Nine Inches

Tags

A Red Red Rose, Andy Stewart, Billy Connolly, Brassica, Burns' songs, Dambusters, Donald Where's Your Troosers?, Ginevra, Glasgow, haggis hurling, Highland games, Hogmanay, Maggie Smith, Quartet, Rigoletto, Tom Courtenay, White Heather Club

You bag the seats and I’ll get the order! volunteered Brassie.  Carrie,

Clammie and I miraculously found a table in a corner of

Costamuchamoulah café and pushed the previous occupants’

detritus to one side.

What was that about a bag? asked Clammie.

Oh, nothing.  She was just referring to securing the seating.  Just

before we came in she said she had noticed a poster in the window of

the beauty shop, offering 20% off to old bags.  She must have had it

on her mind, you know, subliminally.

Was the notice serious?  There is definitely a target market here,

commented Carrie, cheering up a little.

Oh, I think we are all practising for the day when we can achieve the

discount!  But no, when I looked at the notice more closely, it

referred to an actual company called The Old Bag Company and

Raquel in Beauty and the Beast must stock their products, I

explained.

There you go, said Brassie, placing the little table number on the

cleared surface.  She sat down opposite Carrie and then jumped up.

She had sat on a jumbo crayon left over from the toddler art club

that monopolised the tables in the afternoon.

Right, I said.  We are all ears.  What happened?

Carrie sniffed a little and began:

I appreciate you guys’ support. Well, as we all suspected, Grandma

Jean’s broken hip was really curtains for her.

(We knew that Jean Pomodoro had suffered a bad fracture on

Hogmanay in her nursing home in Glasgow on Hogmanay.)

They have been brilliant, actually.  The staff always encourage the

residents to put on a mini White Heather Show, with those who are

able doing little turns.

And the others having funny turns, joked Clammie.  I glared at her.

Well, they like to see in the New Year and it is all good fun.  Of

course, they vet the acts so that dirty old men don’t get too raucous

over renditions of Andy Stewart’s Donald Where’s your Troosers?

Anyway, Jean loved singing.  She used to perform duets with

Gianbattista- Grandpa- and they blended so well. She had just

finished A Red, Red Rose and there wasn’t a dry eye in the room.

 Amazing for 91. Although a little unsteady, she had stood

throughout and was about to be led back to her wing armchair, when

a naughty old boy who looked like Billy Connolly, apparently, said he

would follow on with another Burns’ song: Eight Inch Will Please a

Lady.  Jean was so shocked that she fell over.

I’m not surprised, Clammie said.

I don’t get it, said Brassie.

Carrie explained: She was shocked at the impropriety.

Clammie blurted out, I’m not surprised.

No, explained Carrie, she was offended by the fact that he had got his

facts wrong.  It’s nine inches.

What is? asked Brassica, still none the wiser.

I decided to protect her innocence.  It’s the maximum permitted

length of the missile in a haggis hurling competition at The Highland

Games.

I still don’t get it.

Never mind, I whispered.

Clammie butted in: Hey, that’s a bit surreal.  I saw Quartet last night

and Maggie Smith has a poorly hip and she has to lean on Tom

Courtenay for support in the piece from Rigoletto that they all sing

together in the nursing home for ageing divas.

Yes, said Brassie, but she didn’t have the problem of falling over did

she?

No, and I wouldn’t call it a problem if I had to lean on Tom Courtenay

either, quipped Clammie.

What is wrong with her? Clammie, I mean.  She isn’t usually so

insensitive. We are supposed to be empathising with Carrie’s sad

loss.

So, when is the funeral? I asked.

Not till next Friday.  They’re putting her on ice so the Italian relatives

have time to organise themselves.

Maybe I don’t have to worry about sensitivity then.. On Ice?!  She

sounds like a bottle of Bolly!  Speaking of which, how is Ginevra going

to cope when she hears of the demise of one of her closest friends?

It’s the end of an era!

Later:

Ginevra:  I wonder if they do 20% off for Old Bags at the cremmy?

Carrie: Ginevra!

Ginevra:  Allegedly, there was once a huge ‘Glasgow Mafia’ funeral at the crematorium

and the organist was busking it as they all filed in.  He looked over his shoulder at the

coffin, to estimate how long he would have to keep playing and there was a huge floral

wreath with what he thought said: Biggles marked out in red roses.  So, thinking the

deceased must have enjoyed aviation as a hobby, he..

Carrie: Didn’t!  Did he launch into The Dambusters?

Ginevra giggled: You got it. Jean told me. She was in the congregation. She was in

hysterics.

C: So, why was it so funny?

G: Because what it really said was : Big Les!

And she laughed so hard that Carrie thought she was going to fall off her perch

and that would make it a double funeral.  (An economy that Grandma Jean would

have approved of – coming from Glasgow!)

 

Blame Game

Tags

Balmoral Castle, Blue Moon, geraniums, Highland games, History, Neil Armstrong, Prince Philip, Pussy Riot

It has been a day of blaming people for acts that they very likely did not commit.  Two dead women were found stabbed to death, with a slogan daubed in blood on their kitchen wall: Free Pussy Riot.  Was this to incriminate the punk group’s supporters?

270 miners have been charged for the deaths of 34 of their fellow workers at a platinum mine during a strike, even though the police shot the strikers.    Blue moon.

Neil Armstrong’s funeral.

Coldest August night since records began.  Minus 2 degrees at Braemar.  Get the tartan coats on the Corgis.

My geraniums have not come out yet and now I will have to bring them in, if you see what I mean.

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012

A Heap of Broken Images

Tags

Alex Salmond, Andy Murray, Bradshaw's Guide, David Dinnie, Edinburgh Military Tattoo, Eurozone, Fifty Shades of Grey, Forth Rail Bridge, Highland games, Iron Brew, Isaac, Lysistrata, Merlot, Michael Portillo, Neil Oliver, New Orleans, Only Connect, Patrick Moore, Perlmutter, Scotland the Brave, The Sun, The Waste Land, Togo, Top Secret, University Challenge, Victoria Coren

Bank Holiday Monday

Someone sent me an attachment this morning which was headed Fifty Shades of Grey for Men.  It was a paint chart.  There is nothing remotely sexual about Elephant’s Breath, I think.

Tropical storm Isaac is heading for New Orleans on the 7^th anniversary of Katrina’s cataclysm.

The geographical feature that is characterised by cataclysm is deluge and not earthquake, as one panellist on University Challenge mistook tonight.

It was an evening of quizzes, with the return of a slightly more overweight Victoria Coren on Only Connect. Watching this programme, I feel like a character in The Waste Land:

I can connect

Nothing with nothing..

Victoria is like Madame Sosostris, the wisest woman in Europe, with a wicked pack of cards.  She apparently loves poker.  She stands by The Wall which is a heap of broken images and :

 uncorseted, her friendly bust

 Gives promise of pneumatic bliss.

I wish that she had retained the Greek letters of the alphabet on the question choice blocks.  These were replaced through attacks on elitism.  Now, if the women of Togo read The Lysistrata, then why the general dumbing down in this country?  After all, the substituted hieroglyphics are just as refined, though pictorially evident, I suppose.  My favourite is horned viper.

Curiously, Victoria’s dresses are becoming tighter and tighter and her fantasies more curious too- she admitted to a desire to find a naked Michael Portillo in her dressing room, seated on a case of Merlot.  The Merlot you could understand… Personally, I would prefer to read Bradshaw through, cover to cover, in a single sitting.  Still, there’s nowt so queer as fowk.

The Edinburgh Military Tattoo was next and the best bit was the drumming cohort from Switzerland, Top Secret.  I looked carefully but our friend, Roger, was not of their number. The second best bit was the mass formation for Scotland the Brave. You can keep all thon fancy film scorey type tunes and I think Alex Salmond would have been pretty annoyed at them playing There’ll Always be an England, unless it conveyed the proviso:  doon there and no’ up here.

The whole evening was devoted to tartan programmes about Highland Games all over the world, in places such as North Carolina. There are more games held worldwide than in Scotia itself.

The only interesting programme was Horizon with its explanation of the infinite expansion of the universe. If Scotland keeps expanding exponentially then it should be good for Pitlochry looms and kiltmakers in general.  As a nation it will grow vaster than empires and more slow, no probably even faster.  However, the programme stressed that we were all in this together and could not go it alone, as multiple galaxies are swallowed.  So, Alex, we need to remain united so that we can fight all the dark matter in the Eurozone and in other global economies together.

A programme on the Highland Games showcased David Dinnie who had been the world’s most renowned athlete in times gone by.  Women used to faint away at the sight of his torso, in much the same way as they do now when they see pictures in The Sun of every Tom, Dick and Harry letting their hair down. (Not.)  Leave the hair business to Neil Oliver, I say.

Anyway, Dinnie used to endorse Iron Brew, as I think it was spelled back then- (Scotland’s other national beverage- made frae girders.)  He looked as if he had licked the Forth Rail Bridge.  Maybe a wee taste of A G Barr’s fizzy drink’s 0.002% ammonium ferric citrate was what Andy Murray had doped himself on before winning Olympic gold.  Aye, Alex Salmond, ye can take the man oot o’ Scotland, but ye cannae tak’ the iron oot o’ his soul.

Alba gu brath!

Tuesday 28^th

My scientific observations seem to be confirming Professor Perlmutter’s Nobel prizewinning research about exponential expansion of the Universe.  I am quite taken with cosmology now.  I noticed a very large, docile dog on a lead at the local Lavender café.  It was very like a lurcher, but much larger.  I asked its owner what breed it was and she said, A fat greyhound.  Also there are all these sightings of lions in Clacton-on-Sea etc which turn out to be large feral cats.  Some can be four foot in length so you could be mistaken for thinking that they are pumas, especially if you have been on the old Merlot for the evening.  Stick to Irn- Bru, I say.  It puts hairs on your chest and dampens down the Portillo fantasies.

Anyway, everything is becoming larger- Patrick Moore, Victoria Coren and the whole Universe.  No wonder I can’t get into my favourite jeans.

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012