Mar 19, 2012

"And the World is Like an Apple Whirling Silently in Space"

Tess's prompt for Magpie Tales 109 is this image by Robert and Shana Parke Harrison of someone who should know better . . .


A keen archeologist called Pound
dug down to some cogs in the ground.
He thought, "Folk should see 'em
In the British Museum."
So he heaved on his spanner
in prompt Magpie manner
till his face turned quite puce.
At last one cog came loose -

"Oh Drat! I've stopped Earth going round."


.

27 comments:

  1. ah that would be quite the mess...and once it is broke you know it never goes back the way it once did...

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  2. I love the humor. Very nicely done.

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  3. "Stop the world, I want to get off!' as Anthony Newley once said - or rather sang... :)

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    1. . . . which invites the question "With whom (note my beautifully grammatical English!) do you want to get off?"

      Note also "invites" the question. "Begs the question" is not a synonym for "invites". No one uses "begs the question" correctly anymore, or even knows what it used to mean. Even the BBC has forgotten, if they ever knew. Shut up, FTSE!

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    2. The changing face of the English language, Doc... Go with the flow - you can't fight the current! Everybody understands 'begs the question' in the sense of 'invites', so why the twisted knicker legs?

      As for getting off the world, I'd choose to go with a pilot, a plane and parachutes, so we could get back on it again for an action replay! :)

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  4. You kept a smile on my face from the title to the end. Thank you for this wonderfully lighthearted take on the prompt. I leave happy!

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  5. Very nice. The prompt clogged up my mind.

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  6. Well THAT's going to cost a pretty penny...

    We can get a guy to stop by next Thursday between the hours of dark-thirty and supper.

    Pearl

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    1. Great. I bet he turns up on time but "I haven't broguht the right cog, Missus. I'll be back with it tomorrow. Or the day after . . "

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  7. Hey! Hey! Put a huge smile on my face, this one did! A daily dose of doctor all round - eh, folks?!

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  8. Love that oh so prompt Magpie manner...

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  9. Ahh, the folly of unadulterated reason

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  10. I have a little idea of what you must have been like as a lecturer...was there anybody left standing at the end of a class?

    Utterly, cleverly funy, dr. Dr.

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    1. Deborah - I was. Usually. Except one time I stepped back too far to survey my whiteboard and fell off the dais. I stopped when the downward force due to my gravitational mass became exactly equal to the upward force exerted by the floor. (Newton's First Law)

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  11. Silly Billy, what did he want to do that for.
    And then you go and tell the whole world about him.

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  12. Now it will be necessary for ten men to come out in a truck, form a semi circle around the broken spot, and nod in agreement that it sure is broke, ain't it? Then they will get back in the truck, and one of them will fill out a requisition form for the needed part, which will arrive in 6-8 weeks, sit on someone's desk for five more, and then finally another truck will go out and fix the break. f course, we'll all have spun off into outer space by then.

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    1. The odd thing is . . . we'll all fly off in a straight line, not in a circle! (Another of Newton's Laws . . `No.2, I think.)

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  13. An enjoyable limerick, Doctor. I totally understand the feeling of having loose cogs and flying into space. I wonder if this theory makes more sense than the Mayan calendar version? Ha! Thanks for sharing.

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  14. Treacherously funny, maybe. Flinging us off for want of a tight cog. whodathunk?

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  15. So that's what's going to happen, eh? Good to know.
    Very funny stuff!!

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  16. Your mind never stops whirling up amazing imaginative pieces! :)

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