i am too weak-willed to resist the temptation of offering you this gratuitous juxtaposition

... having just collected the book from battersea library and chuckled more than once on the journey home

drafting my own obituary ... "among the poet's earliest influences ... hearing these verses created a life-long allergy to work, even though he was only eight years old at the time"

Take out the papers and the trash
Or you don't get no spendin' cash
If you don't scrub that kitchen floor
You ain't gonna rock and roll no more
Yakety yak (don't talk back)

Just finish cleanin' up your room
Let's see that dust fly with that broom
Get all that garbage out of sight
Or you don't go out Friday night
Yakety yak (don't talk back)

You just put on your coat and hat
And walk yourself to the laundromat
And when you finish doin' that
Bring in the dog and put out the cat
Yakety yak (don't talk back)

Don't you give me no dirty looks
Your father's hip; he knows what cooks
Just tell your hoodlum friend outside
You ain't got time to take a ride
Yakety yak (don't talk back)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cR0hQ7SwL-I&feature=related

I'm gonna raise a fuss, I'm gonna raise a holler 
About a workin' all summer just to try to earn a dollar 
Every time I call my baby, and try to get a date 
My boss says, "No dice son, you gotta work late" 
Sometimes I wonder what I'm a gonna do 
But there ain't no cure for the summertime blues 

Well my mom and pop told me, "Son you gotta make some money, 
If you want to use the car to go ridin' next Sunday" 
Well I didn't go to work, told the boss I was sick 
"Well you can't use the car 'cause you didn't work a lick" 
Sometimes I wonder what I'm a gonna do 
But there ain't no cure for the summertime blues 

I'm gonna take two weeks, gonna have a fine vacation 
I'm gonna take my problem to the United Nations 
Well I called my congressman and he said Quote: 
"I'd like to help you son but you're too young to vote" 
Sometimes I wonder what I'm a gonna do 
But there ain't no cure for the summertime blues


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeWC59FJqGc

l'apres midi des cherubins chez micawber

a simple amusement ...

before it started raining, very early this morning while it was still dark, i filled a cardboard box with dry leaves and took it on my round, offering it to gullible, troublesome, and abusive customers, as a free sample

the way people respond to the offer of a free sample tells you a lot about human nature

the first shook his head and said rarther grimly there was nothing about free samples on the print-out for the day

the second was straight in to the box with the enthusiasm of a child on christmas morning

only one asked what kind of weirdo would bother to stuff dry leaves in a box

ticehurst on the eleventh hour in the eleventh day of the eleventh month

now where did i put MY hula hoop ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aIV_X4GlY0

lovely "dance" video via metafilter

... and the loved one rescued this little gem and brought it home

you don't have to be mad ...

... but it may just possibly be helpful ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwWLnaME0CI

has any one mentioned christmas yet ?

rain rain rain !

the world is windswept and awash in ashdown park

i step down with a splash from the shiny red lorry in to a puddle on which floats a green and yellow armada of gingko leaves

and as i raise my eyes, so a rain-soaked family group of eight grey dripping does tiptoe by

what goes up usually comes down, civilizations rise and fall ... will our's be the first to have been dismantled by qualified accountants maintaining their professional standards?

3BT plus 2

on putney heath, one owl hoots and another screeches as i walk past the black wood to the bus stop at a quarter to four in the morning ... and then they do it again, twice

i pass a shop in haywards heath outside which is an umbrella stand containing about a dozen feather dusters and i try to visualize an allegorical painting involving twelve virgins and michelangelo's david ... if only beryl cook was still alive

near turner's hill, twelve cock pheasants gleam on a grassy knoll

the wide window in peter jones' rooftop restaurant is hung with thousands of tiny white lights, reflected and double-reflected in the double glazing as if it were snowing stars ... beyond them, the sun has set and across the grey rooftops beneath a strip of pink and purple sky is the outline of harrods' illuminated dome traced in vibrant smudges of incongruous golden light

a violinist and a pianist enter the gilded norfolk room wearing deep purple and position themselves so that i often see the pianist's face through the crook of the violinist's left arm during their brilliant recital ... the violinist plays with her eyes shut, the pianist laughs with her eyes at every musical joke

richard learoyd in ticehurst

you wouldn't necessarily have heard of ticehurst, its not famous

but i'm lucky enough to pass through sometimes on my way to or from a collection at traditional sussex cheeses

there's a posh second hand bookshop with a cafe but it isn't often possible to stop on these tiny streets in a big red truck

today i needed to post a letter so i stopped short of the village centre and walked up,

drank my coffee and wrote some extra pages in the bookshop then walked twenty yards to the village post office,

then thought, "why not stroll over to the corner and look up and down the street for signs of life ?

i didn't immediately notice this shop, can't think why

there are two huge framed magnificent photographs on display by a man called richard learoyd

one is of a dead heron, the other is of a dead hare

don't ask ... i don't know

never mind the name of cary grant's tailor, bring me the name of his shoe maker

http://thesartorialist.blogspot.com/2006/08/cary-grant-north-by-northwest.html

Three more beautiful things

 Emerging from our brick tenement just after the sun has risen, I turn the corner in time to see the last pink clouds fading above the dense woodland called Putney Heath, and wish I’d been about just a few moments sooner to see the show ... but then, for the first time in my six years in London, a little bat flutters from the woods and zig-zags over my head, veering around the flats and disappearing high up beyond a big oak tree.  Sadly, my eyes are no longer keen enough to see whether his fangs are still dripping with the blood of a B-movie starlet.

The 170 bus to Victoria via Clapham Junction fills up with quiet people, some of whom are up far too early, but many, having worked a long night in the big neurological hospital, far too late.  In Wandsworth we are joined by a glamorous Jamaican woman, dressed with such urban sophistication as you might hope to see in Paris, who immediately begins to preach to us of Jesus’ love, laying special emphasis on the need to live well in the here and now, and to make others feel loved because, she says, “We won’t be coming Back !”  I’ve seen her a couple of times before on these local buses, always smart, always lovely, her energy flooding the space, even to the place where i cower in the back row.  Over the years, her phrasing and body language have become more “theatrically professional” and I wish there was a way to politely encourage her, whilst respectfully preserving my own timid scepticism.

I collect the dog from the old brick terrace.  We meander along amongst the parked cars, she stopping constantly to sniff every gate and lamp post, and searching the gutters for last night's chicken bones, and when we eventually turn the corner at the far end of the street on our way to the Common, we look west where a vast white rain cloud is rising quickly amidst trailing streaks of vapour and rain, supported on one side by half a rainbow, the whole spectacle imposing itself in fluent contrast to the dumb jagged dark rows of indigo slate roofs and burnt orange chimbley pots, like a beautiful preacher intimidating a crowd.

???

a slow start to the morning, i'd only completed my fourth drop when this happened ...

yackety yack ... watch this space

you go on to bed, dear ... i haven't quite finished my cosmogeny homework

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19598-kitchen-sink-experiment-simulates-exotic-white-holes.html

the loved one has gone shopping and has left this object unguarded ... what should i do ?