Posted @ 15:12Zen and the Art of Walking into Lampposts

[I have been brought to task and unmercifully bullied for failing to honour my earlier promise to make a post every day in this blog. I could argue that it was as much a promise as the contents of an election manifesto (on the grounds that I didn't actually use the word "promise" and the piece was more a utopian allegory than a commitment to action); I could also argue that I have actually thought of writing a blog post every day and only the execution of the act was missing. I could argue these things - and perhaps should have done last night, Mark, when you were bullying me - but I won't. Instead I'll get on with the subject in hand.]

Introduction

Too few people these days cultivate the art of walking into lampposts. If something is not done, we risk a future ignorant - except from anecdote - of this ancient and worthwhile pastime. It has been suggested that at the start of the 21st Century that such activities are outdated and useless. Such attitudes - rejecting the rich heritage of our common culture - are responsible for much of the decay and debasement of our civilisation. It is time that we drew a line in the sand and said: "No more!". We need to defend this noble art from the do-gooding, pinko, liberal, euro-loving anarchists who would drag our proud civilisation from the glorious impacting of vertical objects placed in our path to a sterile future where everyone walks along the street undamaged.

This is the first step: a quick guide the techniques and terminology of walking into lampposts. I am writing to the leaders of all the important political parties (UKIP, whatever the one run by Robert Kilroy-Silk is called today, Empire Loyalists, Countryside Alliance) as well as the not-so-important ones which seem to get all the publicity and parliamentary seats, urging them to make this issue a central plank of their campaigns in the coming election. I intend to write a book (working title: "The Da Vinci Strange Art and Practice of Walking into Lampposts in the Dark, Shoots and Leaves Code") which will be as iconoclastic as it is erudite. I have been promised funding for a film which will make Michael Moore look like a fat American making documentaries.

Enough of the future. On with the present!

Origins

The origin of the word "lamppost" is not as blindingly obvious as one would first suppose. The etymologically naive suppose it to be a simple compound of "lamp" and "post". Whilst such a derivation has its charms (folk-etymology is another traditional pastime that is being assaulted by the commissars of political correctness) it is somewhat at odds with the facts.

In Middle English a "lempe-poste" was a Kentish dialect term for an undecorated maypole ("Ystanding neath the lempe-poste a ye corner a ye Fleete" - Chaucer; The Knight's Cousin's Manservant's Tale) and the variant "limpe-pastch" is recorded all over Britain from Scotland (in a land grant charter of 1342) to Cornwall (in a tin mine deed of 1091).

The word is recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles ("clempen-pos", 756; "iclempen-past", 665; and "iclampe-pos", 559) in the apparent sense of a pole erected for the display of the genitals of the enemy but not used yet (from the roots "geclempen" - to castrate - and "aposte" - later). However, there is a contemporary Norse phrase, "englempe-pask" (recorded only in a heavily annotated and badly copied manuscript of "Egil's Saga"), which appears to mean a tree-trunk used to support an oil lamp whilst decapitating the enemies who want to chop your balls off. It is not certain whether Norse borrowed from Anglo-Saxon or visa versa.

These examples serve to resolve the confusion as to whether walking into a tree is the same thing as walking into a lamppost. The answer is certainly that this is only the case when the tree has been prepared to perform some other function other than simply keeping its leaves above ground.

It will be noted that none of the historico-linguistic references to this word contain any allusions to alcohol or intoxication. This should not be taken as to lessen the importance of the consumption of large quantities of inebriating liquids before, during and after the act of walking into a lamppost (after all, these traditions are long established even if unrecorded in our sources). However, it does rather separate the art of walking into lampposts from another traditional countryside pursuit with which it is often, mistakenly associated: that of driving your car at high-speeds whilst drunk and writing it off by crashing into a tree. Alarmingly, there are people who disapprove of even this, most harmless, of rural traditions.

History

The earliest recorded reference to walking into lampposts as a country art is, of course, in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream (in the so-called Sham Folio of 1631):

"Well it becomes you Bottom, to walk along these streets and roads
Your mind bemeshed with ale and sack; and in want of stubbing toes
Or falling in the ditch or screaming at some imagined ghost
You shake your head and walk into some pole or handy lamppost"
Act IV, Sc. 3;

As can be seen, the association between the consumption of quantities of alcohol and walking into lampposts is well-established by the time of the Bard. Whilst the above is the most obvious reference in Shakespeare's work to walking into lampposts, one must not overlook two other, possible, references to the art:

"Brutus, 'ware the pole, least you look a fool"
Julius Caesar; Act I Sc. 5;

"I have heard the chimes at midnight
Walked home late and when woken
Found a lumpen egg upon my pate
From collision with the maypole"
Henry IV, Part 2; Act III, Sc. 2;

Falstaff's words firmly connect the lamppost and the maypole as indicated by the etymology. Finally, there is Shakespeare's description of his first sight of his "Dark Lady" in the sonnets: "Like with an elmpost smacked". There is good reason to equate "elmpost" and "lamppost", especially in light of the Anglo-Saxon "clempen-pos" described above.

Christopher Marlowe may have been referring to the art when, in a letter to Walsignham from Bruges, he describes the Spanish preparations for a possible invasion of Britain as:

"They be ill-prepared, these Spanish could not organise a walk-i'-the-pole day."

Given the evidence from the 18th and 19th Centuries (see below) of organised walking into lamppost contests in Cumbria, we should not be too hasty in dismissing this as a reference.

During the Puritan Parliamentarian Commonwealth of Oliver Cromwell, walking into lampposts was banned as a "useless and Popish pastime for the pleasure of the ignorant poor". With the return of the monarchy under Charles II, the law was repealed and the art returned to its normal part of the national consciousness. There are indications that the ban by parliament had little effect. There is a rumour (unfortunately not recorded until the 18th Century) that Cromwell himself was an aficionado of the practice and had a secret walking into lampposts room built in the cellars of the Houses of Parliament whereto he would retire after a long day imposing dour-faced, pleasure-denying laws on the English.

In the 18th and 19th Centuries, the art of walking into lampposts became firmly embedded in the national consciousness with the establishment of various annual competitions. James Boswell's memoirs include a reference to one such event, in Penrith, which implies that the celebration had been in existence for some time:

"Mr Johnson joined me on my journey north in that month. We detoured and dallied in order to appreciate more of the English countryside in May... ...at Penrith, we were lucky to find the Annual Pole Day, said to have been invested on the town in the first Charles' time, where the young men showed us their prowess at this ancient sport. Over dinner with Mr Tucker, a local brewer, I asked Mr Johnson what he thought. He replied to the effect that it gave him as much pleasure as banging his head against a brick wall."

Although such events continued into the 19th (and, in the case of the Pole & Wall Fayre of Whitehaven, into the early 20th) Century, they were progressively gentrified and the lampposts became little more than symbolic. The rougher, more traditional, forms continued amongst the rural population but in a less formal manner. Following the First World War, the practice became less and less common as an organised sport, especially in the southern parts of the Kingdom. But the tradition never totally died out in any place and seemed to continue amongst all classes of persons. As late as 1963, Phillip Larkin could observe:

"Since I came north to Hull
I have found the lampposts
Harder and more shocking
Than the lampposts of my home"
Just Another Whinge; Lines 112 - 115;

Techniques

The three basic techniques of walking into a lamppost have remained remarkably unchanged throughout the millennia. They are designed to reflect the three basic requirements of a successful "lamppost-body conjunction event" (as the scientists have designated it): nonchalance; surprise; and pain. All of these are possible whilst sober but drunkenness enhances the experience:

• Method 1: Progressing along the street, talking happily (but not necessarily entertaingly or knowledgeably) to a colleague about the scenery or architecture and turning suddenly to point out a particularly interesting geomorphic feature or flying buttress and colliding with the lamppost. (There is a variant of this technique in which both participants collide with lampposts, but this should not be attempted by novices.)
• Method 2: Walking alone, head-bowed (in depression or against the intelligent sort of rain that no matter which direction you walk always travels horizontally straight into your face), humming a tune (or talking gibberish under your breath), you look up and slam into the vertical obstruction.
• Method 3: (In groups of three or more.) Turning to berate your friends about some trifling little point of procedure or information, turning round in triumph at a point well-made and walking straight into the lamppost.

It has recently been observed (last night, in particular, Della), that various people seem to imagine that stopping suddenly in front of the lamppost (or other pole) and thus avoiding the collision, is some sort of achievement raising the level of your performance. Nothing could be further from the truth since this avoids the third - most important - of the requirements of the art: pain.

Afterword

Pedants may wonder where the Zen is in the above survey. As is well known, pedants are very bad at Zen and therefore would not notice it if they walked into it (they are also bad at walking into lampposts). The Zen is there; just look for it.