Chip shops, wretched garlands (and a car crash called Tony)
There’s an old song by Kirsty Maccoll which has the immortal lines:
There’s a guy works down the chip shop swears he’s Elvis
Just like you swore to me that you’d be true
There’s a guy works down the chip shop swears he’s Elvis
But he’s a liar and Im not sure about you.
Which leads us directly (well, almost directly) to the folowing:
An Australian court has found a restaurant critic guilty of damaging the trade of some restaurant. The man had written a negative review.
One of the offensive bits in the review claimed, that a sherry scented apricot white sauce that had accompanied a steak was a “wretched garnish” that the critic had had to scrape off.
Which leads us, niftily yet seamlessly, to the following:
It’s not often that you can find Dolly Parton and Salmon Rushdie in one article - let alone one sentence. To most, these two would not exactly seem a match made in Heaven.
Still, Dolly Parton has been named a lifetime member of the Girls Scouts of Tanasi Council during a presentation before 1,000 Girl Scouts at her Dollywood theme park Friday evening.
An emotional Dolly stated:
“While I was never a Girl Scout myself when I was a kid, I always wanted to be. This great honor lets me live out a dream and to be part of an organization that stands for many of the same values I do and Dollywood does.”
Quite.
So, Dolly did not see this badge of honour as a wretched garnish she had to scrape off as soon as it was pinned to her lapel.
Ah well, each according to his and her taste, of course.
Anyway, while Dolly Parton was singing the praises of Girls Scouts and shamelessly promoting that other wretched garnish, called Dollywood, in the same breath, Salmon Rushdie was being knighted by the queen of England.
That Australian food critic mentioned above also said, apropos of yet another unfortunate dish, that the flavour of oysters soaked in limoncello “jangled like a car crash.”
He had a point, I’m sure; oysters with lemon liquor sounds pretty disgusting but then again, not quite as disgusting as yet another bit of wretched garnish that’s still clinging to some vague memory of status, England’s very own prime minister, Tony Blair.
These days, Blair talks a good line about fighting for democracy and the values and spirit of the free Western world. However, when Salmon Rushdie was sentenced to death by the now not much lamented, late ayatollah Khomeini, Tony and his cronies motly kept an impressive quiet.
Once in office, Blair never showed he gave much of a damn about Rushdie or any other victim of intolerant (but nicely rich) Muslim regimes.
In his defense though: he was always rather busy doing business deals with these wretched & corrupt Muslim regimes and bribing their representatives.
Or, as John Sutherland, much more diplomatically, said:
The award might represent a tacit olive branch from those who perhaps had failed to support Sir Salman as he might have hoped.
Public figures have been very, very reluctant to support Rushdie, particularly when he was under direct threat of assassination. It’s a brave and entirely commendable decision by the people who advise the Queen - I would be curious to know if the recommendation came directly from Downing Street, though.
Yeah, right.
Not much chance of that, I’d say - which is a pity, really. If it had been Blair (or Bliar, to his many admirers) who’d been responsible for Rushdie getting his K, it would have been so nice, if Salmon, in his acceptance speech, would have addressed the prime minister directly, with these words from one of Dolly Parton’s songs, Little bit slow to catch on:
Well, I couldn’t see the light for the brightness
Of the sweet little smile you gave us
I couldn’t see how you were cheatin’ on us
But finally I’m a catchin’ on, on
Finally, I’m a’ catchin’ on
I’m a little bit slow to catch on
But when I do, I’m caught on
A little bit slow to move on
But your baby is a’ movin’ on, on
Your baby is a’ movin’ on
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