Is it Yorick?
Horatio's been asking.
Eddie Mair | 12:40 UK time, Tuesday, 27 March 2007
Horatio's been asking.
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Eddie:
(1) Are you using us as a laboratory for a new career as a cryptic crossword setter?
or
(2) Are you practising your northern dialects?
Hm. So that's where you've been, Eddie. Rehearsing for audtion for the Newsteam's summer production of Hamlet.
Who's providing the skull, by the way?
Oh Sir Mair , fellow of infinte jest, how your blog entries becometh shorter. Like you dear Eddie, Yorick was full of jokes and merriment, but unlike your goodself, disliked gravity and seriousness. However similar to the Mairmeister, he poked at serious people. Seriousness, he said, "was a mysterious carriage of the body to cover the defects of the mind". What a great strapline for the PM blog. I shall suggest it Sire.
It may have been.
Alas, I knew him well.....
And a good choice for the Froggers to ponder on. Here's Hamlet Act 3, scene ii;
Hamlet: Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel?
Polonius: By th' Mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed.
Surely a link to the Beach!
Si.
Maybe it's Rosencrantz or Guildenstern....
Rather him than Yorvik....bad childhood memories. By the way, really liked todays newsletter, bit of a classic I think!
Eddie,
Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? What about the time gap before the bongs? Alas, PM Eddie too much and too many by far! Mind the Gap..the gap!
Maybe its Macbeth.
Is something rotten in the state of Denmark then?
Or are you having Act 2 thoughts about work today?;
More matter, with less art.
Gertrude, scene ii
Polonius: What do you read, my lord?
Hamlet: Words, words, words.
scene ii
(Aside.) Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't.
Polonius, scene ii
There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
Hamlet, scene ii
Si.
Edward,
I don't expect you to finish the homework. Just do as much as you can this evening.
Alas poor Edie Mair, I knew him well.
If you don't come up with better schtick than this Mr. Mair, that will be your epitaph here too.
". . . a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. . ."
Nah, couldn't be.
Ah, Sweet Swan of Avon!
wha?
Eddie mentions a hot drink at bed time and everyone starts speaking funny.
Is this about drugs?
oh, hold on...
It's too soon to tell if it's Yorik, Calleigh. Alexx is still working on him. Looks pretty messed up to me.
Night Mair
This is the PM newsreporter
Bringing the news from every quarter,
Reports from Belfast, news from Baghdad
Some of it good but most of it bad
Crossing the borders, watching the lines
The deadlines are tough, but he’s on time.
Thro’ many a schedule he rampages
His editor’s eye upon the gauges.
Panting up through breaking news
Fending off outrageous views.
Striding forward with humour light
‘Gainst stubborn bigots and friends alike.
Winding up the hour towards the bongs
Thro’ the clatter and the chatter and the news overhead.
Past business news and sports successes
With little ad libs to lower the stresses,
Smiling silently against the eye
Of the glittering webcam there up high.
Froggers wonder as he moves his lips
Staring from the webcam at his rugby strips
Nobody can turn his course
(As if anybody would, of course!)
In homebound cars no one demurs
But turn up the sound when his voice is heard.
5.55, the work’s nearly done
Letting up the flow, the programme descends
Towards the weather and news coming up at six
Towards the formal voice of the news presenters
Working from hard wrought scripts.
All Britain has listened to him:
In the Blog Pond, beside their flickering screens,
Froggers long for a mention.
Posts of thanks, posts without franks,
Posts of joy from the girl and the boy
Acknowledgement of points unseen
By other froggers or the PM team,
And simulations of declarations
And simple statement of situations
And gossip, gossip from all the nations,
News circumstantial, news financial,
Emails with holiday snaps to enlarge in,
Emails with birthday cards scrawled in the margin,
Emails from uncles, cousins, and aunts,
Emails about Scotland and the South of France,
Emails of thanks about Ireland and such land
Emails from overseas to Hebrides
Written on computers of every hue,
The pink, the violet, the white and the blue,
The chatty, the catty, the boring, adoring,
The cold and official and the heart's outpouring,
Clever, stupid, short and long,
The typed and the printed and the spelt all wrong.
Thousands are still awake
Dreaming of having their emails read,
Or of a friendly word from their urbane host:
Awake in working Glasgow, awake in well-set Edinburgh,
Awake in granite Aberdeen,
They continue listening,
And then, farewell, the bongs alas
(Though none will ever hear them crashed)
As in a flash hour has passed
Though, have no fear, it’s not forgotten.
"Are the commentators on "Hamlet" really mad, or only pretending to be.
Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900)
Big Sis (16) GOSH!
Thank you, Eddie. Glad you enjoyed it.
I omitted to mention the Newsletter when I adapted Auden's wonderful poem for you, but then again the Newsletter appears to forget me - or, at least, I appear to be an afterthought, so perhaps my omission was appropriate :-)
BigSis (16);
Knocked out!!
Amazing stuff, 'well done' doesn't even begin to cover it.
Si. :-}
Big Sister - 10/10
Mrs Barnfather! I thought you were dead!!!!
My essay will be in first thing tomorrow, I promise.
Fiona
Big Sister (16) You're a star!
Big Sister (16)
Ah, Sweet Swan of Sussex :-)
Big Sister (16):
Wow!
Shall I compare thee to a cracking good poet?
Thou art more iambic than a pentameter.
Rough words do shake my humble posts,
And Eddie's "Gosh" hath all too short a date,
Sometime the pause before the bongs drags,
And often is such silence dim;
And every post on Blog sometime declines,
With limericks of over-extended lines.
But thy eternal rhyming shall not miss.
Nor lose the shine of that fair Big Sis;
Nor shall Chris Evans brag thou wand'rest on his blog,
When in this Frog is spawned such lines,
So long as the newsletter arrives ere five,
So long lives this, and this gives laughs to us.
Thanks, silver-fox, robbie, si, and WWoman.
If it doesn't confuse me with SSC, perhaps I should 'transmogriphy' into SSS? or 3xS?
Stainless: Thou art peerless!
Cheers to thee for thy fine and well wrought verse.
Should we publish?
Yes indeed, Big Sis, SSC, Frances O and all other previous poyum contributors, how about a Froggers' Golden Treasury? Money to the same charity as the Froggers' Chorus. We could become a Brand??
I could make cakes. Ah - no - wrest me from the realms of fantasy on that last one please - see other thread for details :o/
Big Sis (28):
Publish and be darned!
As for "Transmoggification"... I thought this moggy had just sorted out its gender to everyone's satisfaction...?
Re: the busker who's just been on. He clearly wasn't very good; that was the worst version of "Blowin' In The Wind" I've ever heard busked.
Big Sis (16), I need to add a "wow". WOW!!! Well done.
SSCat (29) Tee hee hee! Silly moggy.
Call me a Sociologist, but, strictly speaking:
sex -- male or female;
gender -- masculine or feminine.
A, x.
Wonderful, Big Sis and SSC!
Super poems. I am so impressed by your work.A+++ and would you like a place at Cambridge, either of you? What's that - your parents went to university? Oh, I'm so sorry. Offer withdrawn unfortunately.
Brilliant Big Sis! That deserves a read out on the programme!
Or the acceptance speech at a well known up and coming awards ceremony.
Mary
Aperitif (30):
Call me a Sociologist,
OK, You're... no. Too obvious, even for me.
but, strictly speaking:
sex -- male or female;
gender -- masculine or feminine.
Ah, but can a virtual personality have sex? (Um... you know what I mean.) Or can it only have gender?
SSCat (34) Re can a virtual personality have sex/ I'm not sure. How might we find out?
THERE IS NO MALICE IN MY SPEEDINESS!
Aperitif (35):
I'm not sure. How might we find out?
Dunno. Start with virtual flowers & virtual choccies?
;o)
My dear SSCat (36), Well it's a start. Virtual dating next? Or do Virtual Personalties dispense with that sort of thing? I'd rather like to think they were inclined to the romantic...