Our series on the origins of common phrases continues with a look at “to blodly go . . “.

What do we mean when we say “to blodly go . . .”? It is superficially similar to “to boldly go”, a phrase commonly used when describing the forward motion of the USS Enterprise, a spaceship on a five-year mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, far in the future and, I have to tell you, wholly fictional in nature. By contrast, “to blodly go” is a way of describing the forward motion of one whose progress is accompanied by a soundtrack of tunes by the beat group Blodwyn Pig.

Unlike boldly going, there are various circumstances in which one may be blodly going, and these can be both fictional and non-fictional, that is, real, dammit, as real as the large stone kicked by Dr Johnson in order to refute Bishop Berkeley. But to consider fictional blodly going first, we might imagine a cinematheque film or television programme in which a character is seen in forward motion, from point A to point B, while on the soundtrack we hear, say, “The Modern Alchemist” or “Backwash” from Blodwyn Pig’s debut album Ahead Rings Out (1969).

In terms of all-too-real blodly going, this would be seen when a person is lolloping along the street with, inserted into their lugholes, the pods attached to a digital musical reproduction device such as an mp3 player. Unless they have the volume turned up to a barbarous pitch, we would not necessarily know they were listening to, for example, “The Squirrelling Must Go On” from Blodwyn Pig’s second album Getting To This (1970). We may therefore not know blodly going when we see it.

Similarly, a person may be driving a car or coach and be listening to a Blodwyn Pig recording on their on-board sound system. If the volume is not too loud, and they whizz past us as we stand at a bus stop awaiting hopelessly the 666, then we will be all unawares that such whizzing is blodly. But it is, it is.

One of the main differences between boldly going and blodly going is, of course, that in the former case Captain Kirk and his crew are zipping across galaxies with an attitude of boldness. These people are not shrinking violets who would hardly dare say “Boo!” to a goose, or indeed a space-goose. Wherever they go, at whatever warp factor, they go there boldly. But with blodly going, the goer has much more latitude. Going blodly might mean creeping, gadding, prancing, zooming, limping, skulking, zipping, careering, stalking, plodding, staggering or any number of other forms of locomotion. The blodliness of the act lies in the accompanying soundtrack.

Was this article helpful? Choose the statement below which best describes your response:

■ Yes, very helpful

■ No, not very helpful

■ I have no idea what you are talking about

■ I have always been a great fan of Blodwyn Pig and think the best move Mick Abrahams ever made was to leave Jethro Tull

■ I am Ian Anderson, and I stand on one leg to play my flute. What can Mick Abrahams do to compare with that, eh?

Our survey of artworks continues with Plenipotentiary With Cornflakes Carton And Nightjar. This is a large painting, though I have not measured it, showing, as its title indicates, a plenipotentiary with the traditional attributes of his office, a cornflakes carton and a nightjar. Executed in scumbled daubs of emulsion on a sheet of corrugated cardboard, the plenipotentiary is shown leaning insouciantly against a mantelpiece, holding in his right hand a cornflakes carton while a nightjar perches atop his head. Stipples of what looks like gouache have been stippled hither and thither about the composition to add élan. There is an unseemly smudge at the bottom left, above which the painter’s signature has been scribbled with a biro, seemingly so hurriedly that it is illegible. The overall style is a combination of primitivist, classical, Rococo, expressionist, winsome, cack-handed, and gorgeous.

This is probably the most important painting in the collection of the toffee apple entrepreneur Argvis Bonescrape, who refuses all permission to reproduce it in any form.

You may also enjoy : Biro Scribble With Unseemly Smudge, Nightjar With Plenipotentiary And Gouache Stipples, and Cornflakes Carton No. 17. The latter is a conceptual artwork and does not actually consist of a cornflakes carton in any form whatsoever, other than as an idea nestling in the artist’s brain. We have no current information regarding cornflakes cartons numbers one to sixteen, which may not even exist.

If you would like further information on nightjars, please consult an authoritative reference work on ornithology.

That morning, I strode out into the grounds of my country pile, whacking my stick at lupins and at crocuses and, in one instance, at a swan passing between one pond and another. Following the path towards the ha-ha, I was startled to spot a dimwit standing under the trellis. He was a still, grubby, plump dimwit. I asked him what in the name of all the angels in heaven he was doing in the grounds of my pile. His answer was incoherent, perhaps because he was a foreign dimwit whose language was not known to me. I took him by the hand, and led him, like a fat puppy, away from the trellis, all along the path into the house. I was wearing a pair of goatskin gloves, so I did not fear picking up any germs from his grubby hands.

I bade the dimwit sit at the banqueting table and rang for Snippage, my factotum, to fetch him a beaker of water. Snippage took an unconscionably long time to respond to my call, which was unlike him. It was turning into a very odd day. First the dimwit under the trellis, then a queerly delayed Snippage. It was while I waited for him that I reflected on an additional oddity. Where had that swan popped up from? I had never seen a swan on my estate before.

When Snippage eventually arrived in the banqueting hall, he was breathless and dishevelled and reeked of malt vinegar. I sent him off to get a beaker of water for the dimwit, and then recalled that he, Snippage, was of foreign parentage. Either his mother, or his father, or both, had come from a land so distant it was not even on the same continent, but far far away, on the other side of one of the oceans, Indian, Atlantic, Pacific, I can’t remember the names of the others offhand. It occurred to me that, given his parental provenance, Snippage might be able to communicate with the dimwit better than I could. While we awaited his return, I removed my goatskin gloves and thrummed my fingertips impatiently on the banqueting table. The dimwit sat, still and grubby and plump, staring vacantly ahead of him.

An hour passed, and there was no sign of Snippage. I was concerned that the dimwit would think me uncivil, having brought him into my castle and promised him water and then left him to sit there possibly dying of thirst while I thrummed and thrummed. Words would be useless. I rang for my underfactotum, Snippage’s nephew, and when he came clomping into the banqueting hall, his usual lopsided self on account of his corrective boot, I sent him in search of his uncle. The nephew was something of a dimwit himself, but he was always eager to follow simple instructions.

He returned, panting, not ten minutes later. Snippage, he explained, in his curiously high-pitched voice, was standing under the trellis, clasping to his chest the swan, which had been strangled, presumably by Snippage himself. What a palaver, I thought. I asked the youngster if, in addition, Snippage was in possession of a beaker of water. No, was the response.

I apologised to the dimwit at the table, in spite of the fact that he was taking no notice of me whatsoever. He was still gazing blankly at nothing. I began to wonder if he was a blind dimwit, but when I waved one of my goatskin gloves in front of his face I saw his eyes flicker, albeit briefly. I commanded young Snippage to remain with our guest, to guard him from my dogs and rats and the madwoman in the attic, who might choose this of all days to break loose and career about the castle causing havoc, and I strode out again, past the beds of lupins and crocuses, towards the ha-ha, and found Snippage precisely as his nephew had described him, under the trellis, clutching a strangled swan.

I asked him, in an exasperated voice, why he had not fetched a beaker of water for the dimwit. He did not answer, and when I looked closer, I saw that he had been turned into a pillar of salt, like Lot’s wife, unnamed in the Bible but known as Ado or Edith in some Jewish traditions. What in hell’s name was going on under my trellis?

When I went back to the banqueting hall, I found the dimwit and young Snippage deep in conversation. They were babbling and roaring and giggling together, as if drunk, in a language I did not understand. I cleared my throat in a melodramatic manner to announce my presence. They fell immediately silent, and turned their heads to look at me, and then they both burst into laughter, It was the most terrifying laughter I ever heard, and I can still hear it, ringing in my ears.

I turned and fled. I hardly knew where I was going. I only knew that I must not go anywhere near the trellis. I ran and stumbled and ran and limped and ran for mile after mile until I dropped, from exhaustion, into a ditch.

When I came to, the sky was darkling. Looming above me, on one side of the ditch was a swan, and on the other side the dimwit. Both were gazing at me with glares of unbridled savagery. I called out for young Snippage. He came clomping into view, from further along the ditch, bearing a beaker of water. I glugged it down and asked him to hoist me on his shoulders and carry me home. By midnight I was back in the banqueting hall, slumped in a chair, my head resting on the table.

Seventeen years have passed since that awful day, seventeen years in which I have not set foot outside the castle. And all that time, young Snippage, now nearly as old as his salt uncle was then, has been extending the trellis, bit by bit, until now it covers almost all of the estate. In a few days more, it will reach the castle wall, and there will be no escape. The dimwit will come for me, clutching a swan living or dead, and I will be undone.

“Allahu Akbar!” I shout, as I deadhead the roses. I am an Islamic gardener. The gardens I tend are based upon Islamic principles, and contain not a whiff of kaffir filth. No woman shall ever besmirch the gravel paths between the flower beds. And whenever a bloom sprouts atop a green stalk, I take my combination scimitar-and-secateurs and lop it off, in praise of Allah.

The only plants I allow to flourish are varieties of Old Man’s Beard, including Chionanthus virginicus, a tree both medicinal and ornamental, Clematis aristata, an Australian climbing plant, Clematis vitalba, another climbing plant, Tillandsia usneoides, or Spanish moss, a bromeliad, and Usnea, a type of lichen. Because they vaguely resemble an old man’s beard, they are suitably Islamic.

Occasionally I am mistaken for a hippy gardener, Steve Hillage of Gong with a spade in place of a guitar. I have been told we are like two peas in a pod. But there are no peas in my gardens, because peapods do not have beards.

Steve Hillage : not an Islamic fundamentalist