Pedro

Still attired as before - Divided to the ‘n’th degree, Be it religious, ethnic, socio-economic or any other ways and combinations you can think of. A set of tribes occupying the same physical territory but having little in the way of positive relations with each other. Where ‘n’ is likely to be significant in comparison to the total population. Stand it may, but at what cost in blood and treasure that leaves festering sores. Think 1861-5 or this side of the pond: 1690 Battle of the Boyne Before anyone else says it - I know I should ‘first cast the beam out of mine own eye ‘.

Putting on my cynics cap and gown - I sometime wonder, viewed from here across the pond, if you qualify as a society at all.

At the risk of turning this thread into a writers mutual backslap fest, I too enjoyed them all. All different and some unexpected approaches to the subject. Perhaps some readers would like to join in with their comments?

Try ‘Dinner for One’ by Cole Parker here on this site. http://awesomedude.com/cole-parker/dinner-for-one/dinner-for-one.htm

I was culling the contents of my attic and came across a little book first printed in 1991.’Bluff Your Way in Whisky’ ISBN 18543648. I thought the first paragraph of the introduction worth sharing:- “The wonderful thing about whisky - apart from drinking it - is that it contains more bluffing elements than almost any other subject: far more than supply-side economics, more even than wine. Wine can breed envy, discord and snobbery. Supply-side economics produced Donald Trump.” Bluffer’s Guides are/were a series of little books containing facts, jargon and all you need to know for instant expertise. They were usually written by people who were professionals in the subject.

Oops posted twice by mistake.

Thank you Camy and Bi-janus for joining in. Great pieces both but, Camy, I have to ask - just what colour handkerchiefs did you get from that aunt? Perhaps I give to much away by asking that question. Bi-janus I like and agree with your main thrust, but I have the suspicion there are some references I have not picked up on. I shall have to study it some more. Chris R : you credit me with unwarranted erudition. I blame Parker Owens series on Gay Authors for introducing me to the form. See https://www.gayauthors.org/story/parker-owens/cider-press/ . I believe the term used for the linked form he and I have used is ‘Interlocked’. The interlocking appeals to my mathematical side. I think it makes the poem feel more complete especially with the B rhyme of the last verse linking back to the A of the first. (Not sure ‘complete’ quite the word I am looking for! Fulfilled perhaps?)

Good one Cole. Thanks for joining the party. Anyone else? James? James? Bijanus-Bijanus? Maybe even all three?

A Yuletide Rubaiyat By Pedro ‘’Tis the season to be jolly Disapproval would be folly’ (to quote Tom Lehrer’s yuletide song) And so, needs must, I kiss Aunt Dolly. I know it is unkind and wrong As I against her old maid’s pong Do pucker up and hold my nose And for another’s kiss do long. Not Susie’s, Janet’s, Jill’s or Mo’s Or daughters of those my mother knows, Nor Cousin Freda, whom we call Fred, Although with girlish charm she glows. Their kiss leads not to marriage bed, Though mother wants to have me wed, They are not where my passions flow Or where my secret thoughts have led. Fear not, my love, for you must know Their kisses ’neath the mistletoe All compare as prick of holly To yours, my dearest, sweet lip’d Joe. © Copyright Pedro December 2017

I used to get given bread and butter pudding at school and thought it horrible. Now I see why. Made with ordinary sliced bread, it had no sauce and none of the interesting ingredients on James list - those measured in spoons - and certainly no booze. (1 tablesoon -that seems like a lot of vanilla? ). The top was passable if it had got crunchy in the oven, the rest was just a slobby mess, probably partly due to not enough eggs. The Spanish have a version that is basically creme caramel reinforced with bread. Served cold. Delicious, definitely not bread pudding as I knew it.

Or are dug up by the authorities and reinterpreted to suppress something they don't like.

When I was at school it was standard practice for pupils to be addressed by their family name, with qualifiers as necessary to avoid confusion. To a large extent that applied to pupil-pupil interaction as well. The main exception would be your own peer group who might use nicknames. First names, if used at all, would only be with close friends (if you had any!) or members of staff on rare, usually informal, occasions. It was a single sex school. Maybe there was something to be said for it. It certainly avoided all kinds of pitfalls and pratfalls. I remember being upset when another boy's father was trying to teach me to swim. Hoping to make me feel more comfortable he used my father''s nickname for me, which I hated. I suppose it was better than my nickname at school which was very uncomplimentary. Fortunately, I managed to make sure that did not follow me when I changed schools. These days, my new nickname there would have attracted the attention of the PC Thought Police. I just saw the joke. Yew Trees? Longbows? Perhaps the Second Amendment should be restricted to longbows. Crafted from yew by the bearer's own hand.

Aaah. (Sighs) There is other work by the Ringling students available on vimeo, which can be accessed via the College site" https://www.ringling.edu/Computer-Animation scroll down to student work. Some of them had me chuckling away.

I saw the fun in your enuff, complaint would read in-ough! I struggle with the pronunciation and I wrote it! Perhaps I ought to swap the second verse around so the rhyming scheme in each verse would be ABAB where A=B in the first and the last is ABCABC. I thought I would be stuck with 'through' then remembered I had read that slough (usually said - 'sluff' for a snakeskin) can sometimes be pronounced 'slew'. Slough, the place about 25 miles west of London, was made famous by the poet John Betjeman in a wartime poem with the lines: "Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough It isn't fit for humans now." 'Lough' is a bit of a cheat as it is the Irish spelling of the Scots 'loch', and Loughborough (luffbruh) is another town about 120 miles NNE of London. A chough (chuff) is a bird of the crow family. I wont mention surnames except one I didn't use : Ough - apparently pronounced 'Oh!'

Thanks guys. A bit more specially for Cole ? Cole, Methought You were a versifying sort, Enjoying fun of rhyming sport And puns and scansion taut. But ‘enuff’ you do retort As I with O.U.G.H.did cavort Then maybe you were caught By the diction fraught Or were you just distraught As no word I found or bought That could be carefully wrought To match with ‘hiccough','Loughborough' or 'Lough'. Now where are my eardefenders to muffle those groans?

Jason, I feel your pain! We ran a pub for ten years and served food. Kids were sometimes allowed in pubs that did food. Soon learnt that some people shouldn't be allowed to be parents. ... Man comes in pub at lunch time. "Are you doing food, landlord?" Barman: "Yes Sir." "Do you serve children?" "Yes, How would you like them? Boiled or fried?" ... With the groans ringing in my ears, I will go back behind my sofa.

Funny how you can have several unconnected conversations and similar themes will be raised by the other parties. One such recent topic has been about English spelling and pronunciation. So I hope this might amuse: By T By The Lough By Pedro Escaped at last from Yorkshire's Brough On the shore sat Jimmy Clough Near outfall from the mining sough And thought on how his life were tough. Da had caught him and Davy Bough Drinking from that other trough And smacked him right hard and thorough And dumped him, skint, in next borough. So Jimmy had to earn some dough And let that smarmy git from Slough, (Here on two weeks furlough,) Hard and fast his arse to plough. Stirred from pleasant dreams of Bough By the raucous cry of chough Waked with tears, a sob, a cough, And ache of last night’s tumble rough. A drink to think and stop his hiccough. “With all this I've had enough, I'm done, I'm through. Like the snake skin on yon bough My old life I will slough (Though some say slough) And move elsewhere but not to Slough!” And so he ups and goes .. to Loughborough.

But a cheque is a draft.

Good to see this as a 'Pick from the Past'. Mihangel's stories are always a good read whether it be first time round or second or third or...or..

I thought every day was (Inter)National Masturbation Day for the politicos and other w*nkers who think they, and only they, know best how our lives should be run. But perhaps that is the problem: they are not taking themselves in hand and spend their time screwing us up instead.

I'm afraid there is a fallacy in your logic, Cole. That the only alternative is Bud Light would, of itself, be sufficient condition for drinking Real Ale/Craft Beer.

Relatively inexperienced where relationships were concerned, at age thirty I drifted into a relationship with someone twenty years older. It lasted until his death thirty years later. Of course there were times along the way when I wondered why I got stuck with an old git instead of the boy of my dreams. I dare say my partner also had his doubts from time to time. You might expect that I would have found things difficult as his health started to fail and to an extent that was true, but in some ways it was harder for him. Towards the end he was stuck at home all day suffering from cabin fever (especially after he decided he was no longer safe driving) while I was out at work for 13+ hours a day. My concern is that one lives in the butterfly world of the film industry and the other in the ephemeral world of sports celebrity. If they are temperamentally suited for their relationship to survive the associated pressures, all good wishes to them.

As Paul said I have the benefit of having read the full story. I dont think I am giving too much away if say that we can deduce from the narrative being in the past tense that our Leo survives to the end, but not necessarily unscathed. Also, as we might expect from Nigel, it doesn't quite go where we might think it is heading. Interestingly, and presumably by coincidence, Mike has chosen Nigel's "Miss Jenkin's Work" as one of his picks from the past this month. Family Jenkins make an off stage appearance in the later chapters of this new story. I am not privy to the reasons as to why the story has not been posted here. I did ask Nigel why he had posted "Words Unsaid" at IOMFATS and I understood that he was hoping to reach and get feedback from another audience. I know authors occasionally leave this site by mutual agreement or disagreement but I don't think that is the case here. After all Nigel's stories are still here and if authors go their stories would normally go too!

I think the consensus here is that the narrator should be consistent. One or the other, not mixed. As for which, does the plot give you any steer on this? For example: if your US character is a Basketball player who for some reason moves to Australia and joins your Leopards to play Aussie Rules, then the story would 'feel' right narrated in Australian English. That the early chapter(s) that take place in the US would be narrated in Aus should hint to the reader that all is not as it seems at first glance. Alternatively if the US character is a Serviceman seconded to a US facility in Australia, meets the locals, retreating to the base from time to time to reflect on his situation, possibly or at least expecting to return to the US at the end of his tour, then there is a case for the narration being in US English. In other words the narration is substantially from his POV/side of the argument. If you decide to use Australian but are still truly worried about the sensitivities of US readers, some of whom can be a bit parochial at times, you could possibly drop an early throwaway reference to Australia in the first chapter as a further hint that the story might be going elsewhere, as long as that doesn't upset things if you are trying to build tension around the actual move. . . . Now if your story is a comedy then Chris James suggestion might work although Chinese would be a bit extreme. How about a Pommie narrator whinging about the colonials use of the language......(Pedro gets tin hat out of cupboard and goes back in his bunker).

Superb, James. It should be required reading in the halls of the Medical Colleges. I particularly like "I don't really know if its over. It might still be going on. What saves us now is our population density is so low that humanity can no longer sustain a pandemic." Spot on comment too, Chris. Excessive cleanliness is something which is implicated in the rise of autoimmune diseases.