Month: February 2025

Anti Bollocks Week

Island. From the bonny island in the sun where the wild alien tomatoes* roam and the trees blossom all year ‘round, the Family and your truly are wishing you a totally spiffing and riotous AntiValentine day/week/month/whatever.
Us chickens are too effing pooped and despondent to be bothered with the organizing and running of public communal shindigs and such otherwise delicious frivolities. We are going to spend said anti-week with the indigenous veggies and their mates. The Wee Worms will enact a few wormy folk dances and the Shoggies will mix the Martinis. That’ll be the extent of our knees-upping this year. Maybe next time we’ll be back in form, Bumba willing.
PS. Having said that, if you’re cunning enough to find your way to the island on your own steam, and show up unannounced but with a bottle of some nice Cabernet Sauvignon and a bagful of home-made samosas, you’ll be most welcome.
*These be not your average timorous tomatoes. These here be fierce fruits that cannot be coaxed or bullied into your salad. Vegetarians beware.


Vaporous States

Morriña. Del gallego morrinha: S. f. coloq.: Tristeza o melancolía, especialmente la nostalgia de la tierra natal. Sin.: Nostalgia, añoranza, tristeza, pena, melancolía, musepo, melarchía.
Eng. Longing, nostalgia, homesickness.

Since this most wonderful of words hails from a Galicia badly remembered but never forgotten, I’ve used the first line of the Galician national lament* for a quote.
The source of my personal yearning is not for a bygone, nebulously
distant native land that possibly never was but for an equally imaginary Trusk-free brave new world. Ah, for that magic button… Or for the prophecy to come to pass:
Anda jaleo, jaleo,
ya se acabo el alboroto
y ahora empieza el tiroteo.
Come on, kick up a stink, kick up a stink.
The racket is over
And now the shooting begins.

*Os Pinos. Galician national anthem/wail. Here’s a link to it, in case some of you wish to enhance (but on no account “elevate”!; never “elevate”!) your cultural horizons:
https://lyricstranslate.com/en/os-pinos-anthem-galicia-anthem-galicia-pines.html
And with music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeEfiuM6LM8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrPfMFJvpC0