The Old Man and The Bridge
Created | Updated Aug 5, 2003
Oh plus ca change ... In 18th Century England, the gout-ridden chinless bon-viveurs that constituted the nation's landowning classes feared that, as towns grew in size and the old village community crumbled, their property would be under threat. And ominously reminiscent of today, there was also no police force. So, they grabbed the hoi-polloi by the scruff of the neck. And tied a noose around it.
The consequent 'Bloody Code' was, in fact, a series of laws introduced to dish out the heebie-jeebies. Woe betide anyone thinking of breaking the law by infringing property rights. Basing power on property-ownership, those without lived in fear of fatal retribution from those with, for even the most petty misdemeanor.
Having a sooty face in the street was actually a crime punishable by being hanged by the neck until dead. As was the application of damage to Westminster Bridge, cutting down a young tree, and pilfering goods worth five shillings. And, most poignantly here, impersonating a Chelsea Pensioner. Thanks however to the efforts of namby-pamby reformer Robert Peel, who ironically gave us the brawn-and-bureaucracy police force the UK has today, many of these penalties were repealed by Criminal Law reform in the early/mid 19th Century.
Which takes us west. To Key West in fact, where annually during Hemingway Days, a doppelganger competition takes place. As well as to compete in fishing competitions and a psuedo-Pamplona, dozens of stoutly-built men with grey beards descend on Sloppy Joe's to win the acclaimed 'Papa Lookalike' title. Generally being a man's man, in the original sense, ie, boozing, eating, and fighting, is patently essential.
The epiphany though, for any genteel English tourist quietly supping beer and taking it all in, is not the illusion of living in the rufty-tufty world of Ernest Hemingway. It is the heart-stopping beer-spluttering revelation that one is inhabiting a world inhabited only by khaki-clad Chelsea chairmen, impersonation of whom should surely remain outlawed. In this world, we can have as many Ernest Hemingways as will fit, but one Ken Bates is way more than enough. Anything else should be illegal.
Montague Trout