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Candia Comes Clean

~ Candid cultural comments from the Isles of Wonder

Tag Archives: Flower o’ Scotland

Ice Bucket Challenge

27 Wednesday Aug 2014

Posted by Candia in Celebrities, Education, Family, Humour, Music, News, Politics, Religion, Romance, Social Comment, Suttonford, Writing

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Tags

barmkin, Better Together, Cunning Little Vixen, First Minister, Flower o' Scotland, Flower O'Scotland, Ice Bucket Challenge, Kelvingrove, mote and beam, Oh Scotland, Pele Tower, Purgatory, Sassenach, Scotland, Scottish Play, Snodland, snowploughing, sporran, Trident, Wee Eck, Wyvern Mote

Murgatroyd and Diana settled down in the barmkin to watch The Debate.

Murgatroyd sensed that there were many diasporan Scots- was that the

same etymological root as ‘sporran‘?- who felt somewhat aggrieved that a

Sassenach such as himself could vote on their country’s future, so he

wanted to be fully informed and astute in his response.  He had tried to

follow some of the arguments on his tablet, but found that he kept

re-playing The First Minister’s Ice Bucket Challenge instead.  He liked it

when Wee Eck said, Dae it again!  No doubt that would be his cry if the

result in September didn’t please him.

Mrs Connolly came in with a tray of salmon sandwiches.  Murgatroyd

felt ashamed that he had ever suspected her good self, or her son, of

theft.  Forced bonhomie led him to ask her how she intended to vote.

Oh, Scotland!  Scotland! she quoted.

Again, Murgatroyd was impressed by the standard of the natives’

education.

..nation miserable

with an untitled tyrant,

when shall you see your wholesome days again?

He thought that this might be from that Flower O’ Scotland song. He

hummed a few bars to show solidarity.

No, Mr Syylk!  It is your own National Bard.  The Scottish Play.

She went on:

Alas, poor country!

Almost afraid to know itself.  It cannot be called our mother, but our grave;

where nothing is, but who knows nothing..

I didn’t think Alistair did too badly, Murgatroyd remarked, trying to be

impartial and failing.

If that’s the best they can do, Mr Syylk, I intend to emigrate, like past

millions.

Fare thee well!

These evils thou repeatest on thyself

have banished me from Scotland.

Yet my poor country

shall have more vices than it had before,

more suffer and more sundry ways

by him that shall succeed.

Surely not, Mrs Connolly.  Murgatroyd was at a loss to reply to such

moving rhetoric.  Maybe she should have been representing the

‘Better Together‘ campaign at Kelvingrove.

Diana just thanked her and took two generous-sized sandwiches

from the tray. Mad!  All of them.

But, it was only a few weeks since Diana would have thought a barmkin

was some kind of Scottish oatcake.  It was amazing how she had been able

to see Murgatroyd more clearly, the scales having dropped from her

over-prejudicial eyes.  What was all that about motes and beams?  Maybe

her stay in The Tibetan Centre had helped her to move on.

They were going to have a trial reconciliation. (Sonia had said that she

had seen it coming.)  She always said that.

Anyway, it seemed fortuitous that Dru had accompanied Great-Aunt

Augusta back to Snodland Nursing Home for the Debased Gentry.  That

meant Nigel was able to give Sonia a lift home in the hired van.  Dru had

decided to leave her harp at the Pele Tower, so there was room for

Sonia’s luggage.  In fact there was plenty of room for a dismantled Trident,

if Alex and Co had wanted to send it down south.

Nigel’s concentration was being hampered by Sonia’s inquisition on his

relationship with Dru.  How could anyone be more intrusive than his own

mother?

Diana and Gus were already back at school, fielding disgruntled parents

and snowploughing their enquiries, to grit the path for the incoming

Headmaster.  The term stretched before them like a path through

Purgatory.

Gus was annoyed as he had been sent a postcard from Wyvern Mote,

from Maxwell Boothroyd-Smythe, commenting on the wonderful concert

and praising Dru’s musicianship.  Snod knew, with that unerring classroom

intuition developed over decades, that the missive meant that Dru had

taken him there.  He had seen them, tete-a-tete, during the interval, no

doubt arranging to meet up after Dru had dropped Aunt Augusta back at

the care home.  Musicianship?!  Hah!  Cunning Little Vixen!

Gus did not approve of her having led Nigel on.  His own past

experiences returned to haunt him.  He had seen the look in

Nigel’s eyes as he sang some of the more romantic ballads. Poor

fellow!  His vocal timbre was developing, but his charisma was,

like the proverbial gas, at a peep.

Furthermore, there was an issue which now loomed larger than the

outcome of a referendum: if Dru were to strike up a liaison with

Maxwell Boothroyd-Smythe and it should become permanent, then-

Heavens forfend!!-he might end up step-grandfather to that bolshie

Juniper and her odious younger sibling, the biggest bete-noire of St

Birinus’ Middle.

He would like to empty a bucket of something else over that

particular parental head.

 

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Desperation and Depilation

21 Monday Jan 2013

Posted by Candia in Arts, Humour, Suttonford

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Tags

Ally Bally Bees, Bikini Atoll, Boson Higgs, Burns Supper, Creamola Foam, cryogenic, Erskine Bridge, Flower o' Scotland, Francis Bacon, Krakatoa

Snow had fallen: snow on snow, but now it is dirty slush.  Clammie

met me as we were bored: well, no shopping over the freezing

weekend.

Still, not as bad for us as it was for Carrie.  She was supposed to have

winged? wung? her way to her grandmother’s funeral last Friday, but

the flight to Glasgow was cancelled and the cremmy postponed as

the Italian delegation couldn’t get off the runway for Cremona foam.

(Hey!  I’ve just remembered that effervescent stuff from my

childhood.  It was Creamola Foam and it was composed of dissolving

crystals.  They stopped making it, but now, apparently, it is

produced as something called Krakatoa, by Ally Bally Bees of Fife.

Maybe Costamuchamoulah could get some in at a price that would

have as much shattering till impact as a Boson Higgs particle meeting

itself on the way back to base.  Commercial fission accomplished!)

Anyway, the weather was the reason that Carrie was able to join us

on the walk last Friday, when she was supposed to be crossing the

Erskine Bridge in a hearse.  She did manage to travel today,

however.

The comment that poor old Jean was on ice was never truer and we

have all joined her in the cryogenic state, it seems.

Tristram told Clammie that Francis Bacon-the scientist and essayist,

not the painter- perished from pneumonia after experimenting with

the effects of stuffing a chicken with snow, to observe its

preservation on flesh. Tristram, the amateur chef, had been criticising

the length of time that his spouse had allowed for de-frosting the turkey

at Christmas.  He met with an icy reception, as I recall.  But I digress…

Anyway, we have given up frosted coffee and are enjoying hot

chocolate with marshmallows instead- blow the calories!

Now that Carrie has taken off, we think that she should stay up north

for a couple of Burns Suppers.  She remembered to take her

long, tartan skirt and sash.  Jean would have approved.

We are babysitting between us.  I am picking up young Edward later

this afternoon and Clammie is putting the pugs on a sledge for a

little progress through town, sans diamante.

Clammie says that she is annoyed with Tristram as he refuses to

return to his Monday evening Art class.  She spent a fortune on his

brushes and easel.  He was muttering something about an

analogy between the hazards of scientific, and those allied to artistic

exploration.

Francis Bacon seems to be the connection, but she can’t see what

links a Life Class with a trussed chicken. I pointed out that Melinda,

the Life model, might just have raised that particular mushroom

cloud.  Melinda and Bikini Atoll somehow go together like a horse

and carriage.  Desperation and depilation seem to collocate when I hear

her name.

Ginevra has reconciled herself to her absence at her friend’s funeral.

At the precise moment of committal she intends to raise a toast– not

the best term to associate with her long time companion’s method

of departure- but there you go! She will commemorate the

Flower O’ Scotland in a time-honoured way.

My goodness, is that the time?  I have to go and pick up Edward!

 

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My name is Candia. Its initial consonant alliterates with “cow” and there are connotations with the adjective “candid.” I started writing this blog in the summer of 2012 and focused on satire at the start.

Interspersed was ironic news comment, reviews and poetry.

Over the years I have won some international poetry competitions and have published in reputable small presses, as well as reviewing and reading alongside well- established poets. I wrote under my own name then, but Candia has taken me over as an online persona. Having brought out a serious anthology last year called 'Its Own Place' which features poetry of an epiphanal nature, I was able to take part in an Arts and Spirituality series of lectures in Winchester in 2016.

Lately I have been experimenting with boussekusekeika, sestinas, rhyme royale, villanelles and other forms. I am exploring Japanese themes at the moment, my interest having been re-ignited by the recent re-evaluations of Hokusai.

Thank you to all my committed followers whose loyalty has encouraged me to keep writing. It has been exciting to meet some of you in the flesh- in venues as far flung as Melbourne and Sydney!

Copyright Notice

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012-2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Candia Dixon Stuart and candiacomesclean.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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