The Flip Side & The Funny Side

by Pam Crane

  Till the wings of Animikii

  Let them fall on distant forests

  Let them fall in glens and corries

  Fall among the peat and heather

  And the people with pale faces

  And the cows with orange fringes

  See the cloud of happy midges

  Dancing, dancing in the sunshine

  Happy to be free and flying

  Happy to be near the forest

  Near the farm and near the shieling

  In the land of Merry Dancers

  Hear them singing to the farmers

  Flying up their kilts to bite them

  Hear them singing to the soldiers

  Feasting on their angry faces

  There is no Gichi Manitou

  Listening to their petitions

  To their curses, imprecations

  As the sword, the mighty claymore

  Winner of a thousand battles

  Swings in vain against the midges

  Now the lords of loch and mountain

  Drinking deep at every ceilidh

  Setting Dubh and Bride reeling

  Setting old Cruatha jigging

  Hear the wailing of the midges

  Hear the wailing of the pibroch

  Scotland rants and Scotland dances

  Forward to Index

  Seven Ages Of TEETH

  From Cradle to Grave

  1.

  Toothypegs icumen in,

  Proudly say Goo-goo!

  Chew the swede

  And spew the feed

  And bawl till you are blue -

  Say Goo-goo!

  Molar breaketh through the gum,

  Tooth after tooth comes through;

  Baby champs

  And clings to Gramps,

  And sendeth us cuckoo -

  Cuckoo! Cuckoo!

  We long for sleep,

  Worn out by *bleep*

  Goo-goo!

  2.

  Yum diddle Lidl Lidl Yum diddle I

  Yum diddle Lidl Lidl Yum diddle I ...

  My mother couldn’t make me eat

  - and me a growing lass -

  I hated milk and spud and meat

  And cabbage gave me gas.

  But then I found a magic snack

  That saved my appetite

  And got my Mum’s approval back,

  My peggies strong and white! ...

  Oh! SuperCalciFractElasticExtraChunky CheezWhiz -

  Even tho’ the taste of it

  Superlatively pleases,

  If you chomp it hard enough

  Your fillings fall to pieces,

  SuperCalciFractElasticExtraChunky CheezWhiz!

  3.

  If you can keep your teeth when all about you

  Are losing theirs and blaming it on genes;

  If you can brush and floss when dentists doubt you,

  (But make allowance for their slender means);

  If you can brace, not be put off by bracing,

  But being smiled at, dazzle with your smiles,

  And being picky don't need teeth replacing,

  And still keep walking tall, despite your piles;

  If you can talk with crowns and keep your diction,

  And tweet and Skype and blog to keep in touch,

  If you would keep your teeth free of affliction

  And savings count with you - but not too much -

  If you can fill the Application Form out

  For BUPA dental care from year to year,

  Yours is the Mouth and nothing will be worn out,

  And what is more - you'll have a Plan, my dear!

  4.

  "Is there anybody there?" asked the Sufferer,

  Knocking on the lamplit door;

  And his car in the silence spewed exhaust

  On the city’s dirty floor;

  And a bat flew out of the gutter,

  Above the Sufferer's head:

  And he banged on the door a second time;

  "Is there anybody there?" he said.

  But no one came down to the Sufferer;

  No head from the soot-stained sill

  Leaned over and looked into his pained eyes,

  Where he stood distressed and still.

  But only a host of phantom dentists

  That drilled in the clinic then

  Stood listening in the quiet lamp-light

  To that cry from the world of men:

  Stood thronging the faint dust-beams on the dark stair,

  That goes down to the empty hall,

  Hearkening in an air shaken (not stirred ...)

  By the weary Sufferer's call.

  And he sensed in his gut their strangeness,

  Their muteness meeting his cry,

  While his car moved - he’d left the handbrake off -

  'Neath the starless and murky sky;

  So he suddenly hammered the door, even

  Harder, and shook his head:--

  "Tell them I came, and no one answered,

  I kept my appointment," he said.

  Not the least stir made their receptionists,

  Though every word he spoke

  Fell echoing through the shadowy rooms of the clinic

  From this single desperate bloke:

  Oh, they heard him put his foot down,

  And the grind of tyres on stone,

  And how the silence surged softly backward,

  When the racing wheels were gone.

  5.

  O Dentist! my Dentist! our fearful job’s not done;

  The lips must weather every crack, the prize we seek be won;

  The lamp is near, the drill I fear, assistants all preparing,

  While follow eyes the steady hand, the visage grim and glaring:

  But O teeth! teeth! teeth!

  O the bleeding drops of red,

  Where on the bib my fillings lie,

  My face and tongue quite dead.

  O Dentist! my Dentist! rise up and hear the bell;

  Rise up - for you the phone has rung - for you appointments swell;

  For you bookings and urgencies, the waiting-room

  a-crowding;

  For you they call; the patients mass, their aching faces shrouding;

  Revolve, O doors! and ring, O bells!

  But I, with thankful tread,

  Walk mended from the surgery ...

  My face and tongue quite dead.

  6.

  Who has seen my teeth? ...

  Neither I nor you.

  So when my lips hang trembling

  No food is passing through.

  Who has seen my teeth? ...

  Neither you nor I.

  So when my friends avert their heads

  Old Gummy’s passing by.

  7.

  An old hippie optimist was standing one day

  With a drink from his favourite jar.

  He gazed at the optic as he tumbled and lay

  In the light of the Tap Room and Bar.

  Away in the Ladies sat combing her hair

  His dear hippie potty old mate;

  While she was retiring her chap was expiring

  From bugs that bred under his plate.

  Teeth, teeth, carious teeth -

  Nothing could stop them

  From rotting beneath.

  So follow him follow,

  He’s booked for tomorrow;

  Inter him with sorrow

  And carious teeth.

  Forward to Index

  Happy 15th Birthday

  to my Favourite Magazine!

  In February Ninety-Eight

  The Twelfth was an important date -

  ComputerActive on the stands,

  And, even better, in my hands!

  For fifteen years from Issue One,

  Concise, informative and fun,

  This magazine has stretched my mind,

  And now I’m never left behind.

  At seventy, because
of you,

  I help my friends and husband too

  (Most of whom are even older!)

  To get the hang of file and folder,

  Choose computers, keep them clean,

  (You never know where files have been

  That friends love forwarding!) and learn

  When disappointed, where to turn.

  My darling husband takes to bed

  The articles that I have read

  So he can learn to deal with spam

  And spot the latest nasty scam.

  He now has confidence to try

  New software; and we often buy

  From your reviews the finest kit -

  You help us make the most of it.

  Our children all live overseas,

  But we can keep in touch with these

  We love, because you showed us how

  With email, Skype and Facebook now.

  And how we love the Letters page!

  It shows we can be any age

  And keep our faculties intact if

  We remain ComputerActive!

  Forward to Index

  MY DOUBLE-DECKER BUS

  I don’t want a lorry,

  I don’t want a car,

  I don’t want a taxi

  ’Cause it isn’t very far.

  I don’t want a bicycle,

  I don’t want a fuss,

  I just want an ordinary

  Double-decker bus.

  I would like some sympathy,

  I would like a lift;

  I would like a warmer place

  To stand and stamp and shift!

  I’d like to be a person,

  But I feel anonymous

  As I wait for that ordinary

  Double-decker bus.

  We’re not in a blizzard, and

  We’re not in a storm;

  We’re just in November and

  It isn’t very warm!

  The roads have been gritted, and

  The fog has gone from us -

  So what can be holding up

  My Double-decker bus?

  There may be an accident.

  There may be a queue.

  There may be a sea of cones

  For him to battle through...

  ...A smile of explanation

  Would be less injurious

  Than your scowl when I fall on board

  Your Double-decker bus.

  Forward to Index

  VIRGO RISING

  Oh it’s fun to be a little hypochondriac!

  Oh it’s fine to want to lie around in bed!

  It’s delightful to be lazy lying on your back,

  To be comforted and cosseted and fed,

  When the dictionary says you should be dead!

  Oh it’s fine to be a little hypochondriac.

  It’s fun to have a cupboard full of pills,

  Of Calamine and Liver salts and Ipecac

  And medicines for fevers and for chills,

  And forms for cutting people out of wills!

  Oh it’s nice to be a little hypochondriac.

  I love hotties and thermometers and soup!

  I know all about a dickey sacro-iliac,

  Rubella, Yellow Fever, and the croup,

  And I share it all on Friday at the Group.

  Oh it’s wise to be a little hypochondriac.

  You never know when bugs are set to bite!

  Accumulating therapeutic bric a brac

  Is an amateur pathologist’s delight -

  And a different diagnosis every night!

  And it pays to be a little hypochondriac,

  Holding pricey Consultations every day!

  This way I get my self-esteem and money back

  For the bargain-basement bottles on display,

  The prescriptions that I never throw away!

  Forward to Index

  SIXTY SECONDS

  “Just a Minute on ‘Silver Lining’;

  Sixty seconds, and starting now!”

  “On showery days when the sun is shining,

  A thunder cloud with a beetle brow

  Muscles in front of the golden glory

  Threatening day with inky night -

  But Sol is stronger than Jove is, surely,

  Lining the cloud with silver light...”

  “Repetition of ‘cloud’!” “For forty

  Seconds ‘Silver Lining’ is yours.”

  “A chap was tarring the roads; for sport he

  Tried white-lining them on all fours ...”

  “Deviation! That’s white, not silver!”

  “I haven’t finished!” “Well, carry on.”

  “The moon came up, and a gleaming river

  Of light ... illumined the lines he’d done,

  Turning them all to silver ... Then he

  Recollected an old technique ...

  Um ...” “Hesitation!” “And far too many!

  Twenty seconds are left to speak.”

  “I was seven; my first magician

  Filling the stage with flags and doves

  Flourished in keeping with his tradition

  The silver lining of cape and gloves.

  How it shimmered! The act enchanted

  This small boy; and that cloak means still

  Every gift that I always wanted -

  To mystify, to amaze, to thrill!”

  “Congratulations! We have a winner;

  You still spoke as the whistle went!”

  The Minute Waltz; and we go to dinner,

  Silver Service and David Brent ...

  Forward to Index

  Pain

  A Macaronic

  Breakfast by the Sacre-Coeur

  Baguette with a lot of beurre

  Lunch will be a Petit Pain

  Tea will be Baguette again

  Mais à la Boulangerie

  There is grande variety

  So voici un little list

  Of the Pain you may have missed

  Pain au Froment - total wheat

  Ne pas permetté to cheat

  S’il n’est pas completely blé

  They will take your marque away

  There are gens qui run a mile

  At the thought of Pain à l’Ail

  Mais la grippe will never win

  Once you get some garlic in

  Walnut comme un petit brain

  Est prisée from Tarn to Seine

  Daily snacks of Pain aux Noix

  Are one’s academic choix

  Pain Nordique ou Pain Polaire

  Open sandwich en plain air

  Or the pretty Pain Tressé

  Comfort food for coeurs blessés

  Pain Bâtard? The artisan

  Toujours bakes the best he can

  Save for quelques-uns très bons qui

  Come out of the oven wonky

  Si vous cherchez Matzo bread

  Ask for Pain Azymes instead

  Pain Juif, Pain sans Levain

  Once it’s Passover again

  Pain Cramique with raisins in

  Furtive dietary sin

  Pain d’Épices trop chic to eat

  Fancy, gingery and sweet

  Two old favourites of mine

  Pain Maison, Pain de Campagne

  Made with n’importe quelle farine

  Fresh beside the soup tureen

  Forgeron and Fougassette

  Niche Provençale assiette

  Plein d’olives et zeste d’orange

  Toute unique and great to mange

  Tous les petits déjeuners

  Avec coffee come Beignets

  Yummy doughnuts nous can dunk

  Adding inches to le trunk

  Sandwiches a.k.a. Tartines

  Feasts of salad or sardines

  Ham or chicken or fromages

  Perfect fare pour nos voyages

  Pain de Seigle, Noir ou Son

  Lovely with goats butter on

  Déjeunette or Pain Ficelle
>
  Little sticks taste just as well

  Blanc ou Bis or Boule de Pain

  Brioché and Campagrain

  Pain de Mie et Pain Complet

  Même Potage sous son Beret

  Tous enfin sont Pain Rassis

  Fit for toast avec confits

  Or to keep the skinny you

  Chaque Dimanche le Pain Perdu

  Forward to Index

  When I'm Cleaning Windows !

  July 29th is a Wednesday

  In 2015: Windows 10's day.

  There'll be no 11 -

  I'm sticking with 7

  Despite what the Microsoft men say!

  I've scuppered the Updates - so there!

  I'm no longer tearing my hair.

  I've started from scratch,

  Not a worm, not a patch ...

  But a lot of security-ware!!!

  I've even gone in for a Mac;

  I'm giving my PC the sack.

  In VirtualBox

  Windows 7 just docks

  When I'm done. I may never go back.

  Forward to Index

  1The Ballad of Binky Pocock

  Byron Ingram Kingsley Pocock -

  Binky to his titled friends -

  Drills into ancestral bedrock

  As the media pack descends ...

  Binky Pocock is a charmer

  But he has a fatal flaw -

  Maybe it is in his karma

  He is posh but awfully poor.

  Binky lives in faded glory

  In a mansion with a park;

  Pater’s Pater, goes the story,

  Liked to party after dark ...

  Centuries of land and money

  Went on women, dice and booze.

  Fleeing debt and wife and son, he

  Vanished on a winter cruise.

  Binky should have gone to Eton,

  Got himself a good Degree -

  All his aspirations beaten

  By the grandsire lost at sea.

  Years of fêtes and jumbles later

  Binky’s Pater passed away,

  Leaving him alone with Mater

  And a heap of bills to pay.

  There was only one thing for it -

  He must market Pocock Hall;

  Too expensive to restore it

  Now they had no staff at all.

  Nor were daughters of the gentry

  Queuing up to rescue him;

  In Debrett’s the Pocock entry

  Made his marriage chances slim!

  Binky haunted all the places

  He might find a wealthy wife -

  Only disappointed faces