Peter Rhodes on pantomimes, saxophones and harmless fun with a tapestry
What is the worst music to endure when you find yourself put on hold? After just enduring a long, long wait for “customer support,” I do not want to hear another saxophone. Ever.
The truly irritating part of the “customer support” experience is the email that arrives a few minutes later with a breezy: “Tell us how we did.” Especially when they did absolutely nothing.
The Bayeux Tapestry is coming to England, on loan to the British Museum. I fear there is no doubt what sort of entertainment it will provide for the raucous Brits. According to the BBC, “debate is raging amongst historians over the number of penises included on the Bayeux Tapestry.”
Most of the appendages belong to war-horses but there are also five human ones, or possibly six. The confusion probably arises because the tapestry was created by nuns who I dare say were relying on guesswork. Anyway, expect much frenetic counting of embroidered danglers as the British school trips confirm everything the French believe about those frightful Anglo-Saxons.
A Bayeux tale. In 1994, on the 50th anniversary of D-Day, I interviewed Dennis Bateman of Kinver. He was a 25-year-old corporal during the bloody Normandy campaign when he visited Bayeux Cathedral, “to give thanks for still being alive.” As he prayed, Dennis noticed three old French men unravelling what looked like a roll of wallpaper.
“I can see them now,” he said. “They were draping it over the church chairs, as if they were putting it out to dry.” It was years later that he realised he had seen the Bayeux Tapestry which, during the war had been safely hidden. In 1991, “on a sort of pilgrimage,” the old soldier returned to Bayeux where “they really gave me the VIP treatment. One of the women in charge said I must have been the first British person to have seen the tapestry after the war. It was an honour. But it was just a question of being in the right place at the right time.”
On joining Reform UK, the former Tory party chairman Sir Jake Berry declares: “British politics has become a grotesque pantomime.” Frankly, it's worse than that. At least in a real panto you can laugh at the cross-dressing dame without getting all guilty and confused about preferred pronouns.
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