Tim Vicary's Blog

Today was a beautiful autumn morning, clear blue sky, dew on the grass, so I took my kindle into the garden and sat in the sun, reading. It was a good book, The Crown, by Nancy Bilyeau, and I’m recovering from a cold and feeling sorry for myself, so it seemed like the perfect convalescence.

But then I made a marvelous discovery. You know those very small, delicate spiders’ webs that you see in the woods and fields if you go for a walk on a day like this? They’re beautiful – sparkling with dew on the grasses and bushes and trees in the early morning. I’ve often walked straight into them at head height, long thin filaments strung across a woodland path about six feet above the ground, between one tree and another. And I’ve wondered – how one earth did the spiders do that? I mean, these creatures are tiny, no bigger than ants, and they don’t have wings, so how ….?

Well, now I know the answer. As I was sitting there, reading my kindle, I noticed these spiders’ webs all around me; on the grass, on the garden fence, even on the chair next to me. In the morning sun, the air was buzzing with insects. From time to time I brushed things off the kindle, or off my face. And then I realized.

I was sitting on one of these long swing seats for three people, which rock comfortably back and forth, and there were long filaments stretching from one end of the seat frame to the other – right in front of my face! They couldn’t have been there before, or I would have broken through them when I sat down. There was a little web beside my head, in one of which a tiny spider was staring hopefully at a trapped wasp, twenty times its size. (The wasp escaped) And every minute or so a new filament appeared, stretching from my baseball cap to my knees, or to the kindle in my hands. These tiny creatures were busily building webs all around me while I was reading!

But how did they get there? I watched for a while and worked out the answer. There was a gentle breeze drifting towards me across the garden, and in the sunlight I saw things floating in the air – long thin filaments of silk, hanging there vertically, drifting through the air. And clinging onto each thread was a tiny spider! These little guys don’t have wings, but they spin their own parachutes, and fly. Then when they land on something, they spin a new web.

And this morning, they were landing on me. The longer I sat there, the more cocooned I became in filaments of silk. The only way to keep on reading, was to brush the webs away from my face. But I didn’t want to move, because I was enjoying the book.

All of which is a tribute, I suppose, to the writing skills of Nancy Bilyeau! And to the spiders, who also have a world wide web!

They are so fine you can’t see them, unfortunately. But they are there!

The balloons came over the house at about six o’clock. It was a beautiful morning – a clear blue cloudless sky, the first day of summer, the dew still on the grass, birds singing sweetly, and three hot air balloons floating gently overhead. They are a beautiful sight – huge globes of air in bright primary colours, passing over the house in a quiet stately procession a couple of hundred feet above. I can see the tiny people in the wicker basket underneath; sometimes I even give them a wave, though they seldom wave back.

I’m not sure why they don’t wave back, but it could be because of the dogs. You see, six a.m. is about the time I let the dogs out, and our dogs … well, they don’t really appreciate the balloons. The silent beauty of it, the stately overhead procession, the exquisite colours – it’s all wasted on the dogs. They don’t appreciate the beauty, not at all. They just see them as invaders.

These balloons are on our territory, and it’s our job to let the whole world know about it, and to see them off.

So that’s what they do – they run around all the fields at top speed, barking madly, until they succeed in chasing the balloons off. This can take quite a lot of time; ten or twenty minutes’ hyper activity and frenzied barking at six o’clock in the morning (poor neighbours!) but in the end the dogs always succeed. As the last balloon disappears over the horizon the dogs return to the house, sides heaving and their tongues hanging out, with a satisfied grin on their faces saying ‘See? we did it again!’

I imagine this must be quite annoying for the balloonists. After all there they are, enjoying the adventure, the wonderful views and the exquisite silence of the early morning sky, and then, what happens? The dogs start up. Not just our dogs, probably, but every farm dog all across the country, chasing the balloon from one spot to another, always reminding them that THEY HAVE NO RIGHT TO BE THERE!

Maybe that’s why the balloonists don’t wave back? It’s their own fault, to some extent. After all, the balloons aren’t completely silent. Every minute or two the pilot turns on the furnace and it roars like an angry lion. So here we have these enormous multi-coloured birds deliberately flying right over the dogs’ territory and roaring – what do they expect?

It’s very satisfying for the dogs, of course, because the balloons always fly away. So it’s obvious that balloons, just like postmen, are afflicted with a sense of guilt. They approach the house quite often but they know they shouldn’t be there and so they always run away. So the dogs feel proud, righteous, and justified. The canine anti-aircraft squadron has saved the family once again!

Their biggest challenge, though, is the Red Arrows. We live quite near an airfield and once every year there’s an air show which invites the Red Arrows, the Royal Air Force aerobatic display team. The Red Arrows are famous but it’s clear they’ve heard about the dogs’ reputation too, and it’s made them nervous; you can tell that by the way they behave. They don’t dare approach the house singly; they always come in a group of nine, flying in a tight diamond formation for mutual support. They use modern technology too – high-powered jet aircraft; and they rely on surprise, as well: nine jet aircraft, flying in low at treetop height, to try to catch the dogs while they’re still asleep in the sun.

But the dogs are up to it. They spring into instant  action – from afternoon snooze to full hyper-speed run in a millisecond, ears flapping, heads bouncing up through a field of barley as they bark out full-blooded defiance!

And it works! Almost immediately the Red Arrows start to panic – their tightly knit diamond formation splits up and planes fly right, left, up, down, and round and round in circles, like rabbits running every which way in a desperate attempt to confuse the dogs. But the dogs are persistent, furious, relentless, and soon they begin to detect the first signs of fear – the planes start to trail smoke, blue smoke, white smoke, red smoke like blood! In their urge to escape the dog-fight the planes become more frantic – they loop the loop, turn upside down, almost crash into each other in fear. The dogs sense they are winning.

And then, suddenly, it’s all over. After about twenty minutes of desperate action, the planes come together, and run. And as the last plane, its tail between its legs, flees over the horizon, the heroic dogs return. Exhausted, gasping, but grinning and triumphant. They have saved the family again, and they know it. Six humans, and we did nothing. Just two dogs, against the might of the Royal Air Force.

Never in the field of canine conflict, has so much been owed by so many, to so few.

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Tim’s books: http://www.timvicary.com

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Gumbo beet greens corn soko endive gumbo gourd. Parsley shallot courgette tatsoi pea sprouts fava bean collard greens dandelion okra wakame tomato. Dandelion cucumber earthnut pea peanut soko zucchini.

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T-bone ham hamburger bacon kielbasa. Corned beef biltong drumstick sausage pastrami ham short ribs pork chop. Capicola sausage hamburger, tongue tail fatback spare ribs tri-tip pork loin pastrami. Cupim pastrami spare ribs jerky rump short loin corned beef tenderloin fatback picanha hamburger tongue ground round venison cow.

Chicken porchetta flank spare ribs doner jerky tongue shank ground round pork chop. Kielbasa bacon porchetta pastrami salami.

Doner andouille spare ribs shoulder ground round landjaeger tenderloin picanha tail boudin pastrami strip steak chicken jowl. Flank corned beef turkey, pork burgdoggen cow landjaeger strip steak biltong beef pancetta.

Pork chop ball tip salami prosciutto capicola boudin tail meatball. Kevin ball tip doner sausage tail, brisket hamburger rump short ribs frankfurter fatback.

Bacon cow shank, pastrami biltong flank chicken rump doner ribeye swine strip steak.

Swine turkey ham short ribs, corned beef cow sirloin short loin prosciutto chicken pig kevin ground round capicola bacon.

T-bone ham hamburger bacon kielbasa. Corned beef biltong drumstick sausage pastrami ham short ribs pork chop. Capicola sausage hamburger, tongue tail fatback spare ribs tri-tip pork loin pastrami. Cupim pastrami spare ribs jerky rump short loin corned beef tenderloin fatback picanha hamburger tongue ground round venison cow.

Chicken porchetta flank spare ribs doner jerky tongue shank ground round pork chop. Kielbasa bacon porchetta pastrami salami.  Sausage swine pork loin fatback, pork belly meatball salami brisket flank venison andouille burgdoggen.

Well, it was a pony actually. The horses are much better behaved. This was my wife’s New Forest pony. Well into its twenties now, long retired from active service, a docile family pet. Just the thing to give rides to the grandchildren.

Well, that’s what my daughter thought. She was coming at the weekend with her kids, who’d had a couple of lessons at a riding school. They’d loved it, but it had been indoors, a bit tame – perhaps they could ride Rosie in the woods? On a lead rein, naturally, with Grandad in charge. It would be quite safe.

A lovely idea, of course. She’s a friendly animal – the kids feed her carrots when they visit. An old pony, a bit arthritic, easy enough to handle. What could go wrong?

All the same, a little bit of practice might be wise. So one evening I led the pony out on a walk, just to see how she would behave. A quite stroll, I thought, no distractions, nothing exciting. Except that I forgot – silly me – that the pony hadn’t been away from its field and stable for nearly a year. So for her EVERYTHING was exciting.

And the further we got from home more thrilling and scary it all seemed.

Finally she could bear it no longer. Drop the shoulder, kick up her heels and then – WHAM! The pony is half a mile away bolting for home, and the granddad flat on the ground.

Thinking, what’s wrong with this leg?

It took five minutes to get to my feet. Another ten to hobble three yards. Then I gave up. I was half a mile from the nearest house, with no mobile phone. So I just stood there like a tree, rooted to the spot. Watching the sun go down and the stars come out.

Hoping Santa might come along. It’s Christmas, after all. A long age passed.

No Santa. But finally a neighbour appeared, walking her dog. And eventually an ambulance. So there I was in hospital, with a broken hip.

I’m not writing much now since it’s still not great sitting at a desk. Thank goodness the grandchildren aren’t learning to walk again, like granddad. I’m glad it was me, not them. They’re happy, they just bounce.

My fictional heroine Sarah Newby ran serious risks for her kids too, though she hasn’t crippled herself. She defended her son who was accused of murder. If you’d like to read about that, A Game of Proof is available for FREE now in the US and UK. ($0.99 elsewhere)

If not, take care. Stay away from old docile ponies. That’s my advice.

The post I lost an argument with a horse. appeared first on Tim Vicary.

A funny thing happened last Sunday night. My wife and I sat by the fire watching the dramatic end to the beautiful BBC dramatization of Poldark. We both cheered as Demelza (Eleanor Tomlinson) swung round and felled her wandering husband Ross with a punch to the jaw, as he returned from his all-night tryst with Elizabeth. Then, as the credits rolled and we sat, stunned in the firelight, my wife smiled and said: ‘So, it wasn’t rape after all.’

‘Yes it was,’ I said.

What? Surely it should be the other way round? The woman cries rape and the man protests innocence. Not this time. Our roles are reversed!

‘What do you mean?’ I asked. ‘Ross Poldark breaks into Elizabeth’s house, Trenwith, in the middle of the night. He surprises her in her bedroom and refuses to leave when she asks. He strides up and down ranting that she can’t marry George Warleggan. She asks him to leave, several times, but he grabs her, kisses her, throws her on the bed, and has sex with her. Isn’t that rape?’

‘Ah yes,’ says the missus, ‘but you could see she was clutching him to her and kissing him back. She wanted him, she loves him really.’

I’m looking at the wife with new eyes now. The firelight flickers in her eyes, the dog sighs at our feet. Is there something I’ve misunderstood, all these years? Perhaps if I’d behaved differently …

Anyway, as you can imagine, we continue this discussion in private for some time, and come to an amicable conclusion, as usual. (I’m not Ross) So here it is.

We decided (amicably) that whether it was rape or not, it was a classic moment. Full of history and consequences for the Poldark saga. It’s true, of course, that Elizabeth still loves Ross. She’s told him that, in a previous episode, while her husband Francis was still alive. Indeed, the main reason for Francis Poldark’s descent into drunkenness and debt is his realisation, soon after his marriage, that his wife still loves Ross, not him. And Ross’s rape – if that’s what it is – is an attempt to prove to her that that’s still true. She doesn’t love George, she loves him.

So Ross might claim a defence, of sorts. Despite her repeated protest that she loves George ‘to distraction’, he thinks she’s lying and sets out to prove it to her. And he’s right.

Does that mean that he had a reasonable belief that she consented to sex? I don’t think so. But to a man of his class, in the 1790s, perhaps. Anyway Winston Graham, the author, makes it pretty clear. The last words of the chapter are:

‘Ross, you can’t intend . . . Stop! Stop, I tell you.’

But he took no further notice of the words she spoke.

He lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bed.

Rape, surely? But then – and I admire Winston Graham hugely – it has to be said he rather ducks the question. Or perhaps, writing in the 1950s, saw the question as less important than it does today. He, also was a man of his time.

But Debbie Horsefield, today’s excellent screenwriter, has tried to take the matter further. She, unlike Winston Graham, attempts to portray the morning after. Ross spends the night with Elizabeth, and next morning she asks Ross, pathetically: ‘What shall we …’ ‘When can we …’ She doesn’t seem to resent it or accuse him of rape, not then. She hopes they have a future together.

Instead of accusing Ross of rape, it might be more interesting to focus on the way he behaves afterwards. He goes home and, apparently, makes no further effort to contact her again. He stops trying to prevent her marriage to George Warleggan. It’s as though he’s lost interest. As though the act of having sex with her has urged him of all the romantic longing he has had for her over the years and he’s realised she’s not that special after all. No angel, just an ordinary flesh and blood woman like all the others. George can have her, and welcome.

That’s pretty callous, isn’t it? At least as cruel as the rape itself.

And of course, it will have terrible consequences …

The post Poldark – was it rape? appeared first on Tim Vicary.

Francis Poldark tragically died on screen just when it seemed his fortunes were about to rise. He had revived his friendship with Ross and discovered a rich seam of copper in their mine. He had turned away from his mistress Margaret and was back on speaking terms with his wife and son. He had openly defied the wicked George Warleggan.

At last everything was going well for him. He had even confessed his crime – not to Ross, who refused to hear it – but to Demelza. And, she like a kind counsellor or priest, forgave him. He was a new man. He looked happy and excited. He had learned from his mistakes and was trying to put things right.

But then, all alone in the mine, he drowned. Clinging to a nail until it pulled from the rock. While his childhood memories flashed before him.

At this tragic moment I thought I’d look back to remind myself why he betrayed Ross in the first place. And why he had to die.

Francis Poldark’s crime was simple and devastating. He gave George Warleggan the list of investors in the Carnmore Copper Company. This company was set up by Ross to buy copper at a fair price from the mines. It helped mines to make a fair profit, stay open and employ more miners. Once George had the list, Warleggan’s Bank put pressure on the investors, and the company closed.

So why did Francis do this? He might be weak but he wasn’t stupid. He knew what was likely to happen.

There are three main reasons, it seems to me – all which show how beautifully the themes are interwoven in Winston’s Graham’s novels.

Firstly, George Warleggan. He is a very clever, devious, complex villain. He is rich, ambitious, and in love with Francis’s wife Elizabeth. Francis is already indebted to George for large amounts of money, most of which he has lost by gambling at George’. But when Ross exposes the cardsharp Sanson – a Warleggan cousin – and throws him in the river, George is embarrassed. Sanson is his relative; this doesn’t look good. So, in an apparently noble gesture, George comes to Trenwith to return half of all the money the impoverished Francis has lost to Sanson over the years.

Half, you notice – not all of it. But still, a substantial sum. And Francis is grateful. But is that a good enough to betray Ross?

Not on its own, no. But George makes this clever offer just at the moment when Francis’s sister, Verity, has eloped with the sea captain Andrew Blamey. Francis is humiliated and furious. Whose fault is this? Really, of course, it’s Demelza who has acted a go-between, but in Francis’s mind that means Ross. Ross has betrayed him – again! And here is George with the money.

But how – in Francis’s mind – has Ross betrayed him? Again?

Well, for one thing, Francis is genuinely concerned for his sister. Captain Blamey is a violent man – a drunkard who killed his first wife. It’s quite right for Francis, as head of the family, to try to protect her from this. Ross has already brought them together once. Now, through Demelza, he’s done it again.

And then, he’s jealous. Francis’s wife, Elizabeth, loves Ross more than him. If Ross had returned a few days earlier she’d have married him, not Francis. And the fact that he did return blighted Francis’s marriage from the start. Ross is simply a better man than him – braver, nobler, more attractive to women. He may be poor but he hasn’t frittered his wealth away at the card table. Other mine owners respect him, much more than they respect Francis. Even Ross’s marriage, to a kitchen maid, is happier than Francis’s own.

So all of these things are festering in Francis’s mind when George Warleggan turns up with his handsome offer to repay half of Francis’s gambling debts.

Of course, it’s only because of Ross that Sanson’s cheating was exposed at all.

But somehow Francis forgets that and George gets the benefit. And so, in betraying Ross, he gets his revenge.

Does Francis know what he’s doing? Absolutely. That’s why, when he later regrets it, he tries to kill himself. And the pitiless author has to drown him in the end.

The post Poldark – why did Francis betray Ross? appeared first on Tim Vicary.