The Diary of a Country Bumpkin

Laughter

How strange that only a couple of days ago the choice of word was “bubble,”
which as you all know now is Cockney rhyming slang for “laugh,” although as not everyone would be familiar with the rhyming slang I suspect not a lot of people would have made the connection. Unfortunately as I had made the connection I have therefore already written a blog about virtually the same subject.

Not to be beaten with a challenge to blog I shall persevere, firstly with the definition of laughter, which is, a physical reaction in humans consisting typically of rhythmical, often audible contractions of the diaphragm and other parts of the respiratory system. It is a response to certain external or internal stimuli, which all seems far more complicated than it actually is, which makes me laugh.

Personally I think laughter is absolutely vital to the well-being of any human being although not too much as it seems it is possible to literally die from laughter, which is no joke, however one does not die from the joke itself, but from the body’s reaction to it. Among the many possible medical ways that laughing too hard can kill you are ruptured brain aneurysm, cardiac arrest, collapsed lung, strangulated hernia, gelastic seizures, stroke and asphyxiation.
My how we laughed!

Conversely you will be glad to hear that studies have shown that laughter really is medicinal. In fact, laughing is similar to exercising in that it works your core muscles and stimulates the cardiovascular and respiratory systems. When you have a good, hearty chuckle, your body increases endorphin levels and reduces stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline. Subsequently, your body’s stress responses diminish: blood pressure lowers, muscles relax, and mood improves.

The conclusion therefore is to seek out old shows with comedians like Frankie Howard where you can experience, as he would say, “small titters, or big titters,” but do be aware of the pitfalls of having “massive titters.” Nay, nay and thrice nay!

I have been a tad busy today but with the change in the weather I thought it a suitable time to re-post one of my older blogs which I have put on my other blog.

Joe Wells, of whom it has been said.

http://www.joewellsofwhomithasbeensaid.com/2018/05/im-getting-hints-of-elderflower.html

For those of you not living in the country, we are up to our necks in Elderflower at the moment.

Bubble

The weather has taken a sudden turn for the better and for some strange reason, my wife along with a considerable number of the population has had a funny turn, I suspect it may be related to sunstroke. However out of the blue, she said, “I’m going to do a barbecue tomorrow,” whereupon I said, “have you taken leave of your senses, you’re having a bubble.”

Now for those of my readers who don’t live in Britain or are not familiar with Cockney rhyming slag, I had just slipped into a phrase familiar to many a Londoner, be they Cockney or not.

Cockney rhyming was invented in approximately 1840 and was used as a cant, a language designed to disguise what was being said from passers-by, “having a bubble,” being, I imagine a fairly modern version of Cockney. Many a phrase was coined, for example, “butchers hook,” for “look,” which is generally shortened to “butchers.”

The reason I’m guessing, “having a bubble,” is a fairly modern expression is because the full expression is, “having a bubble bath,” which as Cockney wasn’t invented until 1840 where in those days vast numbers of impoverished Londoners lived in extremely squalid conditions and would have been very lucky to have a bath at all, let alone one containing bubble bath.

Having lived in London for quite a large part of my life, it is inevitable that one picks up these phrases as they have become more commonly used, hence my use of “having a bubble.” For those of you who haven’t worked it out, “bath” rhymes with “laugh,” well it does with cockney pronunciation, “barf,” and “larf.”

I love useless facts and am delighted to have recently found the derivation of the expression, “a monkey,” used in, “can you lend me,” or “I’ll wager,” which originally comes from soldiers returning from India where a 500 rupee note had a picture of a monkey on it. They used the term monkey for the 500 rupee note and converted the note into Stirling when returning to England, hence a “Monkey,” being £500.

Now, returning to my original comment to my wife concerning her desire to have a barbecue, I cannot understand why anyone in their right mind would want to eat in this fashion, hence my comment, “you’re having a bubble.” Firstly one spends vast amounts of money on lashings of meat products, which one places on an open fire in the garden and stands about whilst being bitten by various insects, the only saving grace being one is expected to consume vast quantities of lager at the same time.

As you may be able to tell, I don’t consider this to be my favourite pastime, but I never like to let my wife down so we have both been frantically mowing the lawn, putting out the table, cleaning the chairs and readying the barbecue, should the event prove successful, I may post a further blog tomorrow, but don’t hold your breath waiting for that.

Tide

I have used the following poem before in one of my previous blogs but it is so good I feel no need to apologise for using it again.

My Boy Jack is a 1916 poem by Rudyard Kipling. It was written after his son called Jack was posted as missing and later as dead in September 1915 during the battle of Loos in World War One. Jack was a Lieutenant in the 2nd Battalion Irish Guards when he was killed, he had extremely bad eyesight and was not fit to be in the Army, but in the beginning of the war his father was very patriotic and pushed for his son to join up. Not surprisingly after his son was killed Rudyard Kipling became very anti war, after witnessing the futility of it, having lost his son. My Boy Jack is quite a moving poem but all the more so when you know the story of why it was written. I need add nothing further to this blog and I give you;

My Boy Jack, by Rudyard Kipling.

“Have you news of my boy Jack?”
Not this tide.
“When d’you think that he’ll come back?”
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.

“Has any one else had word of him?”
Not this tide.
For what is sunk will hardly swim,
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.

“Oh, dear, what comfort can I find?”
None this tide,
Nor any tide,
Except he did not shame his kind —
Not even with that wind blowing, and that tide.

Then hold your head up all the more,
This tide,
And every tide;
Because he was the son you bore,
And gave to that wind blowing and that tide!

Observe

No doubt the more eagle eyed of my readers will have noticed from the above title that the word chosen for today’s blog is observe, so should you have noticed the title, I shall not be giving ten out of ten for observation as it was a little obvious.

I have very good peripheral vision which comes in very useful when I’m driving, but I have a feeling that men are generally less observant where emotions are concerned, which I think may come from the female ability to look at a screaming infant and interpret it’s needs. Whereas men generally speaking are too wrapped up in our own world to even notice the infant is screaming at all, let alone interpret any of the signs it may be giving off.

One can be in a social environment and the wife might whisper, “that was a bit cruel, what so and so said,” to one of the other ladies, “you could see she was upset.” To which my response might be, “really, I didn’t notice!” Not the perfect reply, I’ll admit, but at least had the same exchange have happened whilst I was driving with the two ladies in my car, I might have missed the subtle nuance of the remark but I would have been observant enough, not to have crashed.

The male of the species can be just as observant as the female, take for example the entrance into a room of a woman with a low cut top exposing a fair proportion of her breasts, I think it fair to say that every man in the room will notice straight away, it’s genetic, we can’t help looking.

It is true to say the women will have observed the display too, but the reasons will be different, for the women will be thinking, “this woman is a trollop, she has low morals and is no better than she ought to be!” Whereas the men will just be thinking, “Oh, look breasts!”

One never knows where a blog will go when one starts it, I had intended to comment on various different aspects of the definition of the word observe, but have instead written the entire thing about my observations of the differences between men and women. Still I think I managed to use the word observe sufficient times for it to qualify as a blog with the title, observe!

Abrupt

I was reviewing my emails and had just deleted one I had read, when suddenly another popped up on the screen, I was somewhat taken aback by the speed of it’s arrival and even more surprised when I read the contents, to find it was today’s suggested topic, abrupt.

I remember, some many years ago watching a documentary on Sir Jackie Stewart, the three times Formula One World Champion who was offering advice as to how to drive to win a Formula One race, the gist of which was to never do anything abruptly, and to be very smooth through the corners. He went on further to suggest one should drive a racing car as if one was making love to a very beautiful woman, whereupon the film cut to an on view shot of him driving round the track.

It seemed to me there was some confusion as to his idea of nothing abrupt, smooth through the corners and the actual footage where he was wringing the living daylights out of the car, I don’t know about making love to a beautiful woman, it looked more like rape to me, but he was bloody quick, hence the three World Championships.

Now I’m short of time today so I’m going to end this blog fairly quickly and I apologise if you think this is a little abrupt.

Sleeve

The first thing I thought of with today’s word choice, sleeve, was the difference between the modern version of sleeve and the older version which I tend to think of.

I suspect the youth of today would immediately think, when asked to describe a sleeve would be an entire armful of tattoos, which I believe is now commonly referred to as a sleeve.

Whereas someone slightly older might think of a part of a shirt, the sleeve, which one might use to cover an entire armful of tattoos, should one be just about to meet one’s future mother in law.

In the dim and distant past where it was the custom for an officer to have his regimental crest tattooed on his forearm, or for sailors to have a tattoo of an anchor to signify he had crossed the Atlantic, I am led to believe both the British Army and Navy have reviewed their policy on tattoos as they are hard pushed to find young people who are not smothered in tattoos.

The current position seems to be if they can have a passport photo without tattoos showing on their face and have none on their hands they can pass muster, although I can see both sides of the argument for and against.

On the positive side perhaps one should not be too concerned as to how many tattoos a soldier has on his body as long as he has the ability to fight like a man possessed killing everything in his wake. However on the negative side, one doesn’t want Her Majesty the Queen when reviewing the troops to be met with soldiers with “cut here” tattoos on their necks as it seems a little lacking in taste.

Also it seems to be a bit of a red rag to a bull, should any of the troops with similar tattoos be captured by the Taliban, or some other lunatic group, who need little encouragement to behead people even without instructions tattooed on their necks.

Elaborate

When I die I don’t want an enormous elaborate funeral for I am a man of humble tastes, I shall be more than happy with a modest funeral cortege of one hearse and perhaps half a dozen other cars, all Bentley’s of course following and perhaps a few hundred weeping admirers at the graveside, a truly modest affair, I think you’ll agree.

As for my mausoleum, I rather had in mind something of the size of a Maharajas palace with a large dome with gold leaf Bentley wings proudly displayed on top and the interior something subtle like a bejewelled tarts boudoir, for as in life modesty in all things.

Perhaps all this is a tad over the top and I should be considering a slightly more modest affair, although I draw the line at a cardboard coffin, I would aspire to chipboard at the very least, but I’m not too fussy about the quality of the handles.

I’m led to believe that should you elect for a cremation all the handles and paraphernalia are removed before they light the blue touch paper, which rather suggests that funeral directors must use the same handles over and over again, all very ecologically sound, although perhaps you should only be charged for rental of the handles rather than purchase.

I have no wish to elaborate any further on the subject of funerals, as I have to admit I really don’t want an elaborate funeral as I consider it an enormous waste of money, I will be more than happy with a hearse for me, my wife can drive one of my Bentley’s behind, a cheap coffin to burn and later scatter the ashes at Goodwood Motor Racing Circuit, or the back garden if they can’t get permission for Goodwood.

Today has been quite busy, having written my other blog, edited one of my children’s stories, sorted illustrations for another book, assisted our gardener to do an impersonation of a slug, made a small garden feature and planted some flowers, got my hair cut, received and sent emails and a few other sundry things.

Life can be quite elaborate and time consuming but if you tell anyone you’re retired, they always ask, “well, what do you do all day, don’t you get bored!”

Vague

Having looked up the definition of today’s word and having very little time available today I thought I could cheat and use something I wrote previously which was going to become a children’s story but which was never expanded upon.

The reason it was never used being, I was a little vague as to where I had stored the item, this in the days before computers when I typed everything on a typewriter and saved it in a drawer, for the younger people who may read this, the previous statement is not a joke, a filing cabinet was a luxury.

I may one day get back to this story, but in the meantime, I give you the short version.

TOM’S DAD.

Tom’s dad was always scruffy, he used to like classic cars that kept breaking down, which meant whenever he came to pick up Tom from school, he was never on time and always covered in grease.

It is sad to report that almost everything Tom’s dad attempted would go wrong, like the time he tried to paint the house and the paint pot fell on his head, or when he ran over the cat when mowing the lawn, leaving the cat with a stripe up his back for weeks afterwards.

He tried to mend the roof once and fell off the ladder, luckily he landed in the compost heap, which broke his fall, although he did smell very peculiar for some considerable time afterwards.

When he came to the school sports day it had to be his shorts that fell down, tripping him up, just as he was leading the fathers race, Tom had begun to despair of his father ever winning anything.

His dads next idea was to chop down the old dead tree at the bottom of the garden, even though all the family begged him not to, but Toms dad was not the sort to be put off so easily, even if it was going to end in disaster.

So next morning dressed in protective clothing, he set about the tree whilst everyone stood back as the chainsaw he was using ran amok.

You couldn’t see for sawdust in the air, but eventually when the chainsaw stopped, Tom’s dad could just be seen in the middle of the debris, amazingly though, the tree trunk had been transformed into a sculpture that was a beauty to behold.

The next week in the paper was a picture of Tom’s dad proudly standing next to his creation and from then on, he did many more and became very famous.

Tom was very proud of his dad.

Authentic

As a collector of classic cars there is nothing better than having one that is genuinely authentic, my oldest at the moment is a 1947 Bentley Mk VI which still has it’s original seats which have the most wonderful patina of age, slightly creased, slightly faded and a little worn, but so would you be if someone had sat on you since 1947.

There are plenty of modern copies of all sorts of things, but I wouldn’t give you tuppence for a modern copy compared to the old original, for the modern version lacks character which the older version has in spades.

My old car still has it’s original valve radio, which takes some time to warm up and will only receive Her Majesty’s, BBC Radio Four, but you can’t beat it for being authentic.

There are many things in life where it is much better to have the authentic item, money being one of them, for even a wheel barrow full of fakes is still worthless, although sometimes fakes can become worth considerable amounts of money.

Tom Keating the prolific British art faker who was said to have faked over 2000 paintings was only discovered when auctioneers noticed there were thirteen Samuel Palmer watercolour paintings for sale, all of them depicting the same theme, the village of Shoreham in Kent.

He escaped jail through ill health but later recovered and continued to paint and ironically his paintings became highly sought after as everybody wanted to own an authentic painting by the famous forger Tom Keating.

That’s the great thing about real life, the best and most authentic stories are often so good, you couldn’t make them up.