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I will post a double helping of The Autolycan early in March; after that there will be a bit of a gap until mid April or so.
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Master Autolycus
SHOOTING THE BREEZE
It is at the heart of a well-heeled and well-connected set that includes Prime Minister David Cameron and the former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks. Now Chipping Norton also has its own yacht club.
The fact that the small town is more than 100 miles from the sea and perched on the highest point in the Oxfordshire section of the Cotswolds is neither here nor there.
The Guardian
It was a small news item on the local sports page of the Buckinghamshire Gazette that started it all off. It looked insignificant, but it was to propel a small Cotswolds market town to international fame.
As usual on a Friday, Mrs Winifred Percival-Whyte, wife of Commander Edward Percival-Whyte, RN (Ret’d) of Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, was leafing through the paper and drawing her husband’s attention to anything she thought he might find of interest. The Aylesbury gun club, apparently, was concerned about dwindling membership and was hoping to reverse the trend by joining forces with other local gun clubs so that each could offer a particular shooting speciality as well general training. She knew, of course, that as a naval man her husband had little interest in small arms, but he had a compelling interest in anything that went on over the border in Blasted Buckinghamshire as he called it. Oxfordshire always had to do better.
‘Small arms? Not much use against the sort of punch we used to pack’, he snorted. ‘By God, those were the days, did I ever tell you about the time….’
Long experience had taught Winifred that her best strategy at moments like this was to go immediately on the counter offensive, which she accomplished successfully by offering Edward more teacake.
‘Yes’, she said while his mouth was full, ‘they’ve each gone for a specialism. Aylesbury’s got a buckshot club, someone else has got clay pigeon, skeet shooting and so on’.
‘Eh? What’s that?’
Dutifully, Winifred repeated the list of specialisms.
‘A buckshot club, eh? Well, anything Buckinghamshire can do…. Besides, we owe them a thrashing after they entered the full Grendon Prison weightlifting team in the tug of war up at the Over Norton village fete. Not cricket. Vicar was most upset.’
Winifred silently congratulated herself that her strategy had worked yet again. Sometimes though, she did worry about how much teacake Edward was consuming. The trouble was, grapes never seemed to work.
‘Yes indeed,’ she replied, ‘and Mrs Fortescue still blames the blighters for the disappearance of the strawberry wine she’d provided for the winner of the Victoria sponge competition.’
‘Need to move on this one sharpish’ said the Commander. ‘A buckshot club, eh? Well, I never. Tell you what, I’ll get on to some of the chaps at the golf club. See what we can do.’
So he rang the Chairman. Who rang the Secretary. Who rang the Committee members. Who complained to their wives about the latest crackpot scheme old Percival-Whyte had come up with. It really was high time he was voted off the Committee. Spent most of the time half cut and asleep anyway.
The Chairman made sure that everyone had a full glass before calling the meeting to order and inviting the Commander to speak. The old salt drained his glass at a gulp and the Secretary surreptitiously pushed another one in front of him.
‘Something in the Buckinghamshire Gazette,’ began the Commander, ‘frightful rag, but just as well to keep up with what the opposition are up to. Gun club’s got some ideas about increasing membership. Setting up a buckshot club apparently. Not a bad idea. No harm in pinching the enemy’s ideas if they’re good ones’.
At this point the Lady Captain, Mrs Josephine Windsor, joined the meeting and apologised for being late.
‘What are we talking about?’ she asked.
The Commander drained another glass.
‘Blasted Buckinghamshire’, he replied. ‘Setting up a buckshot club. Thought we could do better.’
The Lady Captain considered briefly. ‘Do you know,’ she said ‘that’s a really good idea. Best I’ve heard in a long time. I think Chipping Norton’s just the place. There’s no end of people at the WI who’d get involved. Their husbands would too.’
The Committee stared at her, speechless, while the Commander downed another drink.
‘Right’, proposed Josephine brightly, ‘I’ll get a few of the most active ones to form a kind of steering group and report back in a couple of weeks. OK?’
There was a long pause. A couple of members looked as though they might intervene, but the Chairman saw his opportunity, thanked the Lady Captain for her kind offer, looked forward to hearing from her in two or three weeks and closed the meeting. That was as good a way as any of kicking the whole thing into the long grass.
In the event it took Josephine around a month to report back, but when she arrived at the meeting the Chairman immediately sensed that there was trouble ahead. She looked so bright eyed and enthusiastic.
‘Right.’ she began, ‘We’ve pinched the basic idea from Buckinghamshire and put together a proposal for Chipping Norton that will knock theirs into a cocked hat. We’ll make it a subsidiary of the golf club to start, but I reckon we can float it off before too long.’
Eyes widened. Jaws fell open. Papers were shuffled but nobody said a word.
‘The basic idea’ she went on, ‘is that we take the obvious drawback to the idea, put a positive spin on it and turn it into a unique selling point. Buckinghamshire just haven’t grasped the possibilities, but here in Chipping Norton we can really make waves, if you’ll excuse the pun.’
The Committee gaped. What pun? What on earth was the woman talking about?
The Lady Captain was starting to enjoy herself. ‘In fact,’ she said, ‘ - and I expect some real groans for this one – we should ‘seas’ the opportunity!’
She was into her stride now, and didn’t notice the blank faces and uncomprehending stares. The Commander’s eyes closed gently and he started breathing more heavily.
‘We’ve taken the obvious drawbacks – that we’re landlocked and way above sea level – and worked out how to use them to really sell the idea. Look around the golf club here – it’s full of people who never play golf. The tennis club’s the same. People like to be associated with these sports without the discomfort of actually taking part. Give the Bucks Yacht Club credit for the basic idea, but the Chipping Norton Yacht Club will leave it standing, well, floating. I’ve done a press release, would you like to see it?’
And thus it was that the following day a bored young man at the Chipping Norton Chronicle found himself reading about the founding of a new Yacht Club. Bored or not, he was enough of a journalist to know a good story when he saw one, and thought that – presented properly – it was bound to make the nationals and TV stations, even foreign media would lap it up. He gave himself half an hour to produce a short but jaunty article with as many sailing puns as he could shoehorn in and a jokey headline. Half an hour later he was looking at :-
AHOY THERE! CHIPPING NORTON YACHT CLUB IS NO LUFFING MATTER!
The tang of the sea is coming to Chipping Norton, and water sports are set to boom! Chipping Norton Golf Club has gone overboard to take an innovative tack with the launch of a new yacht club. Keep a weather eye open for the new club which is certain to make waves when it is floated later this year. Mrs Josephine Windsor, Lady Captain of the golf club, is in charge of the new project, which she says is set to make a huge splash. The yacht club will be independent of the golf club as soon as possible, putting clear blue water, as Mrs Windsor describes it, between the two.
‘It’ll be just swell’ said a buoyed up Mrs Windsor. ‘This is a yacht club for committed landlubbers, and any suggestions we can’t do it because we’re landlocked are rudder nonsense. The wind’s in our sails and we can’t wait to get started!
That should do it, he thought.
Josephine’s phone first rang twenty minutes after the paper was published but that was only the first call of hundreds. The press and TV wanted interviews, there were good wishes from other improbable groups – she particularly treasured the ones from the East Yorkshire Mountain Rescue team and the Banbury over-80s Breakdancing Club – and endless enquiries about membership.
Her triumph left Josephine with just one problem. Should she own up to the happy accident which had brought the club into being, or should she stay silent. Enigmatic is best, she thought, and whenever she was asked what it was that led her to understand that a yacht club in Chipping Norton would be so successful, she would arch an eyebrow and reply that it has been written that understanding is joyous. Sometimes she would add that misunderstanding can be, too.
ANAGRAM CORNER!
I struggled with everybody's favourite media magnate - Rupert Murdoch - for some time. The word 'corrupt' is in there, but I couldn't do much with the remainder, until I remembered that his first name is actually Keith. This was a lot more promising.
KEITH RUPERT MURDOCH
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