h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I liked your Squiggle (squirm and wriggle) and thought I'd share an old favourite...
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Shirley: Sh*tty and surly

six7s

Ah!
Don't know what happened to my first attempted reply. It was perhaps cyber-spurned on the grounds of poor taste; but that won't save you.

Whilst "Shirley" is a clever piece of work, I shall fight against its adoption while there remains a drop of alcohol in my veins. In my junior school class there was a vision of loveliness named Shirley who had long blonde hair. If you are working on any word combinations that result in "Joan", the memory of long, red ringlets will produce a similar rejection.
You have been warned, Buddy!


At that time, the 1950s, *every* family returned from Sunday morning church service to peel spuds, shell peas, smell the leg of lamb roasting whilst chopping mint leaves (preferably freshly bought from the local allotments) to mix with sugar and vinegar to garnish the spread. This would be put on the table as the radio concluded "Two-way Family Favouites" (yes, you could say things like that in those days) and Billy Cotton's Band Show would start with his trademark call of "Wakey, Waaakeeey!"
There would be a second course of pie (apple, rhubarb, wimberry) and custard.
("Where is this going?" I hear you cry. Patience, Gentle Readers.)
The following day there would be a follow-up meal of cold meat (left over, or saved) with spuds and gravy. There would be some pie, also, served with cold custard. The custard wouldn't "pour", its consistency - when cold - ensured that it "tumbled" out of the jug and lay on the pie not in a becalmed pool but in an imitation of a fluffy cloud. The appearance of "lumps" was misleading because they were insubstantial but slightly firmer to the tongue than freshly made custard, but they were not "chunks". I was intrigued by the transformation and coined the phrase "lunky custard". I am disappointed that it didn't catch on.

Years later, I had access to some birth, death and marriage registers. I found some unusual jobs there. One I didn't fancy at all but another seemed interesting. So as not to cause offence, I assure you that I quote verbatim. The jobs were "Shit Machinist" and "Widow Cleaner". I shall refrain from suggesting that the former could have been a qualitative description.

Thank you for your patience.

I'm happy to leave all the Shirleys and Joans of this world to smoulder in peace - rather than torching the deeper recesses of my ever tormented mind

Oh dear, long, red ringlets...

I might have to have a lie down and think of Family Favourites, which is now little more than a distant haze clouding a truly mythical time when Sundays punctuated my life with rituals of self-sacrifice and carnal pleasure; church on an empty stomach followed by a roast lunch

It must have been at this tender age that I began to struggle with the trinity. I knew that Jesus figured rather prominently as the Son of God, whose name (Harold) was there for all to hear in the opening lines of the Lord's Prayer.

2 down, 1 to go.

The last piece of was revealed when the congregation called out as one 'Thanks Peter God'

And then there was my aunt who, as a child wondered where Plicity was and why we should pity the mice there whenever the grownups sang:
"Pity my simplicity".

And I can't remember whose story of the child burying a pet mouse (or something) with the words:
"In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and into the hole he goes."

And then there was our former rector, later Bishop of Exeter, who claimed that at one church a churchwarden had effected a temporary repair (which became permanent) to a hymn board by jamming into a loose joint, a "whalebone" from his (the churchwarden's) wife's corset. He came to dread announcing the hymn "O strength and stay (upholding all creation)".

And then there was my father, who wasn't one to follow the prayer book too closely, and was not familiar with the printed line "we pray for (N) our bishop" and enquired:
"Who is this Gerald Derbyshire we keep praying for?"

Enough, already.