Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Closets always seem to stink.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Of history.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

I was neither Mary nor Gay over the winter solstice festival. (Other festivities and belief systems are available). The only dressing up I did was for two days when my Lovely Cousin insisted I wear a smart shirt with buttings up the front, and trouserings with fore and aft creases as opposed to the cargo trouserings with lots of useful pockets I normally wear.

I've come out of an earth closet a few times, and a water closet more times than I can count on my ten fingers, two opposable thumbs, and twelve webbed toes. (That's what happens when cousins marry cousins, allegedly.)

I do actually know a chap from the West Country with webbed toes. As I recall, he was a very good swimmer. I don't know if his parents were cousins, but he has never married.

I've no idea why or how the expression, "coming out of the closet" came to mean a gay person telling people other than themselves that they are gay.

Did you know that the word gay when used to describe, well, gay people is actually an acronym?
It was coined during riots in the late sixties after New York police raided a gay pub called the Stonewall Inn. Placard carrying protestors produced placards with the word GAY painted on them and the words, Good As You.
I don't think any of them were Cavaliers, but you can never tell just by looking, although ridiculous boots and a large floppy hat with a feather might be a bit of a giveaway I suppose.

When I was an apprenti attending college in the seventies, one of my landladies had a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel called, wait for it ... Oliver Cromwell. Witty, what?

I know what Master Spitfire means about closets smelling of history. Water closets need a good ten minutes for recent history to dissipate to a breathable level, whereas old closets always seems to smell of old books. Perhaps that was just the lingering smell of the bog-rolls available at the time. I wonder if there was a shortage of "back of the privvy door" literature in days of plague gone by a-cause people went out panic buying the complete works of Old Will or the King James bible.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Excellent stuff Fruity, you’re in great form there, a lovely roll of wit.

I actually knew a Mary and Gay, an old mate of mine, Gay Talbot married a local girl called Mary Byrne, no kidding, they moved to Londing from Dubling, sadly they eventually parted, or so I’m told by my all gossip knowing wife, her info is more reliable than the FBI.

“Good As You” Never knew that, makes a bit more sense now, thanks for telling me.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

I had to watch one of those old weepie films the wife loves so much over the Christmas, I say had to watch because the wife insisted she wanted to see it on the big screen TV, and I wasn’t going upstairs to watch something else, enough said there.

Anyway the gist of the story was about a 50 something woman who has been married all her adult life to the same man, and now he has found a younger someone else who he’s madly in love with and keeps telling his new idol that “his wife doesn’t understand him” you know the usual manure, all these randy old gits shell out to young gullible girls.

The point I’m getting at is when the wife is out with her husband having their last evening together she starts crying then says to him “Frankie, how could you do this to me?, I’ve given you the best years of my life”

“I’ve given you the best years of my life” How many times have I heard that before in films, on TV, in books, and indeed live from older women in pubs when they weren’t getting on with their husbands/partners/whatever.

I’m not taking the husbands side here, in my opinion he’s s very stupid man to think he can start all over again with a far younger woman and things will all work out honky dory, but when he’s bitten hard he might come back to his senses, which actually happens in the film, the younger woman was only after his money, and he finally returns to the wife and everything ends well.
Then the expected comment from my missus
“Serves him bloody well right the auld eject, if it was me I wouldn’t have him back”
I said nothing, I know which side me bread is buttered on.

Now, what I don’t understand is why do only women say “I’ve given you the best years of my life” is it exclusive to them? are the best years of a man’s life not worthy of consideration? I honestly have never heard a man use those words on screen, in a book, or in person.

Come to think of it and to be fair I’ve never heard a woman say “my husband doesn’t understand me” either.

Oh Lord please don’t let me be misunderstood.
My wife understands me perfectly, in fact she can predict my every move, she seems to be tuned in to what’s going on inside my head.

Long long time since I heard this, never thought I’d find it on youtube, there’s a little bit of new year stuff at the very end.

I’m going to have a few glasses of port now so that I’ll be in fine form to greet the neighbours at midnight when they all stick their masked heads out their front doors, we’ll all say bad cess to the old year, the worst I’ve ever had in my 75 years on this earth.


HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Lovely job. One of Freddy Garrity's non-manic leaping about the stage choons.

I'm an old romantic. I don't like weepies. If I'm not watching a thriller or action fillum, I like a romance with a happy ending. I want good to triumph over evil, or the least bad to triumph at any rate.

Luckily my Lovely Cousin has similar tastes to me in both visual and audio entertainment with about an 80% overlap of stuff we both like. Even better, she won't make me watch stuff I don't like.
Sometimes I might not be as interested in a programme as she is so I will read a book or sometimes use the interwebular and sort of half watch, dipping in and out of the plot or show every now and then.


I've not actuarily thought about the expression, "I've given you the best years of my life". It doesn't really make much sense. How would you know whether the years you have lived were your best ones?

As for, "my wife/husband doesn't understand me," it's just an excuse to cheat on them in my humble opinion. What it really means is, "I'm bored with my partner and I'm going to look elsewhere."

My Lovely Cousin understands me. It's not that we finish each other's sentences, but we do often say the same thing at the same time, or sometimes she will say what I'm thinking or I will say what she is thinking.

It's not magic. It's not being psychic. It's just that we have been together so long we respond to the same triggers.

It could be a comment from another person, an image on TV, a sound, passing something by the side of the road, and it reminds us both of the same thing at the same time such that one or other or both of us will say what it is that we both remember.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

’Tis indeed a blessing when both partners are understanding of each others good and bad points, give and take plays a very big part in that I think.

I’m sick to the teeth with these yo-yo lockdowns, I can’t figure it out at all, as soon as the count goes down they open the floodgates again and up it rockets once more, then they have another 6 weeks lockdown and off we go again with exactly the same result, now we’re locked down again, the third time in 9 months, why not have one big one and get it done with?

I feel like a hermit, but luckily I’m well able to cut me own hair, I’ve forgotten what a good pint of Guinness stout tastes like, forgot how I used to cheat the other old lads at dominoes in the local, well what’s left of them by now, I know two have passed on, God rest them.

I’m smoking far too many fags brought on by boredom, the weather is crap, I miss the company of my grandkids who always spent a lot of time in our house, I suspect mostly because of the wife’s great cooking.

My ten quid daily flutter on the nags is no more since they closed the bookies again, I would never back a horse on line, that’s strictly for the big time gamblers, the minimum stake is 5 quid and I prefer to back 5 horses at 2 quid each so I can get a bit of entertainment and watch them run on the TV, I also miss the craic with the other pensioner punters in the bookie shop.

Yes to put it mildly I’m browned off, and finding it hard to sleep, so fed up am I that I have recently tuned into Fr. Murphy’s late night “Bible at Bedtime” program, how sad is that, but it helps to make me drowsy and ready for sleep (no offence meant Fr.).
Interesting bit of news on it tonight.

Fr. Murphy was saying that we can all sleep safely in our beds tonight as the devil was back in Heaven again, Trump veto’d God and pardoned him.
Or maybe I just dreamed that, it’s hard to tell the difference these dreary days.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Yep, I was vetoed by the now wife on my first proposal, she is a good judge of character, it took a whole lot of change to gain approval.

The first proposal was not a marriage one.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Yes any type of proposing can be tricky enough Spitty.

When I was a teenager I was led to believe that girls had a two year advantage over a boy on the ways of life, so a girl of 18 would have more knowledge about life and “things” than a chap of 17, which was my age when I asked my now wife to marry me.

We had both been to an engagement party and drink was new to me back then, I had consumed several bottles of “Red Barrel” ale and as I was leaving her home on that warm Summers night I asked her would she marry me, we had known each other since we were children but had only been going out together for a year.

As far as I can remember she didn’t answer me and by the next night we went out i had completely forgotten about it, didn’t remember a thing about that night.
When were were seated in the picture house and waiting for the curtains to go up she asks me did I mean what I said the night of her friends engagement party. I honestly hadn’t a clue what she was talking about and said so, she kept it going all through the film and on the way home she finally told me that I had asked her to marry her.

So that was that, I said I was always going to ask her at some stage but hadn’t got the guts.
We were married the following year, that bit of Dutch courage has served me well, it’s nice to hear something good said about the demon drink for a change.

My purely hypothetical question here is, seeing that women are two years ahead of men in the natural ways of the human world, could a person sue another person for talking advantage of a drunken youth two years behind that person in life’s experience? Bear in mind that this was a time when a man could be sued for “breach of promise”.
PS. I’m asking for an old friend who has his eye on a sprightly 86 year old widow who lives next door to him, he’s been married for 60 years now and wants out, he says his wife still doesn’t understand him.


I see poor Liam Reilly has passed away, a very nice man, God rest his soul.

“Liam Reilly, the lead singer of Irish band Bagatelle, has died aged 65.The family of the pianist, singer and songwriter confirmed his passing in a statement today.*"With sad hearts, the family of Liam Reilly, musician, songwriter and frontman of Bagatelle, wish to confirm that he passed away suddenly but peacefully at his home on January 1st 2021" RTE news.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Clarity of mind is no substitution for the rough and tumble, and never will be.