The really boring and totally pointless snippets thread IV

[G-CPTN]

Then there was the time they lost the shovel to fill the hole in.

Probably under the box . . .

[Ex-Ascot]

Then there was the time they lost the shovel to fill the hole in.

Probably under the box . . .

No it was in the church along with the ropes they had also lost to lower the coffin into the grave. Been to so many Greek island funerals. Every one a winner. Trouble is that you die at 03.00 and they bury you at 10.00. We have had the carpenter running behind the funeral party with the lid to the coffin.

[Ex-Ascot]

Sunset, hippo city. Very noisy eaters. Guess we will have this all night.

[reddo]

First module complete. That's Human information processing done and dusted. Error and Decision making next.

[handsfree]

Back in from the garden a second time today.
Got the leaves up the first time early afternoon. then the wind did blow.
Was so bored went out in the half light and raked those up. Quite enjoyed myself to be honest.

So now sitting at the computer with a glass of calvados (Avallen; supports
wild Bees ) and feeling all warm and happy.

Reddo
What on earth drives these people.

[Wodrick]

Strimmer works, started 3rd pull

[ricardian]

I've re-discovered the joys of hot Bovril! After getting fed up with tea & coffee I tried the Akrotiri drink of hot water & chicken Oxo cube - too salty. Spotted a jar of Bovril in the shop, purchased it and took it home - spoonful in mug with boiling water - bliss! Just the aroma rekindled memories of leaving the public baths and spending a couple of coppers on a mug of hot Bovril; the taste was something else, really tasty. Since losing most of my sense of smell & taste several years ago I go for strong tastes and rough textures - pickled onions, piccalli, lime pickle etc.

[llondel]

First module complete. That's Human information processing done and dusted. Error and Decision making next.

Error making should be easy. Decisions also, unless there are extra marks for good ones.

[Pontius Navigator]

Handsfree, ah, Calvados, still have a drop left from our cruise to Honfleur

[OFSO]

Good morning to all. Looks like it's clear here with forecast of three days of sun. Can't eat out, all restaurants closed, can't leave the municipality to walk in the hills.....washed the car yesterday to keep busy. Needed it, b... parrots in the trees outside the supermarket. They need nappies.

[Pinky the pilot]

Evening all. A slightly frustrating morning at the Rifle Club earlier. Was at 300 yds and...well I had a better score last week at 900yds in more difficult conditions!

Why, I have absolutely NFI!

Time for a Shiraz methinks.

[Ibbie]

Morning, another clear blue sky one.

Having to water the potted plants more than usual for the time of year.

[Pontius Navigator]

13 degrees, no wind chill they said. Well sheltered it was actually warm enough to unzip my fleece (though I'd better say what was unzipped). On the top it was definitely cool. At ground level even the dog folded her ears.

[OFSO]

The weekend Financial Times colour supplement has page after page about Amorgos, feature called "Amor, Amorgos". Too big, too much to scan, but I'll be scanning some of the island people they photographed and e-mailing them to you know who.....

[handsfree]

Here's a link to the Amorgos article

https://www.ft.com/content/bd1c6d97-ab0 ... 4badb6c3ba

The heavens are heaving it down here. Pretty windy too but warm, 13C.

[Rwy in Sight]

Don't forget who made the island famous: a French film.

[OFSO]

Thanks. Text usual journalist BS but photographs beautiful. Not referring to man with bare Arsenal of course.

[Ex-Ascot]

Thanks. Text usual journalist BS but photographs beautiful. Not referring to man with bare Arsenal of course.

Afternoon folks. F...ing hot here. Yes indeed a lot of BS and inaccuracy there. We should know we were commissioned to write the guide book to Amorgos.

Yes RiS that is why we are swamped with frogs there. Bloody awful people.

OK what sort of malakas book a safari camp for the whole weekend for 40 and turn up with seven. Then get dead drunk and demand that the management drive 80 kms to get pain killers for their hangovers. Sorry but they are S.A. and still drunk.

[TheGreenGoblin]

Don't forget who made the island famous: a French film.

I fancy the thought of the Mediterranean today...

Ulysses (by Alfred Lord Tennyson)

"It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
For ever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,—
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me—
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

[TheGreenGoblin]

Or more appropriate to Amorgos...

From Amorgos
I

With their country tied to their sails and their oars hung on
the wind
The shipwrecked slept tamely like dead beasts on a bedding
of sponges
But the eyes of seaweed are turned toward the sea
Hoping the South Wind will bring them backwith their
lateen-sails new-painted
For one lost elephant is always worth much more than the
quivering breasts of a girl
Only if the roofs of deserted chappels should light up with the
caprice of the Evening Star
Only if birds should ripple amid the masts of the lemon trees
With the firm white flurry of lively footsteps
Will the winds come, the bodies of swans that remained im-
maculate, unmoving and tender
When steamrollers rolled through shops, when hurricanes
whirled through vegetation
When the eyes of women became coal and the hearts of the
chestnut hawkers were broken
When the harvest was done and the hopes of crickets began.

And indeed this is why, my brave young men, with kisses, wine,
and leaves on your mouth
I would like to stride naked by the rivers
To sing of the Barbary Coast like the woodsman hunting the
mastic shrub
Like the viper slithering through gardens of barley
With the proud eyes of irritation
Like the lightning-bolt as it threshes youth.

And do not laugh and do not weep and do not rejoice
And do not squeeze your shoes in vain as though you were
planting plane trees
Do not become DESTINY
For the king-eagle is not a closed drawer
It is not the tear of the plum tree nor a smile of the water-lily
Nor the undershirt of a pigeon or a Sultan's mandolin
Nor a silken shawl for the head of the whale
It is a saw of the sea which rips the seagulls apart
It is a capenter's pillow, a beggar's watch
It is a flame in the blacksmith's shop teasing the wives of the
priests and lulling the lilies
It is a wedding proccession of Turks, a festival of Australians
It is the hideaway of Hungarian gypsies
Where the hazel trees in autumn secretly congregate
They watch the sensible storks painting their eggs black
And then they also weep
They burn their nightgowns and dress themselves in the duck's
petticoat
They strew stars on the earth for kings to walk upon
With their silver amulets with their crowns and their purple
mantles
They strew rosemary in garden plots
That mice may pass on their way to other cellars
And to other cathedrals to eat of the Holy Altars
And the owls, my lads,
The owls growl
And dead nuns rise up to dance
With tambourines and drums and violins, with bagpipes and
lutes
With bannerets and censors, with wimples and magic veils
With the pantaloons of bears int he frozen valley
They eat the mushrooms of martens
They play heads or tails with the ring of St. John and the
gold florins of the Blackamoor
They mock all witches
They cut off the beard of a priest with the yataghan of Koloko-
tronis
They bathe themselves in the vapours of incense
And afterwards, slowly chanting, enter the earth again and fall
silent
As waves fall silent, as the cuckoo bird at dawn, as the oil
lamp at evening.

And thus in deep jar the grape shrivels and in the belfry of
a fig tree the apple turns yellow
And thus flaunting a gay-coloured necktie
Under a grapevine bower the summer suspires
And thus naked among white cherry trees a tender love of
mine lies sleeping
A girl as unwithering as a branch of almond
Her head resting on her elbow and her palm on her golden
treasure
On its dawning warmth while slowly and softly like a thief
From the window of spring the Morning Star comes to awake
her.

Translated from the Greek (poem by Nikos Gatsos)

In 1943, during the Nazi occupation of Greece, Gatsos published his major work, the surrealist epic poem “Amorgos”. Written in one night of inspired concentration, the poem was a distinctive re-imagining of the Greek poetic tradition, composed at a time of mortal danger for the Greek people.

Amorgos is a wonderful incantation on the theme of loss and hope – a unique blend of surrealism, symbolism and folk song – lyrical and erotic, sometimes celebratory, sometimes bitter.

With their country bound to the sails and their oars hung on the wind
The shipwrecked voyagers slept tamely like dead beasts in sheets of sponge

It was much admired by the Nobel laureates Odysseas Elytis and George Seferis, and was hugely influential on the postwar generation of Greek poets. However, after its publication in 1943, Gatsos abandoned poetry, and wrote only popular songs, for which he was later renowned.

Amorgos was soon recognized as a major work, but proved to be the only book Nikos Gatsos published in his career, although he continued to publish poems in literary magazines, such as “Elegya” (1946) and “The Knight and Death” (1947).