Monday, January 01, 2007
Singing songs to myself
I’d gotten the indication, at some point or another, that I do not live in the best of neighbourhoods. Other people, I’m sure can have things like mail, parcels, credit cards easily delivered to their house without having to worry about theft. I frequently wonder at how much rent one must pay to have such luxuries as safe delivery and the garbage being collected when it’s supposed to be but I mostly dismiss those as idle thoughts – never shall I be so wealthy! Despite these little blips on the radar of the locale I’m fond of the area and (mostly) feel that I am safe in limb and property living here. A friend of mine who crashed here last night may now start fearing for my safety, or for that of my belongings, as some irritating git broke into her car which was parked out the front of my house. They took as much as they could including half the petrol and her faith in my charming locality. Up until that point we’d enjoyed quite the good New Year’s. Okay, so none of us got so much as a hint of a snog at midnight (or any other time of the night) but we all got home safely, had a good night in a good and friendly environment, and scored free booze. The beauty of being a really rather regular regular is that the owner gave us free cocktails and we also got free chips though those could be due to the lascivious looks one of our number routinely gives to the head chef. Free stuff and loads of grog maketh the night – though the day was clearly a different story.
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16 comments:
Mmmm free booze. Anyways, no matter what neighborhod you live in shit like that happens. I used to live in this nice place, and my car got stolen right out front. Anyways, I'm not nearly awake enough to actually write anything neato, so I shall digress for now.
Yes, currently I live a pleasant 10 minute stroll from Pentridge Jail, which has since been converted to Pentridge Piazza (still with Authentic barbed wire!)
Thank you for introducing me to the delightful world of merkins. It has led to quite an interesting discussion, and even Merkin Poetry!
I once saw a documentary on merkins. Really, they are the bees um... I'll assume you had a great deal of fun scouting the net for those pics, young Tim.
mhe, yeah, it's one of my favourite phrases/things in life. Booze, I mean, though digression is awfully good as well.
I wish! I was at work (wrote the poetry in my lunchbreak), but when it came to scouting the net for pics, it was very much a case of typing in the word to google images, tabbing to another screen, then flicking back when nobody was there.
Yeah, yeah.
Merkin is an interesting word, by the way. It's one of a number of English words that end in the suffix 'kin', which is a kind of diminutive. Apparently Scots commonly call their children things like 'Jennikins' and 'Tommikins', etc. Probably originally meaning 'Jenny, kin of so-and-so', etc.
Anyway, that would suggest that 'merkin' just means 'small merk', whatever a merk is. Maybe it has an anglo-saxon derivation.
Hmmm ... (scurries to etymology websites to look up derivation of the word).
Oh, sorry, didn't mean to make you fall asleep ...
Oh, Timmy, talk linguistic-nerdy at me!
I strongly suspect that this particular -kin isn't Scottish by origin. I'm sure that merkins don't fit the national character at all!
I love that when you google 'Merkin', you find that there is a Merkin performance hall and a tv show host and a model called Michele Merkin.
Also, apparently it came from the Old English word Malkin, meaning strumpet, and we all know which particular conservative commentator has that last name!
And it's not really the national character they're meant to fit... most Scottish words come from the Anglo-Saxon, anyway.
Given the way they same them who can tell? :p
I found merkin on ebay and it really wasn't what I was expecting. Probably a good thing though.
Strumpet is a seriously under used word these days. Must start using it [and this coming from the person who uses slut in an older meaning...].
Oh, I get it.
I love Scottish English, especially the Robert Burns type: "He grippet her fast by the gossett o' the erse/ And he gae her cunt by the common law." Don't leave much to the imagination.
The English have a tonne of great words for 'whore', including 'slapper' and 'strumpet', which kind of suggests it was a great national tradition. That, and the fact that for a long time, London had a street called 'Gropequeynte Lane'.
I'm glad you got it cause I mangled it so much I'm now confused.
Love the Gropequeynte Lane. How cruel of them to change the name when most people wouldn't get it anyway.
I really must read some Robert Burns. Obviously a lot more fun than I'd originally thought.
Isn't prostitution supposed to be the world's oldest profession, much like inventing interesting new ways of calling women whore is man's oldest hobby? Not surprising that there'd be a word or two hundred for it by now...
Burns was great, he would pick women up by writing poems to them in church!
Epigram To Miss Ainslie In Church
Who was looking up the text during sermon.
Fair maid, you need not take the hint,
Nor idle texts pursue:
'Twas guilty sinners that he meant,
Not Angels such as you.
I do like a when who can get a leg over with rhyme.
Oh yeah, I used to get mail stolen and stuff too. There are obviously people down there with too much time on their hands. Sad, because it really is a pretty neat neighbourhood.
Does anyone understand my comments at the moment? All full of typos, oh dear :(
Quite a lot of people with too much time on their hands - ever been to Marrickville Metro on a weekday?
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