Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Another of lifes latest suggestions has turned up yet again from some expert.

There used to be a song "Keep your hand on your ha'penny" which at the time although we kids hadn't a clue as to the implications, we all knew it wasn't the copper kind of ha'penny.

Our naughty bits were always given simple colloquial terms we just about half understood...and with the innocence of youth hearing or saying willy or boobies would send us into fits of the giggles....or shock depending on your upbringing....but we all we knew tits was thought rude but titties was acceptable cos they fed the new baby. We kids weren't that daft.

Now it has been deemed using euphamisms like this to describe our anatomy to children is wrong and we should be using the proper terms.

If you had said anything correctly anatomical to us as kids we would have thought you were one of those creeps we had been warned about and would have legged it home screaming for our Mams.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Plenty of food for thought there Solo.
When I was six or seven I knew all the holy days off by heart, from the immaculate conception to the assumption into heaven, hadn’t the foggiest what they were about, all I knew was that I had to learn when they were and remember to stay extra holy on those days.
Every generation thinks they have new and better ways of bringing up kids, and being fashionable and trendy plays a part in it too, but come the next generation of parents after them and they will change it all again, we never learn from life or history, we just keep thinking everything we do today it new and revolutionary, fact is we are all on a big wheel going round and round and the same old stuff keeps coming up again, we like to think it’s new.
When I was growing up there was 12 volumes of an old encyclopaedia on the bookshelf in the parlour, they were dated 1880 or thereabouts. I scoured through them trying to find out a bit more about sex but couldn’t find a thing, then quite by accident all was revealed under the industrial sounding title “Reproduction” Now I ask you in all fairness, who would think of looking there? Christ how could anyone associate Victorian factory work with sex!

Maybe I should have tried “multiplication” too.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Sunday smile

I'm impressed by anyone who can pat their head and rub their stomach at the same time or play ping pong and a violin ... but who would have thought a classical balloon player would impress me even more

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Just had a Honda CB750 delivered, some lyrics come to mind from the 70s courtesy of Jethro Tull.

Maybe this.


The old rocker wore his hair too long
Wore his trouser cuffs too tight
Unfashionable to the end drank his ale too light
Death's head belts buckle, yesterday's dreams
The transport caf' prophet of doom
Ringing no change in his double sewn seams
In his post-war babe gloom
Now he's too old to rock 'n' roll
But he's too young to die
Yes, he's too old to rock 'n' roll
But he's too young to die
He once owned a Harley Davidson
And a triumph Bonneville
Counted his friends in burned out spark plugs
And prays that he always will
But he's the last of the blue blood greasers boys
And all of his mates are doing time
Married with three kids up by the ring road
Sold their souls straight down the line
And some of them own little sports cars
And meet at the tennis club do's
For drinks on a Sunday, work on Monday
They've thrown away their blue suede shoes
Now they're too old to rock 'n' roll
And they're too young to die
And they're too old to rock 'n' roll
And they're too young to die
So the old rocker gets out his bike
To make a ton before he takes his leave
Up on the A1 by Scotch Corner
Just like it used to be
And as he flies, tears in his eyes
His wind-whipped words echo the final take
And he hits the trunk road doing around a 120
With no room left to brake
And he was too old to rock 'n' roll
But he was too young to die
He was too old to rock 'n' roll
And he was too young to die
No, you're never too old to rock 'n' roll
If you're too young to die
No, you're never too old to rock 'n' roll
But he was too young to die

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Yes that did make me smile, thanks Solo.

Enjoy your Honda Spitty, top speed 125mph! is that a rockers bike?, Ah well you’re never too old to rock, even if it’s only in a chair like myself.

We were in a pub in Carlow town on Saturday night and one of the local entertainers ‘played’ a violin piece called the Marino Waltz using his mouth only, I thought it was brilliant, sounded exactly like the real thing, but the faces he had to pull to get the notes out were truly gruesome as you could well imagine.

Have you ever seen anything as stupid as the ad for the Amazon Echo?
This lovely girl gets out of bed in the morning, she has a cup of coffee or tea cuddled in her hands as she goes over to look out the window, it’s absolutely pissing out there, rain running down the window pane, then she says to the machine “Alexa, what’s the weather like right now?”
“You you tell me, you are looking at it you silly cow”
Who thinks up these daft ads?

This is the Marino Waltz, composed in 1980 by John Sheahan and played here by him, John is the last of the Dubliners still alive today. He lived in Marino, a nice area of Dublin, when he was a boy, hence the title.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Providing you can still get yer leg over spitty and your leathers still fit, you enjoy the new motor bike. 125mphs...well wind in yer hair with you to proud to chase is not something a dedicated biker would be concerned about...is it!



As I have said rarely watch ads these days..and it would be interesting to know how many folk are put off buying because of some of the idiotic ads. Nationwides crappy poetry for instance is enough for anyone to cling even more tightly to their piggy bank no matter how full it is.

Remember hearing that John Sheahan took a big chance leaving his job to join the Dubliners. He still looks well on that decision

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

O'Donoghues in Merrion Row was an old haunt of mine in my younger years, I'd go there with a few workmates after working late on Tuesdays and Thursdays, we were working in an old building on Stephen Green just down from it, great traditional music there, and I remember Luke Kelly surprising everyone and bringing the house down one night when he sang the Doors number "Light my Fire"

I know how John Sheahan feels being the last of the Dubliners, I’m the last of the husbands of the females in the wife’s clan, 8 hubbies dead now and I’m the last shoe waiting to drop, seven widows for me to mind and advise, not that they take notice of anything I say, I’m younger than them all so that means I’m only the chisler, they have me spoiled..

There was a boss I had earlier in my apprenticeship, he was from Trinidad and arrived in Dublin with two brothers in the early sixties, he had served his time as a diamond mounter in Hatton Garden and he proudly had “Late of Hatton Garden” above the showroom door.
As the business progressed he moved all his bench workers a few miles out of the city but kept his showrooms and office in the heart of town. The messenger boy would spend most of his time commuting by push bike between the office and the workshops.
Bear in mind that in the Dublin of the 1960’s we were not in the common market and there were very few other nationalities living and working in the city, indeed almost all of the “coloured” people were students at the College of Surgeons on Stephens green.
One of the bosses brothers who worked in the office had an extra small thumb growing out the side of the existing thumb of his right hand, in effect he had 4 fingers and two thumbs on that hand.
I will never forget one young 14 year old messenger boy on his first day had to visit the office to collect a parcel, when he returned to the workshop he hung up his coat and came over to my bench all excited “Jimmy! there’s a fat brown fella down in the office and he has millions of fingers!, I swear to God!” He was so serious and I couldn't stop laughing.
A slight exaggeration, but you know how kids are.
Funny enough, when the messenger boys got a chance to work at the bench. which was very seldom, they made better goldsmiths than the well educated apprentices.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

I have been wrestling with a "Hog", and for one moment was, outmanoeuvred.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

A MOMENT...your slipping. Man Up

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Good Lord Jem you have it made with all that pampering and pandering that your getting from the wives, so who cares if they don't take heed of any wise words you may pass to them.....You'd only get blamed if they did if your advise went belly up. Anyhow they love it so don't spoil their fun.

Thinking back there was a young girl came over with her family from the Caribbean who then started at our school. I was thrilled as I already had the wonderlust in my heart and couldn't wait to chat with her..until I found she had virtually the same names as I...and was an absolute holy terror. I spent the next 3 years she was with us constantly being hauled up in front of the headmistress for things I had not done...and she would happily take praise for things she had not done.

The do say we all have a doppelganger... but to have someone one with the same name was a bit much and it's one of those things that you wonder about at the chances of that happening especially as we were from different countries. She went on to do great things in journalism and during my travels we met up a few times and laughed at what happened...with no hard feelings at all.