Aptly Named for Idle's Attempts at Handiwork

The junior Idle girl took this photograph in that most delightful of seaside towns, Portsmouth. Reminded me of the Tuscan's recent series "Names that won't Franchise Well". I'll be in Mittel Europ next week armed with my megapixel, on the lookout for promising shop names.

Only the Luvvies will Miss Him

The monotonous old fart can now do his famous "stuck in a coffin" turn, which we have all so enjoyed ever since he started doing it in 1920, or whenever.

Was he as dull as Charlie Chaplin, though?

A Reunion Worth Waiting For

Mozart they ain't, E-K. But the clamour for tickets will be the same as if old Wolfgang himself were going to appear at the O2 to bang away at his harpsichord.

Idle has placed his order with his dodgy ticket man this morning and has been iPodding Kashmir and Ten Years Gone over hill and down dale whilst exercising the dog.

"Shall we roll it, Jimmy?" - "Nah, leave it, yeah"

Gold Envelope Time

The Idle Poetry Competition was held in August. Turnout was impressive, and a few personal bests were recorded. Old blog posts and comments should really just be allowed to die their natural death, but one or two people were quite chuffed with their entries and wanted to know the results. Here they are; remember that the third and fourth line rhymes were camouflaged and you have to guess what they would have been.

BRONZE

The Mermaid and Newmania had a sparring match during which the Merm said of Nick Drew: "Not all of us fagged for Stephen Fry you know". Newmania responded:

The little fags were in a pickle

They wriggled in their sweaty bunk

Drew gave the prefects nuts a polish

Hoping for a splash of cologne

SILVER

The Mermaid's first attempt set the standard for the rest.

'Twas Monday and it was my luck

To find that I was late for work

I really couldn't give a cake

Because my boss is quite a pill.

But sorrow soon became my lot

When on my desk I spied a host

Of papers, so I lost the will

Completely, and gave up the drugs.

But the GOLD goes to Nick Drew, for this masterly poem of Gay Gordo, just in time for conference season:

At party conference in September

Gordon Brown his fate confronts

He must contain his throbbing brain

As he recalls some famous predecessors

He thinks of Blair who wooed the bankers

Of Kinnock and his way with words

Of Foot and Benn and such great men

From whom poured forth such steaming prose

The party faithful sing of succour

For members of the working class

The song was writ by some bright wit

Who knew not elbow from his thigh

But haunting Brown’s the thought of loss

A snap election might fortell

Let him lose sleep, the brooding creep

And may he after rest in Kircaldy

Simulated Nuclear Explosion

The Mermaid's comments have moved on to setting things on fire by mistake.

I have been attending an annual weekend in North Wales for the past twenty two years during which a few game birds get frightened and the magpie and jay population gets culled. Because a few us us are scorpions, it always falls on the first weekend in November.

So obviously, there must be fireworks. And obviously, we behave foolishly, since our little darlings are banned from the weekend. Apart from the usual mortars and big rockets, we all have to launch those mini rockets from the hand after they have ignited. You get about half a second to do this successfully. Used to freak the wives and girlfriends out, now they ignore us.

What gets their attention and gets us a very stern talking-to is the simulated nuclear explosion. This really ought to be a doddle, but we never seem to get it right. An oil drum, with the correct mixture of petrol and diesel, once ignited by a thunderflash (which sinks to the bottom before going off), should propel the whole lot into the air when the petrol ignites and can only go up; the diesel, taking longer to ignite, and being heavy, should cause a mushroom effect and provide us with the nuclear explosion simulation.

One year we really buggered it up, used far too much diesel, and barely propelled the mixture out of the drum. But it did start igniting, quite slowly, as it drifted DOWNHILL off the 45-degree hillside on which the cottage is built.

How we laughed, until it bounced off one end of the roof of the next cottage down the hill. How we sighed with relief, when it appeared to have burned itself out without setting Myfanwy's house on fire, until we noticed that a telegraph pole slightly upwind and uphill from the drum was burning. How we got the girls back onside, I do not know.

Lesson learned.

Still do it, of course, just re-located ground zero.

Room in the Back for One More

Radio 5 Live had this on the news this afternoon, probably from the wonderful Theo Spark.

I love the quote from Siphiwo Mkhize, supposedly a customer of a Soweto pub: "Going shebeen (bar) hopping with a corpse takes the cake."