Posts by Philip Challinor

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  • Southerly: We Haven't Forgotten You Christchurch!,

    Desperate for a fillip

    Rare up there in the south are they? I know the problem; try finding a mason down here. You'd think they all had a secret handshake or something.

    I've heard people in mainland China refer to the country's general shape as a large chicken

    I have been squinting at that map from all angles and at all sorts of brightness-and-contrast combinations for hours and hours and hours, and all I can see is a blob with a stump. If China and Korea joined up it'd be different - they'd have something you could decently call a beak, only it would be more dodoan than chickeny.

    London, England • Since Sep 2009 • 52 posts Report

  • Southerly: We Haven't Forgotten You Christchurch!,

    When Calliope flashes your pan,
    Do count up your syllables, man;
    And learn to beat time
    When making a rhyme -
    For it helps if the bastard will scan.

    London, England • Since Sep 2009 • 52 posts Report

  • Southerly: We Haven't Forgotten You Christchurch!,

    In Upper Hutt, from time to time,
    They'll try to grind out the odd rhyme;
    But down-under wit
    Rarely matches the Brit,
    For the accent just isn't the same.

    London, England • Since Sep 2009 • 52 posts Report

  • Southerly: We Haven't Forgotten You Christchurch!,

    In the Land of the Bisected Boot,
    I fear higher culture is moot.
    Should the Muses descend,
    It is likely they'll end
    Bouncing off of a fast-moving ute.

    To delicate things of the mind,
    These Antipodeans are blind;
    They snigger and mock
    And yell, "It's a cock!" -
    Just not very fucking refined.

    London, England • Since Sep 2009 • 52 posts Report

  • Southerly: We Haven't Forgotten You Christchurch!,

    Arthur Koestler's The Sleepwalkers mentions a story written by Johannes Kepler about the inhabitants of the moon, who see

    Africa ... as a human head severed at the shoulders; Europe a girl in a long robe who bends down to kiss it while her arm stretches backwards to lure a cat jumping towards her. The back of the head is Sudan, its chin Algeria; the girl's head is Spain, her open mouth at Malaga, her chin at Murcia; her arms are Italy and the British Isles, the latter luring the Scandinavian cat.

    Thanks for that south-on-top map; it is quite an eye-opener. North America looks to me like a grinning dog face to face with a kneeling, pouting camel - the Kamchatka Peninsula is the camel's ear, India and Indochina its two humps. What Scandinavia might be, I wouldn't care to think.

    London, England • Since Sep 2009 • 52 posts Report

  • Southerly: We Haven't Forgotten You Christchurch!,

    "Land of the Broken Boot" is an imagistic geo-metaphorical reference to the collective cartographic formationality of North Island and South Island, which taken together resemble a somewhat sundered piece of high-heeled footwear.

    A similar process permits the visually imaginative to see the island of Great Britain as a witch in a pointed hat riding west on a pig. This makes a pig's ear of Anglesey, and rightly too.

    London, England • Since Sep 2009 • 52 posts Report

  • Southerly: We Haven't Forgotten You Christchurch!,

    Obtuse is not the word

    Very true. Now, what was all that other stuff?

    London, England • Since Sep 2009 • 52 posts Report

  • Southerly: We Haven't Forgotten You Christchurch!,

    The eureka moment was shattering. It suddenly dawned one day while idly perusing a statisticians bookshelf when I saw an author called....Student.

    I'm still waiting for the eureka moment to strike me as to why New Zealand's Reserve Bank has named its governor after a traffic cone. And is it for this same reason that people in the Land of the Broken Boot get around by riding German singers and/or Native American tribes?

    I'm not actually all that sure that the eureka moment will be all that much fun when it does arrive. But I'm waiting for it anyway. In economics, this is known as laisser-faire, or in laybeing's terms "staring doom in the face like a wallaby in headlights".

    London, England • Since Sep 2009 • 52 posts Report

  • Southerly: We Haven't Forgotten You Christchurch!,

    I don't think this can be a ghost writer - from the condescending expression, I'd say it's a critic.

    London, England • Since Sep 2009 • 52 posts Report

  • Southerly: We Haven't Forgotten You Christchurch!,

    A Writerly Investigation
    Partake of extremely excellent wine;
    'Twill make you pre-orgasmic,
    And hopefully then you will fail to divine
    'Tis redundantly pleonasmic.

    London, England • Since Sep 2009 • 52 posts Report

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