Grey Fox

Slip Slidin' Away

Although tiny and rich Paul is approaching the testing time for all humans. The time when anything requiring the ultimate in physical endeavor is possible is fading fast.

In 1850 Gustave Flaubert, then aged twenty, on his only expedition outside metropolitan France wrote the following from Jerusalem to a pal:

'At Beirut we made aquaintance of a spendid fellow, Camille Rogie, the Postmaster of the place. He has a pretty house, a pretty cook (male)and an emormous prick, compared with which yours is a mere tack. When he was in Constantinople, its reputation was such that Turks came to the house mornings especially to see it. (Gospel.) He treated us to a morning of nymphets. I fucked three women, four shots in all, three before lunch and one after dessert. At the end, I even proposed doing it with their bawd, but, because I had refused when she offered herself earlier, she made it her turn to say no. Still, I'd have enjoyed pulling that one off, to crown the day's work and to give a good opinion of myself.'*

These boastful reminiscences stayed with this tortured writer all his life. But at the time he wrote them he was flying free from the stifling encumberance of a heavy home life.

The reason why we all behave badly when we are young and away from home is because we are young and away from home. How many of us can imagine our parents making love? They did, otherwise we wouldn't be here, and in many cases continued with joy for years.

Last week I heard a sheep farmer being interviewed on the radio. The subject was the effect that the heat was having on the rams. The farmers are keen to breed the earliest lambs to gain the most money for 'new seasons' lamb. These baby lambs should arrive in January. The heat is such that the boys are lying down on the job. Instead of busying themselves amongst the ewes they are lying in a hot heap under a hedge. Apart from the delicious suggestion by the farmer that he would have to show the rams 'pornographic videos' to get them interested, he suggested that because of the heat they would only 'tupp' at night. This, the farmer stated, would produce lambs born in the middle of the night. 'Good Heavens' said the interviewer 'I never knew that they were so precise.' 'Got you there, you townie prat' the farmer didn't quite say. But he explained that even God and sheep hadn't progressed that far.

The farmer, possibly to ease the embarrassment of the interviewer, moved into a heavy prediction of a much lower than normal birth rate for humans in the UK in the Spring of next year.

I can remember the bump in the birth rate caused by the three day week in late 1984 and the subsequent ceasing of television at 10.30pm. But those couplings took place in the cold and dark of the winter. I believe that the farmer is talking balls, as the the continuing heat creates a sensual lift to the normal English sangfroid. Apart from the old saying 'The heat of the meat dictates the angle of dangle' it's the joy of the jiggle and the relative absence of clothes that keeps the mind on the job.

To return to the beginning, certainly the warmth of this summer is aiding both the spirit and the body of the ageing as pain is kept at bay and the clear light delights.

Slip Slidin' Away,
Slip Slidin' Away,
You know the nearer your destination
the more you are
Slip Slidin' Away

God only knows
God makes his plan
the information's not available
to the mortal man
we will work in our jobs
collect our pay
believe we are gliding
down the highway
in fact we are
Slip Slidin' Away $

* The letters of Gustave Flaubert 1830-1857, selected, edited and translated by Francis Steegmuller. Faber.

$ Slip Slidin' Away © 1977 Paul Simon. Words and music by Paul Simon.

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