1. The Hobbyhorse's Trial Run

This is the proverbial first pace . . .

The title refers to my interests, my obsessions. Hopefully you will share enough of them to make the journey interesting. Perhaps it will engage, perhaps enrage, perhaps confirm, or confront, or introduce you to something new - or a new angle on something thought familiar. Whatever happens, as everything must, it will definitely evolve . . .

Here's the set-up :

You have stumbled into Wonderland. If you know Caroll's immortal work, it will be a useful but not an entire guide. You are at once disorientated and exhilarated. Tired of being what you have come to feel is too small, you want to grow. You look all around you at the flowers and the blades of grass, but cannot see anything that looks like the right thing to eat or drink under the circumstances. Suddenly you see there is a large mushroom growing near you, about the same size as yourself. You inspect it more closely, and are amazed to see that the small black blotches the white mushroom is covered in are actually tiny symbols, which change and interchange continually as you look at it; there are rotating yin-yang signs, fylfots slowly swirling, crosses of all kinds, moons in all its phases, suns, stars, labyrinth patterns both round and geometric, both cretan and chinese, pyramids, ankhs, fish, frogs, horses, all the signs of the zodiac, tiny qabalahs, astronomical, alchemical, mathematic, heraldic and totemic figures of all kinds; a bewildering ever-shifting diversity, some of which you recognise and some not, but it is a fascinating and hypnotic display. You have the odd, inexplicable but nevertheless definite sensation that the mushroom is reading your mind; or that the mushroom is your mind; or rather that your mind and the muhroom are one. Shaking your head to clear the mesmeric attraction of the mushroom a little, you decide to look on top of it.

You stretch yourself on tiptoe, peep over the edge of the mushroom, and your eyes immediately meet the bespectacled ones of a large Matt-a-pillar, that is sitting on top, quietly smoking a thick roll-up - a loathsome habit -, and taking not the smallest notice of you or anything else.

The Matt-a-pillar has the most extraordinary appearance. As I have already said, it is smoking a thick roll-up and conveniently next to it on the mushroom is a tray with all sorts of things useful and necessary for making cigarettes on it, and a supply of the same ready rolled. It is dressed in black and white motley, the costume of the medieval Fool; on the black side of its chest is written 'Horse to Water' in white, and on the white side is written 'Duck to Water' in black. The Matt-a-pillar seems rather sad but he fixes you with a piercing left eye; it also appears to be drifting in and out of a trance. You cannot help but ask:

'Who are you ?'

'I am the Matt-a-pillar ofcourse' replies the strange figure, 'but you can call me -'
and he hands you a business card with many names on it in very small lettering. It reads:

Chevalier de Balibari/
Marquess of Carabas/
Comte de l'Angoisse et de la Guerison/
Pope Leo XIV (pending)/
Chevalier au Coeur-Bleu/
Chevalier Bleuatre-Nuageux/
Chevalier de la Main Effronte/
Altostratus Amphisbaena/
Chevalier de l'Etoile-Oubliee/
Pictor Ignotus/
Arthur Buffalo Sherlock Hood/

It's damnably puzzling. Which one should you actually call it ?

'Oh, don't worry,' says the Matt-a-pillar, just as if you'd asked it out loud. 'I respond to any of them or none, as the mood takes me.'

Abruptly you see for the first time that there is a Jukebox next to the mushroom - has it just appeared ? - with a lever labelled 'Push' and a button marked 'Pull'; it also has many other buttons, all neatly labelled as follows:

Ancient Rome esp. Augustus / History of Magic + Occultism / History of Christianity/


The Wild West/ Art History/ Western Philosphy/

Civil Wars/ French Culture/ Saints/

French Revolution + Napoleon/ Classical Mythology/ King Arthur/


The Renaissance/ Hitler + Nazism/ Lewis Carroll/

The Reformation/ World war II/ Dickens/

Conquerors/ Russian literature/ Shakespeare/

Empires/ 20th c. popular music/ Firsts/

Films, Actors, Directors/ English Literature/ And everything else



A scart lead goes out from the back of the Jukebox to the Matt-a-pillar's back.

'Press one', says the Matt-a-pillar,'and I will profess.'

'Profess what ?'

'Profess ! Profess ! Don't you know what 'profess' means ?'

'No'.

'It's a compression of 'professor' and 'prophecy', comprende ? Fancy not knowing that !'

Despite the Matt-a-pillar's rudeness, you want to accept the strange invitation. Which button will it be ?