-------CHEERS, PART 2 OF 3

 'And the Dong about his nose / And the Pobble re
 his toes': The Dong with the Luminous Nose, and
 the Pobble who has no Toes are characters from
 Edward Lear.

 'The Pobble Who Has No Toes'

 The Pobble who has no toes
 Had once as many as we;
 When they said "Some day you may lose them all;"
 He replied "Fish, fiddle-de-dee!"
 And his Aunt Jobiska made him drink
 Lavender water tinged with pink,
 For she said "The World in general knows,
 There's nothing so good for a Pobble's toes!"

 The Pobble who has no toes
 Swam across the Bristol Channel;
 But before he set out he wrapped his nose
 In a piece of scarlet flannel.
 For his Aunt Jobiska said "No harm
 Can come to his toes if his nose is warm;
 And it's perfectly known that a Pobble's toes
 Are safe, -- provided he minds his nose!"

 The Pobble swam fast and well,
 And when boats or ships came near him,
 He tinkledy-blinkledy-winkled a bell,
 So that all the world could hear him.
 And all the Sailors and Admirals cried,
 When they saw him nearing the further side -
 "He has gone to fish for his Aunt Jobiska's
 Runcible Cat with crimson whiskers!"

 But before he touched the shore,
 The shore of the Bristol Channel,
 A sea-green porpoise carried away
 His wrapper of scarlet flannel.
 And when he came to observe his feet,
 Formerly garnished with toes so neat,
 His face at once became forlorn,
 On perceiving that all his toes were gone!

 And nobody ever knew,
 From that dark day to the present,
 Whoso had taken the Pobble's toes,
 In a manner so far from pleasant.
 Whether the shrimps, or crawfish grey,
 Or crafty Mermaids stole them away -
 Nobody knew: and nobody knows
 How the Pobble was robbed of his twice five toes!

 The Pobble who has no toes
 Was placed in a friendly Bark,
 And they rowed him back, and carried him up
 To his Aunt Jobiska's Park.
 And she made him a feast at his earnest wish
 Of eggs and buttercups fried with fish, -
 And she said "It's a fact the whole world knows,
 That Pobbles are happier without their toes!"

 The Pobble's Aunt Jobiska is one of my favourite
 poetic personages, if only because she seems to
 embody the many oh-so-familiar characteristics of
 aunts everywhere [1].

 The Pobble himself is a rather mysterious
 character. Like his soulmate, the Dong with the
 Luminous Nose, he lives in a surreal, twilit
 world, populated with Runcible Cats, Jumbly Girls
 and Oblong Oysters...

 Edward Lear's most celebrated poem is 'The Owl
 and the Pussycat'.

 'And don't forget the Bible, with the Sodomites
 and Judas, And Onan who discovered something
 nothing was as rude as' Sodomy: copulation with a
 member of the same sex or with an animal; Onanism:
 masturbation; Judas: one who betrays under the
 guise of friendship -- Merriam Webster, [13]
 http://www.m-w.com

 'And anyone who reckoned it was City's year for Wembley':
 Manchester City have never won the F. A. Cup.  

 'And the kid who called Napoleon a shortarse in
 assembly': The widespread notion of Napoleon's
 shortness lies in the inaccurate translation of
 old French feet ("pieds de roi") to English. The
 French measure of five foot two (5' 2"), recorded
 at his autopsy, actually translates into five
 feet six and one half inches (5'-6.5") in English
 measure, which was about the average height of
 the Frenchman of his day. It's also probable that
 the grenadiers of his Imperial Guard, with whom
 he "hung out," were very tall men, therefor
 creating the illusion that Napoleon was very
 short.  -- [14]
 http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/95aug/napoleon.html

 'And Robert Falcon Scott who lost the race to the
 Norwegian': Roald Amundsen reached the South Pole
 about a month before Scott's doomed expedition.

 'And anyone who's ever split a pint with a
 Glaswegian': Glaswegians are notorious for their
 tightfistedness...  'Or told a Finn a joke': ...
 Finns for their lack of humour...  'or spent an
 hour with a Swiss-German': ... and Germans for
 their boringness.

--------CONTINUES IN CHEERS, PART 3


--- Maximus/2 3.01