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06-07-2020, 09:31 PM
16081

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Good on ya Spitty, I love the cheeky snappy ending too.

Very dodgy eating pies, you never really know how old they are or what's inside them until you’ve eaten it. Did not Mrs Mooney make her pies from some of Sweeney Todd’s victims?

“Mrs Mooney has a pie shop
Does a business, but I notice something weird
Lately all her neighbours cats have disappeared
Have to hand it to her, what I calls enterprise
Popping pussies into pies”
(Johnny Depp)

There used to be a sausage factory beside where I once worked in town, some of the stories I heard from the girls who worked there would make you puke.

The only way to get a safe pie is to buy your own piece of meat, dice it up into small chunks, add whatever veg you fancy and cook it yourself, my missus is a terrific pastry maker and she makes all her own meat pies, I don’t eat meat, so it’s only fruit pies for me, besides I was never very fond of meat anyway, and sausages!, God knows what they put into them now, as one sad sausage factory owner told me recently “These days it’s very hard to make both ends meat”

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06-07-2020, 09:53 PM
16082

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Despise don't figure in my vocabulary, it should, but it don't.
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07-07-2020, 10:12 PM
16083

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

God is there no end to the war films on TV?

Day in day out they have them on, heroes to the left and right, the enemy above you and below you, and the other day as I sat down to relax with a bit of TV there’s Chuck Norris taking on a battalion of Vietnamese soldiers single handed and blowing everything in front of him up, as me granny would say “God! isn’t he a great little oulfella altogether”

Then today we have another one called “The War Lover”, no not starring GW Bush and Tony Blair.
Yesterday in another war film a soldier was being decorated for bravery because he “single handedly took out a German machine gun nest” and good luck to him, but that’s the third film I’ve seen in the past week where German machine gun nests were taken out.

With all these war films on TV I actually had a nightmare last night, I had fallen asleep in the armchair and when I woke up I made my way up the stairs to bed. There at the top of the stairs was a German machine gun nest!, I woke up with me hands in the air screaming “Don’t shoot! I surrender! I surrender!.

Once on a solo mission I donned a pair of thick gloves, put a flour bag over me head with two holes for me eyes to see out, and armed with just a hook at the end of a long pole and a smoke sprayer I bravely took out a wasps nest from the shed, and do you think I got a medal? not a bit of it, all she said through the open window and from the safety of the kitchen was, “Are they gone yet?, hurry up I want to hang out me washing on the line”
Dear Lord, If ever a man suffered.

I was never a soldier long enough to get a medal, and I wasn’t even in the regular army, I just did the 2 years part time reserve and thought I’d never get out of it, armying was not for me, yes I know there’s no such word but it fits in with the army, they even tell the time differently just to be awkward, who ever heard of one day having thirteen hundred hours?, “Alright lads, set your watches to thirteen hundred hours, we’re goin' over” yeah that’s what they say in the films.

I do love films, but I don’t enjoy war films. sports films, romantic films, and musicals, anything else is OK with me.

Talking of machine guns, how about this song about cows with guns, farming folk be afraid, be very afraid.

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08-07-2020, 09:25 AM
16084

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Chickens in Choppers

I was a bit of an easy touch in the Pub Jem, Never liked to see any of the lads left out so, when they were short of a few Bob, I would buy the beer, eventually I became known as Spitty the Gatling Gun, the guy who could Buy 200 Rounds a minute.
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09-07-2020, 10:10 PM
16085

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Spitty the gatling gun.

Ah the old round system in the pub, I remember a campaign running here back in the 70’s by the temperance crowd to get rid of it because it encouraged access drinking, say for example you went into the pub with five mates and you got the first round in, you would have to hang on until the last chap got his round otherwise you’d miss out a pint on your original ‘investment’.

The campaign didn’t work because the round system was traditionally engrained in the drinking population, passed down from father to son over many generations, and anyone who went for a pint with his friends and said he was buying his own was frowned upon as being a miser, old traditions die very hard over here.

It did however slowly ease out around the early 90’s when the price of drink became too dear and folks were reluctant to risk an ‘investment’ resulting in everyone buying their own drink, or at least splitting into pairs.
I still buy the first round when I’m with my family, but I wouldn’t be able to have more than three pints for the night at my age, after that the younger family members just leave me out and carry on, that suits me fine.

Indeed that great comic novelist Brian O’Nolan, who, along with his mate Brendan Behan were probably the best authorities on Dublin pub culture that ever lived, they ought to be they spent the best part of their adult lives in tough inner city pubs, spit and sawdust kips as they were called then.
O’Nolan was a terrific observer of bar room behaviour during the 40s/50s/60’s he wrote something like this if I remember correctly.

“In a Dublin public house, a seasoned married man will treat his wife and his pint with complete indifference, unless one or both are knocked down in his presence”

How true that is in a way, I know a few well married men who take their wives out to the local regularly and both of them just sit together silently not saying a word to each other all night, but if someone accidentally spilt his pint or tried to chat up his wife, watch out.

These lads made a song and dance about getting a round.

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10-07-2020, 06:35 AM
16086

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

How true that is in a way, I know a few well married men who take their wives out to the local regularly and both of them just sit together silently not saying a word to each other all night, but if someone accidentally spilt his pint or tried to chat up his wife, watch out.

In philosophical circles, they were referred to as "Stoic Suppers", a manifestation that time and society has all but eradicated.
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10-07-2020, 09:57 PM
16087

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

I had to look up that word ‘Stoic’ Spitty, I came across it a few times before but forgot what it meant.
Stoic: “A person who can endure pain or hardship without showing their feelings or complaining”
It describes the situation perfectly, it’s also the story of my life so I won’t be forgetting again it in a hurry.

There was an old chap I used to know from a pub in town near where I worked at the time, Mick Delaney, a retired glazier, he always brought his lovely wife Lily in for a drink anytime he had a few bob, they were the complete opposite, no “Stoic supper” with them pair, they were both members of an amateur musical society in their younger days and were quite talented. He always referred to her as “Lady Delaney” and she called him “Squire Delaney” even though they were as poor as church mice.
As soon as the first pint was down, the pair of them (Lily could swallow pints of stout to beat the band) would start to recite Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet scenes, then graduate to singing love song duets from famous musicals, Nelson Eddy and Janet McDonald had nothing on them pair. the regulars loved it

Mick had a nice little trick going for him to subsidise his miserable state pension, he would rise in the small hours of the morning and walk into the city centre when there wasn’t a soul about with his little tapping hammer and notebook tucked away in his inside pocket.
He would go from shop to shop checking the little square panels of thick glass that covered the grills outside, if he found one broken he would jot down the name of the shop, and if none were broken he would take out his hammer and give one a swift well aimed sharp crack and with the butt of the hammer shove the glass in.

Later in the day and armed with his tool box he would call to the selected shop and point out to the manager the dangers of a ladies high heel or a small child’s foot catching in the open square hole, the damages would run very high in a court case, and as he was just passing by and had the trained eye of a master glazier who was on his way to another job, he might be able to squeeze this job in if it was worth his while.
It never failed, I’m sure most of the shops were wise to him after a while, but their hands were tied and what was a few shillings to the then very profitable city centre shops.

God rest the pair of them, great characters and a very cheerful couple.
Mick is probably glazing away in heaven now, fixing the windows that let the perpetual light shine upon all the good souls, either that or he’s smashing the windows of hell trying to get out.

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10-07-2020, 10:53 PM
16088

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

In the workplace, unusual characters were ostracised, their difference was a breath of fresh air, and for me, a certain sadness when they disappeared, you have probably departed by now, Captain Birdseye. RIP
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10-07-2020, 10:55 PM
16089

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

You were Idle, as the day is long, but, you added value, that is priceless.
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12-07-2020, 10:53 PM
16090

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

The TV in the sitting has been acting up lately, blanking out for a few seconds then coming back on again, sound getting lower while watching a programme, all very aggravating, it’s over ten years old now and I think it’s finally had it.

My son was over today and he was telling me about a new TV he copped on the internet, not a well known brand in this corner of the world but the reviews it got were fantastic and he had one delivered three weeks ago, (43” €350) he’s very pleased with it so far, it seems this is the most popular TV in China today.
He knows I’m on the lookout for a new 4K TV but I don’t want the usual ‘Smart TV”. they are useless as you can only download certain apps approved by the makers, this one is android and you can load as many apps as you like from where you like, I think that’s important, too many smart TVs take on a controlling role these days, we should all be able to make our own choices in the apps we download.
I told him to go ahead and order one for me, I don’t want a huge screen as we have a small sitting room, 43” will suit us, anything bigger would look ridiculous.

I’ve just finished eating a Mr. Kipling sponge cake, delicious!

Did you know Mr. Kipling had a cousin called Mr. Kiplong?
He wasn’t a baker, he was a chemist and he made exceeding good sleeping tablets.
Boom boom!, crap I’ll admit… but original none the less.
 

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