[Martin Elster]

I like "Rime of the Ancient Davenport" Marion.

[Maryann Corbett]

Marion, would not the couch be more put-upon AND the rhyme be more crisp if the cat became plural?

[Marion Shore]

Maryann, yes and yes. Done. Thanks!

[Marion Shore]

Originally Posted by Roger Slater

I'm more amused by the expression "going to the bathroom in your pants," frequently applied to young children. Sort of like "going to bed in the backseat of a car."

I'm also amused by stuff like: "the cat goes to the bathroom outdoors." Or "the cat digs a hole when it goes to the bathroom." And for the outdoorsperson: "going to the bathroom in the woods".

[Martin Elster]

Driven

You drive me wild when you’re riled
***and even when you’re not.
Lashed most nights, you run red lights
***and speed. (You will get caught!)

Your spouse, however, never ever
***makes my motor roar,
except the day she began to play
***with my stick shift more and more ...

Although your teen keeps my body clean
***enough for an auto show,
though great at steering, he harms my hearing
***when blasting the radio.

But when you three get inside of me,
***I’m quite a blissful Bentley,
for on our outing, though you’re all shouting,
***its then you drive me gently.

[Marion Shore]

Originally Posted by John Whitworth

You can always ring up and get some daft posh girl who knows sweet F.A. But it will come.

Sweet F.A.? English, please.

[John Whitworth]

Sweet Fanny Adams. Who was actually a real person and can be googled. Meaning nothing at all, Marion. Nada. Zilch. Zero.

Old joke. Nazi interrogator: Your Churchill, he knows bugger nothing. But our Fuhrer, he knows BUGGER ALL.

[Susan McLean]

You’re making bedroom eyes at me.
You tilt your head, glance up, and smile
when sure that nobody can see.
But I’m the one you can’t beguile.

I’ve seen you naked, drunk, distraught.
I know each spot in your complexion.
How could you, hopelessly, have thought
your foibles would escape detection?

Your appetite for flattery
is doomed and faintly risible.
You see you when you look at me;
I’m otherwise invisible.

[RCL]

Mirror Mirror

This knight nouveau knows he’s the one
whose subtle stratagems will take
the lover’s fortressed heart and make
a match that cannot be undone.

Devout, he studies self-help books,
E. Post’s and Ovid’s, tried and true,
and Playboy, so he’ll know what’s new—
but mostly tends to how he looks.

At toilette tres meticulous,
he grooms his pampered hair and face
and sucks his waist so there’s no trace
of fat. His soul adventurous,

he suavely dons Armani armor,
and cooing like a turtle dove,
he consummates with his true love:
the perfect clone in me, his mirror.

Ralph Ralph

[ChrisGeorge]

Originally Posted by Roger Slater

Hi, ChrisG. Haven't seen you online for ages. Welcome back!

Thanks, Roger. Nice to be back. I am enjoying commenting and posting generally. Looking forward to reading more of your work.

Originally Posted by Gail White

Nancy Mitford was amused by the American euphemism "going to the bathroom" as if one meant to take a shower. Does anyone still call
it the W.C?

Originally Posted by Gregory Dowling

Curiously WC survives in Italy - or at least the term "water closet" does, always abbreviated to "il water", pronounced "vattair".

They also call it, as in most other languages I'd guess, "il bagno" (bathroom) and, rather charmingly, "il gabinetto". More vulgar is "il cesso", as in cesspit.

Interesting to know! Thanks, Gregory. I would think that the term "W.C." does still survive in the UK and Ireland, at least among the older generation. I took a War of 1812 tour of Maryland's Eastern Shore a week ago and one of the participants on the tour was surprised to see the sign "W.C." on the plank door of a colonial farmhouse now a bed and breakfast (we were lined up to get in, you see). "That's not American!" the person exclaimed. Although I happened to know, from having stayed at the B&B some years beforehand, that the father of the owner was Irish American and I could imagine he or his daughter had picked up the sign one time in Ireland as an addition to the house when it was renovated.

Chris