Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Free at last!
We are sailing, the boat goes on.

“The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
The furrow followed free;
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea.” (The Ancient Mariner).

Thank God for that sooner than expected refloat.

*******

“Pubs to become remote working hubs in new plan to boost rural Ireland”

“A Government plan to reinvigorate rural Ireland aims to breathe new life into dying towns and villages by transforming disused derelict buildings and pubs into remote working hubs” RTE news.

T’was with a heavy heart I read those headlines today.

What’s a working hub? I was a working hubby but I’m not now, does that make me a retired hub?

A hub according to the dictionary is “The central part of a wheel, rotating on or with the axle, and from which the spokes radiate” That’s what I always thought it was too.

They lied to us when they said the smoking ban would not effect the pub industry, any eejit could see that it would, the pubs would be filled with fresh air and pleasant aromas they said.

“When the lies are loud the truth cannot be heard” (Chief Dan George.)

Well they were certainly filled with fresh air, but that’s about all, nobody was going into them and you can’t take fresh air to the bank, rural people preferred to have a few friends around to the house where they could enjoy a smoke with their drink, a smoke and a drink, the two go together, always have, take away one and the other is bound suffer in the long run.

Then you had the distance to go to a pub in the rural areas, no driving and having a drink (which I always agreed with, one of the reasons I never learned to drive), rural folks just stopped going, dozens of shebeens have been uncovered and people taken to court, but if you ask me I’d say that’s only the tip of an iceberg.

I saw this coming from the start, so it’s goodbye to the tradition pub and hello to the working hub, but I suppose I should be thankful that I was around to have some really great times when the pubs were in their heyday.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

“Switzerland is to allow female members of the army to wear women's underwear for the first time in an effort to boost recruitment, local media report.
Under the current system, the standard uniform issued to military recruits includes only men's underwear.” BBC news.

I was surprised to read this, very intrusive I think, poor girls and shame on the authorities, what were they thinking with that stupid rule? They should let them wear any underwear they fancy, most of the army there are only part time anyway.

“In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love”

Can you imagine the shock a fella would get if he took a Swiss army girl to bed and discovered she was wearing an army green bra like a web belt across her chest and a pair of matching “Y” fronts! One would need a Swiss army knife to get them off, maybe that’s what it was invented for in the first place. Oh God , there are so many avenues one could go down here, but I’ll hold me tongue for safety sake.

A right turn off in any season of the year for amorous young chaps, I can just hear him saying to himself as he puts on his trousers to leave “It’s not love you want my dear, it’s a tin of Blanco and a brush”
*******
My old drinking mate Paddy Wang is gone missing somewhere in New York.
Paddy’s father is Chinese and his mother is from Co. Cork, he’s a small chap, NYPD police say they are looking for a 5’2” 55 year old Cork Asian.

Ah well it’s original if nothing else.

Swiss knickers gives me an excuse to play this, haven’t heard it for years, I wonder was this Swiss maid in the army?

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

First Names.

I’ve always been interested in names ever since I read the bible and saw that the very first names were Adam and Eve, who, when they were banished from the garden of Eden set up house in a cave on earth and changed their names to Ug and Gug, norra lorra people know that, it was quite a drop in social status and they didn’t want to spread it around, not that there were a lot around at the time, but pride is still pride with some folks.
Well as they used to say “He who dips his wick must pay for the oil”, sorry Adam, but that’ll teach you not to be naughty under the apple tree.

I watch a lot of old films and always read the credits at the end, you wouldn’t believe some of the names Hollywood employed as producers, actors, writers, editors, studio staff etc. during the 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s.
Understandably in the early days of Hollywood there were a lot of emigrants from Eastern Europe
familiar with film making and their skills were snapped up, some may have changed their names into English with disastrous results.

On this side of the ocean we had Googie Withers, you may well ask who’d name a child Googie, but I believe Googie means “Little pigeon” in Pakistan where she was born.

I am presently passing time online discovering old first names, their origins and meanings.

I have always thought that children should be allowed select their own names when they reach an age of responsibility instead of having to carry a name they dislike all through life, there are millions of people out there who despise the names their parents lumbered them with, it’s not much to ask and it would do more good than harm, if someone is happy with their name it makes life that little bit easier, especially females, only my opinion of course.

I’m glad my parents stuck to the old formula of picking common well used names, you can’t go far wrong using that system, and when your kids grow up not having to endure years of slagging by their peers they won’t be out after your blood with a hatchet, remember a boy named Sue?.

I remember when I was a teenager being at a dance and asking a nice girl out on a date, I asked her her name, she said she would tell me when she was out with me, she was actually embarrassed about her name and she whispered it to me in the picture house, it was even worse that “Googie” but I won’t say the name here because there may be someone with that name reading this, all I’ll say is it’s terrible that a lovely girl should have to feel embarrassed about something she was not responsible for.

Bob Geldof has a lot to answer for after the names he gave his girls, but he was always a gobshite anyway.
Some snobs and celebrities name their kids as if they were fashion accessories, I think that’s thoughtless and shameful.

Here’s another name you never hear of nowadays “Bertha”, I have a cousin of that name, although it is mostly a German female name it has Anglo Saxon origins, Beohrtgifu meaning "bright gift" or Beohrtwynn meaning "bright joy"

There was a huge German gun galled Big Bertha, it is also the name of the oldest Cow on record.

“Big Bertha (17 March 1945 – 31 December 1993) was a cow who held two Guinness World Records: she was the oldest cow recorded” Wiki.

Personally I think if I were a female I wouldn’t mind having Bertha as a first name, I like my cousin Bertha, but then again who want’s to be called after the oldest Cow in the World.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

I thought Googie as a Geezer.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Sounds as if it should have been.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

If you knew the old joke about Googie Withers you wouldn’t wish the name on your worst enemy Spitty, too rude to tell it here and I’ve no intention of going into HA HA land to post it.

*****
We used to have an old lad up in the local who had a gift of imitating that famous gravel voiced racing commentator Peter O’Sullivan, you would swear it was O’Sullivan himself you were listening to, sadly both of them are long gone now.

The man I speak of, Mick Wallace, was a retired civil servant, they retire early in the service, at 60 I believe, and he spent the fifteen years of his retirement in the local helping to drink off the national debt with the lump sum he got, kind thoughtful old soul and true patriot that he was.

I miss all those “characters” we used to have in the pubs years ago.

Only trouble with Mick was he used the same commentary for the same race over and over again so I suggested to him that the two of us should sit down and with the help of a few pints write a different version using real horses names at that time, he said fair enough and what a Sunday afternoon that was, it went into Monday morning and I was in the dog house for a week afterwards, but the laugh we had was worth every minute of the punishment.

Anyway Mick was happy with the sketch and used it that Christmas in the pub, it went down well, then in the new year he would use it in the bars at different racecourses netting himself a few quid from the managers and free pints all through the national hunt season, he was good entertainment for the drinking punters, trainers, and owners because they knew all the horses and jockeys involved.

When I was going through some old papers the other day I came across the handwritten collaborated commentary, the only surviving record, this was scribbled down way before the internet arrived, Mick had a memory like Siamese twin elephants and memorised it in no time at all, but he died ten years ago.

I left the two pages of paper on the mantlepiece going to bed last night with the intention of copying it onto the computer next day, when I got up this morning they were gone!

I casually asked the wife had she seen it.

“Oh you mean them two old bits of paper that were on the mantlepiece?, I threw that in the fire before I came up to bed last night, it wasn’t important, it was over thirty years old with loads of horses names on it, all them horses would be dead now anyway”

She then proceeded to casually ask me the average lifespan of a racing horse, while I stood there with me eyes popped and me mouth wide open in disbelief.
The paper never stood a chance once she clapped her beady eyes on it, it just had to go.

Oh dear God, if ever a man suffered you’re looking down at him.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

We had a brief sojourn in to Switzerland a few years ago whilst having a short holiday with friends near Lake Constance.

Whilst sat outside a cafe drinking hot chocolate, we espied a bare footed lady carrying a load of tools. A knife in one hand, a screwdriver twixt her teeth, a bottle opener in her other hand, a pair of scissors with the handles looped through the toes of one foot, and a small pair of pliers carefully wedged between the toes of her other foot.
When I asked who she was, the waiter explained that she was a Swiss Army Wife.


When I lived in Yorkshire, the local TV topical news programme called Look North had a section about names. Allegedly, a Mr and Mrs Cart named their son ... Orson.


Years ago afore my tubes got damaged by a poison gas cloud and various subsequent asthma/lung related illnesses, I used to be able to mimic a few well known voices. Eddy Waring was a Rugby League commentator, so I would copy him to the delight of my friends.

When I was older, I once did a Murray Walker commentary, he of Formula 1 fame, whilst waiting for the air show to begin at Farnborough. I would comment on vehicles driving around and people setting up display stalls as if they were aircraft performing dare-devil manoeuvres.


I bought my first house when I was twenty four, and my Mum gave me several of her old kitchen appliances including the cooker I learned to cook on when I was a teenager. I enjoyed cooking, and loved experimenting.
The cooker came with an instruction book that also had a number of recipes. My mum gave me recipes taken from magazines, and I built up quite a collection that I used to practice on my teenage cousins, and then later on just the youngest girl when we were a courting.
I even wrote down a pizza recipe as it was being performed on a kids TV programme, and it came out absolutely perfectly.

After I moved house, and my Lovely Cousin later moved in, we decided we wanted a more modern kitchen, so set about emptying drawers and cupboards in preparation. To my horror, I later discovered that my Lovely Cousin had binned my folder of recipes.
Oh the misery that caused me.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Have listened to many Throwaway comments, and stored them, to throw back when the situation is right, comments like anything else lately are up for recycling.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Lovely Post Fruity, a most enjoyable read as always, Orson Cart how are yeh!.
That’s our Fruitcake, nutty but nice.

I just thought you and Spitty might like to know that our mutual friend and ex scribbler has just become a super mod on a big international forum, not allowed mention the place here but many congratulations and best wishes to that person.

We had a good Easter considering the plague lockdown, my youngest grandson brought me some Ferocious Rochers, they sound vicious but they don’t bite you, they make you fat when you bite them, those round nutty chocolates in the clear plastic square box, he knows they are a weakness of mine, bless his kind little heart.

Amazing what you can learn from the internet, it’s a gift and a great time passer for an old uneducated geezer like me, a complete world library at ones fingertips.

I often wondered what Hannibal’s (he of the alps and elephants, not Lector) second name was long before the internet, it was a question in a crossword puzzle that I never got the answers to as I missed the next days paper, when I googled it it was Barca, just plain Barca, I thought it would be more illustrious than that! bloody Barca and that’s it!, that’s the equivalent of Smith or Brown in English, common as muck in Tunisia, I thought it would be more dramatic like Hannibal Glorious or Hannibal Valorious, no wonder nobody I had asked knew it, don’t know why I bothered to find out.
It was akin to somebody winning the Noble prize for micro neurological surgery then asking what their name was and being told bluntly “Fred”

However I do know something that a lot of people don’t know, it’s about Aladdin’s magic lamp, the genie inside it has brown hair, I knew that when I was a little kid from an old song my granny used to sing, it went “I dream of genie with the light brown hair” See! I ain’t that stupid after all.


I noticed a strange BBC headline yesterday, about a woman ship’s captain.

Marwa Elselehdar: “I was blamed for blocking the Suez Canal”

Come off it Marwa, no one is that fat!

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

This is a weighty subject , not sure its advisable to contribute.