This is just one man’s effort; one man’s ego.
It seems to be worthwhile.
John Lentell
16th December 1968
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Month: July 2010
Friday’s Piece
“There lives more faith in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in half the creeds.”
(Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 1809 – 1892)
John Lentell
December 15th, 1968
Thursday’s Piece
Barnstaple (Barum), North Devon, England. My place of birth. Population in 1953 – 14,693. Early closing Wednesday. Market days Tuesday and Thursday. Lovely memories. Now zoned to be a satellite city with a population of 100,000!
Oh! My God! What is happening to poor old England?
John Lentell
December 14th, 1963
Wednesday’s Piece
“I sit on a man’s back choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means – except for getting off his back.”
(From What Then Must We Do by Leo Tolstoy, 1828 – 1910)
John Lentell
December 13th, 1968
Tuesday’s Piece
That’s the way to start the day!
John Lentell
December 12th, 1968
Monday’s Piece
Unusual to walk in to your bank and find a piano and two barrels of refrigerated draught beer! “Christmas party tonight” says the girl – with an appropriate smile. “I hope the Manager is going says poor, uninvited me. “The bigger his draught, the bigger my overdraft!”.
John Lentell
December 11th, 1968
Sunday’s Piece
‘BASIC ENGLISH’
If “gh” stands for “p” as in” hiccough”, “ough” for “o” and in “dough”, “phth” for “t” as in “phthisis”, “eigh” for “a” as in “neighbour”, “tte” for “t” as in “gazette”, “eau” for “o” as in “beau”, the right way to spell “potato” must be: “ghoughphtheightteeau”.
John Lentell
December 10th, 1968
Saturday’s Piece
PSALM TO POLITICIANS
“Again a flood of hackneyed words
Comes pouring from the noisy throats
Of many office-seeking birds
Who promise, in exchange for votes,
To dedicate their massive brains
(And strictly gratis, udnerstand!)
To ridding us of social pains
And making this the Promised Land!”
(From Bulldogs and Morning Glories by John Edward Allen, 1945)
John Lentell
December 9th, 1968
Friday’s Piece
Joe and Bert, returning from a reunion dinner, climbed on a bus and offered their fares to a fellow passenger.
“I’m not the conductor” came the reply. “I’m a naval officer.”
“Lumme,” said Bert, “we’re on a boat.”
John Lentell
December 8th, 1968
An interjection, being a contraction of ‘(Lord) love me’. Used to express surprise or dismay in circumstances where ‘bloody hell’ or ‘holy fuck’ might not be appropriate.
Thursday’s Piece
“Eccentricity has always abounded when and where the strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society is proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigour and moral courage it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of our times.”
(John Stuart Mill, 1806 – 1873)
John Lentell
December 7th, 1968
Wednesday’s Piece
“Sir Stephen Rice….having been often heard to say, before he was a judge, that he will drive a coach and six horses through the Act of Settlement.”
John Lentell
December 6th, 1968
Tuesday’s Piece
“YOUNG HEART”
Nobody understands
Nobody understands
What goes on inside me
I don’t understand
What goes on inside me.
.
I think a lot
I feel a lot
But I can’t explain
What goes on inside me.
.
Sometimes my heart aches
My eyes get damp
And I just seem to have in
Me all the problems
And all the answers.
.
I have not been very far
I have not done very much
I do not know many people
And nobody really knows me.
.
I want to know
And I want to tell
What goes on inside me.
.
John Lentell
December 5th, 1968
Monday’s Piece
Despite prolonged difficulties familiar to us all, not the least of which is the cash shortage, I am, these days, unaccountably happy. The Bank Manager insists that you account for your happiness!
John Lentell
December 4th, 1968
Sunday’s Piece
Among us we have men who love Rhodesia and who, in this time of crisis and conflict, commit to her all they possess, but as common-sense or conscience dictates (and free entirely from questionable allegiance) dare to criticise the Government of the day.
We also have among us men who assert a love for their country who say they support the government (and never criticise it) but possess substantial external assets. Tangible evidence of their good faith!
I know which irritates me the most!
John Lentell
December 3rd, 1968
Saturday’s Piece
“Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear,
Or like a fairy trip upon the green,
Or, like a nymph, with long dishevell’d hair,
Dance on the sands, and yet no footing seen:
Love is a spirit all compact of fire,
Not gross to sink, but light, and will aspire.”
(William Shakespeare, 1564 – 1616)
John Lentell
December 2nd, 1968
Friday’s Piece
All evidence points clearly to the fact that we are not by present means coming to grips with Rhodesia’s root problems. This can be contradicted ’til those responsible are blue (or purple?) in the face and I will not believe them. And, lest I be misunderstood, I do not know of a group of men with a proposition sufficiently noble or practical in concept. Rhodesia is at root both a noble and a practical concept and I, for one, owe most of what I am and have to her.
John Lentell
December 1st, 1968
Thursday’s Piece
“Argue as you please, you are nowhere, that grand old man, the Prime Minister, insists on the other thing.”
(Sir Stafford Northcote, 1818 – 1887)
John Lentell
November 30th, 1968
Wednesday’s Piece
“For death and life, in ceaseless strife,
Beat wild on this world’s shore,
And all our calm is in that balm –
Not lost but gone before.”
(Caroline Norton, 1808 – 1877)
John Lentell
November 29th, 1968
Tuesday’s Piece
“Public opinion, a vulgar, impertinent, anonymous tyrant who deliberately makes life unpleasant for anyone who is not content to be the average man.”
(William Ralph Inge, 1860 – 1954)
John Lentell
November 28th, 1968
Monday’s Piece
“The little girl had the making of a poet in her who, being told to be sure of her meaning before she spoke, said: ‘How can I know what I think till I see what I say?'”.
(Graham Wallas, 1858 – 1932)
John Lentell
November 27th, 1968
