Election Time - vote for Scarface Fusker May!

A Complaint
William Wordsworth

There is a change--and I am poor;
Your love hath been, nor long ago,
A fountain at my fond heart's door,
Whose only business was to flow;
And flow it did; not taking heed
Of its own bounty, or my need.

What happy moments did I count!
Blest was I then all bliss above!
Now, for that consecrated fount
Of murmuring, sparkling, living love,
What have I? Shall I dare to tell?
A comfortless and hidden well.

A well of love--it may be deep--
I trust it is,--and never dry:
What matter? If the waters sleep
In silence and obscurity.
--Such change, and at the very door
Of my fond heart, hath made me poor.

A Little Learning
by Alexander Pope

A little learning is a dangerous thing ;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring :
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.
Fired at first sight with what the Muse imparts,
In fearless youth we tempt the heights of Arts ;
While from the bounded level of our mind
Short views we take, nor see the lengths behind,
But, more advanced, behold with strange surprise
New distant scenes of endless science rise !
So pleased at first the towering Alps we try,
Mount o’er the vales, and seem to tread the sky ;
The eternal snows appear already past,
And the first clouds and mountains seem the last ;
But those attained, we tremble to survey
The growing labours of the lengthened way ;
The increasing prospect tires our wandering eyes,
Hill peep o’er hills, and Alps on Alps arise

James, you are Tyler Durden!


FRIGHT CLUB - PROJECT MAYHEM
(If you like a lot of chocolate on your biscuit,
JOIN OUR CLUB!)
------------------------------
"Fight Club was the beginning, now it's moved out of the basement,
it's called Project Mayhem." Tyler Durden
-----------------------

The first rule of Fright Club is, I'd say,
You dont talk about Fright Club, OK!
You're in if you've a supercar or plane
Forget it if you ever have to use a bus or train.

(The initiation ceremony's, a hot spoon on the thigh,
Although it's bound to sting a bit, you're not allowed to cry.)

The organiser's codename's Mayhem,
He's the biggest cheese in this manor,
It's rumoured Colin wears a concrete overcoat,
Just for borrowing a 10mm spanner!

The members get together most week nights,
Not Sundays 'cos then Top Gear might be on,
They get up to mechanical man-mischief,
Sometimes till after half ten gone!

So if you think you qualify for Fright Club,
(The membership's already up to nine!)
Then bring along some beer, a pie and cushions,
Don't park outside, you might incur a fine!

Oh, forgot that the location is a secret,
But it's very close to that mad Mayhem's gaff,
Come over after dark, bring your spanners, have a lark,
(You can even watch him park!),
Join Fright Club for a right good laugh!

EXCURSION
D.H. Lawrence

I wonder, can the night go by;
Can this shot arrow of travel fly
Shaft-golden with light, sheer into the sky
Of a dawned to-morrow,
Without ever sleep delivering us
From each other, or loosing the dolorous
Unfruitful sorrow!

What is it then that you can see
That at the window endlessly
You watch the red sparks whirl and flee
And the night look through?
Your presence peering lonelily there
Oppresses me so, I can hardly bear
To share the train with you.

You hurt my heart-beats' privacy;
I wish I could put you away from me;
I suffocate in this intimacy,
For all that I love you;
How I have longed for this night in the train,
Yet now every fibre of me cries in pain
To God to remove you.

But surely my soul's best dream is still
That one night pouring down shall swill
Us away in an utter sleep, until
We are one, smooth-rounded.
Yet closely bitten in to me
Is this armour of stiff reluctancy
That keeps me impounded.

So, dear love, when another night
Pours on us, lift your fingers white
And strip me naked, touch me light,
Light, light all over.
For I ache most earnestly for your touch,
Yet I cannot move, however much
I would be your lover.

Night after night with a blemish of day
Unblown and unblossomed has withered away;
Come another night, come a new night, say
Will you pluck me apart?
Will you open the amorous, aching bud
Of my body, and loose the burning flood
That would leap to you from my heart?

LATEST NEWS - It's true! Col has taken up flower arranging.

One appears to have had one's hair cut....

but one has still not given up smoking....Naughty man!



One Word Is Too Often Profaned
Percy Bysshe Shelley

One word is too often profaned
For me to profane it,
One feeling too falsely disdained
For thee to disdain it;
One hope is too like despair
For prudence to smother,
And pity from thee more dear
Than that from another.

I can give not what men call love,
But wilt thou accept not
The worship the heart lifts above
And the Heavens reject not, --
The desire of the moth for the star,
Of the night for the morrow,
The devotion to something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow?

The Moon
William Henry Davies

Thy beauty haunts me heart and soul,
Oh, thou fair Moon, so close and bright;
Thy beauty makes me like the child
That cries aloud to own thy light:
The little child that lifts each arm
To press thee to her bosom warm.

Though there are birds that sing this night
With thy white beams across their throats,
Let my deep silence speak for me
More than for them their sweetest notes:
Who worships thee till music fails,
Is greater than thy nightingales.

Col played the first two pages of Clair de Lune
with fluency and feeling but was too much of a
coward to turn the page!

He also thought that it would soon be Red Nose day - No Col it's SPORTS RELIEF!

To my lovely Mum,
HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY,
with all my love, always x x x x

"There are two means of refuge from the
miseries of life: music and cats." - Albert Schweitzer

Calling Fusker May, did you know that here today,
Your person just called you a rubbish cat?
Well I thought he had good manners
And was good at playing pianos,
Not to mention using spanners,
But I never thought I'd see him writing that!

Now he knows that you originate from Hammond,
But still a docile creature he expects,
So!, you borrowed the new car,
Well, you didn't take it far,
(Fifi still thinks you're a star),
Don't worry puss 'cos nobody suspects!

Big Tom, you're trusty sidekick, has really got him fooled,
Opposite his office window, in that tree,
His wood pigeon disguise,
Gives him cover while he spies,
(Think He needs to test his eyes!),
When He's out, it's up to mischief you can be!

Have you heard about the calendar he's sorting?
He asked Them if They thought it was a goer,
What the Posters had to say
Was that they wanted Fusker May,
Want to see YOU on display,
On their list, poor Him, He came out SO much lower!

You're oh so handsome in your tux; he says you're like a loaf!
And that the only thing you're good at is the jumping!
It's just jealousy I'm thinking,
You can see it when he's blinking,
And you're driving him to drinking,
Take no notice puss, of him, just interrupt him when he's... writing his column ;-)

A photo that I didn't take!

A photo that I took!

IL TRIONFO DEL AMOR.
Charlotte Dacre

SO full my thoughts are of thee, that I swear
All else is hateful to my troubl'd soul;
How thou hast o'er me gain'd such vast control,
How charm'd my stubborn spirit is most rare.
Sure thou hast mingled philtres in my bowl!
Or what thine high enchanted arts declare
Fearless of blame—for truth I will not care,
So charms the witchery, whether fair or foul.
Yet well my love-sick mind thine arts can tell;
No magic potions gav'st thou, save what I
Drank from those lustrous eyes when they did dwell
With dying fondness on me—or thy sigh
Which sent its perfum'd poison to my brain.
Thus known thy spells, thou bland seducer, see—
Come practice them again, and oh! again;
Spell-bound I am—and spell-bound wish to be.

James May has revealed he and drinking buddy Oz Clarke
are already planning another series,
expanding on their pub-crawling adventures.

Fifi always felt fulfilled after a visit from Scarface!

Evening in Paradise
John Milton

Now came still evening on, and twilight grey
Had in her sober livery all things clad;
Silence accompanied, for beast and bird,
They to their grassy couch, these to their nests
Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale;
She all night long her amorous descant sung;
Silence was pleased. Now glowed the firmament
With living sapphires; Hesperus that led
The starry host, rode brightest, till the moon
Rising in clouded majesty, at length
Apparent queen unveiled her peerless light,
And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.

"You know, somebody actually complimented me on my driving today. They left a little note on the windscreen, it said
'Parking Fine." Tommy Cooper

When you're feeling a bit down,
And could do with a good laugh,
You need to look no further than,
The driving licence photograph!
A passport also will suffice,
Not exactly Georgeous Clooney!
That serious face and staring eyes,
Can make you look quite loony!
Now when you have it taken,
It has to be just so,
And don't forget you cannot smile,
Your teeth must never show.
Make sure your hair is tidy,
Do put your wig on straight,
Perhaps my dear, a ponytail,
They would appreciate.
Of course you must face forward,
Forgoing your best side,
You're looking like a convict now,
With nothing left to hide.
Now, when the policeman stops you,
And sees your ugly mug,
He'll with his partner speak and say,
"I knew he was a thug!"
Elaine x

Congratulations Oz and James!

2010 TRIC award winners...
---------------------------
8. TV Arts/Documentary Programme
Sponsored by STMicroelectronics

Oz and James Drink to Britain

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep Sea, and music in it's roar:
I love not Man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet can not all conceal.

Lord Byron

Morning Rain
Du Fu (Tu Fu)

A slight rain comes, bathed in dawn light.
I hear it among treetop leaves before mist
Arrives. Soon it sprinkles the soil and,
Windblown, follows clouds away. Deepened
Colors grace thatch homes for a moment.
Flocks and herds of things wild glisten
Faintly. Then the scent of musk opens across
Half a mountain -- and lingers on past noon.

I do not know who made me...’
Felix Dennis

I do not know who made me,
Still less do I care,
The sheep that dot the meadow
Make no altar there.

Of transubstantiation
Beetles never learn,
The foxes build no bonfires
Where heretics must burn.

The bees that gather honey
Propagate in sin,
Nor do they slay in jihad
Their unbelieving kin.

No missionary weasels
Slither on the sly,
Nor does the dormouse tell me
That I must kneel or die.

Your words are your opinions,
Who knows what is true?
I do not know who made me—
And neither, friend, do you.

Cat week is over

The Torch of Love
Walter Savage Landor

The torch of Love dispels the gloom
Of life, and animates the tomb;
But never let it idly flare
On gazers in the open air,
Nor turn it quite away from one
To whom it serves for moon and sun,
And who alike in night or day
Without it could not find his way.


The Cloud
Percy Bysshe Shelley

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
From the seas and the streams;
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noonday dreams.
From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet buds every one,
When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,
As she dances about the sun.
I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
And whiten the green plains under,
And then again I dissolve it in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder.

I sift the snow on the mountains below,
And their great pines groan aghast;
And all the night 'tis my pillow white,
While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers,
Lightning, my pilot, sits;
In a cavern under is fettered the thunder,
It struggles and howls at fits;

Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,
This pilot is guiding me,
Lured by the love of the genii that move
In the depths of the purple sea;
Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills,
Over the lakes and the plains,
Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream,
The Spirit he loves remains;
And I all the while bask in Heaven's blue smile,
Whilst he is dissolving in rains.

The sanguine Sunrise, with his meteor eyes,
And his burning plumes outspread,
Leaps on the back of my sailing rack,
When the morning star shines dead;
As on the jag of a mountain crag,
Which an earthquake rocks and swings,
An eagle alit one moment may sit
In the light of its golden wings.
And when Sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath,
Its ardors of rest and of love,

And the crimson pall of eve may fall
From the depth of Heaven above,
With wings folded I rest, on mine aery nest,
As still as a brooding dove.
That orbed maiden with white fire laden,
Whom mortals call the Moon,
Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor,
By the midnight breezes strewn;
And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,
Which only the angels hear,
May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof,
The stars peep behind her and peer;
And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,
Like a swarm of golden bees,
When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent,
Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,
Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,
Are each paved with the moon and these.

I bind the Sun's throne with a burning zone,
And the Moon's with a girdle of pearl;
The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim
When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl.
From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,
Over a torrent sea,
Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof,--
The mountains its columns be.
The triumphal arch through which I march
With hurricane, fire, and snow,
When the Powers of the air are chained to my chair,
Is the million-colored bow;
The sphere-fire above its soft colors wove,
While the moist Earth was laughing below.

I am the daughter of Earth and Water,
And the nursling of the Sky;
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;
I change, but I cannot die.
For after the rain when with never a stain
The pavilion of Heaven is bare,
And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams
Build up the blue dome of air,
I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,
And out of the caverns of rain,
Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,
I arise and unbuild it again.

Tonight's sunset

Got your message today.
Thank you James x
I often wonder if the Concorde letter opener made it home.
It was just made to be used, whereas I would
have stored it away with the rest of the Concorde
stuff I've collected.

James, is this Fusker May with his gangster's moll/doll?

from The Empress of Morocco
The Earl of Rochester

Wit has of late took up a trick t'appear
Unmannerly, or at the best severe,
And poets share the fate by which we fall
When kindly we attempt to please you all.
'Tis hard your scorn should against such prevail
Whose ends are to divert you, though they fail.
You men would think it an ill-natured jest
Should we laugh at you when you did your best,
Then rail not here, though you see reason for 't:
If wit can find itself no better sport.
----------------------------------------

The Earl of Rochester again

While on those lovely looks I gaze
To see a wretch pursuing,
In raptures of a blest amaze,
His pleasing, happy ruin,
'Tis not for pity that I move:
His fate is too aspiring
Whose heart broke with a load of love,
Dies wishing and admiring.

But if this murder you'd forgo,
Your slave from death removing,
Let me your art of charming know,
Or learn you mine of loving.
But whether life or death betide,
In love 'tis equal measure:
The victor lives with empty pride,
The vanquished die with pleasure.

Cat
J.R.R. Tolkien

The fat cat on the mat
may seem to dream
of nice mice that suffice
for him, or cream:
but he is free maybe
walks in thought
unbowed, proud, where loud
roared and fought
his kin, lean and slim,
or deep in den
in the East feasted on beasts
and tender men

The giant lion with iron
claw in paw,
and ruthless tooth
in gory jaw;
the pard dark-stained
fleet upon feet
that oft soft from aloft
leaps on his meat.
Where words loom in gloom
far now they be
fierce and free
and tamed is he;
but fat cat on the mat
kept as pet
he does not forget.

Bit of a cat theme going on this week - blame Mr May and his calendar idea.