Sunday, March 14, 2021

Happy and Well and Corseted to the Limit

                                


The Saga of Abbie 

Who Is Happy And Well And Corsetted To The Limit 
by Anonymous


1 In my hourglass corset I'm laced every day,
My little wasp waist is shrinking away.
The stays squeeze me inwards so small and so nice,
In a pattern of lacing that grips like a vice.

2 When I was a child I could never understand
Why the shape of my mother was stately and grand,
But early one morning I once chanced to see
How Dad laced her corsets as tight as could be.























3 Dad said to Mama, "You're not tightened yet",
And he pulled till his forehead was glistening with sweat,
While Mother said gaspingly, "Close them you must",
While breathing so fast in her trembling bust.

4 At last Dad succeeded, the laces were tied,
An Ma was so slender, I ran to her side,
My eyes big with wonder, my mouth wide agape
As I longingly gazed at her beautiful shape.




5"O Mother, o Mother," I gasped out of plea,
"O when can I have a wasp waist for me?
A real lady's corset, all lace-trimmed and blue.
I so want to be beautiful, just like you".

6 Mother smiled as she held smelling salts to her nose,
Then she said "Ask your Daddy", and pulled on her hose,
But Daddy demurred, "We need more time to think",
But Mum whispered, "Let her", and tipped him a wink.

7 That night Mother said as we sat round the fire,
"Is a nice waspy waist what you really desire?"
"O yes, Mummy, yes. Do let it be soon".
But suddenly Mummy fell down in a swoon.


    


8 Up jumped my Daddy and went to the drawer
And took out the scissors (I'm sure that he swore)
To cut Mummy's laces. She feebly gasped,
"No, don't cut the lace", as her waistline she clasped.

9 It did not take long for my Mum to recover,
While Dad fussed around like an overwrought lover.
He said, "Listen, Abbie, now I'm warning you
That's what tight-lacing will usually do".




10 I replied, "So I faint, but I truly don't care,
I want a wasp waist like my Mummy, so there.
O, please Mummy do try dear Dad to persuade,
To let me be corsetted. Please get one made".

11 Daddy hummed and he hawd, "So that's what you say,
You're just like your Mother; she gets her own way.
If that is the garment you're dying to wear,
Tomorrow we'll go to the corsetière".

12 My anticipation was loaded with bliss,
I rewarded them both with a hug and a kiss.
That night in my bed as in slumber I curled,
I dreamt I'd the tiniest waist in the world.




13 We went the next day to the corsetières.
And inside the shop she displayed all her wares.
So graceful the shapes of the corsets and stays,
I stood there enchanted, my eyes all a-glaze.

14 She measured me up, she measured me down,
She looked through her pince-nez, her brow in a frown.
"A wasp waisted corset? We have just the thing
To make you a lady with a waist like a ring".

15 They took me upstairs, I was in such haste,
The corset was clasped round my tender young waist.
"Now come to the mirror and see with your eyes
Your waist whittled down to its tiniest size".




16 I looked in the mirror, my heart was so full,
And then on the laces I started to pull.
I wanted the tightness, so comfy to savour;
My parents had done me the loveliest favour.

17 "Do you think you can manage to lace in yourself?"
Asked Mother. In answer I grinned like an elf.
"I love the sensation", I tugged hard with zest
Till my arms ached again and I took a short rest.




18 "How do you feel?" asked the corsetière,
"It's a lovely sensation", I had to declare.
"I want to be smaller, with bosom up thrust,
And the smaller the waist the larger the bust".

19 Then mother said, "Let me start pulling you in".
"Your arms are not strong enough for you to win".
So taking the laces she started to tug;
Oh, the sheer joy of that beautiful hug.




20 "Please pull. O please pull my little waist in,
I want to be tiny, delightfully thin".
I felt the desire to endure like a saint,
But I fell to the floor in a rapturous faint.

21 I opened my eyes, and I smiled with delight.
There, I'd had my first faint in my corset so tight.
I rose to my feet and I asked, "Where's my corset?"
Mother said, "It is here, but this time don't force it".




22 "Please Mummy replace it and wrap it round me,
A wasp-waisted lady I'm dying to be.
I'm no longer a child, I'm a woman, so there,
And when I get home please put up my hair".

23 Once more in my corset, the corsetière
Pulled slowly the laces with consummate care.
"I'll not close the corset this time", she averred,
"We don't want a faint like the last", she observed.

24 Gently she pulled the laces along,
My waist became small in the corset so strong.
The stays, readjusted less tight than before,
Were fastened, but open an inch or more.




25 Across at the mirror I gazed with awe;
I stared, and could hardly believe what I saw.
My waist was a stem, a beautiful figure,
My chest looked and felt extended and bigger.

26 I saw my breast heave I was breathing so fast,
But I had an hour-glass waistline at last;
And later as Mum and I walked down the street,
We were conscious of pride in our figures so neat.

27 Then back at home the day was to face,
With a corset so tight that I could not unlace.
At lunchtime I ate up as much as the rest,
And felt that my dinner was stuck in my chest.








28 "Don't worry", said Mum at the end of the meal,
"It's only a transient discomfort you feel;
It will all pass with patience and rest,
And in time you will tackle your eating with zest".

29 I patiently got trough the rest of the day;
My corsets felt tighter, but I felt so gay,
And upwards and downwards I savoured the touch
Of the tapering body I wanted so much.

30 My waist is reduced to an eighteen inch span,
A sight for the eyes of susceptible Man.
Be it never so tight I'll endure the squeeze,
For a lady must ever appear at her ease.

31 One lovely night I went out to a dance.
My favourite swain I sought to entrance.
A corset that measured half an inch less
I wore with patience under my dress.




32 Then David my boy-friend said, as he went past,
"Our Abbie's a grown up young lady at last",
And in the first dance, he held my hand tight,
And asked "How many dances can you spare tonight?"

33 In no time at all my dance card was filled.
This night was my night, and how I was thrilled;
And as we whirled round in the gaslight so shady
I was no more a child but a regular lady.

34 My little wasp waist felt as solid as wood,
I bravely endured it as much as I could.
The joy and excitement helped me to forget it,
A wasp waist is mine, I'll never regret it.




35 And as we went round in a lighthearted whirl,
David said softly, "You beautiful Girl".
I gently responded without any haste
And daringly guided his hand round my waist.

36 And then on the lawn outside the dance floor
He placed his two hands round my waistline once more.
We kissed and we kissed, and he held me so tight,
I very near fainted with tightness that night.

37 My next tiny corset reduced by an inch
To sixteen and a half, a regular pinch.
I'm wearing the corset, awake or asleep,
My hour-glass stem I'm determined to keep.

38 Now that I'm tight in my corsets all day,
I sometimes feel consciousness fading away.
The pain and discomfort deny me my peace,
But nothing will urge me my stays to release.




39 It's my firm intention with might and main
A sixteen inch corset my size to attain.
Said Mum, "It will cost you devotion and tears
If you want a waist measure the same as your years".

40 The new corset came and was opened in haste,
A garment in elegant beauty and taste.
A sixteen inch corset with lace white and blue
To make my desire to be smaller come true.

41 "Please, Mummy, come help me the corset to try".
"You'd better ask Daddy, he's stronger than I".
So up in the bedroom, the corset was placed
Around my slim body prepared to be laced.

42 As Daddy pulled only gently at first
I felt that my up swelling bosom would burst.
The tightening in was an exquisite thrill
As I put all my trust in his strength and my will.




43 Daddy tugged on the lace until he perspired,
And the corset was closed as I had desired.
Across to the mirror I tottered to see
My new shape reflected; oh could that be me?

44 Hips flared into curves so majestic and sweet,
My chest was so large I could not see my feet.
My waist was a sensuous curve of blue,
A tight little thread that united the two.

45 As I went to the door, I knew I was pale,
But I entered the room like a ship in full sail,
My chest, as I walked swayed from side to side
And Mummy and Daddy surveyed me with pride.

46 That night in my bed, so determined was I
To sleep in my corset I wanted to try;
But try as I might, I started to weep,
For the merciless corset would not let me sleep.




47 By midnight I just couldn't stand any more,
And I tiptoed downstairs past Mum's and Dad's door,
And there on the sideboard, because it was handy,
I took a large drop of Napoleon brandy.

48 The tot was so strong, so I staggered to bed,
I fell on the mattress and lay down my head;
But sleep was denied and just would not come,
And by four in the morning my tummy was numb.

49 To breakfast I went all tired and teary,
My wasp waist had left me weepy and weary.
Said Mother, "In time you'll not feel the pinch.
Come up and I'll let it out just half an inch".

50 The pain and discomfort transcended belief,
I was grateful to Mum for providing relief.
But I was resolved that come what may,
My stays would be closed by the end of the day.








51 To hold and keep your waist small and indented
Expansion by night must be firmly prevented.
Your corsets by night will your figure be moulding,
A seductive wasp waist is an asset worth holding.

52 When I took off my stays a new pleasure I found,
Without their support I tottered around;
My uncorsetted waist was fragile and frail,
My top half would give way like a tree in a gale.




53 On opposite walls two mirrors I've placed,
So I can admire the back of my waist.
Minus my stays, of support I'm bereft,
And in rapturous pleasure I sway right and left.

54 I see in my mirror my outstanding chest,
While my heart is a-fluttering inside my breast.
A sigh of content comes up to my lips
As my burgeoning breast overhangs my hips.

55 My sixteen inch waist I now carry with ease,
My waist has adapted itself to the squeeze.
I thought I was down to my limit in size,
But the Man of My Heart thought otherwise.




56 Now Raymond my husband you must understand
Loves to caress my waist with his hand.
He said, "Now your waist is down to this size,
A waist like your neck would bedazzle my eyes".

57 'Twas the voice of the charmer, and I as his wife
Will go to extreme for the man in my life.
To be much smaller my waist must be pressed;
I'll make him so happy, I'll give of my best.








58 A corset of half an inch smaller was brought,
A body of fifteen and a half inches taut.
That evening my husband requested to lace,
And into his hands the new corset I place.

59 "Just let me relax for a moment", I said,
You can lace me in tight as I lay on the bed".
My spouse took the laces all set to begin,
And slowly but firmly he pulled my waist in.

60 He tugged at the cords till I asked him to rest,
To close the new corset would be a big test.
With only one inch left apart to defeat,
I arose with his help, and I swayed on my feet.




61 I found if I went on my hands and my knees
He could pull in my waist with more expertise;
The flesh fell away and my body felt lightened
As Raymond pulled hard and the corset was tightened.

62 He pulled and he tugged till the corset's constraint
Became far too much, and I felt a fresh faint.
With Raymond I desired no quarrel or friction,
But my waist was protesting against its restriction.

63 A last final heave and Raymond was able
To tie up the laces as taut as a cable.
He tenderly helped me to stand on my feet,
As he clasped me around his fingers could meet.

64 I hugged him and kissed him in mounting passion
My slenderness made me exult in my fashion.
Connubial bliss we have found every time,
Is enhanced by a corset, and truly sublime.




65 "I'll never remove my corset", I said,
"Until it has moulded my waist to a thread;
It shall squeeze me and train me, that's my resolution,
I'll take it off only for regular ablution".

66 Raymond's delight and encouragement worked.
From lacing my corsets my man never shirked;
And several weeks later without any haste
Another proud inch was removed from my waist.

67 At fourteen and a half my waist was my pride,
The pain and discomfort I took in my stride.
Though I sometimes have fainted because of the pinch
I'll not ease the lacing, not even an inch.

68 My hips and my bust were a sight to be seen,
My waist was a tiny tight tube in between;
Whenever I ventured alone in the street
I felt pride in the sound of following feet.

69 My husband, enraptured, was bursting with pride
At the way people stared when we walked side by side,
And often young ladies bedizened in style,
Asked, "How do you stand it and still keep a smile?"




70 If Ray wanted something, he put on the charm;
His speech became like silver while stroking my arm,
He murmured such love, so caressing his voice,
"Please, please lace in smaller", he gave me no choice.

71 I tried to demur, even put up defiance,
My smooth-tongued charmer induced my compliance.
I had to admit as he gave me a hug,
Tight-lacing had captured me, just like a drug.




72 He gave me a corset so tiny to don.
A fourteen inch body, Could I get it on?
As he pulled came Desire, to be smaller yet.
I will be fourteen inches without a regret.

73 The corset went in with a pitiless grip,
I said, "Hold the laces, don't let them slip".
Ray answered, "I'll close it by hook or by crook.
Ah, I've done it. Now go to the mirror and look".

74 "Hold me up. Raymond, darling, my knees feel so weak",
He did so, I leaned with my head to his cheek.
My waist was compressed in its captive confinement
In superlative style and rounded refinement.




75 My mirror I love, for to see myself there
With a waist like a wasp is an ecstasy rare.
There I can admire my middle so frail,
My breathing so rapid, my features so pale.

76 He held me so tight as he stood by my side,
He knew that my knees were about to subside.
My small strangled waist could be crushed in no more,
I felt my knees give and I sank to the floor.




77 A few moments later I roused with a sneeze,
For Ray had pushed my head down to my knees.
His murmuring words were of love and of praise,
But all I could say was, "Don't loosen my stays".

78 "Are you sure you can stand it", asked he.
I answered, "That only depends upon me.
I am quite determined the tightness to bear,
And I'll sleep trough the night in my corset, I swear".

79 I slowly awoke as the dawn came to creep,
And below my wasp waist my hips were asleep.
As Ray pressed my tummy with finger and thumb,
I had lost all feeling, my muscles were numb.




80 There are many sensations tight-lacing bestows,
There's a feeling of weakness from hips down to toes.
When walking your chest sways from side to side
And your waist gives way weakly if you take a big stride.

81 These lovely sensations when felt in good measure
Will give the tight-lacer a world full of pleasure.
All men will admire your delicate sway,
The envy of women will make you feel gay.

82 In spite of the pain and discomfort I felt,
I wished that my flesh could be ordered to melt.
Now Raymond has said that he'd love me to wear,
A thirteen inch corset like Madame Polaire.

83 He showed me Polaire in a corset of lace,
With an hour-glass form of perfection and grace.
"That's only a picture, it may be quite true,
But I'll have a REAL thirteen inch waist for you".




84 I wanted so much my wasp waist to maintain,
But could I endure being smaller again.
The drug of desire to be tinier still,
Has conquered my body and strengthened my will.

85 The promise of gaining a torso so trim,
To be really admired in my figure so slim
Was almost too much, I chafed at delay;
But the thirteen inch corset arrived the next day.

86 The corset was lovely, I just had to smile,
I held the stay up to admire it awhile.
"Don't let us hurry", I ventured to say,
"Enjoyment is better for a little delay".




87 Though Ray was impatient, "All right", he agreed,
"To see you laced in is a pleasure indeed.
Whilst I don't mind a little suspense,
My desire for your lovely wasp waist is intense".

88 With arms around each other we stood tightly clasped,
I could feel my heart thumping; "Please lace me", I gasped,
With a movement of joy and in trembling haste
He fitted the corset around my waist.

89 "Please place it on loosely at first", I began,
"My shape in the mirror I'd like to scan,
My fifty four inches of bust to admire,
I think my new corset can lift it up higher".







90 "I'm waiting no longer", at last he declared,
"I'm lacing you in, or will you be scared?"
I smiled at him fondly and said, "Let's begin",
And in tense excitement he was lacing me in.

91 He pulled on the laces quite gently at first,
Then tighter, still tighter, I was ready to burst.
The hold of the corset was gripping at length
As firmly he pulled with all his strength.




92 My waist in its corset was much tighter now,
I wanted it closed no matter how.
My tight little waist was protesting amain
As Raymond continued to tug once again.

93 "Don't stop, please go on," Ray responded with vigour,
While I held my breath and endured the rigor.
As Ray on the laces his finger did press,
I heard him ejaculate one word, "Success".

94 The corset was closed, I was smaller still,
My thirteen inch waist was martyring thrill.
Swaying I went to the mirror to see
My waist microscopic; oh could that be me?




95 I clasped my hands round it as tight as I could,
My waist felt as hard as a column of wood.
My fingers and thumbs almost touched front and back.
How fragile it looked, but I felt on the rack.

96 I walked up and down with unsteady stride,
Ray holding my arm as he paced by my side
My waist was protesting, I swayed like a tree,
Enjoying the weakness that came over me.

97 Ray gave me some brandy, I took it in sips.
I rested my hands of the shelf of my hips.
The cone of my bust emerged like a flower,
I could gaze at my figure for hour after hour.


























98 My thirteen inch waist by now is the norm,
My waist has surrendered, I keep it in form.
My body's resistance to corsets has gone.
No more do I tight-lace, I put corsets on.

99 The envy of women, the praise from the men
Would urge me to tight-lace all over again.
So if you desire to be praised for your taste,
Wear an unyielding corset and sport a WASP WAIST.




100 My upper part sways with each step as I stride,
My burgeoning bosom I carry with pride.
The ground I can only see eight feet ahead
In my six-inch heel shoes as I daintily tread.

101 The span of my waist is a minuscule measure,
A wee link my husband adores like a treasure.
I love my wasp waist, I'm the happiest wife,
With a waist like a stem I will wear all my life.


Friday, March 12, 2021

The Troll Doll Channel: WALKING IN SPACE!

My body
Is walking in space
My soul is in orbit
With God face to face

Floating, flipping
Flying, tripping

On a rocket to
The Fourth Dimension
Total self awareness
The intention

Walking in space
We find the purpose of peace
The beauty of life
You can no longer hide

Our eyes are open
Wide, wide
WIDE!

Wednesday, March 10, 2021

Piers Morgan unmasks Meghan Markle's contemptible lies

 


Dumped British TV host Morgan pours more scorn on Meghan suicide, racism claims

 

LONDON (Reuters) - Piers Morgan, the pugnacious British TV presenter who lost his job over his attacks on Prince Harry’s wife Meghan, said on Wednesday he still did not believe what she had said during her Oprah Winfrey interview.

Morgan, 55, left ITV’s Good Morning Britain on Tuesday after a backlash against his comments on Meghan’s interview with Winfrey, in which she revealed she had felt suicidal while living as a royal in Britain.

“On Monday, I said I didn’t believe Meghan Markle in her Oprah interview. I’ve had time to reflect on this opinion, and I still don’t. If you did, OK,” Morgan said in a characteristically combative Tweet on Wednesday morning.

“Freedom of speech is a hill I’m happy to die on. Thanks for all the love, and hate. I’m off to spend more time with my opinions,” he told his 7.8 million Twitter followers.

He added a photo of Winston Churchill with a quote on free speech.

In an interview that has embarrassed Britain’s tradition-bound monarchy, Meghan, who married Prince Harry in 2018, said the royal family had rejected her pleas for mental health support.

The American actress, who is mixed race, also said that someone in the royal household had raised questions about the colour of her unborn son’s skin.



The morning after the interview was aired on U.S. television, Morgan said on Good Morning Britain, among a torrent of other criticisms, that he did not believe a word Meghan had said. In a Tweet, he called her “Princess Pinocchio”.

The following morning, he stormed off the set of the live programme when challenged by a co-presenter about his stance.

Monday’s programme attracted more than 41,000 complaints to Britain’s media regulator, the second highest in its history, which announced an investigation.

Morgan first made his name in the cut-throat world of the British tabloid press, culminating in stints editing the now-defunct News of the World, then the Daily Mirror.

He later went into television, appearing as a judge on the reality shows America’s Got Talent and Britain’s Got Talent. For three years he hosted a chat show on CNN.


Morgan’s detractors said his attitude towards Meghan seemed to be partly driven by personal animus because, by his own account, he had got on “brilliantly” with her when he had first met her but she had later dropped contact with him.

Susanna Reid, who co-presented Good Morning Britain with Morgan and frequently disagreed with him on air, described him on Wednesday’s programme as “outspoken, challenging, opinionated, disruptive”.

Morgan told reporters on Tuesday he thought Meghan’s interview had damaged the monarchy and Queen Elizabeth at a time when her 99-year-old husband Prince Philip was in hospital, which he said was “contemptible”.

“If I have to fall on my sword for expressing an honestly held opinion about Meghan Markle and that diatribe of bilge that she came out with in that interview, so be it,” he said. 


Tuesday, March 9, 2021

Gershwin's ghost, revisited

 

Gershwin is a time traveller - you can see him out of the corner of your eye. He did not die in the normal sense of the word, because he did not know where he was. He was in a very high fever and dying all alone in a hospital room after failed brain surgery. When he left his body, he experienced extreme disorientation and for quite a while did not realize he was dead. This meant that a light, loose Gershwin-shaped energy field still moved about the world, and lit up whenever his music was played (which was almost all the time). 

After a very long time, though it was a mere moment in eternity, he began to realize who and how he actually was, that he was no longer in a body and would have to exist in a very different form. Being a soul sojourner from the beginning, this was not a threat but an adventure to him. But even in spite of this necessary metamorphosis, to a remarkable degree, he retained a George Gershwin shape. No matter what sort of problems he was having in his life, and he had many that we don't know anything about, there was a ferocious static-charged supernatural pumped boost of energy that somehow kept on connecting people with each other when he was around. 


But ironically, in spite of his sacred mission to join people joyously, in his life he had many struggles with intimacy, which led to a loneliness even as he was the most popular man in the room. During this strange leaving-his-body-and-not-being-sure-where-he-was period, he began to have extraordinary insight into not just his own condition, but the human condition.

GG's emotional affect and his emotions seemed curiously light, but there was a galaxy of melancholy within that he did not show to too many people. The stars in that galaxy exploded out of his fingers and his brain and were made manifest as notes of music on the page. Though he lived at a hurtling pace few people could equal, little did he know that he was absorbing all of humanity's travails, gaining an understanding of suffering that would not be fully realized until he found himself in a different form outside his body. It would have been unbearably painful, had his life (as he knew it) not been over, a blessed cessation of all earthly pain. 


When a soul or entity gains this sort of awareness, mysterious alchemy takes place because the need here on earth for that level of understanding is so dire. Those pained and anguished places in that broken thing we call the human condition began to draw and attract this generous, gentle, deeply broken spirit. There was Gershwin dust in the room sifting down like stardust, particularly when there was music playing. And there was music playing all the time.

Someone, not keeping up their guard, felt something strange and warm and not quite real in the room, yet also hauntingly familiar. Someone else thought they saw him for a second, or someone that looked like him. There was in some subconscious way a powerful sense that a healing was beginning to happen. 


George's brain gave way, the most disturbing way to die, so that he was basically humbled by losing the genius brain he was celebrated for. Stripped of that, even of that, all that was left was his essence. How can I say how this happens? How can I be sure that George Gershwin is a time traveller and an entity who is basically free to move about within time and space wherever and whenever he wishes?

POST-SCRIPT. I found this little anecdote in one of the many Gershwin biographies I've read. It didn't surprise me one bit that people still see and hear him!

“George even passed the most acid of tests for great leadership by remaining a presence to his followers even after he’d left the planet. Ann ‘Willow Weep for Me’ Ronell told me some half century after his death that she still ‘saw’ Gershwin regularly in the crowds of the Upper West Side, looking as if he’d just walked out the door. And on that same day, Burton ‘How About You’ Lane testified to an even more precise epiphany. Lane had recently been to a concert of Gershwin’s newly-refurbished piano rolls being played on a baby grand pianola in a pool of spotlight. And as the notes began to go mechanically down and up, ‘There was George for a moment,’ he exclaimed, ‘playing away. I almost passed out.’”

- The House that George Built, Wilfrid Shed


Sunday, March 7, 2021

Cat Watching Horror Movie


One of the best "reaction" videos I've ever seen. I'll leave you to guess which movie the cat is watching.

Saturday, March 6, 2021

MUGATU! Star Trek's hokiest supervillain

 


"Futurist" Makes Ludicrous Predictions about Year 2000


The title says it all. This guy is an absolute idiot, but people were paying attention to this sort of thing back then! This is edited down from an agonizing 30-minute interview, in which the interviewer, who looks a little crazy himself, sits there looking baffled. . . 

Friday, March 5, 2021

KINESCOPE THEATRE: TV in the 1940s


Some choice tidbits from Dumont Television Network. Dumont was the first major TV network in  the 1940s, when people thought of TV as either a passing fad, or just "radio with pictures". When Dumont went out of business a few years later and their quarters taken over by NBC, almost ALL the kinescopes of ALL the programs from their six- or seven-year reign of popularity were dumped into New York's East River. No kidding, they literally dumped all the records of Dumont's existence into the water to free up storage space. Someone actually dove after them and salvaged a few kinescopes, which is what you are seeing here. If they look a little dodgy, that's why.

Thursday, March 4, 2021

The one who tries to hide what he don't know to begin with

 

Positively 4th Street.

Bob Dylan

You've got a lotta nerve to say you are my friend
When I was down you just stood there grinnin'
You've got a lotta nerve to say you got a helping hand to lend
You just want to be on the side that's winnin'


You say I let you down, ya know its not like that
If you're so hurt, why then don't you show it?
You say you've lost your faith, but that's not where its at
You have no faith to lose, and ya know it.


I know the reason, that you talked behind my back
I used to be among the crowd you're in with
Do you take me for such a fool, to think I'd make contact
With the one who tries to hide what he don't know to begin with?


You see me on the street, you always act surprised
You say "how are you?", "good luck", but ya don't mean it
When you know as well as me, you'd rather see me paralyzed
Why don't you just come out once and scream it


No, I do not feel that good when I see the heartbreaks you embrace
If I was a master thief perhaps I'd rob them
And tho I know you're dissatisfied with your position and your place
Don't you understand, it's not my problem?


I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes
And just for that one moment I could be you
Yes, I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes
You'd know what a drag it is to see you

Blogger's note. OK then. This is often cited as the nastiest, cruellest, most heartless song ever written, with a lyric that would peel paint off the walls, not to mention 20 layers of wallpaper. But that's what it's supposed to do.


Think of it. If you've never in your life been in this position, then you are truly blessed. You see someone coming toward you, grinning, glad-handing, full of righteous hot air and foul gas, bustling up to slap you on the back and make you thoroughly nauseated with their complete insincerity. . . well, you get the picture. If you've ever had an old high school classmate (the one who used to humiliate you at every opportunity) come surging up to you to say, "Hey, remember me?" - if you've ever had someone try to "friend" you on Facebook who was never any friend of yours. . . 

This song is FAIR. It's about someone who stabbed Dylan in the back repeatedly, pretended to be his friend, sucked up to him, basked in his reflected glory - then betrayed him, attempted to destroy him, and came back smiling to ask for a favor.


The other "unforgiveable" Dylan lyric is Don't Think Twice, It's All Right - which MAY live up to the assumption of meanest song lyric of all time. But look more closely, and you'll see why he feels so bitter:

It ain’t no use in callin’ out my name, gal
Like you never did before
It ain’t no use in callin’ out my name, gal
I can’t hear you anymore
I’m a-thinkin’ and a-wond’rin’ walkin' down the road
I once loved a woman, a child I’m told
I give her my heart but she wanted my soul
But don’t think twice, it’s all right

Though this song is invariably described as being "about" his forlorn and hopeless love for the free-spirited artist Suze Rotolo, it is just as much about Joan Baez, the arrogant and opportunistic Baez who wanted to be the first to "discover" Dylan's genius, to present him to the world on a silver platter of her own making, and bask in his reflected glory - only to fall into bitter ranting when Dylan failed to return the favor and ask Baez to climb onto the stage with him. 

But soft, what could this sudden contradiction mean?  It's the fact that things were totally different by then. I mean totally. Bobby was no longer singing Woody Guthrie songs with a sailor cap on. He was kicking ass with rock masterpieces such as Like a Rolling Stone, while Baez was still warbling away about Mary Hamilton. Nothing had changed with her. Not only that - Baez was so established when they met that she already had her first gold record before Dylan ever recorded a thing. Helping her up onstage when he had already remade himself  several times over would clang so badly that it would not work for either one of them, and he knew it.

There is another song which more closely linked to Rotolo, and in this case there is very little ambiguity about it.  Ballad in Plain D, one that I felt an unusual attachment to back in the day, was starkly and literally autobiographical, a rarity for Dylan both then and now. That song actually happened. It went down just the way he wrote it. With Dylan's propensity for wearing layers of masks and evading analysis, it's a shocking and singular example of unmasking himself. People were hurt by this lyric, even devastated, and in public - but that is its power. Even now, so many decades later, Dylan's songs ignite a light bulb of recognition, a powerful sense that you have lived this, but never knew how to express it. It inspires that quick intake of breath, the near-baffled gasp which is one of the more spontaneous reactions to the emotional ambush that is genius. 


Tuesday, March 2, 2021

"Just take the f***ing picture!" Prince Philip gaffes and gems


1 After being told that Madonna was singing the Die Another Day theme in 2002: “Are we going to need ear plugs?” 

2 To a car park attendant who didn’t recognise him in 1997, he snapped: “You bloody silly fool!”

 

3 To Simon Kelner, republican editor of The Independent, at Windsor Castle reception: “What are you doing here?” “I was invited, sir.” Philip: “Well, you didn’t have to come.”

 

4 To female sea cadet last year: “Do you work in a strip club?”

 

5 To expats in Abu Dhabi last year: “Are you running away from something?”

 

6 After accepting a conservation award in Thailand in 1991: “Your country is one of the most notorious centres of trading in endangered species.”

 

7 At a project to protect turtle doves in Anguilla in 1965, he said: “Cats kill far more birds than men. Why don’t you have a slogan: ‘Kill a cat and save a bird?’”

 

8 To multi-ethnic Britain’s Got Talent 2009 winners Diversity: “Are you all one family?”

 

9 To President of Nigeria, who was in national dress, 2003: “You look like you’re ready for bed!”

 

10 His description of Beijing, during a visit there in 1986: “Ghastly.”

 

11 At Hertfordshire University, 2003: “During the Blitz, a lot of shops had their windows blown in and put up notices saying, ‘More open than usual’. I now declare this place more open than usual.”

 

12 To deaf children by steel band, 2000: “Deaf? If you’re near there, no wonder you are deaf.”

 

13 To a tourist in Budapest in 1993: “You can’t have been here long, you haven’t got a pot belly.”

 

14 To a British trekker in Papua New Guinea, 1998: “You managed not to get eaten then?”

 

15 His verdict on Stoke-on-Trent, during a visit in 1997: “Ghastly.”

 

16 To Atul Patel at reception for influential Indians, 2009: “There’s a lot of your family in tonight.”

 

17 Peering at a fuse box in a Scottish factory, he said: “It looks as though it was put in by an Indian.” He later backtracked: “I meant to say cowboys.”

 

18 To Lockerbie residents after plane bombing, 1993: “People say after a fire it’s water damage that’s the worst. We’re still drying out Windsor Castle.”

 

19 In Canada in 1976: “We don’t come here for our health.”

 

20 “I never see any home cooking – all I get is fancy stuff.” 1987

 

21 On the Duke of York’s house, 1986: “It looks like a tart’s bedroom.”

 

22 Using Hitler’s title to address German chancellor Helmut Kohl in 1997, he called him: “Reichskanzler.”

 

23 “We go into the red next year... I shall have to give up polo.” 1969.

 

24 At party in 2004: “Bugger the table plan, give me my dinner!”

 

25 To a woman solicitor, 1987: “I thought it was against the law for a woman to solicit.”

 

26 To a civil servant, 1970: “You’re just a silly little Whitehall twit: you don’t trust me and I don’t trust you.”

 

27 On the 1981 recession: “A few years ago, everybody was saying we must have more leisure, everyone’s working too much. Now everybody’s got more leisure time they’re complaining they’re unemployed. People don’t seem to make up their minds what they want.”

 

28 On the new £18million British Embassy in Berlin in 2000: “It’s a vast waste of space.”

 

29 After Dunblane massacre, 1996: “If a cricketer suddenly decided to go into a school and batter a lot of people to death with a cricket bat, are you going to ban cricket bats?”

 

30 To the Aircraft Research Association in 2002: “If you travel as much as we do, you appreciate the improvements in aircraft design of less noise and more comfort – provided you don’t travel in something called economy class, which sounds ghastly.”

 

31 On stress counselling for servicemen in 1995: “We didn’t have counsellors rushing around every time somebody let off a gun. You just got on with it!”

 

32 On Tom Jones, 1969: “It’s difficult to see how it’s possible to become immensely valuable by singing what are the most hideous songs.”

 

33 To the Scottish WI in 1961: “British women can’t cook.”

 

34 To then Paraguay dictator General Stroessner: “It’s a pleasure to be in a country that isn’t ruled by its people.”

 

35 To Cayman Islanders: “Aren’t most of you descended from pirates?”

 

36 To Scottish driving instructor, 1995: “How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to pass the test?”

 

37 At a WF meeting in 1986: “If it has four legs and it’s not a chair, if it’s got two wings and it flies but is not an aeroplane and if it swims and it’s not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it.”

 

38 “You ARE a woman, aren’t you?” Kenya, 1984.

 

39 A VIP at a local airport asked HRH: “What was your flight, like, Your Royal Highness? Philip: “Have you ever flown in a plane?” VIP: “Oh yes, sir, many times.” “Well,” said Philip, “it was just like that.”

 

40 On Ethiopian art, 1965: “It looks like the kind of thing my daughter would bring back from school art lessons.”

 

41 To a fashion writer in 1993: “You’re not wearing mink knickers,are you?”

 

42 To Susan Edwards and her guide dog in 2002: “They have eating dogs for the anorexic now.”

 

43 When offered wine in Rome in 2000, he snapped: “I don’t care what kind it is, just get me a beer!” 

 

44 “I’d like to go to Russia very much – although the bastards murdered half my family.” 1967.

 

45 At City Hall in 2002: “If we could just stop the tourism, we could stop the congestion.”

 

46 On seeing a piezo-meter water gauge in Australia: “A pissometer?”

 

47“You have mosquitoes. I have the Press.” To matron of Caribbean hospital, 1966.

 

48 At a Bangladeshi youth club in 2002:“So who’s on drugs here?... HE looks as if he’s on drugs.”

 

49 To a children’s band in Australia in 2002: “You were playing your instruments? Or do you have tape recorders under your seats?”

 

50 At Duke of Edinburgh Awards scheme, 2006. “Young people are the same as they always were. Just as ignorant.”

 

51 On how difficult it is in Britain to get rich: “What about Tom Jones? He’s made a million and he’s a bloody awful singer.”

 

52 To Elton John on his gold Aston Martin in 2001: “Oh, it’s you that owns that ghastly car, is it?”

 

53 At an engineering school closed so he could officially open it, 2005: “It doesn’t look like much work goes on at this university.”

 

54 To Aboriginal leader William Brin, Queensland, 2002: “Do you still throw spears at each other?”

 

55 At a Scottish fish farm: “Oh! You’re the people ruining the rivers.”

 

56 After a breakfast of bacon, eggs, smoked salmon, kedgeree, croissants and pain au chocolat – from Gallic chef Regis Crépy, 2002: “The French don’t know how to cook breakfast.”

 

57 To schoolboy who invited the Queen to Romford, Essex, 2003: “Ah, you’re the one who wrote the letter. So you can write then?”

 

58 To black politician Lord Taylor of Warwick, 1999: “And what exotic part of the world do you come from?”

 

59 To parents at a previously struggling Sheffield school, 2003: “Were you here in the bad old days? That’s why you can’t read and write then!”

 

60 To Andrew Adams, 13, in 1998: “You could do with losing a little bit of weight.”

 

61 “Where’s the Southern Comfort?” When presented with a hamper of goods by US ambassador, 1999.

 

62 To editor of downmarket tabloid: “Where are you from?” “The Sun, sir.” Philip: “Oh, no . . . one can’t tell from the outside.”

 

63 Turning down food, 2000: “No, I’d probably end up spitting it out over everybody.”

 

64 Asking Cate Blanchett to fix his DVD player because she worked “in the film industry”, 2008: “There’s a cord sticking out of the back. Might you tell me where it goes?”

 

65 “People think there’s a rigid class system here, but dukes have even been known to marry chorus girls. Some have even married Americans.” 2000.

 

66 After hearing President Obama had had breakfast with leaders of the UK, China and Russia, 2010: “Can you tell the difference between them?”

 

67 On students from Brunei, 1998: “I don’t know how they’re going to integrate in places like Glasgow and Sheffield.”

 

68 On Princess Anne, 1970: “If it doesn’t fart or eat hay, she isn’t interested.”

 

69 To wheelchair-bound nursing-home resident, 2002: “Do people trip over you?”

 

70 Discussing tartan with then-Scottish Tory leader Annabel Goldie last year: “That’s a nice tie... Do you have any knickers in that material?”

 

71 To a group of industrialists in 1961: “I’ve never been noticeably reticent about talking on subjects about which I know nothing.”

 

72 On a crocodile he shot in Gambia in 1957: “It’s not a very big one, but at least it’s dead and it took an awful lot of killing!”

 

73 On being made Chancellor of Edinburgh University in 1953: “Only a Scotsman can really survive a Scottish education.”

 

74 “I must be the only person in Britain glad to see the back of that plane.” He hated the noise Concorde made flying over Buckingham Palace, 2002

 

75 To a fashion designer, 2009: “Well, you didn’t design your beard too well, did you?”

 

76 To the General Dental Council in 1960: “Dontopedalogy is the science of opening your mouth and putting your foot in it, which I’ve practised for many years.”

 

77 On stroking a koala in 1992: “Oh no, I might catch some ghastly disease.”

 

78 On marriage in 1997: “You can take it from me the Queen has the quality of tolerance in abundance.”

 

79 To schoolchildren in blood-red uniforms, 1998: “It makes you all look like Dracula’s daughters!”

 

80 “I don’t think a prostitute is more moral than a wife, but they are doing the same thing.” 1988.

 

81 To female Labour MPs in 2000: “So this is feminist corner then.”

 

82 On Nottingham Forest trophies in 1999: “I suppose I’d get in trouble if I were to melt them down.”

 

83 “It’s my custom to say something flattering to begin with so I shall be excused if I put my foot in it later on.” 1956.

 

84 To a penniless student in 1998: “Why don’t you go and live in a hostel to save cash?”

 

85 On robots colliding, Science Museum, 2000: “They’re not mating are they?”

 

86 While stuck in a Heriot Watt University lift in 1958: “This could only happen in a technical college.”

 

87 To newsreader Michael Buerk, when told he knew about the Duke of Edinburgh’s Gold Awards, 2004: “That’s more than you know about anything else then.”

 

88 To a British student in China, 1986: “If you stay here much longer, you’ll go home with slitty eyes.”

 

89 To journalist Caroline Wyatt, who asked if the Queen was enjoying a Paris trip, 2006: “Damn fool question!”

 

90 On smoke alarms to a woman who lost two sons in a fire, 1998: “They’re a damn nuisance - I’ve got one in my bathroom and every time I run my bath the steam sets it off.”