Thursday 28 February 2019

Killing three birds with one stone, as they say.

I have recently noticed that there are some people who take part in the various writing challenges who are using their loaves and are combining three in one post, how very clever.

Having decided to follow suit my post today will combine the 3 Things Challenge, the word of the day challenge and the FOWC word, so all I have to do now is think of a suitable subject and insert the five chosen words.

Now I don't want to waffle on writing rubbish just for the sake of it for my wit is as sharp as a javelin when pushed to it, for I do not want anyone pointing their finger at me by way of criticism of my efforts.

Oddly enough I had written earlier on another post how when writing I now sit at my desk drinking tea and devour biscuits or cake which was considerably better than in my youth when I would sit and chain smoke instead.

This post is now going to develop into a musical extravaganza as I post links to some wonderful music for your edification and delight.

I have a habit of listening to music whilst writing so firstly a link to the wonderful Harry and Edna on the wireless, who play wonderful gramophone swing and old time music whilst featuring guests and news on the current British vintage scene the link to the episode I am currently listening to is below.

https://www.mixcloud.com/harryandedna/ww2-womens-institute-reenactor/?utm_campaign=notification_new_upload&utm_medium=email&utm_source=notification&utm_content=html 

They played a rather splendid track called Countless Blues by the Kansas City Six which for some reason reminded me of the song by The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band called The Intro and Outro which contained such superb lyrics as "and a very relaxed Adolph Hitler on vibes."

The lyrics are posted here and the link for this quirky music is below, I assume some of you may be familiar with it. It helps to have a slightly off the wall sense of humour, but enjoy anyway!

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DUEAG5eO6c

Hi there, nice to be with you, glad you could stick around. 
Like to introduce `Legs' Larry Smith, drums 
And Sam Spoons, rhythm pole 
And Vernon Dudley Bohay-Nowell, bass guitar 
And Neil Innes, piano. 
Come in Rodney Slater on the saxophone 
With Roger Ruskin Spear on tenor sax. 
I, Vivian Stanshall, trumpet. 
Say hello to big John Wayne, xylophone 
And Robert Morley, guitar. 
Billy Butlin, spoons. 
And looking very relaxed, Adolf Hitler on vibes. 
Nice! 
Princess Anne on sousaphone. 
Mmm. 
Introducing Liberace, clarinet 
With Garner "Ted" Armstrong on vocals. 
[Jazzy scat singing] 
Lord Snooty and his pals, tap dancing. 
In the groove with Harold Wilson, violin 
And Franklin McCormack on harmonica. 
Over there, Eric Clapton, ukulele. 
Hi Eric! 
On my left Sir Kenneth Clark, bass sax. 
A great honour, sir. 
And specially flown in for us, the session's gorilla on vox humana. 
Nice to see Incredible Shrinking Man on euphonium. 
Drop out with Peter Scott on duck call. 
Hearing from you later, Casanova on horn. 
Yeah! Digging General de Gaulle on accordion. 
Rather wild, General! 
Thank you, sir. 
Roy Rogers on Trigger. 
Tune in Wild Man of Borneo on bongos. 
Count Basie Orchestra on triangle. 
[CBO:] (Ting!) 
Thank you. 
Great to hear the Rawlinsons on trombone. 
Back from his recent operation, Dan Druff, harp. 
And representing the flower people, Quasimodo on bells. 
[Q:] Hooray! 
Wonderful to hear Brainiac on banjo. 
We welcome Val Doonican as himself. 
[V:] Hullo there! 
Very appealing, Max Jaffa. 
Mmm, that's nice, Max! 
What a team, Zebra Kid and Horace Batchelor on percussion. 
A great favourite and a wonderf 

Monday 25 February 2019

3TC Three things challenge. Balloon Socks Hiccups

Short of time yet again so my post will be very short but should you follow my link I like to think you will be entertained for some time longer.

My immediate thought when seeing this collection of words was a reminder of a play which I wrote which was produced by The Wireless Theatre Company, it was called Dulce Et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori and told the tale of troops in the First World War through their letters.

I was reminded of the horror of it all when the balloon goes up and the fear when creeping about in no mans land on a dark night with no moon, hoping not to get hiccups to give your position away and strangely the most requested item by the troops, clean new socks.

Please follow the link and enjoy the play; https://www.wirelesstheatrecompany.co.uk/product/first-world-war-radio-drama/



Saturday 23 February 2019

Word of the day challenge. Itching.

The only reason I am itching to take part in the word of the day challenge is to attempt to create a ping back as it always seems so ridiculously complicated and it it far easier to copy the RRL ? at the top of the page and put that in the comments section.

I received the following description from Dee Kelly and as yet have not tried to create the pingback so it is with some trepidation that I am attempting to make head nor tails of the description below.

If you want to try a pingback, it isn’t as complicated as it sounds. If you view your post as HTML then past this in: Commit that will create one. Then for each post you change the link to the day’s post (this part: https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/02/22/commit/) and change the word “Commit” to the word of the day.


 https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/02/23/itching/

I have no idea why I had to look at my post in HTML but it was as expected gobbledegook, so I came back to ordinary text and tried to change the word commit which was yesterdays word to todays word itching together with the change of date.

Whether doing this will have any effect as a pingback I have no idea but I will not put a link in the comments which means (I think!) that if any of you see this the thing above must have worked.

I am itching to see if it works but as a sceptical old bugger I'm not holding my breath waiting. I have a funny feeling I may have got the wrong end of the stick.

Thursday 21 February 2019

Three Things Challenge 3TC Keyboard. Bananas. Rattle.

I have been sitting at my keyboard having eaten some bananas as I could hear what was left of my breakfast rattle in the cavernous emptiness of my stomach. As you can tell I am a very lazy eater, far easier to get some chocolate, or some cake, or if the worst came to the worst I could just sit here starving to death.

Even if I had the ability to leave my computer and prepare a fantastic repast I'm afraid I would have to resist as I came across an article on line which I had to comment on, as it seemed yet another example of "green" thinking taking over even if it appears to end up disappearing up its own anus.

All too frequently nowadays one reads something and thinks, "what a bloody stupid idea!"

Gas hobs could be banned from being installed in new homes within seven years

It seems there is a suggestion that in six years time we shall not be able to use gas hobs in our kitchens and be forced to install some form of low carbon heating system in our homes, there was no suggestion as to what this system might be.

Forgive me for not understanding but it seems we won't be able to heat our homes with gas, so I'm forced to wonder what will we be using.

I'm assuming it must be electricity, the same energy source that they want us to runs our cars on, which leaves me to wonder how are they going to generate the enormous amount of electricity required to power all these things.

The only way I can see this working is to use all the surplus gas that we are not allowed to use in some sort of gas fuelled power station.

Or to save all the unnecessary expense and waste of natural resources by manufacturing all this new infrastructure we could forgo these changes and simply carry on using gas in our homes and petrol in our cars.

For, "if it ain't broke, it doesn't need fixing!"

Monday 18 February 2019

I was minding my own business.

I got a call today to say that one of my classic cars which had gone to the garage for some bodywork was finished and ready for collection, which made me very happy.

Some time later when my wife was free we set off in a modern car to pick up the classic, I was driving and would change at the garage for my wife to drive home, all very simple so far.

Before leaving my wife said that she needed to buy a packet of rice and a bottle of water so we agreed to stop at the small supermarket on the way where I would stay in the car whilst she went in.

The car park being a little cramped if I do visit this particular supermarket I usually take our older 4x4 which I'm not quite so precious about, a lot of people nowadays don't seem to care at all about their cars and are only to willing to bash their doors on the car next to theirs or sometimes do far more serious damage when parking.

Having parked, my wife went into the shop and I took the opportunity whilst I had a brief moment to try to re-tune the radio whilst I was waiting, they seem to be shutting more and more FM ariels, I suppose because we have gone digital.

All well and good except all my cars have old fashioned radios, in fact the 1947 Bentley has a rather splendid valve radio which is still capable of receiving Radio 4 on the Long Wave.

Not long after I had started fiddling with the radio a chap appeared at my drivers window and knocked on the glass, whereupon I opened the door to hear what he was saying.

"Excuse me mate," he said, "but can you tell me why your engine is running?"

Somewhat taken aback by his question, my first thought was; "What on earth are you asking me that for!" Or words to that effect.

Unfortunately the best I could come up with by way of a reply was; "What!"

To which he said, "Your engine is running and polluting the atmosphere."

This left me even more discombobulated and I found myself once again lost for words, so I shut the door and carried on trying to tune the radio.

My encounter with this gentleman then took an even stranger turn as the fellow to whom I had been speaking, who to all intense and purpose had the look of a perfectly normal man of 50 to 60 years of age and not at all like a self proclaimed eco-warrier.

I was expecting that he might walk away, or go to the bus stop, or even leave on his bicycle, but no; he proceeded to get into the car which was parked next to me and drive away.

You can draw your own conclusions from the facts here presented, personally I'm still trying to make sense of it all.


Wednesday 13 February 2019

The reason I don't wear shorts in England.


                  
I was prompted to put this up as a response to another blog elsewhere which made me think of this which I wrote about my local pub, some of which is true. The remark about not wearing shorts in England came about at the end of a fairly drunken evening and seems to make sense, except the fellow who uttered the phrase was not prompted in any way to comment on the wearing of shorts nor had the subject come up in conversation. It was one of those wonderful moments when for no reason at all someone uttered a random phrase and it was placed in my memory bank for a later date to re-emerge in this poem.


THE REASON I DON’T WEAR SHORTS IN ENGLAND


My local pub is a wonderful place,
full of humour, wit and joie de vivre.
Folk of every race, creed and colour,
who laugh, chat and drink together.

I’m not so keen on football supporters, who
mostly loud, stand in your face.
They all assume you care who’s winning,
even when you look away.

Next door there is a coin-op launderette,
and a haberdasher, now closed down.
It gives the place an old-fashioned feeling,
or is it just the people there?

I find it’s best when nights are quiet,
like being in an old-style movie.
A row of faces all sat along the bar,
everyone with a tale to tell.

The wonderful old dyke with cigarette holder,
held aloft, now never lit.
Uncle George who’s a serious alcoholic,
always with a gin in hand.

John who cycles in from Palmers Green,
on a ladies bike with wicker basket.
Or the chap who’s always in the corner,
reading Philip Larkin prose.

Then the older drunken fellow, who would,
often utter this strange phrase.
The reason I don’t wear shorts in England,
is because of varicose veins.

Saturday 9 February 2019

3TC Challenge. Canteen Language Tolerable

I was surprised when something I had written some time ago came up on Facebook as I wasn't expecting to see it at all. Having read it again I was reminded that it was a moderately amusing post so set about thinking of a means of re posting.

Then, as luck would have it along came the three things challenge and I was away on a hack, as they say.

My post concerns Members of Parliament and their new code of conduct which one hopes will control the Members language when in the bars and canteen and make the whole working environment  tolerable for all those working in the House of Commons.


Members of Parliament code of conduct.

It seems Members of Parliament are to be given a code of conduct, which leaves me somewhat surprised and I have to wonder what calibre of person are we electing that they would need a code of conduct for the work place?
At this point I have to insert a warning for the benefit of the snowflakes, the outraged females or males, the gay, bi-sexual, transgender and lesbian, the generally over sensitive and any other groups of the population who I have omitted who may take offence, that the following article may contain words of a sexual nature.
One would have hoped that most of the Members of Parliament would have had a reasonable education with which to equip themselves for the job, long gone are the days when a working class hero was elected from a down trodden mining village, short on education and manners. Having said that I think they may have been quite good with the manners as they knew their place in the old days, so the doffing of their cap to a better would have been second nature, even if they may have left a little coal dust on the furniture when sitting down, although obviously not in the presence of a lady.
I'm guessing that the modern code of conduct will contain useful information, for example, don't come into the office and grab your female assistant by the breasts and utter the phrase,"What ho, Dorris and how's your day been so far." Whereas the previous advice in the bad old days would probably been, remember to warm your hands first.
Leering at a young female intern with your hand down your trousers in a suggestive manner will also be frowned upon in the modern politically correct culture.
The same type of rules will apply when it involves two men, it's not going to be considered cricket to grab a young male employee by the waist and whisper in his ear, "I hadn't realised you were quite so muscular, Robert, I'd love to see you naked." Together with, "I have a conference in Brighton at the weekend Robert and I am taking you as my assistant, I have booked a double room, I'm sure that's ok with you?"
Threatening someone with a visit to the Whip's office is permissible as long as it's just a dressing down from the chief Whip and doesn't involve any sadomasochistic acts much as the phrase,"a visit to the chief Whip" may suggest it.
It will be frowned upon for any person to harass, harry, torment, persecute, annoy, bother, disturb, or in any way upset fellow workers, grabbing a colleague by the throat and shouting in a violent fashion will be deemed a sack-able offence.
Long gone will be the practice of having sex in the stationary cupboard and about time too I say, I tried it once and would not recommend it, having, in a moment of passion, nearly stapled a vital part of my anatomy to the cupboard door.
These are just a few suggestions from me which could go in the code of conduct, I can't wait to see the list of sexual perversions the MP's themselves think should be in the book, oh yes, I haven't mentioned bestiality.

Friday 1 February 2019

The Harry and Edna on the Wireless show.

I had the great pleasure to appear on the Harry and Edna on the Wireless show, do follow the links to a rather splendid show on the current vintage scene.
Harry & Edna on the Wireless
In this episode of Harry & Edna on the Wireless the vintage duo are joined by author Lord Joe Wells.
Plus they play tip top gramophone Tunes from the 1930s and 1940s.
So enjoy this hour with Harry & Edna on the Wireless as they take a look at the current British vintage scene.
Harry & Edna on the Wireless is available via FM and Internet radio, Mixcloud internet streaming, Spreaker downloadable podcast and via YouTube.