Wednesday 2 July 2008

Courte haleine


Boyo's joy at having 14 Welsh readers with fingers narrow enough to hit a computer key at a time has set me to thinking about other indices of male inadequacy.

Music is a good measure of whether your companion for the evening stands much chance of remaining at liberty by breakfast.

Adepts of heavy metal are hopeless. The lyrics rush to rhyme before the end of the first line - "Take your daughters to the slaughter", "Thunder across the tundra" - and are invariably faibles.

Jazz is always promising. Shklovsky noted that there are few plot devices, and the same applies to melodies. The ability of beboppers to riff off the most basic standards bodes well for their imagination in other departments.

What music does No Good Boyo like? I hear you ask.

He likes brass bands.

18 comments:

Gorilla Bananas said...

And what of hairiness, Mrs Boyo?

Your husband's blog is really making big noises with the Welsh, they'll be inviting him to the Eisteddfod next!

Gadjo Dilo said...

Mrs Boyo, is that a picture of Nicolae Neacşu, the recently departed primaş of Romananian gypsy ensemble Taraf de Haïdouks?? I too likes brass bands - of the stomping variety - and will gladly send Boyo some music (or indeed some gypsies) to add to his collection.

Regarding finding the perfect life partner based on musical tastes, I reckon the line in Nick Hornby's High Fidelity has it right: it's not what you're like but what you like that's most important.

Gyppo Byard said...

My daughter is currently learning the baritone horn, and shall be joining a junior brass band as of the Autumn term. Mind you, she's also learning fiddle to slot into manouche music-making.

My own musical tastes encompass Javanese gamelan, manouche, bluegrass, Wagner opera and the songs of Miss China Forbes - a combination that has women swooning with boredom and saying "I think I'd better leave now..."

Mrs Boyo said...

Mr Bananas, do you play your pelt? Is it well-tempered? There are members of Club 18-30 who desperately need to know.

Gadjo, it is Domnul Nicolae himself. My grandmother Slavazla holds the Roumanian state record for having denounced him to both the Siguranta and Securitate for anti-popular tunings while holding conflicting ranks in both. And yet he endured.

Gyppo, you spread yourself too thinly. Although not as thinly as Abrikos the Smeared, quondam Prince of Ruthenia. He was martyred under a sledge by janissaries.

Gadjo Dilo said...

Roumanian, Mrs Boyo, is almost as bad as saying Rumanian, which is like saying The Ukraine; but you know that, and I know you know that, and once again I smile with quiet delight at your knowing irony.

Domnul Nicolae was a legend (at least among personal-hygiene-challenged French people) for his inovative violin playing. He was also very good at cadging cigarettes, apparantly, which probably accounted for his endurance despite your grandmother's best efforts.

M C Ward said...

Mrs B, there's a rumour going round the ethernet that you and Sr Boyo are, in fact, one and the same - he writes deliriously as if he were his own wife, in an attempt at something that's not entirely wholesome.

Has anybody ever seen the two of you together, I ask?

Mrs Boyo said...

MC, I suspect that he spreads these rumours himself in some spurious attempt at self-validation. We are frequently seen together, although I grant that our clothes are indistinguishable.

Gadjo, I like French vowels, what can I say?

Gadjo Dilo said...

And I like the definite article, Mrs Boyo, though I like the adjectival that even more, as in That Ukraine, That London, etc, and I suspect Boyo is with me on this.

I've also heard that rumour, and have encouraged it, despite mounting evidence that you may be two separate people. I've now come to the conclusion that you are actually reflections of each other.

Gyppo Byard said...

'Tis all lies. Mr and Mrs Boyo are definitely two people, and Arianrhod is a third. Or at least an appreciable fraction of one.

Mr Scaryduck and I can vouch for the uncanny accuracy of their blogging, which is a true record of their life (if such one can call it) together. If anything, the reality of Chateau Boyo is stranger than the virtual version.

BTW, brass bands are popular with us Gypsies because you can fit a small child down the tuba and make off with them. Fact, that is.

M C Ward said...

I stand corrected.

May I therefore compliment you on your truly magnificent English?

If I had students with two per cent of your eloquence I would be eighty per cent less desperate and at least twenty per cent less close to the verge of a nervous breakdown. I'd also probably be one hundred per cent more unemployed, but two hundred per cent more contented.

Mrs Boyo said...

Thank you, Mr Ward, and may I compliment you on the magnificence of your statistical self-criticism?

I was taught English by the best lonely Oxbridge scientists the KGB could kidnap. In return Vneshekonombank would send them packets of perfumed tea, scones and, yes, marmite.


Our cook would stew the leftover scones in the tea, smear them with marmite and feed them to Turbine, our dog. His stomach backed up and all of his major organs exploded out of his eyes one morning while I was filing his teeth. I have campaigned against nursery food ever since.

Mrs Pouncer said...

Please please please don't be a figment. I only ask becuase of a dream I had last night on which I will expand prob tomorrow. Cuvee R Lalou since 12 noon, so I am a bit weary. Cordially erc

Gadjo Dilo said...

We all seem a little tired: Mrs Boyo's describing her dog's digestion in a most unladylike manner, Mrs Pouncer's coming down from an acid trip, I'm getting stroppy about orthography and Wardy's on the verge of the nervous breakdown. But yesterday was Friday, end of the week - might account for it. I suggest we temporarily hand over blogging duties to young Ms Arianrhod and Gyppo's tuba-bound daughter, who'll at least bring the candidness of youth to the task :-) Yours, etc.

Mrs Pouncer said...

Hoorah! Yes lets. Off to Henners now. No hangover, you'll be pleased to hear and Mr Pouncer has just poured me a Gin & Pineapple juice which is my healthy option. Sport, once again, is the word.

Gyppo Byard said...

My own practice when anyone nitpicks about 'Ukraine' versus 'The Ukraine' is to start referring interchangeably to "A Ukraine", "Some Ukraine or other" or "One of those Ukraines".

Mrs Boyo said...

You have a point, Gyppo: one cannot have too many Ukraines. My father said just that in his defence at the Fission Trial, and won a rapturous acquital.

Gadjo. I believe No Good Boyo bought Arianrhod a blog for her second birthday, but she swapped it at the nursery for a sort of animal that runs around with an ashtray on its back.

Mrs Pouncer, Sport macht dumm.

Mrs Pouncer said...

Das stimmt auf keinen Fall!

Mrs Boyo said...

Mrs Pouncer, I suspect this is a matter of Kultur.