Trifles.

Rockall, Sodall, Bogall…
Carlyle said that the meanest object is a window into infinitude and Grayling remarks that to say that trifles make up the happiness or misery of human life is to voice a cliché no less true for being one.
Dover, Fastnet, fishnet…

I have a young charge who worries me. He is unworldly and besotted with a knowing girl. She has him twirled around her finger leading him a merry dance. I often want to spank her; she has such a way of flicking her skirts at me as she brushes past. She is incorrigible. To make matters worse, this girl is a prodigy and favourite of her aunt, a lady-friend of mine, so I see where matters will lead.

As you know, I have lived a life after my own lights. A disastrous car crash of a life; fuelled by strong drink and a misplaced laissez-faire attitude to money and women.
Often, I have been found vomiting twin writhing serpents of guilt and alcohol down others’ pristine toilet bowls. And always, with the last aching heave, the viper of guilt releases her entwined twin, to slide backwards into my mouth, to rest calm and comfortable somewhere inside me, for another day, for another disaster. No emetic will shift that one. Not she.
A costly burden to be borne, “In Perpetua”.

To remind me, I had a trifle run up at Asprey’s. A ring I wear now and then when I feel vulnerable. It was to this ring, that I referred when I took my young charge aside to advise:

“Do you see this ring, Ewan?"
“What of it?"
“Do you see how it is formed?”
“Yes”
“Do you see how the two serpents are encoiled around an emerald named “Bile”?
“It’s ‘the ring of Barahir’, Uncle Ack”
“What?”
“Aragorn’s ring”
“No, it's Asprey’s.”
“Lord of the Rings merchandising.”
“No it’s not, it’s mine - This viper is called ‘Guilt’…”
“You can get them on eBay for £30. All the Trekkies wear them.”
“Right, here’s £50. Fuck off out of it for an hour and take Jane Marie with you.”