I Preferred The Older Minute.

 If you're not British, you'll probably be better advised not to bother reading this post. Just as I often don't get the references my american blogger friends make to things have been  part of everyday life in the U.S.,  you probably will frown and think it's not funny at all.

On my sidebar, there's a link to Adullamite's blog. Recently he was bemoaning the decay of the BBC Radio panel-game, "Just a Minute".
The idea is simple. A panel of four guests  are challenged to speak for 'just a minute' on some diverse subject, without 'Hesitation, Repetition, or Deviation'. It's harder than you might think. Back in the days when I regularly listened, regulars panellists were Clement Freud, Derek Nimmo, Kenneth Williams.
Current ones, Paul Merton, Julian Clary....
I listen occasionally via the BBC's web app.

And I agree with Adullamite, I think the current crop of contributors are sadly lacking,  and would be pulverised if they were to play against their predecessors.

Here's a little vintage British radio:

Nifty!

Every Saturday night, just north of Houston, Texas, there's a car gathering called 'Niftee 50ees', at the junction of Kuykendahl and Louetta.
It's open to any vehicle from before 1979, I think. Everything from an Oldsmobile Curved Dash of 1902 to the great muscle cars of the seventies, plus custom cruisers,  hot-rods, chopped and channeled sleds,  trucks, vans...

Having an old, square, Land Rover, of course, I like to take part, -though really the emphasis is on home-grown metal, there are a few foreign imports.
I open the bonnet....(hood, for my American readers), to show my non-chromed, non V8, non-hemi-headed, non 427 cubic inch, trivial 4 cylinder engine. I see it as a refreshing palate-cleanser, akin to a glass of cold home-made lemonade, for all those poor folk overdosed on detroit chromium.

 People think my Land Rover is a Jeep... No, these are Jeeps....

They raise money for charity, the local fire crew brings a truck for kids little and large to goggle at, the height of excitement for many a child is to be allowed to sound that big chromed bell.

 

Entry for the public to browse: Free!

To show a vehicle? $10:00.

I'm not there every week, because because even a knucklehead like me would get bored.  But the number and nature of cars there is ever varying.

Then there's 'Cars and Coffee', at Market Street in The Woodlands, every first Sunday of the month, from early o'clock to Eleven a.m.

I'm amazed at the number of people who own old cars here.

The Last Leviathan......

Siggy Stern, singing a beautiful song, by Andy Barnes, recorded and better known by the Dubliners, Siggy, to me, does a better job.

Not a recording artist, she has uploaded a few songs to YouTube.
This song came to mind when I was viewing a post by 'Nag on the Lake' about a dutch painting, that in restoration was found to have originally featured a beached whale.

The Lost Whale

And It Has Little Handles That Fold Out For Pushing.

Brazilian Furniture

I was going to buy, but then I realised that it would always be in need of waxing......

The Curtain Rises. And Billows.

The Scene: centre stage: darkness, a bedroom,  a bed.

3 a.m.
Silence.
A sleeping couple.

Loud farts... Several. In quick succession. 

Him: I can't believe you did that!

Her: What?

Him: You just shattered the silence with a barrage of bottom-burps!

Her: Wasn't me!

Him: Who then?

Her: Sam Houston did it.

Him: Sam Houston was in our bedroom?

Her: Yes.

Him: And he got here how?

Her: In his buggy.

Him: So you're saying, Sam Houston, (first president of the Republic of Texas), who died in 1863, resurrected himself, and harnessed up his ghostly horses, drove in his buggy to our bedroom, where he let loose a trombone solo in the vicinity of your rear end, then got in the buggy, flicked the reins, and trotted off down the stairs and into the night?

Her: Yes. That's right.

Him: Oh.

They go back to sleep.
Outside, ghostly hooves and creaking of harness fading to the distance.

In the morning he asks her about Sam's visit. She has no recollection. And no shame at trying to pass off her farts as those of a hero of the Texas revolution.

From now on, mystery occurrences in this household, from trumps to empty ice cream cartons in the freezer, will be blamed on Sam Houston.

Sam Houston at the Battle of San Jacinto

(When we first met, back in 2007, and she visited me in England, as we were carrying her compendious baggage into the house, somebody farted, and it wasn't me. She looked me in the eye, and with a straight face, said "did you hear that?" "I did, I heard a fart."
"No", she said. "A bark.  -it's the barking spiders."
She persisted in trying to tell me the sounds I kept hearing were made by barking spiders, a subset of arachnid I had never previously encountered. And they had followed her, from, she thought, the airport in Atlanta, Georgia, perhaps stowing away in her baggage.)


More from the bedroom: The Morning After.

If This Blog was a Delivery Company...

JohnnyExpress from AlfredImageworks on Vimeo.

Shock News!: Grit in the Gears Written by Robot!

Picture found by Red Dirt Girl on Pinterest, this is an assemblage by Brian Marshall.

As is this.

The author of this blog sometimes feels like he's a machine, and right now he's got a cramp in his left side rib actuators. He identifies with these fellows.
Un-grit my gears, gimme oil!