We the men of the Sussex Weald
When winters nights are long
Sit beside the deep log fire
And sing the Sussex songs
We talk of crops and fertile soil
Of rich earth turned by the plough
Of fishing boats who from harbours small
Reap a harvest from the shoals
Strong ale shared by those who care
About the Sussex weald
Yes we, we who care we will be the shield
We the men of the Southern downs
Yes we of the Sussex weald
To no man will we go on bended knee
To no man will we yield

Martin Narrod  just now
I started working on a comment in response to "Filling A Bottle With A Tundish"

Sadly I must admit, that even for an American with a college degree, who is a self-proclaimed non-Philistine that grew up in a suburb of Chicago, IL. Where I'm from I've been told is much like some parts of Sussex(I believe it's Sussex), my friend Lili Wilde described it to me on an occasion.

So I must say martin, that for having a voracious appetite for language, language of all sorts, from **** to sin, to cinephile to cynosure, pulchritude to tup, exsuphlocate to masticate, irate, irk, perfervid, wan ewes thwapping their tails, nearly stridulating like the cricket in the thistle. The advanced undulate troche of domesticated shadows, and the sesquipedelien dulciloquent surreptitious diction and other floccinaucinihilipilification and tomfoolery about.

martin, please do tell me what a 'Tundish" is? If you haven't yet, there is a phenomenally interesting reverse dictionary, entitled onelook.com/reversedictionary , and quite contrary as it may seem, and for all the Virginia & Leonard Woolf I enjoy reading, especially his somewhat innocuously underrated novella he wrote, I also read with extraordinary gratitude Ted Hughes's The Birthday Letters, Take of a Bride Groom, The Complete Works, Sylvia Plath's Unabridged Journals, Ariel, Johnny Panic, Ariel, and other poems by writer Richard Matthews. I am still unfamiliar with this word, Tundish. Online dictionaries don't give the best explanation.

As I was mentioning earlier. The OneLook Dictionary-Reverse, will let you for example, search: beach sand. And in response it will give you up to thousands and thousands of word which relate to those two words, together, seperately, and opposing each other. Such as: water, swell, wave, arenose, peat, dirt, seagull, Pacific Ocean, suntan, bikini, The Beach Boys, vitrify. It's very fun indeed. From one Martin to another, I hope you'll stay in touch. I'm excited about your work!

Best Regards

Martin

P.S. The text below is the original message I typed before learning that my presumptions of you being Anglican were correct. Have a great day!

Another Martin, YES! How exquisite, I've never met another one. I have so many questions I barely know where to start. I love marigolds, nose-bags with oats, and as I started feeling the essences if equus and what lurking prurient pedagogy for the didactic zoology that took me and the mind of me to wonder perhaps if though I am quite certain(though not 100%) that your native tongue is English, but using that ridiculous skill-set of immense benality I seem to someone have, am I wrong for asking dear Martin, are you from Scotland or Wales, or maybe even from a country where you learnt English as a native tongue but it's your secondary language?

As aforementioned, there are a plethora of questions that this runnel of sludge and dross that've now arisen in the turpidity of your antiquary of delightful speech. To whomever invited me to play along in the debauchery, and dance merrily with merriment, mine younger docile succubus's slendering beside me, puking up their tissue paper and vegetable soup, so that my pretty girls can fit into Size 2 TuTu's, and learnedly imprison themselves into the tatterdemalion of portentously lurid self-****** and abuse. , and the opprobrious trollop-gossip the gaggle of my skinny victim women eschewing food groups, in order to appeal to my conservative eyes, thrice the child's wild idling to absorb the rancor of their stoic and noisome sedentary lifestyle in the polluted sudatorium that I myself don't use, but that these nonparticular Philistines would serve as Surf & Turf with glazed Christmas Hams for the Hebrews to eat, and another sad storm surge on another deserted quay of sea sands, and our vessel and our deserters, worshipping the Virunga, sacrificing the ghost skeletons of the million year old ape. So I ask you. If even you're capable of expressing yourself under the maddening yet advesperating evening listening to Miles Kane and The Arctic Monkeys, followed by listening to Black Sabbath play Fairies Wear Boots while we drink our childhoods free of the rod and **** the war out of our teenage girlfriends. And in the morning when awoken by the sound of Sopwith Camels arriving on the early, frost-strewn milky, azure-banded stripes of moonlit ecstasy that make for this unquantifiable gesture of succinct believers driving in Summer get stopped for blowing a rice-white swiveling consortium of dishonest affair rivaling ****** addicts, with hummus, plastic bags, and forks in their sphincters, while they autoerotically asphyxiate themselves in a plastic knockoff Mickey Mouse hat, and a Pirates of the Carribbean bandana wrapped around the ***** eyed nightmare of having unsuccessfully sedated a 400-lb crabby, Lowland living-room Silverback Gorilla. More than a primate and a prostate exam. It's like posthumously straining to push tingling 119° Vaseline through the grey and white coffee stirrers which spilled all over the floor while I was saying goodbye to our daughter, while also explaining to you why it's so important to me you love me back enough so that everyone has enough of a grasping glint at understanding yourself, that in managing to reason the arithmetic of such a conundrum and confusing calamity, a phone call free of dial tone happens to be surrendered to an independent Christian organization of the state while myself and my wife's two sons, our sons, Thomas and James, have enough free time from complaining to hire an attorney to disclose the arraignment reiterated by both legal council, city council, and the Screenwriters Guild of counsellors struggling from methamphetamine addiction.

Peace Be With You.

Martin Narrod
martin.narrod@gmail.com

This poem was witten by my godfather Hilair Beloc 1870-1953

When I am living in the midlands
That are sodden and unkind
I light my lamp in the evening
My work is left behind
And the great hills of the South Country
Come back into my mind

The great hills of the South Country
They stand along the sea
And its there walking in the high woods
That I could wish to be
And the men that were boys when I was a boy
Walking along with me

The men that live in North England
I saw them for a day
Their hearts are set upon the waste fells
Their skies are fast and grey
From their castle walls a man may see
The mountains far away

The men that live in West England
They see the Severn strong
A rolling on rough water brown
Light aspen leaves along
The have the secret of the rocks
And the oldest kind of song

But the men that live in the South Country
Are the kindest and most wise
They get their laughter from the loud surf
And the faith in their happy eyes
Comes surely from our sister the spring
When over the sea she flies
The violets suddenly bloom at her feet
She blesses us with surprise

I never get between the pines
But I smell the Sussex air
Nor I never come on a belt of sand
But my home is there
And along the skyline of the Downs
So noble and so bare

A lost thing I could never find
Nor a broken thing mend
And I fear I shall be all alone
When I get towards the end
Who will be there to comfort me
Or who will be my friend

I will gather and carefully make my friends
Of the men of the Sussex Weald
They watch the stars from the silent folds
They stiffly plough the fields
By them and the God of the South Country
My poor soul shall be healed

If ever I become a rich man
Or if ever I grow to be old
I will build a house with a deep thatch
To shelter me from the cold
And there shall the Sussex songs  be sung
And the story of Sussex told

I will hold my house in the high woods
Within a walk of the sea
And the men that were boys when I was a boy
Shall sit and drink with me

We lined the ridge of Senlac hill
The shield wall stood five men deep
In the autumn chill
The came at us on horse and foot
But we were the men of the Sussex weald
Men who would not yealed
Our shields now hacked and broken
Bodies bloodied bruised and sore
But we the housecarles of the English King
Would stand and fight the war
Prince William came with his aray the English crown to take
But we the men of Sussex
Would many French bones break
Alas our shield wall has broken
Kentish men on the right have charged
They sought to cut the Norman line
And so the men of Kent did die
The French now archers did deploy
With bitter arows fired high
Harold, our king, our leige Lord
Took an arrow in his eye
We gathered round his body
We men of the Sussex Weald
Our king was dead, the battle lost
But Sussex men don't yeald
The shield wall now in disaray
Large gaps now opened up
Brave men now die before the spear
From the broadswords vicious cut
And so we died on Senlac ridge
But there were no wounds in our backs
We died for England's glory
Cut down by spear and axe

oh the average duke of sussex
he had 2000 soldiers
he marched them up to the top of the downs then rolled them down like boulders

and when they were here they were here
and when they were there they were there
and when they hit the barbed-wire fence they were neither here nor there

and when they were up they were up (in heaven)
and when they were down they were down (in hell)
and when they were only half way up
we called that life on earth

By: Cedric McClester

The Duchess of Sussex
Happens to be black
So the racists in Great Britain
Don’t know how to act
Or how to deal with
That salient fact
She was born in America
Now she’s coming back

Prince Harry loves her
And you can tell
He told his royal relatives
To go to hell
But a part-time royal
Isn’t easy to sell
And the Queen hasn’t
Weighed in, as well

They’ll spend half the year
In England
And the other half here
They may lose their allowance
Which they’re well aware
But the both of them lovebirds
Couldn’t give a care
There’s enough in their reserves to share

The Duchess of Sussex
Has been rebuked
Now she’s fed up
And so is her Duke
She’s not a nigress
Nor is she a *****
Those names that they call her
Would make anyone puke



















Cedric McClester, Copyright © 2020.  All rights reserved.

In England brown birds make dusty circles on overcast days,
The ground blankets itself in moss and cappuccino leaves.
So when the sharp lemony sun fills the breeze with warmth,
And white cotton clouds punctuate the sky and my eyelids,
It feels like home

My south country that we call the Sussex Weald
A place of gentle landscapes of softly rolling hills.
My south country where I grew up and played as a child
Where I learned of nature as I studied life in the wild.
They stand in magestic glory between the land and the rolling sea
Those magestic hills we call the downs
we of the Sussex Weald
Yes, I'm a man of the Sussex Weald, of generations long gone bye
I'm a man of the South Country
And as a south country man I'll die

The Avro Vulcan, a majestic big old iron bird, sublime,
was to do a flyby for just one memorable last time.
Maybe with a jet fighter or a Spitfire on each wing, who knew?…
Unthinkable to miss it… almost a crime.
Thousands turned up every year, always a great day out -
but this year would be special, there'd be no doubt.
The last flight of such a legendary plane made it essential…
So, after the flyers’ break for lunch, the crowd filled out.

The entry fee to occupy the field was heinous. 25 quid!
That was for adults - and a fiver for each kid.
So, many more than those that paid, sat happily outside pubs.
Others found shelter in the perimeter’s trees and... kinda hid.
Now, to see a Vulcan fly anytime, anywhere, was magic…
She was a Leviathan of the Cold War,
that held players in the planet’s power games in awe.
And this would be her last time doing the rounds on the air show circuit -
Seeing this locally was hard to ignore.

Mark (a nephew) was a window cleaner by trade.
A regular, down to earth, happy go lucky guy.
…Saturday comes and the kids all voted "McDonalds"…
“A Happy Meal!” they’d cry.
He said that was fine - they’d all go after he’d nipped over
to the airshow to watch the Vulcan fly.
No idea whatsoever, of course, that just by going to Shoreham
just 5 miles away, for half an hour or so… that he might die.

He told his fiancé he’d only be an hour or so…
be back in time to take the kids for a burger and, "NO!"...
He wouldn’t stay. He was the only one in the family
who was bothered anyway…so he wouldn’t ****** up their day.
So, in haste, because apparently Chicken Nuggets & Fries
was much better for the kids than a load of old planes,
he cranked the best out of his bike along the 27 and,
once at the lights by the Sussex Pad,
he pulled over to the kerb to watch from the bushes.
Good view? Well not bad!

Andy Hill was a flyer of many years. His weekday job,
flying for BA.Taking holiday makers, business folk, transatlantic in Seven Four Sevens...
A flight deck maestro, soaring up, just under the heavens.
He’d done Shoreham loads of times… it was exciting, exhilarating... almost sport, his game!
He was off the hook,  became an ace. It gave him that 15 minutes of fame!
Free to thrill - a hero! Standing out from the crowd with every daring step. His aim!

He wasn’t just a petrol head… this bloke had aviation fuel in his blood.
Adrenalin on tick-over. Nought to 60 in 2.7 seconds with 22,000 Horsepower under the hood.
He left Epping full of fuel, just 90 miles away, so in two ticks he was with us, fully loaded and, the weather? It was good.
First up after lunch at half past one… he streaked across the crowded field.
Over and out and up, up, up… Little did the spectators know that Andy had forgotten he was flying a Hunter…
He thought it was last year’s aborted routine in a Jet Provost… The one they'd stopped part way through being, too risky.

"He’s not gonna make it… I can’t look!" There was a hush… a nanosecond’s silence and then the rush,
the whoomph that said it all… that hush! The ground shook!
And the eleven - plus others injured - went up in Andy Hill’s very own fireball!
No, of course, Mark wasn’t the only one to die that day.
Ten other ‘innocents’ left us in pretty much the same way…
Maurice, Dylan, Tony, Matthew, Matt, Graham, Mark R, Daniele, Richard & Jacob.
Mark T, our Mark, had the distinction of having two funerals, not just the one…
More remains were discovered, analysed and found to be his!
Even after he’d…already well... ‘gone’.

The injustice that eleven spectators or just passers by should die
when the survivor, the off target driver, who sped too low from the sky, should, after a suitable pause in this ghoulish game, be exonerated and not take any blame.
Well it’s all sort of things… It's ridiculous, pathetic, obtuse, a joke… who do they think we are?

But the great and the good deliberated, scratched their heads and worked hard to make everything look ’right’…
Tolerance for the bereaved to grieve, platitudes, condescending attitudes, a memorial service.
Thanks - genuinely - to the emergency services… Not just a little buck-passing… But the public often judged them. Arsing about - to cover their corporate backside.
They can’t insult me (or us)… intelligent people have tried…

Andy Hill was judged to be not guilty of 11 counts of manslaughter by gross negligence.
But he claimed he blacked out in the air, having experienced ‘cognitive impairment’ brought on by hypoxia … possibly due to the effects of G-force…. Of course!
The 11 were either hit by the plane or roasted in a fireball caused when the jet flew too low and too slow. But if it wasn’t Andy’s fault then whose was it?

Surely this can’t be the end of this travesty of justice!!

BUT, there IS a new memorial to the dead. And, trust this...it’s a good one too…  The best that money can buy - and that anyone can do.

But there's is also a very bitter taste, still today…
that somehow... just won’t go away!

This is a terrifying tale as told by Ebeneezer Sweetlove, my late cousin*

I remember how I met Edwina all those years ago: and there was none of that "eyes connecting across a crowded room" crap. Well, not in a romantic sense - it was just pure lust. I suddenly realised this woman was staring at me with undisguised desire from the other side of a cocktail party at some boring conference at the five-star Grand Hotel. I was ***** as buggery as my latest girl friend had, just the previous week, committed suicide by jumping to a hideous death off scenic Beachy Head, so I returned the ****'s look with a lethally ****** stare of my own and then licked my lips as vulgarly as possible, indicating I was simply barking for a hot oral session, no holes barred.

The woman I was to know all too briefly as Edwina took the hint and came over and we talked as though we'd known each other all our lives; but even someone as suave as I was a little surprised when she groped me quite openly and shoved her tongue into my earhole, dribbling hotly down my cheek. And then she seemed to go all shy and little girl-like until I sophisticatedly suggested we go out for dinner and then back to my penthouse suite for a night of mind-blowing *******. I have to say I was embarrassed when the head waiter in the little bistro I selected complained when she took off her knickers and gave them to me for a refreshing sniff.

The *** was amazing - Edwina was like a beast on heat, screaming like a banshee while we ****** each other's brains out. Yet, in between *******, she was as gentle and charming as a little ***** cat. Six times I gave her my hot ***** that night: once in her mouth, then four times in the usual place, finishing off with one up her rear end. I was more or less totally drained of my love juices and in need of a good long kip before lunch.

But, tragedy struck: well before the dawn's early, she woke me and whispered she had to go as she had to get home before her husband got back after his night shift from down the sewers - he was apparently in charge of the entire East Sussex sewage system and liked to have an hour long shower every morning to get the stench of ***** off him.

I begged her to stay, saying I would happily pay for a divorce so I could have her with me for always. I even offered to have a contract put out on her sewer rat of a hubby, mentioning that my brother-in-law, Kosmo, was big in the Albanian mafia and owed me a favour. But she said no, I could ******* with my pleas. As dawn grew nearer I could see her becoming ever more frantic to leave and it was only then I realised the truth, having at last deciphered the real meaning of her blood-stained and scabby third ****** and the scarlet 666 tattoo on her luscious **** cheek.

Yes, Edwina was a ***-demon from deepest Hell and thus I was left with only one course of action. Ever so reluctantly, I bravely reached for the sacred wooden stake and mallet that I had carried round in my Dolce & Gabbana crocodile suitcase for so many years just in case of such an eventuality. Sadly I drove the stake into her beautiful ***** with a mighty blow and, instead of the blood which might have been reasonably expected, only a stream of warm **** poured out. Before my very eyes, her corpse disintegrated into a pile of odorous dust. Truly was Edwina a daughter of darkness.

As you may imagine, I had to give the chambermaid quite a hefty gratuity in order to get her to cleanse my room and to bin the evidence, but so grateful was she for the honorarium that she agreed to share my bed the very next night, knowing she would be likely to receive an immense tip of quite another category.

Now we all know the story of the grinch and the who's
So listen quite closely for I have some bad news
The Grinch is back in Whoville and before you make a fuss
The blame for his existence must fall on all of us
We the the Grinch in power, we elected him you see
This time the Grinch has got a name, it's Brian Mulroney!
You're a mean one Misher Grinch
The meanest man alive
You stay up in your mansion
At 24 Sussex Drive, Mister Grinch
The Grinch called for his council to gain some ideas
He planned to discover each persons worst fears
"I've demolished their lifestyles in the time I've been King"
Then he thought to himself, "That has a nice ring!"
"I've sold out the country to whomever would buy it"
"It's such a feeling of power, I wish you could try it!"
"I've taxed all I can  I've cut low cost housing"
"It makes me feel special, in fact it's arousing"
"I'll get them this Christmas, make them regret their decision
"Of voting NO on my Constitutional Vision"
"I;ll leave them no money to celebrate the season"
"And if they speak out against me, I'll charge them with treason"
Now, out in the Provinces the people spoke out
We;ve fot to find someone to knock the Grinch out
We've not much to choose from, It'll be a tough job
We cannot depend on the broad and the slob
Audrey McLughlin, I'm sure isn't up to the test
I'm not sure what's bigger her IQ or her chest
Jean Chretien was good, but his reputation is fraying
And if you're not from Quebec, you don't know what he's saying!
The Grinch was a terror who did not like free speech
Elijah Harper learned this when he put "MEECH" on the beach
We need a strong leader to whom the torch can be past
It doesn't matter what party, we just need one fast.
Back up on the hill, the Grinch started to fume
He was feeling threatened by someone, but he wasn't sure whom,
He called in Joe Clark and they formed a long list
Of all those against him, but there was someone they'd missed!
They listed the Premiers from the West to The Rock
There was not one name among them that was made of the stock
to take on the Country and make it stand strong and free
In fact of 5 of 11 couldn't quite spell B.C.!
But deep in his soul the Grinch still felt a tingle
So he called on hils staff and fave Geroge Bush a jingle
Maybe H. Ross Perot was a citizen up here,
You know who he is, he's the one with the ears!
The Prez told the Grinch that Perot wasn no threat
But, the Grinch was still worried, there was someone else yet...
Now the people waged searches in each nook and cranny
And the leader they'd found had a beard, was named Lanny
He said "I can help you but I'll not thake the reigns"
"But, you'll find your new leader if you'll just read MACLEANS"
The people thought hard and when they broke from their huddle
They remembered a phrase from the past "Fuddle Duddle!"
The leader they sought was Pierre Elliot Trudeau!
But no one was sure if he'd return to the show
They approached the ex-leader and they spoke of their quest
They all spoke of taxes and how he was the best
To come back to The Grits and be saviour for all
He thought on it a bit and then he stood up quite tall
He said "Yes, I'll do it!", and his voice came alive
"What I buggered in twelve years, The Grinch has ******* in five!"
Now, the rest of the story is yet to be told
The winds of change are a blowing and they're blowing quite cold
Please heed what I've written and think for a while
For the Grinch is still here with his chin and his smile
This Christmas think ******* the message I've sent
Let's make it the last he get his seven per-cent
Let's make this a Christmas both Joyous and true
Let's give the Grinch what he gave us, but let's give it times two!

Worry not for where the steamer heads
it simply helps us run away
But before you close this door for good
please listen to what I say

I'd never keep you from your loved ones
only your pride could e'er do that
and just because we sail away
doesn't mean we won't sail back

Why content yourself with hearsay
and yet insist I give you proof
The love you feel for me is real
but for him much more aloof

I can't promise you a lifetime
any more than any man
but what we have is here right now
with him its just a sham

You ask of me some guarantee
and then provide your own
That to live with one you do not love
would be worse than if alone

My love is not a lie my love
and never could it be
it's simply a dream thats unfulfilled
a dream of you and me

But if you choose to go to Sussex
please do not take me there
For these memories will haunt you
and lead you to despair.

Instead cast memories aside
both of me and of this week
I will think of you in Sussex
each time your name I speak

For though my this dream may not come true
I'll not deny it came to pass
For I will see its memory
in every looking glass

I'll not say another word my love
the decision must be yours
We both know that truth and happiness
starts through the cabin doors