The Fair & The Dark

The Fair And The Dark

See the mighty waltzer as it spins around

And hear the piercing cries and screams

It’s every teenager’s great night out

Full of thrills, of hopes, of dreams

 

Watch folks emerging from the ghost train

Faces wearing masks of joy and fear

Stumbling down the exit steps

Wondering what other treats are near

 

The flashing of coloured bulbs and neon strips

Lighting up the night-time sky

The blasting and pounding of the music

As the cars go whizzing by

 

Catch the drifting smells of sizzling hot dogs

The candy-floss and buttered popcorn

The slowing of the circling wheels

Rides ended by the hooting of the horn

 

The swing-boats and the carousel

The helter-skelter and the ferris-wheel

But best of all the dodgem-cars

Dashing round on their plates of steel

 

But behind the scenes things are rather darker

Amongst the shadows where there’s little light

A different world of trucks and cables

Hidden in the foldings of the night

 

The rusting, oily lorry couplings

A glamorous world this surely ain’t

The sooty smell of burning diesel

The peeling layers of gaudy paint

 

Here the engines keep on running

The generators pumping out their smoke

Dumping out their blackened fumes

Keeping power flowing with every stroke

 

And in those hidden spaces round the back

When the teenagers collect and huddle

Where there’s no-one around to see

The occasional kiss and cuddle

 

And in the morning, when it’s all been shut down

And the heavy men knock it all apart

Collapsed and loaded on the painted lorries

The magic’s gone and they’re ready to depart

 

Only the tyre-ruts that cut into the Green

Shapes of faded, trampled grass

Betray the evidence of what was once here

But not its story, nor how it came to pass

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2022

I'm In Love With My Lifeguard

I’m In Love With My Lifeguard

 

I’m in love with my lifeguard

Whose name I think is Emily

Which makes the swimming very hard

Yes I’m in love with my lifeguard

In all my dreams she’s starred

Wonder if she would ever look at me?

Yes I’m in love with my lifeguard

Whose name I think is Emily

 

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2022

Drivel From Devizes - Dateline Sunday 5th June 2022

Drivel From Devizes: Dateline – Sunday 5^th June 2022 

Here is our weekly round-up of events from D-Town:                                              

1.      As the citizens of The Vize draw themselves together for the fourth and final time to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee of HMQ, the Lord Mayor encouraged them to make one final effort.  The lines of soggy bunting and bedraggled Union flags paid tribute to four exhausting days of enforced jollity, celebration and loyalty.  Last night’s star-studded, all-celebrity, Jubilee concert featured a Bernard Cribbins Tribute Act, a display of floodlit horse massage, exhibition goat-nadgering, tractor Olympics and local favourite Riff Pilchard & Bale-Twiners.  Earlier in the day there had been a royal fly-past by the Easyjet 15.40 flight from Bristol to Edinburgh (scheduled to land in near-by Berwick-on-Tweed), which tipped a wing in salute as the drinks-and-peanuts trolley was wheeled down the aisle.  Today will feature rain-sodden street parties serving such local delicacies as pig-trotter sandwiches, faggot vol-au-vents and lashings of lardy cake.  Never have people looked so forward to getting back to work on Monday. 

2.      And the week-end’s competition to find the most inane name for the royal celebrations drew to a grand climax last night.  Entries included Jubbly-Bubbly, Juliebobs, Julie-bee, Jollybobs, Jolly Holly and the eventual runner-up - Why Do We Even Bother? - and the outright winner by a huge margin – Not Another Bloody Bank Holiday.  The prize-winners were treated to a free case of Waddies bottled  beer.  The runners-up received two cases of the same beverage. 

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2022

 

 

Imperial Measures

Imperial Measures 

I always knew there were benefits to Brexit

But so far there’s been very few

Just seems like a lot more paperwork

And passport covers in dark blue

 

But now that we’re pulling free from the EU

And we’ve got our Platinum Jubilee

Looks like a good time to turn the clock back

And declare an Imperial victory

 

Let Johnny Foreigner get on with his metrics

Whilst we hurry back to the old days

Let’s reclaim our British heritage

And get back to our sensible ways

 

Liquids come in pints, quarts and gallons

Money’s in pounds, shillings and pence

Lengths in inches, feet and yards

How can that not make perfect sense?

 

Horse-racing’s often over six furlongs

But 1.2 kilometres wouldn’t be the same

A wicket at cricket is a chain of 22 yards

But at 20 metres it wouldn’t be the same game

 

A mile was always a thousand Roman paces

As their armies marched to defeat us

So the Italians started this daft game

Where’s the logic in sixteen hundred metres?

 

When driving it’s daring to go over the ton

One hundred and six point nine kph has no romance

So getting us to give up MPH ain’t gonna happen

And changing from MPG – no chance

 

Our system certainly had its eccentricities

It’s what made Britain once great

Who else would have sixteen ounces to a pound

And call a hundred and twelve pounds a hundredweight?

 

A gallon’s two hundred and seventy-seven cubic inches

An acre’s 4840 square yards it’s reckoned

A ton’s twenty hundredweights

And horsepower’s 550lbs per foot per second

 

It all seems perfectly clear to me

There’s no need to go taking pills

Nor nipping down to the local

For a foaming glass of 568 mls

 

Anyway, I hope they get all this sorted out soon

This confusion’s making me wonder

It’s only a few years before I’ll be gone

And I’ll be buried 1.83 metres under

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2022

Would Jubilee've It? - Platinum Edition

Would Jubilee’ve It? – Platinum Edition 

HMQ’s just about broken the record

And I love it – don’t get me wrong –

But there’s a cost-of-living crisis you know -

So now a Bank Holiday that’s four days long?

 

The enforced jubilation and jollity

Will seem quite over the top to me,

But I’ll have to join in, just like the rest of you,

To celebrate the old girl’s latest Jubilee.

 

Now I’m as patriotic as the next man;

I’ve got all the bunting and flags,

But when you’ve been waving for four days,

You’ll find the excitement just drags.

 

I thought  of going up to that London

To see them all on the balcony, waving,

But I’ll just watch it on TV instead,

I couldn’t stand all that shouting and raving.

 

I’ll be up there with them in spirit,

Fighting for one’s place in the queue,

Getting all cold, wet and uncomfy,

As they wave their red, white and blue.

 

I can’t see the point of getting tired and cold,

Standing for hours, like you do,

And another thing bothers me –

Where do they all go to the loo?

 

I’ll be fed up with Coronation Chicken,

The buns, the cakes and the smarties;

Then I’ll eat too many sausage rolls,

And I’ll be tired of all the street parties.

 

I hear there’s to be a big concert:

You know I really wanted to go -

There’ll be Cliff, Craig David and Queen-,

The rock band, not the sovereign, I mean

 

And Her Maj will coast through it serene:

She’ll carry on with all of her toils,

Holding up her end of the monarchy,

Supporting a cast of minor royals.

 

It’s quite a remarkable family,

Somewhat dysfunctional it’s true,

With Megan & Harry off sulking somewhere,

And don’t get me started on Prince Andrew!

 

Anyway – that’ll be my platinum Jubilee,

I’m convinced it’s all too much bother

But we should make the best of it

Cos there might not be another

 Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2022

Chicken With 40 cloves of Garlic

Recipe for: CHICKEN WITH 40 CLOVES OF GARLIC 

Ingredients: 

• 1 free-range chicken, 3-4 lbs (or you can use chicken joints)
• 3-4 whole heads of garlic, separated into cloves, but unpeeled
• 6 fresh thyme sprigs (or other herb such as rosemary)
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 sprigs fresh tarragon (if available)
• 300ml dry white wine
• 1-2 red peppers, de-seeded & cut into wedges (optional)
• 1 large red onion, peeled & cut into large wedges (optional)
• 1 lemon, cut into wedges (optional) 

Method: 

1. preheat oven to 180C/ fan 170C
2. place the chicken on a rack in a large casserole dish or roasting tray (with lid, or use foil to seal).  Season with salt & pepper
3. if using joints, throw in some red peppers, sliced red onion & lemon wedges (see optional ingredients)
4. arrange the garlic cloves and herbs all around the chicken
5. pour the wine over the chicken, then cover with lid or foil
6. cook for 1½ - 1¾ hours (less for joints) or until the chicken is cooked through & the juices run clear
7. transfer the chicken & garlic to a warmed carving/. Serving dish
8. strain the cooking juices into a warmed jug or gravy boat
9. carve the meat into joints and add any juices to the gravy jug
10. skim off or pour off any fat on the top of the juices
11. serve the chicken joints with garlic cloves & a little of the liquid, handing round the rest of the juices in the jug 

What else you need to know: 

1. surprisingly, this is not too garlicky – roasting the garlic cloves makes them go soft & sweet, losing their pungency.  Squeezing out the flesh from the papery cases to add into the chicken juices is delightful.

 

Killer In The Village

Killer In The Village

There’s a killer in our village

And he’s not been brought to justice

He’s out there right now

Walking round a free man

Because no-one knows

About his guilty secret

 

There’s a killer in our village

He’s just an ordinary guy

With a wife and children

Worrying about his credit card

And his hefty mortgage

Perhaps the same as you and I

 

There’s a killer in our village

And everybody knows his name

They see him down the pub

And he plays on all the local teams

They’ve been known to pat him on the back

When he makes a winning score

 

There’s a killer in our village

Who knows how to hit a target

He’s top gun at computer games

With hand/ eye co-ordination

Second-to-none, rated excellent

For a special military job

 

There’s a killer in our village

Yet no-one lives in any fear

He drives over to the airbase

And he works his every shift

Then he passes through security

And descends in to his bunker

 

There’s a killer in our village

But no-one’s after him

He peers into his monitor

Yet he’s never in any danger

A pilot who always stays at home

And flies the drones in Afghanistan

 Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2022