7 Dec 2009
Bentham
I insist...the next round's on me, but John must drink it all down while standing up. No cheating now...every last drop!!
5 Dec 2009
John M. J.
Reactionry/
I can assure you you that the lasque-cut Shah Diamond does not feature in Part Three for it it is not one of the Major Stones dating, as it does, from the Golconda mines circa 1450AD.
Sometimes an 86 carat diamond is just a large diamond!
Esme/
I'm very much inclined to agree with you and I'll bet that if we dug down beneath the cellars of the City Tavern we'd find evidence of an ancient hostelry. There is, as I'm sure you are very much aware, a remarkable persistence of site usage in our ancient cities. Current structures are all too often an indication of what went on on an a site in the far past. Thanks for this info.
4 Dec 2009
reactionry
The Exchequer of Lectures?
Or: A Penny For The Bowser
Or: A Spaniard For The Spaniel
Or: "On Account of the Flies" & Fleas & Ticks
Or: Speak, Checkers
Or: They Also Serve Which Only Stay & Sit
Or: Finnegans Woof
Or: A Good Bite For Mothing
Or: Lady McGruff Says "Out, Damned Spot!"
Or: You Can Teach Old Tricky Dick New Dirty Tricks
Or: It's Good For The Coat
Or: That Dog Won't E. Howard Hunt
Or: Milhous On The Gloss
Or: Procol Harum Scarum
Or: The Checkered Past Of Griboyedov
Or: Crimenently & Pun-Ishment
Or: The Bum Of The Rock
Or: Whitman At Whittier
Dear John,
Many Thanks, or, as a German expat abiding in your showered isle might say, "Feelin' Dank!" for your wonderful post. Which was surely the result of painkillerstaking labours rather than of, if you'll forgive the malapropism, a first, or second, or even third, draught.
Sad to report, though, the fly in the ointment or agaric is that your piece, along with NER's "Dead or alive" thread, served to remind me that my dear cocker spaniel is now an ex-Checkers. I won't bore you with most of the details of the procedings, but I should note that I was unable to procure the services of Joe Cocker (geddit?) for a performance at The Spaniard (again, geddit?) of some cuts from Mad Dogs & Englishmen; perhaps "My Bowser couldn't write me a letter." If the other Joyce would be so kind as to forive me - "Fidos/Fido's Wake" was a simple "affair to remember" (see "the nearest thing to 'all good dogs go to heaven' ") as Checkers was wrapped in my wife's respectable Republican cloth coat; small bier, really.
I still can't get the little pooch out of my mind as I ponder whether the bark of the Wild Service Tree (which further serves to remind me that I should have hung from a tree John S. Service aka Sovietus Terminalis syn. Terminalis Nocluesii) is worse than the astringent bite of the fruit of Sorbus Torminalis. Sigh - shades of "Speak, Memory" as I recall my little cocker (I won't shock the Reader with the attempt to breed him which ended prematurely and half-cockered) playfully chasing his tail and, more on point (geddit?) chasing butterflies and moths though he rarely treed them.
While you are right to be concerned about rising temperatures, I hope that you are grateful for the mixed blessings of the rules and regulations, as well as the dynamism, of a mixed economy, to wit, your air has gotten much cleaner over the past several decades. -Less coals from Newcastle and all that. I reallly shouldn't er, pepper* you with questions, but have you noticed that said treed moths are becoming a "whiter shade of pale" (apologies to what? Protocols of the Elders of Hareem?) ? With respect to my own "evolution," I'm "well-rested" but scarcely "tanned." Please excuse that digression, but if memory serves, the species in question is the famous Dorian Grey. As you may recall, the effects of fallout from Chernobyl have been credited or blamed for the appearance in Finland of the Ainola Grey, which was celebrated with the playing of Sibelius' Unfinished Egophony. Which, of course, is known for its unusual five bleats to a measure and, naturally, the e to a key changes have naught to do with "Grey" or "Gray." I need not (but will) remind you of the similar history in Japan of the Enola Gray.
I too, have once again waxed too loquacious, or to put it again less kindly, have exhibited logorrhea or, as [the] hoi polloi might put it, "verbal diarrhea" - or if you prefer, "diarrhoea." I should just bide my time, hoping that future scholars will at least scribble some of my extenuating circumstances onto the margins of history books. But, -Sheesh! and Crimenently! - here moving from Checkers to Chechens and to Alexander Griboyedov, who, as a veritable Officer McGruff**, took a bite out of the Crimea, you'd think I'd absconded (at least I never Abscamed) with the frickin' Shah Diamond*.
And just between you and me and the Gentle Reader, will the above rock figure in the third installment of your Detective Chief Inspector Michael Lushkins series? -Mums - or is it "mummers"? - the word - or as Paul B. might say (do I repeat myself? very well then; with a barbaric yawp I repeat myself), Shhhh....Shah still! However, and you may call me squeamish, my beamish Boyar - maybe I don't have the "stones" for it- I'd prefer that the Shah Diamond didn't make its first appearance allah some (In the year or the rear of our ...Good Lord!) "anus" horribilis.
Gotta' run and not to put too fine a pint onnit, and as Griboyedov didn't quite say, they danged me and nearly hanged me, but I spit on the verdict of history!
Crookedly Yours,
Dick Nixon.
**
4 Dec 2009
Esmerelda Weatherwax
That was interesting.
The Wild Service tree is rare but there are some specimens locally to which I shall pay more careful attention.
The current pub in Lawrence Lane is called the City Tavern. It looks 20th century but I wouldn't mind betting that there are ancient foundations.