Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

I wasn’t a bad oul jiver in me day Spitty, but I never did get the hang of the Twist.

The wife and me were talking about old sayings last night and how some of them don’t make sense, like the two I’ve often quoted before “ Look before you leap” and “He who hesitates is lost, completely contradicting each other.
Anyway we eventually got around to dogs, they seem to feature a lot in old proverbs, “Let sleeping dogs lie”. “Lie down with dogs and you get up with fleas” “Every dog has his day” etc..
So it was with dogs on my mind that I trotted off to bed last night, and just before I nodded off I had that old chestnut in me head “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks”. actually you can.

My dog is 9 now and I’ve just taught him how to read the Sun newspaper (ya gotta start at the very bottom ), took him all of five minutes to learn, and judging by the sour puss on him he was not impressed, though he did like the girls in it, he’s a bit of a randy old bird dog.
Might try the Times on him tomorrow, then the Racing Chronicle, you see the whole idea is to have him read out the race cards to me and then give me a few tips, well he soon got bored and I took him for a walk. We had just got to the top of the road when he sat down and then got up and faced the direction for home and started to pull on the lead, very unlike him I have to say. he usually loves his walks, maybe he sensed the pub was closed and he wouldn’t be getting his saucer of Guinness.

Then I woke up and after breakfast I did what an old friend of mine used to do, look up the racing cards and see could he find any horses name to coincide with his last dream.
I found one running in the 2 pm at Wexford, one of my favourite tracks, it was called “Walk me home” that had to be the one so I but a fiver on to win, it romped home at 11/1, God’s truth, you can believe that or not, I don’t mind. but I’m now 55 quid richer than I was last night, weird eh?

We got our little fella from the dogs home, he was on death row, a very sad place to visit is the dogs home.

This'll bring a tear to your eye.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

I'll watch it tomorrow, don't back the gee gees, and don't want any thoughts implanted to disturb a good nights sleep

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

I didn’t know they were still burning supposed witches up to 1746, I thought that all finished around the end of the 1600’s.
I remember me granny and some of her spooky cronies whispering old stories and the name “Darkey Kelly” once came up when I was a lad, when I asked who she was I was told sharply “Nobody” and then whisked off to bed.
I eventually found out for meself, here’s the gist of it in a small nutshell.

“Accused of witchcraft and satanist rituals, a brothel owner, Darkey Kelly was partially hanged and burnt at the stake, on Baggot Street in Dublin's city centre.
For generations, Darkey Kelly was known in Dublin’s folk memory as the woman who was burned at the stake for witchcraft after she accused the Sheriff of Dublin, Luttrell, of fathering her baby. However, research has revealed that she could have been Ireland’s first serial killer and the story of witchcraft is completely false.
 
Darkey Kelly was executed for the murder of at least five men. Their bodies were found in a brothel she owned, in Dublin.
 It had been thought that she was executed for witchcraft, in 1746, but research has shown that she was executed in public, on January 7, 1761. She was partially hanged and then publicly burnt alive on Baggot Street, in Dublin city centre” Source, Irish Central.

In 1742 Handel’s Messiah was first performed in Fishamble Street Dublin, the same very short street Darkey Kelly had her brothel, probably with five dead brothel customers lying underneath the cellar below the music hall. hallelujah!!!

In 1947 I was kidnapped by a mentally disturbed woman who had lost a child at childbirth, I was just under two years old and was missing for two days (true), I was found bawling me head off in a hallway by a passer by, much to my poor mother’s relief, guess where?— Fishamble Street!

There’s a fine bar there now called Darkey Kelly's with plenty of traditional music, I’ve yet to visit it, but I will if I survive and things come right again.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Good job people are much nicer (and more Cosmopolitan) nowadays.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Yes indeed they are Spitty, thank God.
Poor old Darkey was the victim of a political cover up after giving birth to the Sheriff of Dublins child, he was a regular at her brothel, and she had the audacity to ask for financial support, just shows you it doesn’t matter if your right or wrong, the system always wins, must not embarrass the dignitaries of the day.


There was I sitting watching the racing on TV today, enjoying a cold can of draught Guinness and smoking a small cigar, too good to last I thought.
How true that was, the missus had taken the petrol mower out of the shed to cut the grass.

Now before you all start tut-tutting thinking shame on him for letting his poor wife cut the grass, the simple fact is that she won’t let me near HER lawn mower, and I don’t have to be told twice to avoid things I know nothing about.
Anyway after a few minutes she comes in and says the mower won’t start, I don’t know why she’s telling me this, I might as well be looking for an ink spot in a barrel of tar at midnight as to having any knowledge on how the combustable engine works, I’m completely in the dark.

She continued pulling the starting string on the thing. all the while becoming more frustrated and I had to tell her to stop, fearing the string would break or she would have a heart attack. “Get the model number and look up Briggs & Stratton petrol mowers on google” says I, and she did, that was a mistake on my part for next came the barrage of questions “‘What’s an oil filter Jem?” was the first one, oh God here we go!

In the end and for my own sanity I was compelled to look the whole process up meself, after reading the trouble shooting part, I took out the filter (a yellow spongy thing) which was manky dirty, washed and dried it in the sun, put it back in again, drained and changed the oil which she had never drained out since she got the machine, she just kept topping it up, cleaned the spark plug, and then told her to try it again, bingo!, it spluttered into life and away she went merrily ploughing through the side garden.

When all this was finished I went back inside but the racing was over and me beer was flat, oh the things we do for peace.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

There was yet another war film on Sony Action today, it was called “Das Boot’ all about a German submarine, what a strange title for a war film, one would think it was all about chastising children, I know that whenever I got Da’s boot it was an event to remember with pain, and it was a long time before I misbehaved again.

In my early manhood years I often drank in a very old pub called “Ye olde Boot Inn”, steeped in history it was situated on one of the back roads behind Dublin Airport, a scruffy old spit and sawdust place but they served a great pint of Guinness, if you were a lover of a great pint and were prepared to put up with the discomfort this was the place to be.
I remember being there one Saturday night with a few mates, no ash trays with the result the cigarette ash was all over the table and floor, and when I called over to the barman for an ash tray he smiled and shouted back “Your sitting in it Sonny”

My Son was telling me that they’re making a new fantasy version of Titanic, well based on the Titanic story up to the time of the iceberg hitting it, and this time the ship is called “The Colossal” and it doesn’t sink, when the ship is holed a repair job is hastily made but it’s steering is out of control and the giant liner drifts southwest until it is grounded on an island inhabited by cannibals, riveting stuff lasting almost three hours I believe. I think I would enjoy a film like that, at least you wouldn't know the end before the film started.

Speaking of the Sea, I love this old song.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Jem, where I lived there were a few Spit and sawdust boozers, and without doubt, they served a mean Pint, but, in general, they were devoid of "Birds" so were tolerated for the sake of quality supping till 9.00pm, then ditched, for the sake of Bird Hotspots. You can predickt where a real ale night is going to end, you never know where a Hotspot will take you.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Sorry Scribblers where ever you are now, got side tracked and had to comment elsewhere, this happens periodically, this may fall on deaf ears, but that is OK, compared to what is happening to the UK.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

There were many public bars in Dublin that didn’t allow in any Birds, Chicks, or Hens of any description up until the late seventies, the publicans feared they would be subjected to fowl language.
They were allowed into the lounges alright but the bars were strictly for men only, the commonest excuse publicans used was they had no toilet facilities for women, but it was without a doubt open discrimination.
Another thing was they would never serve a woman a pint, it had to be half a pint. Thankfully all that is gone now.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Having watched on youtube last night the 1939 film of the “Four Just Men” from the book by Edgar Wallace I was prompted to write a ditty about our old local bin men “what moves away our dust”, they were most obliging and helpful to the old folks around my area, sadly they were all replaced by a new private company and a strictly ‘by the book’ crew.

Back then the bin crews were a cheerful lot, whistling and singing as they went about their unpleasant work, they would take away anything for you, this was very much appreciated by the locals and they would slip them a few quid for doing so, then come Christmas time everyone I knew gave them an envelope with a few bob to be shared amongst the lads, I knew some of these lads personally and I believe the total amount received was quite substantial, but they deserved every penny of it. Thank you all lads.
Incidentally the new binmen receive nothing by way of tips, they are a sour faced unpopular lot and not a bit friendly or helpful.

“The Four Dust Men”

They came over the bridge and down our street
A nicer shower of lads you’d never meet
Four in all, one was the driver, the others were lifters
A credit to the council were these rubbish shifters.

There was never a bad word of their work to be said
Why they even managed to crush Mrs Ryan’s old iron bed
She left it in the garden cos it wouldn’t fit in the bin
And It took the three of them to squash the thing in.

Old Mr. Watson didn’t get on with his wife
And one night in a temper he snuffed out her life
The lads all knew she was a nagging old hag
“Mum’s the word old man, just put her in a plastic bag”

Yes there was nothing these men wouldn’t do for you
Sent down from heaven were this wonderful crew
We’ll never see the likes of them again
And we all thanked God, for the four dust men.

Here’s a rare bit of old live TV featuring the king of skiffle himself, not many skifflers left now, can’t get the old washboards any more since washing machines took over.