PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Jun 12, 2011 10:11:27 GMT -5
I note that the Queen has given the title of Lord High Admiral to Prince Phillip on his 90th birthday.
"And I polished up that handle so carefullee that now I am the ruler of the Queen's Navee."
Words by Sir William Schwenck Gilbert.
PeterW
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Post by Randy on Jun 12, 2011 13:10:17 GMT -5
Is that anything like a moss covered three handled family cradunza?
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Post by herron on Jun 12, 2011 22:05:59 GMT -5
I note that the Queen has given the title of Lord High Admiral to Prince Phillip on his 90th birthday. "And I polished up that handle so carefullee that now I am the ruler of the Queen's Navee." Words by Sir William Schwenck Gilbert. PeterW I don't even want to speculate on what handle was polished.
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mickeyobe
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Post by mickeyobe on Jun 13, 2011 4:56:01 GMT -5
Here you are lads. Enjoy. It is really a scathing attack on people who gain high positions without any of the requisite experience or knowledge. It could apply to many of today's office holders in any country.
Mickey
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Jun 13, 2011 11:04:48 GMT -5
Mickey, I guessed you would be first to know my couplet about handle polishing even though I gave the others a clue about WSG being the author. I also guessed you would get my reference to your left shoulder blade. It seems I can't fault you on G&S, nor it seems on Bill Shakespeare, Tennyson and the rest. You must have been as voracious a reader as I was. BUT ... Can you tell me who could write a washing bill in Babylonic cuneiform, and tell me every detail of Caracticus's uniform? Or say who was being 'anged when the regiment was drawn up in 'ollow square? Come on, you know you know the answers. PeterW
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Jun 13, 2011 11:09:21 GMT -5
Randy, If that's the same as the article of toilet ware that used to be known in the UK as a Gazunda - short for gazunda the bed - then no, it isn't. PeterW
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mickeyobe
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Post by mickeyobe on Jun 13, 2011 12:55:52 GMT -5
PeterW,
I am not nearly as well read as you. Although I was, indeed, a voracious reader my memory was not as good as yours or The Pirates of Penzance's Model of a Modern Major General, Stanley. With that kind of boasting who else could it possibly be?
I came to love G&S by playing double bass in the school orchestra for 6 years. High school was only 5 years but they called me back when they were short a bassist a year after I left school.
HMS Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance, Trial by Jury (Too short), and my favourite The Mikado. Gilbert and Sullivan were two geniuses whose creations are as valid today as they were when new. It's a shame Victoria wasn't open minded enough to give W.S. Gilbert the knighthood he so richly deserved. He should be given it now, posthumously.
As for that poor Private Flaxman in "Danny Deever" ..... Google says it was a ballad by Rudyard Kipling. Otherwise he would have remained a mystery to me. It was probably banned by the school board as being too violent for our young ears and minds.
We were obliged to memorize a brutally edited Tennyson's Charge of the Light Brigade to protect us from --- I don't know what.
Wordsworth's crowd of daffodils was deemed quite suitable though.
Shakespeare was destroyed for us by having to analyse to death the analyses of the analyses.
Mickey
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Post by Randy on Jun 13, 2011 13:34:00 GMT -5
Randy, If that's the same as the article of toilet ware that used to be known in the UK as a Gazunda - short for gazunda the bed - then no, it isn't. PeterW No, an article from Dr. Seuss.
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