Some New Words

I found these in a book about books (or matters literary). I believe they are from yet another book by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd called "The Meaning of Liff." They've taken town names (mostly British) and given them useful meanings. These following examples seem to apply to either me or folk I know.

Ahenny - the way people stand when examining other people's bookshelves.
Ainderby Quernhow - one who continually bemoans the "loss" of the word "gay" to the English language, even though they never used the word in any context at all until they started complaining they couldn't use it anymore.
Bathel - to pretend you have read a the book under discussion, when in fact you've only seen the TV series.
Beppy - the triumphal slamming shut of a book after reading the final page.
Dalmilling - continually making small talk to someone who is trying to read.
Frithram - a paragraph that gets you stuck in a book . The more you read it, the less it means to you.
Great Wakering - the panic that sets in when you badly need to go to the lavatory and cannot make up your mind about what book to take with you.

Cleese on Beekeeping

Both Rowan Atkinson and John Cleese. A rich mix. Do enjoy.

More Poetry Not of My Own Making

Once again I thought the general public needing enlightening in the region of humorous poetry. Therefore I introduce Ogden Nash, who was the poet laureate of America's light verse. Anyhow, I think he's quite incredible, and so, apparently, did a great many other people. Some of his rhyming is rather on the fantastic side, if you follow me, and that is his beauty. I cannot say which is my favourite, so I have picked one, more or less at random. I will try to find the one about Columbus, which I reckon to be a real whatever the word is.

So Does Everyone Else, Only Not So Much

O all ye exorcizers come and exorcize now, and ye clergymen draw nigh and clerge,

For I wish to be purged of an urge.

It is an irksome urge, compounded of nettles and glue,

And it is turning all my friends back into acquaintances, and all my acquaintances into people who look the other way when I heave into view.

It is an indication that my mental buttery is butterless and my mental larder lardless,

And it consists not of "Stop me if you've heard this one," but of "I know you've heard this one because I told it to you myself, but I'm going to tell it to you again regardless,"

Yes I fear I am living beyond my mental means.

When I realize that it is not only anecdotes that I reiterate but what is far worse, summaries of radio programs and descriptions of cartoons in newspapers and magazines.

I want to resist but I cannot resist recounting the bright sayings of celebrities that everybody already is familiar with every word of; I want to refrain but cannot refrain from telling the same audience on two successive evenings the same little snatches of domestic gossip about people I used to know that they have never heard of.

When I remember some titillating episode of my childhood I figure that if it's worth narrating once it's worth narrating twice, in spite of lackluster eyes and dropping jaws,

And indeed I have now worked my way backward from titillating episodes in my own childhood to titillating episodes in the childhood of my parents or even my parents-in-laws,

And what really turns my corpuscles to ice,

I carry around clippings and read them to people twice.

And I know what I am doing while I am doing it and I don't want to do it but I can't help doing it and I am just another Ancient Mariner,

And the prospects for my future social life couldn't possibly be barrener.

Did I tell you that the prospects for my future social life couldn't be barrener?

Heck, lets go for another...

The Purist
I give you now Professor Twist,
A conscientious scientist,
Trustees exclaimed, "He never bungles!"
And sent him off to distant jungles.
Camped on a tropic riverside,
One day he missed his loving bride.
She had, the guide informed him later,
Been eaten by an alligator.
Professor Twist could not but smile.
"You mean," he said, "a crocodile."

Fables for the Frivolous

These, in my humble opinion (and here is where I can voice that as much as I like), are dashed clever poems. The fellow has (some hundred years ago) reincarnated a number of Aesop's fables as poems, and as the wider public didn't know what they were missing out on, I saw fit to post one of my favourites. Thus, I present you with:

THE ICONOCLASTIC RUSTIC
AND
THE APROPOS ACORN

By Guy Wetmore Caryll

Reposing 'neath some spreading trees,
    A populistic bumpkin
  Amused himself by offering these
    Reflections on a pumpkin:
  "I would not, if the choice were mine,
  Grow things like that upon a vine,
  For how imposing it would be
  If pumpkins grew upon a tree."

  Like other populists, you'll note,
    Of views enthusiastic,
  He'd learned by heart, and said by rote
    A creed iconoclastic;
  And in his dim, uncertain sight
  Whatever wasn't must be right,
  From which it follows he had strong
  Convictions that what was, was wrong.

  As thus he sat beneath an oak
    An acorn fell abruptly
  And smote his nose: whereat he spoke
    Of acorns most corruptly.
  "Great Scott!" he cried. "The Dickens!" too,
  And other authors whom he knew,
  And having duly mentioned those,
  He expeditiously arose.

  Then, though with pain he nearly swooned,
    He bathed his organ nasal
  With arnica, and soothed the wound
    With extract of witch hazel;
  And surely we may well excuse
  The victim if he changed his views:
  "If pumpkins fell from trees like that,"
  He murmured, "Where would I be at?"

Of course it's wholly clear to you
    That when these words he uttered
  He proved conclusively he knew
    Which side his bread was buttered;
  And, if this point you have not missed,
  You'll learn to love this populist,
  The only one of all his kind
  With sense enough to change his mind.

  THE MORAL: In the early spring
  A pumpkin-tree would be a thing
  Most gratifying to us all,
  But how about the early fall?

Read more here

The Lord of the Rings in Sixty Seconds

Now this is funny

Just a couple of youtube videos I thought were rather neat. The first needs no introduction - Jerry Lewis & Lord of the Rings. The second is a Paul Colman song, before he became a Newsboy - back in the PC3 days - set to Lord of the Rings. Good music, good movie.