A Limerick A Week – Page 17 – A View From The Lanterne Rouge

A limerick a week #104

Carry On Fenella

How should you remember a stage actor who mastered roles in Ibsen, Shakespeare, Chekov and Pinter among others, and yet whose life’s work is immortalised as a vamp in a skin-tight dress seeking Harold H. Corbett’s assent to smoke?

With a limerick of course!

It will be obvious to ‘Carry On’ aficionados that I am referring to the death, aged 90, of the classical actor Fenella Fielding who lingers in the memory as Valeria, sister to Kenneth Williams’ Dr Watt in Carry On Screaming.

That role is generally considered to have killed-off her career as a serious actor and, if true, is sad, but she never gave a hint of any bitterness. A survivor of physical abuse as a child, her fortitude and personality saw to that.

A reputed muse to Frederico Fellini, admired by Noel Coward, hater of Norman Wisdom (who had also abused her) and an actor whose Hedda Gabler was, according to The Times, “among the theatrical experiences of a lifetime” (although that could be interpreted in contrasting ways).

What more could be said?

Lots, actually, but I’ll stick to this from the Graun, who interviewed her shortly before her death about the forthcoming release of her autobiography:

Fielding’s older brother Basil Feldman is an ex-Conservative member of the House of Lords (unrelated to the Lord Feldman, the former Tory party chairman). Did she ever consider joining the Conservative party? She looks appalled. “It never occurred to me to touch them with a bargepole.

Good for her! This is what I think…

She was one of the ‘Carry On’ folk
Whose death will be sure to evoke
In any old fella
The sight of Fenella
Reclined, as she asked: “May I smoke?”.

Is this the scene that killed a career? If so, then surely her co-star in the scene would empathise. Corbett, who had also received some acclaim as a serious stage actor, was hideously typecast as ‘arold in the long-running UK TV comedy series Steptoe and Son.

Postscript: ALAW #104 – you know what that means! Two years of ALAW and I have yet to miss a week (famous last words!).

A limerick a week #103

TopGran vs the POTUS

A short verse^* inspired by the family’s nonogenarian Geordie matriarch who has crossed both the Atlantic and the American continent to holiday in California (with a cautionary note to their President given her penchant for challenging gabshite Americans to a fight).

Howay man, I’m gannin awaw
To the distant American shore,
And I’ll gan proper radgie,
Wi’ that tangerine gadgie.
Whey aye , man; I’ll give him ‘what for’!

TopGran and her wingmen! (Pic courtesy of the Joneses.)

^{* best read while effecting a Geordie accent.}

A limerick a week #102

On retirement and the gender of Daleks

In May, I gave my employer notice of my decision to retire at Christmas. I reiterated it this week with three months to go (just to make sure there was no doubt that I had provided the obligatory three months notice!).

Our corporate electronic HR system now requires my boss to press the right buttons to end my employment. I’ve done it for my own staff in the past, so I know that after navigating the system and entering the relevant details, the final button is reached – it’s labelled Terminate!

Here’s what I think…

Although work’s not a thing that I hate
I’ve struggled along as of late.
So please don’t delay
To help me on my way.
“Terminate! Terminate! Terminate!”

Whovians will recognise that the limerick works best if the last line is spoken in ‘Dalek’, ie, where the vocal pitch and volume rises dramatically with each repetition of the word ‘TER-MIN-ATE‘ and finishes with an upward inflection known as a high-rising terminal.

The high-rising terminal is also known as the Australian question intonation and, in California, as Valley girl speak (although I first heard of it as the Australian interrogative and blame the Aussie import TV show Neighbours for popularising it in the UK in the mid-1980s, but I think the Daleks got there first with I WILL O-BEY)

According to linguists a high-rising terminal is primarily associated with younger women in both the USA and Australia, which is indirect (albeit entirely specious) evidence that Daleks are predominantly female. QED!

Postscript: If you really do want to sound like a Dalek you can find all the techno-geekery you need here.

A limerick a week #101

ALAW has previously quoted the actor Philip Glenister’s line in his role as Daniel Cotton in the TV series From There to Here:

“I’m NOT angry; I’m just permanently IRRITATED!”

That quote pretty much sums up my current humor when at work these days.

It’s not a question of me looking at the past through rose-tinted spectacles (my ‘good old days’ were peak-Thatcher and all the ills that brought down upon public sector science), but of senior leaders failing to recognise the ills brought about by their handling of the organisation over the last decade and their blinkered view of the present.

C’est la vie, but at least I no longer carry that irritation with me outside of work. Or do I? I’m sure others will tell me😉

Here’s the limerick…

It’s not, as has oft-times been stated,
A fact that I’m infuriated.
It’s rare that I’m angry
Or even quite cranky
And (sometimes) I’m not irritated!

A limerick a week #100

The most pathetic cycling event ever!

Cyclists in and around Aberdeen got rather excited when it was first revealed they would have the opportunity to ride the pristine tarmac of the Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route before its opening to vehicular traffic (after which bikes will be banned from it).

But to demonstrate that the road’s sponsor, Transport Scotland, comprises a bunch of pillocks, they have turned a terrific PR opportunity into an absolute shambles. How? By banning bikes, or at least the riders’ own bikes.

Yup, in another “I don’t believe it” moment, the imbeciles in charge of the event have decided that cyclists will be bussed to the road and then loaned a bike so that “cyclists of all levels can (sic) wiz, wobble or weave on the closed road, promoting active travel and greener transport”. Frankly, I’d rather ‘wiz’ on Transport Scotland!

“Before you say anything nasty about someone, just pause for a second and browse through some really good adjectives in your head” (Ian Martin).

The move led to the online road cyclists’ website and forum, road.cc, to question “Is this the worst cycling event EVER?”. I pretty much think so…

Sadly, it won’t happen, but…

It’s a thing that we should not let pass
So, perhaps, we should set off en masse
Like at Kinder Scout
When the walkers strode out
And took part in a large-scale trespass!

A limerick a week #99

The dunny’s done-in (or “Wor netty’s knackered, but you should see the size of the rhubarb!”)

Short and sweet this week ‘cos I’m not proud of it. (Haha! Of course I am, and it’s anapestically correct as well).

A ditty inspired by a friend’s lavatorial break down:

A. A. Milne thought he knew what to do
When he found that he’d broken his loo.
He just said: “Oh, f**k it!”
And peed in a bucket,
But what happened to Winnie the Pooh?

You’re welcome!

A limerick a week #98

HR – working hard to underwhelm you!

I was ‘put before the beak’ a few weeks ago by an HR zealot that didn’t like the fact that I had challenged some weasel words spoken by a senior member of staff at an ‘all-programme’ meeting.

The zealot’s recollection of the event was intriguing as, when I challenged it, she had then to acknowledge she hadn’t even been there, but was simply parroting the words of a ‘leader’ that couldn’t, it appears, accept challenge!

It seems that in her little world it is an HR violation for scientists to be questioning; that is, of course, the antithesis of the way that science works in the real world (and if it operated according to her rules then we would still be living in the Dark Ages).

As an aside, I work in an organisation whose management culture across the piece seems to “overemphasize control, as opposed to fostering creativity, to meet their goals”. Neither our HR zealot nor the organisation’s leadership recognise this despite the motherhood and apple pie vision they propound to the world.

More recently, my domestic ‘Management’ had an exchange with the HR bods at her place of work (not the same as mine) when she questioned a decision about staffing levels in her department.

Their HR team’s response to her enquiry demonstrated a risible grasp of the facts coupled to an heroic level of condescension.

So, is it any wonder that folk who carry out the real business of an organisation have simultaneously to suspend both belief and disbelief at the inept administration of their organisation by idiots in HR and out-of-touch management from senior leadership teams?

I’m sure that many of my colleagues would agree with Peter Drucker’s view that:

“So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work.”

Oh well, at least it has inspired this..

It’s a pity, and truly bizarre,
That the most vacuous people by far
In our places of work
Are the pillocks that lurk
In the ‘abode of the damned’ that’s HR!

A limerick a week #97

Giving it the bird…

When I started out in fisheries research, one of the issues that I was involved in concerned the possible impact of the Shetland fishery for sandeel, a so-called ‘forage fish’, on the then current breeding failures of seabirds around the islands.

It was clear that a shortage of young sandeel, as food for the chicks, was to blame for their failure to fledge. Meanwhile, the fishery data strongly implied that the reason for the shortage of young sandeel was not the fishery, but natural environmental effects in the egg, larval and ‘pre-recruit’ stages of the fish.

Actually, we used a semi-annual catch at age analysis and seasonal research vessel survey indices of abundance (a form of fishery-independent catch per unit effort)

Lengthy discussions with the British Trust for Ornithology and professional marine ornithologists from academia and the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology concluded this was the most credible perspective.

Unfortunately, that was not good enough for the RSPB:

So, the RSPB sought instead to destroy the professional reputation of my first boss (a true gentleman) and to damage my, ahem, fledgling career at the same time.

Long story short: later work by a consortium-funded research fellow showed that we were right; something only grudgingly accepted by the RSPB.

We then went on to develop a ground-breaking management regime for the fishery in which we provided data and annual assessments, but devolved management of the fishery to the local fisherman’s association and environmental groups. We would only intervene on management decisions if the local groups couldn’t develop a mutually acceptable plan (we never did have to intervene!).

The RSPB, of course, never ‘corrected’ itself to its million-plus members and never apologised for traducing my boss’s name and reputation or that of the Shetland Fishermen’s Association.

Slight diversion: Many years later, a policy push was instigated to compel warring aquaculture and wild-salmon angling interests to agree between themselves a management regime of some sort. It was touted by a here-today-gone-tomorrow senior policy official as a ‘first’ in Scottish fisheries management. In fact, he told a ‘porky’ because he ignored what we had achieved more than two decades earlier at Shetland (and our initiative actually worked).

(That’s the sort of behaviour that you get with greasy-pole-climbing yes-men who need to to validate themselves in the eyes of their political masters).

So, what was it that started me on this historical ‘avian and piscatorial’ polemic? It is simply that I took a childish and immature delight this week in the irony of reading that a pair of RSPB workers had killed a protected osprey chick when trying to ring it in its nest.

Here’s the limerick:

When I read it I thought “What the heck!”,
It seemed no-one had bothered to check
Which part you pick
When tagging a chick:
‘COS IT’S THE LEG THAT YOU RING, NOT ITS NECK!

(“Yes”, I know the chick fell from its nest and didn’t have its neck wrung – but it’s a limerick not a news report!)

A limerick a week #96

Trump, making Russia great again…

The problem with narcissistic sociopaths is that when they concoct risible explanations for their faux pas they expect the world to believe them. In truth, despite their brass necks, they just demonstrate their complete idiocy.

Which brings us to Donald Trump, who this week expects us to believe that he merely ‘mis-spoke’ when favouring Vladimir Putin’s assurances of ‘doing no wrong’ over the hard evidence provided by American intelligence analysts that Russia did, indeed, meddle in the election that brought Trump to power.

It is no surprise, then, that bipartisan political opinion in the States is that he has now brought the office of the American President into disrepute (as if he hadn’t already)!

Indeed, the Graun reports that:

John Brennan, CIA director under Obama, said Trump’s conduct was “nothing short of treasonous” and more than amounted to “high crimes and misdemeanors” – the benchmark for impeachment. “Not only were Trump’s comments imbecilic, he is wholly in the pocket of Putin.”

“In the pocket of Putin” they say? Hmmm! For any conspiracy theorists out there, the Russians have a word for when they hold compromising information on a person; it’s ‘kompromat‘ (just saying!)

Arnold Schwarzenegger called the imbecilic President “a little wet noodle” which has helped greatly with this week’s ALAW. The OddSocks Theatre Company also helped (the ‘encore’ to its production of The Tempest that I saw last week was a terrific rendition of Green Day’s American Idiot in honour of Trump’s visit to the UK – brilliant!).

So, with a little help from Arnie, OddSocks and the Green Day gang, I give you…

The truth, when you come to consider it,
Is that Trump’s a political illiterate.
And Putin’s wee poodle,
That “little wet noodle”,
Is truly an American Idiot.

Fake noodle, fake President. Wet noodle, Trump. Same difference!

A limerick a week #95

Up, up and away…

It’s taken 18 months for my visits to the English Lake District to coincide with the sort of fine weather that has now enabled me to ‘cash-in’ a birthday present from 18 months ago.

You can read here about the earlier gift of an ‘introductory flight’ in an autogyro (gyrocopter), and this week it took off.

The Magni M-16 Tandem Trainer that I flew in.

The booking arrangements via the ‘mature’ flight instructor were rather chaotic and didn’t inspire much confidence, but once in the cockpit, his 46 years as a pilot took over and the flight, in difficult downdrafts, was a dream.

There was too much low-flying RAF traffic for us to traverse the Lake District completely, but we flew down Ullswater to view the Helvellyn range then crossed to the Eden valley and Pennines beyond before returning to ~~the airstrip~~ a grassy field.

It would cost about £6k to qualify as a gyrocopter pilot and would, I think, be money well spent if my colour vision was up to scratch. Unfortunately, as a mild deutan, I’d certainly fail the required medical. The Ishihara test for colour blindness and I have a long and incongruous history!

Fortunately, I can always be a passenger!

Here’s the limerick:

There was an auld bloke that once copped a
Flight in a red gyrocopter
An ambulatory
Autogyratory
Trip with a fly-boy ‘spin doctor’!