God rest you merry, gentlemen…
Obviously I’m giving you all a rest from my Terrible Daily Poems — everyone needs a rest round about now. I’ll start again transferring them from Substack — where you can find the new ones at patriciafinney2.substack.com — in the New Year, though I may be delayed for a few days if New Year’s Eve is particularly strenuous. I just don’t have the stamina I used to.
The Terrible Daily Poems were a sort of lockdown project but are now approaching 500 disgraceful effusions and the flow doesn’t seem to be slowing down. I have various plans for them but I’m not ready to tell you what I’m going to do with them. That’s because I don’t know myself.
No, I haven’t misplaced the comma in the title, by the way: it isn’t “God rest you, merry gentlemen…” from the old carol; it’s “God rest you merry, gentlemen…”
No, it doesn’t mean, “have a nice rest, fun guys.” It means “stay drunk, guys.”
This is what we need to hear around the festive season (a phrase I dislike but can’t think of anything better). Even if we don’t drink or do any other legal or illegal drugs, the possibility should still be there. Because Saturnalia was an epic drinking fest and so was Wassail (which means drink up). Back then the strongest booze you could get had been left out in vats on frosty nights so you could throw away the ice in the morning, which concentrated the alcohol. Say what you like about our ancestors, but they were ingenious.
What I’m saying is, break loose a bit. Have some fun! Enjoy!
Seriously.
Cheers!
Patricia Finney
