Organising races is best left to humans; taking minutes is best left to secretaries
Remember Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland where Alice ends up swimming in a pool of tears, her own tears in fact, accompanied by a collection of birds and animals? Alice and her new mouse friend make a beeline for the shore to escape the floating menagerie, among them a duck, a dodo and an eaglet. The landing leads to the eponymous Caucus-race – or perhaps more accurately – a very complicated way to get dry. But a few other suggestions are offered first.
Mouse considers the best way to get dry is to relate the driest tale he can think of to the assembled soggy company, but to no avail – conjure up if you will, a typical Dáil sitting. Duck proves to be an annoying interruption (the Ceann Comhairle could sort him out) while Dodo interjects with his well-stocked vocabulary (is there such a species in the halls of Leinster House?) “I move that the meeting adjourn, for the immediate adoption of more energetic remedies,” he counsels. This annoys Eaglet. “Speak English,” he says. I don’t know the meaning of half those long words, and, what’s more, I don’t believe you do either!”
The more energetic remedy turns out to be the Caucus-race, on the face of it a bit more hare brained than bird brained, whereby all contestants run when and where they want for as long as they wish. Dodo wisely lets the race ensue until everybody is dry. Obviously he comes from the ‘things will eventually work out’ school of thought – a bit like the monkey and the typewriter – do it for long enough and you will thump out a play to rival Shakespeare.
A little more intellectually avian though, is Chaucer’s Parliament of Fowls where three tercel or male eagles try to convince Mother Nature why they should receive the hand (or should that be wing?) of the formel or female eagle. But the lower order geese, cuckoos and ducks are fed up hanging around listening to the nobility cackling on about their love affairs. What ensues is a comic parliamentary style debate, deemed comic around 1382 at any rate (and doubtless more cerebrally engaging than any Dáil sitting) which remains as chaotic and senseless as the Caucus-race.
Just imagine if the secretary bird* were taking the minutes at these avian gatherings. They might read something like this: Mouse suggested relating the driest tale he knew to make the company dry; Duck expressed his disapproval while Dodo suggested a more active approach, but in a way that Eaglet could not understand. The company accepted Dodo’s suggestion of engaging in a caucus race. It was agreed that the rules were quite inexplicable but that the exercise did succeed in drying all participants. On a supplementary note, the Parliament of Fowls, unfortunately, became a hung parliament as none of the Tercels won the Formel, probably due in no small part to the raucous behaviour of the Geese, Cuckoos and Ducks.
As an aside, did you know that Charles Darwin had a go at eating owl? While at Cambridge University he was a member of the "Gourmet Club," which met once a week to eat animals not often found on menus. He found the old brown owl ‘indescribable’. I am thinking that any of us who frequented greasy spoon takeaways in the 1970’s and 1980’s probably consumed animals not normally seen on menus either. Unlike Darwin, we had the luxury of batter and curry sauce to disguise our brown owl.
As an erstwhile twitcher I respect the ‘clevericity’ of our winged comrades, like Rabbit in Winnie the Pooh, especially bespectacled and erudite ones like Owl. “You and I have brains,” he says. “The others have fluff.”
* African bird of prey
Copyright Berni Dwan 2014
Remember Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland where Alice ends up swimming in a pool of tears, her own tears in fact, accompanied by a collection of birds and animals? Alice and her new mouse friend make a beeline for the shore to escape the floating menagerie, among them a duck, a dodo and an eaglet. The landing leads to the eponymous Caucus-race – or perhaps more accurately – a very complicated way to get dry. But a few other suggestions are offered first.
Mouse considers the best way to get dry is to relate the driest tale he can think of to the assembled soggy company, but to no avail – conjure up if you will, a typical Dáil sitting. Duck proves to be an annoying interruption (the Ceann Comhairle could sort him out) while Dodo interjects with his well-stocked vocabulary (is there such a species in the halls of Leinster House?) “I move that the meeting adjourn, for the immediate adoption of more energetic remedies,” he counsels. This annoys Eaglet. “Speak English,” he says. I don’t know the meaning of half those long words, and, what’s more, I don’t believe you do either!”
The more energetic remedy turns out to be the Caucus-race, on the face of it a bit more hare brained than bird brained, whereby all contestants run when and where they want for as long as they wish. Dodo wisely lets the race ensue until everybody is dry. Obviously he comes from the ‘things will eventually work out’ school of thought – a bit like the monkey and the typewriter – do it for long enough and you will thump out a play to rival Shakespeare.
A little more intellectually avian though, is Chaucer’s Parliament of Fowls where three tercel or male eagles try to convince Mother Nature why they should receive the hand (or should that be wing?) of the formel or female eagle. But the lower order geese, cuckoos and ducks are fed up hanging around listening to the nobility cackling on about their love affairs. What ensues is a comic parliamentary style debate, deemed comic around 1382 at any rate (and doubtless more cerebrally engaging than any Dáil sitting) which remains as chaotic and senseless as the Caucus-race.
Just imagine if the secretary bird* were taking the minutes at these avian gatherings. They might read something like this: Mouse suggested relating the driest tale he knew to make the company dry; Duck expressed his disapproval while Dodo suggested a more active approach, but in a way that Eaglet could not understand. The company accepted Dodo’s suggestion of engaging in a caucus race. It was agreed that the rules were quite inexplicable but that the exercise did succeed in drying all participants. On a supplementary note, the Parliament of Fowls, unfortunately, became a hung parliament as none of the Tercels won the Formel, probably due in no small part to the raucous behaviour of the Geese, Cuckoos and Ducks.
As an aside, did you know that Charles Darwin had a go at eating owl? While at Cambridge University he was a member of the "Gourmet Club," which met once a week to eat animals not often found on menus. He found the old brown owl ‘indescribable’. I am thinking that any of us who frequented greasy spoon takeaways in the 1970’s and 1980’s probably consumed animals not normally seen on menus either. Unlike Darwin, we had the luxury of batter and curry sauce to disguise our brown owl.
As an erstwhile twitcher I respect the ‘clevericity’ of our winged comrades, like Rabbit in Winnie the Pooh, especially bespectacled and erudite ones like Owl. “You and I have brains,” he says. “The others have fluff.”
* African bird of prey
Copyright Berni Dwan 2014
