The Plain of Jars

The houses in Jericho look like houses in a Giles cartoon, albeit inhabited by middle class characters drawn by Mark Boxer.

In prime position on the corner of Walton Street and Walton Crescent, facing Little Clarendon Street, stands the glass fronted Oxford Ceramics Gallery, wares in the window.

The pots, made of clay – as are we all – glitter under the strong lights. You can imagine the gallery as the set of a Sixties thriller, director jetting off to all parts of the world in search of jars and stoneware shaped by potters living and dead.

Michael Caine behind heavy glasses: “Oi! Be careful with that! That’s my best Hokusai!” What would the film be about? Microfilm.

“There’s fighting in the Far East. With tanks - and mortars. I know. I read it in the paper this morning.”

Chaos in Laos.

Samantha Eggar in a Balmain minidress. Looking distracted. Hair tumbling to her shoulders. There would have to be a chase, but which direction I have no idea.

Past the hospital that isn’t there anymore? Up Little Clarendon Street, then known as ‘Little Trendy Street’, so the sign says, perhaps.

How would it end? The shoot-out in the fish and chip shop.

Shots from a Walther PPK puncturing the deep-fat fryer.

The dead man’s hand stretched out on the chip papers. Yesterday’s crumpled headlines: ‘Fighting in the Plain of Jars’.

Caine stooping to retrieve the pot from the street.

“Look at that! It isn’t even chipped!”

Made to last. And if it doesn’t keep its value you can always drink tea out of it.

24 March 2019

© Roger Howe 2020