Author: CalvertonNotts

Husband, parent, writer and performer, licensed lay minister in training, occasional blogger and purveyor of random.

HIM

Posted on by CalvertonNotts in Bible, Politics, Social Justice, USA
  • Simultaneously published on simoncarterstuff.uk – my faith, spirituality and social justice blog.

FOR THERE TO BE A DAY. One precious day, where by some wondrous miracle of God, some singular phenomenon of science, some delicious enchantment of magic, all humanity were to wake, having forgotten who he was. Forgotten all he’d ever said. All he’d ever done.

All hurt he’d ever caused, reversed. Each deceitful, hateful, spiteful word, unuttered. Each defiled, corrupted, shattered thing, made new and whole. As if he had never been.

And no image of him, film of him, sound of him, anywhere to be found for this whole, sacred day. We would not ever have seen his face, nor ever have heard his voice.

And somewhere, somewhen, he would rise, and he would snarl, and he would holler, and he would demand us, our fear, our fealty, our worship, our capitulation. He would demand the earth and all the souls upon it, for he would consider them his.

But none would come, none would pay him heed. For none would see him there, hear him there. For, on that most excellent of days, he would be invisible as air, silent as deepest space.

As for the diabolica and sychophantica – that full arsenal of monsters. His appeasers and enablers, conspirators and courtiers. Might they feel a change in themselves, for the good, on that day?

Would him not existing, and them having no memory of him, give them cause to ponder from where such sudden lightness in them came? Blighted hearts made good. All darkness in them, gone. Sickly, blackened souls released from the poisoning.

One day. Just one day.

Without him.

On The Unexpectedly Powerful Healing Properties Of Radiohead

Posted on by CalvertonNotts in Children, Family, Fatherhood, Music, Parenthood, Performance

I’LL ADMIT IT! I have another website – simoncarterstuff.uk – where I write things about faith, politics and social justice.

But latterly, I’ve been writing about music over there too. I’m really pleased with this short piece, and thought it well worth a share here.

On The Unexpectedly Powerful Healing Properties Of Radiohead

1976 Much Hotter Than 2025, Claim Several Villagers Somewhat Unreliably

Posted on by CalvertonNotts in calvoblog, Comedy, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, Satire, Village Life
  • I live in a village called Calverton in Nottinghamshire. Occasionally, I write completely made-up things about it.

WITH TEMPERATURES HITTING thirty-five degrees in the nation today, some Calverton residents have obviously started banging on about the British summer of 1976 being much hotter than this one.

‘You think the summer of 2025 is hot?’ said local man Norris Thetford, wilting in his allotment today in his ninth change of clothes since 9 am.

‘Stop complaining. You weren’t there in the summer of 1976. It was so hot all the grass turned to sand and we had to ride around on camels. All the bicycles had melted, the petrol in the cars had turned to porridge and several buses had exploded.

‘It was so hot there was no water, only dust to drink. All dogs had to be shaved to prevent heatstroke and whenever they went out to the garden to do their business it immediately turned to brick as it popped out. It was that solid we could build walls with it, as many of us did when existing brick walls turned to powder, from the heat.

‘It was so hot that anyone with fair skin was immediately mummified, even in the shade, and all the cats died because we’d forgotten to shave them like the dogs.

‘It was so hot that 63% of the population wasn’t able to sleep until 1977, forcing them to miss the Queen’s Silver Jubilee, the birth of punk rock and the death of Elvis.

‘It was so hot that many people may have hallucinated the summer of 1976.’

‘I love my grandad,’ said Caitlin Thetford, 13, of Paddock Close, Calverton.

‘But with this summer of 1976 thing he’s finally lost it. I’ve heard of selective hearing in very senior people, but this appears to be selective intelligence, which worries me. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he’s made all of this up and every word is a total lie.

‘Look, he’s collapsed by the runner beans.’

Wildlife Photo Possibly Fake, Claims Village

Posted on by CalvertonNotts in British, calvoblog, Comedy, English, Funny, Humour, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, Village Life
  • I live in a village called Calverton in Nottinghamshire. Occasionally, I write completely made-up things about it.

A PHOTO SUPPOSEDLY TAKEN by a local wildlife enthusiast at William Lee Memorial Park may not be real, claim many of the village’s more competent photographers.

‘I can’t understand the backlash,’ said villager and now hobby photographer Norris Thetford, of Crookdole Lane, Calverton.

‘I don’t knock anyone for the brilliant and beautiful images of bumblebees and whatnot they post on Facebook. But do I get the same respect when I put up my snaps of a live velociraptor? No.’

Critics of Norris’ recent photographic contributions to local Facebook pages, which include so-called ‘live’ sightings of a dodo in some bushes near The Gleaners and Mothra the colossal sentient larva at a Parish Council meeting, say the authenticity of his work is questionable at best.

‘He’s ripped the velociraptor snap off the internet,’ said someone who knows something about photography.

‘It’s not unusual to see snarling, vicious creatures who look like they’ve not eaten for a month up at William Lee, but these are teenagers.

‘There’s no way Norris could have spotted, much less photographed, a dromaeosaurid theropod dinosaur that lived approximately 75 to 71 million years ago during the latter part of the Cretaceous Period last week in Calverton. His claims to have done so are clearly ridiculous.’

‘I had a witness. My wife Doris,’ said Norris.

‘But the dinosaur ate her.’

Preservation’s What You Need

Posted on by CalvertonNotts in British, calvoblog, Comedy, English, Funny, Humour, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, Village Life
  • I live in a village called Calverton in Nottinghamshire. Occasionally, I write completely made-up things about it.

A NEW PRESERVATION SOCIETY has been set up in Calverton to preserve preservation societies which may become unable to preserve the things they’re preserving, it’s been revealed.

Two preservation societies have been identified for potential preservation so far.

 

Norris Thetford, a business continuity expert from Crookdole Lane, is the new Chairman of the Calverton Preservation and History Society and Calverton Real Ale and Plough Play Preservation Society Preservation Society (CPHSCRAPPPSPS).

‘It’s simple, really,’ explains Norris. ‘If a society’s preserving something – and we know it’s preserving something because the word ‘preservation’ is somewhere in the society’s name – then the thing it’s preserving won’t be preserved anymore if the society winds up.

So obviously it’s important to preserve the societies that preserve the things, otherwise the things might die out if they’re not preserved, like the history, and the beer.’

If Norris ever has to wind up his society, his son Ben has launched a society to preserve the society which has been set up to preserve preservation societies which may become unable to preserve the things they’re preserving.

So Ben has become Chairman of the newly-formed Calverton Preservation and History Society and Calverton Real Ale and Plough Play Preservation Society Preservation Society Preservation Society (CPHSCRAPPPSPSPS).

At this point, we have to say we lost interest.