Occasional Limericks Only #27

The Carnival (Really) Is Over…

Here’s a folksy playlist from the Sixties:

I’ll Never Find Another You
Georgy Girl
Morningtown Ride
Island Of Dreams
When Will The Good Apples Fall
A World Of Our Own
The Carnival Is Over

If you’ve ever heard any of them, then you will probably have heard what Elton John referred to as “the purest voice in popular music”.

Sadly, Judith Durham, who possessed that voice, has died.

I celebrated her 75th birthday in a post four years ago with a bit of a cheeky limerick, whilst highlighting the fact that she sound-tracked my early life when I was so often ill and off school; looked after my my grandmother who was a big fan of The Seekers.

She was Australia’s Sweetheart (Judith, that is, not my grandmother!), and I guess the saddest guys around today will be Athol Guy, Keith Potger and Bruce Woodley; the remaining members of the group. Mind you, I bet St Peter’s witnessing a cracking version of this…

The Seeker whose voice would bestride
The world of my childhood has died.
Now her tears are falling
And the harbour light’s calling;
As she makes her last Morningtown Ride.

Occasional Limericks Only #26

You’ll never get nowhere if you’re too hasty

Here’s a question for you: which singer had two top ten hits (and a third in the top thirty) in 1962 all produced by George Martin (clue; not one of The Beatles)?

I could add some extra clues and, perhaps, yesterday they would have helped some-but-not-all of you, guess the name. However, since his death was announced this morning the explosion of tributes to him and his career means you would have to be something of a troglodyte not to know of whom I speak.

Yep, Bernard Cribbins is the answer (aka ‘Perks’ the station porter in the original Railway Children film and star of many other productions). I shan’t repeat here what has been said elsewhere, but I will reinforce the thread that states what a lovely man he was.

As a 12 or 13 year old schoolboy (circa 1970/71) and a keen angler, my English teacher had asked everyone in my class to write to a famous person with whom they shared a hobby.

I wrote to Bernard Cribbins, telling him that I’d heard he was a keen angler and could he give me any tips. I didn’t expect a reply, but I did receive one. Just a short handwritten note telling me he that he was glad that I liked fishing, wishing me ‘tightlines’ and his tip was “don’t fall in”. I was one of the very few, if not the only pupil, that got a reply from their ‘famous person’. I don’t know what happened to it, but I wish I’d kept it safe.

Later in life, one of his top ten hits (his were all novelty songs), Hole in the Ground, became a favourite that Firstborn and I regularly belted out (we tried the same with his other hit, Right Said Fred, but could never remember the words beyond the first verse).

It was a delight to see his resurgence as the country’s favourite grandad in Dr Who although he had never really disappeared from public performance. I shall certainly look out for him when he appears in the Dr Who 60th anniversary episode(s).

Here’s the limerick:

The actor that sang “Right said Fred”
And voiced all the Wombles is dead
It looks like he’s found
His “Hole in the Ground”
As he’s finally reached life’s railhead.

Postscript#1: Cribbins’ third musical ‘hit’ in 1962 (Gossip Calypso) is much less well known than either Right Said Fred or Hole in the Ground. It joined the post-Windrush episode of calypso cultural appropriation of that era.

What set Cribbins’ song apart from those of, say, Lance Percival is the latter’s attempt to assume a mock-Caribbean accent when singing; the vocal equivalent of ‘blacking up’. Cribbins song was all Cockney (or as Cockney as a northerner could effect) without a single Caribbean overtone in sound or word. Still, it certainly wouldn’t be made today as the ‘gossiping women’ trope would be widely deprecated.

Postscript#2: Here’s a birthday/Christmas prezzie hint!

Occasional Limericks Only #25

The less said, the better…

A physiotherapy clinic in my childhood hometown has moved to flashy new premises and simultaneously picked at a scab; the shibboleth that separates those of us that observe a distinction in the use of the words few and less from those that don’t. I can imagine their business plan for moving premises…

  • Draw up plans to move to bigger premises. Check!
  • Invest heavily in new fixtures and fittings. Check!
  • Source signage for the storefront windows. Check!
  • Make a hash of the English language. Check!
Reflections in the window fail to mask an irritating misuse of the word ‘less’ (irritating, that is, to pedants like me!)

A pedant once had to confess
Some people just fail to impress
When they’re compelled to show
That they simply don’t know
The difference between fewer and less!

Occasional Limericks Only #24

The instructor’s a cyclopath!

I’ve just finished a ‘virtual’ spin class at the Aberdeen Sports Village. It was one of the Les Mills RPM online classes (edition 30 to be precise) in which Less Mills’ instructors Glen Ostergaard and Khiran Huston seem to think you enjoy the suffering that you put yourself through.

ASV – a brilliant asset for the city.

Towards the end, had I not been gasping for air, I could have laughed aloud at @khiranhuston who then exhorted participants to “Let your heart dance”. Personally, I was just glad that mine was still beating!

“Let your heart dance”, she says. “Aye, right” says I.

Here’s the limerick:

When your legs want to beat a retreat in
A spin class you’re close to completing
And the instructor, per chance,
Then says “Let your heart dance!”
Just be glad if yours keeps on beating!

Occasional Limericks Only #23

🎶So long, farewell …🎶

🎶auf Wiedersehen, goodbye. Goodbye🎶

I’d like to think that the invertebrates comprising the UK’s governing Conservative party had evolved a spine sufficient to declaim Boris Johnson, its erstwhile leader and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, as a moral vacuum at the heart of government.

“They have!” you say, “They’ve done for him, he’s resigned!”. Well, yes and no. The latter is certainly true, but not because the Conservative Members of Parliament have evolved a collective spine. It’s solely because they saw their chances of being re-elected by their constituents receding faster than an ageing hippy’s hairline if he remained in situ!

Sadly, he will be only be replaced by another nasty member of the Nasty Party, so heaven help the poor, the ill and the displaced.

As Johnson saw himself as a latter day Churchill, so shall I borrow from the latter to describe Johnson himself. Not so much “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma”, but “Walter Mitty, wrapped in Don Quixote, inside Billy Liar”.

Mitty the complete fantasist; Don Quixote who tilted at windmills in his quest to fight imaginary enemies much as Johnson did with Europe; and Billy Liar, the literary character who simply lied and lied and lied.

Here’s the limerick

Boris, an Etonian brat,
Has hit earth with a resounding ‘splat’!
The supreme falsifier
And odious liar,
Was felled in today’s coup d’twat

I’m grateful to Firstborn who bought coup d’twat to my notice and to whomsoever first coined the phrase. I wish it had been me; it’s perfect!







 

Occasional Limericks Only #22

Whistling down the wind…

I’m obliged to the online Metro newspaper for reporting the medical tale of an elderly chap who presented with collapsed lungs and air circulating within his abdomen. Apparently some of the trapped air escaped with a whistling sound through an unrelated open wound in his, er, bawbag!

As the attending medics’ report states: Our case of pneumoscrotum from suspected spontaneous bilateral pneumothoraces was unusual. Well, you’d hope so, wouldn’t you!?

And here’s the limerick thus inspired…

There was once a musician called Billy
Who played on his trumpet quite shrilly.
His close harmonising
Was really surprising,
When he whistled the tune through his willy!


Occasional Limericks Only #21

From Bar To Barre…

I passed by my former workplace this morning and was intrigued by the appearance of a neighbouring harbourside pub to which we occasionally retreated in bygone days; it having been closed since the summer of 2016.

Campell’s Bar then

A closer look revealed that despite hosting a bar since the mid-19th century, it is now a dance academy!

… Campbell’s Bar now!

Just think of the possibilities were its former and current functions merged…

If life seems a little banale
Don’t just sit there and grumble or snarl!
Soft-shoe the Shim Sham
And knock back a wee dram
At a harbourside taproom locale!

Postscript: For non-tappers out there, the Shim Sham is considered to be the ‘national anthem’ of tap (being a bit of a pedant, I can only assume it is the tapping sounds that are anthemic rather than the dance!). In fact, my tap group has just begun to learn it, and you can see what it (or its variations) look like here. The reason for the ‘freezes’ when danced the second time through is because you don’t dance the breaks a second time. Simples … if only!

 

Occasional Limericks Only #20

Would Jubilee Eve It?

Regular readers of my assorted drivel and tripe will be aware that I am something of a benign republican. It strikes me that inherited titles, let alone the inherited right to be crowned a Head of State, are anachronisms in the 21st century irrespective of the (usually) high regard in which the UK’s current Queen is held.

Anyway, I’ve just refreshed my memory on some of the 60 Thoughts About Turning 60 that were penned a few years ago in the Graun by Ian Martin, probably best known as the writer of TV’s The Thick Of It. He summed up his view of our Royalty in quite a succinct way (but do click on the link above and take note of his thoughts on some other matters, numbers 17, 18, 49&50 and 56 in particular!):

54. The royal family. Bunch of trust-funded hippies. Good riddance.
55. But not quite yet. I respect the Queen. I do, honestly. She has been Queen for as long as I have lived. Good effort. Once she is dead, though, enough’s enough. The idea of my grandchildren having to stand up for organic sausage king Charles III or any of those other doughnuts, ha ha, come on.

That seems fair to me, so, how does my ‘benign’ republicanism evidence itself in other ways? Well, apart from not discussing the matter with the family’s royalty-loving matriarch (neither of us likes to argue as we get on too well for that), I slept through the wedding of His Royal Highness Prince Charles Philip Arthur George, Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, Duke of Rothesay, Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Chester, Earl of Carrick, Earl of Merioneth, Baron of Renfrew, Baron Greenwich, Lord of the Isles and Great Steward of Scotland, KG, KT, GCB, OM, AK, QSO, CC, PC, ADC in 1981 as I was a student on a summer-long research expedition to the northern rain forest of Trinidad. (I well remember our local contacts’ bemusement at the fact that none of the University of Dundee staff or students on the research trip could be a***d to watch it!)

I also possess a pair of signed, limited edition royal wedding sick bags; the first of which I was given to ‘celebrate’ the wedding of His Royal Highness Prince William Arthur Philip Louis, Duke of Cambridge, Earl of Strathearn and Baron Carrickfergus, KG, KT, PC, ADC.

I bought the second one myself to complement my other ‘goody bag’ on the occasion of his brother’s wedding (that would be His Royal Highness Prince Henry Charles Albert David, Duke of Sussex, KCVO in case you need reminding. The fact that Harry doesn’t want to be known as ‘Prince’ Harry and, like Elvis, has left the building – or at least that part of it that associates him with his father and brother – didn’t stop him signing himself as ‘His Royal Highness’ on his daughter’s birth certificate despite having bailed out of the Royals!).

Thirty years after successfully avoiding Charles’ wedding, I was fortunate enough to be hidden in a cave 500 metres under Ingleborough during William’s espousal and, thus, avoided it too (it was planned that way!). Firstborn accompanied me, also to hide from the event.

Sadly our plans to hide from Harry’s union, by zip-lining through the slate caverns under Blaenau Ffestioniog in the heart of Snowdonia, came to nought (although both Firstborn and I still managed to avoid embroiling ourselves in the national cap-doffing-to-royalty pantomime).

So, how to avoid today’s Jubilee jamboree without upsetting the royalists amongst us (or at least those that haven’t read this encyclical)? Well, I’m going to hide in my shed and drink tea whilst wearing my baffies.

The only problem is which shed?

This one?
… or this one?
… Nah, this one! Cheers!

And here’s the limerick…

The Jubilee fills me with dread
‘Cos I’m not a big fan of inbred
And entitled Royals
Or their troubles and toils
So I’ll hide for the day in my shed!

Occasional Limericks Only #19

A small step for man…

I’m told that to celebrate the life of Bill ‘Bojangles’ Robinson (1878-1949), they (whomsoever ‘they’ are) declared his birthday, today (25 May), to be National Tap Dancing Day.

As there’s no way that I’d post a picture of me tap dancing (try visualising a ‘dad-dancing’ tree trunk), here’s another chance to look at a pic of my tap shoes instead.

My tap shoes – from an old-school B&W analogue photo exhibited at the last Gray’s School of Art ‘short course’ exhibition.

… and here’s the limerick

If you don’t fancy trying ballet
There’s news that I’d like to convey:
Find some music that rocks
And lace up your Blochs
‘Cos it’s National Tap Dancing Day!