A limerick a week #168

A final flood of colours

We’ve recently said adieu to a quartet of well known faces in the UK: Gary Rhodes:  Jonathan Miller, Clive James and, most recently, Bob Willis. It was the latter two that most engaged me over the years.

Celebrity chefs like Rhodes are not my ‘thing’ and Miller may have been an incredible polymath, but I found him a bit too full of himself to warm to (and according to the BBC’s obituary of him, he was also “famously cantankerous and grumpy, and on occasions devastatingly rude”, so not my tas de thé).

But, to a cricket-watching teen in the 70s (whole summers of free-to-air test matches on the tele!), Willis was a fast bowler who was always worth a spell. And although England’s 1981 series win against Australia is known as Botham’s Ashes, Willis’ 8-43 in the third test after England had been forced to follow on remains firmly lodged in cricketing folklore – the stuff of legends! (If my last boss was to read that sentence I can only imagine the look of contemptuous bewilderment on her face as she tried to fathom what on earth it means!).

Bob Willis in full flight

Clive James was altogether different. His ‘bouncers’ were not hurled the length of a cricket pitch, but fashioned from words with a turn of phrase that would take out the middle stump of any conceit and pretence whilst standing in awe of his own literary heroes.

He could also bowl a verbal googly if required and although he started out as a literary critic, it was as a TV critic that he bowled to more popular acclaim. Both in writing and onscreen he never failed to  delight in wordsmithing his take on the sometimes ludicrous world of the box in the corner of the lounge.

His autobiographical ramblings were humorously illuminating and clear evidence that unlike the Jonathan Millers of this world, he never took himself too seriously. Nevertheless, he never feigned gormlessness or a lack of intellect:

“I see the pain on your face when you say the word intellectual, because it has so many syllables in it.”

I wonder what the critic in him would make of this (not much, I suspect) …

There once was a literary critic
Whose words were quite sybaritic,
But sadly for Clive
He’s no longer alive
Cos his B-cells became lymphocytic.

Postscript: As it’s getting on for Christmas (again) it’s time for me to look back (again) to the story of Lovell’s bride. It’s traditional and it’s here…

A limerick a week #167

The actress formely known as Demelza…

Anyone who is familiar with the tosh served up in this blog will be aware that I batted for Team Demelza in the maelstrom that was her relationship with Ross in TV’s most recent serialisation of Winston Graham’s Poldark novels (I even once managed to find a rhyme for ‘Demelza’ for one of the ALAWs).

Like a lot of TV productions it went on for one series too many, particularly as the final run was not based on Graham’s writings, but upon an interpolation of events that bookcased a gap in the timeline of Graham’s stories. Nevertheless, I was concerned to see that the newly-invented storyline obliged Demelza to frown just as much as she did in the earlier series. I wonder if Eleanor Tomlinson, who played Demelza, would rather her next TV role generated laughter lines rather than fixing for eternity Demelza’s  knitted brow!

Tomlinson as Demelza. A performance not to be frowned upon!

Which brings me to the BBC’s new adaptation of H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds. The series’ show-writer, Peter Harness, is on record as saying that it is “not massively faithful” to Wells’ book. “Not massively faithful” – a bit like Ross, then, in his relationship with Demelza – and, “yes”, its heroic, newly-minted and independent lead, Amy (for Tomlinson is she) frowns rather a lot too. Well, if your world was being invaded by extra-terrestrials, I suppose you would.

I’ve only seen the first episode of The War of The Worlds, and I’m struggling to come to terms with Demelza-as-Amy. Tomlinson’s striking looks and the shared independence and resilience of her character portrayals make one wonder just how the heck Demelza ended up in early-Edwardian Surrey after last being seen in late-18th Century Cornwall!

Tomlinson as Amy. Still frowning after all these years!

Please, I would ask, do not blame me
When I say that it’s all cockamamie
The red hair’s the same,
But not so her name
‘Cos Demelza has turned into Amy!

Postscript: Me and Demelza…

A limerick a week #3

Me ∩ Osborne = {Team Demelza}

A limerick a week #8

A limerick a week #88

A limerick a week #165

… and pigs might fly!

Well, there’s a surprise! A visit to the matriarch in Kendal and it hasn’t yet rained. Blue skies, light cloud and a lazy wind, BUT NO RAIN!

Kendal Green sans pluie!

A Cumbrian once opened his eyes
And beheld an almighty surprise,
‘Cos the weather weren’t mizzlin
(that’s ‘misty and drizzling’! )
As he stared at the clear blue skies!

Worth another look…

HWS

I was apalled to see Nigel Farage wearing an over-sized poppy in the run-up to Rememberance Day. His were not the values that so many lost their lives for.

So, why not click on the headlines, below, for a reminder of the life of a man who served in two world wars, a peace-loving, true gentleman and internationalist; a man that was the polar opposite of those whom the Scottish actor Brian Cox has described as “The opportunistic clowns of Brexit, Gove, Johnson and the little Englander Farage and the feudalist Rees-Mogg”.

The eleventh of the eleventh

The eleventh of the eleventh plus one

A limerick a week #164

Close the door when you leave…

I had a choice of subject to return to for today’s ALAW: our errant South Aberdeen MP, Ross Thomson, or the Victorian horror that is Jacob Rees-Mogg. What a pair!

Rees-Mogg demeaned the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire this week by implying they didn’t use common sense, like he would have done, after being advised to stay put by the fire service rather than immediately evacuating their flats in the burning tower block. That was not only hugely insensitive, but also spoke volumes of an apparent self-entitled belief that victims have only themselves to blame, whether it is in a tragedy such as Grenfell or those who are less fortunate in society having not had the life chances of the Rees-Moggs of this world.

But the ALAW isn’t about him. I’ve chosen instead to return to the public embarrassment that is our MP here in South Aberdeen.

As an earlier post related, an MP (now known to be Labour’s Paul Sweeney) was wholly dissatisfied with the Parliamentary authority’s response to Thomson’s alleged grope-induced eviction from Westminster’s Stranger’s Bar in February this year. Consequently, he decided to lodge his own complaint about a separate incident in the same bar in which he claimed a drunken Thomson had groped him too. Thomson’s denials of impropriety have since been described as ‘jaw-dropping’ due to the number of witnesses to the alleged act and, again dissatisfied with the Parliamentary authority’s response and the likelihood of Thomson standing for re-election in the forthcoming general election, Sweeney went public with his allegation earlier this week.

As a result, Thomson has now stood down as the Conservative candidate for South Aberdeen. Did he jump or was he pushed by the local Conservative association? I guess we’ll never know for sure, but the fact that on the day after his withdrawal we received an election pamphlet from him suggests, to my mind at least, that he was pushed. I suspect he constituency association thought, like me, that he stood no chance of being elected again.

The pamphlet itself boasted of how hard Thomson had worked for his constituents. That was rich coming from one of the most ardent Brexiteers in the Conservative party ‘representing’ a constituency that voted strongly to remain. Elected members can, of course, choose to pursue their own perspective over that of their constituency, that happens with MPs of all political persuasions, but coming from someone that repeatedly makes the news headlines seemingly as a drunken reprobate, it rather sticks in the craw. We shan’t miss him.

Our MP has decided to go,
Lick his wounds and then to lie low,
But in truth, dear Ross,
You’ll be of no loss
So goodbye, toodle-oo, cheerio!

A limerick a week #163

Jacqueline got a medal FFS!

I was invited back to my old workplace last week because a recent retiree from its library service was to be presented, unbekownst to her, with an Imperial Service Medal for meritorious service.

Her closest colleagues had advised that she would not want a big fuss to be made, so just a few past and present compadres were asked along to an informal presentation and I was chuffed to be one of them.

The oration (albeit written and not spoken)

Although, formally, the medal is awarded for meritorious service, the reverse side of the medal is inscribed For Faithful Service, (so that’s what FFS stands for in text talk😉) but, as well as the inscription, the reverse bears the image of a bloke ‘in the altogether’, which begs the question as to exactly what service was rendered? I suspect that, as always, what happens in the library will stay in the library!

So, in honour of Jacqueline IMS, I give you…

There once was a woman, quite headstrong,
Whose work in a library was lifelong,
But she did it so well
That on her farewell
She received the Imperial gong!”.

A limerick a week #162

Life! Don’t talk to me about life!

Before The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was a novel, film or video game, it was an original radio series and, to my mind, it was better than any of the subsequent adaptations. No-one ever came close to surpassing Peter Jones’ radio narration as The Book or to Stephen Moore’s depressive voicing of Marvin the paranoid android.

The HHGTTG original book cover

Stephen Moore died earlier this month. As someone who remembers the original series and its phenomenal impact, I think his Marvin was the most quotable of characters. I’ve often used the robot’s phrase “Why stop now just when I’m hating it” and occasionally wished I’d had the courage to tell someone “It gives me a headache just trying to think down to your level” or “I wish you’d just tell me instead of trying to engage my enthusiasm”.

Stephen Moore and the TV series’ realisation of Marvin.

(For those that don’t know the Hitchhiker storyline, a human, Arthur Dent, is saved by Ford Prefect, an alien researcher for the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, just before the earth is demolished to make way for an intergalactic highway. In escaping, they become stowaways aboard a Vogon spacecraft. When they are found they are subjected to a recital of Vogon poetry, a form of torture, before being cast into the void, which is where their adventures really start.)

Anyway, to misquote Marvin: “Here I am, brain the size of a planet and they ask me to write a limerick. Call that job satisfaction, ’cause I don’t”.

Farewell to the paranoid android
And the actor that firstly deployed
A robotically aesthetic
Depressed cybernetic,
Now they’re cast to a dark cosmic void!

 

 

 

A limerick a week #161

It’s all gone to the dogs

Another puppy-related limerick, I’m afraid.

We have a huge secure field in Aberdeen at Hazlehead Park, known locally as the dog field. Dogs whose recall is a bit iffy can safely be let of their leads to run and play with other dogs without the risk of them running onto roads or towards non-dog-loving people.

Usually the dogs all get along and enjoy play fights and just socialising generally. Occasionally, though, one or two get a bit uppity,

One, a huge goldendoodle called Dudley, is just a bit too boistrous for my pooch, Callie, who tries to hide from him. Yesterday, Dudley nearly got his come-uppance from a grumpy labrador called Ollie – Dudley had gone a bit too far. Fortunately it was all bark and not much bite, if any.

Here’s the result…

A goldendoodle called Dudley
Turned out to be not quite so cuddly
He was so full of pep
That the slightest misstep
And it all could have ended quite bloodily.