Matt Monro Forum

THE GHOST OF CHARLIE

A few days ago while I was posting a typical piece of ephemera
on this message board, my ashen-faced wife entered the study
and in quavering tones announced: 'Either a kitten has become
trapped in the kitchen cupboards, or Charlie has come back to
haunt us.' I thought: 'After all these years as my benighted spouse
the poor woman has finally flipped.'
I somehow forced my screamingly sceptical being into the kitchen
to investigate. Sure enough, I distinctly heard a distressed 'miaow'
emanating from the corner cupboard adjoining the cooker.
We removed the usual utensils and stored domestic detritus, the
better to look inside. There we were, two sentient beings expecting
to see a feline in an impossibly small space. I began to fear for our
joint sanity.
'Hello Puss,' I called out. 'Miaow' came the whimpered reply.
Consternation! Suddenly realisation dawned when it became clear
that the intermittent cries were occurring every five seconds.
We had had a new gas meter installed a few days earlier and the
ticking-over of the dial was creating a perfectly simulated kitten's
cry.
I thing the infernal things should come with a mental health warning.
Keith

Something similar happened to me once--I woke in the middle of the night, to hear a noise sounding like a little mouse or something chewing at some object---and no matter how much I tried to ignore it, and tell myself it was all my imsgination, it continued for hours.

In the end I forced myself to get up and investigate--praying that there was not a mouse in my room---it turned out that it was my newly installed vertical blinds, being blown by a breeze through the window, and the noise was the little bits of chain, connecting them together !!!!!

Hi Mariana
At least your 'disturbing' experience happened at night
when you were in the arms of Morpheus. Our bewildering
embarrassment occurred in broad daylight.
I wonder why we say 'broad daylight'. Is there a narrow
kind?
I'm feeling a bit pleased with myself today; I have had
a colour-illustrated Christmas poem published in an Irish
magazine and the president-elect piece entitled Acrostic
Anticipation was used as a tailpiece to an article about
the new president. The magazine is circulated widely
in America so there is every possibility that it will be read
by Mr Obama; a rather pleasing prospect.
Histon FC are a Blue Square league club based in Cambridgeshire.
Keith

I suppose daylight does spread across quite a way Keith! whereas darkness somehow seems more enclosed
I enjoyed your tale of "terror"tale of The Ghost of Charlie, and Marian's mouse(tail)
Marian
Congratulations on your published piece of work.

Very well done on getting some of your work published, Keith---I am sure you are delighted. But I would guess that this is not the first time you have appeared in print !

And thank you for the information on Histon---I managed at last to figure out they were are an English Team, playing in a Cup Final Game, but apart from that, I knew nothing about them.

Oh and --by the way--this may make you smile Keith--on Teletext today was a letter from someone about the Welfare State--as being introduced by Lord Beverage. !!!

I put a piece about Histon FC on another page they are not playing a Cup Final Marian..............just in round 2 of the FA Cup, which is virtually light years away from the final

Thanks Robert---I knew it was not the actual Cup Final, just one of the earlier rounds--but not sure which one.

I am not much into Football these days.

My thanks to both of you Marians for your humorous comments.
The beverage joke really has got legs.
I used to have stuff published by the newspaper now re-named
The Irish Examiner and no longer published in England. I hope
the following will appeal to Seamus who sounds like he could do
with a fillip:

IRELAND REVISITED
(Courtesy of The Cork Weekly Examiner)

Boreens meander dreamily between
meadows of buttercup-bespeckled green;
sweet songbird sounds compete to charm the air,
and I am instantly transported there.

Where life goes at a comfortable pace
and shows no daily stresses on its face,
whose calm demeanour often is imbued
with unique, time-disdaining lassitude.

Tales of today and yesterday are told;
scenes of the town and countryside unfold.
I watch a gurgling-happy river race
into the waiting Irish Sea's embrace.

Rambling Through Munster and its scenic sights;
stopping to savour Way Out West's delights;
guided by luminaries in the know,
I visit haunts where tourists never go.

Folk in each other's churches kneel to pray,
'Save us from Northern strife.' is what they say;
cathedral spires reach up to the sky,
comforting the heavens lest they cry.

Stories of sporting triumphs here abound;
politics, art and music can be found,
but which sound is more stirring to the ears,
than a great Sunday score's exultant cheers?

Uplifted by the power of poetry,
thus the medium sets the spirit free;
these inestimable joys of which I speak
come tumbling through my letterbox each week.

Keith Good

Keith--thank you for sharing that with us-it was lovely.