ragon
THE
P RTAL
December 2017
Page 5
Toads Revisited
Some reflections by Snapdragon
R eflecting on
the lessons of Hollywood and Westminster one laments the
readiness of the powerful to resort to lawyers when they wish to disguise their lamentable
behaviour. Philip Larkin, to whom this poetic title owes it genesis, was bad with woman but
never from a position of power.
Lawyers may be disagreeable,
argumentative and often personally
odious, with disgusting personal
hygiene, but the point about bullies
or toads is that however many
lawyers they hire they cannot stand
toothpaste, truth and personal ridicule.
wrong at a much more fundamental level. We should
have concentrated on woodwork and the niceties of
hammering nails into doors so that, with the other
essential skill of toad kicking, we were better fitted to
the eternal task of ridding the world of heretics.
What has any of this to do with the great debate of
our time: namely killing children? Nothing: because
The unpalatable truth is that those woman who there is no debate to be had. What is required is a
knelt before the great man who controlled so much ruthless repetition of a central truth which is that the
of the western film industry did so because they very content of my womb does not belong to me.
correctly recognised that no one would do anything
about it and no one would give them work unless they
Those who have forgotten that truth is an absolute,
did his bidding.
will continue to sound as uncertain about this as they
do about every other nostrum they peddle. More toad
How utterly shameful that not a single person dared work I fear.
to say that the clever, charming, rich and O so powerful
toad was nothing but an odious bully.
As leaf falls gently on to frost stained grass and
Advent creeps into the very crevice of our being, the
Turning to the banks of the Tiber, where toads can perennial question of where the silver sixpences have
be found by the bucket load, and the toad silence is gone rears its ugly head.
deafening, one wonders whether it will be toothpaste,
truth or ridicule that brings the brutes to heel: or
A decent Christmas pudding needs silver rather
whether it will be a saintly priest. My money is on than anything else in it to break teeth and generally
toothpaste, although a toad stamping crusade has its perk up luncheon. Without wishing to point fingers at
attractions.
anyone I cannot help remembering that the last time
they were seen was during the washing up two years
500 years on from the start of the Reformation, ago presided over by Cardinal C (as we shall describe
marked by the nailing of theses to the notice board of him for the sake of propriety).
the great church in Wittenberg, one cannot help but
Surely they cannot have been pocketed in a fit of
wonder if this could ever have got off the ground today.
absent mindedness brought on by the second bottle of
Meditating on those who today practice the science, Armagnac so thoughtlessly provided for our guests?
art and craft of theology, one is driven to the conclusion
that not one of them possesses a hammer or would
have the necessary manual dexterity to hold a nail in
approximately the right position for even a couple of
seconds.
Ordinariate
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When Snapdragon was a girl at school before the
war we were all encouraged to develop our inner
self by learning as much as possible about domestic
science. This was obviously slightly overdone at the
poorer and less able end of schools where we had to be
prepared for a life of dull servitude but I see now it was
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