Pictures by Warrigal Mirriyuula
Merve is a proud sponsor of Glenda’s rapid deployment Emergency Makeover Team. Where ever trouble strikes Glenda and her team of expertly trained girls can swing into action and before you know it, Ladies within the evacuation zone can be primped, preened, pampered and presented anew as Princesses and Queens of the devastation.
This weeks special “Fusion Tips”!
Yes girls, hair looking a bit bedraggled after a few months in the Evac Camp? Well don’t worry, Glenda’s new patented “Fusion Tips”, now with extra Caesium for that natural glow, will having you feeling completely ionised in no time at all.
Recessional Redux by Warrigal Mirriyuula
Merve of our hotel, known of old—
Lord of the beer which tastes so fine.
Within whose red brick walls he holds
Dominion over spirit and wine,
Publican host, be with us yet,
Same again mate , lest we forget!
The tumult and the shouting dies
The roadcrew and the bands depart
Still stands Merve with broom in hand,
He sweeps and mumbles, lets go a fart.
Publican host, be with us yet,
Same again mate, lest we forget!
Home called, the punters melt away
The doors are locked, the “useful” paid
And all the beer is pissed away
To empty bladders for another day.
Licensing Sergeant, spare us yet,
Same again mate, lest we forget!
If, drunk with too much Trotters, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Merve in awe
Such bruisings as will turn to puce
Our arses, he’ll kick and say no more.
Publican host, be with us yet,
Same again mate, lest we forget!
Poor battered souls that put their trust
In reeking loo and threadbare carpet
Will all be dust that builds on dust,
So “Staffies” for all Granny, there’s a poppet.
For frantic boasts and foolish words,
Are the staples of life for dear old Merve.
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
Caesium! Probably do a world of good! Love the pink bows on the helicopters! Love the psalm! 🙂
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Merve gets more distinguished every day, doesn’t he? As the latest in a long line of upmarket moves , he’s taken to spelling his name with a final “e”. What more fitting sponsor for Glenda’s établissement de beauté.
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It’s nothing really Voila, just an old “e” I had lying about the keyboard. It does add that something. Something “e”ish…,
I’ve know a few Mervs in my day, and a few Merves too. Perhaps it’s a convention yet to be settled. I’ve always thought of our Merve with an “e” right from my first meeting him on that fateful first visit to the pub. Bastard took a shotty to me for slaggin’ off his Jag. Forgive and forget I say, but I do like it with an “e”.
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Hail Caesium !
We who are about to dye,
Selenium you.
Surprising, Waz
Since this whole beauty industry is
built on personal vanadium.
Great words
and I’m sure Banksy would really approve of the free-range bow and Trotters sponsorship chopper.
Choppers – appropriate for emergency hairdressing !
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Wonderful Warrigal! But what’s a ‘staffie’? You don’t mean ‘staffordshire bull terriers’, I’m assuming…
😉
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asty, I was going to ask you about the meaning of ‘staffie’, is it some arcane anglo expression?
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A “staffie”, (pron: Star-Fee), is a drink provided gratis by the establishment to staff or employees finishing a shift.
In this circumstance Merve is acknowledging that all of life comes down to dust and in the face of this ineluctable fact he is showing his generous side by offering everyone a “staffie”; “drink, for tomorrow we may die” sort of thing.
You may not think it given the way he dresses and carries on around the pub but Merve’s a very sensitive guy, a philosopher among publicans.
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Thanks for that, Waz…I thought it might mean something like that, but I have never heard anyone say it…have never worked in a pub.
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Errr, yeah, what Helvi said, Waz…
😉
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They don’t do Fusion Tips with Caesium (what the hell is that?)in Bowral and my hair absolutely needs that treatment, so there’s trip to Glenda’s after Easter…I’ll expect a huge loyalty discount…
Good poem Mr Mirriyuula…as a militant feminist I don’t like Granny being called ‘poppet’ though, it sounds demeaning 🙂
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Yes, but you can hear Merve using that term can’t you. I mean it doesn’t get more unreconstructed than Merve.
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Just kidding, I’m no feminist, I’m ‘individualist’…I call everybody ‘blossom’, which just shows that I’m a gardener…
I could not care one bit if you call anyone ‘poppet’ or ‘bastard’, anything goes when it’s meant affectionately.
I’m only against name-calling and put-downs; all that can be used for politicians , but no one else.
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I don’t think she minds, I mean, she calls everyone ‘love’ or ‘darl’!
Caesium’s the next big thing for dry, dull hair. It gives hair a certain lustre.
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BM, see above.
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lustre….. in complete darkness….
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Lustre in tenebrium?
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Lustrum crocinus!
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Very Good Friday stuff. How’s the salmon or are you howing into the chops?
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Tinned ‘Heinz’ beef stockpot with a large dollop of instant mashed potatoes in it for extra body and ‘rib-stickiness’ for me tonight, Gerard, followed by two fish oil capusles, one vitamin capsule and two calcium and magnesium capsules for desert… Yum! (Lean times chez Astyages, I’m afraid!)
😉
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Want Caesium with that, sir?
No?
Sorry… management says youz all get ta get ceasium. It’s free. It stops heart caesures, he says.
For a bunch of non-believers, the Mou family sure goes to a lot of trouble during these believer days!
(But it’s “special” this time, ‘coz the handsomest boy in the whole world, our own nephew, is bringing his newly found girl friend, his future bound wife, over! And, of course, she’s equally handsome!)
Tomorrow’s lunch will be a big sacrilegious party. Very Dionysiac. Bacchic like.
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Hi Gez. When I was still in my teens, I went to the National Folk Festy in Canberra and I forgot about it being Goof Dryday. I had an early model BIG MAC !!! I completely forgot our family tradition of fish only on Goof Dryday.
More bizarre because as far as I’m aware we are not nor have ever been a family with a religion.
But I felt sort of guilty and like I’d let the side down.
FM made a smoked salmon, tomato, red onion and capers pizza – just in case, you understand 🙂
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