Mike Hennessy to speak on Belloc's great friend - Father Vincent McNabb OP...

Mike in a commanding position.

Following on from Mike's scintillating performance, last year, he has agreed to talk on Father Vincent McNabb OP next month. The address will be given at the Greencoat Boy's pub in Victoria, which is only five minutes walk from Victoria station. The date will be the 12th of November, commencing at 7.30 PM (sharp!). A Facebook event page has been created. If you are interested, please sign up.

Mike Writes:

Father McNabb was - with some notable exceptions, principally within his own Order - held in high esteem by his contemporaries, even by those such as George Bernard Shaw or the Webbs, founders of the socialist Fabian Society, who could have most been expected to dislike him. During Father McNabb’s life, G K Chesterton wrote of him, in the introduction to his, Father McNabb’s, book, Francis Thompson and Other Essays:

“Now I am nervous about writing here what I really think about Father Vincent McNabb for fear that he should somehow get hold of the proofs and cut it out. But I will say briefly and firmly that he is one of the few great men I have met in my life; that he is great in many ways, mentally and morally and mystically and practically... nobody who ever met or saw or heard Father McNabb has ever forgotten him.”

Hilaire Belloc, who was in many ways temperamentally similar to Father McNabb, wrote this about him after his death in the Dominican journal Blackfriars in 1943:

“The greatness of his [Father McNabb’s] character, of his learning, his experience, and, above all, his judgement, was altogether separate from the world about him... the most remarkable aspect of all was the character of holiness... I can write here from intimate personal experience [here, Belloc refers to Father McNabb visiting Belloc - at the latter’s request - immediately after the premature death of Elodie Belloc, his wife, in 1914] ... I have known, seen and felt holiness in person... I have seen holiness at its full in the very domestic paths of my life, and the memory of that experience, which is also a vision, fills me now as I write - so fills me that there is nothing now to say.”

Belloc on Milton...

James the II by Cornelius Johnson

I have increased the number of links, to Belloc's works, on my Blog. If you scroll down you will find them on the right hand side. I have a policy of promoting all of Belloc's works, irrespective of their quality and content. With this in mind, one of the new links will take you to James II. By his own admission this was not one of his weightier tomes. He wrote it in a hurry and for money. Whereas his book on Milton is, as A N Wilson rightly identifies (in my view), one of his best works. Even so, whilst Hilaire was clearly an admirer of Miltonic verse, he certainly had reservations about Milton's character.

Christoper Howse's Cautionary Tale...

''Rewriting Hilaire Belloc’s Cautionary Tales for the 21st century is the latest craze. A new collection, out this week, is directed at children. But I feel it is time that adults had a few cautions of their own. So here one is.''


Poppy - Whose addiction to social media led to general misery, except in Japan


The mobile phone, to Poppy Trend,

Had seemed to be her only friend.

In company or on her own,

She’d always fiddle with her phone.

While waiting in the bus-stop queue

She’d social network cud to chew:

New Facebook photos to inspect

And status updates to dissect

And, most of all, for Poppy Trend

The unknown people to Unfriend.

While settling in the last free seat

She’d text to say she couldn’t meet

The girls who’d messaged her to say

They’d meet up for a drink today.

While eating salad all alone

She snapped it with her camera phone

And emailed copies for the sake

Of those whose lunch she couldn’t make.


The only living person known

To breach her strict exclusion zone

Was on-off boyfriend, faithful Josh,

Whose Pa, Sir Monty, made his dosh

By heading up the powers that be

At Mega Media plc.

But Josh would never go so far

By focusing on his guitar –

And that of the acoustic kind.

His friends would say, “Well, never mind,”

When clips on YouTube failed to bring

Stampedes of fans to hear him sing.

And Poppy, keen to mix with stars,

Complained at dim and seedy bars,

Fetid and often underground,

Where Josh’s gigs were to be found.


So Poppy planned to have a row

One evening in the Purple Cow,

A beery tavern, some way down

From fashionable Camden Town.

Arriving late and tired and vexed,

She yelled: “Did you not get my text?

I said that I’d prefer to meet

In that new bar in Albert Street.”

But Josh’s battery was low,

And so of course he didn’t know.

But that was him all over, he

Had claimed no sort of mastery

Of smartphones, Facebook, texts or Twitter

While strumming in his small bed-sitter.

When Josh, abashed, had slunk away

For Poppy’s glass of chardonnay,

She sat with thumbs athwart her phone,

As was her wont when left alone.

Some more celebrities, that day,

Had by the judge been put away

For shocking crimes while placed among

The star-struck, vulnerable and young.

The TV showed their erstwhile fans

Jostling to bang their prison vans.



Like something from the Scottish Play

(As actors call it, so, they say)

Both Poppy’s thumbs began to twitch

For in her mind she had an itch

To tweet – it hardly mattered what;

They’d lap up anything she’d got.

Those thumbs had life in their own right,

Like Redgrave’s scene in Dead of Night

(To madness he’ll at last succumb – he

Is taken over by the dummy).

So Poppy’s demon drive’s complete:

Her thumbs, not she, began to tweet:

“Paedo? Sir Monty? [frowny face],”

And launched it into cyberspace.



Tweets were retweeted, gossip spread;

Much more was read than had been said.

The tabloids splurged, Newsnight went mad

The bloggers gave it all they had.

Next day Sir Monty shot himself.

Poppy was left upon the shelf.

There she remained and gathered dust

As narcissistic tweeters must.

But Josh, freed from paternal stress

Soon went abroad and found success,

In Japanese nostalgia clubs,

Which paid far more than London pubs.


Moral:



To those who are but virtual friends

It’s very hard to make amends.



Courtesy of the Daily Telegraph