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Story by Emmjay
Merv ?
Yes, Foodge.
Did you see that show on TV last night where they dug up Henry the Eighth in a carpark ?
It was Richard the third.
A round of snickering swept through the pub – “Richard the Third” being slang for “turd”, but owing to the extreme laziness of the Pig’s Arms patrons, it was usually Shortened ( Billed) to “R3” as in “Manne, go outside and clean that doggy R3 off your shoe, please mate, ta”.
“Richard the Third”, Foodge corrected himself. (Snigger, wave 2).
Yeah.
I was just thinking”, said Foodge.
“Pop” a thought bubble visible to everyone except Foodge appeared beside Merv’s head. It read “Oh, struth, here we go !”
“You know that shiela who reckoned he was buried under the “R” in the carpark ?” asked Foodge.
Yeah, I thought she was havin’ herself on. You know “R” for “Reserved” said Merv.
“Yeah, but no. She was right, Merv.”
“Yeah, I know, but it was a fuckin huge fluke, Foodge.”
“I don’t think so”, said Foodge. “I think she was claw footed”
“Clairvoyant”, Merv offered.
“Yeah, what you said”, said Foodge. I think there was something in the message in the carpark that that shiela picked up on”, said Foodge.
“Where’s this going Foodge ?” Merv wondered. This time his lips gave an audible update on the thought bubble.
“I was just thinking…”, repeated Foodge, “I think Harold Holt is buried in the Pig’s Arms car park”, and he opened up the sluice gates for another Trotter’s Ale.
“What makes you think that ?” Merv said, preparing for a long run of leg pulling.
“You know that metal plaque in the car park next to The Pig’s Legs Waxing and and Beauty Parlour’s drums of discarded eyebrows ?” said Foodge.
“What metal plaque ?” said Merv.
“The one marked ‘PMG’ ”, said Foodge. “I reckon that stands for ‘Prime Minister’s grave”.
“Do you, now ?” said Merv.
“Nah”, said Manne. “People notice when a PM goes missing.”
“For some reason, I am given to recall that Harold Holt went missing”, said Hung warming to the task of setting Foodge up nicely – with an added faint smile of approval at the remembrance of Harold Holt getting his snorkel in a twist.
“Nah” said Merv. “If it was Harold Holt down there, the plaque would say ‘PMH’”.
“Nah”, said Granny. “That’s a kind of condiment sauce thing in a square bottle.”
“I think you’re thinking of ‘Worcestershire”, said Merv.
“Nah, that’s HP sauce”, said Hung.
“I was thinking that it could be Harold Holt buried in the car park of the Pig’s Arms”, said Foodge dragging the wild speculation back onto the rails. “
“I think you’re on to something, Foodge”, said Merv. “I’ll call up Terry and see if some of his mates from the University can give us a hand and check this out properly”.
Righto”, said Foodge. “I’ll park the Zephyr over the plaque for protection. This could be a Libnat Party sacred site.
“Merv doesn’t know anyone in the University”, Granny whispered to Hung.
“Course he doesn’t” said Hung.
Merv’s thought bubble evaporated in the shape of a Cheshire cat.
to be continued …..
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
Course they’re reconstituting this R3 chap. Putting him back together again and giving him a better look.
Who knows what may be achieved if HH is indeed deduced by the Pig’s Arms numerologist-in-apprenticeship to be under PMG ..but being close to graduation I can tell you definitively there is a misunderstanding. Prime Minister’s Grave. No. The letters PMG stand for P and M and G. P and M indicate when the drinking can start in earnest. A simple reinterpretation of when the sun is over the yard arm? Right? That old arm kicking around in the yard? It doesn’t have to be tucked neatly under a plate if it’s HH. You trying to suggest he dug his own grave and covered himself up in it with a great heavy plate? Not after an afternoon swimming.
See all the glyphs surrounding the letters PMG? To an inexperienced eye they look like squares. Why on earth would anybody decorate a metal plate simply with meaningless geometry. They are the answer to G. I’m going to bed. And counting.
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So, without googling, Holt was Liberal, eh? And he scarpered?
He should have kept used his minces, maybe someone was on his hay.
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Delete kept….Or delete ‘used his’, and substitute, ‘kept his minces open’.
Or…..Oh never mind.
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He went scuba diving in rough seas off Portsea in Victoria and was never seen again. Best conspiracy theory was that he was abducted by the Russians in a submarine. Black Jack McEwan was the Country Party Boss and Deputy PM. He was stand in PM for a few days until the Liberals made former fighter plane pilot Sir John Grey Gorton leader and he became PM.
Holt hosted the first visit of an American president – and was famous for backing the Australian involvement in Vietnam, saying “All the way with LBJ” and when in a Sydney motorcade held up by protesters, “Run the bastards over !” He was a real class act, our Harold.
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Well I wouldn’t be leaving the porch light on for him.
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Why not, did he have big ears?
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It’s a joke Jules, Jack Gibson coached Cronulla Sutherland Rugby League team in the 1970’s, where he quipped something like Waiting for Cronulla to win the premiership is like leaving the porch light on for Harold Holt.
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Wasn’t that Robert Askin, the Lib Premier of NSW. who said run the bastards over.
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Robin Askin Loves Laura Norder!
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NSW has always loved LauraNorder. Always a bit funny to me coming from a State known for so much shonky stuff for decades. When I lived in Victoria it was thought that what was a bit crook or criminal was in fact just standard practice in New South Wales.
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Old Bob Askin, the brothel keeper, ran many of them. Today, his time in office would be called organised Crime.
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It was too, Viv. As the sweet fog of early onset ~
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There might just be some problems if we start burying Piglets in the concrete graveyard; if you see the letters in sombre black painted on the car park, you might think it might be our dear Hungie buried there. But, it could be me there H. OOsterman, shortened in true Aussie fashion, to HOO…?
There could also be two graves with the same initials….
Grieving Gez would not know where to put his blue Cornflowers….ah ,as he loved us both, he might just split the bunch, so much cheaper too…. 🙂
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That’s thrifty policy, lass.
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sandshoe, and you of Dutch and Scottish heritage understand all about thrift 🙂
Did you say that you had some thrifty forbears, Gerard certainly has. 🙂
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Ay, lassie, and yr a bonnie one to be sure with your ideas for saving a penny. 😉 My heritage, yes, thrifty as you were speakin’ on. No lengths could be considered enough where saving a penny especially a pretty one was concerned, lassie, by my da. My da would be deeply moved by your final directive to Gez, helvi. Share the forget-me-nots. Don’t double up on bunches. 😉
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So would my lovely mother-in-law, she would have gotten on very well with your da. She used to have double bread sandwiches, a slice of white between two browns.. Good people who knew how to survive, and pull themselves out of poverty. Bless them…
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Bread sandwiches! Of course! I think two slices of white bread are required between the brown for double bread sandwiches, helvi! 😉 Those are the luxury version. Like asking for an extra shot of coffee, isn’t it. 😉
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The joke will hit home once the dig has been dug, next to the HP-something or other plague of bones and the true occupier of the grave will be revealed: Lo, it will be discovered that the said grave is that of a man of infinite jest and excellent fancy one certain Yorick, court jester to a king and ass to his prince, having carried him on his back -Yorick’s back- a thousand times.
Yorick: Danish for George! How abhorred in my imagination this is!
Emms writes good! I await with great anticipatory palpitations the nunnery scene!
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Alas.
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Poor Yorick.
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Yorick whom?
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I can’t recall his surname, but I knew him well. I knew him, Horatio: a fellow
of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.
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He opened a nunnery just down the road from the Bacchic Globe. I only ever saw this one poor, foreign looking woman in there. She was wandering about the place, looking sort of weird and swatting the air with all sorts of herbs, well, rue, mainly and rosemary, I think and I could recognise fennel because the Greek god, Dionysus loves the stuff, oh, and, yes, she was singing some real dirty songs. You’d swear she was a lost Queenslander but aren’t they all?
Is that a pansy I see before me, or a daisy? A violet, perchance?
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I have a message for her from the Oracle. “Take swimming lessons.”
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Ha! That’s the oracle for you alright! Always oracularising AFTER the event! Very useful, indeed! No wonder the Spartans won the great war!
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Oh, the poor woman had already wandered into the oracular cave and been duely oracularised in advance. That Oracle! The only time she ever said something clear and unambiguous to a petitioner, the petitioner was in a state where she was completely incapable of acting on the information. Diabolical!
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It’s the sex thing, Voice again, Voice! Women petitioners are never given anything of value there. This is because Apollo had the temerity to ask one of his priestesses, Cassandra to have sex with him. She tricked him and he punished most severely and there the matter should end but men being what they are -vendetta loving shits- Apollo now treats all women with contempt!
Right old shit of a prophetic deity that one!
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Bugger! I double voiced myself self my!
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This could be an excellent time to revive our debate about whether the Ancient Greeks, on the whole, were sexist bastards! Not really – it was me who deserted. I didn’t have the stamina to pursue it seriously. I still don’t. Just though I’d zip in this totally unfair comment and zip off again before you can recover from your spluttering. 🙂
So call me a dilettante.
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A dilemmatente!
Well, see, the TRUE story from Pravda goes something like this:
Princess Cassandra (Daughter to Trojan King Priam and Queen Hekabe -aka Hecuba) is a priestess in the shrine of Apollo.
Apollo watches her from the high heavens and falls in lust with her. (The prime desire of every god and goddess is to have sex with a mortal… well with anyone really because they can’t have sex with each other, mostly because they’re all related… sons and daughters of Zeus and Hera, you see)
Anyhow, Apollo comes down and shocks and awes Cassandra, not only by his luminary presence (he is, after all the Sun god) but because he asks her for a bit. This did indeed shock Cassandra because Apollo was supposed to be the virginal god, the god who was supposed to reject sex in all its manifestations – which was crap, really because he was screwing every Jane and Kreusa on Earth but, nevermind!
Anyhow, Cassandra said no. Just because he wanted to forsake his celibacy she wasn’t going to follow suit! After all, an oath was an oath, even if it was made to a god who broke his own oaths!
Still, Apollo persisted and tried the trick that most mortal men, in the same situation tried: He offered her a gift. The most precious gift anyone could wish for. The very same gift that he possessed, that of prophesy!
Cassandra hummed and huhhhed at first but then she thought a thought.
“You give me the gift first!” She told Apollo “and then, we’ll see!”
By which point Apollo realised he had lost the game and the sex but went on, so as to teach her a lesson.
He pretended to argue with her. “No, let’s have sex first and then I’ll give you the gift!”
This went on for a while until Apollo thought it was time for the kill.
He waved his hand about theatrically, said the word “abracadaver” and lo, Cassandra head was filled with the gift of prophesy. Cassandra then did as Apollo expected a silly little girl would: She swung her little bum back and forth provocatively and said, “haha, now that I’ve got the gift I don’t have to have sex with you, so I can still stay a virgin…” but with that last word, the gift began to kick in. She had realised her blue.
It was Apollo’s turn to laugh. “Stupid mortals!” He said, “they never realise that reneging a deal with a god invites harsh punishment! Yes,” he continued, “I have given you the best gift a mortal could wish for but I have not given you what must accompany it: the gift of credibility! You will be able to see the future, Cassandra, yae, even your own death but no one will believe you when you tell them! You will not be able to make good of your prophesies and avert any disasters! This is the worst punishment that a god can mete out to mortals!”
So, no, the question of whose fault is this, of who is the sexist one -the god or the mortal, the god or the princess, the male or the female, does not have that clear cut an answer!
So there!
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The dilemmamatante est sur le pupitre de mon oncle.
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Pupitre? Qu’est-ce que ce pupitre, Therese?
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Perhaps Cassandra was mistreated by the God for being sister of Hector…he was an arrogant fella. Anyhoo, Atomou, I worship the Goddesses, they’re more transparent, and the rewards are heavenly!!
BTW, did you read Kerry Greenwood’s ‘Delphic Women’ series. This is where I first heard of her. Didn’t get into the Fisher Murders until she got onto the telly box.
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Bloody hell, no Big One! When did she write them? I shall order them first thing tomorrow! They look good. I’d love to know what she did with them.
Bloody hell, again! I always wanted to do a similar thing. Write novels about these women. They are such huge stories! Mighty characters, too!
Bloody hell!
Oh, well, Greenwood is deserving!
She’s written more Phryne stuff, too. I can’t remember the titles of those I’ve read so it’d be hard to know what to order. Anyhow I’ll get started on the Delphics!
Thanks, Biggy!
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By Isis, Atomou, I’ve been down on hands and knees in front of bookshelves, found medical texts that I should read, novels that i want to re-read, and a Julian Barnes that I’ve never read! Here they are; Cassandra and Electra, two novels about Delphic females. If you can’t get ’em, I’ll lend ’em to ya!!
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Atomou, they’re a touch salacious!
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In reply to “Qu’est-ce que ce pupitre” – hence the Dilemmadesatante? (I don’t pretend it’s getting any better, but Sea Mendez might be impressed. 🙂 )
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Yes, I was always wondering why ,at certain times, corn-flowers were left on the PMG plate. Also, and that’s not all, Milo never ever cocked his leg. I think he was carrying respek a little too far. Even so, we are proud to have taught him good manners and respek everybody irrespektive of politikal perversities.
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that’s perfick.
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Love it. We need more of this, please.
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Seconded. Any Thirds? (Snigger, wave 3)
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Christ that Foodge breaks me up sometimes. I nearly sprayed the computer screen with Coopers Sparkling!!
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Jesus this makes me laugh. A story with no plot, characters that no one can remember and written by more than one person. This is hilarious. But anyway when you are guzzling down a Sparkling and you spit it all over your monitor you then have to lick it off, snot and all.
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What’s wrong with a story with no plot, characters no-one can remember, written by more than one person….sounds like commercial TV!
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