The Secret Life of the Spanner Fairy
16 June 2014
Hello chums.
Sorry it's been a while, but now that the winter is almost over and we've returned to Lefkas after our peregrinations all over Europe I've finally managed to get back to this.
During our relaxing stay in Portugal I had a lot of free time as it was impossible to do any work - the boat was nearly 3000 kilometers away and therefore impossible to work on. Due to the enforced idleness I was able to apply myself to a few esoteric problems such as how does cat hair defy the law of conservation of matter? and what is the command structure on Birvidik? I've had to admit defeat on the former, but I have finally solved the latter:
The Command Structure on Birvidik
(in descending order of importance, power and authority)
The Bloody Cat
Liz
Visitors, hangers-on and passing itinerant knick-knack vendors
Assorted vermin
Me
Cockroaches
However, I do have my uses. To explain this, though, I must first wander off onto a little digression on the idiosyncrasies of the Jersey legal system.
Jersey rather quaintly retains an ancient legal injunction of restraint known as the Clameur de Haro. Should someone be doing you wrong, say building an outside privy on your front lawn, selling your wife and children into white slavery or sub-letting your porch to Nigel Farage, you can invoke the Clameur.
To do this you need two witnesses, a good memory, a talent for archaic languages and a very high embarrassment threshold. First, go to the site of the alleged wrongdoing, fall to your knees, take your hat off (very important that) and raise your right hand in the air. Following this you must recite the Clameur in a loud, clear voice. Oh, by the way, it has to be in Old Norman French:
Haro! Haro! Haro! A l'aide, mon Prince, on me fait tort.
(Hear me! Hear me! Hear me! Come to my aid, my Prince, for someone does me wrong.)
As if that's not embarrassing enough, you then have to recite the Lord's Prayer, also in Norman French:
Notre Père qui est aux cieux. Ton nom soit sanctifié. Ton règne vienne. Ta volonté soit faite sur la terre comme au ciel. Donne-nous aujourd'hui notre pain quotidien. Et nous pardonne nos offenses, comme nous pardonnons à ceux qui nous ont offensés. Et ne nous induis point en tentation, mais délivre-nous du mal.
If you think that's bad enough, be thankful you're not in Guernsey. Over there you have to say Grace afterwards as well (in Norman French, naturally). If you do it right, though, the alleged miscreant has to stop what (s)he's doing immediately on pain of a stiff talking to and a fine. The most recent successful Clameur was in the 1980s when a Wayne Le Marquand had to pay a 10 pound fine for ignoring one. Mind you, they also hit him with 500 quid in legal fees.
Growing up in Jersey and being exposed to all this medieval eyewash throughout her formative years has had its effect on Liz. She may have finally given up believing in Father Christmas, but she retains a touching and poignant faith in the existence of The Spanner Fairy, who can be invoked in a similar procedure.
Should a technical problem arise, or (more likely) should she decide that certain technical, structural or cosmetic improvements on the boat are desirable, she invokes The Spanner Fairy with a specific mantra. With minor variations according to exact circumstances and demands, this runs roughly along the following lines:
Firstly, she stands in a prominent part of the boat and says out loud, but to no one in particular:
"I've had an idea."
or
"I think we should xxxxx".
or
"Wouldn't it be good if xxxxxx"
or
"What this boat really needs is xxxxx"
Note that none of these mantras give any indication of exactly how these desiderata are to be achieved or by whom. She then retires from supplicant mode and goes about her daily business, confident in the sure and certain knowledge that The Spanner Fairy will materialise in due course and fulfill her wishes. Which, of course, it eventually does.
Depending on the exact nature of the repair or construction desired, this invocation can take weeks to work but, with patience and application, it almost invariably succeeds. The ceremony rarely works first time, unless the favour asked is particularly minor or particularly threatening. Sudden and rapid ingress of water for example rarely needs a second calling, whereas the fitting of even more hooks for bloody jewellery might be shunted down the list to a position somewhere between repositioning the paper towel dispenser six millimetres to the left & varnishing the u-bend in the forward heads.
Ian Duncan-Smith needs Liz - she's a one-woman job creation scheme
p.s. You will see from the position map (you can zoom in with the google earth option) that Birvidik is on the move again. Expect another update soon.