901

MY FUNNY VALENTINE
By
Frank Sinatra

My funny valentine
Sweet comic valentine
You make me smile with my heart
Your looks are laughable
Unphotographable
Yet you're my favourite work of art

Is your figure less than greek
Is your mouth a little weak
When you open it to speak
Are you smart?

But don't change a hair for me
Not if you care for me
Stay little valentine stay
Each day is valentines day

Is your figure less than greek
Is your mouth a little weak
When you open it to speak
Are you smart?

But don't you change one hair for me
Not if you care for me
Stay little valentine stay
Each day is valentines day

MY TONY VALENTINE
Sung by
Wendi Deng (a fan)

My Tony valentine
How can I make you mine
If you love Cherie amour?
Your butt is like a peach
Soft, furry, outta reach
Which makes me yearn for you much more.

In that natty suit you're svelte,
Yes, it's made of silk, what else!
And your trousers will be felt
I guarantee!

Your eyes are a piercing blue
Your skin a rare orange hue
Stay Mr 'Valentine' Blair
Let's have a foreign affair!

Oh, I love that gallant streak
And your mouth kissing my cheek
Yet, when you open it to speak
Does it lie?

You are my total fantasy
So top up that tan for me
Fly to me Tony, okay?
Valentine, let's run away!

902

An unusual new store has opened in Georgia, America, where a woman may go to buy a husband. Among the instructions at the entrance is a description of how the store operates. It says:

'You may visit this store ONLY ONCE! There are six floors and the value of the husbands increases as you ascend each flight.
You, the customer may select any item from a particular floor, or you may elect to go up to the next level but you can not go back down except to exit the building!'

A young woman went to the Husband Store to try and find a husband. On the first floor the sign said:

Floor ONE - These Men Are All Employed.

She was intrigued, but continued to the second floor anyway, where the sign read:

Floor TWO - These Men Are All Employed and Like Children.

'That's quite nice,' she thought, 'but I'd want more.'

So she continued upward. The third floor sign said:

Floor THREE - These Men are all Employed in Secure Jobs, Love Children, and are Very Good Looking.

'Wow!' she thought, but felt compelled to keep going.

She got to the fourth floor and the sign said:

Floor FOUR - These Men all Have Secure Jobs, Love Children, are Very Good Looking and Like Helping With Housework.

'My!' she exclaimed, 'I can hardly stand it!'

Still, she went up to the fifth floor, where the sign said:

Floor FIVE - These Men all Have A Secure Job that Pays Them Very Well, They Love Children, are Drop-dead Gorgeous, Like Helping With the Housework, Have a Strong Romantic Streak, and they are all Very Faithful.

She was tempted to stay, but went up to the final floor anyway, where the sign read:

Floor SIX - You are visitor Eighteen-million five-hundred-and-twenty-eight thousand-and-twenty-nine to this level. There aren't any men here. This floor exists as proof that women are impossible to please. Thank you for visiting the Husband Store. Please exit to the right to make space for more unreasonable customers!

To avoid any gender bias charges, the store's owner opened a New Wives store just across the street. Similar instructions were posted at the entrance to this store as well.

The first level says: Wives that Enjoy Sex.

The second says: Wives that Enjoy Sex and Have Their Own Money and Like To Have a Drink.

Apparently, the third, fourth, fifth and sixth levels have never been visited.

A boatload of wealthy tourists stopped at a remote Mexican fishing village.

One of the tourists complimented the local fishermen on the quality of their fish and asked how long it took them to catch them.

"Not very long." they answered in unison.

"So why don't you stay out longer and catch more?"

The fishermen explained that their small catches were sufficient to cover their needs and those of their families.

"But how do you spend the rest of your time?" asked the tourist.

"Oh, we sleep late, fish a little, play with our children, have siestas with our wives. In the evenings, we go over to the village tavern to see our friends, have a drink or two, play the guitar, relax and sing some songs. We have a good, stress-free life."

The tourist interrupted, "Look, I have an MBA from Harvard and I can help you! You should begin by fishing for longer every day.

"You can then sell the extra fish you catch. With the extra revenue, you can purchase extra, even bigger, boats."

"And after that?"

"Ok; with the extra money those larger boats earn, you can purchase second boats and third boats and so on until you possess a whole fleet of trawlers.

"Then, instead of just selling the fish to middle-men," he expounded, "you can negotiate direct with the processing plants, or perhaps even open a plant of your own! You can then leave this remote village and move to Mexico City, or Los Angeles, or even good old New York! From there you'll be able to direct the whole enterprise."

"So, just how long would that take?"

"Oh, we're only looking at perhaps twenty years or so," replied the tourist.

"And then?"

"And then? Oh, Jesus, that's when it becomes even more exciting!" exclaimed the tourist. "When the business gets really enormous, you can then start to buy and sell stocks and shares, make several million and end up as major shareholders!"

"Several million? Goodness! And after that?" asked the fishermen.

"After that you'll be able to retire to a remote village on the coast, sleep late, play with your children, catch a few fish, have siestas with your wives and spend the odd evening drinking and enjoying a stress-free life with your friends."

“But that’s just what we do now,” observed the fishermen.

And the moral of the story is:

Know where you're going in life... You might already be there!

903

Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a washing-day! That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook's next door to each other, with a laundress's next door to that! That was the pudding! In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit entered -- flushed, but smiling proudly -- with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.

Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs. Cratchit said that, now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for a large family. It would have been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing.

At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the hearth swept, and the fire made up. The compound in the jug being tasted, and considered perfect, apples and oranges were put upon the table, and a shovel full of chestnuts on the fire. Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth in what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half a one; and at Bob Cratchit's elbow stood the family display of glass. Two tumblers and a custard cup without a handle.

These held the hot stuff from the jug, however,
as well as golden goblets would have done; and Bob served it out with beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed:

"A merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us!"

Which all the family re-echoed.

"God bless us every one!" said Tiny Tim,
the last of all.

Charles Dickens' classic "A Christmas Carol" tells the story of Ebenezer Scrooge (he, that bitter, frowning, hardened, miserly tightwad), whose visitations by ghosts -- the specter ghost of dead Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present, and Christmas Yet to Come -- foreshadow and herald such a wonderful, benevolent change that happens afterward in that old man's heart.

Dedicated to fans, these perhaps foolishly awkward afterthoughts that follow hereunder shall complete this short whimsical anagram about that delightful narrative -- that dignified, didactic, delicious fictitious tale, which that bright, perspicacious, sagacious, sedulous, distinguished author had skillfully accomplished.

On behalf thereof, we've thought to adjudge and (in a few words) attest that we'd think that his whole book -- that powerful work, that beautiful, that masterful, that fanciful, that noble, that notable, that laudable, that hopeful, remarkable, insightful, fantastical, delightful, enchanting, enlightening, charming, captivating, absorbing, pertinent, transcendent, matchless, magnificent, great, superb, worthy, worthwhile, famed, beloved, eloquent, profound, and also, we should adamantly add, unquestionably, undebatably, undoubtedly unsurpassed, incomparable, thus nowhither nowhence outclassed, wonderful classic -- should rightly, reasonably, deservedly continue to be lauded wholeheartedly, loved unabashedly, praised, promoted, exalted, extolled, credited, commended, commemorated, celebrated, happily highlighted, seasonally showcased, assiduously and attentively adapted, and thoroughly immortalised to boot, hitherto, henceforth and hereafter.

Who'd say "Bah! Bah, humbug!" to that? Hah! Nobody we know.

904

TO A SWEETHEART
The dew was on the ground love
When first I met with thee
And now we two, do roam love
Upon the boundless sea—
In this good ship, we sail love
“Dundalk” it is by name
And when we get to town love
We two will be the same.
-- by Alexander Graham Bell

MY LOVE FOR HOME MOVIES
Whining wheel, babe's wet butt,
Tiny Dave and what he wrote.
Heroes and settled sweet wimps,
Or duo tweeting a shallow note.
Wants, well, what one likes
Ensuing, whether good or bad,
Doubt and hoax we'll view;
To see them all on an iPad.

905

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf,
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day
Nothing gold can stay.

--Robert Frost

Nowadays filthy lucre doesn't last;
It gets used for trinkets all too fast.
The only way to be free of greed
Is offer a hand to those in need.
Go on! Honor beggars and -- (hush) -- drug users,
and all who are born losers.

906

Lennon's song 'Rain'
Performed by the Beatles

If the rain comes
They run and hide their heads
They might as well be dead
If the rain comes
If the rain comes

When the sun shines
They slip into the shade
And sip their lemonade
When the sun shines
When the sun shines

Rain, I don't mind
Shine, the weather's fine

I can show you
That when it starts to rain
Everything's the same
I can show you
I can show you

Rain, I don't mind
Shine, the weather's fine

Can you hear me
That when it rains and shines
It's just a state of mind
Can you hear me
Can you hear me

Insane Nonsense By A Scouser On Hash

Is a universal truth
From some mop-head youth
With a rhythmic beat
That much of a treat?
Can we draw the world together
With announcements on the weather?
I'm not sure... it is inane.
These darn lyrics are insane!

It ain't fun nor nice, it's twee
When he whines on LSD
Finest musicality, it is not.

There's no one here to say
The line 'Hey Jude' and 'Yesterday' -
Anthems I prefer anyway!

Hash I find
Bends his mind
Hash in hand
Heh, he seems high!

How come he's inane,
Stupid and insane?
In the end is it the same,
If he's high?

907

"Tomorrow is Saint Valentine's day,
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine.
Then up he rose, and donned his clothes,
And dupped the chamber door.
Let in the maid that out a maid
Never departed more."
(Shakespeare, Hamlet)

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day;
At an early time in the morn,
I, a maid, wait beside the house,
Intend to admit deep true love.
The man stood up, put on apparel,
And unlatched the bedroom lock.
He met and led her in, had her disrobe,
And she wasn't a virgin anymore.

908

[As a Valentine tribute, Robert Frost's poem 'To Earthword' is anagrammed into 2 poems (from a male and female perspective) about a kiss - with the visual constraint that when the female poem is aligned to the right, it perfectly meshes with the male poem]

Love at the lips was touch
As sweet as I could bear;
And once that seemed too much;
I lived on air

That crossed me from sweet things
The flow of - was it musk
From hidden grapevine springs
Downhill at dusk?

I had the swirl and ache
From sprays of honeysuckle
That when they're gathered shake
Dew on the knuckle.

I craved strong sweets, but those
Seemed strong when I was young;
The petal of the rose
It was that stung.

Now no joy but lacks salt
That is not dashed with pain
And weariness and fault;
I crave the stain

Of tears, the aftermark
Of almost too much love,
The sweet of bitter bark
And burning clove.