Moustaches

 

“A kiss without a moustache is like an egg without salt.”

This saying dates back to Victorian times. The origin is unknown but has been cited to various authors, Rudyard Kipling, Rose Wilder Lane and Jean-Paul Sartre, who is thought to have added “and it is like Good without Evil”.

I remember my dad saying it a lot, when he grew a moustache in his later years. It was just ordinary, nothing stylish. I didn’t like it. Not one bit. He had new glasses at the same time and his whole appearance changed from the happy looking man with a kind face I adored, into someone I felt like I needed to be very wary of. He looked like a cross between the horrid piano teacher I used to have and the equally horrid landlord of a flat I used to rent. Fortunately, my father didn’t stink of stale cigars and his moustache wasn’t stained dirty yellow with nicotine like my piano teacher. Dad disliked the landlord as much as I did and I would tease him about being a copycat. It was a relief when that moustache was shaved off, though the glasses remained.

Each to their own, of course, but isn’t a high maintenance styled moustache over the top and time consuming? Personally, I like a beard attached, but I’m only seeing the results, not looking after it.

The music I favoured in the ‘60s and ‘70s, was progressive rock and symphonic rock. Band members with long hair and often moustaches and beards. I found this poem that took me back to those young, impressionable times. And the music is the same and always there, with a few new bands collected along the way. The poem is by American poet, Gershon Wolf.

Freaky and Weird

We grew our hair down to our shoulders
Hirsute, we were, moustaches and beards,
Turned up our noses at those who were older
‘Cos we were so hip, so freaky, so weird.

Revved up our stereos, going stone-deaf,
Dropped pill after pill, of common sense bereft,
Wore psychedelic threads to match our psychedelic brains.
We thought ourselves ‘free’, but we were really in chains.

Don’t ask me if the Sixties were ‘wonderful years!’
- Just leave me alone with my cigars and my beer.

                                                                    Gershon Wolf

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Superstition - Good Afternoon, Mr Magpie

It was here again the other day. I heard it before I saw it, that horrible noise, like a distorted football rattle, then it swooped down from next door’s tree to strut around my garden like it owns the place. The magpie. Hopefully, there’s another one coming along. Not that I’m superstitious. After a muttering of “Good afternoon, Mr Magpie, pass my best wishes to your good lady wife” I forget all about him and carry on wiping down the kitchen. I notice him fly away with a companion, “One for sorrow, two for joy”, that’s good.

It is just as well that I’m not bothered by cracks in the footpath. I can’t avoid them when I’m pegging out washing and so far, I haven’t come to any harm. They give the courtyard character and somewhere to brush away the shattered shell of the snail I didn’t mean to tread on.

I’m not worried by the number thirteen, but I wouldn’t want to have thirteen people round a dinner table or gathering. That’s the one thing I share with the queen. Actually, I don’t think I know twelve people who would join me for dinner. Well, after lockdown, maybe.

There are superstitious rules concerning cutlery which have existed from my childhood and probably made up by my grandmothers and other ladies of their generation in my family to encourage good table manners. Dropped cutlery meant unexpected visitors and if it was a knife, the visitor would be a man. I don’t believe I’ve ever witnessed this. I wonder what we’d get if I dropped a handful of teaspoons? No, I’m not experimenting. Anyway, it’s got to be accidental. There is a correct way to leave cutlery on a finished plate. Deviate from the acceptable and we’re inviting the devil, apparently. The devil doesn’t like salt. Spilling salt causes bad luck. Quickly remedy the situation by throwing a pinch over your left shoulder into the eyes of the waiting devil. To spill salt was considered to be wasting money, dating back to ‘salary’ times.

I once broke the mirror on a handbag compact. I still use it, very carefully because it has a sharp bit and I’ve had the odd nick. I should really buy a new one. I’m not aware of any bad luck as a result, certainly not seven years’ worth. When it comes to personal care, no nail trimming on Sundays, but I’ve no idea why not.

Is it just me with pillowcases? The open ends must always face the same way, usually towards a window and I won’t change bed linen on a Friday. Superstition or not?

Here is my haiku for that pesky bird,

Strutting so aloof

As if it owns my garden.

Arrogant magpie.

Thanks for reading, stay safe and well. Back soon, fingers crossed. Pam x

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