Keith's Ramblings

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‘Thank you’ I said as I unwrapped my birthday pressie. ’It’s just what I’ve always wanted!’

I hadn’t a clue what it was. It looked a bit like a recorder, those tooty-toot things you played at school.

‘Go on, give us a tune!’ said Garry.

I gingerly placed it between my lips and began to…

‘Stop!’ he laughed. ‘You don’t put it in your mouth idiot, you stick it up your doo-dah!’

I repositioned it.

‘NO, not there you plonker, poke it up your nose!’

(Incase you are wondering, I’d tried pushing into my ear)

I glanced at the calendar. April Fool’s Day was the day I started the A-Z Challenge, not today. Was this a joke?

 

Right, nose flute up one…’

‘Woah there buddy’ I interupted. ‘Nose flute? Are you being serious?’

‘Yes, now do as I say. Flute up one nose-hole and use your finger to block the other one’.

 I decided to humour him and did as he said.

‘Close your mouth tight and … ready, steady, BLOW!’

Well, if I’d known what was going to happen I’d have blown my nose into a tissue first. It wasn’t a pleasant sight, I can tell you!

I sorted things out and had another shot.

‘AaaaaCHOO’!

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Believe it or not, I eventually got the hang of it. In fact, I quite like it now. 

Next week I’m due to perform the second movement of Mozart’s Nose-flute Concerto No. 2 in D Major at the Pig and Whistle pub’s open-mike night!

You’re more than welcome to come along!

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In case you are wondering, the nose flute really does exist! According to Wiky, the nose flute is a popular musical instrument played in Polynesia and the Pacific Rim countries. Other versions are found in Africa.

 

 

 

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Years past

2020 – Stories featuring obsolete words – N

2019 – Stories for children – N

2018 – My friend Rosey – N

2017 – The village of Amble Bay –N

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Short stories featuring musical instruments and those who play them!

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It was my turn to choose the questions for the pub quiz. I usually have trouble answering them so this was my chance to get my own back on the clever clogs that set those unfathomable ones.

I thought I’d pop into the bookshop to try and find a book of questions, and there in the Quiz Book section was my friend Rosey.  I asked her what she was looking for, and she said she needed a book on French Cuisine!

Anyway, I found a suitable ‘quizionary’ and dashed home to get setting! I thought I’d go with a musical theme.

See how you get on –

1 Which instruments are cocktail bartenders best at playing?

2 What do you call a musical cow?

3  What instruments do Lynne and Mandy play?

4 What do you get when you drop a piano down a mine shaft?

5 What’s a metronome?

6 What did Mozart do in his grave?

Best of luck!

 

Answers

1 Maracas

2 A moo-sician

3 Mandolins

4 A flat minor

5 A city-dwelling dwarf

6 Decompose

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Years past

2020 – Stories featuring obsolete words – M

2019 – Stories for children – M

2018 – My friend Rosey –M

2017 – The village of Amble Bay – M

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for Friday Fictioneers

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I was walking down the road with Bible-basher Bob.

I’m thirsty I said, I need some water.

Drink no longer water, but use wine for thy stomach’s sake. Timothy 5:23. 

Okay wine then, or maybe a beer.

Wine is a mocker, beer a brawler; whoever is led astray by them is unwise. Proverbs 20:1. 

Now I am confused. What should I do?

Give beer to those perishing, wine to those in anguish. Proverbs 31:6.  

Make your mind up! I’ll play safe. Fruit juice … or perhaps coke.

A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. James 1:8.

I gave up!

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Thanks to Rochelle for hosting and to Anne Higa for the photo.

Click on Froggies to join in the fun!

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Short stories featuring musical instruments and those who play them!

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I really like being a statue in the museum, it certainly beats being stuck outside in all weathers. People assume that as I was carved from a lump of rock, I don’t know what’s going on around me. How wrong they are!

Oh-oh, here comes another lot of visitors, time to adopt my stony-faced expression again … pardon the pun!

It was funny the other day. A bloke said to his wife ‘I wish you had a pair like that’ and he got a slap around the face!

Once, someone pointed at my instrument and said ‘I can play one of those’. 

‘Lyre’ said his mate.

‘No, honestly’ he said, ‘I really can’!

Here come twenty old folk with the tour guide. 

‘How interesting, goodness me, I say, well I never, that’s fascinating, Isn’t she beautiful Doris?’

Wow, look at  this handsome chap walking towards me.  Fancy a stroke of my marble young man? Oooh, you cheeky boy!

Oh good, the lights are going out and it’s almost time to join One Tit Tina and Noseless Nick for our nightly chat. Headless Harry too – no doubt he’ll be talking out of his ass as usual!

‘

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Years past

2020 – Stories featuring obsolete words – L

2019 – Stories for children L

2018 – My friend Rosey – L

2017 – The village of Amble Bay – L

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Short stories featuring musical instruments and those who play them!

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She couldn’t play an instrument. Such a shame because she loved music. She was mesmerised by orchestras and envied those that brought the works of great composers to life. 

‘Can you sing in tune?’ asked her friend.

‘Pretty well’ she said.

‘Then get yourself a kazoo! All you have to do is hum into it!’

So she did. And she loved it.

Unfortunately, orchestras don’t employ kazooists.

‘Start your own’ suggested her friend.

She put a video of herself on social media and asked for people to join her in a virtual kazoo orchestra. 

They did, lots of them! And so it was, The Kazorchestra came about.

They meet up every week on Zoom and buzz away to their heart’s content!

Move over The Royal Philharmonic!

‘

 

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Years past

2020 – Stories featuring obsolete – K

2019 – Stories for children – K

2018 – My Friend Rosey – K

2017 – The village of Amble Bay – K

 

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Short stories featuring musical instruments and those who play them!

 

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Wang Li plays the Jinghu in the China Opera Company’s orchestra.

It’s a sweet little thing that produces high pitched sound.

A bit like Wang Li actually! 

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Wang Li practices Wing Chun.

It’s a vicious form of self-defence.

Who’d have thought tiny Wang Li capable?

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Once, someone tried to rob Wang Li of her Jinghu.

A very unwise thing to attempt.

The Jinghu was not the only high pitched sound heard that day!

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                                                                   He won’t try that again!

 

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Years past

2020 – Stories featuring obsolete words – J

2019 – Stories for children – J

2018 – My Friend Rosey – J

2017 – The village of Amble Bay – J

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for Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt where the given word is Forage and the limit, 82 words.

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He claimed he could look into our eyes and forage for hidden secrets within our minds.

‘Prove it’ we’d say. He’d shake his head, smile an inscrutable smile and say ‘don’t worry I’ll keep it to myself’.

We didn’t know what to make of him.

I know it sounds silly, but whenever I encountered him I’d try clearing my mind, just in case.

But yesterday day he squinted at me and I shivered.

To my cost, I’ve discovered our doubts were unfounded.

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Short stories featuring musical instruments and those who play them!

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I can still see him, perched on a high stool, his Irish bouzouki resting on his knee as he strummed and plucked its strings. I can hear him too, his smokey husky voice growling into the mike …

     ‘Ah, you’re drunk, you’re drunk you silly old fool,

     still you can not see

                                                That’s a lovely tin whistle that me mother sent to me …’

Between songs, sometimes between verses, he’d take a few gulps of Guinness; he could down a pint in three goes!

     ‘I met my love by the gas works wall

     Dreamed a dream by the old canal

     I kissed my girl by the factory wall

     Dirty old town …’

He sang all kinds of songs, some sad, some poignant, others we could join in with. But it was funny ones we liked the best. Raucous, rude, baudy, silly and just plain funny!

      ‘Oh Dear, what can the matter be?

     seven old ladies are stuck in the lavat’ry

     they were there from Sunday ’till Saturday

     nobody knew they were there!’

He was in great demand. He travelled the country entertaining crowds of drinkers in taverns, festival-goers and even popped up on the telly sometimes. They called him the Irish Rover!

     ‘Well I’ll put on me walkin’ boots and be on the road in the mornin’

     I’ll spend a week in County Cork so give the girls fair warnin’

     I’m a Travelling Man I’m a drinkin’ man I’m gentle when I’m sober’.

By the way, his name was Tadgh. Yes, I have spelt it right! It’s pronounced ‘tige’. A fitting name actually, as he wrote many of his own lyrics, a lot of which modesty prevents me from sharing here! Tadgh means poet or bard in Irish. 

He lived to a ripe old age and sang to his dying day. He was buried with his Irish bousouki . I’ll leave you with the toast he proposed at the end of every performance, and they used at his wake –

     ‘May your glass be ever full.

     May the roof over your head be always strong.

     And may you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you’re dead!’

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Years past

2020 – Stories featuring obsolete – I

2019 – Stories for children – I

2018 – My Friend Rosey – I

2017 – The village of Amble Bay – I

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Short stories featuring musical instruments and those who play them!

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“I am about to raise music to the next level” proclaimed Harvey. 

“How? You don’t even play an instrument!” chuckled Charlotte.

“That’s where you are wrong young lady”. 

“So maestro, do tell us more” begged Ben.

“I’ve discovered I have a natural ability to play a …” 

Harvey paused.

“Tell you what,” he said, “I’ll buy a round if you can guess!”

“A clue?” asked Alice.

“I begins with …” he drummed the tabletop … “the letter H!”

“Don’t tell me it’s a harp!”  laughed Larry.‘

“No sir”.

“A harpsichord?”

“No ma’am”.

“We give up” sighed a somewhat bored-looking Bobby.

“Well,”  said Harvey, ‘It’s a … harmonica!”

We shouldn’t have laughed but we did.

“A mouth organ, really?” said  Millie.

“Certainly not. It’s a Hohner Chromatic French Harp Phosphor Harmonica in the Key of C”.

He drew from his pocket a gold case, opened it then held the instrument aloft twixt his thumb and forefinger.

“Go on then, give us a tune,” said Terry.

Oh my goodness, what a din. He said it was his interpretation of a work of a classical composer with a long foreign-sounding name. I suggested he play something we might recognise. So he did.

Well, it sounded a bit like ‘What shall we do with the drunken sailor,’ played by a drunken sailor!

“Oy, you can stop that, Popeye” yelled the pub landlord!

“I’m going to raise my empty glass to the next level” giggled Gail.

Harvey took the hint and bought us all drink.

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Years past

2020 – Stories featuring obsolete words – H

2019 – Stories for children – H

2018 – My Friend Rosey – H

2017 – The village of Amble Bay – H

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Short stories featuring musical instruments and those who play them!

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I know a guy who plays rock guitar. His name is Stuart but he calls himself Styler. That’s because his hero is Steven Tyler, but whereas the Aerosmith frontman plays stadiums, Stuart does his shrieking and strumming in back street boozers. He’s tried to get the look right. You know the kind of thing, wild hair, baggy shirts, and skinny jeans. 

I was walking down a backstreet the other afternoon. It was very blustery. Stuart – sorry, Styler came strolling towards me leaning into the wind, one hand on his head.

“Hi Sty!’ said I.

I went to bump elbows the way we have to these days, and as he took his hand from his head, his mass of hair suddenly blew off and went tumbling down the street!  I turned to see where it was heading (pardon the pun!) and saw it rushing back towards us with four little legs poking out the bottom! Just behind, an old fellow was tottering along yelling “Tinkerbelle, heel girl”

I don’t know what was funnier! Styler’s expression, his never-before-seen shiny bald head, the hapless dog owner, or the animated wig. Styler shot off in pursuit of his crowning glory. 

I haven’t seen him since. I wonder if he got it back!

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Years past

A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z

2020 – Stories featuring obsolete words – G

2019 – Stories for children – G

2018 – My Friend Rosey – G

2017 – The village of Amble Bay – G

Click on the letter of the day to revisit.