Firstborn came out with a sentence on holiday that, had I heard it 20 years ago, I would have assumed to be from a foreign language: “An uber-hipster barista”. How Millennial is that! (Hint: almost as Millennial as using an exclamation mark instead of a question mark at the end of the previous sentence.)
Such a phrase shouts out to be included in a limerick, but that turned out to be easier said than done. Here goes…
A lass drank latte with her sister ‘Cos sometimes it’s hard to resist a Caffeine-based brew That gets espressed through An uber-hipster barista!
Postscript: if it’s difficult to get the meter right in this one, then try saying ‘latte’ as ‘la-tay’, with emphasis on the first syllable. The last line could also do with an extra syllable, for example, ‘An uberly-hipster barista, but then that wouldn’t match the original quote! (Having to define the meter of a limerick is to admit failure every bit as much as having to explain a joke to someone that just didn’t get it – still, I tried.)
I’m not a great fan of Father’s Day because, as with many of our annual ‘celebrations’, it pretends to be one thing when in reality it is another – an over-hyped, artificial construct devised to enhance business profits. Or am I just a miserable git (don’t answer!)?
Firstborn and The Second One are aware of my views and, as they are happy to keep their bank balances intact, they humour me by not splashing out on me these days. But I must say that I was pleased by Firstborn’s non-pecuniary contribution to Father’s Day this year – a limerick. It must be in the genes!
Here is what she thinks of me:
Despite my views on Father’s Day itself, fatherhood is, of course, something worth celebrating as there is nothing quite like the joy of seeing your hard-earned ££££ disappear into the parenthood void that is the Bank of Mum and Dad.
Indeed, I remember once asking a colleague, then in her early thirties, how old she was when she stopped withdrawing cash from her particular branch. “I haven’t” was the reply. It seems, that in her case at least, Euripides was right: “To a father growing old nothing is dearer than a daughter“.
Hmmm! That gives me an idea…
A young lass whose dad always bought her The best things in life really ought ter Learn to behold To a father growing old, Nothing is dearer than a daughter!
Some lines inspired by the sophistry of Michael Gove…
A political ‘stardust’ devotee Was a coke-head who went on a drugs spree And the excuse he’d invoke Was he only bought coke ” ‘Cos sometimes you couldn’t get Pepsi!”
Viewers of Eurotrash, Channel 4’s late-night and off-beat look at the seedier side of European culture that aired in the UK in the mid-1990s, will remember the strangulated tones of Antoine de Caunes’ archetypical French-accented English.
“What tonight’s celebrity doesn’t realise is that just because you’re a celebrity doesn’t mean you have talent and just because you have talent doesn’t mean you’re a celebrity. But when you have both it’s pure magic. Enough about me…”
They may also remember that the sight of oiled-up, bronzed and supine-but-topless Riviera bathers brought to his mind the image of some rather overdone fried eggs; imagery that is equally applicable nowadays to the bearers (barers?) of both boobs and moobs (although the latter is not what de Caunes had in mind).
Unfortunately, it is a visual epigram that is hard to forget, moreso given the sights on show when walking along the bay in Puerto Pollença, Mallorca, in early June as we have just done en famille.
Firstborn posited that, perhaps, the French feminised les croques ‘monsieur’ into les croques ‘madame’ through the simple expedient of adding a fried egg on top! Anything’s possible, I suppose 🙂
Another beachside visual epigram that is hard to shake off comes courtesy of the English comedian Harry Hill, who once observed that, when viewed par derrière, the prevalence of thongs amongst sun-worshipping beach-goers left him hankering after a hot cross bun or two.
Hmmm! Thanks for that Harry. You can blame him for this week’s limerick…
A young man when out for some fun In the heat of the Mallorcan sun, Snuck some brazen wee peeks At the unadorned cheeks Of a lass with a tanned hot cross bum!
Jerome Klapka Jerome was not the only person to wax lyrical about the adventures of three men in a boat. Back in the 1970s, three editions of the BBC’s anthology series Play for Today told of the adventures of another trio in a boat – three Yorkshire miners named Art, Ern and Abe.
The episode that I remember best was entitled Stratford or Bust and it regaled us with the tale of their haphazard journey by canal boat from ‘up north’ to Stratford-upon-Avon to see a Shakespearean play at the RSC Theatre. (Spoiler: they arrived in Stratford, but the theatrical performances were already sold out.)
The River Avon at Stratford on a beatuful May morning.
The TV production obviously made an impact on me as I have now travelled by narrowboat to Stratford on three separate occasions, most recently just a few weeks ago when two friends and I ventured on to the Grand Union Canal at Warwick to tackle the famous flight of broad locks at Hatton and to enjoy the equally famous mega-breakfast sold by the Hatton Locks café.
I could have shown a pic of the Hatton Locks, but prefer this one of the eponymous café’s mega-breakfast
We then cruised and locked down the South Stratford canal to descend into the town where we moored in the Bancroft Basin and had a day in Stratford before retracing our steps back to Warwick.
Three men in a boat
My attempt to reverse park our narrowboat into a tight bay in the Bancroft Basin was successful, so much so that one owner of a private boat, who had emerged to ensure that a mere ”hire boat’ helmsman didn’t damage his pride and joy, reckoned that I’d done it perfectly before adding that “… of course, the wind helped to blow your bow around”. Condescending b*****d!
Our narrowboat “Rachel” moored in the centre of Stratford……where we were awoken unceremoniously at 6am by Morris dancers celebrating dawn on May Day. More b******s!
At the end of our trip I also reverse parked at the hire boat marina into a very tight space with precious little room for manouevre. That went so well that another hire boat returnee asked us where we wanted his boat to be moored. He expressed surprise when he was told that we too were hirers. Our mooring manouevres had looked so professional to him that he thought we were the boatyard staff. And that’s when it nearly went all pear-shaped…
“Rachel” nicely moored after some exemplary manoeuvring (if I say so myself).
So, I was reversing along a pontoon towards a concrete wharf when I realised I needed to slow down a bit, so I did what I always do to slow down and gunned the engine in reverse.
Whoops! Now I was reversing rapidly into the wharf, so suddenly it needed to be full steam ahead.
Phew! That successfully avoided a collision with the concrete, but in shallow water with a only a metre of it behind us, it created an enormous wash that violently flooded the wharf.
It also flooded our crew member who was standing on the wharf holding our stern line. Laugh? I nearly pooped the deck!
A moody take on closing a lock gate on the South Stratford canal.
Here’s the limerick:
‘Twas Jerome K. Jerome who once wrote Of a trio of blokes all afloat And that’s why, perhaps, Three modern day chaps Thought the canals might just float their boat!
Bad puns abound when it comes to naming narrowboats. This one was called “Flat bottomed girl”. I’m not sold on the name, but I rather like the boat’s reflection in this pic.
Postscript: Hands up if you thought my expression about ‘pooping the deck’ was an unecessarily lavatorial reference made solely for a cheap laugh? Honest answer? It was, but, in fact, I had pooped the deck! In nautical terms, the poop deck is usually the highest deck level at the stern of a boat and, if it was ever flooded by a wave washing over it from behind, the boat was said to have been pooped. My emergency stop when reversing may have created a huge wash that flooded the wharf (and my mate), but it also bounced back off the wharf and flooded the aft deck of the narrowboat – we’d been well and truly pooped!
Oh look at the way it is today Its getting out of hand There’s no decorum In the forum …
It struck me recently that the 1971 big screen adaptation of Up Pompeii, a spin-off from the TV series that starred Frankie Howard, had something in common with the current calamitous state of the UK’s governing Conservative party and its erstwhile leader, Theresa May.
In the modern day, the Conservative party is in a state of civil war and meltdown over the country’s absurd referendum outcome to leave the European Union, and its leader has been in a state of constant denial about the chances of getting her exit ‘deal’ with the EU through the UK’s Parliament. Moreover, she has also diminished the status of the UK Prime Minister from one of supposed statesmanship to that of a beggar.
She has pleaded with Parliament to pass her withdrawal bill;
she has beseeched her party to support her;
and she has begged the EU to put the UK’s interests over above its own.
Anyone with an ounce of insight would know that none of those entreaties would accrue.
Woe, woe and thrice woe. Beware the pride of May! Senna the Soothsayer foretells the demise of Theresa.
So what has this to do with Up Pompeii? Well, for starters, fans of the film will know that a bunch of Senators are conspiring to do away with their leader, the Emperor Nero, which rings a very loud bell, but there’s more.
Consider this exchange from the film, something that I apply to the Conservatives (and, in fairness, also to the Labour Party) and to all so-called Brexiteers in general:
Cassandra: Pompeii’s citizens will befall the fate of the sinful men of Gomorrah! Lurcio: Will they, indeed? Cassandra: And Sodom Lurcio: Ooh, I agree, the lot of them!
But what stands out is Lurcio’s similarity to Theresa May:
Lurcio: I know, I’m a miserable pleader!
Here’s the limerick…
There was once a political leader Who was told that we just didn’t need her. When she begged: “Let me stay” We all cried: “Go away” “You’re nowt but a miserable pleader!”
As first time visitors to the Isle of Mull, we took one of the tourist trips out to Staffa to see Fingal’s Cave, and to Lunga, one of the Treshnish Isles, to take part in some puffin therapy (highly recommended!).
Fingal’s cave (but, sadly, Fingal was not at home)
On Lunga there were hundreds of puffins and, if you sat quietly near their burrows, they would happily ignore you as they went about plucking grass to line their nesting chambers.
The stage was set for some serious puffin therapy!
We spent two entrancing hours on Lunga and then it was time to rejoin the boat along with our touristic confreres that included an overly loud family comprising Grandma, Grandad, Dad and two youngsters; a little brat and his older brother.
Badly behaved kids at a puffin colony? Auk-ward!
The two kids, particularly the youngest, were not really aware of any behavioural boundaries, and it was clear to see why. Their dad, you see, was inept. No other word suffices. It didn’t help that ‘Grandma’ constantly shrieked at the youngsters, so folk standing many yards away bore witness to two generations of adults with nugatory parenting skills.
Still, their performance inspired this:
You’d have thought he was trying to spoof us When he named his kids Torven and Rufus And they both misbehaved ‘Cos the pillock displayed The parenting skills of a doofus!
Another busy week means another last minute limerick and one that rather lacks guile.
We’ve taken Priscilla the campervan to the Isle of Mull for a few nights and managed to book on to a new site for which we are paying for an electric hook-up. Just one problem, the idiot that loaded the van (me) forgot the hook-up lead!
A camper once thought he’d be able To have power, but wasn’t quite able To make use of the hook-up (One almighty f**k-up) When he discovered he’d forgotten his cable!
The view from our van at the Pennygown campsite on the Isle of Mull.
(Actually, we were saved by a neighbouring camper who, fortuitously, always travelled with a spare hook-up cable. There aren’t half some helpful folk around.)
I’ve been on a busy narrowboat trip all week and with all the locks to work and time spent at the tiller (and pub), I’ve had little time to develop this week’s ALAW, so here is all I can offer this week:
A fellow once ran out of time To produce his once-a-week rhyme So he put it on hold And will let it unfold Next week (or the future sometime) .
The world has held great Heroes, As history books have showed; But never a name to go down to fame Compared with that of Toad!
(Kenneth Graham)
Last year we attempted to raise tadpoles in a large plastic trug (aka a big bucket). We succeeded up to a point, the point being where the tadpoles had developed legs and lay in the shallows. Unfortunately, despite some netting over the trug, the birds got ’em when, due to heavy rain, the water level rose to the level of the net.
Our tadpoles were from a local stream and were shoaling when we found them which means they were from toad spawn and not frog spawn. NB our trug is an isolated ‘pond’ so unless any toadlets had been liberated there would have been no risk of disease transmission from one natural site to another. Moreover, had any of the toadlets survived, they would in any case have been released at the same place at which the tadpoles had been collected.
So, lesson learned and this year we have an ACME anti-predator ‘cage’ around the trug and all we need now are the tadpoles. Naturally, we revisited our local ‘toad hall’ to look for them, but there was none for the simple reason that we were too early to find them. Instead we were faced with a positive orgy of toad procreation.
Two pairs of toads doing what pairs of toads do. We saw many pairs ‘in action’ as well as some lonely males. The dark weed-like strands are ribbons of spawn.
Interestingly, they were in a fairly discrete area (although none too discreet in their behaviour!) and there was no sign of any other amphibian bacchanalia either upstream or downstream.
Anyway, although there were no tadpoles and the puddock debauchery was still in full swing, there was some spawn of which we gathered a small quantity and we’ll try to hatch our own tadpoles this year.
Ribbons rather than clumps mean the spawn is from a toad and not a frog.
So, without further ado, here is a down-market limerick about our tadpole hunt…
We went with the intention of bagging Some tadpoles, and our search was unflagging, But we set out too soon (How inopportune!) And found that the toads were still sha**ing!
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