ILE Breaks the Surly Bonds of Earth

some of these people seem quite sensible. The reference to "all the lovely cheeses" makes me suspect that the cheesemeister has another alias- I think we should be told

You mean you haven't worked out the cheesemeister yet?

Taint nowt ter do wi' me chum.

[Note to self: Perhaps I've been associating with these humans from Ormskirk for far too long.]

A pause, in this month of November, in admiration of Monsieur Aimless, and also of Monsieur Magee Jr.

Hats off to Aimless, and to all those who recognised his reference....

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious burning blue,
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark or even eagle flew,
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high, untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

Hats off to the boys in RAF blue who never came back. We salute you. If you have a problem with that attestation, mail me.

It is always so gratifying when everything is going along in the humdrum manner and someone suddenly breaks into song (even if they insist on banging a pot while they rip into the lyrics with gusto). With luck we shall soon prod the whole surly crowd into marching around the central hallway, waving their arms and chanting in ragged time as if they were at a foorball match. With even better luck, someone will produce an effigy on a long pole that we can set alight in that spirit of good, wholesome, drunken fun we all love so well!

Oh, oh, oh, oh ... Aimless ... what to say? I like what you say, but are you are being deliberatly combative!?

I didn't break into song! That is one of THE major poems of the 20th century!!! I never made it up! I've never sailed 5 miles above the earth in a tumultuous, orgasmic loop-the-loop; there again, I wasn't killed at the age of 19.

You mean that wasn't you I heard singing? Drat! You must accept my apologies. Nothing combative intended.

What I heard must have been the water pipes again. Or the neighbor's hound. Or this ever-loving ringing in my ears. Or squealing brakes in the street. Or that pig that turned up a few nights ago in my bedroom and decided to stay.

If you ever get sick of it, send it my way.........