General – Page 227 – Boadicea's Chariot

Good Memories of Elsewhere

Every so often, I dive into the archive of my blogs on the Other Side with a view to saving them across to my WordPress site. For the avoidance of doubt, and, in my own opinion, this is not because the world would be a poorer place if MyT (Beta) went belly up and lost all of my carefully crafted prose to posterity.

It’s just that I enjoyed writing them at the time and hope to enjoy reading them again in the future, even if I might, by then, have forgotten that I wrote them.

Most of them are private on my WordPress site, but there’s the odd one that I feel the need to share with my fellow cherished authors. This one is a case in point. Continue reading “Good Memories of Elsewhere”

Incorrigible!

If presidents can’t do it to their wives, they do it to their country.
Mel Brooks

Goodnight everybody, sleep well.

On a somewhat lighter note

I came across this article in the German tabloid Bild – yes, I do read some downmarket newspapers, but I was looking for German comment on the Libyan allegations about Sarkozy. This pigeon-fancier won a competition in Leipzig in December by sticking extra feathers on his bird with the adhesive Uhu. Poor bird! Anyway his crime has just been discovered, but apparently such subterfuges are not unknown in the world of pet shows.

BILD article here

Perhaps Sarkozy could argue that he just borrowed some extra feathers from Gaddafi for the presidential election and will take them off and return them shortly.

Seventh Poetry Competition

The downside of winning a Chariot competition is the duty to set the next one and I have been hunting frantically for inspiration since Low Wattage lobbed the poisoned chalice in my direction yesterday.

Continue reading “Seventh Poetry Competition”

A busy day

A busy day today, all of our pubs have a Guinness promotion, every card is a winner. We have the England West Indies knockout match on today, starts 11am our time and lasts the whole afternoon (if England lose they go home!)

You might not see me this afternoon, I’m sure that I saw a cherished colleague rule about ‘drinking and blogging’ 🙂

Happy St. Patrick’s day

Thunderbolt

In Thunderbolt, GA, yes such places do still exist, small, poor and not at all antebellum, but with a great restaurant “Tubby’s Tank House” and the freshest grilled Yellowfin Tuna I have ever tasted (Japan included).

Continue reading “Thunderbolt”

Sixth Poetry Competition – Results

Sixth Poetry Competition – Parody

A small field, but choice, as the locals here say.

Christopher’s Wheelbarrow had all the right ingredients, wit, brevity and a pungent skewering of a presumptuous poem.

Soutie’s Rugby anthem certainly met the requirements and in addition “sparked some lightning” as that old toper Dylan Thomas might say.

Peter’s saga of late night perambulations was beautifully crafted and as familiar and chilling as this morning at three am.

But I truly loved OZ’s Fido’s Dream a classic take on a ponderous piece, deserving of a little literary criticism of the kind my old English Lit. teacher used to dish out in liberal portions (poor long suffering Mr. Voake).

A literary analysis of “Fido’s Dream”

Here we have Drake’s Drum made into a Dog’s Breakfast, the concept of “let sleeping dogs lie” applied to that old “Sea Dog” himself.

The wooden walls of Fido’s kennel, no doubt echo the more famous “Wooden Walls” – the great wooden fighting ships of Drake’s navy.

The unopened tin of Fido’s food brings to mind the toy tin drums of our youth, bringing Drake’s drum back to the present.

Of course the Golden Meal is a reference to “The Golden Hinde” Drake’s flagship for many years.

As Bonio figures large in this story could this be a reference to Boazio Drake’s cartographer? Such creative daring would make the parable complete.

Well Done O Zangado, over to you for the Seventh.

More apt now, than ever.

Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature’s inexorable imperative.
H. G. Wells

Goodnight eveyone, sleep well.

Japan

It was a year ago when, at about this time, I was sitting on a bench in Tokyo watching the ducks circling in a pond. Tokyo, a hectic city with seemingly more people per block than the combined population of New Zealand and its West Island, Australia, maintained a sort of quiet order through it all. For all that was going around, the city was clean and the people unbelievably polite/pleasant. Once, at a train station WC with a long queue, a man told me to follow him… He lead me to a loo without a queue saying that, while designed for the disabled, could be used by anyone. Most Japanese would not use it even if they were dancing the bladder jig. It was in Japan where I would stay up all night and sing karaoke before heading to a ramen shop for a 4 AM bowl of soup. All the way through the Japanese were impeccable in every way. Even the customer service at convenience stores exceeded that found in high-end German and US stores. Japan now is in a bad way. Today I spoke with two old friends who are now back home in Japan. Both are carrying on stoically, eager to get back to their regular lives. It is hard for me to discuss it, perhaps because I am also so thoroughly disgusted with the media and how they handle this. Over a million have no access to fresh water yet when packages of bottled water are brought, no one takes more than they absolutely need. The people are not looting, the people are not rioting. Even in this hell, the people are doing their best to carry on as well as possible.