Dr Livingstone I presume

Well done! After years of fruitless search, that final corner turned as you followed the promised moonbeam has in fact led you to the blog equivalent of Paradise! Read on.....

Tuesday 16 January 2007

Synopsis

Good afternoon there everyone (well it was when I started)

And you did ask for it!

In his 1983 book The Intelligent Universe, astronomer Fred Hoyle wrote the following infamous passage:

"A junkyard contains all the bits and pieces of a Boeing 747, dismembered and in disarray. A whirlwind happens to blow through the yard. What is the chance that after its passage a fully assembled 747, ready to fly, will be found standing there? So small as to be negligible, even if a tornado were to blow through enough junkyards to fill the whole Universe."

So it’s now time to place my ante on the green baize of CQN, expose my attempts at stringing together a junkyard of verbs, subjects, objects, adjectives (by the million) and a myriad of other word classifications, hopefully building the monumentally improbable Jumbo-jet in the process.

As I say however, it is but the ante, the opening gambit, played with the bottomless black eyes of the rogue shark hiding the delights that lie in the shielded hand of cards.

I will attempt to show you the shape, perhaps a hint or two at the interior, maybe a glimpse at the crew, but to keep to myself for the moment the aerodynamic secrets that will allow it to fly! But will it fly? Do I have a flush of the unbeatable royal persuasion, or one that is irredeemably busted?.

Whether you are interested or not in those missing bits and possibly the bits left over (which have plagued me since my earliest attempts at Airfix) is entirely up to you.

I think that should be enough analogous metaphors for the moment!

Therefore, here it is and I accept no responsibility for placing it here, as it was at a number of your behests that I do this.

If you were not one of these foolhardy starshippers, I have put the body of the story on a separate website. I will provide the link shortly. If even then you read it and feel that your comments would in the normal course of events lead to summary deletion by Paul, then please confine the comments to that alternative web-site.

Also, please be aware that though this effort does try to encompass real life and as such contains what I would term ‘a modicum’ of everyday earthy language and scenarios. (Another reason for not putting it on here.)

Now to the synopsis and judgment day. As you, the gods of the CQN, await as a lion salivating at the prospect of a freshly prepared Christian, I can only make a plea for your mercy and compassion.

The book is entitled Stealthily Stalks The Lion’

(Yes it has been changed since last night when it was to be called ‘The Cross Our Andrew Bore’ but perfection like evolution takes some time in its distillation, and no doubt it will transmute at least another 100 times.)

The background (not an impartial account nor is it meant to be)

300 years ago to this very day a group of self regarding, egotistical, money-grabbing traitors put their initial seal to a Beelzebubian bargain that would have gave Faust and his pact the aura of gentleman’s handshake.

As the undertakers screwed down the coffin lid and consigned Scotland’s independent existence to what they considered as the midden of historic curiosity, without even a passing acknowledgement of the centuries of struggle they took both first the Danegeld and then their heels to the estates, manors, and aristocratic brothels of the south.

In their mad dash to avoid the betrayed and raging crowds they forgot one thing.

A house built on such weak and fragile foundations will irrespective of the façade, eventually collapse.

Robert Burns memorably described this cabal as a ‘parcel of rogues’ but with no intention of denigrating that master of poetry and imagination, I think he did a disservice to the real depths which these quislings would go.

For surely no parcel has ever reeked with such a stench nor did those that hastily and greedily signed that incorporating treaty give a damn about how its parchment would ultimately be stained with blood of those who new that we and the talent of our nation had been sold for a Judas’s purse!.

Perhaps the souls of those whose names were hardly dry on the deeds of infamy would linger in purgatory until the day when once again Scotland could look the world in the eye as a free standing people, sing our own songs of history, look upon statues erected in recognition of our own heroes and bestow honour on those who had brought honour to our country

And so to the premise and the fiction


The fiction (or is it??)

Please note that what follows comprises a lot of suppositions. Some, all or even none may be relevant by the time the final draft satisfies my fevered imagination!

Let’s suppose for the moment that there existed in 1707, one man of extraordinary God-granted vision. Suppose this was a man to whom Scotland and its future place in the world meant everything, and who knew that the only way that that place and the rightful independence would achieve a solid permanence would be if paradoxically the corrupt creation of a union by threatened force was actually allowed to go ahead and apparently succeed.

Suppose this man cared not for how long it would take and only had concerns for the fact that it would be achieved, but who was acutely aware that the failure of the vote for the union would mean the laying waste to vast tracts of Scotland, its people, and perhaps for ever more, its potential for autonomy.

Suppose this man could see that on principle it was vital that clan uprisings must also happen but that they must also fail while still providing a smokescreen to the real intentions of the hand-picked carriers of the flame.

Suppose that the fuse that lit the Scottish enlightenment was the product of this one visionary’s ambitious strategy.

Suppose this was the man who sparked the fire of industry that transported men from Scotland to every nook and cranny of the earth’s land mass, taking with them the power of their minds, the labour of their hands, and the willingness of their ears, to eventually return to their native sod with whatever talents they had gone with multiplied a hundred fold.

Suppose planted in the ranks of supposed unionists lay the fertile seeds of free thinking proud Scots folk and families.

Suppose that within each strand of the strategy, there were those who still saw their health and wealth tied up with the English crown and establishment and would do anything to protect it!

Suppose that all these things were understood, controlled and directed by at first this one man, that only he knew the whole picture and that those brave men, great minds, orators, academics and thinkers, pioneers, explorers and men of one God or the other knew nothing about the other parts of the plan or sometimes even their part in it!.

Suppose that this message and this web of intrigue was passed father to son, father to daughter, daughter to son.

Suppose at last 300 years later, the conditions seemed ripe for that final push into the unknown but one that if it was successful would yield the permanent restoration of Scotland- the country.!

Suppose that diversion after diversion had to occur again, where those causing the diversion believed that they were in the vanguard of change and not just a ruse to hide the real intention.

Suppose that all those erosions of Civil liberties (ID Cards, trial without jury, detention without trial, centralised health, citizen, and police records, mandatory DNA retention, anti-terrorism legislation), all those things that we are told not to fear if we are good ‘subjects’, suddenly were used against us!

Suppose in an eruption of disobedience, rebellion and violence, alliances of forces across the Celtic lands pooled their knowledge and harmonized their ambitions, confrontation loomed and troops appeared on the streets of Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee, and Aberdeen.

Suppose as faction and strand of that long held strategy, believing themselves as the one true holder of the torch of freedom, surfaced to argue, shout down campaign and plead each other to see the folly of their tactics.

Suppose as bloodshed, and the breakdown of law and order becomes commonplace, from the depths of a country verging on the ungovernable by the incapable, one man emerges from the cordite of conflict to salve the wounds, calm the waters and bring hope for an ordered future.

Suppose there is a price to pay for his efforts and that that price has been held in his ancestors’ safekeeping for 300 years.

Suppose that this was the only person alive who was aware and always had been aware of this outcome

Now suppose also that in all those three centuries, the ‘message’ was not only carried by each of the selected trusted emissaries. Suppose that the spirits of those who had gone before continue to watch over the unfolding vista, their hands tremulous as they realise that though their inspiration had been a gift all those years ago, they had no influence over how events would unfold and the path that future history would take.

All they could do now was sit behind that gossamer of dreams that lay between their peace harmony and unity, and the earthly maelstrom, able only to give of their will and courage that would allow their champions to see the task through to whatever its end would be.


Suppose it is within that phenomenon that lies the power of prayer!


So my friends at CQN, I have above laid out the threads that I think and hope are woven into my own little literary effort.

Having now completed the romantic notions that ebb and flow within my sad excuse for a stable psyche, it might be worth mentioning a few words on the structure.

Prelude – In common Cause (Couple of pages on Scotland and its roots)

Prologue – In Mammon’s cause (Couple of pages on a key moment in Scottish vs Anglo friction)

BOOK 1
a) Chapter 1 15th January 1707
b) Chapters 2- 5 (subject to redraft) take us up to 1746

Book 2
a) Chapter 1 – 2nd May 1997
b) Chapters 2- 10 (subject to redraft) take us up to end of 2007

Epilogue – No telling you!

I will put out over next day or so 1 and 2.

3a is in final stages of 4th draft. Should be available on Thursday or Friday.

The rest is for some publishing dream of the future. It may of course end up consigned to the midden of inglorious history just like the TRUTH of what really will happen and where the Lion That Stalks Stealthily, as it feeds on its succulent Christian, can ponder on what went wrong!

Can I just say that I have not written the last chapter and even I don’t know how it is going to turn out!

Hail hail

Estadio

p.s. I have not of course indicated above exactly where the Celtic Football involvement in all of this actually occurs. That may because I want it to be a surprise, or because there isn’t one!

4 comments:

Celtic_First said...

Esteemed Estadio

I congratulate you for your nimbleness of thought. Your planned unravelling of the tale seems very interesting to me and I shall be checking back regularly to read the new installments.

Scotland, where my people, like yours perhaps, came to live after fleeing hunger in Ireland in the mid nineteenth century is a funny wee place right enough. But it's our home, and it's a much better place for being the home of Celtic and of many Celtic fans, amongst whom you are far from the least worthy of the compliment. Far, far from it.

More power to your pen.

PJBhoynyc said...

Estadio.

The roots and consequences of the Darien Moonbeam is a priceless lesson for us all. How sad that most no nothing of this linchpin in the evolution of our identity.

Thankyou for posting that tantalising titbit from your Labour of Love.

The subject matter is a fascinating, tragic, narrative containing all that is good and bad in the human spirit.... See me, I love history.

But to quote Ursula K. Le Guin:
'The story is not in the plot but in the telling.'

You are a storyteller Estadio....And a Wordsmith....And a Teacher. Keep doing what you were born to do....Looking forward to the next course with relish

PJBhoy who will chant the following mantra at Yoga this Spring .

Estadiosbookcoverwillhaveflaps....

Estadiosbookcoverwillhaveflaps...

Ulysses McGhee said...

Estadio,

I am reminded of the notion of God's Debris (That God exploded himself and is slowly through time pulling the pieces together - through technology etc).

I see a disparate nation, far flung - learning to find its way back together within your synopsis.

And I am often stumped and near to tears when confronted with the question and tangibility of freedom.

A strong task set and a brave journey undertaken - I wish you luck and Godspeed.

U.

Greenlion2 said...

Estadio I agree with pjbhoynyc it is a part of our history which not many know about including myself until a number of years ago.

I could feel myself reading faster as i went through your script (I dont know if that is the correct word) to get to the next line.

Excellent work and wish you all the best GL2.

PS what are you hanging about for get the rest posted.