Date: Tue, 07 Jan 1997 09:40:31 -0500 (EST) From: [email protected] Subject: MCC minutes The fifth monthly meeting of the Mayflair Curmudgeon Club took place 6 January 1997 attended by Frank, Gerry, Ted and a new member, Michael, who is still young enough to know better but who is apparently thick enough not to. Michael is not yet a wordplayer but he speaks English surprisingly well for one born in the British Isles and who until recently was a member of the UK Foreign Service. Is there an agenda? he asked diplomatically and was unceremoniously handed a menu. The question of whose turn it was to keep the minutes came up again. An attempt to turn the problem over to the new member was necessarily abandoned given his lack of access to The List. Thus Ted proposed making the secretarial position permanent and nominated himself to fill it. He then moved that nominations cease and voted aye on the motion. Nominations having thus closed, Ted was elected by himself unanimously. Nobody showed the slightest interest. Gerry, Frank, and Michael and their wives having gate-crashed a New Year brunch given by Ted and his wife at what Frank later described as their hovel, the MCC discussed what it might do for next years festive season. It was thought that it might be a good idea to spend it at Club Devils Island, a new venture in French Guiana for the ho-ho-ho impaired complete with ragged striped suits and escape attempts in leaky boats over shark-infested waters. Ted described why this might be better than going again to a New Years Eve dinner and dance where his wife had actually enjoyed the band. The band had had the kind of power output used to send radio messages from San Diego to nuclear submarines at a depth of 100 feet off Hong Kong. Gerry said that reminded him of a brunch he had attended in Washington where two entertainers had rendered (or possibly rent) music on a pair of amplified lutes. Inexplicably, the idea of amplified lutes had all rolling in the sawdust with merriment. This led to a story about how a mutual acquaintance had gone to the National Arts Centre to hear Julian Bream play his unamplified lute. All went well until Mr.Bream tried to leave the stage only to be dragged back time and again by the aesthetes, for want of a more pungent word, who in Ottawa would have given a standing ovation to Tiny Tim and probably had. On about the eighth encore, the lady in question, struggling to get her coat on and be off, loudly declaimed: Oh, here he comes again with his bloody banjo. Ted said he was trying to teach himself Portuguese. Frank said that emoting in Portuguese was like speaking Spanish while picking your nose. Ted thereupon tried to speak Spanish while picking his nose but only succeeded in disgusting the barmaid. The meeting turned to a discussion of corruption in Ottawas high places. Ted was particularly incensed that the Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff had recently been summarily dismissed for fiddling his travel expenses to the tune of $80,000, tax free. I was in Defence for 44 years and never managed to get away with more than $6.50 on any one claim, he fumed. Frank described how he had wanted to take something memorable to his wartime ships bosum during his forthcoming trip to New Zealand and the South Seas. A mysterious woman appeared to steathily pass him a white envelope which might have contained cocaine but which in fact held a collection of pictures of Frank taken during that combattive period of his life. You can hear the bosun who is now seventy-plus on being given these snapshots: You came all the way from Ottawa and all you brung me was some lousy pitchers of you??!! But you can see why Frank was so popular in the Polish Merchant Marine; he looks about twelve and in every shot somebody, including a stray from the French Foreign Legion, has an arm around his neck. Frank told a particularly funny ethnic joke. Wordplayers wishing to hear it should apply off-list, enclosing a waiver that no complaint will be made to the Human Rights Commission. All replies will be made in a plain brown wrapper. In an unsuccessful attempt to curry favor with the MCC membership and apropos of nothing whatsoever, Michael described how British Intelligence in Beijing always knew when there was about to be a spontaneous civic demonstration. Apparently, the Chinese government moved in portable toilets for the crowds the night before. Frank also sang the praises of British Intelligence by telling how an officials wife in Moscow, frustrated in pursuing her hobby of rubbing brasses in UK churches, had started making rubbings of Moscows man-hole covers. Thus when Russian tanks rolled across Red Square, British spooks had an accurate way of guaging their size. All of this seemed very unlikely to Gerry and Ted who did not say they found it so. New to the MCC and goggling at every riposte, Michael seemed to believe everything he was told. Lunch arrived and was dispatched. Gerry ate all but three of his French fries. Michael ate a pizza, or rather, most of it having made the mistake of turning his back for a second or two. Ted, between the two, had ordered a salad after being called fatso by Frank who meant every word. Frank guzzled beer, but slowly as if he had just realized what it tasted of. Since Frank will be doing his wartime reminiscence bit at the time of the next meeting, the other members agreed that this would give them a chance to lunch at a respectable place. Secretary, MCC
Posted on: Thu, 27 Feb 2014 05:08:07 +0000
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