THE LEGEND OF MASTER BATES

The title of this post may shock you... Master Bates?? What kind of potion have you drunk, Sandra Dermark?

Nothing but a can of Monster, I reply?

Monster, that Satanic brew? On the can, the three talon marks look like the Hebrew letter vav, that equals number 6. Vav-vav-vav... Six-six-six is no longer alone, he's getting out the marrow in your backbone... (Genesis, Supper's Ready)

I thought the Mark of the Beast was the Covid shot, that it had some silicon microchip... Three Covid shots and nothing happened to me! Well, I caught Covid in between the first and second shots, but I'm young and strong!

Anyway, on to Master Bates and how his legend is older than you, dearest, reader, may think...

There was in the Nineties, you Commonwealth millennials might remember, an Anglo-Australian cartoon about pirates, called Captain Pugwash. As a Spaniard, I first got to watch it on YouTube, to verify a certain urban legend about the characters' names:

The animated series is widely believed to have featured characters with risqué maritime names such as Master Bates, Seaman Stains, and Roger the Cabin Boy ("to roger," as a verb, is synonymous with "to fuck" or "to shag"). Moreover, the captain's surname, "Pugwash," is said to be Australian English for oral sex!

It all is not as erotic as it sounds; Master Bates was actually Master Mate, Roger the Cabin Boy was actually called Tom (Tom the Cabin Boy, far more innocent than Tom Marvolo Riddle), the captain's surname was never Australian English for oral sex, and there was no Seaman Stains in the crew at all! It all is simply a huge Mandela effect popping up in the minds of now-young adult Commonwealth millennials!

But at least the "Master Bates" double entendre is older, dating back to the Victorian era! To Charles Dickens (or "Dahl's Chickens" as the BFG calls him by spoonerism)!

In Oliver Twist, one of the kids in the Dodger's gang is called Charlie Bates, and he goes by the honorific of Master. He always goes by "Master Bates," never by first name! Master Bates (tee hee!) thinks everything is hilarious, and that crime is just one long joke against the system. 

As he said it, Master Bates caught up an end of his neckerchief: and, holding it erect in the air, dropped his head on his shoulder, and jerked a curious sound through his teeth; thereby indicating, by a lively pantomimic representation that scragging and hanging were one and the same thing. 

I think this is INTENTIONAL on Dickens' part, isn't it? Given that the author was a Charlie himself, who knew what he did in the dark, under the covers? Especially in a Victorian era when masturbation was the worst of deadly sins, a scourge of physical and mental health! Like Jane Austen's "Rears and Vices," I understand why it was written as a double entendre. And both "Master Bates" and "Rears and Vices" have aged like a fine sherry (worth quaffing by Captain Pugwash), right?