Blessed are the Cheesemakers

Sarasota, Florida

Mrs. Phred and I invented a new game today. We started going though the prime numbers in ascending order. You get a point if your opponent misses one or names a number that's not prime. The other game we invented is going though the alphabet naming two animals for each letter. We got stumped on "X" but I have a species of horseshoe crab to spring on her next time. A varient of this game would be naming four animals per letter with two players and alternating who goes first.

Sirius radio is having a Monty Python channel this week. They're having trouble absorbing their acquisition of competitor XM Radio and paying for the merger, so their stock is down to $.63 per share, a 90% drop.

I'm still culling our 2009 pictures for The Calendar.

Of course, I called today to sign up the new Sirius Radio that came with the RV. I'd been thinking about it awhile, but the Monty Python week spurred me to action. I was a little stunned that they gave me six free months without asking for a credit card or agreement. After the six months, the cost is $100 a year. Sirius stock is up 15% in the last ten days. You can buy 100,000 shares pretty cheaply.

I listened to the "Chunky Frog" skit and the "I had it tough" skit by the four Yorkshiremen. Laughing out loud is always a good thing for your mental health. Monty Python is channel 105 for another week.

Praline	(producing box of chocolate) If I may begin at the beginning. First there is the Cherry Fondue. This is extremely nasty, but we can't prosecute you for that.
Milton	Agreed.
Praline	Next we have number four, 'Crunchy Frog'.
Milton	An, yes.
Praline	Am I right in thinking there's a real frog in here?
Milton	Yes. A little one.
Praline	What sort of frog?
Milton	A dead frog.
Praline	Is it cooked?
Milton	No.
Praline	What, a raw frog?
	Superintendent Parrot looks increasingly queasy.
Milton	We use only the finest baby frogs, dew-picked and flown from Iraq, cleansed in the finest quality spring water, lightly killed, and then sealed in a succulent Swiss quintuple smooth treble cream milk chocolate envelope, and lovingly frosted with glucose.
Praline	That's as may be, but it's still a frog!
Milton	What else?
Praline	Well don't you even take the bones out?
Milton	If we took the bones out it wouldn't be crunchy would it?

Milton	What about our sales?
Praline	I'm not interested in your sales! I have to protect the general public! Now what about this one. (superintendent enters) It was number five, wasn't it? (superintendent nods) Number five Ram's Bladder Cup. (exit superintendent) What sort of confection is this?
Milton	We use choicest juicy chunks of fresh Cornish ram's bladder, emptied, steamed, flavoured with sesame seeds, whipped into a fondue and garnished with lark's vomit.
Praline	Larks vomit?
Milton	Correct.
Praline	Well it don't say nothing about that here.
Milton	Oh yes it does, on the bottom of the box, after monosodium glutamate.
Praline	(looking) Wel I hardly think this is good enough. I think it's be more appropriate if the box bore a great red label warning lark's vomit.
Milton	Our sales would plummet!
Praline	Well why don't you move into more conventional areas of confectionary, like praline or lime cream; a very popular flavor, I'm lead to understand. (superintendent enters) I mean look at this one 'cockroach cluster', (superintendent exits) anthrax ripple! What's this one: 'spring surprise'?
Milton	Ah - now, that's our speciality - covered with darkest creamy chocolate. When you pop it into your mouth steel bolts spring out and plunge straight through both cheeks.
Praline	Well where's the pleasure in that? If people place a nice chocky in their mouth, they don't want their cheeks pierced. In any case this is an inadequate description of the sweetmeat. I shall have to ask you to accompany me to the station.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:I was happier then and I had nothin'. We used to live in this tiny old house with great big holes in the roof.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:House! You were lucky to live in a house! We used to live in one room, all twenty-six of us, no furniture, 'alf the floor was missing, and we were all 'uddled together in one corner for fear of falling.

 

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN: Eh, you were lucky to have a room! We used to have to live in t' corridor!

 

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN: Oh, we used to dream of livin' in a corridor! Would ha' been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woke up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House? Huh.

 

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN: Well, when I say 'house' it was only a hole in the ground covered by a sheet of tarpaulin, but it was a house to us.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN: We were evicted from our 'ole in the ground; we 'ad to go and live in a lake.

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN: You were lucky to have a lake! There were a hundred and fifty of us living in t' shoebox in t' middle o' road.

 

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN: Cardboard box?

 

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN: Aye.

 

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN: You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t' mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi' his belt.

 

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN: Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at six o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of 'ot gravel, work twenty hour day at mill for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would thrash us to sleep with a broken bottle, if we were lucky!

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN: Well, of course, we had it tough. We used to 'ave to get up out of shoebox at twelve o'clock at night and lick road clean wit' tongue. We had two bits of cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at mill for sixpence every four years, and when we got home our Dad would slice us in two wit' bread knife.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN: Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah.

 

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN: And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you.

ALL: They won't!

Pure genius!