waiting for bonaparte
Posted: Friday, 09 February 2007 |
Comments
Now are you trying to tell us that you are 18, I quote "we are celebrating an 18th birthday " or is it not the Royal wee?
Tws from fireworksfactory
How about "Bonaparte's retreat" in Willie Nelson's album (the Red Headed Stranger)? It IS a very nice album, worth acquiring, for those of you who have never heard it, or who mistake Willie for Ricky ...
mjc from NM
With 3 young men heading for the city lights that doesn't leave many young men on the island either... depending on your definition of young man of course. Coll Magazine - I'd recommend asking the Oban Time's Scalpay correspondent for assistance. You could probably dedicate a double page to other islands and just copy (legally of course) the funniest news items that appear in the Oban Times and P&J. In fact, why don't you get yourself a job as the Coll correspondent?
Buzz from Glasgow
Curled up in front of a roaring radiator listening to Bonaparte's Retreat and thinking - poor NiconColl waiting and waiting and.....
Flying Cat from Phil&Aly's Bar
I gather the band have a big following in Beirut. Maybe you need an electronic population sign so that as soon as someone nips off to the Park bar, the population can instantly adjusted because let's face it no one comes back from a night in the Park bar!
Calum Pierrepoint from Lewis
The Men They Couldn't Hang. I didn't think I'd ever meet anyone who had heard of them, let alone on Coll.
Doug from Coll
Now listen Mr Pierrepoint, I know Someone who returned from a night in the Park Bar. It led to nothing worse than several rousing choruses of "Oh cruel was the snow...." with a Benbeculonian on the pavement outside a handsome Georgian terrace...
Flying Cat from House of Correction
FC find yourself a plumber, or a handsome Benbeculonian (they must be hard at work, they are all too busy to blog) because radiators don't roar, but thanks for thinking of me. Tws alas, I was 18 once but it was too embarrassing.
Nic from Fire works satisfactorily
Radiators gurgle, creek and pop, and, in the good ole days in bonnie England, often leaked. Radiator roaring: nah, I just think it was an F16 or a Tornado flying low, gone astray, looking for some help from Tower in Stornoway (but they were having tea, or even chocolate cake, as per regulations)
mjc from NM,USA
A cat sometimes has to use its imagination to achieve that purrfect state of chakra balance. I've never seen a radiator up a creek...
Flying Cat from Chateau Sanslum
Is Buzz still down in London? Have the Pearly King and Queen taken a liking to Buzz ? Why am I askimg these questions ? Do I care ? Well I am a caring, sharing kind of guy !!!!
Tws from The Outer Reaches of the Galaxy
FC: Yes, I noticed it too, after the fact. A typo, I would hope. Thank heavens, radiators don't google, creek and poop. Serial typos, like serial murders, can happen (not to me, please, or at least not just yet!). I don't believe in Freudian sleep, do you? # NIC: you still have not explained why you refuse to look at seed catalogs before spring. Do you keep your cold frames/tunnels warm by sticking some dung in there, or is this not necessary/much help? Do you have them for starting plants or for salads (goes with haggis, let not the carnivorous barbarians tell you otherwise), etc.
mjc from NM,USA
London's lightyears from here....when will mpu return? I'm so-o-o tired.....
Flying Cat from Major Tom's tincan
my man sez the bar on colls full a wimmin. all the time he worked on coll one in partcular ne'er left him alone!! she tried to nick him from under my nose, poor desperate lassie - try "pullin" someone else's man
Airport workers wife from Oban
Hope mpu has a good trip and won't be gone for much longer.
mjc from NM,USA
All's fair in lust and war!
Flying Cat from Cheshire Grin
Right Niconcoll, please do check out Island Threads blog re Weather, and you will find that FC and mjc are commenting on your sexuality ( not whether your gay, straight or otherwise, but whether you are male or female ) and quite openly I think you will find. I'm not playing mind games, just watching the detectives !!
Tws from Inquisition lane
my man's not into flirty barmaids, flyin cat, and yer know that old sayin bout dart boards. apparently the one in colls well used.
airport workers wife from Oban
Do you have chickens NiconColl? Just got the latest catalog from McMurray (also on line): amazing the variety of chicks you can get for a very decent price, delivered by the post office within two days. Mix and match. Would you have to pay extra for shipping because you live in Coll?
mjc from NM,USA
Hold on TWS, I NEVER made a comment on what gender/sex (some sociologists insist on making a difference between the two terms) Nic is. I think FC, whom I expect has reason to think so, mentioned that Nic was a she, and I probably acknowledged FC's superior knowledge (don't get uppity, now FC). As for me, I dunno and it makes no difference. Some blogs may have purple prose, and other blogs get people to see red, while some claim to be blue, but my motto is: laugh, learn, banter and skewer democratically. And I am piling up some wood for your auto da fe already, bud.
mjc from NM,USA
Tws, you definitely need to get out more, still checking comments on month-old blogs is much too sad.
Nic from Coll
I'd like to know how to banter and skewer democratically when it comes to hell-hath-no-fury-like........but don't think it's worth the bother really..
Flying Cat from better fish to fry
Mjc I think EU rules don't allow the posting of live birds from the US of A. Although dead ones from Hungary are obviously OK. I had some nice mixed ones once, but then they cross bred, and although they are still nice and mixed they don't have fancy names anymore. And I don't look at seed catalogues because I always buy more than I can grow, and until I get the cover on the polytunnel I can't grow anything.
Nic from Coll
You are correct Nic. Mine was poor phrasing. I meant: if you were to order birds from a UK mainland hatchery, would they charge more to deliver promptly in Coll than on the mainland. Does Royal Mail (is it still so called?) deliver, one and same price for any address in the UK? In the US, you would get your two day delivery of minimum 25 chicks (sexed, or straight run) via US Postal Service for the same price anywhere in the 48 States.
mjc from NM,USA
FC: no fury like ... a cat scorned? # I can't believe the number of cats Moo has. Hope they have all been fixed. I thought Carol was going over the top with five cats, but I presume (e.g. re: the blog from Hyper B on Hoy, I think) that some folks have as many dogs ... I have three dogs, and that's one too many, but I may change my mind if I were to move on a place with lots of land and no covenant.
mjc from NM
This sounds like a chicken and egg situation...
Flying Cat from chicken shack
Being unable to sleep and up by 4 am most mornings Nic. I need to do something, going out is not one of the things I need/can do more!!!
Tws from It's four in the morning
I guess the Park Bar will have more clientelle with your handsome lot coming down. Some good music they've got on the go.
Caraid from Glasgow
...and daylight is dorning......
Flying Cat from ancient music compendium
... while I'm ... sitting at the dock of the bay, watching the ships, going away ...
mjc from NM,USA
to mjc:carol is maybe going to go way over the top--a friends cat has just had kittens and there is a lovely ginger and white one just waiting to see my lot!!! i'm giving it serious thought
carol from france
I still like the roaring radiator ! Beats hauling ashes from the fireplace.
Dennis from Michigan, USA
......sitting on the dock of the bay....wasting ti-i-i-ime. Tws did you notice The Hermit on Sanday is also an insomniac? Wouldn't it be great if this was real-time blogging and not surreal-time.......
Flying Cat from The Pierheid
Yes, I like good old fashioned water radiators. For some reason they are not in favor in the States. The latest luxury at least in NM is floor heating (which the Icelanders have had forever, but then they are blessed with thermal energy). I like to feel the warmth emanating from water radiators. Reassuring. Like a hot water bottle in a way ...
mjc from NM,USA
I can't get used to losing you no matter what I try to do, gonna spend my whole life....
Tws from Anoldiebutagoodie
From a feline purrspective underfloor heating is the cat's whiskers: Anorak Towers once had the electric variety throughout, but sadly, it conked out room by room and m'Marmalade chum et moi have to make do with roaring storage heaters and thick underlay.......On the road to Underlay, where the flying fishes play....
Flying Cat from a gurgling shagpile
... in Folsom Prison (kidding, TWS).
mjc from NM,USA
Hypocausts!!!
Hyper-Borean from Terra cognita
Check Lerwick Trevor re: lyrics. I don't want to insert myself there, as fisticuffs are in the air. But what about: "I never promised you rose gardens" .... and "it ain't me babe" or "I'm watching the bubbles in my beer " (Willie Nelson).
mjc from NM,USA
A comment replying to you Hyper-B. was pulled by IBHQ because of the inclusion of the name (used generically) of a famous character in literature who dealt with forty thieves and happens not to be caucasian. I think IBHQ is being oversensitive and made my feelings known, but, eh, I am not guarding this website, and I'll just go with the flow.
mjc from NM,USA
I do feel that I have to explain things here. As I wrote to mjc, I've no objection at all to the term Ali Baba in the context of literature. However, I - and a senior colleague - felt the phrasing which mjc used could be construed as being a racial slur. I do accept that mjc did not mean for it to be read in this way. As ever, if anyone would like to discuss things with me, my inbox is always open! Just email islandblogging@bbc.co.uk and I鈥檒l be happy to chat.
Anne from IBHQ
Nic - waiting for bonaparte and the men - we had it all the time. Just couldn't think of the mime!
2001............... a space oddity from The Aftermath of the Park Bar
Many years ago I went on a minibus and camping trip to Morocco. I was then, as I am now, bearded. Almost without excepttion the street kids called me Ali Baba, I think the Baba bit actually means beard. Plainly they were well acquainted with the story and I was charmed to be associated with it particularly in such, to me, exotic surroundings as the Djmaa el Fnaa. I suppose in the current climate one has to be a little more aware of the potential for misinterpretation, I recently carried some cosmetic items in my airline luggage which revel in the name bath bombs. I did wonder what I would say if my bag had been selected for scrutiny.
Hyper-Borean from Behind Sesame
They would have asked you if you wanted your VAT refunded. Not that I have ever had VAT refunds, though I dutifully (eh?) filled out the forms and got all the proper stamps. VAT refunds are a mythical haggis dangled in front of gullible Americans to get them to spend their devalued dollars. Fellow citizens who read this: be forewarned.
mjc from NM,USA
It's Odyssey, not Oddity. And it's no easier to mime than 'the fat slags'.
Nic from Coll
mjc, the only VAT you should be concerned with is VAT69 a fine example of the stillman's art; which, in the days when telephone dials had letters as well as numbers, was irreverently referred to as ,"The Pope's phone."
Hyper-Borean from The gauger's
The idea of the Pope, any Pope, drinking blended whisky is a canard propagated by Enemies (capital E, of course!). Single malt is the only way to go, and I suspect the Vatican knows it. How you would help propagate such slurs (and how IBHQ would allow it!?!) Hyper-B. is beyond comprehension!!!
mjc from NM,USA
A lot of things are beyond the comprehension of mjc from NM, USA, or so I've heard from a Northern cat, that can fly?
Dodgy Dave from Grouse Shuting
It's an Ardbeg, nothing but an Ardbeg.....Listen DD, I don't like the way Tws hides under your coat tails when he isn't brave enough to spout his own calumnies....come on out and be a man, Tws!!! *grrr*
Flying Cat from ancient music compendium
Careful mjc we are straying towards sectarianism, seriously frowned upon by the SFA and no doubt the beeb. The disciples of Edmund Rice have you well briefed to defend the heirarchy. They obviously didn't beat me long enough or hard enough.
Hyper-Borean from Ecumenisia
Judging by an offering embargoed by IBHQ, Anne thinks I am straying not so much towards religious sectarianism but towards crass mercantilism, capitalism, US imperialism, or whatever, verboten apparently by the Blogging guidelines, all simply (I presume) because i wrote down the website of a US hatchery in Iowa(whose interesting catalog I happen to have acquired) which I thought Hermit might have fun looking at on line. I don't think McMurray hatchery is looking for business (forbidden by EU regulations and rendered moot by practical considerations anyway) in the northern or western islands, and certainly I am not touting for them.
mjc from NM,USA
You just have to employ a bit of low cunning mjc. Tell us to google McMurray Hatchery and leave the rest to the search engine....then it's not strictly speaking advertising because you didn't supply full info. Well that's what I think....
Flying Cat from bowling a google
So mjc, it's Mc Murray on google then. Beats sardines on toast anyway.
Hyper-Borean from Decrypt. dept.
Sardines on toast are not that bad, if you add a little bit of cilantro and chopped up jalapenos. I like my sardines with olive oil (forget the new age sardines in reduced teriyaki sauce).
mjc from NM,USA
I agree sardines in olive oil, the only better way is to get 'em fresh. Not an option in these northern climes, sadly
Hyper-Borean from Cannery Row
Wow! 54 comments! Am I flattered? (yes) And Ardbeg as well. Almost the best thing to come out of Islay. Second only to Lance's crew.
Nic from Coll
It's not over until the Soaplady sings.....at least, I think that's how it goes.... I love a laddie, a bonnie Bruichladdich...
Flying Cat from ancient music compendium
... he lives down the glen, bonnie Glenfiddich! (a real stretch this is. Where are you Seamus Heaney, now that we need you?! Forget Larkin!).
mjc from NM,USA
MockGonnigall would be better. We don't need these furrin dead poets here, mjc, we've got oor ain folk...and I'm more than happy to forget Larkin! And Betjeman...and bloody Wordsworth...and Hughes and Plath. Can't Cope without Wendy though.
Flying Cat from Dead Poets Society
Question. "Do you like Kipling?" Answer, "I don't know. I've never kippled." Boom boom!
Hyper-Borean from Poesy plot