Letters from Quotidia Hologram 7

Welcome to Letters from Quotidia Hologram 7. Just suppose, as in Robert Harris’s 1992 novel, Fatherland, that the Axis powers had won the Second World War. Or, on the other side of the pond, that the Confederate states had won the American Civil War. What would be the shape of the world we live in now?

This is not a new game. The earliest alternative history I could find on Wikipedia was from the first century BC- where the Roman historian Livy wondered, in a short section of his monumental work, Ab Urbe Condita, what would have happened had Alexander the Great survived the circumstances leading to his death and had turned his attention to conquering Italy. Livy concluded that Rome would have prevailed- as would any prudent author writing under the watchful eye of the emperor Augustus!

Alternative histories abound in speculative fiction and in TV series and film franchises. Regardless of the many impersonal forces shaping history, it is my belief that the acts of individuals are of crucial importance in determining the way that this world has turned out. Not just mundane acts such as turning on a tap or passing the salt. But acts requiring the courage to stand up when it would have been safer to stay down.

Courage and cowardice. The former has the standing of gold bullion: the latter, counterfeit currency. When the young protagonist of Joseph Conrad’s novel, Lord Jim, leaps into a lifeboat with the captain, abandoning their passengers to a presumed watery grave, he is only doing what cowards have done in maritime history. There is some evidence that one or more men dressed as women to escape the doomed White Star liner, RMS Titanic. Lest we be too censorious of such craven individuals, which one of us has not had occasion to recall, with shame, an incident where we squibbed it; didn’t step up to the plate; decided that discretion was the better part of valour?

Thinking about this, I was led to consider what would have happened if Saint Joseph, in Matthew, Chapter 2, had ignored the angel’s warning to undertake the perilous flight to Egypt and instead just stayed where he was, adopting another name, another trade. Or if, in Acts, Chapter 7, Saint Stephen had capitulated to the threats of his opponents, thereby depriving the Christian faith of its first martyr, template of countless thousands to follow? Finally, in John, Chapter 21, what if Saint Peter had decided to return to his former trade as fisherman and to put the bewildering events of the past three years behind him? Here, then, is my song- which imagines an alternative history at three pivotal moments of The New Testament where each saint takes an easier, more reasonable path. The song, entitled, Had You Been There, explores these scenarios. [insert song]

When we hear the phrase, Christian martyrs, we often have images of groups of chanting people being set upon by wild beasts in the Colosseum as the Roman crowd roars its approval and do you perhaps see, in your mind’s eye, lines of screaming human torches blazing along the Appian Way as punishment for the dastardly sect’s setting fire to Rome. Of course, hagiography is not history and, while there certainly was persecution of the early Christians, nowhere was it as systematic or as widespread as the popular imagination ascribes.

But the killing of Christians is not, unfortunately, an atrocity from the distant past. More than 380 million Christians around the world are facing persecution and discrimination for their faith today, according to Open Doors’ World Watch List. At least seventy Christians were beheaded in a church in the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo earlier this month, according to Newsweek in a report dated 02nd March 2025.

Worst of the worst is North Korea where summary execution for possession of a Bible is reported. There are an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 Christians in North Korea, who have to meet in complete secrecy if they do. If discovered, Christians face being forced into a political prison camp, hard labour or execution. Fifty countries of the world today practise extreme or very high levels of persecution of Christians. They range from sub-Saharan Africa through the Middle East to Iran, Afghanistan, India and China.

But I return to classical times for the theme and content of my second song. Pliny the Younger was Governor of Bithynia-Pontus on the Anatolian Black Sea coast and in 112 AD he wrote to the Emperor Trajan for advice on how to deal with Christians. The response: give them a chance to recant but if they prove recalcitrant, execute them. This troublesome sect had been growing in size and were thought to practise incest and cannibalism. You know, brothers and sisters, you should love one another. And with the Eucharistic exhortation to eat my body and drink my blood, one may understand the revulsion felt by decent citizens of the Empire!

I imagine the urbane diplomat Pliny, confronted by one of the leaders of this strange sect. To increase the tension, I have as the subject of the interrogation, his cousin. (Not a whit of evidence for this, but these are song lyrics, right?) Don’t ask me why, but for both songs of this post I found the musical setting of a swung Country waltz to be what was needed to accommodate the material! Listen now to There is Always a Fly in the Ointment. [insert song] Let’s hope we have enough strong-willed men and women left in the world to be unreasonable when being reasonable goes against what is the right thing to do.

Had You Been There (words and music Quentin Bega)

Intro: G2 Cmaj7 G2 Am7 D13b9

Verse: G C Am Am7 D-2 Em Am C Am D G C Am D G

Ignore the angel’s warning and simply move a little way out of town

Change your name take up a trade and start to put some new roots down

And when the searchers come do make sure to hide that Baby well

There is just a chance that you will dodge the tyrant’s evil killing spell

And when they stoop to lift the rounded throwing stones up off the ground

Smile and spread your hands explaining that their arguments are really sound

Apologise and say that it was just a misunderstanding and that in fact

You’d really rather leave the killing ground with your precious skin intact

Now you are back and as before, mending nets by the fish-filled inland sea

And as you gaze out o’er the waves, the three years past just seem a fevered dream

What seems now to be a fading fantasy that at one time filled your shining head

You’re back to real life so don’t wonder too much what might have been instead

It didn’t happen so there is no Way, there is nothing meaningful left for you to choose

Heads or tails, black or red, flush or bust, cheat if you must, but you will always lose

A raving prophet tears his cloak and rubs the black ash through his tangled hair

Hoarsely whispers what would you have done differently had you been there.

What would you have done differently, my friend, had you been there.

What would you have done differently, my friend, had you been there.

There is Always a Fly in the Ointment (words and music Quentin Bega)

Intro: Ab Eb2 Cm Bb Eb Verse: Cm Gm Cm Eb Fm Bb Ab Eb2 Cm Bb Eb

My name is Pliny the Younger, I govern this plenteous land

Dispense Roman justice without favour or fear, I value order and calm

There is always a fly in the ointment, a bug in restorative balm

And here I find standing before me the chief of a barbarous band

The Emperor Trajan has written that you’re left with only one choice

Reject your absurd superstitious beliefs and return to our good Roman ways

By example you may lead many out of that benighted maze

And into the broad sunlit pantheon where our citizens all do rejoice

This is your last chance to save yourself from a certain and justified death

You eat human flesh, have sex with your sister, mock the entire Roman state. I’ve asked you once and I asked you again, repent before it is too late

I see by the set of your grim, stony face that I’m only wasting my breath

I’m glad that you’ve made your decision, your defiance will surely ensure

That your vile sect will vanish without trace, a footnote, if even that much

Don’t think that because you’re my cousin that I will just prove a soft touch

I value much more our fine system which I’ll work today to keep pure

My name is Pliny the Younger, I govern this plenteous land

Dispense Roman justice without favour or fear, I value order and calm

Dispense Roman justice without favour or fear, I value order and calm

                                                                        …I most value order and calm

Credits: All written text, song lyrics andmusic (including background music) written and composed by Quentin Bega unless otherwise specified in the credits section after individual posts. Illustrative excerpts from other texts identified clearly within each podcast. I donate to and use Wikipedia frequently as one of the saner sources of information on the web.

Technical Stuff: Microphone-songs Shure SM58; (for the podcast spoken content) Audio Technica AT 2020 front-facing with pop filter); Apogee 76K also used for songs and spoken text. For recording and mixing down: 64-bit N-Track Studio 10 Extended used; Rubix 22 also used for mixing of microphone(s) and instruments. I use the Band in a Box/RealBand 2023 combo for music composition.