Anyone watch the Tattoo on Oz TV tonight?
Trish Brown
fifteen minutes or so. What is it about the skirl of the pipes that
makes a person bawl like a baby? It wears me out! 'Scotland the Brave'
is obviously my favourite, but 'The Black Bear' makes me come over just
as googly and 'The Skye Boat Song' is my utter, utter undoing!
Sigh. Snif. Gulp.
Anyway, what I want to know is: who was that girl with the incredible
voice? She sang 'God Save the Queen', 'Avarnce Oz Fair' (ie 'Strain Saul
le t'arse choice for weer yarng'n'freer! Wirf garln sorl'n'ware fetorl
are armus girpeye seer!' and 'Frolang Zein' ('Shoulder quaint ants
beefcot') Wow! *What* a beautiful voice! She sang all the eye-popping
notes without the slightest hint of pause or fear and what I liked most
was that she had a genuine smile in her voice the whole time she was
singing - she had a ball! (It's my obsessive nature coming out, I know,
but it was a teensy shame about the breath before the last word. Still,
it made her seem more human and less like a recording, didn't it?)
Off I go to get more tissues. I have cried at the sound of bagpipes
since I was about three years old and I *still* can't understand it...
=:-0 (DH is sitting in the lounge room quietly snuffling to himself, so
I know it's not just me!)
--
Trish {|:-}
Newcastle, Australia
Karen C - California
>I have cried at the sound of bagpipes
> since I was about three years old and I *still* can't understand it...
Dear Aunt Trish,
We cry at the sound of bagpipes, too. It sounds like one of our
relatives is being tortured.
Love, The Lady Katharine and The Divine Miss Em
Trish Brown
> On Sun, 20 Feb 2005 22:48:22 +1100, Trish Brown
> <kawb...@ozemail.com.au> wrote:
>
>
> Taped it to watch tomorrow.
>
> This may be a marvellous experience. It's even possible that this mob
> may even have been able to teach the RAAF to march. Unlikely, but
> possible. They never could in my day, which was one of the things I
> liked most about it. :-)
>
> Mique
So? Didja watch it? Didja bawl like a baby? From what I saw, the
standard of marching was really something! DH and I agreed, there is
something about the services that brings a lump to every throat -
especially when you see them massed together as in this Tattoo.
Anyway, on to more mind-boggling things!
Oh! My! Goodness! I am swamped by Mus musculus! Hundreds of them!
Thousands, even! We caught Client #25 last night and no sooner had I
re-set the trap than Client #26 walked right in! DS was kindly brushing
my hair for me here at the desk (had a headache - is it any wonder?) and
he said 'Look! It's a little Client!' and it was, right behind the
nursery tank, not two feet from my nose! We've been calling them
'Clients' because I said it's like a luxury condo for mousekind at our
place. Anyway, I asked DH to bring the trap, we set it right here on the
desk and in less than five seconds, we had our little Client! I caught
Client #27 just an hour ago while I was typing. Hardly anything to it,
really: I heard the trap go 'Sproing' and went for a toddle up the back
and have just sat down to see Potential Client #28 whisking into the
kitchen! Bl**dy h*ll!
Poor DH is so fazed, he went to Bunnings this arvo and bought four more
traps to see if we can catch the Little Clients in job-lots!
And in the meantime, the Girls' litter of babies is growing. Sadly, we
lost four of them. I figured out that two separate litters were born to
Ruaridh and Angela. Don't know whose was the eldest, but there was about
two days between them. Since mice nurse communally, both Mums were
nursing all the bubs and the smaller ones got basically squished by
their elder siblings. Who, if you think about it, were both siblings and
uncles/aunts, being that Ruaridh is Angela's daughter...
So there are eight kittens being nursed by Angela and Ruaridh in the
tank which had formerly been the Bachelor Pad for the Boyz. They now
live in a *fraffly* well-appointed domed birdcage equipped with a
hanging Slinky toy and half a spiral staircase made out of toilet paper
tubes (We'll all have to go to the dunny a bit more often so I can make
the other half!)
I've had to take Cecilia out. She did the same as last time: lactated
and took over feeding the kittens. Only, she became *so* proprietary
over the babies, she wouldn't let the Mums near them! She kept stealing
them for herself and hiding them under the water fountain and in the
terracotta pot! When either Mum would come near or try to take a baby
back to the nest, Cecilia would put on her very best Sewer Rat
expression (poor Cecilia is no oil painting...) and fight for 'her'
children! It's a shame: I'd let her have a litter of her own, only I
can't house any more mice!
As it is, this litter of eight is getting bigger every minute. They're
very active and crawl everywhere in the nest, often tumbling out over
the lip of it. If one of the Mums comes upon the errant child, she'll
pick it up with her teeth by the nearest part of its anatomy and stuff
it back inside. Sometimes this can get a bit dicey: just a minute ago, I
saw Ruaridh trying to stuff the biggest child back in by main force.
Only, the length of the child was greater than the diameter of the
doorway and he was having trouble bending in the middle. No matter!
Angela lent a gob and hauled from inside and the poor little baby
squeaked pitifully as he got his just deserts!
In spite of telling the kids these babies can't stay, so we aren't
allowed to name them or play with them, I still have to handle them (the
kittens, not the kids) each day to socialise them. Otherwise, they won't
be tame and be able to be called 'Pet mouse'. It's so sad!
Because my eyesight is so bad, I haven't got a prayer of telling their
genders yet, but most of them look as though they'll have either dark
colouring or agouti (wild mouse). Ick! I don't like agouti! The two
little white ones passed away over the weekend and Matt was very sad
about that: he likes the PEWs (Pink Eyed Whites)!
While Mum pretends to shudder and says 'Urgh! Vermin!', she still asks
for updates on 'The Babies' every day. She's so intrigued by the
mothering behaviours (building a nest, moving the family between nests,
fighting over the litter etc) that I wouldn't be surprised if she
offered to 'mind' them for me for a while. LOL! We'll see if I can
bulldoze her into it... Mice make the *best* pets! Shame they're so
promiscuous, though. The bloke who had his evil way with my lovely girls
hasn't been caught yet. But he *will* be mine! Oh yes! He *will* be
mine! Bloody rapist!
Anyway, I must trot off to bed now so my Clients can do the right thing
and toddle into my humane traps. The one that just scuttled into the
kitchen ought to go off shortly...
'night! ;-D
Trish Brown
> On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 01:59:09 +1100, Trish Brown
> <kawb...@ozemail.com.au> wrote:
>
>
>>So? Didja watch it? Didja bawl like a baby? From what I saw, the
>>standard of marching was really something! DH and I agreed, there is
>>something about the services that brings a lump to every throat -
>>especially when you see them massed together as in this Tattoo.
>
>
> could hear, but that's an awfully long time ago.
>
> Mique
I didn't mean the music, I meant the - the - you know: the *spectacle*:
all those men performing with utter precision and attention to duty.
But then, being an ex-serviceman yourself, I wonder whether me little
kohl rabi might not have been just a skerrick *averse* to military
discipline...?
Y'know, me beloved Dadda spent a bit of time in the lock-up during his
basic training (WWII) for jobbing an NCO in the eye! He (the NCO) had
made some rude comment about my Uncle Tom's wife and so Dad hurled off
and whacked him (the NCO, not Uncle Tom). The NCO had been drunk at the
time and I'm not 100% sure of all the details. Mum utterly *will not*
tell me what she knows because she's busily keeping alive the Fantastic
Legend of Saint Dad. My Dadda was not a Saint: he was *great*! He did
all sorts of silly things and had the most evil temper of anyone I know
- and he was *great*! He swapped a packet of cigarettes for a tame
monkey belong to a Dayak bearer in Borneo. The bearer laughed all the
way to the pub, smoking his cigarette and Dad wondered why... When it
was time for him to go home, of course he couldn't take his monkey with
him and had to give it back to the Dayak. He (the Dayak) laughed even
louder this time, saying 'Thank you for the free cigarettes!' LOL! Dad
enjoyed his time with the monkey and always said he felt it knew more
than was decent for a common monkey...
Trish Brown
> My father got into strife for demolishing a women's dunny when he was
> on his basic flying course. I just forget now how he happened to be
> there in the first place, but according to him it was all innocent and
> above board. But his mates locked him in there. He was a pretty big
> bloke, and the only way out was through the walls which he totally
> destroyed in the process. They nearly scrubbed him for that.
>
> I was pretty lucky and stayed out of trouble mostly - more by luck
> than good management. I did have one startling experience that might
> have ended in tears though. One night in the bar at Point Cook, Vic,
> where the Officers' Training School was/is, I had a few more drinks
> than I absolutely needed. Now, down there at this time (1967) the
> Officers' Mess was about 100 yards away from the accommodation block
> where I lived. Midway between the two, and a bit to the north of a
> direct line between them, was a building which housed the base squash
> courts.
>
> Anyhow, I wended my weary way home when the barman tossed us out, and
> went to bed. The next thing I knew, I was awakened by a blinding
> white light that, for an instant, made me think that I must have died
> and gone to heaven. Where am I, I wondered. All was blinding white.
> Then my eyes adjusted and I noticed a red line painted high up on the
> wall that I was facing. Penny drops. The bloody squash court! Sure
> enough, there I was, tucked up tightly in my very own bed right in the
> middle of one of the squash courts. A minor detail was that I was
> also stark bollocky nekkid, with no sign of my clothes.
>
> So, how did I get there? During the wee smalls, half a dozen of my
> 'mates' got into my room via an open window, carried me on my mattress
> over to the squash court. Dismantled, carried and reassembled my bed
> and placed me and the mattress back on it, turned out the lights and
> left me snoring in peace. Fortunately one of the culprits had the
> good sense to roust me out of there early enough to get me and my bed
> back to the blocks in time to get to class on time. What might have
> happened had they forgotten about me doesn't bear thinking about. :-)
>
> Mike
Oh! ROTFLMAO!!! What an excellent story! I *do* enjoy a good laugh and
thank you for sending me one! Heeheeheeheeheeheehee! Served you right, I
reckon! ;-D
Karen C - California
> Mike Burke wrote:
> >Fortunately one of the culprits had the
>> good sense to roust me out of there early enough to get me and my bed
>> back to the blocks in time to get to class on time. What might have
>> happened had they forgotten about me doesn't bear thinking about. :-)
>>
>> Mike
>
>
> Oh! ROTFLMAO!!! What an excellent story! I *do* enjoy a good laugh and
> thank you for sending me one! Heeheeheeheeheeheehee! Served you right, I
> reckon! ;-D
>
One of my roommates' boyfriend fell asleep on her bed while waiting for
her to return from class. We were in a silly mood that afternoon, and
since he was a sound sleeper, succeeded in getting a dress on him,
painting up his face, styling his lovely wavy hair, all before he woke
up. Hard to see how he could've slept through all the giggling.
She then "returned from class" loudly slamming the door and yelling for
him to wake up because they were late to dinner. Half-awake, he didn't
realize he was wearing a dress until he emerged from our room and the
girls across the hall started ROFLTAO. He was a good sport about it,
even posed for a couple of provocative pictures before taking off the
extra layer of clothing and washing his face. A guy, in a dress, hiked
up to show his legs, and a rose in his teeth a la Carmen!
hamza...@gmail.com
It was really really awesome..
Visit website: http://vicmarkettattoo.com/