Being eight weeks old is great - the service second to none, you are actually encouraged to sleep during the day rather than nagged for it and a door can be the most fascinating thing there is. Stare at the door......sta-a-a-are at the d-o-o-o-o-or........However, it has its downside as Christopher found out this week - round one of his vaccinations, one in each leg. Ouch. Ouch.
At the end of this month the UK will be four Proudfeet better off as Bill, Dale, Jamie and Eliza arrive from Australia. We haven't seen the first three since our trip to Oz three years ago, and we haven't seen the last one at all! Lorna is already working overtime to organise every available minute of their stay but I am here to remind her that they are on holiday too...
I've just had a week off the cycling due to a dodgy real wheel - the spokes all loosened and riding it felt like a clown bike. Very amusing to the people behind me I'm sure, but not so much fun for me. The Edinburgh Bike Co-op were disappointingly disorganised regarding the bike's 6 week check-up. Despite me showing them the problem with the wheel on Monday when I dropped the bike off it still managed to catch them by surprise on the Tuesday, so they didn't leave enough time in the day to fix it. Mind you, being forced to ride the CB into work for a week was no hardship as the weather has been great.
Sundays and Mondays will be busy for me for the next while as I am to play Yvan in the Barony Players September production of Art...luvvie.
French Jon has begun to populate his blog with extracts from letters I wrote to him around 12 years ago. Thinking this was a good wheeze, I dug out corresponding letters from him (Lorna having great fun telling me how sweet it was to have kept them, awwww) to consider returning the favour. Well, not only are they, basically gibberish, they are also some of the most inflammatory pieces of work you could hope to read. In the three I read yesterday he managed to insult 13 different people; 11 of these by name, sometimes using drawings to really get his point across and certainly doing nothing to endear himself to the gay liberation cause. So, Jon, do you feel lucky, punk? Well, do you?
Two weeks until the holidays. Can't wait, of course.
You really do not want to go down this road. Does the expression "buy TRA 90, it`s gear" strike terror into your heart?
ReplyDeleteCouldn`t resist it - Lee`s effort for the school mag in 1990 - Friends of Poetry, welcome home.
ReplyDeletewhen the time has come for the world to die
and you and your friends say a last goodbye
as you lie and wait for the bomb in dismay
will the last thing you do be to pray?
the leaders just now are in terrible states
what gives them the right to determine our fates?
they think they`re above us but when will they learn?
that when the bomb drops they will burn
the people left standing when all else has gone
will ask themselves where did the system go wrong?
we voted them in and they promised us favours
but we wanted them simply to save us
and soon the survivors will perish and fade
the world now as useless as the rules they obeyed
and god will sit puzzled as I do tonight
as why he allowed man to fight
there`s only the hope that it will soon end
and working together the people will mend
the planet, which once we were proud to belong to
(WAIT FOR IT.....)
but now we do nothing but wrong to
nice to see you back, poetry was always your strong point . . remember the 'joshing and washing' one!!
ReplyDeleteAll this shows is how ahead of my time I was in terms of rhythm and metre. And cheesiness. Although to be fair it was correctly punctuated in the original, which helped.
ReplyDelete"Joshing" and "washing" was a stroke of genius, though see what happened there...
Lee - the poetry - SO proud to see the tradition continues............ Re Jon's letters - son - "PUBLISH AND BE DAMNED !"
ReplyDeleteCan we talk about Frogalon too and your movie debut ( I think if I remember rightly that was a joint venture ? And that is NO reference to illegal substances.....)
. . yep all ended in tears, perhaps more joshing and less washing . . .
ReplyDeletethats was a mistake, it was from mum NOT yours, no wonder I get confused, who started this anyway!!!!
ReplyDeleteI did wonder why my mum's first venture into commenting was quite so barbed...
ReplyDeleteIt must have been an awful sight,
ReplyDeleteTo witness in the dusky moonlight,
While the Storm Fiend did laugh, and angry did bray,
Along the Railway Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay,
Oh! ill-fated Bridge of thSilv'ry Tay,
I must now conclude my lay
By telling the world fearlessly without the least dismay,
That your central girders would not have given way,
At least many sensible men do say,
Had they been supported on each side with buttresses,
At least many sensible men confesses,
For the stronger we our houses do build,
The less chance we have of being killed.
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
ReplyDeleteKnock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.
GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
If it walks like a duck,
ReplyDeleteTalks like a duck,
Burns bridges like a duck,
Launches polar expeditions like a duck,
Hunts lion like a duck,
Prepares SEM samples like a duck,
And eats its young like a duck,
Then I guess it's a f***ing duck!
A frog is a frog
ReplyDeleteAnd a toad is a toad
But they both look the same
When they're squashed on the road !!
And THAT is an original !!
He comes from good poetic stock !
But what about the cyclist on Moredunvale Road who was hit on the head ? Yes - see ?? No-one gives him a thought now !!!
Oh how quickly we forget !!!
Where do all these Bible John and Yvonne Roy people come from? I didn't mean to start a poetry circle, it was just, a joke, like.
ReplyDelete"Eager to please, Ivan tells Serge he likes the painting. Lines are drawn and these old friends square off over the canvas, using it as an excuse to batter one another relentlessly over various failures. As their arguments become less theoretical and more personal, they border on destroying their friendships"
ReplyDeleteSo, you're playing Ivan are you? You were never that "eager to please" as far as I'm concerned. Kane, Mark, would you say he was eager to please? Never heard you use a theoretical argument neither, by the way.