Essays in Idleness

Michaelmas is one of the chief anniversaries in “my secret life,” or my fantasy life as you might call it; except that my fantasy lives are plural. By simply presenting a curriculum vitae of one or several of these imaginary existences, I could have become a prominent Liberal or Democrat politician; but self-disgust always got in my way.

My private harvest fantasy for St Michael (patron of the archdiocese of Toronto) could be fulfilled by shooting down one of the Canada geese that are just now flying by the High Doganate, and then preparing him in my kitchen (with apple and onion stuffing). I say “him,” because I would rather aim at one of the thick-necked ganders, for they are so aggressive and annoying. A bird at Michaelmas, a bird at American Thanksgiving, and a bird at Christmas, should be my culinary custom, and by rendering their gorgeous fat I could have fine roast potatoes. Perhaps I could be raising them to purpose; though I doubt there is room in a modern apartment for a pond of adequate size, and one’s superintendent might complain about the open-door arrangements.

So I am resigned to reality. It constantly encroaches upon my secret life.

As it did in childhood, when I decided to round-out my education at Merton College in Oxford. I would have arrived for Michaelmas term, a little more than half a century ago, taking a garret under the eaves of their 13th-century Mob Quad, from which I would have had a good shot at the geese flying low and slow over the Thames River floodplain. That is how you cook them, incidentally — low and slow, after some initial violent pricking and crisping.

But even by the 1970s, Oxford had deteriorated through feminization and Marxism, to the point where I had to remove it even from my secret life. For I have standards.