St. John's Pokers and Tongs
Doctor Who meta in anticipation of
The Bells of Saint John
including the prequel.
That's the warning.
Let's start with a pretty picture and some poetry.
St John's Cathedral at The Tower of London
The Bells of London Town
Gay go up and gay go down
To Ring the Bells of London Town
"Oranges and Lemons" say the Bells of St. Clements
"Bullseyes and Targets" say the Bells of St. Margaret's
"Brickbats and Tiles" say the Bells of St. Giles
"Halfpence and Farthings" say the Bells of St. Martin's
"Pancakes and Fritters" say the Bells of St. Peter's
"Two Sticks and an Apple" say the Bells of Whitechapel
"Maids in white aprons" say the Bells at St. Katherine's
The thing about nursery rhymes is that they're the perfect example of how to encode all kinds of material into a very small space, in a way that's easy to remember and recite. They also provide a way of communicating surreptitiously, the better to hide the inflammatory, the controversial, the dangerous, as well the historical and geographical.
The oranges and lemons of St Clements are rather benign in this regard -- just a bit of local flavor, referring to the kind of products found at the nearby wharves. Likewise, the fields by St Margaret's were home to archery practice, which Edward III commanded be held on Sundays and holidays; the builders near St Giles used bricks and tiles in their trade; moneylenders, on the other hand, could be found by St Martin's, unlike the original sort of "fast food" around St Peter's. The sellers at the market by St Katherine's were easily distinguished by their garb.
Whitechapel doesn't actually have bells. Rather, they made bells.
"Pokers and Tongs" say the Bells of St. John's
"Kettles and Pans" say the Bells of St. Anne's
"Old Father Baldpate" say the slow Bells of Aldgate
"You owe me Ten Shillings" say the Bells of St. Helen's
"When will you Pay me?" say the Bells of Old Bailey
"When I grow Rich" say the Bells of Shoreditch
"Pray when will that be?" say the Bells of Stepney
"I do not know" says the Great Bell of Bow
Gay go up and gay go down
To Ring the Bells of London Town
And really, that's how much of the rest of the poem goes as well. There's just a couple of little digs -- the Bells of Shoreditch are actually speaking of the severe poverty that beset that part of London, the bells who invoke money are warning of local moneylenders. Old Bailey's bells are a bit more sinister -- they actually ring from St Sepulchre-without-Newgate Church, tolling the death knell for the debtors at Newgate Prison, who were usually tried at "Old Bailey," London's Central Criminal Court on Bailey Street.
Which leaves us with our titular bells.
The Bells of St John's do not speak of anything so nice as what the other bells have had to say. St John's Chapel is at The Tower of London, and the Pokers and Tongs were among that institution's instruments of torture. Though the chapel was oft used for special ceremonies, it was also employed as a repository for state records; a glorified filing cabinet... or Library, if you prefer. UNIT supposedly has a secret base under the Tower.
Sadly, the Bells of St John's don't make it into the later "Oranges and Lemons" version of the rhyme (made into a children's game!) which gets quoted in The God Complex:
"Oranges and lemons" say the Bells of St. Clements
"You owe me five farthings" say the Bells of St. Martin's
"When will you pay me?" say the Bells of Old Bailey
"When I grow rich" say the Bells of Shoreditch
"When will that be?" say the Bells of Stepney
"I do not know" says the Great Bell of Bow
Here comes a candle to light you to bed
Here comes a chopper to chop off your head
Chop chop chop chop - the last man's dead.
The St John Ambulance logo has been on the TARDIS doors for a while now. St John Ambulance is a charitable organization providing medical aid, and though it's currently its own entity, it derives from The Order of Saint John, otherwise known as The Knights Hospitaller, founded nearly a thousand years ago.
Way back in the year 600, Pope Gregory I had a hospital built in Jerusalem to care for Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land. Charlegmagne added a library, but after the unit was destroyed at the turn of the millenium, it was rebuilt and eventually become home to the hospitaller order after the First Crusade.
Interestingly, the Knights Hospitaller expanded their medical role to a military one over the next couple hundred years. So it's here, then, that we get the Healer/Warrior dichotomy invoked back in A Good Man Goes To War. It's right on the door of the TARDIS. It's not until the 1800s that a British offshoot constitutes itself as The Venerable Order of Saint John and returns to its roots as a medical charity.
Okay, with our historical details out of the way, let's look at the Prequel.
We open on the Doctor. He's alone, on a Red Swingset.
It's Autumn, so many leaves on the ground, but that beautiful maple (?) behind him isn't done shedding yet. (Trees are important in Moffat's Who.) The World Tree is the symbol of being connected Above and Below, in communion with the Universe. In the first framing of this first shot, the Doctor is out of alignment with the trees behind him. The Doctor is not in communion.
Remember when Lorna Bucket worked some magic for Amy Pond to reunite her with her baby? She made her a Prayer Leaf. It's the same symbolic principle.
Clara's arrival balances the shot, setting up a visual mirror. So, yeah, the Doctor and Clara are mirrored here, but not just at the level of framing the shot, though that is rather exquisite. It crops up in the dialogue, and in the irony of the situation.
CLARA: Hello.
DOCTOR: Hello.
CLARA: Why are you sitting on a swing?
DOCTOR: Why shouldn't I?
CLARA: Because you're old!
DOCTOR: Yeah, that's true. That is very true.
Clara and the Doctor start swinging, all synchronized and stuff, and the mirror-twinning begins. Clara's still a little girl, doesn't remember having met the strange old man before, who likewise doesn't recognize her for who she is.
We've seen many little girls in Moffat's Who. Nancy's mistaken for a little girl in The Empty Child, Reinette first meets the Doctor as a little girl, as does Amy -- who's juxtaposed with Mandy in the Beast Below, and Jennifer in The Rebel Flesh. Of course there's Melody Pond's little girl experiences. Charlotte Abigail Lux is the little girl in the Library, the savior of all. And there's the little girl from Mercy, the one who knocks over books in the church, she grows up to tell Mercy tales.
CLARA: My Mum says I shouldn't talk to strange men.
DOCTOR: Your Mum's right.
CLARA: Are you strange?
DOCTOR: Oh dear, I'm way past strange. I think I'm probably incredible.
CLARA: Are you lonely?
DOCTOR: Why would I be lonely?
The mirroring of dialogue continues, the Doctor reflecting everything Clara says -- her Mum, his strangeness, his loneliness. Of particular interest to me is the Doctor's self-description of being "incredible." Like most good words, "incredible" has multiple meanings. Here the Doctor means "way past strange," but the root of the word actually means "beyond belief." Which is to say, the Doctor is not to be believed in.
CLARA: Because you're sad. Have you lost something?
DOCTOR: No.
I mean, the Doctor lies, right? But there's more to belief than lies. There's also believing in the sense of Faith, which we generally reserve for deities. The Doctor, of course, has been likened to a god many times, just recently in The Snowmen, as a matter of fact.
CLARA: When I lose something, I go to a quiet place, and I close my eyes, and then I can remember where I put it.
DOCTOR: Good plan.
CLARA: I'm always losing things. I lost my best pencil, my school bag, my Gran, and my mojo.
DOCTOR: Your mojo?
CLARA: I got it back though.
DOCTOR: Aye, that's good!
Clara is not deterred. She expresses Hope in recovering that which is LOST, and not just hope but an actually strategy. The strategy is a kind of meditation, a mediation to remember, which is one of our long-running themes in Doctor Who. Remembering is kin to the Divine. It's almost Buddhist.
Oh, and how about that list of Clara's? This is the stuff that's of value to her. What's important. Her best pencil -- she likes to write, I bet, enough to rank her pencils. And she probably likes school. She's lost an old person in her life, which is a Doctor parallel. And, most importantly, she's lost her mojo, but she got it back. "Mojo" is a form of "magic" as well as personal power or charisma.
I love this shot! The balance and symmetry continues to hold. From this angle we can see Blue added to the Red, pointing towards an integration of opposites, the union of polarities that makes for a healthy tree.
There's still a polarity, though -- Clara has her feet on the ground (meaning she's grounded) while the Doctor's feet are in the air, still in the clouds as it were. However, he's already becoming more aligned with the Tree.
Also, just got to say, I love the swings. They're Chairs that hang in mid-air, and they move!
CLARA: What did you lose?
DOCTOR: My friend. I met her twice before. And I lost her both times, and now I don't think I'll ever find her again.
CLARA: Have you been looking?
DOCTOR: Yeah, everywhere.
CLARA: That's sad.
Now when Clara asks about what the Doctor's lost, she doesn't get a lie, she gets the truth. The truth, by the way, is inherently twinned -- another form of mirroring. The Doctor's lost Clara twice now.
CLARA: How are you going to find her?
DOCTOR: Well, the first two times I met her I just sort of bumped into her, so, I thought, maybe, if I just wandered about a bit I might bump into her again. You know, like, like, destiny, sort of.
CLARA: That's rubbish.
DOCTOR: I think it probably is. Hey, maybe, I could find a quiet room and have a good think about it instead.
CLARA: That would be better.
I like that Clara calls out the Doctor on his "destiny" rubbish, prompting the Doctor to take her up on her idea of finding a quiet place and having a good think. He should join a monastery or something.
The funny thing is, the Doctor was actually right -- he did have his "mojo" as far as how to go about finding Clara was concerned; he bumped into her when he wasn't looking! A marvelous spell, made possible by the magic of a Swinging Chair. But the other sense of his mojo, his personal power and charisma, that's why he doesn't recognize Clara looking him in the face. And that's sad.
CLARA: Goodbye!
DOCTOR: Goodbye.
CLARA: Mister, I hope you find her again.
DOCTOR: So do I.
Clara and the Doctor synchronize at the end. But now look how the shot's framed -- we've moved in closer to the Doctor (which indicates he doesn't feel so lonely anymore) and as a result he's now aligned with that beautiful tree behind him.
The Doctor and Clara's paths literally cross at the end -- she heads off to our right, the Doctor to our left, and the irony of the situation is finally revealed to us in the last bit of conversation, between Clara and her Mum, invoking the same patterns from earlier in the scene.
MUM: Who was that?
CLARA: I was talking to a sad man.
MUM: Clara Oswald, what have I told you about talking to strange men?
The Bells of Saint John
including the prequel.
That's the warning.
Let's start with a pretty picture and some poetry.
St John's Cathedral at The Tower of London
The Bells of London Town
Gay go up and gay go down
To Ring the Bells of London Town
"Oranges and Lemons" say the Bells of St. Clements
"Bullseyes and Targets" say the Bells of St. Margaret's
"Brickbats and Tiles" say the Bells of St. Giles
"Halfpence and Farthings" say the Bells of St. Martin's
"Pancakes and Fritters" say the Bells of St. Peter's
"Two Sticks and an Apple" say the Bells of Whitechapel
"Maids in white aprons" say the Bells at St. Katherine's
The thing about nursery rhymes is that they're the perfect example of how to encode all kinds of material into a very small space, in a way that's easy to remember and recite. They also provide a way of communicating surreptitiously, the better to hide the inflammatory, the controversial, the dangerous, as well the historical and geographical.
The oranges and lemons of St Clements are rather benign in this regard -- just a bit of local flavor, referring to the kind of products found at the nearby wharves. Likewise, the fields by St Margaret's were home to archery practice, which Edward III commanded be held on Sundays and holidays; the builders near St Giles used bricks and tiles in their trade; moneylenders, on the other hand, could be found by St Martin's, unlike the original sort of "fast food" around St Peter's. The sellers at the market by St Katherine's were easily distinguished by their garb.
Whitechapel doesn't actually have bells. Rather, they made bells.
"Pokers and Tongs" say the Bells of St. John's
"Kettles and Pans" say the Bells of St. Anne's
"Old Father Baldpate" say the slow Bells of Aldgate
"You owe me Ten Shillings" say the Bells of St. Helen's
"When will you Pay me?" say the Bells of Old Bailey
"When I grow Rich" say the Bells of Shoreditch
"Pray when will that be?" say the Bells of Stepney
"I do not know" says the Great Bell of Bow
Gay go up and gay go down
To Ring the Bells of London Town
And really, that's how much of the rest of the poem goes as well. There's just a couple of little digs -- the Bells of Shoreditch are actually speaking of the severe poverty that beset that part of London, the bells who invoke money are warning of local moneylenders. Old Bailey's bells are a bit more sinister -- they actually ring from St Sepulchre-without-Newgate Church, tolling the death knell for the debtors at Newgate Prison, who were usually tried at "Old Bailey," London's Central Criminal Court on Bailey Street.
Which leaves us with our titular bells.
The Bells of St John's do not speak of anything so nice as what the other bells have had to say. St John's Chapel is at The Tower of London, and the Pokers and Tongs were among that institution's instruments of torture. Though the chapel was oft used for special ceremonies, it was also employed as a repository for state records; a glorified filing cabinet... or Library, if you prefer. UNIT supposedly has a secret base under the Tower.
Sadly, the Bells of St John's don't make it into the later "Oranges and Lemons" version of the rhyme (made into a children's game!) which gets quoted in The God Complex:
"Oranges and lemons" say the Bells of St. Clements
"You owe me five farthings" say the Bells of St. Martin's
"When will you pay me?" say the Bells of Old Bailey
"When I grow rich" say the Bells of Shoreditch
"When will that be?" say the Bells of Stepney
"I do not know" says the Great Bell of Bow
Here comes a candle to light you to bed
Here comes a chopper to chop off your head
Chop chop chop chop - the last man's dead.
The St John Ambulance logo has been on the TARDIS doors for a while now. St John Ambulance is a charitable organization providing medical aid, and though it's currently its own entity, it derives from The Order of Saint John, otherwise known as The Knights Hospitaller, founded nearly a thousand years ago.
Way back in the year 600, Pope Gregory I had a hospital built in Jerusalem to care for Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land. Charlegmagne added a library, but after the unit was destroyed at the turn of the millenium, it was rebuilt and eventually become home to the hospitaller order after the First Crusade.
Interestingly, the Knights Hospitaller expanded their medical role to a military one over the next couple hundred years. So it's here, then, that we get the Healer/Warrior dichotomy invoked back in A Good Man Goes To War. It's right on the door of the TARDIS. It's not until the 1800s that a British offshoot constitutes itself as The Venerable Order of Saint John and returns to its roots as a medical charity.
Okay, with our historical details out of the way, let's look at the Prequel.
We open on the Doctor. He's alone, on a Red Swingset.
It's Autumn, so many leaves on the ground, but that beautiful maple (?) behind him isn't done shedding yet. (Trees are important in Moffat's Who.) The World Tree is the symbol of being connected Above and Below, in communion with the Universe. In the first framing of this first shot, the Doctor is out of alignment with the trees behind him. The Doctor is not in communion.
Remember when Lorna Bucket worked some magic for Amy Pond to reunite her with her baby? She made her a Prayer Leaf. It's the same symbolic principle.
Clara's arrival balances the shot, setting up a visual mirror. So, yeah, the Doctor and Clara are mirrored here, but not just at the level of framing the shot, though that is rather exquisite. It crops up in the dialogue, and in the irony of the situation.
CLARA: Hello.
DOCTOR: Hello.
CLARA: Why are you sitting on a swing?
DOCTOR: Why shouldn't I?
CLARA: Because you're old!
DOCTOR: Yeah, that's true. That is very true.
Clara and the Doctor start swinging, all synchronized and stuff, and the mirror-twinning begins. Clara's still a little girl, doesn't remember having met the strange old man before, who likewise doesn't recognize her for who she is.
We've seen many little girls in Moffat's Who. Nancy's mistaken for a little girl in The Empty Child, Reinette first meets the Doctor as a little girl, as does Amy -- who's juxtaposed with Mandy in the Beast Below, and Jennifer in The Rebel Flesh. Of course there's Melody Pond's little girl experiences. Charlotte Abigail Lux is the little girl in the Library, the savior of all. And there's the little girl from Mercy, the one who knocks over books in the church, she grows up to tell Mercy tales.
CLARA: My Mum says I shouldn't talk to strange men.
DOCTOR: Your Mum's right.
CLARA: Are you strange?
DOCTOR: Oh dear, I'm way past strange. I think I'm probably incredible.
CLARA: Are you lonely?
DOCTOR: Why would I be lonely?
The mirroring of dialogue continues, the Doctor reflecting everything Clara says -- her Mum, his strangeness, his loneliness. Of particular interest to me is the Doctor's self-description of being "incredible." Like most good words, "incredible" has multiple meanings. Here the Doctor means "way past strange," but the root of the word actually means "beyond belief." Which is to say, the Doctor is not to be believed in.
CLARA: Because you're sad. Have you lost something?
DOCTOR: No.
I mean, the Doctor lies, right? But there's more to belief than lies. There's also believing in the sense of Faith, which we generally reserve for deities. The Doctor, of course, has been likened to a god many times, just recently in The Snowmen, as a matter of fact.
CLARA: When I lose something, I go to a quiet place, and I close my eyes, and then I can remember where I put it.
DOCTOR: Good plan.
CLARA: I'm always losing things. I lost my best pencil, my school bag, my Gran, and my mojo.
DOCTOR: Your mojo?
CLARA: I got it back though.
DOCTOR: Aye, that's good!
Clara is not deterred. She expresses Hope in recovering that which is LOST, and not just hope but an actually strategy. The strategy is a kind of meditation, a mediation to remember, which is one of our long-running themes in Doctor Who. Remembering is kin to the Divine. It's almost Buddhist.
Oh, and how about that list of Clara's? This is the stuff that's of value to her. What's important. Her best pencil -- she likes to write, I bet, enough to rank her pencils. And she probably likes school. She's lost an old person in her life, which is a Doctor parallel. And, most importantly, she's lost her mojo, but she got it back. "Mojo" is a form of "magic" as well as personal power or charisma.
I love this shot! The balance and symmetry continues to hold. From this angle we can see Blue added to the Red, pointing towards an integration of opposites, the union of polarities that makes for a healthy tree.
There's still a polarity, though -- Clara has her feet on the ground (meaning she's grounded) while the Doctor's feet are in the air, still in the clouds as it were. However, he's already becoming more aligned with the Tree.
Also, just got to say, I love the swings. They're Chairs that hang in mid-air, and they move!
CLARA: What did you lose?
DOCTOR: My friend. I met her twice before. And I lost her both times, and now I don't think I'll ever find her again.
CLARA: Have you been looking?
DOCTOR: Yeah, everywhere.
CLARA: That's sad.
Now when Clara asks about what the Doctor's lost, she doesn't get a lie, she gets the truth. The truth, by the way, is inherently twinned -- another form of mirroring. The Doctor's lost Clara twice now.
CLARA: How are you going to find her?
DOCTOR: Well, the first two times I met her I just sort of bumped into her, so, I thought, maybe, if I just wandered about a bit I might bump into her again. You know, like, like, destiny, sort of.
CLARA: That's rubbish.
DOCTOR: I think it probably is. Hey, maybe, I could find a quiet room and have a good think about it instead.
CLARA: That would be better.
I like that Clara calls out the Doctor on his "destiny" rubbish, prompting the Doctor to take her up on her idea of finding a quiet place and having a good think. He should join a monastery or something.
The funny thing is, the Doctor was actually right -- he did have his "mojo" as far as how to go about finding Clara was concerned; he bumped into her when he wasn't looking! A marvelous spell, made possible by the magic of a Swinging Chair. But the other sense of his mojo, his personal power and charisma, that's why he doesn't recognize Clara looking him in the face. And that's sad.
CLARA: Goodbye!
DOCTOR: Goodbye.
CLARA: Mister, I hope you find her again.
DOCTOR: So do I.
Clara and the Doctor synchronize at the end. But now look how the shot's framed -- we've moved in closer to the Doctor (which indicates he doesn't feel so lonely anymore) and as a result he's now aligned with that beautiful tree behind him.
The Doctor and Clara's paths literally cross at the end -- she heads off to our right, the Doctor to our left, and the irony of the situation is finally revealed to us in the last bit of conversation, between Clara and her Mum, invoking the same patterns from earlier in the scene.
MUM: Who was that?
CLARA: I was talking to a sad man.
MUM: Clara Oswald, what have I told you about talking to strange men?