Thick Fast Pants

Well, it has been a while but here I am.  I must say, I had slipped into a reverie in which a flaxen haired Norse maiden was luring me into the underworld. 

My nephew advises that I was locked into some sort of virtual prison, helplessly spinning across cyberspace like them villains in Superman 2- presumably he is referring to one of the lesser known works of George Bernard Shaw.  Anyway, the worthy youth was able to extricate me and in gratitude I have presented him with a magnifying glass and a compendium of 54 games.  He told me the other day how much he spends on games so I am confident that will keep him busy for some time.

So you will be agog to know, steadfast and patient reader, what was the big issue that has been exercising me in my absence? 

Well, I hesitate with such risqué subject matter, but ladies’ undergarments have been greatly occupying my thoughts. 

You see, I recently heard someone refer to “a pair of bras”.  I had long believed the correct term to be “a bra”, but it seems that there is a significant minority who see the contraption as “a pair”.  This is quite understandable to anyone who has seen one or understands its function.

I mean to say, no one baulks at “a pair of trousers” for example.  Again, fair enough.  A pair of trousers performs the function of trousering a pair of legs.  On that basis one wouldn’t call the garment “a trouser”, except perhaps in the case of this forum’s beloved Alby Mangels – but he only ever wore stubbies anyway. 

Take “spectacles”.  As far as I can tell, they have always been referred to in the plural although the singular would probably work as well. The only time I have ever heard a pair of spectacles referred to as “a spectacle” was by my uncle Cuthbert at the family Christmas lunch.

As I remember he would be slumped in his bath chair, apparently rendered unconscious by a surfeit of cheap champagne and Christmas pudding.  We children would gather around wondering if he was still alive and trying to detect a pulse in the veins on his nose.  Invariably one of us would get a little too close and brush against him.  His ropy old arm would shoot from beneath his Onkaparinga like a liver spotted taipan and scoop up the unfortunate infant.

He would press the child to him in a way that could not have been hygienic and, with a twinkle in his eye, say “Did you hear about the two monocles that got together and made a spectacle of themselves?”

He did seem fond of that one although I now realise that it doesn’t withstand any great degree of analysis. 

Surely if two monocles got together they couldn’t make a pair of spectacles.  They would have to be a pair of monocles.  Unless there was something about getting together that changed each monocle into a spectacle. 

But even that doesn’t solve the problem.  As I say, the invariable usage to describe what our American cousins would call “eyeglasses” is in the plural, “spectacles” or “a pair of spectacles”. 

What exactly was it that the two monocles made when they got together?  Uncle Cuthbert would have you believe that it was a spectacle.  Surely that must be half of a pair of spectacles?

Isn’t that effectively what a monocle is?

As children our confusion was all the greater because we had no idea what a monocle was in the first place.   I thought it must have been something to do with “mon oncle” but that only made things worse.

In any event, the gin soaked old fossil clearly hadn’t put much effort into that one and I’m glad that he was carried off by some spoiled beef tea before he could confuse us further.

There are other examples.  Take bellows as one.  I appreciate that what with calculators and other modern things people of today don’t spend as much time hanging ‘round the smithy as I did as a youth.  I was as impressed by the smith’s bellows as I was by his ability to sweat and swear and raise angry welts on his person with hot iron bars.

But at the same time, inside the house by the fireplace was what was called a “pair of bellows”.  These were altogether smaller and daintier than the bellows in the forge, but for some reason one was a pair and the other was not.  I am beggared if I can see why.

So that, you may imagine, is the burning issue which has been perplexing me.  I’m afraid to say that you are wrong.  Instead of trying to contribute to the happiness of mankind by solving this riddle I have been mulling over an issue which is unrelated but which has caused a far greater degree of consternation amongst thinking people worldwide.

The question is this;  Which was the better cover of “Muskrat Love”?  The 1973 version by America, or the 1976 version by The Captain and Tenille?

Generally I would go with America in a contest of this kind but not this time.  The Captain and Tenille version is much better and has all sort of squeaking in it too.

Love

Bigolly

Shaken not Stirred

Hello Hello it is Marta again!

I am one eye smiling and one eye crying because Olly is gone, and here on the veranda it is getting cold for my bikini that I have been wearing since Christmas. Soon the men are coming to drink stout and still he does not come back.

Where is he? Did he get trapped in the glacier again?

So it is colder and poor Marta left here to smuggle tic tacs while the ghost of Olly is warm by fire watching Foxtel with his love, and they are holding hands and make warm soup and Olly is digging in his garden and soon the plants of next year will blossom and die and still he has left me here.

I wish I had my silver space suit for keeping warm, or the parka with lovely fur on the collar, but no it is the sliver bikini instead and this bikini makes me think of the James Bond films.

I am remember Mr Broccoli says to me “Marta – you are the next Bond Girl” but I am busy with L.I.S. and cannot break my contract. But so also I am the good friend of Ursula Andress and Honor Blackman and Diana Rigg and they all tell me I should do it.

So I have the meeting with Mr Brocoli and he tells me no problem – he can have me out of my contract and into the arms of Mr Connery faster than the Jupiter II goes through a meteor shower.

The problem for me is the song.

I am saying I will not do the Bond Film unless there is the good song. Which is best? The Bond Theme (Dr No)? From Russia with Love? Goldfinger? Thunderball?

Waiting, waiting – when is the good song? Each time Mr Broccoli calls me “Marta – are you ready?” and I am say “Play me the song Cubby”

So it goes… On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Diamonds are Forever…

Waiting, waiting… You see my problem? Which is the best theme and the good one for Marta? I am hope the readerspeedboat is helping here.

Takk! Marta

A Miss Mayella Ewelltide

I have always viewed Christmas, decorative and wholesome reader, as a time of cheer tempered by appropriate reflection on one’s good fortune and the possibility that there are others who are not as resilient to the blows of fate as one may be oneself.  I think it is important to leave a little something for the (oh so discreetly named) dustman and to ensure that the Christmas tree at the supermarket has a tin of Big Sister plum pudding or similar under it to be distributed to the grateful poor.   

I don’t seek any thanks for these small sacrifices nor do I imagine that I am alone in seeking to share my good fortune around.  Indeed it is clear that I am not.  A quick look under the tree at my local Central Provision Store shows that there is a lovely plastic cricket set and a delightful Barbina ™ dolly that some little girl will surely cherish until her brother twists its arm off and the hollow body doesn’t provide enough resistance for her father to push it back on again.  Or its hair peels off.  Or the dog gets it.

 Indeed the mental picture of the pleasure that the local poor child will get when she is able to console herself with a mouthful of processed flour and Turkish raisins is such that I am tempted to wait until Christmas Eve, pop ‘round to the little mite’s hovel and lovingly place the canned pud straight onto her (no doubt urine soaked) mattress myself.  Dressed as Father Christmas, or not, subject to costume availability. 

Such is the depth of my feeling for my fellow man at Christmastide.

Anyway, it was in this spirit that I tuned into “Christmas Favourites” on the wireless the other night and settled back with a tepid eggnog to enjoy the revels.

I cannot claim that it was all I had hoped it would be.  Rather than a selection of Carols, I was greeted by commercialism at its worst.  The program consisted mainly of dreadful pop style songs which had been created with the all too obvious aim of cashing in on the universal feelings of warmth toward humanity which we all enjoy at this time of year.

You may tolerate the cynical grab for cash that is “White Christmas” by Bingo Crosby but I remain unmoved.  My nerveless fingers groped for the bakelite knob. Unfortunately I was unable to shut the accursed din off before I heard the nauseating opening bars of “The Little Drummer Boy”. 

How vile. Honest emotion made me drop the eggnog on the Berber and don’t know if it will ever be the same.  The egg really makes a nasty cleaning problem.

What ever happened to the old songs, I wonder?  How can we have moved so far from the spirit and intention of the celebration of Christmas?  Why have we sacrificed so many of the proud traditions of this humble religious feast in the interests of an annual grab for money?

I am not one to sit back and watch our proud traditions be eroded in this way.  It is time that the public, no doubt thirsty for a return to the values of another time are given an unapologetic dose of proper traditional Christmas music.  How better to do so than with a close examination of the lyrics of such a song?

On that basis, I am proud to provide you with my seasonal offering, my own “take” as my nephew would have it, on that perennial favourite “Last Christmas” by Mr. George Michael, known to and loved by us all.  I think he done it when he was in Wham (or perhaps Wham!) with that other bloke who no-one remembers but who seems to have been rather better than George at keeping his nose etc clean.

 But I digress.  To the lyric!

“Last Christmas, intones the lugubrious Mr. Michael, “I gave you my heart”. 

I do not for one minute imagine that he is referring to his physical heart.  He means that he gave his affections.  Not his affectations, that would have been too much to fit under the tree.  I don’t think this line gives great cause for pause and consideration.  It is reasonably straightforward. 

He continues:

 “The very next day you gave it away”.

How extraordinary.  Consider this.

The day after Christmas day is, of course, Boxing Day.  Boxing Day is so called because it is traditionally the day on which one presents the staff with a token of one’s appreciation for the year of backbreaking toil they have put in for you.  I assume that the gift is given on the day after Christmas in the hope that the butler will be less tempted to despoil the goose if he thinks it will put his small flask of Cypress sherry at risk.

So the ungrateful recipient of Mr. Michael’s heart (whatever that means) appears to have given it to the servants. 

How extraordinary.  What on earth is the chambermaid, the chauffeur or the boy who cleans the boots and knives going to do with such a thing?  I mean to say one would like to think that someone who is sufficiently high on the social scale to still have a staff in this day and age would also have sufficient courtesy to pen a simple note of thanks and put the unwanted gift away for a decent time.  Then perhaps give it to the Vicar for the Jumble Sale.

Anyway, Mr. Michael does not seem too disturbed by this.  He mournfully insists;

“This year, to save me from tears I’ll give it to someone special.”

I mean to say, what on earth was he doing giving it away in the first place if the recipient was not “someone special”.  And if it was given away a year ago, how did Mr. Michael get it back? 

This is all enough to make one swoon.  The numbers just don’t add up.  Indeed, the song concludes thus:

“A face on a lover with a fire in his heart

A man under cover but you tore him apart

Maybe next year I’ll give it to someone

I’ll give it to someone special.”

I don’t pretend to understand the first bit, but the second bit causes even more concern.  Having earlier in the song claimed that this year he is going to give his heart to someone special, he is now saying that perhaps next year he will again give it to someone special. 

If he is going to do that, he is going to have to get it back again from whoever is the recipient this year.  In the same way that he has already done.  But that was the upset that caused him to go public with this musical complaint about the person he gave it to last Christmas.

I don’t follow the song at all.   But it is a damn sight finer than “White Christmas”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Danger of Clogging

There has been a footwear theme in the commentary of late, loyal and patient reader, which has prompted me to consider a couple of things that have vexed me in the past from time to time.

The other day I was wondering what became of the actors who played the children Buffy and Jodie in the American situation “comedy” “Family Affair” in the sixties or whenever it was.

Naturally, whenever one thinks of former child actors one assumes that they developed a drug habit and were arrested at the age of 23 holding up a convenience store with a screwdriver. That is pretty much invariably the case, but it is nice to know for sure.

Anyway, I cannot think of “Family Affair” without thinking of Mr. French, the family manservant. You will recall, or if you do not I hope you will take my word for it, that this august and generous factotum was played by Sebastian Cabot. Whenever I hear that name, I cannot help interchanging the first letters and ending up with the surname “Sabot”.

Sabots are a type of wooden footwear used in parts of France.

Mr. French.

France.

It is so unlikely a co-incidence that I am sure that when we find out what is behind it we will know what was going on at the grassy knoll.

When I start thinking about sabots, I am reminded of an interesting piece of information passed on to me by a student teacher when I was in about the third year of my primary schooling.

It seems that in the early days of the industrial age, workers who felt that their needs were being ignored were given to putting their sabots into the machinery, thus bringing work to a halt and giving themselves the opportunity for some much needed folding of the hands in quiet contemplation. This, as is well known, gave rise to the expression “Sabotage”, meaning the deliberate damaging of machinery or equipment to gain an industrial or military advantage.

There are those naysayers who insist that my teacher was wrong. These people suggest that it would be unusual to put your shoes into the machinery when a rock would work just as well. They think that the miscreant would be easily detected by the bareness of his feet. Why, they ask, would you deprive yourself of footwear and expose yourself to detection for no reason?

In their dreary way they point to the fact that there is not one single reported instance of machinery ever having been damaged by the insertion of wooden footwear and suggest that the provenance of the expression is more comfortably associated with the fact that “sabot” is the name given to a type of railway tie that, if removed, will result in the derailing of a train. They say that this was a method used by military saboteurs and that the word first came into use at the time that this practice started.

What claptrap. My teacher told me in grade 3 that European workers were smashing up the looms and trudging home through the snow in stockinged feet. It may not make sense, but why does it have to? Knitting doesn’t make sense, but who would deny knitting?

The information provided by my teacher is good enough for me and I am sure it is good enough for the rest of you. This was a student teacher after all and not some appalling ignoramus who could barely get through high school and thought nothing of imposing their own lack of the spirit of enquiry on the developing minds of the young.

Having dealt with that there is one further challenge that I would like to address. Thick bootlaces or thin ones?

I have been grappling with this for some time.

For starters, most boots don’t have laces at all except army boots and Doc Martens. Oh, football boots too.

It is my understanding, possibly from the same grade 3 student teacher, that originally pretty much all types of footwear were called “boots”. I don’t know whether that is because everyone wore what we would now call boots or because the name was used to cover what we would now call shoes.

Assuming the latter to be the case, it is understandable that “shoes” entered the language to cover the fancier, neater footwear and “boots” was retained to cover the heavier items that cover the ankle.

One might easily imagine that the expression “bootlaces” could have survived even though the said laces were more generally used in shoes. I do not deny that the expression “shoelaces” is sometimes used, but I certainly do blame the French for that.

There are so many factors in the thick v thin bootlace issue. Eyelet size, extent of fraying of broken lace, required length of lace, whether you need them yellow ones like with some Docs, synthetic or natural fibre and black or tan are just some considerations. I have taken them all into account and weighed them carefully. It is pleasing that I am able to say that the answer is thin. Preferably waxed, but certainly thin.

Dancing ‘Round the May-Not Pole

Recently, admired and august reader, I was reviewing some ponderings from the old manila folder. The one that contains those letters that one has written in a white hot passion but has elected to retain rather than to post in anger. Now that the following, regarding one of the 20th century’s most prominent Polish persons, has become somewhat cool, I elect to put it up for your consideration. I am not sure that I maintain the views exprsessed here, but wonder what you might think. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of it is that there is no mention of his beingcalled Carol by his friends. In the hurley burley of my own friendships, this would not escape comment.

In any event, from a year or two ago I give you this;

I have naturally been following the outpouring engendered by the recent death of His Holiness, Pope John Paul II. You may not have seen today’s paper, but I think that they have covered every breath he ever took.

This type of event always creates a delightful flurry of letters to the editor, and my heart soared as the eagle when I saw a letter from a prominent atheist of some sort.

After a promising start in which the late leader of the Catholic Church is denounced as, essentially, an evildoer who promoted one of a selection of 6,000 year old myths for personal gain, the letter descends into a tedious assertion that free use of condoms would save the world from every one of its current ills and that the Pope is a person of enormous influence in those places that these precautions are most needed.

I should state at this point that I consider the prohibition of contraception as a ludicrously hidebound and short sighted view. I don’t agree with it myself.

These, however, are issues of individual social choice and not amenable to a wide ranging discussion on non partisan lines.

What did interest me was the fascinating description of his holiness, the late Pope as “anti-pro-choice”.

Clearly the “anti” and the “pro” cancel each other out. Presumably this means that the writer was suggesting that the Pope is choice. Hmmmmm. Choice.

The only time I have ever heard anything described as “choice” it was a term of frank approval (although I concede I have not heard it for some time). The general context of the letter did not suggest that the author was a papist, but the only interpretation I can reasonably place upon it is that he was a fan. Possibly the letter was the work of a Jesuit or one of those people from “The Da Vinci Code” who feel the need to disguise their meanings in this sort of way.

In the happy days when butchers’ windows were frequently painted with garish advertisements for their meats, ‘choice quality’ was, I think, one of the promises frequently made. I think I may, in my younger – perhaps school -days, have used ‘choice’ as a way of describing a young lady who in today’s terms might be described as ‘hot’.

In that event, of course, “choice quality” is something of a tautology. An oxymoron, as our American cousins would have it. While not the same thing, it puts me in mind of some of the retail merchants who are obliged, by reason of economy or the desire to dissociate themselves with the educated classes, to describe themselves as providing goods and services for sale at “cheaper prices”.

The least examination of such a claim will reveal that the prices are lower, but how can they possibly be cheaper? It is the goods, not the prices that are for sale. The goods are cheaper. The prices lower.

I would rather wash a corpse than avail myself of this sort of alleged bargain.

The late Pope was fluent in many languages and I wonder whether he would have had a view on this vexed issue. Possibly he could have called on his old friend Bob Dylan (who has mysteriously escaped recent consideration of terrible song lyrics, despite being a recidivist in this matter) to whine about it while accompanying himself on a 12 string.

We will never know and I don’t suppose it benefits us to ponder further. Or does it?

Jade Ornament

Timmy, from Aprilseas writes;

“Can you please tell me what a ‘Jaded Mandarin’ is and why it was appropriate for Judas to refer to Jesus as such in ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’?”

Well young man, I have been itching to turn my attentions to youth issues and am confident that I am sufficiently in touch to grapple with this important work.

For those who do not already know, “Jesus Christ Superstar” is a searing depiction of the life of Christ which differs in many important particulars from the accepted bible story. It was written by Andrew Weber (I think an heir to the carburettor fortune) and Tim Lloyd Rice, a nonentity. He did the words.

So, why does he have Judas describe Jesus as a “jaded Mandarin”?

A “Mandarin” was a high ranking Chinese official. He would have been in charge of a Chinese empire such as the Ming Dynasty, when they made those merciless vases.

You may have been thinking of a ‘mandarin’, a small, orange citrus fruit which I concede would have been puzzling indeed. You can tell that this is not what he meant, because when Judas makes his impassioned accusation he uses a capital ‘M’. This makes all the difference.

You can also gather this from the context. As you correctly observe, Judas is reported by Mr. Tim Lloyd Rice as describing Jesus as a ‘jaded’ Mandarin and you can’t be jaded if you are fruit, only if you are a person.

I will concede that he does confuse matters a little by also referring to him as a ‘faded’ Mandarin, which probably does tend to suggest the citrus rather than a regal eminence who would have had batteries of servants attending to such things as keeping him out of the sun and ensuring he was arrayed in glorious, bright silks at all times.

On the other hand, we have all seen when a mandarin rolls down between the windscreen and the dashboard and you can’t hook it out for a while, its skin does tend to dry out and it loses its characteristic orange colour. It fades.

Lloyd Rice is suggesting is that Jesus had been a Chinese emperor but that he got sick of it so he returned to Israel to resume his work there. He was a high official in China, became disillusioned for some reason, possibly to do with the quality of vase mercy, and packed it in. He became jaded. It was not his person that became faded, but his enthusiasm for Mandarining.

I admit that this is a bold interpretation. I am confident that there is nothing about this in the Bible, but perhaps Lloyd Rice had access to a Dead Sea Scroll or something. It would help to explain why we hear so little of what Jesus got up to between His birth and the miracle at Cana. That is to say, he was in China overseeing the creation of an army of blokes made of pottery or something like that.

In any event, the implication must be that Jesus was a Chinese official There is no way that Lloyd Rice would have tortured history and common sense just to get, what must be conceded, is a pretty terrible line.

There is another of Judas’ utterings that causes me concern. Again, I don’t accuse Lloyd Rice of anything other than a bold interpretation but I invite you to consider this.

When Mary Magdalene is treating Jesus with myrrh to ease the heat in his forehead, Judas burst out with this memorable complaint:

‘Woman your fine ointment – brand new and expensive
Could have been saved for the poor
Why has it been wasted? We could have raised may be
Three hundred silver pieces or more
People who are hungry, people who are starving
Matter more than your feet and hair’

Now the first concern here must be Judas’ complaint that the ointment that was being used was “brand new”.

Is there any other way to get the stuff? I mean to say. What is Lloyd Rice suggesting? Second hand ointment? I have never seen that in the Trading Post.

Also, why should the ointment have been saved for the poor? Judas suggests that they could have raised three hundred silver pieces or more. The inescapable conclusion is that Judas thinks that the apostles should have onsold the ointment to the poor at a profit.

I think this would have been a difficult one to sell to the others.

People who are hungry and starving may matter more than Mary’s feet or hair, but is smelling nice the best way to spend what little remains of their money? Should they not have been encouraged to spend it on food? Surely if they did wish to smell better, they could have achieved this more economically using frankincense?

Returning To Your Usual Program

In Australia there is much talk about our own slang and how rich and diverse it is. Whenever there is an event that is expected to draw visitors from other countries, the papers are full of tips to enable non Australians to penetrate the mysteries of the Australian idiom.

Thus the American or British tourist is fully prepared to deal with “bonzer”, “cobber” and “stone the flamin’ crows”.

Oh, yeah, “dinkum” too.

Well, I hope they don’t totter squinting into the blazing Aussie sun expecting that knowledge to do them any good. No one has used those expressions in ordinary conversation for decades.

Ordinary spoken Australian English is largely a mish mash of American and English terms with not much of our own. The benefit of this is that we go some way to understanding both and it gives us some flexibility. Although we use the American “truck”, we all know what a “lorry” is, which is a handy extra rhyme if you are writing a song or some old style poetry.

I suppose that in a way we borrow the bits of each that appeal to us, which is probably a good thing, but despite the smug self congratulations about our quirky use of the language, I doubt that there is much that would confuse most American or British visitors.

There are a few common words that are used distinctively in Australia, the best example probably being “footpath”. The Americans call the same thing the “sidewalk”, and I understand that the Brits call it the “pavement”. This first struck me when listening to an old song from the fifties, sung by an American, in which he refers to his feet “leaving the pavement”, when in fact “sidewalk” would have been an equally good fit. Presumably the lyrics had been written by a pom of some sort.

I understand that a “footpath” is taken to mean what we would call a “walking trail”, but I can’t see too many hilarious misunderstandings coming about by this rather subtle difference in usage.

Mostly, we seem to use American expressions, but we stick with the English spelling. This is slowly being worn away, but I imagine that the same thing is happening in England. It has been a long time since I read about anyone being sent to “gaol” rather than “jail” and I bet it is the same in Britain.

Mostly, however, we use the English spellings to the point that we are a bit smug about it. Aluminium, theatre, metre, cheque – there are hundreds of ‘em. Some people are so pedantic that they will correct other Australians when they read these “Americanisms”. I am not proud to admit that I do this all the time.

Which brings me to “programme”.

The advent of electronified computerising brought with it the proliferation of the reviled Americanism “program”.

It popped up everywhere and for the delicate, the careful and the tedious such as me, it was like a hair shirt. I felt like a lone voice crying out. Think Charlton Heston in the big scene of “Soylent Green” ( Soylent Green is people!) or that bit of “The Omega Man” when all of the phones start ringing. Probably he did similar in “Planet of the Apes” or, to select at random from his filmography, “Christmas Night with the Two Ronnies”.

The point is, my distress at reading “program” was at least the equal of anyone else who found themselves utterly alone and without hope. There was tearing of hair and rending (or renting, I am never sure) of garments. Many is the “Upper Burnside Keg Demolition Squad” tee shirt that had to be replaced because of it.

Until one day when, having nothing better than a whole lot of urgent work to do, I settled myself down with the old office Shorter Oxford.

I don’t remember the exact words, it was quite gentle, but the entry made it quite clear that the word “program” uses the same suffix, “gram” as any number of other words. Anagram, diagram, pictogram. They are all the same. The spelling “programme” was introduced in the 17th or 18th century to try to make the word seem more French.

More French! How extraordinary. What on earth for? I can only assume that it was done by theatre types or some equally disreputable group. If there is such a thing.

This should have been a moment of shame for me. For years I had been smugly insistent on a less correct spelling. Instead, it became my great joy. I immediately took to catching people out with it and assuming the high moral ground that I find so comforting.

I caught tons of blokes out, and loved every minute of it. I know I should be ashamed, but what are you going to do?

Subsequent editions of the Oxford have changed the position and now they suggest that the word was introduced into English from the French, and thus the spelling “program” is US and computer.

Well, it’s too late now, Oxford Dictionary, you have created a monster.

Taking a Mile

Danny Kaye, for those of you who remember, was an old fashioned “all ‘round entertainer”. He would make with the comedy, the music, the singing, the dancing and the acting. Apparently he was immensely popular in his day (mainly the forties and fifties I think).

Perhaps you saw some of his movies in your childhood – they were often competing with Elvis and Jerry Lewis on movie matinees. If so, you should remember the famous “vessel with the pestle/flagon with the dragon” patter from “The Court Jester” or the archaeological high-jinks of “Merry Andrew”. He did that old fashioned comedy with heart, the sort of thing that one so rarely sees these days.

The thing about his films is that they aren’t any good. They reek. They are shithouse.

Danny may have been talented but he was much given to whimsy- and saccharine whimsy at that. It is universally accepted that he was popular, but on the evidence of my own observations it seems so unlikely.

Still, many of us would have had his classic “All I Want for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth” inflicted on us as children on the basis that it is a kid’s song and is “funny”. Whatever that means.

If you were exposed to it in your tender years, I challenge you to go back and listen again. That’s right, I challenge you.

You may well remember the chorus. Perhaps you fondly recall the stuff about being unable to whistle. However, I bet you don’t remember the nauseating semi spoken introduction or the excruciating “comedy” voice that Danny affects. If you make the effort to listen again, I am sure that like me you will find that a pleasant enough song from your infancy is in fact be like fingernails on a blackboard. Long scraggy nails on an old weatherbeaten blackboard. Fingernails off one of those Indian blokes in the Guinness Book of Records, that are all twisty like goats’ horns.

Danny had lots of songs though. His movies were musicals and he did most of the singing, so there is a lot of his crap out there. The one that I want to examine is from the movie “Hans Christian Andersen”. I don’t mean “Wonderful Wonderful Copenhagen”, though God knows it could use some analysis. I mean any song containing the lyric “Salty old queen of the sea” is bound to be lewdly and deliberately misinterpreted by our jaded modern youth.

No, instead I ask you to turn your mind to “Inchworm”.

It isn’t one of his really big ones, though you might have heard it. In case you haven’t, I shall try to give you a word picture.

The song opens to the haunting lilt of what sounds like a children’s’ choir.

“Two and two are four” they shriek tunelessly.

“Four and four are eight” they insist.

“Eight and eight are sixteen” they moan in despair (and with little regard for scansion),

“sixteen and sixteen are thirty-two” is their grisly conclusion.

At this point, the man of the hour, Danny Kaye, asserts himself in a manner reminiscent of no-one so much as Bing Crosby, thus:

“Inchworm, inchworm
Measuring the marigold..”

In the normal course one would relish the relief that Danny’s even tones provide in distinction to the excoriations of the children’s choir, but even though he does not seem to be doing a comedy voice, his words make us focus on what is actually being said.

The suggestion is that the inchworm is, as he says, “measuring the marigold”.

Now correct me if I am wrong, selfless reader, but is not an inchworm a grub of about an inch in length which perambulates by stretching and contracting its body in a linear progression that creates a distinctive inverted “u” shape?

Well, of course it bloody well is. We have all seen it.

So how on earth can such a creature go from measuring “two and two” to “sixteen and sixteen” ?

I mean to say.

The bloody creature is not fantastically elastic, is it? It just measures out the same distance for each “step” from the time it attains its majority until it dies, much like many of we humans.

It isn’t Mrs. Incredible. It can’t stretch. How the hell can the length of its measurement vary so widely?

It can’t. Simple as that. If Danny Kaye were really interested in educating children he would have got it right and the eerie children would have had the far simpler job of intoning;

“Two and two are four,
Two and two are four,
Two and two are fou-our
Two and two are….Four!”

How much more satisfying would that have been? Plus it would not have been as misleading for the young ones.

Of course, I can’t help thinking that they should have been saying “Two and two IS four” rather than “are”, but I don’t know if I can deal with that now.

I have come over all sanctimonious. I won’t inflict my analysis of the rest of the song on you, because there isn’t much more and I haven’t actually analysed it. I can’t bear to.

Coming soon, my effete critique of “The Woody Woodpecker Show” theme by Danny Kaye and the Andrews Sisters.

That will flay you alive.

Entente Cordial

I was recently asked about “Coola” and its relationship to lime, in particular as an ingredient of the famous Lime Coola cordial.

Well, I suppose I had wondered about it, but never to the point that I have considered it properly.

Does Coola appear anywhere else? Where?

I suppose I had always assumed that it was some sort of nut or berry and that persons in distant climes (yes, that’s right, climes) were eking out a precarious living by gathering them up and selling them to the local cordial agent at the coola depot.

It is not too much of a stretch to imagine a grass skirted couple returning to their hut at the end of the day, each with a big basket of coola and a broad smile, being welcomed by a throng of laughing children and the gummy smile of the wizened crone who had been babysitting. Perhaps in the humble front yard, between the well tended rows of subsistence crops, there would be a flagpole flying the Union Jack. Through the spotlessly clean curtains at the unglazed window can be seen a picture of Her Majesty whose prim smile is the hut’s only decoration. No, that’s going too far.

Anyway, there is an assumption by me that Coola is a crop or product of some sort. .

On reflection, I have never heard of it in any other context than that of Lime cordial. In fact, I can’t remember having heard of it in relation to any other cordial than Cottee’s Lime Coola.

I suppose I was confusing coola with cola. Not that I have any idea what that is either.

Could it be that it was all some sort of smooth marketing ploy? Was it intended that we associate this sweet, green summer drink with cola and at the same time with coolness? If there is no coola in the drink, is there any lime, either?

As a lifetime consumer of the stuff, I cannot bear the thought that the distinctive flavour is caused by some chemical. Of course, it isn’t very limey at all. I doubt that it would stave off scurvy.

Of course, this raises the issue of brown lime cordial.

In South Australia, almost every household has a bottle of Bickford’s famous lime cordial. It is not as sweet as the Lime Coola and not quite as popular with children, but it is a presence in most households. When South Australians reach drinking age, they confidently ask for, say, a lime and soda knowing that they will be rewarded with a reasonably grown up drink.

Interstate you need to be a bit more careful and ask for “brown lime” or “lime juice cordial” to distinguish it from coola. The brown style of lime is known but not as common. There is not as much context to enable people to know what sort you mean.

Another unsettling issue for a South Australian travelling interstate is that all of the bakeries have “pies and cakes” on their awnings and windows. Where is the comforting “pies and pasties” of a South Australian bakery?

I am suffering from culture shock just sitting here.

Taking Pleasures Seriously

Generally I like nothing more than pitting my wits against others. Give me a quiz night.

Quiz nights are particularly good because you can take a whole lot of wine and picnic foods and pretend that you are there for the benefit of whatever dubious charity has put the thing on. It may be to raise money to have the gilt re-applied to a private kindergarten’s coat of arms or something, but that isn’t the point.

As the wine and King Island Double Brie slowly disappear, you can focus on crushing all lesser beings with the wondrous breadth of your intellect.

In reality you are just revealing that, for want of anything important to shove into the old memory banks, you have retained all of the words to the Marine Boy theme or can work out who came 5th in the AFL 4 years ago. It is all crap and you would be better off without it, instead of which all the Riesling and Cab Sav makes you more determined than you would be if you were battling for custody of your children or a much loved pet.

My own specialty is to get upset and outspoken when I disagree with the answer they give. I can really get in a huff. A great big hairy huff with all testosterone coming off it.

My favourite was once when my sister was quizmaster. I let go with even more gusto than usual, with the result that she not only didn’t give me the precious single point that I was after, but she didn’t speak to me for a couple of months, then she moved to Melbourne. It was still worth it. I can’t remember what the question was but I was right and they were wrong.

Anyway, said sister was at a quiz night herself a couple of weeks ago. Most of the people she had organised for her table didn’t turn up which is always a risk. Not everyone is enchanted by the opportunity to sit in a draughty church hall with a whole mob of the sort of person that does like going to quiz nights. So her table was light on for numbers, which is a disaster if you want to win. Which is the point, isn’t it?

She was staring defeat in the eye so elected to cheat. I don’t hold with using a mobile phone at one of these things, but the possibility of me participating in a quiz night when I was 800 kilometres away was irresistible.

That evening I was at a barbeque with some friends, so my sister’s table went from having the benefit of 4 minds to having about 28. Of course, we had been doing ourselves pretty well on the beer, wines and spirits, so the advantage may not have been as great as it seemed.

She fielded the first round or two without help, but then the text came through. “What do Piaggio make?”

I didn’t even refer to my barbeque mates. No need. Piaggio make motor scooters – that’s simple, so I sent off the message.

There were a few more questions but they increasingly became the subject of much hot dispute and we often didn’t come up with an answer until it was too late. Still, it added to our evening.

At the end of it all, I insisted on debriefing with my sister. To my dismay, she said that we had been marked wrong on the Piaggio question. The quizmaster’s response was that they make Vespas.

What the bloody hell is a Vespa if not a motor scooter? Did they ask for that level of detail?

I put all of this very strongly to my sister but she didn’t seem interested. They had come a creditable fourth or something and were just relieved not to have been embarrassed. An extra point would not have put them in the prizes so who cares? Indeed, who cares anyway given that third prize in a quiz night is usually something that they found on the footpath on the way in.

I, on the other hand, was seething. The quizmaster was wrong and needed to know it. I was right. They had dared to disagree with me. The arrogance! But she wouldn’t go back and have it out with him. She was off to the pub with her friends.

Such was my rage that I checked it out the next day. Imagine my fury when I found that Piaggio make Vespas but also Gileras (yeah, OK, I had never heard of them but still…) and A FAIRLY WIDE RANGE OF MOTOR SCOOTERS IN THEIR OWN NAME.

So those bloody quiz people can get stuffed. Vespas is not the right answer. It is part of the right answer, but can’t, of itself, be the right answer. If I had been at that damn quiz night I really would have thrown my weight around and scared any number of the emaciated librarians and invalids who people these events.

I told my sister all about it, but I don’t think she was listening. She didn’t care in the least and I suspect could not even remember what I was talking about.

Can this person really be my sister? Well,( for one point), yes she can, but that’s not what I meant.

I will leave you with one that mother told me and it gets me going every time.

“Brothers and sisters, I have none, but that man’s father is my father’s son. Who is that man?”

Mum, on the basis that the bloody thing was apparently called “My brother or myself?” would insist that was the answer. I would say “But mum, it can’t be his brother, he doesn’t have any. Look at it backwards. If I don’t have any brothers, my father’s son can only be me. Therefore you can read it “that man’s father is me” which means that man is my son. It’s simple.

She would just smile kindly and repeat: “My brother or myself. It’s my brother or myself, dear.”

I would get incandescent. And so the long night would wear on.