Friday, September 14, 2007

The Friday Groaner!!!!!!

Thanks to all of you for the great response last week! This is your turn to shine so please send your groaners in and you, too, can earn the groans and admiration of all and sundry!

This week we have a truly excellent specimen from my Scottish friend, Dr. Stu Savory of the blog of the same name. Stop by and visit him -- it's one of the better thinking places in the Blogosphere. I don't always agree with him but it's always an interesting read from Germany and his bulldogs are cute. And he can turn a pretty fine phrase so get ready to grrrrrrooooooooaaaaaan!!!!!!

Once upon a time when Britain had an Empire (or at least a larger Commonwealth) the young Queen Elizabeth the Second (or First if you happen to be a Scot) did a tour of the Commonwealth and visited several places in Africa, including Southern Rhodesia as it was then called. She visited several kraals and the local villagers
carved a specially magnificent wooden chair for her to sit on, upstaging even the local chief's throne.

After the ceremonial dancing and prancing was done, HM remarked what a comfortable chair that had been and that if she ever came back she would like to sit on it again. And so it came about that the proud natives stored the comfortable chair
away in the chief's hut in the vague hope that Her Majesty would one day return.

And indeed, fifty years later, to celebrate a half-century of queening about, Her Majesty DID revisit many countries and even got an invitation to visit once again the aforementioned kraal, even though that was now in an independent country (I think it's called Zimbabwe now). The new chief, grandson of the one she had first met, even pulled out her original chair -- all dry and dusty -- and had it carefully dusted down and let her sit there for the traditional war-dancing demonstration.

Unfortunately, it seems that during the intervening five decades the infamous African termites had gotten into the seat and weakened it considerably. As a result, the chair collapsed in a cloud of dry dust, dumping Her Majesty unceremoniously onto the
ground. How embarrassing :-(

The moral of this tale?

People who live in grass houses shouldn't stow thrones ;-)

Groooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnn!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Blogging!!!!!!!!

Kay

10 comments:

  1. Anonymous9:43 AM

    Good one!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous8:23 PM

    Kay,
    Great groaner and thanks for introducing me to Dr. Stu Savory.

    I keep trying to think of a good groaner to send you. One will come to mind, I know. I just don't know when.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous8:27 PM

    I would love to talk with Stu about the Macular Degeneration study that I am part of at UCLA, but I know he doesn't take comments and I can't figure out his e-mail. Help!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous8:46 AM

    Ooooooooooohhh...

    Leave it to Dr. Stu...

    ReplyDelete
  5. Oh, no! Groan, moan, sigh. :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous5:42 PM

    Since this was from a Scotsman, I thought it might have something to do with the Stone of Scone... so the punch line got me.

    ReplyDelete
  7. A groaner, indeed!!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Thanks for the giggle on a very painfull day Kay!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anonymous1:39 PM

    @maria,

    my email is near the top of the right sidebar of my blog.
    As a gif, so the spambots can't read it but you can ;-)

    Eye'll try to answer your R&D questions ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  10. Stu -- I sent her your addy.

    And thanks to all of you for the great reaction to what I thought an excellent groaner!

    ReplyDelete

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