Mist is a wonderful thing, isn't it, and not just for keeping nosey neighbours' eyes off looking through your windows in the afternoons. And if it's thick enough, it'll even stop your local window-cleaner from doing the same thing. Just saying!
And now thanks to the new wonder smoke-bombs from Spanx, you can now even hide unsightly blemishes and "bulges" on your face and body, which is something we've all been asking for for years, isn't it, to put it mildly! Onion News has more.....
Also, Martin, the window-cleaner is coming tomorrow afternoon to "do us", so it's a timely purchase, no doubt about that!
Mist, whether it's of the commercial Spanx variety or just plain ordinary 'natural' fog and mist can also hide unsightly blemishes on the countryside too. Let me ask you - when was the last time you saw an old crone when driving through the fens of East Anglia?
That's an awful warning, particularly to Lois and me, because we like seeing the occasional crone, not to mention the occasional newt (!).
And as we walk through the Malvern mists today, Lois and I have both got Scotland very much on our minds - being very conscious of the fact that the date for my forthcoming "presentation" on Scots English is coming up fast (Friday week - yikes!!!), and I haven't done much work on it yet, to put it mildly (!).
What madness !!!!!
US-born film-star Gayle Hunnicutt, however, claims that a quincesse is an unfortunate sign that you may be suffering from cinchonism, which is caused, she says, by an over-consumption of quinine, and which can cause giddiness.
Well, to both Lois and me, Peter's and Gayle's definitions both sound convincing, but it turns out later in the show, however, that both of these are "bluffs" and are completely made-up, and that the true definition is the following one, given here by team-captain Frank Muir.
So next time you're in Warner's Supermarket in Upton-on-Severn, or wherever your favourite supermarket may be, be sure to ask the "check-out chick", as they call them in Australia, "What sex is it, please Miss?"
oh deary me! Another of our afternoon nap-times disturbed by
local window-cleaner Martin and his long-to-extra-long pole
Onion News has more on that story.....
the historic fenlands of East Anglia
Sadly, however, we're on exactly the wrong side of England now, here in West Worcestershire, and when, as often on our daily walk, we see the spooky mists come down and cover the tops of our lovely 700-million-year-old Malvern Hills, how we wish for a bog-crone or a fog-crone to "pop up" and speed us on our way with a cheery curse or two.
Or even just to catch a brief glimpse of one of their genetically-related cousins, the "mist crones", if there's nothing better on offer (!).
Just saying!
Spooky or what!
the mists coming down during our morning walk over Poolbrook Common,
covering the tops of our local 700-million-year-old Malvern Hills,
which are the usual backdrop for our walks. No sign of crones, sadly(!)
But I'm afraid "low-to-very-low probability of crones today" is the headline forecast on West Worcestershire FM's Morning Weather Update, so Lois and I have to "make the best of it" by recalling the witches in Shakespeare's Macbeth, and quoting, in our cod 'silly Scottish' accents, "Double double toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble" and other "doozies" from the Bard of Avon's so-called "Scottish play".
"Double double toil and trouble - oh dearie me!" - the famous curse
of the three Scottish witches in Shakespeare's Macbeth
My so-called "presentation" is going to have to be given to the local U3A "History of English" group, which I - for my sins (!) - am the "leader" of. Yikes !!!!
During our walk, to calm my nerves about this looming occasion, I get Lois to join me in talking in our silly cod-Scottish accents. And the misty air over Poolbrook Common this morning is thick with cries of "Oh dearie me!" and other Scotticisms we've picked up from BBC4 reruns of "The High Life", the old 1990's Scottish sitcom about the two camp flight attendants and their bully of a chief stewardess, and crazy English pilot Captain Duff, on the fictional "Air Scotia" airline.
No, it's confession time again. The truth is that I haven't done much work on my so-called "presentation on Scots English" yet, despite it being only 9 days away (yikes!), but one thing I have noticed already is that Scots is probably the most "Scandi" form of English, which is perhaps surprising at first glance.
flashback to 1997: Oh, dearie me! It's the Scottish sitcom "The High Life",
with Air Scotia's camp flight attendants Steve and Sebastian, bullying
Chief Stewardess Shona, and crazy English airline pilot Captain Duff
This is because "the poor Scots" (!) were hit with a double whammy during the Viking Age. "Illegal immigrant" Norwegian settlers came flooding, without Home Office permission (!), through the then nascent but feeble "customs posts", into north western and north eastern coasts, and the islands of Shetland and Orkney.
And at the same time the country was being "infiltrated" through Scotland's "soft underbelly" - its southern lowlands - by illegal immigrants from Northern England speaking Anglo-Danish.
What a crazy world it was in those far-off days, that's for sure.
"Mister So-Called Nigel Farage", please note haha !!!
flashback to earlier this year: Reform Party leader Nigel
Farage taking part in a pre-election interview on BBC News
20:00 Evening falls, and Lois and I settle down on the couch to watch a few old shows from the three-channel days of the 1970's, shows which we contend are better than today's TV with its - like - billions of alternative channels to choose from. Just saying (!).
Call us old "stick-in-the-muds" if you like haha (!).
[That's enough exclamation marks in brackets (!) - Ed]
"Call My Bluff" presenter Robert Robinson, introduces the next
word, "quincesse" for Frank Muir and his team to try and define
Peter Jay, journalist, and later UK Ambassador to the US during the Jimmy Carter era, claims that a "quincesse" is the name of a type of "hand of cards" you can get in the old card-game of piquet: an ace-down-to-ten hand is called a "quint", and a knave-down-to-seven hand is called a "quincesse", apparently, Jay says.
US-born film-star Gayle Hunnicutt defines quincesse
as a symptom of cinchonism, which causes dizziness
Frank says, that, just as the word "princess" is, in a certain sense, the female equivalent of a prince, so a quincesse is the female of a quince. And he adds the following hints about how 'fruitologists' can accurately "sex" any examples that come "plopping" through their laboratory letterboxes (!):
That'll "set the cat among the pigeons" to put if mildly (!).
But what a crazy language we speak!!!!!
[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzz!!!!!!
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