GROUNDHOG AND OTHER DAYS
A perfect day?
Over the years, February 2nd has been a busy little day. Much of it, of course, involved wars and other political issues which I’m not going to write about today as there were many other things worth noting.
On February 2nd 1709, a ship rescued Alexander Selkirk after he had been marooned for five years on an island off the Chilean coast.
He was not marooned out of malice but at his own request as he thought the ship was unseaworthy and he would rather take his chances on an uninhabited island. He was landed on the island with a musket, a hatchet, a knife, a cooking-pot, a Bible, bedding and some clothes.
He was right to worry - the ship sank soon after. But he was not rescued for almost five years. His experience was the inspiration for Daniel Defoe’s book Robinson Crusoe.
A hundred and fifty years later 2nd February 1882 saw the birth of the novelist James Joyce. He was desperate to publish his book Ulysses on his fortieth birthday but because of its notoriety, existing publishers would not touch it. In the end, Sylvia Beach, the owner of the bookshop Shakespeare and Company took the plunge and it was published on 2nd February, 1922.
Ulysses had an immense impact, partly because of its astonishing innovations but also because it was condemned for being obscene. The USA and UK banned it and book runners were employed to smuggle it past customs officials. Like Prohibition but without the speakeasys. It was finally published in 1934 in America and two years later in Britain.
I doubt that Queen Victoria would have been amused by Ulysses. She died in 1901 and her funeral took place on 2nd February. Her 63-year reign, the longest of any British monarch until Elizabeth II, saw incredible changes and gave her name to the age. Incidentally, she denied ever saying ‘We are not amused.’
Victoria was born in 1819, only five years after the last of the London Frost Fair.
Since ancient times, the River Thames had occasionally frozen over but did so more frequently in the 17th and 18th centuries. One winter the ice grew so thick that some bright spark had the idea of holding a fair on it. Londoners flocked to the fairs to watch dancing and singing, horse racing and puppet shows, while enterprising types sold all manner of goods, food and drink,
The last London Frost Fair began on 1st February 1814 and lasted until the 5th. It offered similar entertainments to earlier fairs although also the novelty of an elephant parading across the ice. The fair ended when the ice broke up and several people drowned. Perhaps someone hadn’t noticed that the elephant on the ice was actually quite a weight.
Another day commemorating the weather is the American Groundhog Day, which is celebrated on, you’ve got it, 2nd February.
It derives from an old Pennsylvania tradition which claims that if a Groundhog see its shadow when it leaves its burrow, it will retreat to its den and another six weeks of winter will ensue.
Punxsutawney is the epicentre of the event which has been going on since at least the 1880’s with the first recorded event on February 2nd 1887, (a mere five days before my Granddad was born.)
The weather forecasting critter is called Punxsutawney Phil, possibly in honour of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. But this must be false as Phil has been giving the weather news since the 1880’s – he’s a very long-lived feller. After his prediction he has a little chat with the President of the organising committee in Groundhogese.
The event has attracted worldwide fame since 1993 with the film, Groundhog Day. In it, a curmudgeonly weatherman, played by Bill Murray, is marooned in Punxsutawney by bad weather. Unlike Alexander Selkirk, it’s not his choice and things get worse when he wakes up the next day to find that time has been rewound to 2nd February and he is condemned to relive the day again. And again and again and again. It’s been calculated that he may have spent at least 34 years on the treadmill.
He starts off bitter about his fate but a combination of love, lust and Machiavellian plotting makes him experience a change of heart.
Groundhog Day is an entertaining film with a clever concept. And it got me wondering, if I had to repeat one day of my life, what would it be? You think I’m going to tell you? Well think again.
At least not for this post. I’ll save it until I’ve made up my mind which day I’d like to repeat.
However, if you’d like to share the day you would choose, feel free to do so by writing in the comments section below.
gosh, that's some idea! repeat a day of my life? day I got married, day my children were born, (careful, I'd have to offend one of them), day I graduated, the list would have to be narrowed down. Maybe go back to my carefree childhood, in the summer on a beach in Jersey with extended family. I think this is something I will mull over for a while. thanks for this post, Martin. it may trigger some flash fiction or even a short story!