LWG Prompt for 05-11-2019:

“Explosive Possibilities.”

I wasn’t sure what to write for the prompt ‘Explosive Possibilities’ – in fact, I had the barest scattering of any ideas at all upon the subject.

So… I left it… for a week. For two weeks. For nearly ‘three’ weeks.

And, then, I started writing.

Then, I stopped.

Then, I considered whether I should write ‘sensible’ or ‘silly’.

Not much discussion inside my head to be had there.

So, it’s silly. It’s nearly always silly.

And so I give you (for what it’s worth):

‘Silly Explosive Possibilities.’

There was this guy, named Guy (or Guido, if you prefer) who was a bit of a wiz when it came to the world of explosives. He was a Cataholic. Which was not a good thing to be in the early Jacobean era: James the First (Jacobus Prima) was a lover of soft fruit, translating Bibles, and writing naughty Limericks – I may have made that last one up to fit the list to the ‘rule of three’.

‘There once was a king, name of James,

Who lived in a house by the Thames;

He was a Stewart, you know;

Back to Scotland, wouldn’t go;

and his house, almost went up in flames –

because of the Gunpowder Plot, as you like it as not.’

That wasn’t one of his naughty ones.

‘There once was a lady from Troon…’

No, no…

“There was a young man hailed from Glamis;

Who covered his body in jams—“

No, that’s not suitable for present company.

“There was a young lady from Buckie;

Who was always—

I can say no more of that one.

Anyway, getting back to this guy, Guy (or Guido) it seems (from my small amount of research) that he was also a bit of a drinker – he certainly liked ‘rolling out the barrel’, and, importantly to the narrative of this tale (sorry, this historical account) he liked cats. Well, it also seems that he got in with a bad crowd, a fanatical group of cat-aficionados, who were well unhappy about James the King, and his ‘not’ ‘liking’ ‘cats’ – at least they didn’t know about his grandson’s future ‘liking’ ‘of’ ‘dogs’, – that would really have rattled their… well, rattles.

So, we return to Guy and his antics; which were: being the ‘go-to-guy’ when any wrong-doing needing doing (not that he did the doing wrong, oh, no); he was proficient (and pretty darn good – but, not pretty darn good looking -he was pretty darn good at darning, too) in sourcing all manner of powders (washing, baking, gun, and so on) in quantities not to be sneezed at; and, you should never sneeze when you are around gun-powder, as it is very vol-au-vent and could explode in your face with the slightest encouragement.

Back to the story.

The telling of history is often written by the victors, and biased towards them, and against those defeated, as in the cases of William the Conker, Henry the Seventieth, Oliver The Crumb, and then immediately rewritten by those that followed them, as in the case of William Roofless, Henry the Ate-To-Much, and Victor-Victoria, the ‘I’m as wide as I am tall’ monarch who reigned until she stopped reigning, and her son came out (but, not in that way – allegedly).

But, that is ‘other’ history. We are focusing (albeit very loosely) on the events of the Earl of Seventeenth. Century.

The early seventeenth century, is what I meant. The threat of the Spanish Armadillo had long faded into the annals of time, whereby the Spinach Inquisition was a thing that was very real to a lot of Protesting warships that were docked in harbours in England, Holland, Grimsby, and the Newt World.

Back to the Fifth of November, sixteen hundred and six, and there is a very simple rhyme to help you remember this date:

“The Day a Fox Nearly Blew Up Parliament”

‘The Day was a Tuesday;

when the Lords were supposed to blow up;

the plotters’ plot was foiled on a Monday;

one day before,

(not four);

remember ‘this’ rhyme,

if you ‘ever’ have the time.’

which poem is, even today, taught to the small children at all the major universities, the length and breadth (or width, if you prefer) of the land.

Hoops! And this is the bit where I try to recite the continuation of the story whilst walking the dogs… because what could possibly go wrong there.

Spoiler alert: after the failed plot, King James the first day the first day the first day Thursday the first day the thirsty know the thirsty thank you decided do you have pictures drawn of the plotters the pictures with and cut into 4/4 and hung in galleries around London and hand and galleries around London straight enough none of the pictures had hence so you couldn’t really tell who was home or who with who apart from their initials which were embroidered onto there I am jackets shall we say GF Prosam Paul was Guy Fawkes and GS was goalscorer I am and this is How the cat a Hollick netball team gained their notoriety.

(… don’t you just hate it when the ‘auto-correct’ function on your phone autocorrects-corrects’ something that you wanted to write incorrectly).

Perhaps I should wait until I finish the dog walk before continuing.

Here, I am; and not a dog-walk in sight – by the way, is a dog-walk different time a cat-walk? and, come to think of it, what is a cake-walk

I’ll translate that previous section for you:

Spoiler Alert: After the failed plot, King James the Thirsty decided to have pictures drawn of the plotters, the pictures were then cut into four and hung in galleries around London, although none of the pictures had heads, so nobody could tell who was whom, or whom was who, apart from them having their initials embroidered onto their jackets, GF was for Guy Fawkes, and GS was Goal Scorer, and this was the Cataholic Netball Team destined to be remembered for all of posterity.

The Plot for the whole caper was discovered when a Christmas Card to the 4th Baron Monteagle was sent with the PostScript: Sending this early, Nuncle, as busy blowing up the inflatable House of Parliament at the moment.

Guy Fawkes may have died… I think that that is the case, as no records of his having lived after 16-0-5 have been found… but his memory… probably died with him – I know not how the brain works.

And, to finish with a bang?

Hold on, is that the King or Queen’s Royal Loyal Men running up the stairs that I hear, with their fire extinguishers primed ready for action? And are they all too closely followed by the King or Queen’s Royal Loyal Bomb Squad?

I told Catesby it was too early to send out his Crimbo cards!