Chilli Crisis

Good morning, and here is the news. The chilli crisis has now reached epidemic proportions. They have taken over the fridge, the freezer, the kitchen, the larder and the conservatory. In an attempt to control numbers, many have been dried and imprisoned in jars, but the jars have now crowded most of the cupboard space. And they are still breeding in the garden. In a desperate last-ditch manoeuvre, I tried the neutralising tactic of adding them to a caramelised red onion chutney, but to no avail (ingredients: red onions, bay leaves, olive oil, brown sugar, balsamic vinegar, red wine vinegar — and chillies). Pickling was also suggested, but it didn't restrain them for long (pickling liquid: white vinegar, water, peppercorns, fennel seeds, salt, caster sugar, bay leaves). Watch out: they may soon be wriggling down a road near you. I shall not be in hot pursuit.

Pickled chillies.

Some think it incredibly silly

To eat a bowl full of raw chilli

When tradition agrees

It's best roasted with cheese —

Rocamadour, Reblechon or Caerphilly.

Coming Back

This last piece of frivolity is my real answer to Bonnie's interview question about the after-life...

Reincarnation

A priest I'd not like to inhabit.
I'd rather come back as a rabbit.
A sadhu is sadder,
A bishop is badder,
But worse is a monk with his habit.

I'd think it exceedingly queer
To take over the soul of E. Lear,
His beard would stink much
Of bird crap, and such,
And put off the women, I fear.

I'd find it remarkably calmer
To reincarnate as a lama,
But knowing my luck
With a karma that's stuck,
I'll return as Bin Laden (Osama).

(With apologies to Edward Lear.)

And that's quite enough of all that. I promise you, dear readers, that my posts will now return to more elevated issues and weighty matters. Like food, for instance...

A Chip Of Ice

The final two poems I’m going to post in this little series go from the sublime to the ridiculous. Well, I always did have a penchant for light verse! The first may be seen as a warning to bloggers and youtubers and journalists and writers to hang on to their precious humanity. Though didn’t Graham Greene once say something about all writers having a chip of ice in their heart?

Blogging

My mother was felled by a log.
And my father got bit by a dog.
My sister was sick,
And my brother got rick-
Ets, and grandma succumbed to the smog.

My grandfather swallowed a frog.
And my wife fell neck-high in a bog.
My sister-in-law
Had a spat with a saw,
And her husband was mauled by a hog.

The twins both went mad in the fog
And thought they were Gog and Magog.
But I cared not a lot,
Not a tittle or jot -
I could post it all up on my blog!

So all of you bloggers, beware.
If disaster strikes, do not despair.
When tragedy knocks,
Don't call up the docs -
Just blog it with finesse and flair.

Three Limericks

A winter Camino pilgrim
Abandoned the trail on a whim.
He boarded a train
And was not seen again...
So his chance of redemption is slim.

A winter Camino pilgrim
Had eyesight so terribly dim
That he read the map wrong...
Ended up in Hong Kong!
Which deeply offended Saint Jim.

A thirsty, footsore peregrino
Was drinking so much of the vino,
He was calling Saint James
All kinds of rude names
As he staggered along the Camino!

Bet you wish I hadn't rediscovered my sense of humour after these..!

(Posted from Puebla de Sanabria, on the Camino Sanabrés, Spain.)

A Surfeit Of Limericks

With all this talk of reincarnation in the blogworld at present, my Limerick Muse has descended unbidden yet again. In the guise of Pam Ayres rather than Dante's Beatrice, methinks. After this, I must dwell on Higher Things.

A priest I'd not like to inhabit.

I'd rather come back as a rabbit.

A sadhu is sadder,

A bishop is badder,

And worse is a monk with his habit.

I'd think it exceedingly queer

To inhabit the soul of E. Lear,

His beard would stink much

Of bird crap and such,

And put off the women, I fear.

I'd find it exceedingly calmer

To reincarnate as a lama,

But knowing my luck

With a karma that's stuck,

I'll return as Bin Laden (Osama).

Oh dear. I must stop this. Please stop me, someone. Stop me NOW. Please. I beg you.

There Was An Old Man With A Blog...

A given idea woke me up again tonight. But hardly a green thought in a green shade it must be said. The logos was a trifle bogus. The real stuff, the more 'serious' poems, usually trickle not rush out. This one rushed out, as brazen and unembarrassed as a naked German in a communal campsite shower. For I'm not talking real poetry here, the non-rhyming Eliotocracy of Minnesang. This was more booze-inspired than Muse-inspired. I'm talking doggerel, I'm talking limericks, I'm talking Light Verse.

Not that there's anything wrong with Light Verse. Wendy Cope has made a mint from it. And very good it is too. But I fear that my own is not very good and, to make matters worse, given half a chance it pours out, unsummoned and unexpurgated, from some shameful Swordy Well in my mind which should have been bricked up long ago.

The chief proponent of the limerick art form is Edward Lear. When young I was often slightly disappointed by his limericks as the last line usually echoed the 1st line by ending in the same word - a technique which, for me, brought the 'poem' to an end with an anti-climactic whimper rather than a satisfying bang. (However, the surreal content of the rest of the limerick more than made up for this.) Example:

There was an Old Man with a beard
Who said 'It is just as I feared!
Two Owls and a Hen,
Four Larks and a Wren,
Have all built their nests in my beard!'

In order to explain my own sad flirtation with Light Verse I must go right back to my teenage years and to the girl who was to become my sister-in-law. Her manipulation of the opposite sex, and her perceived attractiveness to them, inspired the following 2 Immortal Verses:

There was a young girl called Joanna
Who paraded about with a banner.
Its message was: 'Men!
How I love you!' But then
She laid them all out with a spanner.

A pretty young damsel named Jo
Had a score of admirers in tow.
She loved them no doubt
But what put her out
Was the way they queued up in a row.

And my verbal tic of a mockery of the art of versification goes on unabated to this very day. Which brings me back to tonight and the latest bucketful of bardic well water. And it also brings me back to blogging, and my fellow bloggers - for it is a Cautionary Tale of the Perils of Obsessive Blogging, Dangers which may well Threaten your Very Humanity!

My mother was felled by a log.
And my father got bit by a dog.
My sister was sick,
And my brother got rick-
Ets, and grandma succumbed to the smog.

My grandfather swallowed a frog.
And my wife fell neck-high in a bog.
My sister-in-law
Had a spat with a saw,
And her husband was mauled by a hog.

The twins both went mad in the fog
And thought they were Gog and Magog.
But I cared not a lot,
Not a tittle or jot -
I could post it all up on my blog!

So all of you bloggers, beware.
If disaster strikes, do not despair.
When tragedy knocks,
Don't call up the docs -
Just blog it with finesse and flair.

So you see, it's a sorry and hopeless case. I'm afraid my intellectual stock has plummeted, my creative credibility been fatally holed below the waterline. And to think that at one time he promised so much...