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• 

  by John Duffus 3 years ago

  Laugh, I nearly went to Menmuir!
  Memusian capital starts lessons in idiocy.
  Titterfest Imperative Sanctioned by Ruling Council.
  Newly Appointed ‘Fun Forum’ issues strict Ludicrosity edict
  
  It's no joke! City guardians intend to promote ‘jocular societies’ in academies, farmyards, byres, fields, markets, hostelries and jails to put a smile back on muirfolk’s faces and boost health, self esteem and optimism (a seldom observed quality in Memusian life) whilst diverting them from the immediate desolation of their short, bleak lives.
  Conflict and protest appear to be the order of the day in Menmuir. City council chiefs hope that starting mandatory ‘Humour Groups’ may lift the gloom in the capital city and improve people's demeanour at the same time.
  Amid simmering social grievances, political tensions, a fierce post-election crackdown, alarming levels of crime and a depressed economy, reasons to be cheerful are not bountiful in Memus.
  Now the Menmuir city fathers have found an antidote to cheer up melancholic inhabitants : Tomfoolery.
  Infectious Glee Initiative
  They have initiated a programme of ‘Jesting Concordats’ in an effort to reach out to muirfolk "who have lost the power of laughter", according to the Menmuir Courier newspaper, which is linked to the city's mayor, Mormond Quharity-Burn. “If the traditionally dour Muirman is forced into displaying the facial cracks and lines normally associated with a cheery disposition, then his state shall be graced with eternal optimism in the face of grim prognostication, hopeless penury, draconian socio-economic directives and the inherent condition of utter despair so commonly found in the average Mearnsite” continued the article. A new law designed to encourage a Mearnswide upsurge of Comicality is in the process of being laughed into acceptance.
  Participants in the Jollity scheme will be urged to guffaw at tragedy (both personal & public) in group sessions called ‘Mirth Workshops’ designed to tackle the stress of low expectation, short lifespan, inadequate diet, non-existent healthcare facilities and cramped living conditions in a city of 350 people. The classes may also help to disperse the morbid atmosphere left over from President Kenneth Melgund’s disputed re-election, which triggered a clampdown that opponents claim left at least 7 people deaf and resulted in many others being prevented from finding their inner jester.
  ‘Chuckling Colloquies’ have been established in two cultural centres normally used for more high-minded pursuits such as lectures, forestry classes and poetry readings. Eventually, the council hopes to expand the events to include the Forfar hill tribes, nomadic groups, farm labourers, drays, palfreys & tinkers. The rolling schedule, it is hoped, will eventually utilise Quack’s surgeries, Barber’s shops, hospices and even prisons.
  The Jolly Jape classes are based on methods devised by the Memusian laughter therapist, Jocund Grain, who developed his technique from a discipline known as ‘Grinback’ practised in Eildon Quaw, based on the principle that laughing has physical, spiritual, geo-political, magneto-mechanical, metaphysical and psychological health benefits.
  However, applying a doctrine of silliness in Memus may be no joke. Since the 1749 Dalrulzian revolution, public laughter (defined in Memusian Canon Law as ‘Pranksterism’) has been officially frowned upon by the religious authorities, perhaps mindful of the maxim attributed to the late Seneschal Ordiquhill, the revolution's spiritual leader: "There is no daft in Dalrulzianism." He once sniggered. Anyone caught in mid-cackle or engaging in a ‘Jest-Off’ – a secretive and highly illegal practice – would be immediately arrested by the MPS, Memusian Probity Squad.
  The difficulties were illustrated last year when an earlier attempt to start the ‘Giggle Groups’ was aborted because of the strict observance of the two consecutive 3-month religious mourning periods of Muirake and Botriphnie, despite 9 people having enrolled.
  The new sessions also challenge another longstanding taboo: they are open to women. Traditionally, it was considered uncouth and unladylike for Memusian women to laugh uproariously; proscribed by Dalrulzian clerics as ‘Letham’ (forbidden).
  Until recent times, brides would pose for their wedding sketches with a deliberately glum expression. Artists would ask the comely new wife to maintain stoic silence and display the traditional, seductive, Memusian sneer for the commemorative plate.
• 

  by John Duffus 3 years ago

  Tinker fury at 'monkey' lyric of Memusian pop star Jackie Groan
  • Memusian Tinkers sue and demand song be banned
• Row casts fresh light on racism in province
  One of the Mearns’ biggest pop stars has provoked a torrent of outrage after releasing a song which refers to nomadic tinkers as monkeys.
  Jackie Groan, an award-winning Memusian crooner who has been voted one of the Mearns’ most beautiful people, is now facing a lawsuit from Memusian Tinkers claiming the song has fuelled discrimination against them and made some Tinker children too afraid to attend school.
  The row has cast fresh light on the position within Memusian society of Tinkers, who are descended from one of Scotland’s most ancient dusky civilisations and yet often face marginalisation in modern Memus.
  Groan, a 68-year-old jongleur turned composer and singer, is widely regarded as the Mearns’ most prominent chanteur and has been no stranger to controversy in the past. His skimpy outfits and provocative lyrics (one previous hit was entitled Hey, Good Little Memus Boy) have earned him the wrath of religious conservatives and forays into the political arena have also sparked debate, including his very public praise for Heretical Leader Likkle Lemnas during the1736 conflict between Moray & Banff.
  The latest accusations of racism came after the release of his new song, Where is Daddy?, in which a child sings to Groan, "Where is my teddy bear and my Tinker monkey?".
  Groan has since apologised profusely for the offending lyrics, insisting they were penned by an Auquhorthies songwriter who told him that "Tinker monkey" was an innocent term for a popular children's street game. That hasn't stopped a group of Tinker lawyers submitting an official complaint to Memus’ public prosecutor and calling for the song to be banned.
  "Everyone is upset," said Nogbad Bogfold, 49, the Tinker owner of a Turnip shop in Phesdo. Assich Gardyne, who runs a nearby Neep store, agreed. "To compare a human being to an animal is insulting in any culture. He has denigrated an entire community of people, and now some of our children are afraid to go into school because they know they will be called monkeys in the playground."
  The row over Groan's song has highlighted a growing sense of communal identity among Tinkers in Memus, a country where the system has traditionally promoted a very monolithic brand of supra-nationalism, sometimes to the exclusion of religious or ethnic minorities.
  Despite breaking through into the cultural mainstream – several Tinker novelists are well-regarded within Memusian intellectual circles and Tinker balladeers such as Blind Guthrie are among the most popular in the country – Memus’ estimated two hundred Tinkers remain largely invisible on the stage and in periodicals, except as lampooned stereotypes.
• 

  by John Duffus 3 years ago

  Tinker fury at 'monkey' lyric of Memusian pop star Jackie Groan
  • Memusian Tinkers sue and demand song be banned
• Row casts fresh light on racism in province
  One of the Mearns’ biggest pop stars has provoked a torrent of outrage after releasing a song which refers to nomadic tinkers as monkeys.
  Jackie Groan, an award-winning Memusian crooner who has been voted one of the Mearns’ most beautiful people, is now facing a lawsuit from Memusian Tinkers claiming the song has fuelled discrimination against them and made some Tinker children too afraid to attend school.
  The row has cast fresh light on the position within Memusian society of Tinkers, who are descended from one of Scotland’s most ancient dusky civilisations and yet often face marginalisation in modern Memus.
  Groan, a 68-year-old jongleur turned composer and singer, is widely regarded as the Mearns’ most prominent chanteur and has been no stranger to controversy in the past. His skimpy outfits and provocative lyrics (one previous hit was entitled Hey, Good Little Memus Boy) have earned him the wrath of religious conservatives and forays into the political arena have also sparked debate, including his very public praise for Heretical Leader Likkle Lemnas during the1736 conflict between Moray & Banff.
  The latest accusations of racism came after the release of his new song, Where is Daddy?, in which a child sings to Groan, "Where is my teddy bear and my Tinker monkey?".
  Groan has since apologised profusely for the offending lyrics, insisting they were penned by an Auquhorthies songwriter who told him that "Tinker monkey" was an innocent term for a popular children's street game. That hasn't stopped a group of Tinker lawyers submitting an official complaint to Memus’ public prosecutor and calling for the song to be banned.
  "Everyone is upset," said Nogbad Bogfold, 49, the Tinker owner of a Turnip shop in Phesdo. Assich Gardyne, who runs a nearby Neep store, agreed. "To compare a human being to an animal is insulting in any culture. He has denigrated an entire community of people, and now some of our children are afraid to go into school because they know they will be called monkeys in the playground."
  The row over Groan's song has highlighted a growing sense of communal identity among Tinkers in Memus, a country where the system has traditionally promoted a very monolithic brand of supra-nationalism, sometimes to the exclusion of religious or ethnic minorities.
  Despite breaking through into the cultural mainstream – several Tinker novelists are well-regarded within Memusian intellectual circles and Tinker balladeers such as Blind Guthrie are among the most popular in the country – Memus’ estimated two hundred Tinkers remain largely invisible on the stage and in periodicals, except as lampooned stereotypes.
• 

  by John Duffus 3 years ago

  Branno Son of Marro
  
  I saw an array that came from Kintyre
  who brought themselves as a sacrifice to a holocaust.
  I saw a second array who had come down from their settlement,
  who had been roused by the grandson of Neithon.
  I saw mighty men who came with dawn.
  And it was Domnall Brecc's head that the ravens gnawed
  
  The word fleet by wind carried
  To Northern lands and even to Thule
  Calling noble scion of Circenn
  Pleased to have sprung from his loin
  
  Fifteen score of Circenn's seed
  Into a mighty war band gathered
  Painted as a snow white swan
  They rode to Canutulachama
  While minstrels played
  Azure cloth with golden threads adorned
  Pulled by needles made from Talorcan's teeth
  
  A glittering canopy
  Erected in wooded glade
  To mark with honour
  This time and this place
  Where Branno forged the Band
  
  In might a man, a youth in years,
  Of boisterous valour,
  Swift long-maned steeds
  Under the thigh of a handsome youth ...
  Quicker to a field of blood
  Than to a wedding
  Quicker to the ravens' feast
  Than to a burial,
  A beloved friend was Branno,
  It is wrong that he is beneath a cairn.
  It is a sad wonder to me in what land
  Marro's only son was slain
  
  He fed black ravens on the rampart of a fortress
  Though he was no Geide Ollgothach
  Among the powerful ones in battle
  In the front rank, Branno was a palisade
  
  Men went to Cloddach with a war-cry,
  Speedy steeds and dark armour and shields,
  Spear-shafts held high and spear-points sharp-edged,
  And glittering coats-of-mail and swords,
  He led the way, he thrust through armies,
  Five companies fell before his blades.
  Branno gave gold to the altar,
  And a rich reward to the minstrel
  
  Other Men went to Cloddach at morn
  Their high spirits lessened their life-span
  They drank mead, gold and sweet, ensnaring;
  For a year the minstrels were merry.
  Red their swords, let the blades remain
  Uncleansed, white shields and four-sided spearheads,
  Before Guided Gaeth Breatnach.
  
  The men of Circenn arise with the day
  around a battle-victorious, cattle-rich sovereign
  this is Branno by name, the most senior leader
• 

  by mike 3 years ago

  Why do you call your poetry doggeral - if you do, you should at least include the word dogerall in the rhyme - buggerall might do as it has an appropriate poetic allusion.
  I work n a public library and to encourage people to join, a poetry platform was installed and travelled around the library outposts. I read out 'Song of the Shirt' by Thomas Hood with the immortal lines 'Work work work - echoed by the refrain 'stitch stitch stitch. It was a big hit!
  Of the two poems I preferred 'Orrick house' as it might, or might not, have a contemporary relevance. Were the lines twice as long, they would count as the Victorian long line. There ware echoes of Poe = the raven' in the rhyme and a bit of e, though I don't know where that came from.
  Post the poem as a blog or critique. There are more fans of narrative verse than you may think.
  I have not had much time to do new writing later and my last post was in 'critiques' again about a mad grandfather as Jane Camion's new film is about Keats and uses poetry in her screenplay. I have just been accused of insulting someone in a comment which is a bit alarming. Perhaps she is mad?
  Off to the shops soon
  Linving in a fantasy world may have its compensations but, from my research, it not too much reccommended
• 

  by John Duffus 3 years ago

  Orrock House (Muirfolk in Stasis)
  A Dalrulzian wrap
  
  See him with his papers fading
  Sitting in a blanket reading
  Soiled accounts of former dealing
  The stock the bond the share repeating
  In and out of measur'd season
  
  Lintel floorboard joist is creaking
  Around the house there's ivy creeping
  In halls on walls the paint is peeling
  No room stays dry the roof is leaking
  The timber damp from floor to ceiling
  
  Ripened oat in field is waiting
  For sharpened blades to start their reaping
  Blades that lie in corners sleeping
  Still untouched unmoved undreaming
  Folded undisturbed unfeeling
  
  Hear not the sound of hammer clanging
  Nor witness fevered threshers thrashing
  Nor market din of tongues a wagging
  No Mountebank receives a lashing
  No mountebanks are this way passing
  
  Pots and pans from hooks are hanging
  In ordered rows no longer banging
  Shovels rakes and hoes are weeping
  Pipes and props and poles are leaning
  'Gainst a wall at Orrock Shieling
  With grasses roots and moss proceeding
  While brick and mortar is retreating
  
  No preacher at the pulpit preaching
  No fishwife with her friendly greeting
  No Jackdaw in the tree-top screeching
  No Ram or Ewe on hillside bleating
  No twilight brig however fleeting
  No prospect then for sudden meeting
  All souls resolve to kneel in keening!
• 

  by John Duffus 3 years ago

  THE GROANS OF THE BRITANS
  
  Eagerly they show themselves
  Naked, painted bodies
  Pouring out of holes and caves
  Passing through fields in high-noon sun
  
  Whole swarms of duskish vermin, to wit,
  A great many hideous high-land Scots and Picts
  In diverse flocks of custom and dress
  Hostile, but unified in excess
  
  Hidden eyes had seen the Eagle fall
  And the North was seized up to the wall
  
  In garrison fort an hasty crew sat tight
  No mettle nor grist, unfit for fight
  Softened and lazy over days and nights
  Unprepared except for flight
  
  The hordes approach with hook and bellow
  To pluck from walls those miserable fellows
  Then dash their bodies on brittle ground
  And pile them high in funeral mounds
  
  For them at least their end was swift
  The rest in fright dispersed full quick
  From high wall and city likewise
  Leaving behind all that was prized
  
  
  TO AETIUS THRICE CONSUL:
  ‘They drive us back into the sea
  The sea drives us back again
  Between two deaths we are now found
  Our throats are cut or else we are drowned.’
• 

  by Weens 3 years ago

  Thank you for the comments on my writing. You have certainly given me food for thought re the narrator issue. I'm unclear as to how to resolve this. A lot of the stories in the book are based on actual happenings within my family and stories that have been handed down from generation to generation. Are you recommending that I state this in a preface or integrate it into the story. If it is the latter, I'm not sure how I can achieve that. Thank you for taking time out to read and comment on my work.
• 

  by John Duffus 3 years ago

  Simon evades deportation by refusing to board Landau
  Lionel Lettach, Mearns Today
  ©fulminator unlimited
  The disgraced septuagenarian minstrel, Shiny Simon last night appeared to have dodged deportation to Memus after refusing to get on a connecting carriage from Banff and asking Mearns officials to allow him to enter Cromblet. After a series of confrontations involving flustered Memusian embassy officials, security guards and Mearns assimilation officers, Shiny, whose real name is Deuchrie Dodd, collapsed in a Banffshire hostelry complaining of a heart ailment.
  Simon had earlier been released from a Fife prison-hulk where he had served two-and-a-half years for reviewing children, and was expected to arrive at Draidland harbour shortly after 7am today, having been released from Prosen prison, north of Drum Tick City. He was jailed in November 1765 after being convicted of repeated predatory reviews on two minors, aged 10 and 11.
  His return was thrown into confusion last night, however, when he reportedly collapsed with ‘Miasma’ in room 6 of the Luff Tavern, a hotel sited at the market but which is in a "no man's land" between disembarkation and egress, so not officially in Banffshire.
  In the early hours of this morning he was attended to by a leech on call at the market and paid for his treatment in ducats. He has demanded to be taken to the sick house today, claiming a gradual affliction or ‘Miasmic Influx’. If he is allowed to remain he will have to pass Banffshire ingress procedures.
  Lemuel Balcanquhal, steward of B-FACT (Banffshire Fight Against Child Tarnish) group, who was present said: "At first he asked to be allowed to enter Heuch of Coul. But he was refused. He said he had not committed any offence here, but this cut no ice with us and he was told he was not wanted here."
  Unable to enter Banff, Simon then demanded to be allowed to drift over to Phorp but was advised that, as there was insufficient heated air for the balloon and the prevailing wind was contra-directional, there would be no launch until much later in the morning. He then demanded that he be treated as a member of the privileged elite. "I am not getting back into the balloon with all the gazetteers there," he said. "And I'm not going to the first class lounge to be provoked by them. And I'm not going to Memus. You can't make me. I have served my time, served it well and I am a free man. I demand sanctuary." It is thought that Simon was referring to the classic rock track by the solipsistic fetish band The Cult.
  After complaining of ill-humours and unfavourable vapours he was escorted by two assimilation officials to the Lettach Tavern, a select area with small bedchambers in which fevered passengers can lie down. Rooms are usually rented by the hour with three hours costing the equivalent of 5 scotch guineas. Simon rented a room for eight hours for a pouch of florins.
  A Memusian officer from the Child Uncorruption and Visible Juvenile Security (CUcVJS) centre who had been sent to escort Simon back to the Memusian capital Menmuir, was asked to persuade him to get in the balloon, but was unsuccessful. He told Fife officials that Mr Dodd should return to Menmuir.
  Two Fife Assimilation officials who were sent to collect him to put him back on the ascent to Menmuir refused to coerce him back into the balloon’s basket.
  And when the Fife Assimilation official was asked if he had any paperwork, he admitted he had none except an escrit and several ‘Lettres de Cachet’ to bring Dodd home. He also admitted he had not been granted legal jurisdiction, and he returned to the exit gate to wait.
  As Simon was due to drift home the Domestic Affairs Office announced a series of measures that would make it easier to monitor malfeasants and prevent them committing further crimes in Memus or abroad.
  They include removing the need for recent evidence when officials are seeking to bar malcontents and jongleurs from areas frequented by minors, for instance, requiring registered wrongdoers to notify the Child Corruption and Visible Security office earlier if they want to travel abroad, and allowing the authorities to remove an evildoer’s transit papers if he has been banned from journeying.
  Foreign travel orders, which prevent recalcitrant n’erdowells journeying to specific countries or leaving the Mearns altogether, will be extended from their current limit of six months.
  "I want to see anyone who poses a threat to our infants dealt with as firmly as possible," the first officer of the CUcVJS office, Jacent Broadthatch said. "I've spoken to child anti-tarnish experts and senior officials from Noncewatch and they have told me that these changes will further restrict the ability of minor corrupters to harm juveniles both here and overseas."
  Simon, who also served a short sentence in Nethermuir in 1736 for possession of more than 4 tarnished tracts of a child, two acts of gross simony and for loudly proclaiming himself an mountebank, had been expected to be met on arrival by Memusian Internal Affairs Bureau officials, and will be required to sign the Malfeasant compendium and remain under supervision for the rest of his life.
  Under MAPPA, (the Memusian Agency for Pursuing Perpetrators Assiduously, by which confirmed Miscreants are monitored) it is understood he will be considered a code amber risk, requiring the lowest level of supervision by officials and anti-tarnish officers. Lugtach Leask, presiding admonisher for Noncewatch in the North-east, commented “We shall be ever vigilant in our pursuit of prurient mountebanks and infernal corrupters of juvenilia. I personally will be keeping an eye on him. Not for nothing are we known as Noncewatch and we will watch him for the nonce.”
  This means he must register an address with security guards and notify them if he moves or stays away for more than a few days. Reports that the former troubadour would go to a hostel for fallen balladeers in the southern quarter of West Westertoun were unconfirmed.
  He retains his Memusian identity papers, however, and some quasi legal safe conduct permits. The pederast will be free to travel abroad unless a specific court mechanism bans him from doing so.
  Deuchrie Dodd is 73
  
  
  Shiny Simon at Drum Tick Balloon Station yesterday where he refused to board a basket back to Memus. (Sketch by Gilbert Clatt /clattographics plc)
  
  Galen’s Nectar, Ambrosia Culpepperii, May Dew, Hypocrates Golden Elixir, Liquid snuff, Beautifying Waters, assorted tocsins – gain a prescript at Quacks Hall, Ardo Mews, Pitenfour.
• 

  by John Duffus 3 years ago

  Mid car is a real car seen in a field near Wirksworth, north Derbyshire.