He suggested that I use “lenticular” in my next poem…
A flute-playing blogger, TP,
is well known for his liking of Brie.
In matters lenticular,
and also bicycular,
he approaches the subject with glee.
For a previous attempt see this post.
When I checked after posting yesterday I still need to use the word canicular in a poem. And yes, I use term loosely – it’s the clerihew again. Here goes.
Designed railways for parks
And the famous Saltburn funicular,
which is fun on days canicular
For those of you who aren’t familiar with the Clerihew, it’s OK to be bad, in fact it’s almost a feature of the form.
Having said that, this is definitely taking us into William McGonagall territory. Do I dare hope that one day I will be elevated to the status of The Great McGonagall and Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings?
Well, it’s been a thought-provoking day.
It started when I wrenched myself from bed and took Julia to work. The mornings are already significantly darker than they were a month ago. By 6.15 I was taking photographs by the roadside and at 6.30 arrived at the services ready to collect Number Two Son. He was supposed to be off shift at 7.00 but nobody turned up. Eventually he was relieved at 8.15 after ringing round.
I tried to pass my time profitably, by writing haiku and watching people. The people-watching didn’t go well as there was nobody interesting to watch, apart from a hairy middle-aged man wearing only shorts and flip-flops. Even that wasn’t really interesting, just an anthropological footnote.
The haiku? They soon degenerated into my favoured format – the clerihew. I didn’t produce any of note this morning but this one has been hanging round in the drafts for a while. It features a Japanese word so it’s a hybrid form I just invented, the haiklerihew.
Martin van Buren,
was au fait with shitsuren,
and, stressing ideology over personality,
opened an era of boring banality
It’s a niche market and I can’t help feeling I may have written more haiklerihews than the world needs.
Now I just need to use canicular.
Then I did laundry, shopped, snoozed and picked Julia up from work. We had salad for tea. We were going to have roast vegetables and belly pork but I fell asleep in front of the TV and it was a bit late to start cooking.
I can’t help feeling I’m not using Sunday to its full potential.
Strange clouds over the Trent Valley
Yes, that got you attention didn’t it?
We’ve been talking about how to title eBay sales.
It all started when the Boss noticed someone was selling Churchill Crowns for what seems like a lot of money. They add “WW2, Hitler, Nazi, Silver” in the title line and sell the crowns for around £12, We normally think we’ve done well if we get £1 and we don’t even bother to put them on eBay as serious coin dealers don’t consider them worth selling. Even the Westminster Collection, who are not known for their modest prices, only ask £3.50 for them.
It seems to me that words like WW2, Hitler and Nazi are attractive to people who want to spend too much on coins.
And “boobs”? Well, from what I’ve seen on sites selling seaside postcards the word “boobs” is used to stimulate sales. I have descended as far as “bosom” in my pursuit of sales (we actually sold three cards from the newly listed lot overnight). I’m not sure how much pride I’m prepared to swallow in the pursuit of wages.
Bamforth comic card
It makes me proud the be an eBayer. Well, actually it makes me question the entire basis of my life, but I thought I’d try some irony.
It also gave me a catchy title for this post. The alternative was “Salad Emergency!” based on my experience of making a salad from random fridge contents after Julia used all the bread.
Quinoa, tomatoes, olives, red peppers, pumpkin seeds with Balsamic vinegar. My fridge is far too healthy.
Or “Shirt Tragedy” because my fifteen-year-old shirt finally gave way under the stress of covering my amply proportioned frontage. The loss is less keenly felt than the loss of the cats, but cuts deeper than such things as cricket defeats and the passing of Little Chef and their All Day Breakfasts. I liked that shirt.
In a couple of months it will rise again, as part of our Christmas Wreath project.
It’s that or throwing it away. It’s too worn to make good rags and Julia says no self-respecting tramp would be seen dead in it.
Julia saw a Peregrine Falcon last night. They make quite a distinctive noise, which was what made her look up. We’ve had Kestrels and Sparrowhawks before, but this is a new bird for the street. In previous years we’ve seen them over the rugby pitches by the river and a nearby retail park, but never at this end of town.
We are familiar with the sound they make as they nest in the middle of Nottingham and Julia used to work in an adjoining building. They didn’t do well this year.
In terms of experiences this is quite a high quality experience. The same goes for seeing a Muntjac deer in Lincolnshire on Wednesday. It’s the second time we’ve seen one in the same area this year. It’s always good to see deer, though I do worry about them being on the roads.
Today’s eBay loading wasn’t quite such a high-quality experience. One of the lots was 24 Bamforth comic postcards. I use the term “comic” loosely because my sense of humour has changed a lot since I used to find them hilarious. However, three of them sold within an hour so they are still popular. The quality threshold might be low but they pay the wages.
Bamforths, it seems, were also the founders of the Yorkshire film industry, but that’s a story for another day.
First of all I had to sell decimal coins, now it’s saucy postcards…
Tomorrow it’s Captain Scarlet. I like Captain Scarlet.
Angel Interceptor
I’m behind on my pier reports – I still have a report on Great Yarmouth the write. After yesterday I also have two others to report on – Cleethorpes and Skegness.
My orderly side says I should do Yarmouth first and the other two in turn. Another side says I should write up the most recent visits while they are still fresh in my mind.
And yet another part of me says I should review another piers book, or even write about something completely different so that I don’t become a pier bore.
The picture at the top is a flattened penny from the machine on the pier. This is what the other side looks like.
Squashed penny – reverse
The trick with squashing pennies is to use a dirty one so that traces of the design show up and make things a bit more interesting.
For now I’ll leave you with that, as I need to get to work on the other posts. I put up a 1966 medallion for auction today.
1966 medallion – Jules Rimet still gleaming…
World Cup Willie – sounds like some sort of repetitive strain injury you get from too much celebrating
The medallion is only 30mm across in real life.
Then, in a new low for quality standards, I put a lot of 100 National Transport tokens up for sale. I have no pride.
