First And Ten Fibbing Friday

Here I go with Pensitivity101’s first ten (in the second week) of 2023:

1. Aurora Borealis is also known as

Ashley Carbonera, but only by people who knew her before she became a famous porn star.

2. Who was Farouk Balsara?

He was a Syrian refugee who sneaked into the UK by floating across the English Channel on a raft he built, using plans he got off the internet from some Colombian who floated into the USA.

3. Chasing Cars is by which group?

The Stray Dogs, before they changed the name of the group to The Stray Cats.

4. What is Detritus?

That was Baskin & Robbins 32^th flavor of ice cream.

5. Eggplant is also known as

The colour of Elton John’s favorite pair of shoes.

6. Who is Filbert Fox?

He is/was the best friend of Gilbert Grape, in the movie adaptation of his life story.

7. Gentoo is a what?

The family who run my local “Curry In A Hurry” outlet.  😳  I stop there every time after my mandatory sensitivity training sessions.

8. Rutabaga is also called

A Swede, by many Brits, until Sweden found out about it, and threatened to stop exporting Volvos, Saabs, and replacement mobile phone parts to England, unless it stops.  The Scots also have a derogatory term for Swedes, but no-one can understand what they’re saying, so the Swedes just assume they’re drunk – as usual.

9. What is IPlayer?

He’s the thoroughly-modern male who relies on his electronics to get lucky in love.  He has swiped right so many times, the notches on his bedpost are threatening to collapse it in mid-tryst.  Ooh, kinky!

10. Jambo is a greeting in which language?

India Elephant – in African elephant, it’s Tantor.

’21 A To Z Challenge – T

The theme for this week’s A To Z Challenge has been graciously supplied by Meghan Markle and Prince Harry.

TUMULTUOUS

Full of tumult or riotousness; marked by disturbance and uproar
raising a great clatter and commotion; disorderly or noisy
highly agitated, distraught, turbulent

If Harry just wanted a continuous supply of sex with gorgeous young women, he could have taken some tips from his uncle, Randy Prince Andy – parties, mansions, booze and drugs, some grooming and coercion, a bit of physical force, and, failing all that, boatloads of 100 Pound notes.

But Harry seemed to want to get married and settle down.  If that was his plan, he picked the wrong woman.  Actually, this brazen little, attention-seeking, gold-digger purposely picked him – and Meghan is not the ‘settling down’ type.  He is apparently getting some sex, but she is just leading him around by his….  nose.

She runs their life using the Brittany Spears Career Handbook – a minor catastrophe each week, and a more major meltdown every month – anything to keep them her in the public eye.  Watching her stick-handle their social and marital relationships, (That’s a Canuck hockey reference, eh.) is like watching the shining silver sphere in an Elton John pinball machine.

They’re in Britain!
They’re in the US!
They flutter into Canada just long enough to give the residents of British Columbia some false hope!
They’re on the West Coast!
They’ve moved to the East Coast!
They’re in the news!
They’re on TV!
They’re in court!

Lights flash, bells ring out, digit counters scroll upwards, but when it all eventually goes down the drain, nothing has really happened.  Then she pushes the reload plunger to bring up the next week’s controversy.  It’s enough to make the Kardashians look relevant.

It looks like I’m done with this rant.  See you again soon.   😀

Piano Man

When I was a boy, with the best of intentions, my parent tried to make me musical. Fail!  Dad was a part-time entertainer.  He couldn’t play an instrument.  He only sang and told stories and jokes.  Perhaps sensing my loner tendencies, my Mother decided that I needed to learn how to play the piano, to be sociable.  Elton John had barely been born, and Billy Joel hadn’t.  Everybody played guitar.

Dad bought an upright piano, and I was sent for weekly piano lessons for three years. I learned a bit of the construction of music.  Later-in-life realizations about my lack of fine motor control and short-term memory deficiencies explained why I got nowhere with the piano.  I convinced my Mother that it was a lost cause.

Dad put it up for sale. When summer tourist season arrived, the ad caught the attention of four young men.  All musically inclined, they had pooled their money and purchased a good-sized cottage.  They wanted the piano for parties there.

They came to the house of a Saturday morning to inspect and sample the piano. It was pronounced solid and well-kept, but they wanted to try it, to hear how it sounded.  Each in turn sat and played it. They each had their specialty, but all played a wide range of music, jazz, dance, big band, pop, boogie-woogie, musical theater.

Mom and Dad were treated to more than an hour of great music. One guy even unfolded a section of newspaper and threaded it between the strings and the sounding board, producing an odd, buzzy tone.  Finally, everyone happy, the deal was done, money changed hands, and it was theirs to get to their cottage – but how??, in their car??

One of them asked if Dad had any suggestions for transporting it. Dad knew a guy….  A strange sort of duck, 40 and unmarried, with a half-ton pickup in a town full of sedans, but no social life.  He might be free, and interested in a bit of extra spending money.  After a phone call, he soon appeared.

He backed across the front lawn to our raised front veranda. A couple of stout planks were produced, and the piano was eased out the front door, and carefully down into the truck bed.  He slammed the tailgate shut, and headed for the cab.

One of the buyers asked, “Aren’t you going to tie it down??” “Nah, no need, she’s in there solid as the Rock of Gibraltar.”  He eased back across the lawn, out the driveway to the side street, paused at the stop sign and swung onto the main street….and the Rock of Gibraltar did a 270° off the side of the truck and smashed into 10,000 pieces in the middle of the intersection.

Four guys almost cried. They got back their haulage charge, and he wrote them a cheque for the price of the instrument, but they had searched for months for this piano.  They thought they would have to buy a new one in the big city, and pay to have it shipped 100 miles north.  There was no joy, or honky-tonk piano, in Mudville that night.   😳