Sunday, December the 16th, 2007

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A Pointy Town Nativity

I see that Channel Four, or the BBC, is showing, or has already shown, a so-called Liverpool Nativity, presumably a wretched attempt at making the story of the birth of The Christ “relevant” to today's feckless Britons, or at least to their northern segment. At Hooting Yard we have no truck with such twaddle. But while you are not watching the Liverpool Nativity you might be diverted by a brief account of the Pointy Town Nativity, an annual jamboree which has nothing to do with The Christ as such. The birth that is celebrated is that of a pig, the firstborn pig on Scroonhoonpooge farmyard after the feast of Saint Loopy, and known throughout the succeeding year as the New Pig.

Much to the consternation of the Pointy Towners, adherents of various religions have taken offence at their beano. Those big but, let's face it, witless books, the Bible, the Torah and the Koran, each get into a bit of a flap about pigs, deriding them as unclean abominable cloven-hooved beasts. On the contrary, pigs are charming, intelligent, loveable, and delightful animals, and it is well-known that leaning over the fence of a pig sty and watching pigs for an hour a day is one of the most relaxing activities known to humankind. You would be astonished at the kerfuffle caused a year or so ago when the New Pig was given the name Mohammed, which was viewed in Pointy Town as a compliment. Any name attached to a pig is thereby raised above the level of everyday Dennises and Ednas and Demi-Leighs and Kyles. A similar, but less violent, reaction occurred when the New Pig was named Jesus, but that is unlikely to be repeated due to the Gibsonian practice of dropping the J-word and referring simply to The Christ.

Pig nomenclature has become something of a minefield, then, but that does not deter the good people of Pointy Town, who have a healthy and positive attitude to their pigs, the celebration of the birth of the New Pig being the proof of the pudding. (I am not entirely sure that last phrase means anything, or at least that it means what I intend it to mean, but I would ask readers to cut me some slack.)

On Saint Loopy's Day itself, the pregnant pigs of Scroonhoonpooge farmyard are gathered in a special piggery unit, part of an enormous barn decorated for the occasion with flags and bunting and embroidered portraits of Saint Loopy. Roaring Sawtooth jets from Pointy Town aerodrome screech across the sky in a series of fly-pasts and dozens of dirigibles loom over the barn. Meanwhile, the current, soon to be displaced New Pig is given a crate of crab apples and conference pears to feast upon. There is much wassail and jocundity, especially near the caves, where the Pointy Town cave-dwelling troglodytes' curiosity is sparked, and they creep into the light for the only time in a twelvemonth. Outside the post office, a person upon a podium reads passages from the Pointy Town Pig Chronicle, recalling past New Pigs and their names, from the controversial Mohammed and Jesus to less troublesome ones such as Popsy, Hudibras, Quetzalcoatl, Poopy, Christopher Plummer, Gervase and Winifred. A hopelessly overqualified veterinary surgeon keeps a beady eye on the pregnant pigs, ready to relay news of the first whelping via a pneumatic communications tube to the Pointy Town Pig Nativity Announcer. There is dance band music, much trumpetry, the eating of milk slops, conjuring tricks, chanting, caterwauling, hysteria and shamanistic fire-dancing. Over by the Pointy Town potato patch, raw potatoes are carved into piggy shapes by trained potato-carving experts. And when, eventually, the New Pig is born, a hush descends upon the town, from Scroonhoonpooge farmyard to the horrible caves, while the Pointy Towners wait to hear the chosen name.

The Naming of the New Pig is a solemn contrast to the rowdy celebrations which precede it. So solemn, indeed, that the silence is broken now and then by the sounds of sobbing and weeping and the rending of garments. Eventually, a designated orphan child will pluck a name out of thin air, and paint it, with a dangerous lead-based paint, on the outside of the barn. And thus the Pointy Town Nativity comes to a close, as the New Pig is given gifts of bran-tub scrapings, and the old New Pig is led away to an ordinary sty, and the townspeople trudge back to their daily drudgery, and the planet continues to spin upon its axis for no apparent purpose.