May 2018 – A View From The Lanterne Rouge

A limerick a week #88

What a Carry On, Demelza…

Things have been rather quiet on the Poldark and Demelza front for a little while. Until now, that is. For what has become very much a two-lead show, Eleanor Tomlinson, who plays Demelza, has expressed the very reasonable wish to be paid the same as Aidan Turner who plays the scything six-pack that is Ross.

It was fair, she said, that Turner got paid more at the start because he was the big-name draw, but now, after three series, she felt she had earned parity. I agree and not just because I’m biased as a time-served member of Team Demelza (see posts passim)!

How about this headline for starters?

The production company argues otherwise as Ross has more screen-time than Demelza. That sounds like a post hoc, poorly made up excuse to me. They might as well have said Turner gets paid more because Ross has more extra-marital couplings than Demelza. ‘Tis utter b******s, and neither I nor the rest of Team Demelza watch the show because of Aidan Turner’s cumulative-time-on screen (or out-of-wedlock trysts)! ‘Fair pay for Eleanor’ I say (or, as the late-lamented Sid James would have said: “Demelza’s not getting enough!”).

Which reminds me, it’s limerick time again:

While Poldark is strutting his stuff
Like a diamond that’s cut from the rough,
It seems really unfair
To get more than his share
While Demelza gets barely enough!

**Carry On Demelza (with apologies to Carry On Doctor)…**

**Ross:** You may not realise it, but I was once a weak man.
**Demelza:** Oh, don’t worry. Once a week’s enough for any man!

A limerick a week #87

A bad day on the bike…

A friend recently decided to tour Orkney and Shetland by bicycle. Remembering Orkney from a childhood holiday, I thought “It’s flat. I’ll see if I can join him for a long weekend.” I did, but it wasn’t as flat as I remembered! Forty-five years between visits had led my memories astray.

The western Mainland had some long uphill drags. Hoy was the same and both islands had hills that were just a bit too long so, on occasion, I had to push. My friend didn’t – he just ground out a slow cadence on a middling gear; he was the Duracell bunny of our trip and I was the also-ran.

The sub-heading of this post comprises part of a well-known aphorism that A bad day on the bike beats a good day in the office. Once you get out there it’s true – my problem is getting out there in the first place. Nevertheless, I didn’t really have any bad days (I had great days!); it was just a reminder that I still need to lose many kilos!

We cycled on Hoy to the set-off point for a three-hour round trip walk to its most famous feature, the sea stack known as The Old Man of Hoy.

A beautiful day on Hoy, with the Old Man standing proud (No, missus, don’t – oh, please yourself!)

We both remembered the Old Man from our childhood when, in 1967, the year after it was climbed for the first time, three pairs of climbers repeated the feat on live TV (including the original duo). Three of the six climbers that day were Chris Bonnington, Dougal Haston and Joe Brown; legends of 20th century UK mountaineering. Apparently it’s now climbed fifty times a year on average.

The figure on the cliff (upper left) indicates the sheer size of the Old Man

It’s certainly impressive to see the Old Man up close, and as the sun was shining with no wind we could have stayed there for a long time. We didn’t because we had a ferry to catch and a café to visit. (I can heartily recommend the apple and rhubarb crumble, served with Orkney ice-cream, at the Beneth’Ill Café at Moaness).

Naturally, the trip inspired a limerick…

I thought that I’d really enjoy
A trip I once made as a boy
To Orkney, up north,
So I sallied-on forth
And became the next Old Man of Hoy’!

Postscript: A few other pics from the Islands…

Skara Brae Neolithic village. If this wasn’t the inspiration behind Tolkien’s hobbit houses it should have been!

Sea caves on South Ronaldsay close to The Tomb of the Eagles

A modern-era miniature henge next to the Neolithic site of Skara Brae at the Bay of Skail; an Orcadian counterpoint to sand castles, let’s call it the ‘Ring of Skail’.

A limerick a week #86

Orange is the new brown…

Remember the Tango advert? You know, the one in which someone gets slapped by a bright orange man after taking a sip of the eponymous drink; an assault that was followed by the strapline: “You know when you’ve been Tango’d!”.

The advert managed not only to increase sales of Tango substantially, but also led to an epidemic of playground violence as kids took to hitting each to the refrain of “You’ve been Tango’d!”.

Years later, Lorna Wallace resurrected the concept in her Burns-inspired missive to the American public on their choice of a “tangerine gabshite walloper” as President:

Well, Trump and a different orange libation hit the headlines this week. Apparently the sale of Scotland’s ‘other’ national drink has been banned at his Turnberry golf estate.

It’s true! Irn-Bru, bane of Scottish dentists’ and succour to the hungover, can no longer be purchased there due to its tendency to leave irremovable orange stains when spilled onto expensive carpets.

Hmm! Irremovable orange stains. I wonder, is Irn-Bru is the secret behind Trump’s ‘tan’? Perhaps that’s what did the trick!

I’m the first to admit that “You’ve been Iron-Bru’d!” doesn’t have the same ring as the original, but this is what I think…

Trump was fond of his comb-over hairdo,
But, also, he wanted a new hue.
So he made his old tan go
From brown to an orange glow
By bathing twice daily in Irn-Bru.

Postscript#1: Perceptive readers may think they’ve found an inconsistent spelling of Tango’d in this post. They haven’t, or at least it is not of my doing. The drink manufacturer’s advertising agency spelled it as I have used it in the text. Lorna Wallace’s poem-in-the-style-of-Burns used the spelling as in the illustrated quote, above!

Postscript#2: My apologies if you have to work to get the meter and phrasing right in this one (it can be done😎). One bit of help: for the uninitiated, it’s pronounced ‘eye-ren brew’.

Quotes that made me laugh #49

When I was a kid my dad used to take me to watch Kendal United play football. That was because a doctor had told my folks that, as an ill child, I needed lots of fresh air.

I was probably about six when I came home after one game and asked mum “How old do you have to be before you can swear?”. Her reply was “You’re never old enough!” and that was when I ratted on him: “But daddy swore today!”. (I think he’d said ‘bloody’ – serious stuff, eh?)

Karma came back and bit me on the a**e many years later when I momentarily forgot The Tall Child was in the car when, in complete exasperation at the antics of a lorry driver, I less-than-silently mouthed “Oh, for f**k’s sake!”. It didn’t take long before I was ratted-out in turn when we returned home: “Mum! Dad said the F word!”.

And that is why I laughed out loud when I read the BTL comments that followed the online Graun’s review of Harlequins’ poor showing in rugby’s Aviva Premiership this year. It’s the last line that made me chuckle …

A limerick a week #85

33,000 not out!

The Matriarch was 90 at Christmas, but we couldn’t all make her ‘do’ in Baden Baden, so we arranged a get-together at Whinfell Center Parcs to celebrate her 33,000 days-old anniversary on 29 April.

And thus the Aberdeen branch of the family got together with her over the weekend along with her Geordie relatives. The lodge we stayed in came with a chalk board and chalks. Here’s the results…

Her birthday meal was booked for 8.30, but she mis-remembered and thought it was for 6.30. Fortunately we all got there at the right time, but not before it inspired this rhyme (based on an original idea of The Tall Child). The rubbing-out and inserted text demonstrate something of the limerick writer’s thought processes…