Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Day 587: I Am Tired, Busy And Travelling About The Place
But this does not mean that I have forgotten you, dear readers; for here is a picture (old, seen before) of a man in a cap, holding a gigantic cat.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Day 577: I Remember The Songs Of My Childhood
I am in the kitchen squirting lemon juice onto a chicken whilst chanting in a low style:
"Easy peasey Japanesey
Wash your face with lemon squeezy."
I look up. The pathologist with whom I live looks as if he would like to perform an autopsy on my brain to see if it is made of feathers.
It is the morning! We are chewing at our breakfast like beavers at fresh logs. "I like your plum jam", yelps the pathologist, through a mouthful of cheese and marmalade*. I start to sing:
"There's a place in France
Where the naked ladies dance
There's a hole in the wall
Where the men can see them all."
"It is a song of my childhood!", I mutter, picking cranberries out of my teeth. "Very good", says the pathologist.
I am not interested in the various versions of "Happy Birthday To You" (e.g., "You live in a zoo/You smell like a monkey/And you look like one too"; or "Squashed bananas and stew/Bread and butter in the gutter", or indeed "You smell like a poo", my personal favourite), but I would very much like to know where the ghastly 'Easy peasy Japanesey' came from (true facts only please, not speculation), and if you have any childhood songs of your own that you would like to share with the group.
Finally, I offer you a poem that you probably will not know, for it was (or so he claimed) made up by my grandfather:
"The elephant is a pretty bird
It hops from twig to twig
It lays its nest in a rhubarb tree
And whistles like a pig."
**UPDATE**
MonkeyMother reminds me (via the medium of the comment box) of the strange song my Yorkshire grandfather (not the one with the elephant bird) used to sing:
"Who's that knocking at the window?
Who's that knocking at the door?
If it's Johnson with his pies
Then we'll give him two black eyes
And he won't come knocking anymore."
This, in turn, reminds me of two other rhymes my mother (and her mother) would recite (this is how I remember them; I've looked for them on the Google and they are always different - the Willy one is attributed/misattributed/not attributed to Ogden Nash, but as far as I'm concerned my Granny had them in her head, and that will do for me):
"Willy, in the best of sashes
Fell in the fire and was burnt to ashes
Now, although the room grows chilly
No-one likes to poke poor Willy."
This would often be swiftly followed by:
"'Quick, quick, the cat's been sick!'
'Where, where?' 'Over there!'
'Hasten, hasten, fetch a basin!'
'Too late, the carpet's in a terrible state'."
And both might preceed the recital of A.A.Milne's The King's Breakfast, recited (from memory) whilst we were in the bath. (I strongly recommend reading The King's Breakfast out loud in sonorous tones if you are a bit drunk. It is very entertaining, and I have never known why.)
And finally: does anyone know where "Pass the sickbag, Alice", comes from? We say it about things that are very cheesy or nauseatingly cloy/sucky uppy, e.g. small children singing like grownups, people sucking up, TV tributes to the genius of someone a bit rubbish, etc.
* Interestingly, he is not able to only have one thing on his toast. He must combine, e.g. cheese + honey, or peanut butter + jam, or cheese + marmalade, etc.
"Easy peasey Japanesey
Wash your face with lemon squeezy."
I look up. The pathologist with whom I live looks as if he would like to perform an autopsy on my brain to see if it is made of feathers.
It is the morning! We are chewing at our breakfast like beavers at fresh logs. "I like your plum jam", yelps the pathologist, through a mouthful of cheese and marmalade*. I start to sing:
"There's a place in France
Where the naked ladies dance
There's a hole in the wall
Where the men can see them all."
"It is a song of my childhood!", I mutter, picking cranberries out of my teeth. "Very good", says the pathologist.
I am not interested in the various versions of "Happy Birthday To You" (e.g., "You live in a zoo/You smell like a monkey/And you look like one too"; or "Squashed bananas and stew/Bread and butter in the gutter", or indeed "You smell like a poo", my personal favourite), but I would very much like to know where the ghastly 'Easy peasy Japanesey' came from (true facts only please, not speculation), and if you have any childhood songs of your own that you would like to share with the group.
Finally, I offer you a poem that you probably will not know, for it was (or so he claimed) made up by my grandfather:
"The elephant is a pretty bird
It hops from twig to twig
It lays its nest in a rhubarb tree
And whistles like a pig."
**UPDATE**
MonkeyMother reminds me (via the medium of the comment box) of the strange song my Yorkshire grandfather (not the one with the elephant bird) used to sing:
"Who's that knocking at the window?
Who's that knocking at the door?
If it's Johnson with his pies
Then we'll give him two black eyes
And he won't come knocking anymore."
This, in turn, reminds me of two other rhymes my mother (and her mother) would recite (this is how I remember them; I've looked for them on the Google and they are always different - the Willy one is attributed/misattributed/not attributed to Ogden Nash, but as far as I'm concerned my Granny had them in her head, and that will do for me):
"Willy, in the best of sashes
Fell in the fire and was burnt to ashes
Now, although the room grows chilly
No-one likes to poke poor Willy."
This would often be swiftly followed by:
"'Quick, quick, the cat's been sick!'
'Where, where?' 'Over there!'
'Hasten, hasten, fetch a basin!'
'Too late, the carpet's in a terrible state'."
And both might preceed the recital of A.A.Milne's The King's Breakfast, recited (from memory) whilst we were in the bath. (I strongly recommend reading The King's Breakfast out loud in sonorous tones if you are a bit drunk. It is very entertaining, and I have never known why.)
And finally: does anyone know where "Pass the sickbag, Alice", comes from? We say it about things that are very cheesy or nauseatingly cloy/sucky uppy, e.g. small children singing like grownups, people sucking up, TV tributes to the genius of someone a bit rubbish, etc.
* Interestingly, he is not able to only have one thing on his toast. He must combine, e.g. cheese + honey, or peanut butter + jam, or cheese + marmalade, etc.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Day 572: I Wonder About Room Service
I spend quite a lot of time in hotels for two reasons:Reason One: Work
I am a hot-shot advertising strategy planner 'type' who works in Toronto half of the week, and Montreal the other half. As I live in Montreal (ish), when I am working in Toronto I must stay in an hotel.
Luckily, one of our clients owns a string of 'boutique hotels', featuring marble baths enclosed in glass, 102 different varieties of towel, Aveda 'toiletries'*, and a room service menu featuring something described as a Berkshire Pork Tourtière with Glazed Turnips. It really is a home-from-home!
Reason Two: "Le Fun"**
When I am not at home or away working, I live an exciting and luxurious jetset holiday weekend break lifestyle with my 'partner', an acclaimed veterinary research pathologist famous for not only his scientific endeavours (including an attempt to re-introduce the walrus to the St Lawrence river), but also for his ability to cut his own hair and win four episodes of Jeopardy (Quebec version) in a row.
We had some very noisy neighbours in the hotel in which we were staying last weekend, including some modern parents who allowed their child to 'pipe up' regularly (and encouraged him so to do in loud rough voices), and who seemed very much to enjoy blowing their noses very loudly and tooting on red plastic horns. So tiresome were they that when the pathologist idly suggested 'amending' their breakfast order, only then hanging proudly from their door and almost certainly full of ticks on the 'sugary kid snacks' boxes, we gave it serious consideration.
We talked about it quite a lot (pros/cons; would it be funny/wouldn't it be funny; legal/not legal; would the hotel charge them for the kidneys if they couldn't prove they hadn't ordered them, etc), but we didn't do it in the end, partly because we couldn't agree what the most annoying thing would be to add.
Later that afternoon, whilst watching an amateur dog agility competition on ice, we came to a partial conclusion. Here are our results, based on our analysis. Let me know what you think.
Best Single Item To Find Accidentally Included On Your Breakfast Tray
Me: A sausage
Him: A chocolate muffin.
Worst Single Item To Be Accidentally Included On Your Breakfast Tray
Me: Grapefruit juice
Him: TBC.
Please note: for the WORST things, it's not about getting something you don't like; it's something that's fine, that you'll probably eat because it's free. No, it's the disappointment of getting a free thing that, if it were only a tiny bit different, would be something you really liked (e.g. orange juice).
* Surely one of the worst words in the world.
** Quebecois French for "fun"
Friday, February 08, 2008
Day 568: I Am At Work!!!
It is great! On my first day I got loads of free stuff (e.g. computers, telephones, desk lamps, pencils, $750 of free acupuncture and tax relief), and people have been being nice to me for nearly four days.
Everywhere there is helpfulness: when you travel, someone organises your aeroplanes and hotels (which contain rooms with their own separate bathroom). Other people answer questions about for e.g. how often French Canadians have sex vs. the Rest of Canada without thinking you are weird. Everyone is nice AND clever (it is a Canadian thing), whilst also being good at irony (also a Canadian thing - in most cases).
At lunchtime I go and walk 'two blocks up the street' and buy soup and eat it and think and look out of the window, then before I know it is time to go home. Yesterday, someone said: "We don't want you to DO anything. We just want you to think."
This morning, someone said it was very important for me to go to New York for a conversation. It is astonishing. But not as astonishing as the fact that in addition to and on top of all of this, I get paid money! This work thing is perhaps not so bad after all. It is definitely better in Canada than it is in England, that is for sure.
Coming soon: Who would win in a fight, Canada or the UK? Hurry - don't delay - send in your categories today! (E.g. media/space/weather/attractiveness of people, etc)
Everywhere there is helpfulness: when you travel, someone organises your aeroplanes and hotels (which contain rooms with their own separate bathroom). Other people answer questions about for e.g. how often French Canadians have sex vs. the Rest of Canada without thinking you are weird. Everyone is nice AND clever (it is a Canadian thing), whilst also being good at irony (also a Canadian thing - in most cases).
At lunchtime I go and walk 'two blocks up the street' and buy soup and eat it and think and look out of the window, then before I know it is time to go home. Yesterday, someone said: "We don't want you to DO anything. We just want you to think."
This morning, someone said it was very important for me to go to New York for a conversation. It is astonishing. But not as astonishing as the fact that in addition to and on top of all of this, I get paid money! This work thing is perhaps not so bad after all. It is definitely better in Canada than it is in England, that is for sure.
Coming soon: Who would win in a fight, Canada or the UK? Hurry - don't delay - send in your categories today! (E.g. media/space/weather/attractiveness of people, etc)
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