Leisurely Scribbles (Part 2)

Not so, never felt the need to levitate, to see what’s going on. :kangaroo:

When you’re asleep they may show you
Aerial views of the ground
Freudian slumber empty of sound. :kangaroo: :kangaroo:

there’s been dozens of books analysing dreams - pure bunkum - they are just re-invented plays of your own life and persons in it and a few new ones you’d like to meet - it’s like watchin TV while ya sleeping but sometimes ya get a part in it - innit?

I do long for the simple life these days!

Enniskerry Farrier’s smithy.

It is a lovely little village, and the locals there really looked after us.

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yes I think that’s what real life is all about stuff the cities !! - I have located Pugs elsewhere btw last posting in June 2020 and have left him a message - that’s what Capricornians do!! fingers crossed lad - then the sparks will fly!!

Eighteen Months! Gum, you are the eternal optimist.

Having said that Forums are famous for reforumation. :bike: :kangaroo:

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No Spitty, there were no drones when that was taken, it’s shot from a hill facing the village, it’s not my photo but there is plenty of high ground where the photographer must have stood. :wink:


Under a spreading chestnut-tree
The village smithy stands;
The smith, a mighty man is he,
With large and sinewy hands;
And the muscles of his brawny arms
Are strong as iron bands. (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

Sort of how I’d picture Gumbud, only the tree is wrong, it would be a Coolibah tree. :wink: :smiley:


Blacksmiths, tinsmiths, silversmiths, goldsmiths, all have ‘Smith’ after their trade titles, and rightly so.

What does the name Smith mean?

“The name refers to a smith, originally deriving from smið or smiþ, the Old English term meaning one who works in metal related to the word smitan, the Old English form of smite, which also meant strike (as in early 17th century Biblical English: the verb “to smite” = to hit).” Wiki.

The word “Smith” has always been associated with metals, it grieves me when I read or hear educated journalists refer to writers and poets as “Wordsmiths” there is no meaning to ‘wordsmith’ as there is no metal involved, same as you wouldn’t call a baker a ‘breadsmith’, some journalists wouldn’t know how to use a metal safety pin never mind make a horseshoe or a copper boiler.


And now something to go with the season that’s in it.

Here’s a jolly little Christmas rhyme for the kids.

T’was the night before Christmas and my dog lay on the rug
Santa lay beside him having caught the corona bug
I sent out for the doctor to see what he could do
But he just gave him some aspirin, and said it’s only flu
Not true, for when the wife came down from bed
She saw Santa on the floor, cold as ice… and dead.

Sorry kids, no presents this year, the whole area where the Christmas tree stood is a no go area until further notice. :wink: :smiley:

Thanks Jem, for that one, seems a possy is being assembled.

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don’t listen to uncle Jem kids there are plenty of santas all over the world and there will be one in your street on the eve of xmas - he is only talking about the Dublin one - shame on you uncle Jem you should go and wash out ya moof with soap and water - shall have to notify the Pope now and get you ex- xmas tree managed!

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In Dublins fair city the xmas tree are so pretty
and Santa been triple dosed and reindeers done too
he been asked tor stay masked
and at Jems house go straight passed
cos his shed’s full of diamonds and jewels and the flu!!

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Funny onion, shed full of diamonds how are yeh. :laughing:


A lot of Irish country people head for Dublin when they become adults, same as a lot of British folk head off to London, they seem to be drawn to the big cities, especially capital cities, I suppose it’s been like that all over the world since towns and cities were built, it’s only natural to go where the work is.

My Mothers people were Dublin for as far back as Viking Dublin, but my Father’s clan are from Westmeath, known as Queens County from 1556-1922, he became a train driver with the GWR (Great Western Railway) around 1905 when we were under British rule, it’s now called Irish Rail.
So I’ve got country and townie blood in me as have most Dubliners. that probably explains why I love the city life as much as I love the country life.

“The Vikings settled in Dublin from 841 AD onwards. … Dublin appears to have been founded twice by the Vikings. The first foundation was as a longphort where the Scandinavians overwintered from 841AD onwards. This ended in 902 with the expulsion of the Scandinavian settlers, mainly to the north of England.” Wiki.

In 1950 the population of Dublin was 626,131, today it’s just about one and a half million (1.43 million persons). We have people here now from the four corners of the earth, (how could the earth be round when it has four corners?, dem flat earth folks might be onto something after all.) :wink: :smiley:
Thankfully we all seem to get along fine with no major race troubles, Christ knows we had our belly full of troubles over the years.

I love the High Kings band (below), our last high king was Brian Boru (941-1014), a great warrior and a good king we’re told, he sent the Danes packing at the battle of Clontarf on Dublin’s north side, unfortunately he was fatally wounded in the battle, long gone but fondly remembered as the daughter drove pass Clontarf with me and the missus as passengers today.

“The Danes came to Ireland with nothing to do
But dream of the plundered old Irish they slew,
“Ye will in yer Vikings” said Brian Boru
And he threw them back into the ocean.” credit: “The Sea around us” song by the Ludlows.

that’s fighting music to be sure to be sure - but I can’t imagine Val Doonican givin it a go? bless his cotton socks!

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Val Hooligan was what our American friends would call “Corny” and they’d be right, he was corny. :smiley:


It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas and I’ve just watched an old film version of “Scrooge”, always a favourite Dickens tale of mine, what a fantastic writer that fella was, all the entertainment he gave to the World, rest his soul.

This one was a British film made in 1935 and it stars Seymour hicks as Scrooge, a very well done adaption in my opinion, although the Alastair Sim one is better, but that’s been played to death on TV.

There were literally thousands of films, audio plays, stage plays, and animated versions of “A Christmas Carol” in many languages all over the world, what a great honour to Dickens.

Ghosts dragging chains behind them reminded me of an ad I’d seen recently, a big company looking for new “Sales executives” (used to be called just salesmen/women in my day), bright young things need only apply, seems it’s all about pulling chains these days. :wink: :smiley:

“Bright, sparkling, energetic, young with new ideas”, thats the kind of salesperson all the big companies are looking for now, as one company director put it on TV recently “The man who gives all his shit gets to pull the chain, so it really pays to give all your shit to the company” In other words be prepared to lie and die for the company.

Please forgive the foul language, but it did not originate from my mouth, terrible the language they use on TV these days ain’t it, and that’s coming from a man educated at Yale!

Boy am I glad I’m not young and in the sales business, cos I never gave a shit about anything, still I managed to pull a lot of important chains along the way, it’s the way you pull 'em that counts. :wink: :smiley:

Things that are meant to be will be and no amount of planning will ever change that.

Some of these bright sparkling things turn out to be damp squibs with nothing but shit to give and bugger all common sense, oh yes they might have all the paper credentials, but lack all the basic common savvy one needs to survive all that life can throw at you.

You tell ‘em Ray, this song should be the anthem for all those folks approaching retirement age, cos once you retire you cast off yer shackles for good. :smiley:

wow where do we go with that little gem? - “don’t poke a stick at a possum - they sometimes start hissing” now what would RJ have said in this circumstance " well you heard about my Uncle Vinny? etc etc or Mr Pug in his leotards ? - " do not align the molecules too much or you can cause a large explosion"?

aye all those good old singers are dying off now - lot of chains to pick up and store away that’s for sure!

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Pull a chain, push a button, don’t matter, the result is much the same :grinning: but, evolution (and physics) were right there, in front of the eye, well, for a gentleman anyway, see, in the days of the chain, to shift a shit took about six feet of gravity, when the button arrived, gravity was made redundant, but, as usual great design and innovation came at a cost, see again, the chain and the Tabloid came into existence around the same time, the pendulum being set at such a height to facilitate activation without the need to rustle the Newspaper. It is not a coincidence that the button appeared with the rising popularity of online news and the Tablet, so, we are where we are, just awaiting the voice activated “Shit Shifter” :icon_wink: but, that may be history just repeating itself.

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all I know is that if a tonne of snow slides offa da roof and drops on me I am not a pretty site!. Best Christmas Carol film I’ve seen lately “The Man Who Invented Xmas” stars [Dan Stevens] [Christopher Plummer], and [Jonathan Pryce] very entertaining and follows Dickens through his young life sometimes in poverty and a workhouse to his final burst of success and struggles with his book a Xmas Carol

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Spitty that post reminded me of a racehorse called Thomas Crapper, a good jumper in his day, won a few quid on him over the years, he’s enjoying a well deserved retirement now.
They do inflict some terrible names on racehorses, God forgive them.

Sometimes when doctors die they name a new disease after them, one wouldn’t know if that was a compliment or an insult, Doctor James Parkinson for example, he first became aware of the disease in 1817 and wrote a paper on it.
I get the odd twinge in me jaw now and then, lasts about 10 seconds then it’s gone, I don’t know what the medical term for it is, “Jems Jaw” the wife calls it, but hasn’t got a ring to it, so thank God I’m not a doctor. :laughing:

Can Gum disease effect the the ability to “Spit”? :grinning: