Stream Of Unconsciousness! - E-mail correspondence with Spooky St. Ives

Andrew Macdonald

21 October 2002 16:25

Still here

If the Tate are short of a bob or two, they could flog the gas works to Penwith [They won't take it because of all the toxic waste that has been in there over the last few years!]

Andrew Macdonald

21 October 2002 16:27

Bugger

Think I might have pressed the wrong button there. More later.

Andrew Macdonald

21 October 2002 17:27

Still Here (ll)

If the Tate are short of a bob or two, they could always flog the gasworks to Penwith District Council. Penwith District Council could then bulldoze it and build a nice shiny new car park. All those little terracotta people would make pretty good hardcore, or have they moved on yet? [Buggered off back to St. Helens ages ago]

When they'd finished the car park, they could point the bulldozer up the hill and keep going until they reach the big road up the top that goes everywhere. Car park, bypass, and no Tate all in one go. That's what I call a traffic plan. Plus there'd be less cars down on the Wharf, giving even more opportunity for aimless wandering and the chance of being attacked by other peoples' ambulatory aids.

Anyway, as we were sat in the wilds of Lincolnshire with the relatives at the weekend, surrounded by dark and endless fields of inscrutable brassicas just waiting for their opportunity to strike, we chanced upon a book of photographs of England by Geoffrey Grigson and Edwin Smith published in the late 50s. It's title, if I remember rightly, was "England". It had a bit about St Ives, recalling that the old saying "St Ives savours strongly of pilchards and Wesleyanism" (which is, of course, so familiar to us all) should perhaps now read "St Ives savours strongly of third rate artists and oil paint" They also said some rather flattering things about that nice Mr Ben Nicholson. I just had to share that with you. God knows why.

They also said that St Eia was not St Ia at all. Oh no! She was St Hia. So you'll all be Hians, then. [Given the number of spelling variations we've seen we are not entirely surprised that St. Ia/Hia/Eia/etc isn't the patron saint of dyslexics!]

And another thing! Did you know that John Smeaton, as well as your pier and Eddystone Lighthouse, also built a huge underground beer storage tank for Bass in London?

PS. We liked the Eden Project. [Yes, Orm likes to go there regularly too. He takes a bag of apples and hangs out in the trees worrying religious fundamentalists!]

PPS. Please feel free to deposit any small change behind the bar of the Union against a few pints of Doom Bar should we ever return.

Vile Jelly

21 October 2002 18:08

Brassicas. Brassicas! Don't threaten me with the ultimate evil or I shall be forced to ..... lie down in a dark room for a while. The way I see it, if god wanted us to eat them he wouldn't have made them offensive to the eye, palate and intestines!

Suggest you ring 'Dubya' and suggest that Bin Laden has been hiding out in the fields and that should see the little green gits safely given a napalm welcome to the afterlife.

PS. Intriguing snippet about Smeaton (of pier fame) building that underground beer storage facility. I wonder where he got the idea from? I wonder where the Sloop gets its beer from!

PPS. In the event of your return, yea verily I will slay the fatted calf. Then, I shall prop it against the door of the Union while we partake of the holy beer of communion and talk of matters that matter (and mattereth not) while the rest of the world can take a physiologically improbable excursion!

Andrew Macdonald

22 October 2002 09:22

Brassicas are God's creatures too. They have their place. It's called Lincolnshire and is best avoided by those of a brassicaphobe tendency (and anybody else, come to that). Still, Lincoln beat Exeter last Saturday. They probably rushed straight home afterwards and slew the fatted January King in celebration.

You see, you've solved the mystery. It's obviously a misreading of the great man's drawings which has been propagated through the last couple of hundred years. It's not Smeaton's Pier at all, it is in fact Smeaton's Beer. I bet if you go down there and prise up a few of the slabs, you'll find these huge tanks with an intricate network of pipes leading back to the Sloop, and on the top of one you'll find someone has crossed out Doom Bar and scribbled Tribute in its place.

Vile Jelly

22 October 2002 10:08

Brassicas, in particular sprouts, are the work of Satan and they should be cast into the waste disposal units of eternal damnation immediately.

Now, if you'll excuse me I'm just off to find a crowbar and head off down to investigate Mr. S's masterwork!

I may be some time ...

Andrew Macdonald

22 October 2002 14:40

Found anything yet?

Vile Jelly

22 October 2002 16:59

Shlobbleobble, hic!

Andrew Macdonald

22 October 2002 18:14

Shplendid! Shave shome for the rest of us poor benighted souls with but a solitary stick of sprouts for company.

Vile Jelly

23 October 2002 15:45

Pardon? I didn't quite catch that. I think I must have gone blind!

Andrew Macdonald

23 October 2002 16:48

I said

Shplendid! Shave shome for the rest of us poor benighted souls with but a solitary stick of sprouts for company.

Now do try and keep up. 132 pints of Tribute never did anybody any harm. 2 pints, quite possibly, but you're past the pain threshold after that.

Vile Jelly

23 October 2002 23:42

Keep what up? Every bit of me has gone as limp as a Michael Barrymore handshake!

And don't mention the 'T' word. We have a saying now:-

When the bottom drops out of your world ... drink Tribute and watch the world drop out of your bottom!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I do believe that behind these chained up skeletons (probably b&b-ers who couldn't pay their bills) I have found another promising line, well tunnel actually, of enquiry.

Don't wait up for me.

Andrew Macdonald

24 October 2002 09:01

Bit risky, mentioning Michael Barrymore and line in the same email. Lawyers have ears, apparently. I thought they just had obscenely overstuffed wallets.

Perhaps you're right about sprouts. I see Lincoln prison has just gone up in flames.

I'll come back to the cheap joke later, time permitting.

Vile Jelly

24 October 2002 09:53

Quick, while the prison is still burning. Round up anything that's green and knobbly (excluding myself, of course) and chuck 'em on the fire. The stench will be appalling but what the hell, it probably didn't smell much better when it wasn't alight.

Andrew Macdonald

24 October 2002 10:27

But that would leave Lincolnshire entirely depopulated.

Ermmmm......!

Vile Jelly

24 October 2002 15:48

Apart from the stealth brassicas like caulis .....

Damn, you were right after all. They are conspiring to take over.

Mind you, they're welcome to Lincolnshire (and Lincolnshire is welcome to them)!

Andrew Macdonald

24 October 2002 17:12

And watch out for the cavolo nero. It's been seen in Padstow, so you'd better get the barricades up.

Found the Guinness yet?

Vile Jelly

24 October 2002 23:12

Cavolo nero? Isn't he that centre-forward Man Utd. are trying to sign?

Anyway, I do not fear an invasion of the brassicas due to the fact that I can unleash in self-defence a pair of ruthless herbivores in the Shauns. Basically, if it's green they'll eat it and if it isn't ... they'll give it a chomp anyway.

Found the guinness. Put it on a coracle and told it to bugger off back to Ireland (can't stand the stuff), much as I suspect the locals did to St. Eia/Ia/Hia/etc. when she first tried to introduce her new-fangled christianity to St. Ives!

Andrew Macdonald

25 October 2002 08:57

You're thinking of Lollo Rosso. They're trying to get him to replace the embittered Radiccio.

I'd forgotten the Shauns, but I'm not sure which is worse - rapacious brassicas or flatulent sheep.

Ground breaking new research has just revealed the that St Ia(etc)'s name was in fact St WhyHia and she came from the North East. She came to St Ives in the late18th century to work as a Cost Reduction (Analysis and Audit) Assistant on Smeaton's Beer, being one of the very people at that time capable of working with Babbage's Difference Engine. Unfortunately, Babbage himself had nipped off down the pub and didn't finish it until 1822. St WhyHia, penniless and despondent, decided to convert St Ives to Christianity, but on discovering she was about a thousand years too late, threw herself onto a passing clover leaf and sailed to Ireland. She was later canonised under the Oh Bugger It, We've Got To Give Them Something section of the Investors In People programme.

Vile Jelly

25 October 2002 09:30

How could anyone forget the Shauns? Next time your down here on one of your UNICEF missions to Cornwall they'll probably take you out the back of the pub and administer a severe hoofing [or fart in your face!].

Anyway, someone didn't forget the Shauns. Remember the little girl (Holly Chambers) who wanted the info on Saint Aye-Aye? [See E-Mails Section - The Holly And The Jelly, also this week's news bulletin] Well, she turned up unexpectedly in the Sloop (with parents) last night as a result of which the Reporting Team have now expanded by one following the arrival of Bert, the singing & dancing ninja hamster.

PS. Don't believe in that Investors In People rubbish, it's a con. I invested a small fortune in people but when I decided to send off abroad and cash in on my investment a container full of them went AWOL at Dover. All I got was an irate driver muttering something about his vehicle being impounded. He blamed Customs but I suspect it was a rip-off and there was never actually anyone in the container.

Well, it certainly taught me a lesson. Henceforth I shall only buy locally. I see that that annual In Need Of Children auction is coming up soon. I can't say I particularly feel in need of one right now but I might buy a couple and put them in a freezer for future use. It's either that or spend half a day trawling through E-Bay.

Next Back Home Site Map