To mark the anniversary of the dispersal of the Russian Constituent Assembly by weary but armed proletarians in 1918, No Good Boyo and I like to exchange gifts as a sign of our reciprocal respect for me.
Each year we take turns in presenting a gift to our daughter Arianrhod. Two years ago I left Boyo to his own devices, and have rued doing so with every blast on the little mite's specially-adapted Alpenhorn.
This year I suggested the distance-adoption of an animal. This would sidestep looming demands for a neglected pet of our own, and go a little way to overcome my regret at not applying for that job running donkey sanctuaries in one of the more inbred parts of England.
Imagine my delight when Boyo announced that he had adopted a Bengal tiger on Arianrhod's behalf, via the admirably unsentimental World Wildlife Fund.
With much less effort one can also imagine my reaction when Boyo wrote to the Fund asking whether for an extra "tenner" Arianrhod would have "first crack" at the said tiger when she reached "blooding age".
"A rug! A rug!" squealed my daughter on receipt of a photographic print of the beast.
The Sun may have set on the British Empire, but the occasional shadow still flits across my conservatory.
10 comments:
Well, sod the tigers, what they have ever done for us primates?
"We shall support the tiger like the rope supports the hanged man."
George Nathaniel Curzon (1899)
Britain in it's hour of need will be grateful for the likes of young Arianrhod. Incidentally, Mrs Dilo is interested in all things dead-animal, and is currently on the seach for a brown bearskin rug, preferably with the rictusing head still on it.
Oddly enough, Mrs Boyo, at around 5 am this morning the Boyo-like phrase "extreme football, played in Bengal using as the ball the bladder of a tiger. A live tiger..." flitted into what passes for my brain at that time of day.
My own daughter adopted an orang-utan via the same scheme for Christmas a couple of years ago.
How charming, Byard. You are channelling my husband. The last person to do that was sacked from their position in the Tywyn Abbatoir.
I am delighted to hear your daughter is caring for the orang-utan, which I believe still has the vote in Dutch Borneo. Into what type of furniture does she plan to have it fashioned?
Gadjo, my father has a selection of experiments that failed to meet his exacting standards in his donjon in Stanislaviv (we will never say Ivano-Franksiv'sk). D-na Dilo is welcome to enter Hutsul territory and interview them.
Mr Bananas, Lord Curzon strikes me as being the sort of man England may still produce, but keeps on a reservation in Scotland for use in national emergencies.
Thanking you kindly, Mrs Boyo. Mrs Dilo asks can she bring her pig when she comes to stay with you - apparantly it's been feeling a bit peaky and she thinks a change of scenery might do it good.
Ah, you're from the Stanislaviv faction. Good for you. Best thing the Poles ever did. Which isn't saying much.
If I recall my night of terrifying boredom with Boyo in the social club bar correctly, Mrs B, would that be pronounced Stanislaoowoow?
D-na Dilo's hog would be most welcome. Arianrhod is never happier than when parading about our neighbours' patios on some half-tamed beast, but Boyo's back has been giving him trouble. He also slobbers on the bit, which I have to clean.
Stan-is-LAV-iw would be correct, Gyppo, with the "w" representing the soft "v/b" of Latin-American Spanish. Boyo often mistakes Polish for a language, when it is in fact merely Ukrainian as spoken through a cleft palate.
Thanking you again, Mrs! Note, howewver, that is just the story that Mrs Dilo is telling the pig: it's going to get its head and all its bits chopped for Christmas, but superstition has it that its meat tastes sweeter if it visits a neighbouring village just before this happens.
Everybody knows that Ukraine is the cradle of Slavdom; the Poles, as ever, are trying to mussle in with their cheap plumbers and their degraded vowel sounds.
I wish you'd told me you wanted an animal for Arianrhod, I'd have left Maroon with you.
Daphne, Arianrhod was most impressed by Dr Maroon. She has started to impersonate him, and Boyo hopes to turn it into a circus act.
Gadjo, you might want to ask what the neighbouring villagers do to the pig that its meat tastes so sweet.
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