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Charles Maxwell-House in the Clink!

Sir Charles Maxwell-House

Our plucky correspondent finds himself on the wrong side of the Law!

Life at Maxwell-House Towers has been so very hectic recently that I had feared I would not have time to pen even the briefest of updates on my latest discoveries with regard to the reading habits of the Great British Public. However, Dame Fate has intervened, and frankly there is little point in fighting the will of this oldest of biddies. As such, she has thrown me into circumstances most profoundly suited to the penning of a quarterly literary column: enforced solitude and quietude (although the chill breeze sweeping in under the heavy locked door is hardly aiding my concentration). 

This, dear reader, if you can bear to remain with me under such ignominious circumstances, is what has occurred. I arose early this morning for another hard day in the field, imagining, like every good Englishman, that I had the unofficial freedom of the city. I took only my quotidian essentials: a fine calfskin notebook, a round of veal sandwiches prepared by the good lady Mrs B____, and, of course, my trusty Snifter. My destination was the steep, unremitting banks of A___ P___ and its surrounding parklands. I had already spent the greater part of the week in this location keenly observing what I have noted to be the four key strains of outdoor reader, namely:

 

  1. The Student Reader: This fervent young thing will almost certainly be engrossed in an A-level set Romantic classic. The fluctuating passions which chase across the page must also wrestle plainly upon the Reader’s troubled visage before full understanding can be elicited. (The Middle-Class Unemployed or Thwarted Artiste/Writer can also be inserted into this category with few alterations.)

  2. The Lunch-Break Reader: A suspiciously stained paper will be held taut before him in defiance of any prevailing winds. In full frown, this material will be skimmed by the edgy Reader with great speed until, after a cursory glance at the time, he returns to reread certain extracts (page 3, mysteriously, proving especially popular).

  3. Reader Interruptus: Usually a mother tending her brood, this Reader hardly has time to find her place again before her irritating offspring distract her with another show of underdeveloped skill or concrete-inflicted injury. Progress is slowest of all in this type of Reader.

  4. Pensioners: anytime, anyplace, anywhere, these doughty types use their unfilled days to prove the most flexible and persistent of all outdoor Readers.

  5. The ‘Reader’: A new strain over which I am still puzzling. Approaching a bench armed with a volume or newspaper, this ‘Reader’ surreptitiously peers over the folios – the subject of his gaze being either female sunbathers or the middle distance – and waits. Occasionally another will join him for the briefest of moments; a fumbling package (which rarely looks book-shaped) may even be exchanged. On approaching one such character to question him I was not five yards away before he roared, ‘Fuck off granddad! You can’t sit here.’ Alarmed, I beat a hasty retreat, but not without noting his chosen tome: a Renault 19 car manual. Interesting.

 

As the sun began to fade the crowds dwindled, but despite extreme fatigue I decided to stay on to watch for literary stragglers. It may be justly posited, indeed it could be fully supposed, that I took one too many swigs from dear old Snifter. Whatever the facts of the case, it was extremely dark when I was finally roused by a rather rough shaking from the Hand of the Law. (I hadn’t seen a Reader for several hours although the light from the streetlamps would have been ample for the perusal of most volumes.) 

I had to concede to myself that I had dropped off and my position on being awakened can only be described as supine. These two fresh-faced Officers of the Law were quick to inform me they had been watching me all week and demanded I explain myself. I promptly did so, proffering my notebook as evidence of my literary activities. Its production, however, only seemed to render me the more suspicious. The first, a slim and quite pleasant looking fellow, confiscated it on suspicion of my being a pervert and suggested it was clear I was loitering with intent. I said I certainly was. Averring he had every right to ‘slap an ASBO on me’, my polite request for a translation was ignored and instead I was roughly helped to my feet. Struggling, I shouted out that to the best of my knowledge loitering in public parkland for literary purposes was not currently a crime (although I had to concede, via a muttered apostrophe, that it is hard to keep up with civic legislation these days).

My protests were to no avail and the waiting van housed several undesirables who taunted me re: my tweed deerstalker throughout the short journey to the local police station. Entering the cell where I learnt I was to be kept for the night – despite mentioning that I could be found in Debrett’s and was certifiably of the Maxwell-House lineage – I noticed the words ‘drunk and dissorderly’ scrawled in capitals on my notes. I must concede that, despite the prevailing impression of illiteracy and practical incompetence, Her Majesty’s Officers did see fit to provide me, on request, with a plastic biro and a single sheet of A4 paper.

Having heard the heavy cell door slammed and then locked immutably behind me, and on seeing the sharp anonymous eye of the Night Officer briefly flick into view, I tried to call on Literary Heroes for inspiration. Did not Godwin’s Caleb Williams use his time in stinking incarceration and solitude to explore the far and noble recesses of his memory and learning? Surely I could do the same? However, without Snifter to prompt me, and it now being the early hours, I found that I could summon nothing of inspiration. Rather I can only remember the good man’s words on first entering Newgate:

Oh how enviable is the most tottering shed
under which the labourer retires to rest,
compared with the residence of these walls!

I recalled how he would trace in his mind every corner of his abode to exercise his faculties and began to imagine, with almost hallucinogenic clarity, my Regency oak bed and the finest Egyptian cotton sheets that Mrs B____ would have laid out so faithfully this evening. I confess, gentle reader, that at this moment I emitted a rather unmanly sob and decided the best thing for it was to get some kip.

So, having penned these rather ragged thoughts, I will now lie down upon the humble pallet provided. (The small hard bunk reminds me of my army days and is not so bad.) I hope that I will soon be at large again to continue my entirely innocent studies and place my fervent trust in the scales of Justice that I shall not be condemned to observing the reading habits of the criminal population. (Although now I come to think of it, this could be interesting and is, to the best of my knowledge, largely uncharted territory.)

Yours,

Charles Maxwell-House

 

[I am pleased to report that Sir Charles was released at first light after prisoners complained of his heavy snoring and requested his eviction at the earliest possible hour. Despite his traumatic experience, he was able to consume a hearty breakfast at Her Majesty’s Pleasure. – Ed.]