Let the curses flow
Faced with a further delay after an eight-month wait for a water connection, Philip Howard finds himself gushing – much like an Archbishop
I’M afraid I have been in a foul mood. Principally, with the United Utilities water connection department. So foul, I have been contemplating the words of the Archbishop of Glasgow. Not the present one, who I am sure is a well-meaning Christian of impeccable credentials, offering homilies and deep-fried Mars bars to the transgender communities in the Gorbals. My archbishop was the one who delivered in 1525 one of the finest curses ever spoken. His curse was levelled at the Border reivers, a group of lawless individuals on both sides of the Anglo-scottish divide who stole, raped and pillaged for more than 100 years.
I have always thought that The Bard of Stratford took some beating when invective was being banded about: “Thou art a boil, A plague-sore or embossèd carbuncle”; “Would thou wert clean enough to spit upon”; “Methinks thou art a general offence and every man should beat thee”; or “There’s no more faith in thee than in a stewed prune”.
But, frankly, no number of curses comes close to the Archbishop’s. He starts, “I curse their head and all the hairs of their head; I curse their face, their brain, their mouth, their nose, their tongue, their teeth, their forehead, their shoulders, their breast, their heart, their stomach, their back, their womb, their arms, their leggs, their hands, their feet, and every part of their body, from the top of their head to the soles of their feet, before and behind, within and without.”
Comprehensive, I suspect you are thinking, but he has barely started. “I curse them going and I curse them riding; I curse them standing and I curse them sitting; I curse them eating and I curse them drinking; I curse them rising and I curse them lying; I curse them at home and I curse them away from home; I curse them within the house and I curse them outside of the house; I curse their wives, their children and their servants who participate in their deeds, their crops, their cattle, their wool, their sheep, their horses, their swine, their geese, their hens and all their livestock. I curse their halls, their chambers, their kitchens, their stanchions, their barns, their cowsheds, their barnyards, their cabbage patches, their plows, their harrows and their goods and houses.
“May all the malevolent wishes and curses ever known since the beginning of the world, to this hour, light upon them. May the malediction of God that fell upon Lucifer and all his fellows, that cast them from the high Heaven to the deep hell, light upon them.”
I am pretty sure that the Archbish would have included Daphne from United Utilities within his list had he received a text at 4.27pm on the Thursday afternoon prior to connection date. Eight months we had been waiting; £2,250 plus VAT they had demanded for 30 minutes’ work. And, of course, when I rang back at 4.31pm a message told me that Daphne had departed from the office and was not expected back until Monday. Not her fault, I know. I Googled the definition of “Utility”. Apparently, it is “the state of being useful, profitable or beneficial”. I didn’t bother to Google “United”. I was told the cancellation was due to somebody making an adverse comment on social media about the consequences of a temporary half-an-hour road closure. I added the directors of United Utilities together with Mark Zuckerberg to my curse list.
I will leave the Archbishop to conclude. “And, finally, I condemn them perpetually to the deep pit of hell, there to remain with Lucifer and all his fellows, and their bodies to the gallows of Burrow moor, first to be hanged, then ripped and torn by dogs, swine, and other wild beasts, abominable to all the world. And their candle goes from your sight, as may their souls go from the face of God, and their good reputation from the world, until they forebear their open sins, aforesaid, and rise from this terrible cursing and make satisfaction and penance.”
So, I have still not got my new water connection but I do feel a lot better now that I have got that off my chest.
May all the malevolent wishes and curses ever known since the beginning of the world, to this hour, light upon them