#TheMajorsCorner….”I am not a seer.”

If I am honest, and I strive to be so in my column, I have very much enjoyed these past few years of being accepted as the member one goes to see about a nettlesome problem.
I was first dragooned into this unsought position by fellow mems at their wits’ end about the Brigadier’s behavior in the home of homes. He had suddenly taken to jumping naked into the club sauna, shouting “Hooray,” seemingly not concerned if there were female members in said sauna. In fact, I was reliably informed that he would face criminal charges if this went on much longer.
Several senior fellows from the club felt I should be the chap to say something persuasive to dissuade the Brigadier from further appalling behaviour. When I finally sat him down to enquire about his bridge skills and then sailed into the subject of frightened women in the sauna, he absolutely refused to believe that the other protagonists did not think his actions were in any way amusing. He was convinced that especially the girls and some elderly women thought he was hilarious. Nothing I said made any difference to him.
I finally did something I never thought I could do: turn to a mem’s wife and tell her all. Constance, his very young sixth companion, blanched when I recounted the sad events, thought for a moment and then went home in a fury.
We did not see or hear from the Brigadier for several weeks and became quite worried. Finally he returned and the mood was not good. He insisted that I explain myself: I had turned in a fellow mem to his wife, an almost unheard of deed. I tried to stay calm and ran through the scenario as I saw it, ending with “I could do no else but speak to your Constance.”
The old soldier would have none of it. “But it is just not done, Major” sprang from his lips. “Not a chap’s wife.”
We did not speak for some time after that, for as we discovered, his wife had poured hot pea soup into his lap at a less than funny dinner, which he put down to my “meddling.” In fact he says the very thought pea soup and me makes him nauseated, as he claims that he retains a blister in his nether regions that he calls the Major. But others started to seek my advice on a wide range of subjects, so I knew that the club in general agreed with the way I had handled the situation.
I became known as a prophet, with one chap even calling me a seer. Of course the word means “see-er,” or one who sees into the future. I am not sure I qualify as a Nostradamus, as I seem to be cleaning up messes rather than predicting them, plus I find it an unpleasant sobriquet.
I have always felt sorry for prophets in general because they usually foretell unfortunate and unpopular events.
Take Cassandra, for instance, she of the royal family of Troy, who had been cursed by Apollo for turning down his amorous advances. The curse was that she would never be believed. Which meant that when her brother Paris stole Helen against the shouted advice of Cassandra, who rightfully predicted that Troy would be sacked for this action, he laughed. Homer, Virgil and Ovid tell us that she tore her hair out in frustration and fear.
Then, of course, 10 years later when the supposedly retreating Greeks left the Trojan horse as a gift secretly containing 12 warriors, Cassandra once again gave warning of danger. She told her father, King Priam, to have the wooden horse burned, but again she was not believed. The upshot was that a terrible slaughter took place. Troy was destroyed, with Cassandra being raped by Ajax and then given to Agamemnon as a concubine, only to be stabbed by Agamemnon’s wife’s lover, Aegisthus, all of which she had said would happen.
John the Baptist was another case in which the chap with the big mouth gets it. He angered the wrong wife, that of Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great. For awhile, John went about the business of baptizing new Christians and even Jesus himself, gaining a great reputation as a holy man and prophet.
But when Herod Antipas divorced his wife in order to wed Herodias, the wife of his half-brother and daughter of another half-brother, old John let loose with a robust “I say.” He ran around the neighbourhood making unkind remarks about the situation, which upset the new wife, as it were, who told her love-struck husband to lock up that smelly creature.
Herod Antipas was normally not a student to the school of thought that locks up holy men, as he felt it was bad for business and might rile up the citizens, but like all husbands, he did as he was told.
However if he thought he would be allowed an ancient martini and bedroom slippers, he was very much mistaken. One night Herodias’s daughter Salome put on a dance that so delighted the perspiring king that he made a rash decision. He offered Salome anything she wanted. Salome, being a good daughter, then gave her request, the head of John the Baptist.
Herod felt heartburn like never before. “Surely not that stinking prophet,” he said hopefully.
“The very same.” replied Salome
“Oh gosh,” said Herod. And as we all know John’s head, with an odd look of surprise in his eyes as he had not had his lunch, was put on a gold platter and presented to the frightful duo.
So you see, that is why I am more keen to be known as a fixer rather than a prophet. Besides it is not my style to range about the club with a stick shouting: “Heed me!”

Copyright Christopher Dalton 2016.