Toby as Online Tutor

Moving into the hills, and not driving, has made me think of what I could do with myself, not only to pass the time, but to earn some money without having to commute all the time.

I don't kid myself about writing for a living. Sure, if you get really lucky, but I don't have the popular touch at the best of times. Most online writing jobs that I stumble over involve either writing "Readers' Letters" and winning a tenner, or working in the writing equivalent of a call centre - trolling around in forums, posting hype for products as if it was your word-of-mouth recommendation, or creating click-through lenses, or dense webs of self-referential websites, etc. All modern equivalents of ancient scams (pyramid schemes, multi-level marketing, chain letters, etc). The casual mention of a product is a kind of viral marketing - or do they call it guerilla marketing - either way, it would prove as soul-destroying to me as cold calling trying to sell insurance.

Although I understand the insurance concept (everyone chips into the kitty, so that the few unlucky - some would say lucky - people to whom the unexpected happens get helped by the community). I like Bucky's definition of an insurance firm as a bunch of people who are betting something will not happen to you, but try to convince you to bet that it will!

Anyway - looking at my limited talents and resources, I decided to consider online tutoring. I have just compiled a list of my relevant experience, and suddenly that seemed at least feasible, and with a least a possibility of working.

Toby's teaching cv (resumé).

Notes on websites and writing

I have used a Google Lab website to list what I have done, and what I might prove capable of...I felt quite impressed myself! Did I really do all that AND the performing? Amazing.

If you have any comments or connections for finding online work, please add notes in the Comments field.

Thanks!

These pix? The top two date from 2000, when I was training staff remotely, and trying to liven up the forum, 'humanise the tutor', silly poses, etc. So was the bottom one, although the pic dates from 1986, when I had just hit 40...with my City Lights T-shirt on (after visit to The States) and sitting in Spain, taking a picture of myself....ah, those were the days, with film earnings!

Brewer's Phrase and Fable - a mythical name

Nice to see I have made it into the Millenium Edition of Brewers' Phrase and Fable. I'll leave it to you to decide if that is my 'real' name or just a joke from my dad - my 'given' name (I wasn't christened) is Toby, not Tobias, which is the Jewish version, and means 'God is good' Tov Jah):

Tobias. See TOBIT .
Tobit. The central character of the popular story in the Book of Tobit in the APOCRYPHA. Tobit is a scrupulous and pious Jew who practiced good works, but, while sleeping in his courtyard, being unclean from burying a Jew found strangled in the street, he was blinded by sparrows, which 'muted warm dung in his eyes'. His son Tobias was attacked on the Tigris by a fish, which leapt out of the water and which he caught at the bidding of the angel RAPHAEL, his mentor. Tobit's blindness was cured by applying the gall of the fish to his eyes. Father and son prepared to reward Azarias (Raphael), whereupon the angel revealed his identity and returned to heaven.
Tobit's dog. See CAMEL.
Toby. The dog in the puppet show of PUNCH AND JUDY. He wears a frill garnished with bells to frighten away the Devil from his master.
Toby jug. A small jug in the form of a squat old man in 18th-century dress, wearing a three-cornered hat, one corner of which forms the lip.
The name comes from a poem (1761) about one 'Toby Philpot', adapted from the Latin by Francis Fawkes (1720-77), and the design of the jug from a print sold by Carrington Bowles, a London print seller, to Ralph Wood, the potter, who turned out a great number of Toby jugs. Sir Toby Belch. See under BELCH .

And my mum was a Vose - or probably a Huguenot refugee 'de Vaux' - so whether we have a connection to Guy Fawkes - Vaux - faux - false (name) I leave to you to decide. (He was the Lee Harvey Oswald of his age). I like to think we are entitled to Vaux Hall (now Vauxhall, a previously rundown area of London, but still - probably - one of the most expensive bits of planet to buy) but it's all nonsense to me, so make up your own jokes...

The Mask Behind The Mask

I am enjoying being in the MaybeLogic Academy. I guess it's indiscrete, talking about a secret forum where everyone just has 'handles' (pseudonyms, aliases) and 'avatars' and no-one publishes their 'real name' or age or location or sex or anything. That's fine if you are into being mysterious.

I can't be bothered with all that. I publish all and be damned. Information wants to be free....Why should you believe a name like Toby Philpott anyway, when a quick bit of research will tell you that it's as probable a name as John Bull, Uncle Sam, Friar Tuck or Robin Goodfellow.....it happens to be what my parents called me, but why should you believe me?

So - hidden in plain sight - the cheekiest and best plan.

The Forums do seem to be a bit slow moving - perhaps I am the only person who pops in daily...and 'talks' a lot. Still I am looking forward to doing the Illuminatus! course, because I was always delighted with that book. I have also taken on the more daunting course about James Joyce and Ezra Pound - a bit of brain exercise - but working in the library really helps, as we have all kinds of old books out in The Stacks (some not catalogued) which are useful references for this kind of literary project.

Meanwhile, we are going for a week in the country soon...leaving someone else to feed the fish. The cats have had four of the goldfish now ( no surprise to me) but the smaller, faster, more camouflaged fish should be OK. hmmm.

The cats are on an Atkins Diet... (fish and birds)

The Great Man

It's not by chance that I give the impression of drinking more than I did in my youth.

I did a little drinking in my teens, but once I discovered dope I gave it up. It seemed like the stupid drug of the older generation. I remember tripping in a pub in the North of England and getting Hunter's Fear and Loathing.

I did drink a little wine in Paris, of course...and a little tequila in Mexico...but once I became a juggler I virtually gave it up. Not just for the co-ordination, but the economics - I got more fun out of training, and preferred to use my money to pay for classes in everything I could think of. Funnily enough, I was just thinking of my wonderful acrobatics teacher Ronji Cruz the other day, but can't find news of her through Google. She it was who one day invited me out for a "quick half" and stopped me being so puritanical about it - over that half pint she invited me to teach her class the following week, which started me off on the teaching part of my life. Thanks Ronji!

Still didn't drink much. Saw too many stupid drunks at the medaeval banquets (being a Court Jester was a small but steady income - staying sober and acting tipsy was the best way to work). It wasn't really until I ended up in Barcelona that I started 'proper' drinking. Alone and despondent, there wasn't much to do but busk up some cash and then sit around in bars. And the Spanish didn't have any health issues with smoking and drinking (I still believe that it is worry that is a major contributor to illness - failing to do things joyously is fatal - that sub-text of "naughty but nice", "I really ought to give this up", etc). Either do it and enjoy it, or don't do it.

When living with people who don't drink it is a lot easier not to drink. And the reverse is true. When I went to Bristol and ended up with Marmora as a landlady (Hi Marmora!) I drank a great deal, which was partly from feeling 'over the hill' in terms of teaching (a self-fulfilling prophecy). Fortunately I ran away to join the circus, where a stout constitution was an asset (we worked hard and played hard - NoFit State parties were the best I have ever been to).

And now I live in Cardiff. The Welsh drink quite a lot, and pub culture is a way of life, so I get drawn in. I also like a bottle of red wine at home.

Listen, at the beginning of the Twentieth Centurythe last Ale-Taster in Cardiff was nicknamed "Toby Philpot" after the Toby Jug character, who, like Robin Hood and John Bull, is a classic British archetype, described in an 18th Century song (tune here - lyrics here). My dad may have been a teetotaler, but he named me after the most famous drinker in the land. Not a lot I can do about that. I researched the name when working on publicity angles (Toby Juggler, etc). This other Toby has published most of the same stuff, so I won't bother.

And, of course, when I took up juggling my hero was W.C.Fields (The Great Man), not one of those 'clean-living, drug-free (sure) Olympic athletes in the circus.


Hero with feet of clay...or something...

This one's for Keili (who loves a bit of language)

While checking out Toby Jugs (see The Great Man, above) I came across this gem, a tongue-twister game dating back to 1824 (you had to make your own amusement's then!) The site explains it, here's the text:

TOBY PHILPOT sat tippling with UMPO, VUMPO, and WILLY WIDEMOUTH of Wolverhampton, when X and Y, two officers, brought in the culprit, while Saccharum Sweet Tooth said nothing, while Ramo Samee really swollowed a sword, while Sly Kia cried Quack! quack! quack! And turned into a duck, to escape from Poniatowsky, who said, To jail with the Juggler and Jade, as Mother Bunch on her broomstick cried, here's a to-do! as Nicholas Hotch-potch said, Never were such times, as Muley Hassan, Mufti of Moldavia, put on his Barnacles, to see little Tweedle gobble them up, when Kia Khan Kreuse transmogrofied them into Pippins, because Snip's wife cried, Illikipilliky! lass a-day! 'tis too bad to titter at a body, when Hamet el Mammet, the bottlenosed Barber of Balasora, laughed ha! ha! ha! on beholding the elephant spout mud over the 'Prentice, who pricked his trunk with a needle, as Dicky Snip, the tailor, read the proclamation of Chrononhotonthologos, offering a thousand sequins for taking Bombardinian, Bashaw of three tails, who killed Aldiborontiphoskyphorniostikos.

I have a whole thing about the origins of my name (more vanity publishing!) but I will probably make a page up for it. This guy has come up with most of the elements (puppet dog, biblical, toby jug, etc)

Meanwhile, the connection with Toby Jugs (drinking mugs in the shape of a person) seems to have started with this 18th Century song (or possibly Sir Toby Belch in Shakespeare's Twelth Night) about a famous drinker who died, but whose clay was later dug up to make a jug in his image....all those biblical hints about humans being made of clay, too....as well as something much older (vessels in the form of humans or animals are thousands of years old).

Toby Filpot or The Brown Jug

Dear Tom, this brown jug, which now foams with mild ale,
In which I will drink to sweet Nan of the Vale,
Was once Toby Philpot, a thirsty old soul,
As e'er cracked a bottle, or fathom'd a bowl;
In boozing about 'twas his pride to excel,
And amongst jolly topers he bore off the bell.

It chanced as in dog days (fnord) he sat at his ease,
In his flower-woven arbour, as gay as you please,
With his friend and a pipe, puffing sorrow away,
And with honest Old Stingo sat soaking his clay.
His breath-doors of life on a sudden were shut,
And he died full as big as a Dorchester Butt.

His body when long in the ground it had lain,
And time into clay had dissolv'd it again,
A potter found out, in its covert so snug,
And with part of Fat Toby he form'd this brown jug;
Now sacred to friendship, to mirth, and mild ale ---
So here's to my lovely sweet Nan of the Vale.

It's always nice to find confirmation of one's own beliefs. I have long thought people were making themselves miserable by adopting the ambitious, competitive, restlessly dissatisfied, extravert American capitalist culture, and this month's Green Futures has articles on just that theme.

“A lot of mental health problems stem from the rise of the individualist, aspirational culture. This means we’re defining ourselves increasingly through external things – what we do, what we own, how much we earn – and through other people. We’re forever comparing ourselves to others and finding ourselves wanting.” Oliver James

"This is just a small part of the picture. On a much wider canvas, argues James, the dominant values of Western society are almost literally programming us to be unhappy. He quotes a fascinating piece of work by American psychologist Tim Kassar. “It showed that people who are primarily motivated by ‘materialism’, which in this case means the pursuit of power, status and wealth, are (rather gratifyingly!) much more likely to be unhappy in almost every respect, including being less healthy”, than those who remain resolutely unambitious. [toby: hooray for our side, I have always been resolutely unambitious]It wasn’t just a one-off experiment, James stresses: Kassar reviewed a whole series of studies. “It’s an extraordinary body of evidence. It’s scientifically solid; well-replicated – and hardly ever talked about.” So living in a way that is bad for the planet is, reassuringly, pretty lousy for us as well? “Exactly.”"

There's quite enough vanity about a website, without going too far into the derivation of my name, but (in a minor way) it is a mythical name like John Bull or Robin Hood. Sir Toby Belch (in Twelth Night) may well be this eternal hedonistic Falstaffian rogue.

At some point one of the library staff brought me a cutting from a Cardiff paper in the 30s, about the last Ale-Taster in Cardiff. I was very amused, but lost the cutting (and you can't 'search' paper archives the way you can electronic ones. So I tried the web, and came up with this:

"Cardiff Ale-Taster

I remember the last Aletaster of Cardiff. His name was Edward PHILPOT, and his nickname 'Toby Philpot.' I well remember hearing him say to someone with whom he was talking in the street : 'Well, I must go and see what sort of ale they have got at the Glove and Shears.'"

which I found here, in Reminiscences of Old Inhabitants.

Here's a weird fragment for those of you who don't know my name is one of those archetypal ones like Robin Hood or John Bull.
I'll add my previous research at some point, but this came out of the Cardiff Library Local Study department.

THE OFFICAL ALETASTER

"The last official Aletaster of Cardiff was named 'Toby Philpot' and he was sworn in to watch (under a penalty for failure) that no ale was sold in the town before he had officially pronounced it 'Good and wholesome for Man's Body'."
Cardiff and Suburban News 23rd January 1932.