It was a Saturday like any other. We were tired. Everyone was tired and getting ready for the same Saturday routine. Buy food. Buy wine. Cook food. Drink wine. Eat food. Attempt conversation. Drink wine. Try too hard to think about something profound. Drink wine. Think about maybe washing dishes. Attempt conversation. Fail. End up watching a film or worse some kind of TV comedy on the On-Demand service (resulting in even less a feeling of connection with the world than ever before). Then no doubt…to bed – something is stirring though, it is clear this bitter comfort cannot last forever.
This happens a few more times (takes a long time to learn a lesson it seems, I won’t divulge how many times but it was a few, quite a few – ha, English understatement) and it becomes a kind of cloying addiction. We plot many ways to make it stop. We examine the problem from every angle in a kind of lazy way. Nobody believes anything is going to happen, not really. As time goes on a surprising answer makes itself known. Much of our behaviour seems to be related to the chairs in which we sit. You know how we all have a usual place in the house (or at work or wherever) in which we insist on sitting. Well it seems that this is the source of the predicament.
“Yeah our problems are over, all we have to do is sit somewhere else! Our problems are over”
This is clearly too good to be true. Whole matrixes of interrelated behaviours lurk just below the surface, it isn’t only linked to the chairs but it has spread. Its in the particular way in which we stir our tea, its in the way we clean our suede shoes. Everyone has there own different way of doing everything, they don’t know it but some clean their shoes with obedience, they use the correct brush, they wait for the mud to dry and then they gently remove the residue. Others just let it dry, worry about it, watch their shoes become dirtier and then replace them and the whole process starts again. Others still will not buy suede. Others – addicted to trivia – will tell you proudly and unnecessarily how suede does not just derive from cows but can also originate from doe or from pig.This combination of interrelated habits proves bewildering “Will we never get out?” Will power will not help. Any effort to isolate the root of the problem will come to nothing, this thing changes shape and incorporates and swallows up the inquiry. You send in your best detective, he’s bought off, turns double agent on you, feeds back misinformation and the conspiracy simply gains another tentacle, another layer of ambiguity. You will never leave the organisation. It shouldn’t really come as a surprise but it does, you’re up against all the smoke and mirror sleight of hand traps that you’ve set to get by in the world so far. You begin to sink. There is no hope. You desperately want to work something out on the back of a napkin, some kind of myth of origination and for that myth to then come true and thereby deliver you from all of this. There is no napkin though and Saturday stability looms.
Then somebody takes over a public house in a small village in Herefordshire. Yarpole has little more than a church with a bell tower and therefore the pub is named after the only attraction. ‘The Bell Inn’ looks like any English country pub but inside something is happening. We don’t know what it is but we need to have faith. It is a safe haven, it is outside of the organisation, they’ve missed it, it is inconspicuous but how to get there. If you set off for the evening they will surely smell a rat. They will categorise it as a Saturday night out, they have a file on that, they will put the Saturday night out process into action. We leave by the cover of the evening light set for a table at 6.30pm. An unusual time, we’ve left pillows under our covers and dummies sitting in front of the television, they thing we’re asleep. We are tired and we’ve tried these escapes before, they always catch up with us. We’re despondent but the unusual travelling hour rouses us somewhat. If they have a napkin we will write on the back of it.
Upon arrival, we feel more confident and more at ease than usual. We enter. Of course, there is no need for lager, a pint of lager would set the alarm bells running at HQ, we need a pint of bitter. Real ale is a shield, it is not easily pinned down and you must think and investigate and taste before you drink. This is good exercise. They have Timothy Taylor’s Landlord on draft and this is a good sign. As we take our table, we see that they have a napkin for everyone, things are looking up but it could all still go wrong with the food. The menu arrives. The food needs to be good and must, on no account, have a piece of limp, undressed salad garnish accompanying it. There must be things on the menu that are simply not part of the British pub meal. If it goes that way then the whole thing is over, we may as well sit at home and give in to the regular Saturday routine. The red wine must be good and warm and French. We are briefed that we must leave by 8.30pm, they are busy, another good sign, there are more people who share our rebellion. Could it be that we’re growing in number? The resistance will succeed, can succeed, can it? A sudden panic, is this another trick? Who is behind this? A sudden dread fear, can we trust them? The answer will lie in the food. The menu arrives and it is unlike any menu usually seen in such a establishment but the dishes remain recognisable. We order Brittany rabbit with Pommes Boulangere, Baby Carrot, Mustard and Basil sauce and Sirloin steak, Confit Tomatoes, Mushrooms and Béarnaise sauce with Chunky Chips for mains and Glazed Hampton Bishop Asparagus, Poached Egg with a Hollandaise Sauce and Hereford Rare Beef Salad with a Parmesan, Olive and Anchovy Dressing.
Who is behind such food? Surely, it must be someone from the resistance and it is? Appropriately French, the architect of our meal is Michelin starred Chef Claude Bosi. Recently, fresh from a successful campaign in nearby Ludlow he is a man who we can trust. We are ready. In the car on the way here, we took advantage of the feeling of freedom engendered by the extraordinary travelling time by talking of Ferdinand. We would not usually dare talk of Ferdinand, he was lost to us and certainly banned by our usual habits. He was a danger to our own personal status quo. We were ready to give birth to him once again but we would need a good sign and also some choice sustenance that would result in a chemical change that would give us strength for the job. Bosi had not let us down. The dog in the painting stood out against the maroon background (his name was Rothko), he looked down at us as we ate our meal. The food was exceptionally good for the price and hearty enough to carry our enterprise forth. The wine was suitably French and brought Ferdinand into sharper focus. We did not write upon the napkin but if we had have done we would have written a manifesto not dissimilar to this:
Ferdinand must be a magazine written for artists by artists.
Ferdinand must not be regulated and designed in a tidy way, we pick a deadline and montage whatever we have together by that deadline.
We must work upon Ferdinand almost every day.
Ferdinand must be a work of art in itself and can never be a magazine proper.
Ferdinand will talk of short stories, poetry, visual arts, essays, diaries and conversations between artists.
Ferdinand must be published quarterly.
Ferdinand must be akin to a famous etiquette book.
Ferdinand must never succumb to living a Woolworth life.
Ferdinand must live.
Ferdinand must therefore be born.
And then…nothing! All that we could hear was Frank Sinatra singing in the background. We waited. Frank sang. We waited. We excused ourselves and left to explore the toilets. The song continued. We waited. The toilets were just the same as any English pub toilets. Was this a bad sign? Could it be that we were mistaken? Could it be that we had been duped? The song hurt our ears, a claustrophobic din. We told each other not to panic. The song finished. Silence reigned. The waitress hesitated, faltering, in two minds at whether or not to bring the dessert menu. Silence continued to hold sway. All eyes were on Rothko the dog, he was shaping up to speak. The silence was excruciating:
“My name is Ferdinand,” he said and privately we cheered. We ordered celebratory trifle and commemorative crème brulee.
