Sinister: Sixty-two and a half per cent isn't bad

[Will Salt]

Hello.  Me.  You don't have to read this if you'd rather not.  It's
that picnic report time again.

Have you head of a man called William McGonagall?  I was sure he'd been
mentioned on the list before, but I searched and found no trace of him.  I
think that's how you spelled his name.  He was a nineteenth-century Dundee
man who was convinced that he was a truly great poet, and spent lots and
lots of money publishing his truly awful poetry.  I should really go to
the library and look up some genuine McGonagall quotes but instead I'm
just going to make some of my own up.  It's easier, and it means I can
mention B&S.

Saturday was a grey horrible rainy day all over the country, but a few of
us still bothered to empty our bank accounts and come to Dundee.  Well, we
were expecting Dundee to be grey and horrible anyway, so we were quite
pleased to find that it was only the same as anywhere else.  It wasn't as
bad as Aberdeen, even.  Picnic Mummy Rachel Sunset met the other three of
us (yes, that's all) at the railway station and showed us the delights of
Dundee's supermarkets before taking us back to her house.

I'm sure Llew will have heard of William McG.  I'm not sure about Chu,
though.  There, that's the obligatory mentions over and done with.  We're
still annoyed that Chu couldn't be bothered to come to the picnic.

He (McGonagall, not Ken) would probably have said something like this:

On a day in the year two thousand and one
To fair Dundee came a great happy throng
Except that really not many people came
Bacause of the prices of tickets on the train.

Pastiche McGonagall is much easier than pastiche Nostradamus, I'm telling
you.

They bought food and drink at Tesco's, the shop
Whilst worrying their picnic would be a great flop
They travelled to Rachel's through rain and through fog
And got licked, bit and jumped on by a small furry dog.

/me giggles.  This is fun.

OK, not for *you*, maybe.  Some of these rhymes are actually too good to
be McGonagall, I think.  He's that bad.  He'd probably rhyme "dog" with
"dog".

Rachel has a lovely house, with varnished bare floorboards and a very cute
dog rushing about and licking everyone she meets.  I felt guilty, because
it's much nicer than mine.  It's a little house, a lodge at the
entrance-gate to a big school, so we were just the right size picnic to
fit round her living room.  We didn't talk very much when we were sober,
but as we drank more we talked more.  I'll have to remember that trick.

I've met quite a few listees in the past week, actually.  A few days ago,
I was sat at home of an evening and there was a knock on the door.  A boy
wearing lots of corduroy was stood there, and somehow I just knew that it
was someone from the list.  Well, I had been vaguely expecting him, but I
thought he was going to phone me.  He brought me a bottle of wine, the
loevly chap.  I'm glad I realised who he was.

We journeyed for miles to the city of Glasgow
A fair city through which the broad Clyde does flow
To hear voices, singing, like an angelic choir
At a gig which someone had seen on a flyer.

(W. McG really does re-use cliches like "fair city" in every verse of a
poem, or introduces irrelevant geographical stuff for the sake of a rhyme)

At the picnic, we phoned as many people as we could think of and said "why
aren't you here?"  They gave silly excuses like "I've got no money, "I'm
on the wrong continent," or "I've lost my puppy."  I gossiped to Kirsten
about the boy she sent a crush vote to, and to Dimitra about the boy she
hasn't sent a crush vote to yet.  After a while, we had finished eating
and drinking and Danny told us he had seen a "Stevie Reverb" gig
advertised in Glasgow for that night.  So we all went off and caught the
train again.

This whole mixtape competition thing seems to be getting serious now.
I'll have to get in touch with the Will Team and sort out what we're
doing.  Watch this space, people.


                <-------- space


In Glasgow we met more people: Rich, Sweetie and Sarah.  We went off to
the gig, which was lovely and nice and had at least five members of B&S on
the stage at some points.  We all loved it, and Rachel seemed especially
excited for some reason.  Stevie asked for requests from the audience, and
a listee persuaded him to sing Wonderwall, once he had remembered what the
first line was.  Other covers requested (and played) included Maggie May,
In My Life, and the theme from Cheers.  I can't remember the names of any
of his own songs that he played, obviously.




           <------ more interesting space




Stevie stood singing, with fey-looking moves
And noone dared get up to go to the loo
Beanz, Bob and Richard looked terribly mellow
And Mick Cooke, as usual, was a right classy fellow.

Afterwards, we all wandered off, of course.  Sweetie had to leave early to
get her bus home, but apparently didn't leave early enough.  Rich was
rather drunk, disappeared, so Sarah thought she'd better go and look for
him.  Danny had to get a taxi back to Ned Country, and me and Rachel fell
asleep on a sofa.  She told me about some of the nice dreams she had in
the past, but only dreamed worried dreams about the lovely Bellepuppy,
hoping she was OK.

We returned to our homes that are spread far and wide
Rachel Picnic Mummy with feelings of pride
Lyns falling asleep, for better or worse
And me with a penchant for terrible verse.

OK.  That's *really* enough McGonagall for one day.


xx
gneissy




-- 
http://www.btinternet.com/~wpsalt/
ICQ 66321009



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