Zornhau

Note to self: The dragon sequence in the Hobbit, though engrossing, is not very practical as a bedtime story...

A band reunion BBQ at the weekend. Like me, the bass player has more or less forsaken Rock and Roll for martial arts, in his case an Eastern hand-to-hand style ("Schezwan Kung Po"?), and also like me, he's a dad and loves it. However, he started earlier, so is able to have the following conversation with his eldest:


So, cairmen is right. The generation gap is dead. Dad plays a mean rock guitar, son plays drums. Both play World of Warcraft. That said, some things don't change.

It started well, with salmon_lord 's wedding anniversary party. Then, round midnight, there was a minor migration to the Royal Oak - a folk bar with a regular session, and a piano.

Give me a few beers, a piano, and a drunken audience, and I slip over into that other timeline where I chose Rock and Roll over swords. Thing is, though I can still play a good Jerry Lee Lewis, and get a rabble "singing" Shake Rattle and Roll, my fingers have lost their protective coating of mojo. I stripped the back of my right thumb playing glissando - that's where you flick the keyboard to produce that crashing down the keys effect - and one of the keys in the lower register must have had a sharp edge, so my left thumb has a patch of missing skin. Oh, and the pads of all my fingers ache - with Rock and Roll, the driller killer sound comes from a shoulder action, and I'm a hell of a lot stronger that I used to be.

Last orders came, so I left the bloodstained keyboard and made it to the door. A few paces into the night, and Russian Bear (from the German longsword class) steered our dwindling party into a Jazz bar where he knew the bouncer, another Russian. It cost to get in, and it was home time for me, so I tried to demur, but, "No. I pay. You come in and have other drink!" Then - surrounded by 12 year olds with beards digging the cool music played by other 12-year olds (yes, we were in the student area), we talked about War and Peace, and I heard what it was like to go through two revolutions.

Finally the Winged Hussar (another fencer) and I ran out of steam and made it out to street level, where we lent a very pissed Politics Graduate a mobile phone in exchange for his "career" plans. Considerably amused, we parted company, and thence to a taxi and home, with many glasses of water.

I woke to two children jumping up and down on me and the Mother of All Hangovers.

And the dice? Left overs from the party games at the start of the evening. When I saw them (looking as if they were) going spare, I thought of Kurtzhau and our wargames. I rather like this timeline.

"Why did they need warships, Daddy?" asks Kurtzhau (age 5).

On the way back from swimming, I mentioned that - in olden times - sailors couldn't always swim, which took us to press gangs, and Nelson's navy. Now I have to explain economic warfare. He already knows about merchants, and mercenaries, so after I explain tax, he quickly grasps that money is indeed the sinew of war.

"What happens," I ask, "if the merchants don't make money from their ships?"

He shrugs his shoulders. "Then government doesn't get its money and they can't pay for soldiers, and they lose the war."

"So," I prompt, Socratically, "If you were the French and you had a navy, how would you stop the British having soldiers?"

"Daddy, I have guys who speak British and I land them at night and they blow up the bases and kill the soldiers and break the guns and ammunition... and they also take the money."

"Darwin saved us, Daddy!" says Kurtzhau (aged 5).

"What...?" I say, and add mentally, ...the fuck?

I take a good luck at my son.

We've just watched the BBC documentary about "Ida", the 47-million-year-old monkey-lemur who might well have been on grooming terms with one of several missing links the Creationists are always saying we don't have.

And Kurtzhau's eyes are lit up like a little crusader.  It's a little scary.

Thing is, our atheism isn't a faith.

Darwin isn't some sort of ersatz prophet - which is why posthumous attacks on his reputation or certainty (did he make a deathbed repentance?) are so very thoroughly off target. He's just one of a line of thinkers that privileges evidence over faith, and refuses to shrug and claim ectoplasm oils the gears of the world.

So, for a few heartbeats I'm thinking: Has Kurtzhau picked up some Christianity from school, and created his own inverted mash up, and if so, how the hell are we going to untangle this and won't we look stupid in front of our more religious relatives who will be unbearably smug...

"I mean," says Kurzhau, "that Darwin saved us from having to believe in God."

"Well, there were atheists before Darwin," I say. "And I'm not even sure what Darwin believed in. But..." And we talk a little around how it helps to have good answers for when proselytisers come knocking on our brains.

Then. "Daddy. It makes me feel sad that Ida was six years old like me... But if they bring out a model of her, can we buy one?"

His eyes are still afire with the wonder of rain forests covering Germany, of volcanic lakes spewing deadly CO2, of a motley international band of paleontologists unravelling the ancient tragedy of a little girl with a maimed hand who suffocated and drowned a mere 20 million years after the dinosaurs.

And also, I think he's glimpsed the web of past, present and future. And his joy reminds me that I've seen it too.

No, we don't have  a religion. Why would we need one?

"Daddy!" announces Kurtzhau heading for my cupb... I mean executive study space. "Now it's time for us to see what that Roman General looked like with his arrow kit so we can do the big battle!"

"Who?"

"Besilarius," he says with great firmness.

"Oh, Belisarius...?"

"Yes, Daddy, the one on the walls of Rome who shot the Barbarian chieftain at the start of the battle that was like Helms Deep."

"OK..." I glance around my study. "He's really a Byzantine, though he would have thought of himself as Roman. I don't really have any Byzantine books. Let's look on the computer."

"Let's look for Buzzantin pictures, then." Kurtzhau cuddles up while I google...

Lots of Victorian pap. Some fat reenactors. Some grainy wargames figures and... "Oh my God. I forgot about this one!" And there it is, the famous mosaic of Emperor Justinian with - possibly - Belisarius at his right hand.

"Yes, yes," says Kurtzhau. "But I want to see him with his arrow set so I can do the battle with my Playmobil Romans."

We search a while longer, then I say, "I'm sorry - there just isn't anything. I don't think the Byzantines drew many pictures of their soldiers in action."

Kurtzhau considers. "Well, maybe Playmobil will do Bightsanta-ins..."

"Sorry. I think you're probably one of the few five year olds in the world who have the foggiest idea who they are!"

"Well, we'll turn our Romans into them anyway."

Oh Jesus! I think. I'll end up having to help him reverse the conversion - and that means sorting out about 60 confusion Imperial Legionaries. But I cannot lie to him. "You'd have to put pointy helmets on all of them, and give them round shields and long spears."

Kurtzhau shakes his head. "I'll wait until I'm older and not interested in Playmobil anymore then I'll have wargame soldiers and I can have Byzantines."

Phew!

He brightens, "Can you read me some Byzantine stories...?"

Kurtzhau (age 5): Now! Now! Now!

Me: Right that's it - you're pestering! I'm using my Daddy Jedi Mind Powers to take back that film we just watched. (I raise my hand to his forehead.) Woowoooowoooowo. Right, it's all gone.

Kurtzhau: What film?

Me: The one with the spaceships and swordfights. We both really enjoyed it, but I've taken it out of your head because you were so annoying.

Kurtzhau: But we never watched a film.

Me: Yes we did, but you can't remember it now because I used my Jedi powers.

Kurtzhau: You don't have Jedi Powers!

Me: I find your lack of faith disturbing. I'm taking the other film back.

Kurtzhau: What other film?

Me: The one with the Red Baron and the World War One tanks.

Kurtzhau: The Red Baron and tanks. Were there...? (Eyes narrow)  SHUT UP DADDY, STOP TALKING RUBBISH AGAIN!

You know the kind of family holidays that feature in flashbacks - all fuzzy around the edge, with children running in and out of focus, happy voices echoing down the years?

Well, we just had one, in what has to be the best holiday cottage in mainland Scotland.

We were in Kintyre, a stone's throw from Kilmartin Glen and Dunadd, in the middle of a critical mass of standing stones, ancient forts, and well fought-over castles.

Kurtzhau and I stood under the ramparts of Castle Sween, and saw the loch fill with the longships of the MacSween family. We watched their warriors batter at the gates, while men-at-arms tipped boiling water, crossbow bolts flew, and the Stewart knights prepared their counter-attack. Later, he and I took an evening walk from the cottage to find a fort. A smoke trail across the water became a raider's fire, and together we wove a tale of Celtic warriors.

And there was the wildlife! Kurtzhau spent the last three months watching David Attenborough documentaries. He managed to build a forest - the plastic trees just kept appearing  - carefully zoned for the wildlife; "This bit's the Rockies, daddy. These are pika, and that's a raccoon." Suddenly, he found himself walking across a landscape that looked like his bedroom floor, albeit without the out-of-scale animals - "Quiet everybody! I want to see a pine marten!"

Meanwhile, little Morgenstern discovered hens ("Cluck cluck!"), ducks ("Cluck cluck!"), sheep ("Baa baa!"), dogs ("Doggy!"), and chocolate ("More!"), and rode my back up the forest trails, singing a lala marching song that sounded oddly like highlights from the Imperial March.

And Fra Hau and I?

We marvelled at how much slower the holiday pace is with children. We used to blitz through an area, hoovering up everything - every stone in a field, every chunk of masonry with a history, every human mark on the landscape. Now our progress is a sedate slow migration, at a rate of one ancient place a day. 

But we don't care; we're herding before us our own contribution to future history, and it feels good not to be in a rush.

A few months back, Kurtzhau (aged 5) and I are playing one of those WWII computer games where you control Marines and Paras as they slog from Normandy to Berlin.

Kurtzhau yells, "Over THERE daddy. Get the big gun! Now! NOW!"

"Got it!" I spot the threat, and start to bring up the anti-tank gun. The interface is a bit much for him, but he seems happy for me to do the clicking.

Our speakers crackle and the study air fills with automatic weapon fire, shouts, cries, explosions. Ignoring the rumpus, I deploy the gun. It barks and the German halftrack goes "whoosh!" A few flaming figures escape to roll on the ground until a hail of bullets puts them out of their misery.

A second halftrack attacks from the other side and now I'm scrambling to bring the gun to bear, while the Marines call out for help.

Kurtzhau goes silent then says, "They can say naughty words, Daddy, because they're being shot at."

And for the first time, I actually listen to the patter from the little guys fighting and dying on our screen; "We're fucking dying over here! Bring up the fucking 88! Bastards! Where's that fucking gun..."

"Yes," I say. "But the in charge people aren't swearing, are they?"

Kurtzhau nods sagely. "No, Daddy. They're giving orders."  Then his eyes light up and he points. "Over there. In those trees, Daddy. GET THEM!"

Unlike most UK cities, Edinburgh has a middle class population in its very heart, crammed into the Victorian flats, and spilling out into the coffee houses, German bread shops and museums and galleries. This of course bumps up the house prices, which in turn creates an interesting unintended benefit.

In our particular area - broadly Bruntsfield - you can't really afford to raise a family unless (a) there are two of you, and (b) you're both successful at your job - not successful as in upper management of a financial institution, they all live over in the new town or commute from some rural mud pit where they keep horses and drive 4x4s.

Though emotional and professional success are not prerequisites for being sane and interesting company, there is a very good chance that happily married/partnered dads around 40 who are good at their jobs will have stuff in common, especially if those jobs make them knowledge workers; Bruntsfield's tatty but solid housing stock seems to be an attractor for academics, medics, geeks, designers, artists...

Thus it was that </a></font></b></a>gleisdreieck and I decided to gather up some of the local dads and strolled over to Brauhaus to male bond over an inordinate selection of German beers... dear God they had a chili beer (basically a bottle of lager with a chili pepper in it), and the ultimate, a smoked dark beer which is the best thing I've drunk since I ran out of the Finnish Reindeer Antler and Birch Tar flavoured Vodka Guy Windsor brought over from Finland.

Looking back through rather fuzzy hindsight, I think what happened was that the conversation made us revert to student mode, but with wallets and low alcohol tolerance of 35-45 year old men who rarely go drinking. The beer menu went round the table, the rounds went down easily and, gentle reader, we got thoroughly wasted.

We traded playful insults and off-colour jokes. Strangely enough, even without the layer of best behaviour that usually comes between fellow parents, we still liked each other.

The last shouts of the evening were, "Let's do it again next month!"  

At last, after a hectic three months, Kurtzhau and I found the time and energy to play one of our extended games of mayhem and adventure.

We got in the mood by watching the battle scene from Gladiator. I prepared Kurtzhau by discussing where the director found the actors - the Germans - I think - came from Glasgow, and how they did the special effects. I also pointed out the stirrups were wrong. "Maybe the designers copied the Playmobil catalogue," said Kurtzhau. (I have a horrible feeling he's right.)

While Fra Hau kept Morgenstern busy, we put on the Hans Zimmer soundtrack and settled down for some non-PC father-son quality time....
( Cert 15 )

On the way to school today, Kurtzhau said, out of the blue: "Daddy, you should write down the Marcellenius and Tertius stories for grownups. "

Bring me my broadsword....
---Jethro Tull, "Broadsword"

More than half a lifetime ago, in rooms where cheap joss sticks barely masked mingled adolescent musk and acrylic paint, we tried to ride our polyhedral dice into Fantasyland.

Jethro Tull provided both soundtrack and anthem for our exodus:

Tull - to the non-cognoscenti - is Clannad with testicles. Where Clannad wallows in clouds of Celtic Twilght(tm), Tull romps through the dry ice, swiving lusty wenches and collecting heads...

...or so it seemed to us. God knows, we didn't really listen to the lyrics. Back in the early 80s, it was enough to have somebody singing anything about broadswords. What we - I, at least - craved was the significance, the purpose, that went with the broadsword.

Alas, the dice, they tended to lodge against the garishly painted miniatures, catapulting the passengers back to grinding, frustrating, reality. But it was questing after that echo of significance that filled my bookshelves with grimoires and Howard reprints, diverted my academic path from the career certainty of the hard sciences, to the nebulous future offered by Medieval History.

If I am an aspiring swordsman and wannabe pulpster now, it is because of the false promise of those dice in those days, long ago, which is why I treated myself to a Tull CD.

Listening to the music took me back to my roots. Even as I grinned and bobbed my head to the beat, part of me looked on with the detachment of an archtectural salvage expert treading the creaking boards of a crumbling mansion. The joy is there, but not the urgency. Now I am no longer trying to ride my creativity, I can lead it to new and wilder places.

I do not regret for one moment the imaginative threads that took root in my teenage. However, if I had but listened to the lyrics, I might have more easily discovered what would ultimately let them flourish.

Here are the lyrics, with the bits we ignored highlighted:

And there is what the years have taught me, laid out where as a teenager I could have found it.

Significance and purpose is as easy as embracing hearth, home, kin, and clan.

These are all a man needs, and I have them. I do not need to defend them with a broadsword, but I would and I could, and so I find my contentment, not in the Middle Ages, but in my own middle age.

And, being a 5-year old boy, Kurtzhau's cake requirements were a little specific. "I want a tank birthday cake, but not  a modern tank but a World War One tank daddy, without the wheels - not a Mark I - and male not female with big guns on the side."

Unfortunately - as explained by Frau Hau - cake versions of diamond-shaped tracks and side-turrets would just collapse.

Also, nobody would know what the hell it was.

After some negotiation, Kurtzhau agreed that a WWII tank would be just as good, so we settled for the Churchill Mk I, for which we have the Airfix Model. It has nice charismatic wrap around track, but we had to upgun it because even back in the 1940s, that toothpick sticking out of the turret looked frankly pathetic. 

(Frau Hau did the technical stuff: To get the height, she made two pound cakes. She made butter cream icing to coat it. I did the cutting and covering. The tracks are biscuits alternating with chocolate fingers, using Oreos for wheels. The tracks don't go all the away round because they're sunk into the mud - more butter cream icing, but dusted with cocoa powder to take the gloss down so the whole think doesn't look like one shiny lump of goo.)

( More pics... )

You'll have to imagine Kurtzhau's smile when he saw the end result. Only thing is, next year he'll want a Sopwith Camel cake...

 FLASH!

A firework explodes over Edinburgh Castle.

Kurtzhau raises his sleepy head from my shoulder. "One... two... three... four... five..."

"BOOM!"

"GRRR! Splash!"

It's bathtime for Kurtzhau, which means time-travelling capers for his intrepid Playmobil adventurers, now heavily influence by Chased by Dinosaurs.

"Tyranosaurus is being a Liopleurodon."

And yes, Kurtzhau is still much enamoured of the terrifying Jurassic sea monster. It's not working very well - T-rex just doesn't have the same... aquatic menace. 

"Did you find me a Liopleurodon yet on the Internet Daddy?"

"Sorry," I say. "They just don't seem to sell them in the UK." Then I remember how my old mum used to make me dinosaurs out of foam and Evostic.

Five minutes with a sharp knife and some computer packaging:

Of course, then I couldn't get him out of the bath until "Nigel" and his men were safe. 

I flew the helicopter over and dropped a sack of coffee, hoping that the monster would eat it and go manic with comic effect.

Kurtzhau just kept the creature circling. "Do you knwo what it's doing, Daddy? It's stalking its prey. It wants meat."

So, gentle reader, I threw the Liopleurodon a cow. And while the monster thrashed around consuming its anachronistic snack, I rescued the little Playmoile guys, who sat sweating and shivering on the bath side, while atavism reigned supreme amongst the suds.

From time to time, Kurtzhau experiences St Paul-like moments of conversion. 

A German sorcerer has cast Kurtzhau’s Romans back to the Jurassic, where they’ve been abducted by a flying saucer. The aliens didn’t expect Marcellanus to be a magician, otherwise they wouldn’t have stored the weapons so close to the lockup…