Note to my Hubber Friends

I live a hermit existence at the edge of Sherwood Forest, in a little known village which Google Maps has been unable as yet to discover, where the natives speak a form of Pidgin English which, however, does have a vague resemblance to the glorious language of Shakespeare once your ear becomes attuned to it.

The place is, in fact, a wilderness where the foot of the white man has never set and missionaries have never preached the testament, either old or new, their strength and will giving up long before they sighted the wooden posts which form the defensive wall around our village.

But I tell a lie. There are, indeed, stories of a missionary who managed to get through the undergrowth some years past and make it to our village square, but rumour has it that the natives did not like him. According to some of the old timers at the local pub, he took a long time to boil and tasted like shoe leather.

The old boys do give him credit, though, for his sense of humour. Apparently he tried to convince them that the eclipse of the sun was his doing and that he was some kind of god. That got him a good laugh and an extra dollop of Bisto gravy, according to the grapevine, but it did not make him go down any better.

Apparently they found amongst his personal effects a book and one of the brotherhood who actually knows how to read said that it was written by someone called H. Rider Haggard and called King Solomon's Mines, in which the eclipse of the sun saves the white man from a fate worse than death. It just goes to show you what learning can do to a man.

Since then it has been the established position of our Beloved Leader that what the world needs to make it a place fit for heroes to live in is fewer and better tasting missionaries and he has since declared open season on the species.

That particular episode has never ceased to be green in the memory of our Four Hundred and they make a point of reciting it to the five year olds every Saturday when the youngsters have a rest form hunting the local wild beasts for lunch.

In fact if you visit us on any Saturday, you will be able to enjoy our choir for free, because that is our bath day which tradition dictates be taken in cold water and, according to village rules, we sing in it otherwise we get a strong letter from the municipality. The village alarm bell is used to keep time and in the winter we all sing Wagnerian Operas in tones of excruciating agony. In the summer, when the water is warmer, we are more inclined to Verdi and the Beatles.

So, as you can appreciate, other than the occasional boiled missionary, our entertainment is restricted to scalping the primitives of the next village in the form of rugby. That’s what our American friends call football and we, because of all that padding, call a girls’ picnic. In fact, our women enjoy a game of American football whenever they get fed up with knitting and feel like stretching their limbs a little as a warm-up prior to vacuuming the carpet.

Oh and we also have Bingo. Now the De Greeks are not an overly critical lot, but I don’t mind confessing to you that it would be paltering with the truth were I to deny that there are moments when the thought of bingo is an outrage to everything that raises Man above the level of the beasts. I know that one must be open minded and twenty-first-century-about-these-things, but surely there must be limits?!

You should also bear in mind that our village is not renowned for producing brain surgeons and rocket scientists as we are a more hands on lot, provided that strenuous thinking is not required. It took us a number of decades to erase that incident during WWII when our lot volunteered for mine clearing. Regrettably, for some reason, they decided to probe the ground with the pointed sticks which were customary for the purpose at the time, while going in reverse. The resulting explosions reduced the village population by a considerable number.

As for our courting practices, these often involve the use of stout clubs and we demonstrate our affection for the little woman by dragging her by the hair to our romantic little cave for an impromptu honeymoon. In the unlikely event that any poor fish might object and even worse try to do something about it, he usually has sense enough to carry a note in his pocket with clear instructions as to where the body should be sent.

But our heart is in the right place and our hospitality is second to none. As you may have gathered, we are practically all soul, with gentle but strong natures, raised on sound principles which are based more on the past practice of the humanities rather than on the study of today's sciences and we tend more towards practical tradition than modern educational methods.

But as good as life is in the sticks, something is missing. Besides our courting and bingo, we have no entertainment at all. So finding Hubpages and meeting so many kind and talented people here and making friendships with some of them is a huge benefit for me for which I am deeply grateful. In fact it would not be an exaggeration were I to describe some of these friendships as an ode to brotherly love.

Because some of these friends have expressed an interest to visit my wife and I here, this is an opportunity for us to extend an open invitation to all those with whom a feeling of brotherhood has been established. In other words, in order to better express our sincere love and affection we would be happy to have you visit us and to this end, I ask you to note my new email address, which is j@dgrek.eu . You will need this information in case you decide to make use of the invitation.

And do bear in mind that visiting us is not just a simple matter of cold meat and a pickle. Though for those without a proper Emily Post style engraved and gilded invitation, dinner at our village can be a test of manhood, if you have actually been invited, then the sky is the limit. Be prepared to unfasten the waist coat and belt buckles after dinner because unless man and beast reach the bursting-at-the-seams stage we do not feel that dinner was a success. We often even stretch the Privy Purse to a cigar and port. In other words, I am fattening up the biblical calf ready for the day you shall visit us.

In fact, so much is my affection for you lot that I have decided that if I ever have a son, he is going to be christened Ebenezer, Aloysius, tonymac04, Shadesbreath, Christoph Reilly, Cris A, saddlerider1, Fauntleroy, Rumsbotham De Greek.

In the unfortunate event that it is a girl, then it shall be Patricia, Giggles, Nellieanna, habee, Zsuzsy Bee, Gypsy Willow, _cheryl_ , JamaGenee, Shalini Kagal, lisadpreston, Feline Prophet, Lee B, sunflowerbucky, akirchner, Crystal, Floozie De Greek.

Those who have been left out know that it is for lack space and no other reason, so do bear in mind that our village is currently looking its best and most pastoral and you are all welcome to come, one at a time, of course. Any tenderisers you might consume in the interim, can only be beneficial to the end result.

Dimitris Mita

De Greek