The Diary of a Country Bumpkin

Typical

Because I’m what might be called a bit of a motor car enthusiast I very rarely use buses, but none the less, I am aware of a little trick they used to do in the old days when they used to have a driver and conductor on board. If one had a bit of a lazy bones conductor he would encourage the driver to put a spurt on and try to catch the bus in front, the reason being, he would arrive at the bus stop fairly soon after the bus in front, thereby not leaving enough time for a queue to develop at the bus stop.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that the conductor in the bus behind was therefore spending his entire day sitting on his bus doing nothing as there were no customers on board requiring tickets. This was a ploy sometimes used by more than one following crew which gave rise to the expression, “Gawd blimey, that’s bloody typical, you wait around all day for a bus and then three come along all together.”

There are many occasions when the expression, “that’s bloody typical,” can come into play, for example when one has rushed from one’s home to go to the office, remembering one’s briefcase and bowler but inadvertently leaving one’s brolly in the umbrella stand at home. One’s forgetfulness is realised upon nearing the underground station when attempting to raise one’s umbrella to gesture a cheery “what ho,” to a fellow traveller. Too late to return to the house to retrieve the brolly, one just has to continue to the city improperly dressed, of course it’s typical that when emerging from the depths of the underground one should then be met with a deluge of rain sufficient to float the Titanic.

Whilst on the subject of the Titanic, how many of the passengers must have uttered the phrase, “that’s typical, all these miles of sea to choose from and we pick the only bit with a stonking great iceberg in it.” Rather more typical for the morals of the day was the conduct of most of the males on board who refused to enter the lifeboats, encouraging the women and children to leave the sinking vessel first.

Perhaps unsurprisingly a large number of those left on board headed straight to the bar, although in rather untypical fashion the band gathered by the grand staircase and played together, the last piece they allegedly played was the hymn, “Nearer my God to thee.”

Touching as this may be, I think it fair to say it is not the typical actions of a group of musicians who are generally not slow at coming forward when there is alcohol available. How many of you, when watching a West End musical may have experienced the sensation that the songs are being played a tad quicker than you remembered, this phenomenon is typically occasioned by the requirement to satiate the bands desire for alcohol and the need to get to the pub over the road before the rush.

I have to admit, much as I think “Nearer my God to thee,” is a beautiful tune, were I in similar circumstances, I would plump for my last moments to be spent in the bar and I think it safe to say that those who know me would say, “that’s typical of you!”

Restart

What would you do if you could restart your life from the beginning, I always used to say I wouldn’t change anything and in many ways that’s still true, however it would be interesting to surmise what may have happened if some things had been changed.

I have always wondered what it might have been like had I been tall and good looking and whenever I think along these lines I can see there is always more than one side to every argument. For example being tall and good looking when you’re young is useful I’m sure and find me a man who would not appreciate the attention generated from whatever sex he may wish to attract.

However none of us can have a picture of Dorian Grey in our attic to stave off the rigours of time and eventually our good looks would fade, so being good looking may have it’s down side, whereas one can maintain average looks virtually until death.

I wouldn’t mind if I had been a tad taller, for the taller of our species can command attention merely by their presence in a room, you may have noticed when there is a group of people gathered together it is often assumed that the tallest is the one in charge.

Yet again being tall has it’s pros and cons, for being tall and being seen is not always an advantage, say for example on a battlefield casually having a cigarette in the trench. Whilst being tall helps when ordering a battalion of men into battle, in the situation with the cigarette could well end up with the top of your head being blown off by a sniper.

I’ve never had too much trouble getting the attention of others and I imagine other shorter fellows may be the same, I’m guessing most people were listening when Adolf Hitler was speaking, although on the subject of restarting one’s life, would he perhaps have made a different decision when asked, “Are you sure invading Poland is a good idea?”

Perhaps my next thought on restarting things will apply more to the older reader, who when faced with a piece of modern computer equipment that refuses to work, no matter how loud you shout at it. There is never a human being that you might phone to ask, “how do I restart this thing, please?” The modern way is to review the frequently asked questions, most of which never apply, when the real question being asked is, “why doesn’t this thing fix itself, if it’s that clever?”

Many hours and emails later you get the answer, “restart the computer,” which leaves you thinking, “Oh, so I turn it off and then, turn it back on and this will fix the bloody thing!” Amazingly some times this is the solution, otherwise one has to resort to the help of an expert, who will take your machine away only to reappear some days later and charge you several hundred pounds.

It’s times like this that I wish I had the ability to restart things especially computers!

Dim

Many, many years ago I used to go to school, so long ago that it was in the era when only the cleverest two percent of pupils went to university, unlike today where everyone goes.

It’s so long ago I have no idea how we were assessed but I seem to remember, certainly at the end of each term, although it may have been on a much more often basis, we were given our position in class. When receiving our results the form teacher would offer congratulations to those at the top of the class but was somewhat less congratulatory to the poor fellows unfortunate enough to find themselves at the bottom.

“You boy, are dim, yes young man, you are a dimwit, a pusillanimous, procrastinating, sybaritic, idiot,” a phrase often metered out to some poor spotty faced youth, for in my schooldays the masters didn’t pull their punches.

It’s fairly safe to say that, we as pupils also didn’t pull our punches either as boxing was a compulsory sport during my school career. This was an opportunity for the less academically minded pupils to come to the fore, although quite how two boys beating each other about the head was going to improve anyone’s mental ability, I’m not sure.

Myself I was always in the middle of the class as I was, I have to admit, a bit of a daydreamer, often paying too much attention to what was going on out of the window, although the teacher usually gained your attention with a swift blow to the head, by the judicious throwing of the board rubber. Sometimes their accuracy was uncanny and from some distance away too, usually accompanied by, “pay attention, dimwit.”

It never ceases to amaze me how much knowledge I managed to acquire during my school career, perhaps when our heads were knocked together by the teachers using the phrase, “this will help knock some sense into you,” there may have been some truth in what they said.

We had a much more structured system in my day, whereby the pupils in the local state school really were dim, whilst in my private school we were adequate, leaving the upper class to go to Eton and Harrow and a very small minority to go to Oxford and Cambridge.

There were many more manual jobs in the old days which was ideal for the less academically minded pupils who whilst excelling at sports, boxing and the like were then fully trained for a manual job. Even those who felt more at home with a life of crime were equipped with the ability to fight with opposing gang members and to flee like a gazelle when accosted by the rozzers.

Well, it’s time to finish for today as I can feel my mind getting a little dim, hopefully you will enjoy this blog and come back again for whatever is tomorrow’s word choice.

Terrible blizzard this morning in the South East, at least two inches of snow.
No breakfast this morning, Oates ran out.
We’re all going to die.
For God’s sake look after our people.

Premonition

I had a funny feeling that premonition was going to be the word for today, I must be psychic. Rather surprisingly the definition of premonition is, a feeling that something, especially something unpleasant, is going to happen, which as an optimist, I would prefer it to be something pleasant going to happen. This may explain why I seem to have so little luck with the lottery, or it could on the other hand have something to do with the enormous odds against winning.

During a visit to a fairground I had occasion to visit a fortune teller and during the course of my reading I told her a very funny joke which caused her to laugh hysterically, whereupon I slapped her about the face. “What did you do that for,” she cried, my reply was simple. “My life is fraught with ups and downs but I’ve always wanted to strike a happy medium.” I demanded my money back and left, after all, if she had been any good as a clairvoyant she would have had a premonition of what I was about to do and parried my blow.

Some people have a pessimistic outlook to life, constantly depressed as they have premonitions of doom and gloom, I on the other hand am an optimist and always look on the bright side of things if I can. Unfortunately neither the pessimist or the optimist can ever be really happy, for the pessimist expects the worst and is then depressed when it happens and the optimist always looks for the best but is constantly disappointed when things never turn out to be quite as good as expected.

There are always stories of people who have had premonitions of impending disaster and refused to board a plane or ship only to find out later that the plane crashed in a plume of flames, or the ship struck an iceberg, so perhaps there is some truth in the ability to foresee the future. Of course it could be that there are plenty of people out there who may also have had premonitions but chose to ignore them, unfortunately in the case of both of the previous scenarios they will never tell.

Well, that’s enough on premonitions for now, except perhaps should any of my readers have a feeling in their waters that they may have an inkling of an idea as to the winning lottery numbers, please don’t hesitate to leave the details in the comment box at the end. Thanking you in anticipation.

Conversant

Today’s choice of word from The Daily prompt is “conversant” which is defined as to be familiar with or knowledgeable about something, which is very useful to me as I should have no trouble with this topic as I am conversant with any number of subjects, although not necessarily the ones you may wish to know about.

I think it safe to say, my head is rammed with useless information and trivia which I can regale at the drop of a hat, most of the time. However rather like taking part in a pub quiz all of it seems to have escaped me, just at the moment when I most need it.

One’s just popped back into my head, the last words of Donald Campbell as his jet power boat Bluebird flipped and somersaulted, breaking up as it came down and hit the water as he was attempting in 1967 to break the 300 mph record on water were; “I can’t see anything, I’ve got the bows out, I’m going!” Bluebird disintegrated but his teddy bear mascot called “Mr Wopptit” floated and was retrieved but his body and the boat were not recovered until 2001.

The Titanic had two sister ships called Britannic and Olympic, the largest of which by gross tonnage was the Britannic and the two cranes in the Harland and Wolff ship yard in Belfast were called Samson and Goliath I imagine due to their enormous size, yet more of the useless facts I am conversant with.

My boast earlier of having a head full of trivia is rather failing me just at the moment as usually I can spout off nonsense sufficient to put the strongest of men to sleep and yet today I’m struggling.

Maybe not, for I have just had a flash of inspiration, either that or I’m having a stroke; it always takes six turns of the wire on a champagne bottle before the wire opens and you can open the bottle, always twisting the bottle whilst holding the cork.

You may or may not be conversant with the alleged story of how the cats eyes in the road were invented. Apparently a chap was walking home from the pub somewhat worse for drink when a cat came walking towards him in the road, it’s eyes shinning in the moon light. What a brilliant idea thought the fellow and went off to invent the cats eyes, of course had the cat been going in the other direction he would have invented the pencil sharpener.

It’s getting late in the day now and I’m having trouble dragging any more trivia from the recesses of my mind, having said that of course, the minute I press the button to publish this my mind will be flooded with rubbish on a scale resembling a tsunami, the meaning of which in Japanese is harbour wave. See, it’s started and I haven’t even pressed publish yet, just a quick one, karaoke in Japanese means empty orchestra.

That’s enough for one night, I’m off to be conversant with a few cans of lager, some awful television and finally my bed, so until next time, I wish you goodnight.

Encrusted

Where do we start with encrusted, do we take the pessimistic outlook, imagining all in life has gone wrong, a foolhardy investment has gone pear shaped, causing recourse to some fearfully expensive short term loan and the final ignominy, a dirt encrusted existence living hand to mouth on the streets in a cardboard box.

I often wonder why anybody would consider taking a short term loan, obviously they are useless at mathematics. “Oh dear my car has broken down and I need it fixed, I can’t afford to get a taxi to work until payday, I know, I’ll get one of those payday loans at 1000 or 2000 percent interest.” It seems to me, at those rates of interest the money you would spend would cover the hire of a chauffeur driven limousine until payday. Alternatively you could just borrow someone’s bicycle for a few days and buy him a couple of pints in payment.

Of course, should it all go wrong there is always the possibility that one may seek employment, any sort of employment in an effort to keep the wolf from the door and maintain a modicum of self respect and dignity. Obviously as a pessimist you would only manage to acquire the more lowly paid of work and end up as a Victorian shit shoveller, returning home in the morning from your job as a night soil man encrusted in doo-doo, a proud but rather smelly man.

Obviously, if your life has fallen apart you may seek solace in drink and the company of like minded individuals to share your woes and become inebriated to the point where the ability to walk is only just attainable. On staggering home one absentmindedly walks into the road, to be struck by a passing motor vehicle, only to wake up the next morning encrusted in plaster of paris on the many of your broken extremities.

I don’t consider myself to be a pessimist so shall now put forward a more optimistic scenario, let’s imagine for one moment you have just moved into a new house and are busying yourself digging the garden when, low and behold, what should one see but a solid gold, jewel encrusted artefact from the Roman period.

Great joy when handed in to the appropriate authorities, it seems said artefact is worth a small fortune which will be spent on exceedingly tasteful goods and services and not some tasteless diamond encrusted trainers as some with less class may do.

Courage

I don’t always start these blogs with the first thing that comes into my head but due to pressures of time, I shall be starting with, not only the first, but then the second and then the third.

There are many ways in which one can show courage but the first thing that came into my mind was a Rudyard Kipling poem which was published in 1910 which my father used to quote to me when I was a teenager in the 1960’s. The poem is written as advice from a father to his son and I always felt it was meant to inspire courage to face the world.

Ironically both the other works that came to me are by Kipling as well and both cover aspects of bravery at a time of war, so without further a do I present to you the poem “If” by Rudyard Kipling, the last line of which always reminds me of my father.

“If” by Rudyard Kipling.

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

I expect most people will be familiar with the expression “women and children first” but will have no idea where it came from, well I can enlighten you. There was a troop ship which was originally called HMS Vulcan which was later renamed HMS Birkenhead. The renaming of a ship is I believe considered unlucky by some sailors and it would seem there may be some truth in that fact as HMS Birkenhead came to a sticky end. She was a troop ship carrying both troops and civilians when she struck some rocks and started to sink.

There were insufficient lifeboats for all on the ship so the soldiers and sailors lined up on deck and the women and children were ordered to be the first to the lifeboats, the men bravely staying with the ship as she sunk.

From that day onwards the custom of women and children first was adopted, and became know as the Birkenhead Drill, later lifeboat drill.

The following is a brief excerpt from the poem about HMS Birkenhead called “Soldier an Sailor too” also by Rudyard Kipling.

“Soldier an Sailor too.” by Rudyard Kipling.

To take your chance in the thick of a rush, with firing all about,
Is nothing so bad when you’ve cover to ‘and, and leave an’ liking to shout;
But to stand and be still to the Birken’ead drill
is a damn tough bullet to chew,
An’ they done it, the Jollies Er Majesty’s Jollies-
soldier and sailor too!

Their work was done when it adn’t begun; they was younger nor me an’ you,
Their choice it was plain between drownin’ in ‘eaps
an’ bein’ mopped by the screw,
So they stood an’ was still to the Birken’ead drill,
soldier an’ sailor too!

We’re most of us liars, we’re ‘arf of us thieves,
An’ the rest are as rank as can be,
But once in a while we can finish in style
(which I ‘ope it won’t happen to me).

At the beginning of World War One Rudyard Kipling was very much in favour of the war, so much so that he pulled strings to enable his son to get into the army when his eyesight was so bad there was every reason for him not to have to go. Later his son was killed and Kipling saw that he’d made a mistake in sending his son to war and wrote the following poem as a tribute to his son Jack.

“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.

All of the poems cover aspects of courage in some shape or another, I hope you enjoyed them.

Rube

I have to admit that as an Englishman I have never heard the word rube before in my life, but apparently it is an insulting way of calling someone an idiot in American, so quite why it was chosen as today’s topic is beyond me.

I was surprised at the definition which also means, country bumpkin, especially as my blog is called “The Diary of a Country Bumpkin”, although this might also explain the lack of interest generated in the Americas for my sophisticated writing technique. I would suggest, therefore, one should never judge a book by it’s cover.

Yet again we find ourselves separated by allegedly the same language and sadly with the passing of time I am finding it ever harder to understand either written or spoken American.

Rather to my chagrin I find that rubes, as you Americans call them, are people from rural areas who are also known as hayseeds, hicks, yokels and hillbillies, whilst in England a country bumpkin has a completely different connotation, for in England one can live in the countryside and be thought of as quite sophisticated.

Vast swathes of our countryside is owned by what would be termed the landed gentry, often of royal decent and generally jolly decent fellows and I myself, when I moved to the country rather thought of myself in that vein and not perhaps the village idiot.

Whilst not owning half of Berkshire we do have a decent house with it’s plot of land and a small farm where our daughter keeps her horses, so I consider it safe to call myself a country bumpkin and not in a derogatory fashion.

Obviously in America you don’t have the advantage of royalty, to both own and farm the land like our dear Prince Charles and his Duchy of Cornwall for example, but I imagine there must be the American equivalent of wealthy sophisticated land owning classes, who might be a tad miffed to be called a rube.

It seems the American idea of a rube is more the sort of character found in the film “Deliverance” whereas our version is more the country bumpkin standing by the stream, who when asked if it is possible to drive one’s motor car through it, replies in the affirmative. The driver then proceeds and finds his car awash and the engine flooded and calls back at the bumpkin, “I thought you said this water wasn’t deep?” To which the reply came back, “Well, it only comes half way up our ducks!”

Having transposed myself from the town I am more than happily ensconced in the country and whilst here I am quite happy to be considered a country bumpkin, I do however draw the line at the use of the word rube.

Insist

Before I start today I insist in putting the link to my other blog, I shall be referring to it during the course of this article as I wish to ask a question about one of the subjects mentioned therein.

joewellsofwhomithasbeensaid.com

If you would be so kind as to peruse the third paragraph in the story about MP’s code of conduct where I was telling the tale of a fictional working class MP from a down trodden mining village who upon entering parliament, would leave a little coal dust on the furniture when sitting down, although obviously not in the presence of a lady.

Having read the paragraph to a couple of my friends I noticed there was no reaction with regard to the sitting down and the presence of a lady, which caused me to realise, just how old fashioned I am and that my joke was obviously far too subtle.

The point being, when I was educated it was virtually insisted upon that a man would always stand when a woman entered the room and I had wrongly assumed it would still be common knowledge even today.

Moving on I decided to segue to the subject of the dress code for Members of Parliament as I was fairly certain that in the old days it was virtually insisted, that the correct etiquette with regard to a dress code was for the gentlemen to have to wear a tie.

Shock, horror, what is the world coming to, on 29th June 2017 the Speaker in parliament, John Bercow, has said that he will no longer insist that gentlemen wear neckties. In the old days even the miner from the down trodden mining village, although slightly grubby with coal dust would have had the good manners to have worn a necktie.

Well there we are, that’s my blog for today which seems to have been diverted somewhat from the topic chosen but as far as I know, there is no-one out there insisting that we stick to the subject insist.