-------CHEERS, PART 1 OF 3 

 Be cheerful damn it... or be sorry.

 Herbal reference:
 "Lavender water tinged with pink" below.

 -----------Deep Sorriness Atonement Song----------

 Deep Sorriness Atonement Song
 (for missed appointment, BBC North, Manchester)

 The man who sold Manhattan for a halfway decent bangle,
 He had talks with Adolf Hitler and could see it from his angle,
 And he could have signed the Quarrymen but didn't think
    they'd make it
 So he bought a cake on Pudding Lane and thought
    "Oh well I'll bake it"

    But his chances they were slim
    And his brothers they were Grimm,
    And he's sorry, very sorry,
    But I'm sorrier than him.

 And the drunken plastic surgeon who said "I know!
    let's enlarge 'em!"
 And the bloke who told the Light Brigade "Oh what the hell,
    let's charge'em",
 The magician with an early evening gig on the Titanic
 And the Mayor who told the people of Atlantis not to panic,

    And the Dong about his nose
    And the Pobble re: his toes,
    They're all sorry very sorry
    But I'm sorrier than those.

 And don't forget the Bible, with the Sodomites and Judas,
 And Onan who discovered something nothing was as rude as,
 And anyone who reckoned it was City's year for Wembley.
 And the kid who called Napoleon a shortarse in assembly,

    And the man who always smiles
    Cause he knows I have his files,
    They're all sorry, really sorry,
    But I'm sorrier by miles.

 And Robert Falcon Scott who lost the race to the Norwegian,
 And anyone who's ever split a pint with a Glaswegian,
 Or told a Finn a joke or spent an hour with a Swiss-German,
 Or got a mermaid in the sack and found it was a merman,

    Or him who smelt a rat,
    And got curious as a cat,
    They're all sorry, deeply sorry,
    But I'm sorrier than that.

 All the people who were rubbish when we needed them to do it,
 Whose wires crossed, whose spirit failed, who ballsed it up
    or blew it,
 All notches of nul points and all who have a problem Houston,
 At least they weren't in Kensington when they should
     have been at Euston.

    For I didn't build the Wall
    And I didn't cause the Fall
    But I'm sorry, Lord, I'm sorry,
    I'm the sorriest of all.

   -- [9] Glyn Maxwell
 _________________________________________________________

 [thomas adds]
 I'll type in some notes - just as soon as I stop laughing...

 [Notes]

 'The man who sold Manhattan for a halfway decent
 bangle': In 1626 Peter Minuit, the first director
 general of New Netherland province [later New
 York], is said to have purchased the island from
 the local Indians (the Manhattan, a tribe of the
 Wappinger Confederacy) with trinkets and cloth
 valued at 60 guilders, then worth about 1-1/2
 pounds (0.7 kg) of silver. EB, [10] http://www.eb.com

 'He had talks with Adolf Hitler and could see it
 from his angle': Probably a reference to Neville
 Chamberlain, who returned from negotiations with
 Hitler in Munich and famously declared "I believe
 it is peace for our time". It wasn't.

 'And he could have signed the Quarrymen but
 didn't think they'd make it': 'The Quarrymen'
 was one of the early names of the greatest rock
 group of all time, the Beatles. Manager Brian
 Epstein sent demo tapes to literally dozens of
 recording companies before landing a contract
 with EMI/Parlophone.

 'So he bought a cake on Pudding Lane and thought
 "Oh well I'll bake it"':  The Great Fire of
 London, in 1666, started in a bakery on Pudding
 Lane. (It ended on Pie Lane, but that's a
 different matter altogether).

 'And the bloke who told the Light Brigade "Oh
 what the hell, let's charge 'em"': The ill-fated
 Charge of the Light Brigade, immortalized by
 Tennyson; see [11] poem #355

 'The magician with an early evening gig on the
 Titanic': One can safely assume that the
 performance sank without a trace.

 'And the Mayor who told the people of Atlantis
 not to panic': Famous last words.

--------CONTINUES IN CHEERS, PART 2


--- Maximus/2 3.01