Wednesday 16 March 2011

“Jollity Farm, Bonzo Mania, A Gorilla & The Meaning of Life (?!!)”

“Oh dear oh dear oh deary me…where on planet earth is he going to go with this one then?”

Well…’He’ is not precisely that sure ‘himself’, so hang on to your mouse’s and let’s see what happens next:


Chapter One - Trakkerrr Time at Jollity Farm.

Back in the early-ish seventies when I was in my longish, curly auburnish haired middle teens and living in a rural mid Hampshire village, I had a weekend job working on a small local farm. Come harvesting time, long before autumn turned to gold, there was always plenty of opportunity to work weekday evenings as well for a couple of weeks, straight after school, helping to bring in the straw and hay for winter.

‘Hay Baling’.

Being in the general proximity of Lord Mountbatten’s sizable ‘Broadlands Estate’ just outside Romsey, many of the neighbouring farms were engaged to collectively lend a hand at harvest time, to ensure the estates vast crop of straw was collected and baled before the early frosts arrived.

One of the biggest highlights for me with all this, was the chance to drive a tractor and trailer on a public road – or as we used to say “Trakk-errrs”. This was big cheese for a fifteen/sixteen year old speed freak boy like me. Piloting a motorised machine with four big wheels, a hand throttle and a bluddy great steering wheel. Awesome.

Fond memories of the five mile journey through the back lanes at a blistering 20 miles per hour, peering through the Trakkerrrs stinky engine smoke, willing the next ninety degree bend in the narrow lane to arrive so I could work the steering wheel at the last possible moment then hang onto the rear wheel guard as I got the Trakkerrr and its trailer up on two wheels. Much to the amusement of all the other young hands clinging on behind me.

Having wobbled and skewed out of the corner I would flinch and brace myself in readiness for the sharp but playful cuff across the back of my head by the Farmers older son who was perched on the wheel guard beside me. Then I’d turn and share a conspiritory grin with him as he slowly shook his head yet again.

This piece of fun music here, not only inspired this whole post in the first
 place, but in my view should be adopted by John Gray as his official blog
anthem over at 'Going Gently'.

That said, this is the track 'Down on Jollity Farm' from the 'Gorilla' album,
recorded in 1967 by 'The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. Of which there will be
more about later in this post. This too was one of the first record albums I ever
purchased with my own money, way back then "in the day" of the year 1974.

Chapter Two - Working up a Jollity Farm Appetite

Once arrived at our designated sector on the estate, we would hastily devote the rest of the evenings light level transition to dusk, forking up brick shaped straw bales as they dropped off the back of the combine harvester, and stacking them up ever higher on the low bed tractor trailers following on behind.

It was hard physical work of course, but amongst your mates and sprinkled with a goodly dose of boyish physical rivalry, the evenings used to pass by very happily as we rapidly burned off all that healthy youthful energy that only teenage boys seem to posess in so much abundance.

Just after sundown, as our final reserves of strength were more than beginning to wane, the regular streams of sweat now persistently stinging our eyes as the dust and the pollen became well and truly matted to our faces arms and hair, we would start to glance over our aching shoulders for the first distant signs of impending arrival of the farmers wife in her old grey Austin pick up van, as it bumped and lurched into view through the dusky glow of the pale golden tinged freshly shorn stubble, just a snub bonnets nose ahead of the rolling and tumbling plumes of wheat corn dust following closely in her wake. The 'chow waggon'...always the most relished and welcome sight of them all…

Food time.

The farmer’s son would slither down from his  'grab & stack' perch high up on the loaded straw bale trailer and signal his Dad in the combine harvester, with an impressively shrill two fingered whistle. As the clatters and throbs of tractor and harvester engines gradually died away, they were soothingly replaced by the tranquil sounds of silence, interrupted only by the soft chirps of cicadas and the lively calls of nightjars busy flitting back and forth across the hedge rows as we gratefully trotted over to the back of Mrs Hunts old grey van.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevinkirby/

Chapter Three - Class of '73' - The Stuff of Boys to Men

There is something deeply personal and memoriable about my vivid recollections of those very moments, during that particular summers final days in 1973, sat out there on a loose bale of straw in the middle of a sprawling freshly cut corn field, resting 'back to sweaty back' with a best mate while almost feverishly trying to push the whole of your enormous crusty fresh bread cheese and pickle roll inside your head in one complete go.

Rarely was a word said in those first few glorious minutes as the dozen or so of us ‘men in waiting’ and a few real already grow’d ups, eagerly filled our taught and empty bellies, gulping down great big mugs of foaming bitter shandy, while spread out around the tractors and loose bales in various states of seating and recline. The aches in our shoulders and the prickly tingles caused by grip muscle strain and blister chaffing to our hands, was momentarily forgotten. The mere stuff of grown up boys pretending they were already fully trousered up men.  

As the initial impatient haste to chomp and swill your way through your ploughman’s chow and beverage slowed to a more civilised and respectable tempo, I would find myself beginning to focus my senses more appreciably on the calm and beautifully twilit environment within my field of vision, taking in the postures and expressions of my teenage peers as they too relaxed to gaze contentedly outwards at the visually arresting vista laid out before them.

In these calm and formative moments together on those warm and balmy late summer evenings out there in the depths of Hampshire’s Broadlands fields, we began to see the world around us in a broader, different light. We started to really look, take note and experience the early ponderings of a wider, deeper appreciation for this unique and special place we collectively co-exist on.

Privately, from within, there were way more questions than answers, but one thing was for certain – we all grew up a little faster in those harvest time fields and pastures that year. Me, Kemmy, Rob, The Two Steve's, Andy, Bessie and Dozer. We’d all somewhat unknowingly made a few quiet quantum leaps toward adulthood. The journey from boy to man had taken on a bit more than a mere burst, and we were quickly beginning to understand there was more to all this ‘life’ and 'growing up' business than we’d previously understood.

A bigger, wider picture seemed to beckon. We’d accelerated into a whole new phase of maturing and personal development, and nothing in our lives from those moments on...would ever be quite the same again.

Truly unforgettable, halcyon days.

I really love all this stuff.
Clanfield
It was generally just about then that old farmer Hunt would let out an impressively loud, long drawn out belch. Let everyone know he was still the biggest cheese in the pantry. And so then to a rising chorus of competing baby belchers here and there, we’d all enjoy an extended period of hearty chuckling and jeering as the friendly sound of nightjar bird song was drowned out to a cacophony of human derivative debauchment’s and other more extreme, audible crudities.

And good old Mrs Hunt would always remain completely po faced - never even a blink of a smile or a frown, as she gazed out calmly to the fading orange glows of the distant horizon.


"Hay Baling Fun" - You've really gotta take a look at this.

Chapter Four - The Fall of the 'Cretin Birds'

Yanked back to the realities of base life once again, old farmer Hunt would cast a searching glance to the heavens, coarsely wipe his mouth with the back of one of his equally coarse farmers hands as he reached into the long wooden tool box bolted to the side of his harvester’s engine panel.

Drawing out first one, then two twelve bore shot guns, we would all hurriedly clamber up the neatly stacked bales of straw to gain a better vantage point, as he passed the second gun to his oldest son. It was ‘cretin bird’ shoot time. Late night shopping for next months lunches, dinners, soups and pies - and as if bang on cue, the first suicidally cretinous bird would appear in the skies, eyes a bulging, head and neck straining forward, dumbly flapping its ungainly way inexorably onwards, straight into the sights of farmer Hunt and his number one son. Blam Blam Blam & Blamm.

Although a life long lover of our various bird and animal cousins, I have little care for the cretinous ‘Pheasant’ species at large I’m afraid. They really did dump out to the back of the queue when our lord and creator was dishing out the dregs of the brain matter. I mean they really did miss the whole armada.

Even down the lanes near where I live now, these totally inept, dumb ass malfunctioning kamikaze bipeds, disguised as semi pretty birdies, cause more motoring incidents as well as accidents, than all the other threats and hazards’ put together.

So there we casually watched from atop our fortress of straw, while the twin guns of Hunt & son blam blam blammed away at a virtually constant stream of low flying cretin birds, hopelessly determined to fall foul to the deadly spray of buckshot waiting to pluck them out of the otherwise deserted late summer evening airways.

And so as Mrs Hunt and ‘Boy’ the welsh border collie dog, stacked and fetched a sizable pile of deceased now ‘ex-cretinous’ game birds into the back of her trusty old pick up, I would slide down off my straw bales and claim my rightful place in the driving seat of my ‘trakk-errr’ once again and prepare for the dark drive back to ‘Jollity Farm’.



Chapter Five - Bonzo Mania & "It May Be Rubbish But By Golly It's British Rubbish!"

Quite who and of what circumstances got me into the record shop that day in 1974 to burgle myself a copy of ‘Gorilla’ by the comically avant garde jazz-rock group ‘The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band’, colloquially known as ‘The Bonzo’s’ …I cannot recall.

Although a distant cow bell is telling me that it had something to do with two tracks:
a)      ‘The Intro’s and the Outro’s’ which sits at the top of this blogs sidebar, serving as the appropriately named musical ‘Intro’ to this whole fun blogger den – and
b)      ‘Down on Jollity Farm’ because it was just plain good old jolly childish fun.

Originally formed in 1962, The Bonzo’s gathered an impressive and loyal fan base, eventually launching their most successful album ‘Gorilla’ in 1967. ‘Jollity Farm’ was originally conceived and written by the singer song writer - Leslie Sarony - back in 1929 and thus adapted by the band for ‘Gorilla’.

During WW2, Leslie Sarony’s voice came to the public’s wider attention as one half of the duo who recorded the popular and jaunty wartime song – “We're Going to Hang out the Washing on the Siegfried Line”. Interestingly, the other half of the duo was also another ‘Leslie' with the surname 'Holmes’.

‘From Wikipedia’:
As the Bonzo Dog band's popularity increased, they were asked by Paul McCartney to appear in the "Magical Mystery Tour" film at the end of 1967, performing "Death Cab For Cutie". Around the same time, they were hired as the resident band on Do Not Adjust Your Set, a comedy show notable for starring several future members of Monty Python's Flying Circus (Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin) and David Jason in the cast. The band performed every week as well as sometimes participating in sketches.

They had a hit single in 1968 with "I'm the Urban Spaceman" produced by Paul McCartney and Gus Dudgeon under the collective pseudonym "Apollo C. Vermouth". The Beatles were great fans of the group.

Here's some further accreditations and mentions of the Bonzo's lesser known achievements:


The Sunday Times [may 25, 2008]
The band get  special mention in Robert Sandall's look at 'comedy music'.

" As the decade wore on, and pop started to take itself more seriously, along came the funniest band of the lot, the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. A surreally attired ensemble led by Viv Stanshall, a foppish fellow with big glasses, they mercilessly teased rock’s earnestness with songs such as Can a Blue Man Sing the Whites? - and so hip were they in their day, Paul McCartney, no less, co-produced their hit single I’m the Urban Spaceman."

Sunday July 2nd, 2008.

The Bonzo's appeared today on BBC's Sunday AM programme. Over 1.5m viewers watched the band perform Jolity Farm to Andrew Marr and his guests; Tessa Jowell, William Haig, Cathy Lett and Chris Patten. In the breakfast that followed, the band did offer William Haig a speaking part in the upcoming UK tour. Sadly (?) he declined!
The appearance was organised with Barney Jones, Editor of Sunday AM and a life long Bonzo's fan. Barney commented "the Bonzo's made such a contrast to the rather serious politicians we normally have on the show, it was a delight that they could join us."

Interestingly, the original songster to "Jollity Farm" - Leslie Sarony, was later to appear as an elderly Insurance company clerk in 'The Crimson Permanent Assurance' sequence, from the 1983 Monty Python film 'The Meaning of Life'. What a small and funny world we chortle around in then don't we.

Humour has always been central to my life. Weaned on a regular barrage of ‘The Goon Shows’, Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan and Saturday night TV with the eponymous Morecombe & Wise shows, it was no great wonder that I would eventually gravitate towards other comedic genius’s such as Monty Python and Billy Connelly. Oh the laughter and the pain.

Especially when you’re unfortunate enough to be sat just two rows back from the front of house at one of Connelly’s ‘Banana Boots’ concerts in the late 70’s. Spent most of that one in total seizure, and even when I somehow managed to wriggle my way out to the aisle to try and slink off for a momentously needed pee, while in the middle of another full on rampantly hillarious delivery, Connelly suddenly paused in mid rant and glared alarmingly downward with his eyebrows ominously raised - at which point all the ceiling spotlights instantly lit me up like a bug eyed frozen rabbit - as he blammed down at me...“And where the f**k do you think you’re going!!!”

Very soon after, having successfully escaped from Connelly's merciless ire, I singularly overindulged myself with the bestest, loudest, monumentally longest ‘pee’ I have ever had by far...and believe me, I’ve had a wee few more than most !

"I'm the Urban Spacman"
1968


Okay John...You'd better blogga off now and go milk your goats.

21 comments:

Gorilla Bananas said...

Bonzo was the name of the chimpanzee in Bedtime for Bonzo. That and the naming of their album suggest ape-friendliness, or possibly an ape fixation. why didn't you ask the farmer for beer instead of shandy?

Bish Bosh Bash said...

Holy Sacrificial Cows Kongy Wongy! That was jolly quick of thou. I’ve only just finished cleaning my brushes. Haven’t even checked for spelling errors or major research faux pas’s. I might have gone done an ‘Obelix’ all over again, and I don’t yet know it. Scary wary’s.

You’ve clearly got me sussed you BIGGB you.

It’s all in the subliminal symbols isn’t it Kongy dear. How bwilliantly ‘Poireau-esque’ of you to decode all the hidden riddles of my little postette here, so quickly Kongy darling.

Now this is me blogging to you in my low and sexy Dame Edna Everidge voice: “And as for your ‘Bedtime for Bonzo’ message – well yes please and thank you kindly Konger Wonger!! Any time you’re free, just swing your way over on the fastest vine. I’ll leave the roof off so you can just bomb straight in and growl at me. Oooh…I’ve gone all apey waypee at just the thought.

And as for the shandy part – we were just glad to hoover up anything she brought us, especially as we were miles away from the nearest pub. Trouble was, on a previous occasion she brought us all an impressive quantity of dry cider, and being mere chimps, we all got totally bladdered out there in the fields and ended up tipping the tractor and trailer unit over while it was fully loaded with straw bales.

And that was before we left the field. Had to sleep it off amongst the straw and then re-stack it all over again in the morning while we were all horribly hung over and dehydrated. I can still hear the pitiful moans of some of those lads as they ‘technicolour yawned’ for England, right off the back of the trailer during our eventual journey home.

Not good. Well mostly not good. Cos it was a teency weency bit funny if youre not a ‘siccy’ like me. Yeahh…actually come to think of it – it was pretty royally eye wateringly side splitting. Hrrrumph.

The Sagittarian said...

Whatever you're on, can you share it PLEEASE

John Going Gently said...

fucking hell
that made me laugh
I have NeVER read such an ecletic pile of thoughts, ideas and videos EVER (loved the hay man!!!!)I can see why you blog slightly infrequently....its a case of quality over quantity!
What do you do for a living Phil? just wondered
a cracking post

Bish Bosh Bash said...

Hello Saj. Lovely to hear from you again. I'm afraid I'm just one of those creatures that gets off on life and its various absurdities as a means of escape and avoidance of what is all too often an insanely frustrating and challenging existence, that is perpetually trying in great and determined earnest to swallow me whole into a not so funny 'funny farm'.

My Caveat Emptor - 'Sharers Beware!!'xx

P.S. Sorry about the noisy party me and Margee were having inside your blog last night. Shame you were fast asleep. We were having such alot of fun. Hmmm.

John Going Gently said...

I left a comment
well several did they not take???

Bish Bosh Bash said...

Hi John Boy at 'Going Gently'. Glad alot that you liked it. Love surprises! Ha ha!! It really was the Jollity Farm music track that kicked all this off this time.

I was making some idle notes last week concerning my early favourite albums and I searched out the Bonzo boys on Youtube. As soon as I heard ‘Jollity’ again, I instantly thought of your blog and your lifestyle up there. To me it was perfect and far too good an opportunity to miss.

The sign thing I’ve been meaning to do for some time. That one is the signpost by the lake, opposite Beaulieu Abbey, so it’s basically the ex Beaulieu Village sign via Photoshop. And no I don’t live in the village – I wish. My cave sits just up the road in a much cheaper village domain.

If you want me to ‘doctor’ this sign gadget for you to use with other bloggers in your wider community, please let me know John. It will be no problem at all to alter it from the blank template I’ve saved already.

Don’t tell Lord Montague though. He’ll make me disappear.

I really will be back over later. Am having some serious issues with my PC’s performance these last several days, and I need to sort it before I lob it down the garden once again. Take care JG.

The Weaver of Grass said...

In my experience (and I am a farmer;s wife!) the best thing about truly unforgettable, halcyon days is that they get better and better over the years as the aches and pains and truly devastatingly hard work memories recede and the companionship takes over. Why is it that those days were always warm, still, beautiful sunsets, lovely smells of fresh hay - ah those were the days. Enjoyed your blog - came over at the invitation of John.

Val said...

My cappuccino buzz hasn't kicked in yet - will have to come back later when I'm knackered. (That's a good English word, isn't it?) I've also learned "chuffed" this morning and told my friend Carol in Newport that I'd use that (and crikey) in a sentence today. This is just the place: Here we go - Crikey, there's a lot going on here today - but I'm chuffed to find other bloggers who simply "get off" on life! Off to the spa I go...pretty chuffed about that too.

the fly in the web said...

I left a comment earlier...but I think it self destructed.
I enjoyed this post so much...the sheer range of 'stuff' to read, to listen to, to watch is astounding...as is the quality thereof.
It's like being Jack Horner with the Christmas pie...so many plums to pull out.
Thanks, Phil....
Re the belch....Arthur Grimble, 'Pattern of Islands'...Honorable Eructation....might be of interest.

Steve said...

You make me regret being too young in 73 (for I were nowt but a nipper - only 4) to partake of such glorious, Cider With Rosie-esque farmlife. You describe it all so lyrically I can almost taste the cheese and pickle... you've been blessed, mate. And right pleased for you, I am.

Bish Bosh Bash said...

And a hearty welcome to you too ‘The Weaver of Grass!’ Would you mind if I called you ‘Twog’ – or even – ‘Twoggy’ ?! Thank you for your very touching comments. I’m delighted that as a hard working farmers wife, you found some shared kinship with this post. I had a huge respect for Mrs Hunt. I always knew she knew us ‘blokes’ fr better than we ever did. Seen it. Done that. Long since thrown all the dirty T shirts away.

I’ve always shared the philosophical belief that “those days” were always warm and so on, because we had probably reached our zenith in terms of being able to truly take in and enjoy all the smells, sounds and senses at their virginal richest – as seen and recorded by our still uncluttered minds, devoid of all of life’s more serious later worries, responsibilities and distractions that were soon to shape our transition to adulthood and all that heavy duty clutter that bolts itself onto us for many decades to come.

What I refer to as ‘The most precious innocence of youth period’. The tipping point. Like your final term at high school when you’re at the top of the food chain, but you’re not yet paying for the food. Purely in this context, I think that summer of 73 was probably as good as it gets, and I’m just eternally grateful I was allowed to enjoy and appreciate it in exactly the way that I did.

We lived on a dairy farm too for a couple of years when I was about eight. Walked to junior school across the fields. Special. Stay in touch won’t you. ‘Twoggy!’

Bish Bosh Bash said...

And another big Yeehah of a Bon Journo to you too Valerie. Have you landed in the Roman Empire again yet? You certainly know how to make me laugh out loud. You’ve a very funny way with our words. Very funny indeed! Your interpretations were bluddy brill, and I could kind of just imagine you cheekily working your lips round that lot.

And yes – you’re ‘bang on dwarling’ – Cos ‘Knackered or sometimes…Ker-nackered’, ‘Cripes and Crikey’, ‘Spiffing’, ‘Phew (Ma Faverit)’, ‘Cor Blimey’ also ‘Cor Blimey Mate’,
‘Chuffed’, ‘Jolly Chuffed’, ‘Mighty Chuffed’ and ‘Bluddy Chuffed’, ‘Geeza’, ‘You Muppet’, ‘Tossa’, ‘Soooopa’, ‘Splendid’, ‘Splendiferous’, ‘Wowzer’, ‘Allwight’, ‘Dross’, ‘Oooh Yuck’ (yeah that’s ours too), ‘What a blinder!), ‘Bounder – pronounced; Biynd-ah’, ‘He’s such a Cad!’, ‘Give us that’, ‘Bollocks!’, ‘Bugga’…and…’Jolly Good Show’, are a few more of our ‘so sweet’ collection of English idioms and class determining 1930’s slang culture.

One of my all time faves which appears in the Plunkett & Macleane video clip in my sidebar here is “…and I don’t like the cut of your jib sir”. I’m saving that one for a very special occasion when I next have a rendezvous in the street with a traffic warden. It’ll be almost worth the fine. Specially if I camcorder it. Later with a real drink then!

Baby Rocket Dog and Hootie said...

You cracked us up (JG said you would). Though we're just an Airedale and a Welsh Terrier we could see the humor in it all. Especially liked the part about the cretin pheasants. Dumb birdos! Almost as bad as wild turkeys. This was a fun visit. Please invite us back again sometime.
Smooches from pooches,
(Miss)BabyRocketDog and Hootie

Bish Bosh Bash said...

Hi Fly! Sorry it’s taken such an age to ‘bung one back’ to you down there in da jungle. (don’t ask!).

Firstly – Thank you for your comments Fly, you’re very kind. I’ve been very fortunate to have partaken in and enjoyed such experiences at such a critical stage in my boyhood life and to this day I can still feel the dusty heat, hear those nightjars and the double crack echoes of the guns. Loved your “Jack Horner” analogy and…”so many plums to pull out” (!!) Yeah – Ok, I won’t go there just now eh. Save that one for a future post intended to come to a blog near you. Nod Nod Wink Wink Chataigne Chataigne.

If you ever pop back to this post, have a listen to the nature sound link now posted directly above the ‘sundown in the hayfield picture image’. If you were to substitute the sound of the wind chimes for the sound of nightjars twittering and the odd cretin bird squawking…this would be pretty much as I remember the natural audio as we sat eating in the evenings.

Thanks too for your tipster re: Arthur Grimble’s book – this is a quote from its Amazon page:- “Well worth the read if you want to be transported away from these gloomy 21st century days to a simpler time.” Nuther raid on the local library then. Ta. x

Steve said...

Christ, I grieve for your friend and his family. What an awful tragedy.

As for me being a whipper-snapper... well, people do say I look about 15 years younger than I actually am. Must be my abstemious lifestyle... which may also explain my inherent curmudgeonliness. Want to look 10 years younger? Moan a lot. It works for me. ;-)

Bish Bosh Bash said...

Mr Steve: (!!!) Well Strike me down with my rubber Zimmer frame! You’re actually a practicing bluddy old git after all then!! There’s me been assuming you was just a mere nipper of no more than about pubertyteen years old all this time. Well what do I know?! Only reason I’ve been sassing with you on your blog is cos I thought you were a mere child an needed a bit of a poke now and again from your Uncle Phyllis here. Well that ‘changes everything’ then doesn’t it!

Enough. And thanks to you too mate for your warm comments, especially: “…you’ve been blessed”. Frankly Steve, I couldn’t have put it better. Read you loud and…, too. Fact is, it’s not until you’ve combated the numerous vagaries that adulthood persistently dishes out to you over the decades, that you remember just how fortunate you really were to live through such experiences and benefit from their deeper, richer substance.

Shortly after that harvesting episode, one of those boys who was very much my closest friend and with whom I’d enjoyed and survived countless boyhood adventures around another farm estate which his Father managed, shot and killed his younger sister in the most ghastly, terrible, genuine accident involving a rifle used by his Father to kill rabbits.

Had they lived in a town, it would never have happened. Watching him and his warm and wonderful, hard working family disintegrate after that was a harrowing as well as awakening experience that I can never forget. So yes, unlike he - and his family, I was most certainly ‘blessed’ as you say.

Bish Bosh Bash said...

And a Big..“Woof Woof Woofie Woof!” to you too:

(Miss) Baby Rocket Dog and Hootie?,
(Miss) Babrocdochoo?,
(Miss) Ba-hoo?,
Ba??.

No, I doona think I can call you just ‘Ba’ cos it’s totally unfair on young ‘Hoo’ and thus very ‘Ba-ist’.

(oh pleeeese phil, give us a break)

So then ‘Bahoo’ & Co – Welcome to this very ‘doggy friendly bloggy woggy’ here, and I wish you many hours of safe & free, tail wagging scamperings around this blogsite to your cutie little hearts contents in the future.

Just two rules for you and young Hootie:

Number 1) There is to be absolutely ‘NO’ evidence of doggy’s pee on my ‘sign’ up there. Yeah, that’s right – ‘That one’.

Number 2) No Fighting, or biting of any of my other visitors while you’re here – Okay! Or else I’ll muzzle you both, regardless of who started it.

I’ll see what I can do later to find you both some old toys with squeakers in, although I may well bolster them up with lots of nasty denzo tape first. Hmm. Not surprised you think the same as me about ‘dumb cretin birdos’. Bet you guys don’t even dain to waste your time chasing them anymore either. They’re not much sport are they.

And you absolutely don’t need my invitation to come back and play here again, because you will be welcome to swim the pond and jump over the fence whenever you choose – this is an open house blog – so just you remember to bring some of your other nice doggo friends with you next time. And don’t forget to explain the rules to them – Kay?

And no growling at the postman either! XX

Bish Bosh Bash said...

Steve: re your second comment – don’t know how it managed to drop in up there, as it’s now out of sequence with what you were clearly referring to?! Never mind.

It was a long time ago now and I lost touch with them all after they moved away a few year later. Still think about him regularly though and worry about whether it came back to haunt him in some harmful way in his later life.

Yeah Ok…and maths wasn’t your strong point at school either was it Stevie Weevie. 15 years younger my derriere. Did the beard come with the bell suit hire then? You old curmudgeoner you. An I am moaning a lot!! An awful lot a lot!!! It’s one of the few real high points of getting older – and it absolutely definitely doesn’t work for me!!!!

So you’ll have to start running courses and as a reference for starters Steve…I’d like you to teach me how to moan effectively and often enough to transport me back about 12 years to the pic at the bottom of the page here:

http://blogitandscarper.blogspot.com/p/about-blog-it-and-scarper.html

“Warning: Some viewers of a nervous disposition may find these images disturbing”

Steve said...

To be honest, old chum, your best bet is to moan so loud, long and vociferously that Matt Smith turns up with a blue police box in tow and that Pond lassie. Might not be able to reverse the body clock but you'll have great fun locating Dixon of Dock Green if you get my meaning... you're only as old as the person you feel as my granddad used to say. Until the judge sent him down for sexual offenses against Meals On Wheels...

Bish Bosh Bash said...

And a sadly belated ‘hello back to you’ Steve. I’m clearly losing the plot here my friend. Only just noticed your stealth comment here. It’s what happens when you try your hand at twiddling with the comments approval settings last weekend, once you know you’re going to be away from your blog for a while. Doh!

Thanks for your witty repost and I’m only sorry that it fell on deaf blog ears on this occasion. Now comes the even sadder part…I had to look up ‘Matt Smith & Pond Lassie’ on you know what’gle. Dr Who?? Didn’t have a problem with Mr “Evening All” though. Fond memories of a monochrome Sergeant Dixon bidding us a safe goodnight when I was curled up in my jim jams and dressing gown with my Dad on the sofa in the sixties.

Given up shouting myself hoarse. Will never work with me. You are always as young as you feel of course, which makes me a wizened 27 year old. I just hope ‘meals on wheels’ wasn’t a great big hairy Turk by the way!?

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