Sunday 25 July 2010

That Was The Week That Was


It's been a funny old week. To summarise, I've learned
  • to play indoor bowls (as in the game rather than impromptu musical instruments)
  • that when bowling wearing an above-the-knee skirt, it is always wise to refuse to let elderly gentlemen stand behind one
  • that beginning a conversation with "It wasn't me who threw the testicles and vagina into the conversational hat" will make one laugh like a drain for days
  • that an-almost-certainly-deranged-man-masquerading-as-a-woman thinks that heaven is some sort of slimming club for those of a Catholic disposition (..."I also believe that Catholics will be weighed on different scales...")
  • that if one loans a handkerchief to a strange man who is weeping during Toy Story 3, it is best not to ask for it back
  • that beginning a  swish poetry event with a rendition of Poppy Tupper's limerick about Jeremy Hunt will not meet with universal approval 
  • and that buying second-hand books in Oxfam is far more exciting than buying books from Amazon or Waterstones.
Today, I found a first edition book dated 1888 entitled Archie Macnab Edited by He Himself for less than a bobbins book by Harlan Coben in Asda. Inside is inked William Morgan Xmas 1888, but I also found a business card tucked inside the pages:

HAROLD KING

Correspondant en Chef pour la France
DU YORKSHIRE POST
Directeur Général Adjoint á vie
DE L'AGENCE REUTER (LONDRES)
Correspondant en France
DE BATON BROADCASTING LIMITED (TORONTO)

presents h8s (sic) compliments to Lord Boyle
and hopes he will enjoy the book.

Paris Nov. 1973         3, rue du Sentier, 75002 Paris

This is diverting on all sorts of levels, not least because the suggestion that the Yorkshire Post ever had an International Correspondent is - frankly - unbelievable.

When I lived in Yorkshire, there could have been a political coup at Westminster, an earthquake in Cornwall, and Prince Charles's secret life as a cross-dresser who molests animals revealed all on the same day and the Yorkshire Post headline would have been

PENSIONER JOSTLED AT CROSSING IN HORSFORTH

That aside, Archie and I are getting on great guns. We have rather a lot in common (not least the dreadful habit of procrastination):

Naething worth daein' is ever dune in a hurry, sae the Author sat doon, and walked aboot, chew'd his nails, thocht an' thocht, and repeated owre to himsel', o'fen and of'en - "Archie M'Nab, are you a man worthy o' this privledge, this honour, this high office? Hae you got the penitration, the intuitive insicht, and the delicacy required to perform this michty task? Hae you got the geenus that'll keep ye frae being rideeklus, when yet fankel'd up in the warp an' waft o' sic an intricate and complex fabrication as a woman is? Great writer and a' as ye are, hae you the courage to attack sic a kittley subject?"

If you think you may also have an affinity with Archie, click here. And if you've ever found anything interesting inside a book, please comment in the, erm, Comments.

2 comments:

  1. Aha! Well yes, I often find things in library books. You'd be surprised what people use as bookmarks. Rarely (but not never) £20 notes. I might start a list - though I think the condom (unused) was someone's idea of a practical joke.
    Enjoy the rest of your liberty! x

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  2. I was going to avert my eyes from BBs comment because I well remember her first week on the job and description of Things Found in Books, or perhaps it was Things People Think Nothing of Doing in Libraries.
    Anyway, she didn't go into that, fortunately, so I read the whole thing.

    Now, to your very funny post which I seem to have completely missed until now. I had thought of bowls as a sedate sort of game for a similar kind of person. Somehow the image I have of you doesn't fit with it. Mind you, I play (or rather, play-ed) the French version until recently, so I guess it's not a reliable indicator of personality.

    Do people really say things like that where you're from??? And I'm not talking about Archie, either.

    Laugh like a drain. That's a wonderful expression that never got exported to my part of the world. Too bad, really. But I laughed like that anyway - about the headline.

    Thanks, Moptop. Just what I needed after a grumpy day that ended with a social gathering of boulistes . I kid you not.

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