P we, perhaps ironically, perhaps not, take a more egalitarian view about who and what should get an award or, shall we say, recognition. We are always pleased when somebody is honoured for outstanding contributions to the world of science, medicine or just having great hair, but do feel a little uncomfortable at the meaner awards and recognitions handed out by those who want to throw a spotlight on badness. This year, in particular, no such spotlight was needed, as bad behaviour was exposed in the full light of day.

So, in no particular order, the G&P awards for people of 2011 are:

Man of the year – lots of competition here, mainly in the shape of dead tyrants and terrorists who’s passing made the world either a better or simply a better groomed place. But without doubt G&Ps man of the year is Sconald MacDoon, the genius Glaswegian chef d’celebe who this year introduced the world to the hot scotch egg, a core of piping hot haggis surrounded by an egg, surrounded by whatever the hell it is that surrounds a scotch egg, and deep fried. The science has something to do with using the same technology that allows egg to be placed inside square pork pie and we understand that the hot scotch egg is to be official snack of the CERN team for 2012. Official snack for 2013 – Rennies.

Woman of the year – again, a year where women took centre stage, be it in CCTV footage showing a cat being placed in a wheelie bin (much more entertaining was the footage of the enraged cat being released) or Rebekka Brooks showing that you didn’t need to be smart or good looking in order to edit a national paper, all you needed was a readership slightly dimmer than you are. But the G&P woman of the year is Delcasier Fernandez, the Chipping Hombury housewife who, after a three year battle with her local council to have the street lights stay on longer and later to make the streets of her village safer for women, finally threw in the towel and instead opened a taser shop in the village. Sales have been brisk and in just three short weeks two flashers and a bloke who was out late hoping to see owls have been tasered in the goolies.

Animal of the year – while wheelie bin cat and Fenton (or to give him his full Kennel Club name ‘Fenton Fenton Jesus Christ Fenton Fenton Jesus Christ’) snatched headlines, G&P prefers to recognise working animals, be they the sniffer dogs that protect our troops in foreign parts, gun dogs of a different type that bring back the bird after a shoot, faithful hounds that savage hunt saboteurs or the weapon dogs that guard their masters’ crack dens. This year’s animal of the year is the regimental goat adopted by the Second Afgan Regiment of Foot as their mascot who, thanks to being tethered too close to a field kitchen one evening, was not just a source of regimental pride but also a sauce of regimental pride as, thanks to a bit of a cock-up in the catering department, ‘Belzie’ was served up as the winning dish in the regimental Masterchef cook-off the next day. Recipe available at www.passthesalt.co.af

Airshow!

During the day at Blenheim, a nearby ‘fly to the past’ airshow provided much entertainment, with aeroplanes from different eras chasing each other around the sky with deafening roars or the dull burr of propeller depending on propulsion. It would have made Churchill proud to see the WWII RAF planes zooming around, and pleased him more if they had shot down a foreign Fokker or two.


It was quite something that an airshow with acrobatics went ahead at all, given that just the day before a Red arrow had died during a display. It put the daredevilry into perspective (and there was much looping the loop, ground level hedge hopping and releasing of streams of coloured smoke). If a member of a seemingly immortal elite institution can die, then how vulnerable must those guys in the biplanes be?


Almost as vulnerable as the people standing along the roadside, leaning over fences and hedges watching the display at ‘Fly to the past’ without paying the entrance fee (entitling you, presumably, to stand in a field on the right side of the hedge, a few yards closer to aeroplanes flying hundreds of feet above you and giving you the prospect of a good dousing with aviation fuel, exhaust fumes, coloured smoke or stray bits of flaming fuselage depending on how things went).

Beside a road during an air display is not a good place to stand, as even the best driver is likely to be somewhat distracted by a couple of aeroplanes undertaking a mock dogfight (and being excited by the alternative, that we’re at war with Germany again!), looping the loop and releasing coloured smoke (red, blue or even white – thrilling. Dense clouds of black smoke coming from a flickering orange and red aeroplane - not so good) as they swoop and turn, and so is more likely to have their eyes on the sky than the road.

Or maybe the spectators know about this risk, and are rally enthusiasts getting in some practice at standing perilously close to speeding cars driven by distracted drivers, so that when they come to watch the night stage in some Welsh forest, their reaction times for dodging an out-of-control Mini coming round a corner sideways spewing dirt, a tumbling Toyota or the bouncing wheel from a stricken motor will be honed to perfection.