Personal Blogs

A proverb is a wise saying passed down by oral tradition. I was forced to learn scores of them in my earliest schooldays. Some examples

Too many cooks spoil the broth

A stitch in time saves nine

Many hands make light work 

Least said soonest mended

I feel that now I need to push back. Here is my first antiverb, which I hope offers no advice but makes up for that in interest.

Uncle Jake was a rat-arsed pirate at the beginning of the universe.

Stupidity departed for a while,

But then it came back with a smile.

Attributed to Alexader Pope (1688 – 1744)

When I walked down the garden path

I did not want for any

But on the ground before the garth

I found a silver penny.

And when I came back up the lane

I found that penny gone again.

I went to the doctor, I said “I keeping thinking I’m Waterloo Station.”

She said, “There's not a lot I can do. I'm afraid it's a terminal condition.”

Full steam or what?

When we hit the rocks

We realise we didn’t know

Where we're going

Or even where we're coming from.

Q. What expression, meaning staying in luxury tented accommodation, can also be applied to Miss Piggy from the Muppets?

A. Glam pig.

Here it is, here's the smeuse. The word seems to be connected with smoke; as something hiding, or hidden from, view.

I’ve got a smeuse in my front hedge. I’ve been aware of it for years, I just didn’t know there was a special name. But a letter in The Times ('The hole truth', Brian Simmons, 11 May 2019) has extended my vocabulary.

A smeuse is a hole at the bottom of a hedge through which small animals squeeze. The smeuse in my hedge has been in the same place for years. It's a bit more than a foot high and about nine inches wide, and the undergrowth is worn down from feet pushing through. I guess all kinds might have used it over time; hedgehogs, foxes, perhaps badgers; but my guess is that most travellers are the little Muntjak deer, plus the occasional cat.

I was thinking a couple of days ago that I might get one of these automatic night cameras that can get shots of nocturnal animals passing by, to investigate the smeuse users. If I find anything interesting I’ll post it on this blog.

In Heptagonia

We don't much like Octagons.

Finding them odd sided.

Executioners. Don't they just kill ya?