Magpie No. 127

A True Story, that Almost Passes Belief.

(This memory from my daughter's early days at school was jogged by Jane Healy's Magpie - No.36 - this week,  following Tess Kincaid's picture prompt.  Thank you Jane. Thank you Tess.)

Figure Eight, 1952, by Franz Kline

Every day, I go to meet my daughter, 5, coming out of school, to walk home with her. Her school-pal's mother is usually waiting also.  If not, I will take the pal home. This is the understanding.  Let's call my daughter's pal "Denise"

Denise's Mum knows I am in the University. She also knows that education is always spelt with a capital "E" - if you know what I mean. This particular day she is there herself, waiting for Denise. We chat about this and that.  We hear the bell tinkling from inside the school.  The children will be getting their school-hats and coats, and soon they'll come charging out, and soon they do.  It is their first year at school.  No one charges quite like a 5 year old.

My daughter and Denise appear together, and both are holding out at arms' length the paintings they have been doing that morning. Two A5 sheets, both of which are riots of colour, the sort of uninhibited work which is not meant to express anything except the sheer joy of getting paint onto paper, particularly when the paper today was big, big, BIG!  Their little faces are shining with achievement. The way they hold their paintings out, at arms length in front of them says "Look at my super picture!" I imagine their art-work blu-tacked to the kitchen wall, or in my study at the Uni.

And what does Denise's mother say?  (Education with a capital "E" remember!)  She says  "Ahh Denise!  What a mess!"

I don't know if this put-down became one of Denise's life-long memories (she's in her forties now) but it certainly became one of mine. As did the memory of her wee face crumpling into tears. 

Magpie Tales#126

Jack Vettriano makes a debut appearance in the Magpie prompts, courtesy of Tess Kincaid.

"I Give Up . . .

I  tried this. Twice!

and . . . .

and nearly all of these . . . .

but none of them got me in to see FTSE.  But I'm not a robot. I'm just a poor waif in a slinky black dress with lots of décolletage and bare shoulders and artfully untidy hair and a pensive little-girl-lost look who needs to consult the good Doctor about her smoker's cough . . . "

Friday Flash Fiction 55

I so wish this little story was true, but can't believe it really is.

GOTCHA!

Rachmaninov, pianist extraordinaire, was accompanying a violin recital.

The violinist was playing from memory,  Rachmaninov from score. The duo did not get on well personally. At one point the violinist realised his memory was letting him down. He indicated Rachmaninov’s score with his bow, whispering "Where are we?" Rachmaninov whispered back "We're in the Carnegie Hall!"

For G-Man's Friday Flash Fiction 55.

Magpie Tales # 125

Tess at Willow Manor asks us to critique this painting for Magpie 125.

Chilmark Hay, 1951 by Thomas Hart Benton

    "You seem unusually thoughtful today, Simpleforth. Is anything the matter?"

    "I was wondering what Constable would make of it."

    "I can't bring to mind a Constable in the art class?"

    "No sir. John Constable. English painter. 1776 to 1837. Romantic landscapes of an England long vanished, where sturdy yokels and sturdy horses toiled in the fields when they weren't getting their haywains stuck in rivers.  Not like this one, which is certainly more hay than wain where some of the hay seems to be falling off the wain and a horse with an unnaturally long neck is apparently bent on homeward plodding his weary way to a farmhouse with a garage at the side but no door.  I mean look at it, sir! It's a "Haymaking" by David Hockney out of Vincent van Gogh! And the haycocks look like Yorkshire puddings under a plastic sheet."

    "If I may interrupt the flow of your appraisal for a moment, Simpleforth. What's this about a haywain stuck in a river?"

    "That was before the invention of the car-wash, sir.  None of the analyses of Constable's picture mention that.  Maybe the wain isn't stuck in the river. Maybe the yokels pay a groat or two to wash the wain in the river before high-tailing it to the haymeadow to load up. It is empty after all. Maybe they could wash the horses as well. Or maybe they've already sold the hay on the black market and are heading home by river so's to cover their tracks."

    "Have you been smoking something behind the bike-sheds again, Simpleforth?"

    "And have you noticed how beat-up the haywain is?"

    "You can hardly see the haywain . . . "

    "Not that one, sir. Constable's. It looks ready for the bonfire. It's hanging together. It's kindling. The sort of rubbish you  sell to 'We Buy AnyWain.com' "

    "I'm afraid I'm not following you at all, Simpleforth. Which I must say is not unusual. Just get on with your appraisal of Benton's painting and hand it in by lunchbreak."

    "Lunchbreak, sir, would be rough cider in leathern bottles and massive hunks of bread and cheese and a snooze under the haystack while the honest sweat dried on their brows and only the milkmaids for company - elements conspicuously absent from Benton's effort."

    "Perhaps that's as well. Um . . er . . would you like to speak to the school Nurse?"

    "Why sir?  Does she paint haywains as well?"

Reader's as puzzled as was the art teacher by Simpleforth's discourse are referred to the picture below: -

Part of "The Haywain" by John Constable.

Magpie #124

Tess asks us this week to versify Ophelia's unhappy fate.  The Coroner's verdict is sadly not in the public domain, but here is the police pathologist's photograph.

Redon Odilon "Ophelia"

Don't Blame Yourself, Sweet Prince.

Ophelia set off for the nunnery

thinking "I won't have much funnery."

She left by the door

of Old Elsinore

but not far beyond

she fell in a pond -

By the time he came round

Hamlet saw she had drowned

and lamented "Oh! What have I dunnery?"

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Magpie#117

My Very Silly Autobiography.

(Atishoo of Falsehoods)

by

Leviticus P. Simpleforth

Chapter 1. The First Weeks. Me -v- my Food Taster.

   I do not remember the rigours of the birth canal and my shrink says this is probably a good thing.  But I do remember being hungry and being unable to do anything about it except flail my arms and legs a bit, and wail.  Wailing was the nearest I could get to "I don't want that slop in the little tins that the fat person keeps tasting, cooing 'Yummy for ickle bitty baby Leviticoocoo. It's yummy choccy puddy.'  No it wasn't. It was pap. And I didn't like it coming at me on a spoon the size of a shovel with "Open the tunnel for the foodtrain to choo choo in, little Leviticoocoo." You wonder I aimed it all back at the person again? Neither did I want the bottles both fat persons kept offering me. My shrink says this has resulted in a disturbing fixation (*) which we will come to in Chapter 23, see below.  (Sorry! Sorry! Above! This is a blog, where the first post is always the last.) No. I wanted egg and bacon. I wanted spaggers bologgers with fine chopped chicken livers and a big glass of the red stuff that the big persons swigged out of even bigger glasses, that made them flail their arms and legs and sometimes fall over the furniture. But the penny never dropped. They both seemed determined I should end up a milksop and the infanticidal mush kept coming. I soon hit on a revenge strategy. By day I would accept their warm bottles and slobbery goo and bide my time until the tall hall clock where someone called Grandfather lived, chimed three. Then I would roar till the snoring stopped and the swearing began and the "Sooner that little brat . . " and "Now then, Dad. He's just a little baby." "He's just a little asshole, more like.  That's all babies are. A mouth one end and an asshole at the other."  In later life this idea interested me; that we are mere tubes through which all must pass until we pass away. Yes, interested me a good deal but worried my shrink even more. There's not much doesn't give my shrink pause, and quite frankly I think her problems far outweigh mine, but we'll come to that in Chapter 23, et seq  "Me -v- my Analyst"

  

   Folk don't go for long reads in blogs, so until next time . . .


   (*) For the shrink, not for me.  I'm quite happy with it.


Tess Kincaid at WIllow Manor prompted Simpleforth to write the above post, with this picture of 3 foodies.

Paul Gaugin The Meal 1891

   

Are you over 18?

Tess at Willow Manor has trawled the www again, and come up with a picture prompt which you can see at Magpie#115 along with many worthwhile responses.  A skilled manipulator of images has doctored it for me here, as you see . . .

In his bath sat a webgeek called Brindle
downloading soft porn to his Kindle.
Has he never been told
as the water gets cold
he'll find that his interest will dwindle?



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Friday Flash Fiction 20th. April

Any speculation, story, poem, recipe, memoir or song delights the G-Man as long as it is expressed in 55 words.

Has Anyone Told Charles Darwin?

(Image courtesy of Cartoon Clipart Images and Graphics)

Horses did not evolve to be house pets. They cannot get upstairs. To do so their forelegs would need to be shorter than their hind legs. But to get downstairs their hind legs should be shorter. Sadly, horses' legs are all the same length. Nevertheless horses are useful when you can't find your step-ladder and need to change a light bulb.

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Good Friday Flash Fiction

Once again, the Rev. G-Man offers us 55 words to retell an old, old story.

"Come on, pal. No rough sleepers! Haul ass. Tomb's reserved.”

"But . . but  . . "

"No buts. Just get yer butt outa here. And take them raggitty clothes."

"But I wasn't sleeping."

"Oh I geddit. Not sleeping but corpsing."

"Well . . yes. Sort of."

"Well now yer resurrected. So sling yer freakin’ hook." 


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Magpie Tales#111

Tess from Willow Manor gives us a picture of someone lost in thought. Or maybe merely lost, for her Magpie prompt this week.


Stretching Your Credulity, and the Limerick.

A keen poultry breeder called Beggs
wondered if he could incubate eggs.
He put this to the test
in a bald eagle's nest.
But the big bird said "Look, do
you think you're a cuckoo?
And I sure mean no harm
but you've got such thin arms!
Those spindly things
seem useless for wings.
And you took off your shoes -
which leads me to muse
that maybe you fly with your legs?"




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