How on Earth to people live with long hair? I've never understood. Yes, women look extremely pretty with long hair, but I get incredibly fuzzy headed with much more than an inch of length standing up from the scalp. It's madness! Or is it possible that not everyone gets fuzzy minded? Now, that's a strange thought. Am I the strange one or am I the normal one in a world of oddities? Hard to tell, and in any case it's a flawed question, as we're all different and equally strange and normal. Except for writers of course, they're all madder than badgers in a wind tunnel.
Please don't put badgers in wind tunnels. That was only an illustration. Badgers do not deserve such torture. No-one does, not even weather forecasters or people who drive flashy cars with the music blaring. It's lucky that today is not a moaning day.
You know it's a fuzzy headed day when you spend an entire game of 'Mystery of the Abbey' (mentally substitute 'Cluedo' in if that helps) without having taken the murderer card out of the deck and put it in the secret folder, and without anyone realising that we're eliminating everyone extremely methodically. Oh, what fuzzy headed fun!
Oh, relatively long-ish hair, blast. How to deal with this mass for the last few days until slogging into town once again. It's as if a small gloomy cloud is being carried around with me, one that can be definitely felt to be moving in the breeze. My once-girlfriend liked the ginger locks, but she was mad. They drive me insane, personally. They might not still be ginger. It's hard to tell. Oh, a haircut can't come soon enough. Some people must just have more patience for these things, patience that in my own case has to be saved up for writing very long manuscripts and performing long and extremely boring computations, increasingly in three dimensions and ending badly, while looking for jobs in a faulty economy and with a lacklustre academic record.
An academic record is effectively a list of publications, and not the contents of all your lectures orchestrated and performed with the Vienna Symphony, sad though this omission might be. The next time I get a lecturing job I will try to rectify this startling omission. Do you think probability would be best taught to Strauss or Glinka? Oh, really, Shostakovich? Are you sure you're not out of your mind? Really? Interesting answer...
Yes, when you start talking to yourself in a blog entry, it is definitely time to stop and topple into sleep.
O.
Sunday, 12 October 2014
Saturday, 11 October 2014
Film: 'Holiday' (1938)
Despite writing so fervently about 'Bringing Up Baby' and the Katherine Hepburn career blip, it is certainly best to think about 'Holiday' in an isolated way. Again, it's Cary Grant and Hepburn, but this time it's a different beast entirely. This time the movie is directed by George Cukor, of the 'The Philadelphia Story', and romance is the order of the day as Grant is all set to marry the wrong sister in a rich elitist family of money makers extraordinaire. The wrong sister wears terrible hats, that's how you can tell, that and the fact she's not Katherine Hepburn. To be fair, Hepburn wears a terrible hat too, so it might be hard for Grant to choose inside the narrative.
So far so normal for a romantic comedy, but again we're dealing with what is nominally a classic screwball comedy, and those are another kind of beast entirely. Screwball comedies are often about culture clashes, and it becomes clear that Grant's Johnny Chase is a man of the people but his chosen fiancée is really a woman of the old money, while her siblings are trapped by it. Will Chase be caged and trapped or will he come to his senses before the end and escape with Hepburn's Linda? The core of the movie is the banter between Grant and Hepburn, who rapidly build up a remarkable chemistry, probably honed from their previous collaboration 'Sylvia Scarlett', again a movie by Cukor.
'The Philadelphia Story' is a film metatextually about rebuilding a career, but 'Holiday' is far more straightforward. The dialogue is snappy, and the supporting cast wonderful, with the only flaw being that you don't really understand why Chase would fall for the ultimately stuck-up and conventional Julia, who willingly conspires with her father to crush her sister and brother on occasion. The cultural conflict is really between people enhanced by wealth and those crushed by it, with Chase the fly to be potentially ensnared, and Linda the prisoner slowly withering away. Yes, that might be a tone of melancholy but it's one cancelled out by the grand halfway party amongst the good free guys.
I was going to write about how 'Holiday' is ultimately just a regular romantic comedy in the end, but then something happens in the final third as Grant absents himself from the narrative completely, after discovering the grand truths about the two sisters, and the film falls upon Hepburn's shoulders. Hepburn, the only actress around who could carry a movie entirely if she wanted, and it transforms into an entirely different kind of melodrama. No it's not a comedy, it's more of a drama, but it works anyway. And then at the end, a forward roll fixes everything. How strange!
So, as 'The Philadelphia Story' looms next on our list, it's time to wrap up. We have one more film of Hepburn and Grant, and then the inaugural 'Woman of the Year', the first Hepburn and Tracy vehicle. It's time to move on, but not by forgetting all those moments and banter, and by hoping Ned escaped too post-movie. Oh, Ned, did you make it out?!
O.
Note: Wherever I write forward roll or barrel roll, I really mean a forward or backward flip. It was a long day!
So far so normal for a romantic comedy, but again we're dealing with what is nominally a classic screwball comedy, and those are another kind of beast entirely. Screwball comedies are often about culture clashes, and it becomes clear that Grant's Johnny Chase is a man of the people but his chosen fiancée is really a woman of the old money, while her siblings are trapped by it. Will Chase be caged and trapped or will he come to his senses before the end and escape with Hepburn's Linda? The core of the movie is the banter between Grant and Hepburn, who rapidly build up a remarkable chemistry, probably honed from their previous collaboration 'Sylvia Scarlett', again a movie by Cukor.
'The Philadelphia Story' is a film metatextually about rebuilding a career, but 'Holiday' is far more straightforward. The dialogue is snappy, and the supporting cast wonderful, with the only flaw being that you don't really understand why Chase would fall for the ultimately stuck-up and conventional Julia, who willingly conspires with her father to crush her sister and brother on occasion. The cultural conflict is really between people enhanced by wealth and those crushed by it, with Chase the fly to be potentially ensnared, and Linda the prisoner slowly withering away. Yes, that might be a tone of melancholy but it's one cancelled out by the grand halfway party amongst the good free guys.
I was going to write about how 'Holiday' is ultimately just a regular romantic comedy in the end, but then something happens in the final third as Grant absents himself from the narrative completely, after discovering the grand truths about the two sisters, and the film falls upon Hepburn's shoulders. Hepburn, the only actress around who could carry a movie entirely if she wanted, and it transforms into an entirely different kind of melodrama. No it's not a comedy, it's more of a drama, but it works anyway. And then at the end, a forward roll fixes everything. How strange!
So, as 'The Philadelphia Story' looms next on our list, it's time to wrap up. We have one more film of Hepburn and Grant, and then the inaugural 'Woman of the Year', the first Hepburn and Tracy vehicle. It's time to move on, but not by forgetting all those moments and banter, and by hoping Ned escaped too post-movie. Oh, Ned, did you make it out?!
O.
Note: Wherever I write forward roll or barrel roll, I really mean a forward or backward flip. It was a long day!
Thursday, 9 October 2014
'Four Hundred', or masses of macaroni
Four hundred posts, here at the Quirky Muffin, which is itself built over the old site of the Mighty Clomp. It seems like the most ridiculous of numbers, a ludicrous set of self-indulgent rambles through items both interesting and utterly banal. Along the way there have been long and repeated mutterings about my own wanderings, some personal things which should have been suppressed for breaking the code of the blog, lots of chatter about movies and novels and television, and the stories. The stories have allowed it to go on, adding longevity to what would otherwise become a massive burden. Enough about the number four hundred though, as it's time to push on!
(If you're interested, 400 has the prime factorisation 2x2x2x2x5x5, which is kind of sweet.)
In a recent trawl through the Phrontistery (a very cool website) the obscure definition of 'macaroni' figuratively popped out of the screen onto the addled eyes
macaroni: nonsense; foolishness,
with its associated adjective
macaronic: muddled or mixed-up.
Now, do you think there was any way that 'macaronic' wouldn't jump hilariously to the top of my nonsense adjectives? Much as 'paranym' is an awesome alternative to 'euphemism', 'macaroni' is a great and confusing term for the great recurring theme of nonsense in the world. In essence this whole Quirky Muffin has been a macaronic mass. Oh, Phontistery, thank you. You've proven your worth once again! It is a lovely website, a haven for the lexically curious.
Another good word is
kenophobia: the fear of empty space,
which I misuse as a pseudonym for the barrier of the empty page that plagues us all at frequent intervals, the scourge that is writers block by any other name. The horror that stalks the would-be writer and has made this endeavour critically difficult on any number of occasions. Note the distinction from agoraphobia, which is concerned with open spaces. Actually, I have a bit of an agorophobia problem myself, in that fairly common respect of going into a small and hazy panic under a grand and cloudless blue sky, where we're faced with the infinite itself. Or is that kenophobia instead? It's an empty infinite space after all? Only an expert could tell.
It's only fitting that the four hundredth end up being concerned with one of the forms of the first few Muffins: the curious word discovery. There will probably be more for as long as this goes on. The future is uncertain but there are still a few small things to talk about.
O.
Note: To spite my forebodings and premonitions I have finally broken into watching Jon Pertwee's last series of 'Doctor Who'. More on this soon. I miss him.
Note: If I've mentioned 'macaronic' before, please accept this virtual elephant as recompense for wasted time. Of course it's not a real offer, but the intent is there.
(If you're interested, 400 has the prime factorisation 2x2x2x2x5x5, which is kind of sweet.)
In a recent trawl through the Phrontistery (a very cool website) the obscure definition of 'macaroni' figuratively popped out of the screen onto the addled eyes
macaroni: nonsense; foolishness,
with its associated adjective
macaronic: muddled or mixed-up.
Now, do you think there was any way that 'macaronic' wouldn't jump hilariously to the top of my nonsense adjectives? Much as 'paranym' is an awesome alternative to 'euphemism', 'macaroni' is a great and confusing term for the great recurring theme of nonsense in the world. In essence this whole Quirky Muffin has been a macaronic mass. Oh, Phontistery, thank you. You've proven your worth once again! It is a lovely website, a haven for the lexically curious.
Another good word is
kenophobia: the fear of empty space,
which I misuse as a pseudonym for the barrier of the empty page that plagues us all at frequent intervals, the scourge that is writers block by any other name. The horror that stalks the would-be writer and has made this endeavour critically difficult on any number of occasions. Note the distinction from agoraphobia, which is concerned with open spaces. Actually, I have a bit of an agorophobia problem myself, in that fairly common respect of going into a small and hazy panic under a grand and cloudless blue sky, where we're faced with the infinite itself. Or is that kenophobia instead? It's an empty infinite space after all? Only an expert could tell.
It's only fitting that the four hundredth end up being concerned with one of the forms of the first few Muffins: the curious word discovery. There will probably be more for as long as this goes on. The future is uncertain but there are still a few small things to talk about.
O.
Note: To spite my forebodings and premonitions I have finally broken into watching Jon Pertwee's last series of 'Doctor Who'. More on this soon. I miss him.
Note: If I've mentioned 'macaronic' before, please accept this virtual elephant as recompense for wasted time. Of course it's not a real offer, but the intent is there.
Tuesday, 7 October 2014
Strange Days
It's time for the frequently recurring post of random events, that entry where I struggle with the mathematical mind to produce something of even tangential worth. As ever the words emerge reluctantly, as if being coaxed from the primordial ooze, and everything's just a little bit fuzzy. Is it going to be any good?
October has sprung its trap once again and the cold snap of Winter is here, along with the gloom of short days and the worries of unemployment. The transition is always a sudden one, as the storms shriek for the first time and rain pours through the night. Sleep is becoming more and more extended as seasonal depression beats in, and it's time to get out there in the middle of the day and make every advantage from the existing sunlight that one can. Oh, for a boomerang, to fling out into the green!
Strange days of nerves and twine, as the dog goes in for surgery and tutoring comes into line. Tomorrow I break into my tutoring career in style, but will it go well, or will nerves get the best of me? And what does it all mean for future work? It's tough to do these things when your confidence has been shaken. The world of the practising mathematician is a long way away from an undergraduate degree of moderate success. Job hunting, academia and the personal aspect can ruin an ego if they all go badly! Where are the remedial affairs to lift one's spirits?
Humm, this is all far too self-indulgent. BBC Radio 4's 'The Adventure of Silver Blaze' is playing now to soothe away the chill of the night, and it's all becoming a little rosier. It's a rare moment of familiarity in the last few months that have seen very little re-reading, re-viewing and re-listening; It has all been new, including my current reading matter of 'Zorba the Greek'. 'Zorba' is a challenge, despite the excellent prose in the translation; an evocation of a far gone lifestyle in a far away Mediterranean landscape, twice removed from anything ever experienced here in the wilds of Northern Europe. Its challenge is in the assumptions it makes and those of the reader, and of the comparative simplicities of affairs long long ago. It will be a Quirky Muffin should I ever finish it, if only for the dancing. A happy ending, please, that's all I ask.
Another challenge awaits tomorrow, and it's time to bed down. Oh, tutoring's not hard, right?
O.
October has sprung its trap once again and the cold snap of Winter is here, along with the gloom of short days and the worries of unemployment. The transition is always a sudden one, as the storms shriek for the first time and rain pours through the night. Sleep is becoming more and more extended as seasonal depression beats in, and it's time to get out there in the middle of the day and make every advantage from the existing sunlight that one can. Oh, for a boomerang, to fling out into the green!
Strange days of nerves and twine, as the dog goes in for surgery and tutoring comes into line. Tomorrow I break into my tutoring career in style, but will it go well, or will nerves get the best of me? And what does it all mean for future work? It's tough to do these things when your confidence has been shaken. The world of the practising mathematician is a long way away from an undergraduate degree of moderate success. Job hunting, academia and the personal aspect can ruin an ego if they all go badly! Where are the remedial affairs to lift one's spirits?
Humm, this is all far too self-indulgent. BBC Radio 4's 'The Adventure of Silver Blaze' is playing now to soothe away the chill of the night, and it's all becoming a little rosier. It's a rare moment of familiarity in the last few months that have seen very little re-reading, re-viewing and re-listening; It has all been new, including my current reading matter of 'Zorba the Greek'. 'Zorba' is a challenge, despite the excellent prose in the translation; an evocation of a far gone lifestyle in a far away Mediterranean landscape, twice removed from anything ever experienced here in the wilds of Northern Europe. Its challenge is in the assumptions it makes and those of the reader, and of the comparative simplicities of affairs long long ago. It will be a Quirky Muffin should I ever finish it, if only for the dancing. A happy ending, please, that's all I ask.
Another challenge awaits tomorrow, and it's time to bed down. Oh, tutoring's not hard, right?
O.
Sunday, 5 October 2014
Film: 'Bringing Up Baby' (1938)
It's a cult classic. It's divisive. Katherine Hepburn can seriously annoy many people with her dippy performance. The dialogue comes so quickly that it might as well come with a health warning and an ear trumpet. There are two, count them, two different leopards in Connecticut in the narrative! On top of all those things, I of course love it. That's 'Bringing Up Baby'.
There's not much time to think whilst watching 'Bringing Up Baby'; It's a screwball comedy with added screw, and the word is they had already used up two previous balls in preparation. It's Howard Hawks at his most frenzied directorial pace, and it works. It's the story of Cary Grant playing a geeky paleontologist who crosses paths with the eccentric heiress played by Katherine Hepburn, who happens to be minding a tame leopard in her apartment until it can be delivered to her aunt. Inevitably they end up in some form of love by the frenzied end, via canine thefts of brontosaurus bones, a police station farce, and numerous clothing gaffes!
There are many things to love about this film, but there's also the enduring enigma of Katherine Hepburn's virtual lynching in the aftermath. She was dropped like a poisoned hot potato in the Arctic Circle, and left to rot, which is a shame as she proves her range beautifully by playing a scatterbrained twit wonderfully. She and Cary Grant just popped as a screen couple, as they already had in 'Holiday' and would again in 'The Philadelphia Story'. They might have made many more, if not for the Spencer Tracy / Hepburn combo that would dominate her following career.
Now, you see, I've digressed from 'Bringing Up Baby' to the second hand specifics of Katherine Hepburn culled from various nefarious sources, which is rather alarming. I'm reasonably sure that there should be a servant around here to stop such digressions, except it's not the 1920s anymore and I had to sell off Bates to get the gyrocopter out of hock. Sigh. We'll get back to Katherine Hepburn and her own rebuilding of her career in 'The Philadelphia Story'. That was one forceful lady.
'Bringing Up Baby' is wickedly funny if you can keep up, and oddly endearing. The ease with which Hawks introduces all the elements and then dispenses with the boring prerequisites so quickly is alarmingly good. He knows how to play fast and clever dialogue - something I miss very much in contemporary cinema - to the hilt and then slip in some more jokes for second and third viewings seemingly effortlessly. It's true that in Cary Grant and Hepburn he couldn't have found any smarter cast to act as accomplices but he gets the main share of the credit, as do of course the writers.
Ultimately, though, it's all Hepburn. She breaks it or makes it. Maybe it was the higher-pitched voice she was squeaking through the whole thing that alarmed people? It's a great comedy, and I can't think of any other which finales in a recreated dinosaur skeleton tumbling into disarray. Can you?
O.
Notes: Must watch 'Woman of the Year', and also follow up with 'The Philadelphia Story' and 'His Girl Friday', finishing with 'Holiday'.
There's not much time to think whilst watching 'Bringing Up Baby'; It's a screwball comedy with added screw, and the word is they had already used up two previous balls in preparation. It's Howard Hawks at his most frenzied directorial pace, and it works. It's the story of Cary Grant playing a geeky paleontologist who crosses paths with the eccentric heiress played by Katherine Hepburn, who happens to be minding a tame leopard in her apartment until it can be delivered to her aunt. Inevitably they end up in some form of love by the frenzied end, via canine thefts of brontosaurus bones, a police station farce, and numerous clothing gaffes!
There are many things to love about this film, but there's also the enduring enigma of Katherine Hepburn's virtual lynching in the aftermath. She was dropped like a poisoned hot potato in the Arctic Circle, and left to rot, which is a shame as she proves her range beautifully by playing a scatterbrained twit wonderfully. She and Cary Grant just popped as a screen couple, as they already had in 'Holiday' and would again in 'The Philadelphia Story'. They might have made many more, if not for the Spencer Tracy / Hepburn combo that would dominate her following career.
Now, you see, I've digressed from 'Bringing Up Baby' to the second hand specifics of Katherine Hepburn culled from various nefarious sources, which is rather alarming. I'm reasonably sure that there should be a servant around here to stop such digressions, except it's not the 1920s anymore and I had to sell off Bates to get the gyrocopter out of hock. Sigh. We'll get back to Katherine Hepburn and her own rebuilding of her career in 'The Philadelphia Story'. That was one forceful lady.
'Bringing Up Baby' is wickedly funny if you can keep up, and oddly endearing. The ease with which Hawks introduces all the elements and then dispenses with the boring prerequisites so quickly is alarmingly good. He knows how to play fast and clever dialogue - something I miss very much in contemporary cinema - to the hilt and then slip in some more jokes for second and third viewings seemingly effortlessly. It's true that in Cary Grant and Hepburn he couldn't have found any smarter cast to act as accomplices but he gets the main share of the credit, as do of course the writers.
Ultimately, though, it's all Hepburn. She breaks it or makes it. Maybe it was the higher-pitched voice she was squeaking through the whole thing that alarmed people? It's a great comedy, and I can't think of any other which finales in a recreated dinosaur skeleton tumbling into disarray. Can you?
O.
Notes: Must watch 'Woman of the Year', and also follow up with 'The Philadelphia Story' and 'His Girl Friday', finishing with 'Holiday'.
Friday, 3 October 2014
Baggage Lost
I miss my boomerang. It was nice, and plastic, and yellow. It's true that it had never successfully returned yet, but it might have. It vanished into the cricket nets at the beginning of the week and was never seen again. Rest in peace, yellow boomerang; Your replacements didn't do well, being unaware as I was as of their decorative and non-returning nature and they were of course useless. Oh, fie to the very idea of non-returning boomerangs! What nonsense it is. Being unemployed is tough enough without the idea of duplicitous projectiles. Oh, at some point I will have to dump this baggage of boomerangs and mental instability, or double down and go all the way to the extreme. You can get rid of baggage if you need to, but remember it is sad as well as freeing to watch parts of your past float back into river and away, and then walk away to the rest of your life.
The Quirky Muffin will be only three posts away from the mystic four hundredth when this one goes up, and on the most part it's going well. There is one item of baggage to the blog that may need to be cut loose though, the story known as 'The Glove'. No matter how I approach it I can't seem to follow it up in a way that's appropriate to me. It just becomes generic every time. Jasper Fforde talks about the 'narrative dare' in the way he writes books and stories, which is something with which I very much identify. There is no 'narrative dare' to make 'The Glove' interesting to write so far. 'Oneiromancy' has the dare of being a story build around an obscure word, 'Wordspace' is essentially 'write a story where the characters are words', and 'Triangles' is all about parallel universes and what lives between. What is 'The Glove' about? 'Night Trials' was tricky too as it was first, and also similarly lost its distinctness as it went on.
Perhaps 'The Glove' is about alien conspiracies on a world dominated by bagpiping spies? Or is it a young man's passage from innocence to adulthood via a journey around the alien world? Is it a classic coup on a world full of tartan? What is the dare? It's going to bug me. What are the logical consequences of a world's historical culture and technology being isolate and divided between two distant capital cities? It needs some thought, but obviously that would introduce a degree of tension in families and populaces as progeny choose which direction to go. Then, what would become of those skilled in both? Ah... That's an interesting question, as is the question of how you enforce such a partition of skills. What is the hidden structure that allows that to happen, and should it?
Wheels are turning finally. Maybe some more unhelpful baggage has drifted downstream. Lets hope it didn't have the cutlery or the dinghy in it too.
O.
The Quirky Muffin will be only three posts away from the mystic four hundredth when this one goes up, and on the most part it's going well. There is one item of baggage to the blog that may need to be cut loose though, the story known as 'The Glove'. No matter how I approach it I can't seem to follow it up in a way that's appropriate to me. It just becomes generic every time. Jasper Fforde talks about the 'narrative dare' in the way he writes books and stories, which is something with which I very much identify. There is no 'narrative dare' to make 'The Glove' interesting to write so far. 'Oneiromancy' has the dare of being a story build around an obscure word, 'Wordspace' is essentially 'write a story where the characters are words', and 'Triangles' is all about parallel universes and what lives between. What is 'The Glove' about? 'Night Trials' was tricky too as it was first, and also similarly lost its distinctness as it went on.
Perhaps 'The Glove' is about alien conspiracies on a world dominated by bagpiping spies? Or is it a young man's passage from innocence to adulthood via a journey around the alien world? Is it a classic coup on a world full of tartan? What is the dare? It's going to bug me. What are the logical consequences of a world's historical culture and technology being isolate and divided between two distant capital cities? It needs some thought, but obviously that would introduce a degree of tension in families and populaces as progeny choose which direction to go. Then, what would become of those skilled in both? Ah... That's an interesting question, as is the question of how you enforce such a partition of skills. What is the hidden structure that allows that to happen, and should it?
Wheels are turning finally. Maybe some more unhelpful baggage has drifted downstream. Lets hope it didn't have the cutlery or the dinghy in it too.
O.
Wednesday, 1 October 2014
Story: The Glove, VIII [Obsoleted]
(Part I , VII , IX )
"Eyes only: Master piper Octavius, Laird of Burgh.
Document: Report from the Canterbury incident, Clem Naughton in attendance.
Dear Master Octavius,
In this report, I have two main facts to report:
1) A dissident incident occurred in the town of Canterbury, where the armed dissident was shot during an altercation with troops, and then remanded into custody at the local Guild Hall.
2) The former piper Steffan was sighted during the incident, watching with apparent great surprise the armed intervention.
In service to the ancient Pipers Guild I was performing my duty, performing and barding in my district town of Canterbury, when a shot rang out in mid-afternoon from the church. Said church in Canterbury is in good condition, but rarely used, and then only as a scenic locale for traditional ceremonies and photographs.
An armed troop of guards, on constant alert in this town due to the recent incidents in the district, mobilised from the police station and approached the church down the high street, with the exception of one small detachment which approached from the rear of the church. An episode of extended gunfire then passed, which Steffan observed from by the cafe, mouth agape.
Eventually the troops, taking only one casualty, destroyed the door to the church and stormed the interior. The dissident, a young man, was pursued and trapped in the basement before being incapacitated by the deployment of a gas cylinder. During this distraction, I became aware that Steffan was paying undue attention to my own presence, and then vanished at an undetermined point.
The dissident is now awaiting interrogation at the police station, and the troops are once again hidden in their impromptu barracks. The location of Steffan is unknown, although he has not been seen to leave. We presume he is still in the location.
Details of times, location and pertinent points are included in the appendix.
Clem Naughton, journeyman piper."
"Eyes only: Master piper Octavius, Laird of Burgh.
Document: Report from the Canterbury incident, Clem Naughton in attendance.
Dear Master Octavius,
In this report, I have two main facts to report:
1) A dissident incident occurred in the town of Canterbury, where the armed dissident was shot during an altercation with troops, and then remanded into custody at the local Guild Hall.
2) The former piper Steffan was sighted during the incident, watching with apparent great surprise the armed intervention.
In service to the ancient Pipers Guild I was performing my duty, performing and barding in my district town of Canterbury, when a shot rang out in mid-afternoon from the church. Said church in Canterbury is in good condition, but rarely used, and then only as a scenic locale for traditional ceremonies and photographs.
An armed troop of guards, on constant alert in this town due to the recent incidents in the district, mobilised from the police station and approached the church down the high street, with the exception of one small detachment which approached from the rear of the church. An episode of extended gunfire then passed, which Steffan observed from by the cafe, mouth agape.
Eventually the troops, taking only one casualty, destroyed the door to the church and stormed the interior. The dissident, a young man, was pursued and trapped in the basement before being incapacitated by the deployment of a gas cylinder. During this distraction, I became aware that Steffan was paying undue attention to my own presence, and then vanished at an undetermined point.
The dissident is now awaiting interrogation at the police station, and the troops are once again hidden in their impromptu barracks. The location of Steffan is unknown, although he has not been seen to leave. We presume he is still in the location.
Details of times, location and pertinent points are included in the appendix.
Clem Naughton, journeyman piper."
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