I am indebted to and inspired by my dear friend Christopher for this.
One of the features of North East Hampshire that is less than pleasing to the eye is the debris left by those involved in the ancient practice of fly-tipping. (In case this term borders on vernacularity, I should point out that it does not involve financially rewarding members of the order diptera, but rather refers to the illegal dumping of rubbish in public places). From time to time I will, whilst out taking my ipod for an airing (missus) be distracted by the sight of carelessly discarded car tyres or suchlike. Christopher has reminded me that this behaviour has been indigenous to Wessex since Dave was a lad.
As you will see, Thomas Hardy was not the only Wessex author to have a keen ear for lyrical dialogue.
“Darren! Darren! What the fuck is that fucking monstrosity outside the fucking front door? Ain’t it bleeding enough to leave your bedroom looking like a fucking bomb’s hit it, without littering up the front fucking garden.”
“Mam! Listen, right, first of all it weren’t nothing to do with me. Second, no-one knows what a bedroom looks like when a bomb’s hit it, because this is 2,468 B.C. and bombs ain’t been invented yet. Third, it weren’t nothing to do with me.”
“B.C.? B. Pigging C.? What’s that meant to be when it’s at home? How can you possibly calculate time going backwards, arriving at an event that none of us could possibly fucking know about, given that we are Neolithic, whatever the fuck that means, and if we don’t know about fucking bombs yet, then we certainly aren’t able to construct a fucking time machine.”
“Well, I’m just showing you that I know more than you, and that I represent progress, an inevitable evolution, if you will, whereby each generation improves upon the previous one, and we become more civilised and intelligent.”
“Intelligent my fucking arse! Even a fucking monkey (whatever they are) wouldn’t leave a fucking mess like that in their own fucking front garden.”
“Well, I told you before, it weren’t me. Must have been those sodding Welsh twats who were here yesterday.”
“What Welsh twats? And what’s with the ‘sodding’ – I’ve told you before to watch your fucking language.”
“Well, I couldn’t follow everything they said, on account of them talking funny, look you, but apparently they’d been substantially rewarded for removing a load of old crap from the gaff of one of their tribal leaders. He told them he didn’t want that shit within a hundred miles of his house, so they dragged it over here.”
“What have they fucking brought it this way for? The fucking A303 is a nightmare at fucking weekends.”
“Don’t ask me – it ain’t my fault. I think they said something about the English being a bunch of twats who liked to moan a lot, and they were looking to piss off the first stroppy bastard they came across, and I guess it just weren’t my day.”
“Fuck me! What a fucking monstrosity. Well, I’m not putting up with it. I’ll get your dad to fucking shift it when he gets back from Glastonbury”.
“No need! You remember what I said about me being more intelligent and that, well I reckon we could make our fortune out of it, if we play our cards right.”
“What are you fucking on about now? And what in the name of fuck are cards?”
“Don’t matter. I reckon if we spread the word that these rocks have deep spiritual significance we can attract people from all over Wessex, or whatever this place is called before the Saxons get here, and get them to reward us for letting them get near. Of course, the earlier use of 'English' was equally inaccurate, as the Angles aren't due to show up 'til about the same time as the Saxons.”
“You fucking twat! I can see the flaw in your fucking argument straight up. If people are, as you suggest, getting more intelligent, they ain’t going to travel fucking miles to see a load of old second hand garden rubbish from Fishguard are they?”
17 comments:
I done a LOL.
Well then, I'm reluctantly putting away my flowing peasant sundress, rune stones and incense I was planning to bring to my pilgrimage to Stonehenge. sigh.
"...arriving at an event that none of us could possibly fucking know about, given that we are Neolithic, whatever the fuck that means". Brilliant.
Oh. No. You've gone too far this time. I just do NOT believe you.
You have an iPod?
No, hang on, you were being ironic or summat, weren't you? It's really a gramophone on a string, right? You just called it an iPod to get a response, right? Go on, put my mind at rest, at least tell me it plays wax cylinders.
laughed out loud. scared the neighbors. perfection.
*tuts*
Glorious. Well worth burning the midnight oil for.
(As they're saying in Louisiana, wherever that might be.)
I deliberately avoided going near the stones this week.
You really must address these anger management issues. Either that or stay off the lentil fungus.
Have a nice lavender bath and it'll bring your blood pressure down.
Richard, dear Richard. There is no correlation between the use of swearing and anger. Neither is their a link between the state of mind of an author and his choice of subject, otherwise Agatha Christie would have been murdered hundreds of times, Charles Dickens would have been poor, and Jeffrey Archer would have been a crook.
You have expounded your views on this subject several times before. I had assumed, erroneously it now seems, that you were doing so once again although this time vicariously, through a fictional construct. Damn.
Btw, as Dave's not here, it falls to me to point out your homophonic error. Again.
I may have been expounding my views, but that does not equate to being anger.
I got close to anger last night watching Mr Cameron, and swore profusely, loudly and often.
I got really angry because I can't see the homophone. You bastard.
you've been expounding your views!
but it's not my birthday until tomorrow. . .
It's in your comment. "Neither is their..."
Oh, and I think that should have been "angry" not "anger"
**ducks**
Thanks. Richard. That's a relief. I spotted both of those. Just too much trouble to recreate comments - makes everything go out of sequence. And there is probably a mistake in this comment too.
In North America, we have cow tipping. You people really need to step up your game.
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