Fellow chaps, ladies, four legged and feathered friends, My pipe filled with an old nineteenth century blend of orange and red smoking leaf, Brazilian and Mysore Indian tobacco, a candle set up next to the modern day difference engine and a recording of parlour tunes fiddled by Pinchas Zukerman in the... parlour of sorts through the hallway, I shall begin with today's words: (there's no telling when you might require them:) tabor: of Oriental origin, a drum, but also, from the Arabic 'tunbur' a kind of lute or lyre hence: tabouret: 'a low seat or stool [so shaped], without back or arms, for one person', but also, a 'frame [lyre-shaped?] for embroidery'. hirsute: 'hairy, shaggy' syllabub: 'a drink made of sweetened milk or cream curdled with wine or spirits' And in flutters the parrot, straight from an elocution lesson I sent it to, as the poor thing seems to have picked up a vulgar Scot's vernacular (not to malign the true Scots tongue) on the boat from Australia (it'll be all those cheap and mouthy Mockintosh knick-knacks in the hold that dodged the ozzie crane to stow away back home again, teaching the well-travelled bird more bad practices whilst about it.). "So how was it?" "It wis craaap!" squawks the avian vision in green, spattering a mixture of rainwater and spit on the keyboard, "The teachur wis an eedjit; couldnae tell 'er dipthongs from 'er 'airpiece, the auld bint!" "Aherm, so you return with little learning, I see. I'm possibly going to have to buy you subtitles for Christmas" "Aye!" it responds, with as close to a grin as its beak will allow. "So tell me what you have to say about this," I say, turning to the back page of Sunday's Times: "Churchgoer of the week "A blaspheming parrot has taken up residence in a church bell tower, swearing at the vicar and wolf-whistling at passers-by. Peter Craig-Wilde, vicar of St.Mary's at Mirfield, West Yorkshire, first noticed the bird when somebody told him to 'F*** off!' as he walked past. Now the parrot curses and whistles through services and weddings. 'Most people find this very funny, but when it flies about at funerals..." "Ashes to ashes an' ballocks tae bums," screeches the parrot and, inadvertently paraphrasing an insult that for hundreds of years until the 1974 translation of 'The Goatherd Versus the Shepheard" by Theocritus had been either excised or veiled in Latin continues, "ah'll bury ye as deep as ye buggerd, ye bawgag!" "Quite. So I take it it was indeed you, stopping off on your journey North from Ms. Daplyn?" "Wheeeesht! Yeehaaay! Ah kacked on twa folks gettin' wed an a'." "Mmm. Well if you'll excuse me I have a poem to type. Do you read poetry?" "Like heck ah do? Parrots? Read? Are ye outta yer heid? Deid men spoutin' gibberish..." "Well this one's by a girl. It's called 'Filling Station'. The girl's called Elizabeth Bishop. She travelled almost as much as you do." Filling Station Oh, but it is dirty! - this little filling station, oil-soaked, oil-permeated to a disturbing, over-all black translucency. Be careful with that match! Father wears a dirty, oil-soaked monkey suit that cuts him under the arms, and several quick and saucy and greasy sons assist him (it's a family filling station), all quite thoroughly dirty. Do they live in the station? It has a cement porch behind the pumps, and on it a set of crushed and grease- impregnated wickerwork; on the wicker sofa a dirty dog, quite comfy. Some comic books provide the only note of colour - of certain colour. They lie upon a big dim doily draping a taboret (part of the set), beside a big hirsute begonia. Why the extraneous plant? Why the tabouret? Why, oh why, the doily? (Embroidered in daisy stitch with marguerites, I think, and heavy with grey crochet.) Somebody embroidered the doily. Somebody waters the plant, or oils it, maybe. Somebody arranges the rows of cans so that they softly say: ESSO - SO - SO - SO to high-strung automobiles. Somebody loves us all. I turn to the parrot "Did you like the poem?" It wheels around the kitchen, nearly knocking over a tall vase of scentless roses and causing assorted sections of newspaper to inflate wingwards "Naaaa! It wis craaaap! Ah'mm oot ah here!" " Well just remember you're to pay a visit to the PICKLE PRINCE next" And with a rip of fabric and shattering glass, the bird is off into the dreich night, heading in the wrong direction. Hopefully it will get there eventually. Gordon +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. 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