one adder
does not
a summer make
as Aristotle
said not
First posted 9th June 2014.
Summer
2 Replies
Tag Archives: humour
Faces in things
from early childhood
conditioned to see faces
of people, in things
Senryu about pareidolia, first published 21st January 2015
Crooked
There was a crooked man and he had a crooked house, and he really liked to grumble and to grizzle and to grouse; that crooked house – he’d planned to knock it down, demolish it, but the council said “You build it up, it’s time to finish it!”
The crooked man was in a rage, he nearly had a meltdown; “Why don’t I leave it as it is,” he thought, “until it fell down?” But while he stood as pleased as Punch and thinking he was clever, the house fell down on top of him: will it be finished? Never!
Moral: If at first you don’t succeed, give up.
Patronising
St George fought the dragon and killed it — or did he? Such doubt could make patriots go weak and quite giddy. Did he rescue a maiden and liberate a city – like Perseus, it’s said, in ancient antiquity? Or is it a myth, a tale for the gullible from powerful leaders who claim they’re infallible?
The truth is that George has a past that is murky: perhaps Cappadocia (that’s now part of Turkey) or Palestine claims him. Yes, Christian martyr — but slayer of dragons? Well, that‘s a non-starter.
He’s patron of England, the Knights of the Garter, Teutonic Knights, Reichenau, Gozo and Malta. He’s chief saint of Portugal and also of Genoa, of Moscow and Beirut and, yes, Catalonia. God help us if they all decide to go fight, for how will George know who is wrong and who’s right?
Yet it’s the far right who often invoke him, their claims of supremacy based on pure hokum. For they would now see saintly George as outsider, a migrant or refugee, sort of Al-Qaeda. To persecute him would elicit no qualms, he’d not be received with their welcoming arms.
A post in rhyming couplets to mark April 23rd, St George’s Day. First published on my Calmgrove blog in 2017 in the wake of an ill-advised Brexit
Pipe dreams
When I was sleeping I found myself
playing Debussy’s Syrinx for solo flute
to a hugely discerning audience;
but it was only a pipe dream.
When I was asleep I found myself
in a cave sliding out of control
down an endless vertical shaft;
but when I awoke I realised
it was only a pipe dream.
Dozing on a daybed I found myself
in a bedsitter in Baker Street
helping a great detective (yes, him)
solve a mesmerising case;
but then he explained
I’d been smoking some opium.
– and it was all, literally, a pipe dream.
Epilogue
There’s one thing I’ve learnt
over three score years and ten:
never to write an epilogue
with a sodding EpiPen.
A grim trick?
I started to write a new limerick, then realised I had just a slim pick of possible rhymes — and very few times to use them! Is that not a grim trick?
Suggestion: you could try singing this to the tune of ‘Hickory dickory dock’.
Happy new cheer
It’s New Year’s Eve. So long, and thanks
for all the luscious puns and games,
for health reports, and news of pranks
you’ve played, and all the names
you’ve called your other half,
old whatsit… It’s been quite a laugh.
And so, as we see out this year,
it’s Cheers to you! And mine’s a beer.
Repost from New Year’s Eve 2020
Cockatoo memento mori
Grandmother Mary once had a canary (or so it was said at the zoo) –
though I was distracted, nay, even attracted by large piles of elephant poo.
It wasn’t the smell — this much I could tell — that drew my attention to these,
nor even the texture or neat architecture occasioning all my unease
but the terrible sight which ramped up my fright: a gaunt yellow-grey cockatoo!
The song that it sung as it strode up the dung was turning the air somewhat blue!
“Grandmother Mary once had a canary!” it trilled – but with four-letter words!
The bulk of the song was equally strong: it even appalled other birds.
The story it told (in language so bold) concerned sweet Grandmother Mary:
the bird did insist, “She’s a mad scientist and, me, I was once her canary!
“She fed me oceans of foul-smelling potions to turn me from fair looks to foul.
Convinced, the old meanie, that she was Athene, she tried to change me to an owl!
She got it quite wrong,” or so went its song, “mistaking Birds Custard for glue —
for Grandmother Mary ate something real scary — and turned into elephant poo!“
Old Gran we interred as advised by the bird soon after its heart-rending story.
It croons this sad song on her grave all day long: a cockatoo memento mori.
Doggerel inspired by the first line of the parody of the Scottish Cock o’ the North song and dance tune. One of the many bawdy versions includes these lines:
Aunty Mary had a canary up the leg of her drawers
When she farted it departed to a round of applause.
It is possible to sing my lines to Cock o’ the North — just — but you many need to take it at a funereal pace and possibly pop it into the minor key
This bit of doggerel first published on Calmgrove.wordpress.com 23th May 2017
Eight legs good?
You know the old woman who swallowed a spider
which wiggled and wriggled and tickled inside her?
The spider had needed a dark cavern to hide her
and, having eight eyes, she very soon spied a
large yawning black hole, which was the decider!
So, onto a hook she quite speedily tied a
strong length of silk thread. Then, just like a glider,
she spiralled down slowly. And wider and wider
the cavity opened. Our small squiggly spider
all sinuous smiled; sidled down just beside her
said victim: and scuttling, was soon down inside her . . .
But you know the rest!
The curfew tolls the news
The curfew tolls the news: departed Dave
The grieving mourners lower in the ground.
The parson prays that heav’n his soul will save
But leave his kin five hundred thousand pound.
Time for tea
Benji, who lies sleeping underneath this turf,
With a kite went leaping over seaside surf.
Greedy eyes espied him underneath the sea:
Nothing now could hide him. “Time,” thought shark, “for tea.”
Benji thinks he’s resting
underneath some grass;
Shark is still digesting
Ben’s kite-surfing arse.
Zenrinji 