NUTTY NEWS (11)

When my lad was about 6 or so, he went through that boy stage of 'fart fixation'. He did them here there and everywhere. He was, for a while at least, the family fart champion.

Not so now. As I tiptoe into my dotage, I've discovered that I am developing this skill with every passing day. 

How I wish I had the ability back then to show him who was the daddy.

I have discovered though that even I have met my match. Try as I may there is no chance of me literally blowing the roof off my house.

But I know a cow who can... 90 of them in fact, whose farts started such a fire that they were nearly turned into steak and whoosh! - up went the roof.

It's a funny old world.

NOTEWORTHY LYRICS (13)

In which I highlight the poetry in popular songs -

Lennon and McCartney wrote some hauntingly beautiful song lyrics. Paul penned this himself and John always said it was one of his personal favourites.

The story is of the end of a love affair and is incredibly sad...

"For No One"

Your day breaks, your mind aches

You find that all the words of kindness linger on

When she no longer needs you

She wakes up, she makes up

She takes her time and doesn't feel she has to hurry

She no longer needs you

And in her eyes you see nothing

No sign of love behind the tears

Cried for no one

A love that should have lasted years

You want her, you need her

And yet you don't believe her when she said her love is dead

You think she needs you

And in her eyes you see nothing

No sign of love behind the tears

Cried for no one

A love that should have lasted years

You stay home, she goes out

She says that long ago she knew someone but now he's gone

She doesn't need him

Your day breaks, your mind aches

There will be time when all the things she said will fill your head

You won't forget her

And in her eyes you see nothing

No sign of love behind the tears

Cried for no one

A love that should have lasted years

NOT APPY

Right Mum's and Dad's - are you sitting comfortably?

Today we're going to look at the best apps for young girls - say 9 years and upwards. 

OK so we have 'Scarlett and the Spark of Life', an exciting adventure in which a princess rescues herself. 

Or how about 'Style Studio: Fashion Designer' which speaks for itself. 

Similar is 'Maya's Dress Up' which reminds me of those paper dolls which I secretly changed the clothes on when I was knee high to a grasshopper.

If these aren't exciting enough why not let your daughter try 'Plastic surgery for Barbie'? What could be more fun than taking a fat Barbie and giving her a surgical tummy tuck or DIY liposuction.

Incredible isn't it? Think about it. Someone actually had the idea to create such a horrendous app for young girls. Next, even more incredibly, they persuaded others to promote and market it and it got to be available on the app store.

There has been such an outcry that it is no longer available but why was it ever there in the first place?

How could it be that there ever existed, as Laura Bates puts it so eloquently "apps that suggested to little girls that their bodies might not be good enough, that being thin was all that mattered, and that being fat would make you unhappy and disgusting. 

The apps that sent the message to little girls as young as nine that women are primarily judged on what they look like. That seemed to tell them the way to make themselves happy and beautiful again was simple – they just needed to let somebody cut away at them with a knife until all the parts that were unacceptable to society had been sucked out or lopped clean off."

Our society is sick and in urgent need of repair. Is there an app for that?

NOTEWORTHY LYRICS (12)

In which I highlight the poetry in popular song lyrics. 

However, we should remember that within poetry, comic verse also has it's place.

This old song often runs round my mind but I only know the line: 'Aunty Mary had a canary up the leg of her drawers...'.

I've always been curious as to what the poor bird was doing there.

The tune is the same as 'Cock o' the north'. This was penned some 300 years ago as 'Jumping Joan'.

There are several variations including

'Auntie Mary had a canary up the leg of her drawers

While she was sleeping he was peeping

Up the leg of her drawers

Uncle Charlie had some barley

Up the leg of his drawers

If you don' t believe me you can feel me

Up the leg of my drawers' 

and also:

'Aunty Mary had a canary

Up the leg of her drawers,

When she farted it departed

Down the leg of her drawers.'

So I'll probably never know how the wretched bird got there.

THE FULL ENGLISH (32)

This one is a phrase I use a lot. 

When I want to say 'absolutely everything', an alternative is to say 'the whole kit and caboodle'. It's a common phrase and I hear it used a lot.

What puzzles me slightly is what it was about this particular phrase which so caught the imagination that it is still in popular use well over a hundred years after it was coined.

First things first - what does it literally mean?

Well 'the whole kit' means a set of items, like a toolkit, or what a soldier would keep in his kit-bag. A 'caboodle' (or just 'boodle') - is an archaic term meaning a group or collection, normally of people.

Origins are certainly American and certainly from the early 19th century but the first use of the phrase in the way we use it was this:

From the Syracuse Sunday Standard, New York, Nov, 1884:

"More audiences have been disappointed by him and by the whole kit-and-caboodle of his rivals."

The reasons why the phrase came to be used in this way are rather sketchy so if anyone knows the full details please let me know - then I shall have the whole kit and caboodle.

THE SOUND OF OOZE SICK

There's nothing new under the sun. While my better half was watching 'The Sound of Music' and 'How do you solve a problem like Maria' was echoing all over the house, I dreamed up this little parody:

How do you solve a problem like Diarrhoea?

How do you stop your pants from turning brown?

How do you find a word that means Diarrhoea?

'The runs',  'The trots' , which always bring you down.

Many a time you wish you hadn't farted

Wished that your ankles wore elastic bands

But how do you find a way

To make it all go away

Without it getting all over your hands?

Oh, how do you solve a problem like Diarrhoea?

Without it getting all over your hands?

Then I discovered this :(

BEING RESOLUTE

No doubt some of you have made New Year resolutions.

I just have the one - not to make any. I just can't bear the sense of failure when - well when you fail.

If you must make one I hope it's to give up smoking. I'm one of those pious ex-smokers who now feel that it's an obnoxious habit but if you are addicted, I feel your pain.

Here are my tips for how to give it up. 

1. Plan ahead. In my case I allowed 14 years for this. I was a cigarette smoker and knew that one day I would want to give up. I also knew that I would find it impossible to do so given my absolute dependence on my fags.  Then I devised my cunning plan. It occurred to me that giving up a pipe should be easier because pipe-smokers are already used to going for a few hours without smoking. So I switched to a pipe. Then 14 years later I gave it up.

2. Give up pipe-smoking. This is explained here.

What's that you say? You're female and women don't smoke pipes? Think again.

THE FULL ENGLISH (31)

I suppose we all have relatives who are, shall we say, less welcome guests than others. 

My Grandmother used to say of my uncle, 'he always turns up like a bad penny'. Most people know the phrase but what does it mean and what are its origins?

One wrong suggestion which I've encountered is that it is to do with tossing a coin. Because there is a version of the phrase which goes 'a bad penny always turns up' some think it means that a bad penny keeps being heads or tails instead of giving a 50-50 chance.

The actual origin is at least from the 18th century when pennies were valuable coins. This made them juicy targets for counterfeiters, and discovering that you had such a counterfeit coin, a “bad” penny, was very annoying.  

The best solution if you got a “bad penny” was to try to spend it quickly and hope that the shopkeeper wouldn't notice it.  

Unfortunately though, because so many people were trying to use their “bad pennies” this way, the odds of encountering one, or even the very same one you had got rid of a week earlier, were quite high.  Thus “bad penny” became an idiom meaning “an unwanted thing that keeps showing up.”

Just like my Uncle used to do.

NOTEWORTHY LYRICS (11)

In which I highlight the poetry in favourite song lyrics. 

Singer, songwriter and in my opinion - poet, Adele is one of my absolute favourite artists. She wrote this with Dan Wilson and it will surely be a classic for a very long time.

"Someone Like You"

I heard that you're settled down

That you found a girl and you're married now.

I heard that your dreams came true.

Guess she gave you things I didn't give to you.

Old friend, why are you so shy?

Ain't like you to hold back or hide from the light.

I hate to turn up out of the blue uninvited

But I couldn't stay away, I couldn't fight it.

I had hoped you'd see my face and that you'd be reminded

That for me it isn't over.

Never mind, I'll find someone like you

I wish nothing but the best for you too

Don't forget me, I beg

I remember you said,

"Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead,

Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead"

You know how the time flies

Only yesterday was the time of our lives

We were born and raised

In a summer haze

Bound by the surprise of our glory days

I hate to turn up out of the blue uninvited

But I couldn't stay away, I couldn't fight it.

I'd hoped you'd see my face and that you'd be reminded

That for me it isn't over.

Never mind, I'll find someone like you

I wish nothing but the best for you too

Don't forget me, I beg

I remember you said,

"Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead."

Nothing compares

No worries or cares

Regrets and mistakes

They are memories made.

Who would have known how bittersweet this would taste?

Never mind, I'll find someone like you

I wish nothing but the best for you

Don't forget me, I beg

I remember you said,

"Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead."

Never mind, I'll find someone like you

I wish nothing but the best for you too

Don't forget me, I beg

I remember you said,

"Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead,

Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead."