Call alligator long-mouth
call alligator saw-mouth
call alligator pushy-mouth
call alligator scissors-mouth
call alligator raggedy-mouth
call alligator bumpy-bum
call alligator all dem rude word
but better wait
….. till you cross river.

I leave this rule for others when I’m dead
Be always sure you’re right – THEN GO AHEAD!

Poverty is a bag with a hole at the bottom.

Sums are not set as a test on Erasmus.

Ending his career as journalist and politician with a 5 year prison sentence for fraud, Bottomley was approached whilst stitching mailbags by a prison visitor who asked him:

to which he simply replied:

‘No, reaping.’

from The Perils of the Pushy Parents

One Christmas in the usual way
The school put on a touching play
To mark Our Lord’s nativity
Young Molly was enthralled to be
Elected by her cheering class
To play the reasr end of the ASS
‘What DO you mean?’ cried Molly’s mum.
‘They’ve made you act a donkey’s bum?
How dare they force my little lass
to imitate as ass’s ass?
We rather hoped the BBC
Would hire you as a news trainee.
And after that it’s our intent
To shove you into parliament.
Up the greasy pole – and then
Propel you into Number 10!
But as it is your school, God rot ’em.
Potrays you as some dobbin’s bottom.
What kind of university
Wants “donkey bum” on your CV?’
Before the girl could disabuse her
Mum had found the show’s producer
And as a stork devours a frog
She seized the trembling pedagogue.
Quite what she whispered in his ear
I cannot say and yet I fear
It must have been extremely scary
He sacked the pupil playing Mary
And handing her a donkey’s tail
He hushed her unbelieving wail:
‘Can it kiddo, you’re a gonner.
We’re casting Molly as Madonna!’

Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.

Getting caught is the mother of invention.

I am at heart a propagandist, a tremendous hater, a tiresome nag, complacently positive that there is no human problem which could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise.

The effect of liberty to individuals is, that they may do what they please: we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations.

We think in generalities, but we live in detail.

My obsession with computers (what an infancy they’re in, and how it charms) is a kind of nostalgia for the future. I long to be-half man half-desk.

The man who says he is willing to meet you halfway is usually a poor judge of distance.

on being asked in a restaurant if there was anything he would like the orchestra to play…

Dominoes

The time not to become a father is eighteen years before a war.

Down the Stream the Swans All Glide

Down the stream the swans all glide;
It’s quite the cheapest way to ride.
Their legs get wet,
Their tummies wetter:
I think after all
The bus is better.

If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.

Be a first rate version of yourself, not a second rate version of someone else.

Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.

On Winston Churchill

He has devoted the best years of his life to preparing his impromptu speeches.

…poems should be written rarely and reluctantly,
under unbearable duress and only with the hope
that good spirits, not evil ones, choose us for their instrument.

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.