Well, we’ve had Callie the pup for a week-and-a-half now and she seems to be a real outdoorsy dog. Not surprising as she’s from a working breed.
We’re trying to encourage her to pee and poo in the same accessible place so that (i) she doesn’t scorch our lawn and (ii) we can easily clean up any mess. At the moment, we can see where she pees and can take steps to ‘move her on’ to our preferred area; however, she tends to do her other ‘business’ in the deepest and darkest recesses of the rhododendron and buddleia border.
Whoops! I crapped in the border again 😉
Whereas I can venture into the depths of the border to bag up any mess during the brighter daytime hours, it is impossible to do so in the evening or early morning when the light is not so good.
… and guess what that means? That’s right – a lavatorial limerick!
In a crepuscular battle of wits That puppy of mine is the pits. ‘Cos it’s never a riddle To know where she’ll piddle But I never can find where she sh*ts
I’ve always wanted a Brompton folding bicycle, so what do you think was the chance of Management getting herself a new electric Brompton and me acting in an entirely composed and mature manner?
Quite right, no chance; “If you’re having one then so am I!” was the measured response, so, many £££ later, we find ourselves camped at Rosemarkie with his’n’hers e-Bromptons at the ready for a 21 mile power-assisted round trip to Cromarty.
The outward leg on a single-track road along the spine of the Black Isle was a hoot. The first part was all uphill for at least three miles and it was a breeze; cue a pair of smug grins. Then downhill into Cromarty – our first time there and it’s a lovely wee place – for a hardly-deserved tea stop.
The route.
Unfortunately we then got drenched in a heavy rain shower and thought about folding the bikes and catching a bus back to Rosemarkie (try doing that with a normal bike), but decided instead to set off and cycle back via the Cromarty Firth coast road.
Or at least I thought we were going to set off. Looking back I couldn’t see Management so, after a few minutes, I retraced my steps thinking she must be chatting to someone. She was, to a German chap who was asking if she was all right as she lifted herself off the grass verge after a controlled fall that was her only means of getting to a position from which she could untangle her shoelace that had wrapped itself around her chainwheel.
The route back was slightly longer than the outward trip and involved another seemingly endless uphill drag. We’d swapped batteries at the bottom because Management’s was already partly discharged when we’d set off and her’s was running out of juice. That meant she got full power assist to the top using my battery whereas I had to be more cautious using hers and work harder.
It is testament to the capabilities of these batteries and motors that she gradually pulled away to crest the hill several hundred metres ahead of me when I’m supposed to be the cyclist in the family. Still, we both got there and had a long, fast downhill run back into Rosemarkie.
The Bromptons at rest while their batteries are recharged
… and here’s the limerick…
To avoid a whole lot of pain A lady should always refrain From crashing her bike – or exploits suchlike – When her shoelace gets stuck in her chain.
… and Management at rest while her batteries are likewise recharged
It’s not long now before we pick up a new addition to the family, an eight week old Border Collie pup (subject to a vet check, of course). We’ve whittled down a long list of possible names and the favoured one right now is ‘Callie’ (we’re getting a girl) which is short for ‘Bordeaux Callie’.
The ‘Bordeaux’ bit was an afterthought and only included because it’s the sort of play-on-words that amuses me. Firstborn added to it by suggesting ‘Brigitte Bordeaux’, which also amused me, but if I’m calling for a dog across parkland I think ‘Callie’ will suffice.
No! It’s Bordeaux CALLIE😁
I’ve been told that owning a Border Collie will be challenging and I should have gone for a labrador (yawn!), but I’ve known a couple of them in my time and neither was as challenging as is often stated. Mind you, here’s what the YourPureBredDog website says about the breed…
“One of the most intelligent of all breeds, the Border Collie is also one of the most challenging to live with.”
“His superior intellect, combined with his intensity and obsessive zeal for working, are his most impressive features – and also the ones that make him unsuitable for most homes.”
“Without physical and mental stimulation, Border Collies become hyperactive and will drive you up the wall with obsessive and destructive behaviors as they seek creative outlets for their physical and mental energy.”
“High intelligence does mean they learn very quickly – but that includes learning how to do anything they set their minds to. They are master escape artists who can virtually pick the lock on your gate.”
“You must stay one step ahead of this challenging breed, and most households are simply not up to the task.”
“Well”, he says confidently, “we’ll see, won’t we?”. Here’s the limerick:
They said ’twas the ultimate folly, And asked had he gone off his trolley, When he let them all know He was shortly to go And bring home a young Border Collie!
Postscript 1: Such is the way of the world these days, that I thought that I should Google ‘Bordeaux Callie’ just to make sure the name had no unsavoury connotations. I didn’t find an exact match, but apparently Callie Bordeaux was the name of a character played by Lindsay Wagner in a TV movie from 1981 called ‘Callie & Son’. “No”, I’d never heard of it either. Anyway, it’s good to know that our pup’s name won’t be conflated with that of a courtesan from a French city!
Postscript 2: Although we are buying a pup from a registered breeder, we are doing so only after trying for a young rescue collie. There were some around, but they were either taken very quickly (I missed out on two of them by fractions – I had real chemistry with one of them, Polly) or they were completely off the wall having not been socialised properly and requiring a very experienced owner with lots of land!
This week saw the United Kingdom’s image demeaned worldwide by the sight of a group of its elected representatives turning their backs when the European anthem, Ode To Joy’ was played at the opening of the newly-elected European Parliament.
Embarrassing the UK
It was a shameful and puerile attempt to garner cheap publicity by the Brexit Party, led by Nigel Farage and, in the view of some, it was reminiscent of the Nazi party turning its back on the speaker of the Reichstag in 1926.
Indeed, it may be considered more than shameful as Farage has been identified as an alleged fascist on more than one occasion.
In 2013, the Independent newspaper ran a story headed “Nigel Farage schooldays letter reveals concerns over fascism” in which it reported that “Channel 4 News obtains a letter about Ukip leader Nigel Farage, from his days as a schoolboy, in which teachers are quoted as accusing him of being “racist” and “fascist”. Later, a former schoolfriend ‘outed’ him in a similar manner.
Farage has, of course, denied those claims, but one can’t help but recall Mandy Rice-Davies’ response when rebutting Lord Astor’s denial of an affair at the time of the Profumo scandal: “Well he would, wouldn’t he?”.
And then? Well, we then had the unedifying and grossly offensive sight of former UK minister Anne Widdicombe seeking to compare the UK’s exit from the EU with the emancipation of slaves during the nineteenth century. That is the point at which, for once, I agree with one of the Conservative party’s current ministers, David Gauke, who recently said:
“A willingness by politicians to say what they think the public want to hear, and a willingness by large parts of the public to believe what they are told by populist politicians, has led to a deterioration in our public discourse.”
“Rather than recognising the challenges of a fast-changing society require sometimes complex responses, that we live in a world of trade-offs, that easy answers are usually false answers, we have seen the rise of the simplifiers.”
“In deploying this sort of language, we go to war with truth.”
Here’s the limerick:
So, Farage and his execrable chums Showed the electorate that if it succumbs To the lies they propound They’ll soon turn around And show that they’re nothing but bums.
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!”
