All hail Baphomet!

Ben Wildsmith

Like many of you, I have a Cornish wife. I should be clear, though, that I acquired mine before they became fashionable during the pandemic and Mrs W is bedecked with a dizzying array of attributes and accomplishments beyond her Cadbury’s Caramel rabbit cadence and tin mining expertise.

She’s a trained boxer, for one thing, so this may prove to be my final column.

We’re in Cornwall this week, and its similarities to Wales have been comforting as the UK has erupted into a fresh spasm of identity-based confusion.

We stopped en-route in Shepton Mallett to have a look at some revolutionary artwork. I rarely go to England nowadays, so it was salutary to be reminded that it hasn’t been entirely subsumed into Farageiste xenophobia or Starmeroid union jackery. There might be hope for it yet.

Kernow has always been its own thing and, despite lacking a devolution settlement, the cultural shift is palpable when you cross from Devon. The Cornish flag is widely flown and, increasingly, bilingual signage is cropping up.

National identity cash

This was evident at the supermarket we stopped at on the way to Boscastle. Asda, sniffing some of that sweet, sweet national identity cash, has put the opening hours up in Cornish, in the same spirit that sees any product that has so much as travelled on the M4 labelled ‘Welsh’ to loosen our purse strings.

In Boscastle, after downloading a parking app that evaporated our cash into the swollen cloud of transnational finance, we dodged the showers with a visit to the Witchcraft and Magic Museum. This was a kindly indulgence on the part of Mrs Wildsmith, whose uncompromising rationalism is often at odds with her husband’s lazy attachment to unfounded superstitions and speculative notions.

I wasn’t alone, though, as the museum is clearly a gold mine. In its cramped environs, we shuffled past pop-culture representations of the occult in uncomfortable proximity to a disagreeable grandmother who kept bellowing,

‘I don’t know why I’m here; I can’t read any of it!’ as her granddaughter patiently read out the explanatory cards next to the exhibits. We scooted past her at the dunking stool and hoped for the best.

‘Family items’

Next up was a display of ‘family items’ used in defiance of the clergy. These included a ‘cock rock’ and a ‘fanny stone’ that had been in use until the 1920s to encourage fertility.

‘Of course, Meghan Markle is into all this!’

I turned to find I was being addressed in Brummagem tones by a tall woman who later emphasised her Egyptian descent.

‘Is she?’ I asked, warily.

‘Oh God, yes. Why do you think our Royal family are all ill?’

‘Good luck to her,’ I offered, hoping this might conclude matters. Nope. In the next room, having been caught up by Mrs W who, clearly, had been lingering over the ‘family items’, our new friend continued.

‘My brother is in the police; he’s forever investigating West Africans who have sacrificed children!’

‘Gosh,’ I replied weakly. Absolutely adrift I was, readers, and she hadn’t finished yet.

‘Did you see the Olympics opening ceremony last night?’ she demanded.

‘Erm… I caught the end it seemed really beautiful with the flame rising into the sky in the rain and Celine…’

‘It was a disgrace! They were mocking the Last Supper with all these woke weirdos and a child present. Is that what you want, is it?’

The Woke

I find myself being harangued about The Woke on a tediously frequent basis nowadays. At work, online, in the pub there are people who need to know whether you share their sentiments on the supposed erosion of traditional values as an entrance qualification to their company.

I’m used to failing this examination under all circumstances and here, in a cramped, windowless room, with my interrogator backed by a nine-foot effigy of Baphomet, I felt even less inclined to fall into line.

So, escaping into the Cornish sunshine, I idled through Twitter whilst waiting for Mrs W. to emerge.

Tommy Yaxley-Robinson-Lenin was apparently leading a march of people who ‘want their country back’.

Children were slipping around on the rocks in Boscastle harbour and Cornish pasties, Cornish cream teas, and Cornish crabs vied for tourist cash.

Back on my phone, I learned that the Romans banned the Olympic Games for being anti-Christian remnants of Pagan culture. How woke is that?