Older blog entries for marnanel (starting at number 947)

Humpty Dumpty

Syndicated 2012-08-16 22:15:30 from Monument

If I could talk to buses

If I could talk to buses,
What a tale this bus could tell!
Where did it get that stain from?
What's the source of the vomit smell?
When you reach your stop in the pouring rain
With drunks upon your seats,
You know that bus is me.
And you won't ride that bus again
Because your oyster's down to 50p.

Syndicated 2012-08-16 21:44:29 from Monument

Magical Mister MacFisheries

Today, while waiting for something, I was browsing around a petshop when I met the gentleman pictured above. He's at least two feet long. I asked the assistant about him and was told that he was a five-year-old arowana, and "a bit of a character". I determined then that: a) I would get a huge tank and have an arowana of my own one day, not that I have any room for one right now, and b) that this fish's name is Magical Mister MacFisheries. I may name my own arowana, when I find one, in his honour.

Syndicated 2012-08-16 19:24:20 from Monument

A cautionary story

When digging a reservoir, first
ensure that the bugger won't burst.
I sat through a lecture
on Rylands v Fletcher.
I hope that I've saved you the worst.

Syndicated 2012-08-15 12:46:46 from Monument

Dragons

Syndicated 2012-08-04 16:37:06 from Monument

"Believe"

During a conversation with a friend this evening, I discovered we were using the word "believe" at cross-purposes. When I said "believe", I meant having any internal perception of an external fact, whether or not accurate (e.g. I believe that my desk is in my room since I can currently see it). But she meant having a hypothesis about something which has not yet adequately been confirmed (e.g. I see the desk and now I know it's there, I no longer believe it's there). I wonder how common this difference is, and how much disagreement it causes.

Syndicated 2012-08-03 21:05:56 from Monument

Seven Standing Stones

I've been looking through old school exercise books. This is from June 1986; I was eleven.

Seven standing stones are under the sky,
seven standing stones shall never, ever die.
Clouds blow, grey, white, or black,
and the wind shall blow, blow through the stones,
and memories shall fade and die,
and nobody shall know, know the reason why
seven standing stones are under the sky.
Seven standing stones--
years shall pass, and grass will grow,
around the stones, and groans of lonely stones
who know why--
they know why who toiled to erect them under the sky,
and the wind shall whistle through the trees,
and the wind shall whistle through the trees.

Syndicated 2012-07-21 12:00:11 (Updated 2012-07-21 12:00:38) from Monument

Leda and the swan

The only excuse I can give you for the following is that I dreamed it last night. It's a filk of the signature tune of the Disney film "Beauty and the Beast".

Tale as old as time
Walking through the heath
Thought she saw a goose
Doesn't know it's Zeus
Leda's underneath
Wings around her heart
Then the bird is gone
Feel a little joy
Start a war in Troy
Leda and the swan.

Syndicated 2012-07-17 08:46:21 from Monument

Hans von Pillow

Today we remember Hans von Pillow (1784-1860) who was the first to say "Mein Gott! People are lying on their beds without anything to rest their heads on. Let me invent a bag filled with duck feathers. Jawohl!" (None of this is actually true.)

Syndicated 2012-06-29 08:53:34 from Monument

Double-dactyl: Godfey of Boullion

Gallantry, gallantry,
Godfrey of Bouillon
Founded a kingdom, which
gave him a shock:
Being a king would seem
overly-arrogant.
Thus you may see that he
came of good stock.

Syndicated 2012-06-22 10:20:18 from Monument