Mudcat Tavern Reopens!

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: Senoufou
Date: 28 May 20 - 06:05 PM

Old Lady is giggling at the cheeky bat.
Now who's going to have a second helping of rhubarb crumble? More cream anyone?
The Mapouka has been deferred until another day, because Old Lady is chock full of crumpets and crumble, and can hardly move. African Man heaves a huge sigh of relief.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 28 May 20 - 05:15 PM

As they were leaving, did they say Oil be back?

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: Senoufou
Date: 28 May 20 - 08:34 AM

I'm afraid White Widow and her little friend the Skunk aren't allowed in the Tavern because they stink. Sorry. They came into the joint once but made a hash of their visit.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 28 May 20 - 07:52 AM

Drums start up from the darker corners of the Tavern. A thumb-piano joins in, plinketing... Aaaand, the bat is warbling again, but luckily too high for the humans to notice.
Speaking of too high, where *is* that white widow?

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: Senoufou
Date: 27 May 20 - 03:53 PM

African Man is fighting fit again, as his knee is back to normal.
He gives the bat a gentle stroke, then gets on with his work behind the bar serving up different foods and drinks.
Old Lady is making rhubarb crumble for everyone, with double cream.
(very slimming) She has been picking rhubarb all afternoon and it's delicious.
Sam the Skull is dozing on a sofa. One of his eyes is now blind (cataract) and he looks a scraggy old thing. But he keeps smiling and purring. Old Lady is making sure he doesn't bite the bat.
Please could we have some music from the Tavern clientele? Old Lady is itching to dance the Mapouka (African Man groans softly)

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 27 May 20 - 01:50 PM

And Emmet means Ant, so maybe that's why there are, um, crawlies in the sugarbowl.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 26 May 20 - 03:18 AM

Dick van Dyke also has connections to Roland Emmett. Emmett designed the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang car!

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 25 May 20 - 10:42 AM

Refreshingly, the bat clings to the rafters of the nearly-empty Tavern...

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 22 May 20 - 11:56 AM

Ok *now* the bat is happy! And there will be crumpets!

Dick van Dyke has parked his contraption and moved onto Norm's cheerful barstool.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: Senoufou
Date: 22 May 20 - 08:22 AM

Old Lady helps African Man along to a sofa (he's strained his knee while painting the corridor walls of the school, and splodged paint all over his cleaner's uniform too) and hurriedly crams lots of crumpets into the giant toaster for when Tatty Bogle wakes up.
African Man invites the bat to sit beside him and to warm his sore knee muscles at the same time. Old Lady is opening pack after pack of butter for the crumpets.
The Squidlets are starting to sing; they form a lovely little choir.
"Knee'll Meet Again" ??

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 21 May 20 - 07:12 PM

TB returns after nearly two weeks of trying out everyone's Zoom rooms, (now that IS promiscuous), and sampling all the single malts. She rolls back in for some downtime, singing "Leave us our Glens", somewhat out of tune, and narrowly missing a squirm of squidlets lying on the floor and a big bat flying overhead. She slumps on the sofa and tucks into a pile of crumpets before nodding off and snoring loudly.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 20 May 20 - 04:59 PM

The Black Belt Caterpillar Wrestler is collected from the beach by Igor.

Apparently part of the Roland Emmet railway layout that he was so taken by, having remembered seeing it in a Cheltenham department store when he was very little, has just been featured on the BBC program “The Repair Shop”. He is delighted that part of the display has survived and restored to running order.

He and Igor head off to the model railway room to run the replica there.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 19 May 20 - 09:35 AM

Severn, Ada, Nyna and Tennyson Clark arrive with their vertical smiles...

Meanwhile the bat is back at the Ringworld beach scarfing the neck of the lamb, wearing shades and hanging upside-down from a sunny-side up palm frond (with no egg on their face).

The smallest squidlet is farting bubbles in the tide-pool. Those nearby are fit to be tied. Most everybody else is just unfit.

The crowd at the bar is no longer three-deep, but too many of its members are lawyers for the ballerinas to be able to kick up their heels in the style to which we'd all like to become accustomed.

The musicians are fading, especially the ghost of Ed McCurdy, whose rich and almost furry baritone has lost its pear-shaped tones thanks to singing with a trio. The harpist is still going on and on, though.

The African Man uses his marvelous feet to bring the bat another hot whiskey, walking out in his tie-dyed socks onto the hot, hot beach. A strand of his wild hair blows in the zephyr over the ivory sands of the coast as he turns back, just in time for the empty glass, slipping from the bat's greasy claws, to miss him by millimeters. The sand may be hot but it's soft, so only the fall is broken, not the glass. After all, it isn't autumn on *this* beach.

It may be easy to fool some people but hot whiskey is not served in a mug...

The bat, after a refreshing and cleansing dip in the surf, flutters back indoors, squeaking for crudités. Yo Yo Ma told Boutros Boutros Ghali that the couscous was so-so, but it was actually truly scrumptious, which causes Dick van Dyke to show up in some kind of noisy contraption on wheels. The gulls take exception as their colony moves through the sky above the island, dancing an arial avian scottische. A red-headed mermaid sings just beautifully along with the tooralooras, gracefully dodging the gull guano.

What a lovely and promiscuous time is being had by all!

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: Severn
Date: 18 May 20 - 02:29 PM

After a wonderful set ranging from classic Folksongs game and ribald, Ed's ghost sits at a table with Severn, who owned quite a few of his recordings, and listens to Severn tell of his own dream about Ed's classic "Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream", where one of the gathered World Leaders, possibly from Andorra, looked at the mess in the streets and asked who was going to clean it all up. There was much denial from all sides, resulting in loud arguments and a few cases of fisticuffs, until finally some folks stepped up ?and signed papers taking responsibility for at least parts of the cleanup and all went home

The poor people who lacked clothing quickly grabbed up some of the uniforms left over from the soldiers who chose to March home in their skivvies and the odd gun or two.

In the middle of the night, fleece of white trucks pulled up. Some had diplomatic plates with newly painted sides saying thing things like "Ivan's Scrap Metal", "Abdul's Salvage" , "Feng Fu's Foundry" and "Kwame's Iron Works with large crews of men filling the trucks up to the brim. Most of the plain white unmarked truck had U.S. Government plates, most, likely traceable to the CIA and it looked like there were a few independent contractors there whose trucks said "Captain Curt's Collectables", "Simon's Surplus", "Ghetto Gary's Thrifts & Gifts" and such.

The next morning, another fleet of trucks that had official signed papers for them to take care of the cleanup and were surprised to find, other than the odd torn or outsized scraps of uniform.nothing but untold thousands of drums.....

"Where am I supposed to take all these Damn drums?"
A man in a straw hat and a sersuck sports coat steps up and says, " Excuse me sir, my name is Professor Harold Hill.... "

In six months,the guns have been relocated elsewhere, the trucks have been repainted and the world was back as it was, except a few arms dealers are even richer than ever..

"Pretty impressive," Ed told Severn, " but as you see, I'm dead, so the song is all yours to write. Remember, the melody is protected for my surviving family, so that part you will have to tweak slightly yourself. "

Time for my next set! I gotta go...Any requests? "

'The Trinity Cake'

"You've got it! Wow! That goes back....."

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 16 May 20 - 08:40 AM

The ghost of Ed McCurdy joins the musicians and his beautiful baritone brings the bat out of their stupor...

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 13 May 20 - 05:50 PM

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzhonkkkkkwhshshshsh...

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: Senoufou
Date: 13 May 20 - 01:40 PM

Semimodo and Les the Lawn Moor soon decide that the enormous white cotton potato sack-like bloomers are probably those of Old Lady. They need four clothes pegs to secure them to the line, and could serve as a tent for the homeless.
The greedy little bat starts to snore loudly, being full to the brim with food. Old Lady pops a woolly blanket over it.
Everybody is dozing off for a little siesta after their activities.
Later in the evening the music will start, and lovely traditional songs will be sung.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 13 May 20 - 01:18 PM

The bat flies into the kitchen, where the flies bat the cooks. What is the deliciousness I smell? Someone opens a window onto the Ringworld beach. It's the mechoooouuuuiiiii! And the bat, seizing 16 pairs of French sunglasses, whirls out and starts pulling pieces of lamb onto a banana leaf, scoops some juice onto the couscous, and finds a pouffy anemone-looking beanbag in the shallows to gorge. Drips rinse right off that way.
After a short digestive nap, the bat crawls in that weird not-flying bat locomotory fashion over to the clambake pit, gathering a large quantity of melted butter within the cone they made out if the banana leaf they'd licked clean, plus a wingful of clams and three cobs of corn, and settles back on their pouffy beanbag to overeat some more...
A kind Old Lady settles nearby, dipping crumpets into the excessive amounts of melted butter in the leaf-cone stuck into the sand.
An even kinder bird with slightly singed feathers pelts the bat with forgotten lemon wedges, and carefully places a nice little StJacques' shell of mignonette between bat and lady...

What is for dessert? wonders the overstuffed beanbag-sitter, rolling off and into the sea for a refreshing, cleaning, and crudités-less dip. Sure hope it's got chocolate in it. And where is that white widow?

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: Severn
Date: 13 May 20 - 12:12 PM

Semimodo, the hunchback in the bell tower calls down to Les The Lawn Moor who guards the front entrance to catch the end of rope he is throwing down and tie it part way up the flagpole. He lowers down a long clothesline with all manner of clothing attached with wooden clothes pins. He attaches the other end in the tower the garments wet and dry flutter in the breeze. The mystery of where the birds deposited the stolen goods is solved.It got so the hunchback could hardy move, much less ring a bell up there. Les aided by his binoculars, and looks at all the underwear, some with inscriptions and some with fancy designs and he and Semimodo make bets on which ones belong to whom.....

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 13 May 20 - 08:23 AM

The cartoon fox and bear insist on quaffing ale and shooting arrows at crows. "Take that silly bonnet off!" mixes in...

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: Rapparee
Date: 13 May 20 - 07:43 AM

Time for an English ballad, he thinks, and breaks out in "The Bastard King of England."

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: Senoufou
Date: 13 May 20 - 06:48 AM

Haaaahaaaahaaaagh Shug! That's the funniest thing I've read for ages! I'm going to post it to my sister near Perth in Tayside, she'll love it!

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: Shug Hanlan
Date: 13 May 20 - 04:35 AM

Channelling my inner Matt McGinn.

ON YOUR BIKE
(AGAIN)

The Norman Tebbit special
was still in the Bike Shed,
so I went back to work in England
just like Boris said.

I pedalled fast and furious
down roads all marked South,
maintaining social distancing
hardly opening my mouth.

I reached the Sawmill in Manchester
but never got past the door.
They said that I'd been sacked
over forty years before.

My mood darkened further,
I found my tyres were flat.
The bosses shouted, "Stay Alert,
you stupid Scottish twat."

SHUG HANLAN

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: Senoufou
Date: 13 May 20 - 04:02 AM

Smiling African Man has grown his woolly white beard considerably, not to mention his literally 'afro' hair, and says he'll hardly feel the cold in merely his underwear. But Old Lady is tutting loudly, and has A Plan.
She sends for Sam The Skull, who brings his housemates along too, and they hunt assiduously for the missing clothes, having been promised a reward of delicious cooked chicken slices and a large bowl of milk. They are also instructed to keep Billy the Squid and the other very naughty mischief-makers under their eye, and order is restored.
"This is a bit like a classroom..." mutters Old Lady. "Er...wait........"

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 12 May 20 - 07:27 PM

Who needs clothes when you got furrrr!

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: Severn
Date: 12 May 20 - 06:31 PM

Billy The Squid and his rowdy gang of squidlings, through consuming the spilt whiskey off the floor, go back outside to the beach to find that birds have already flown off with all the shed clothing, which foiled their plot to hide it all in the apiary for lack of a Christmas tree to hang them on. They look around for other pranks to be played.

Meanwhile, the fate of the missing clothing remains unknown.....

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 12 May 20 - 04:36 PM

The bat hopes their cousin was delicious!

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: Donuel
Date: 12 May 20 - 07:55 AM

I got a bit peckish and had a fried bat on a stick. Covid be damned.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 12 May 20 - 07:48 AM

Is the mechoui ready? How about the clambake?

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 10 May 20 - 06:36 PM

Hippo birdie deer ewe! squeaks the bat at that news, whirling widdershins about the large African's hasn't-been-to-the-barber-in-a wild hairdo and showering his cold (yet still cuddly) feet with soft, warmed-at-the-fire tie-dyed socks...
Of course, from the African's point of view, looking upward, the bat is again circling clockwise.
<>

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: Senoufou
Date: 10 May 20 - 01:41 PM

Old Lady rolls on the floor laughing as the naughty little bat flaps back into the Tavern completely nude. But the newly knitted jumper is ready, and it is soon enveloped in warm woolly comfort.
Fortunately the parliament of owls has pursued the other birds and recovered all the clothes.
Now, anyone for more buttered crumpets? Real ale? Various malt whiskies?
And Old Lady has some fruit scones just coming out of the oven.
It is African Man's birthday today, so once the sun goes down he can eat some scones (it's Ramadan) and a huge portion of the Fiery Horror curry.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 10 May 20 - 01:29 PM

Who wears underwear [evil grin]?

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: Senoufou
Date: 10 May 20 - 12:17 PM

Everyone cowers fearfully as a murder of crows flies past. But they cheer up when a charm of goldfinches follows, and a mischief of magpies.
(Old Lady would spit if only one magpie were in view, as this cancels the bad luck. But more than one is all right).
In the sea, African Man is paddling tentatively up to his knees (he cannot swim) but Old Lady plunges in. (She floats like a cork)
Unfortunately, the mischief of magpies has seized the clothes lying on the beach. Helped by a flotilla of very naughty swans, they fly away.
Now everyone will have to return to the Tavern in their wet underwear!
Oh dear! Oh dear!

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 10 May 20 - 10:07 AM

The bat and the big African, with the help of all those bloody birds, are digging pits on the Ringworld beach. One will be for the old New England-style clambake, corn on the cob and so on. One will be for the whole lamb stuffed with couscous mechoui. Will we need more? The birds will turn the spit, without the smell of singeing feathers, but with the sound of singing.
At least it gets the birds out of the Tavern for a while. Except for the parliament, as the nocturnal owls are wisely staying at the bar, and the penguins, whose huddle in the walk-in freezer plaintively requests mojitos. The bat, whenever the light is too much at the beach (not to mention the pit digging) but who can hear them plainly, fetches them their drinks, then brings buttered crumpets back for the pit diggers.
Now everyone is buttered, and sandy, and (if mammalian) sweaty, so we have to go swim a bit.
A pile of large clothes are, or is, left on the beach...

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: Senoufou
Date: 09 May 20 - 03:59 PM

Glenmorangie, Glenlivet, Glenfiddich and several other single malts are offered to the very entertaining TB for her to choose, and they're all guaranteed to contain no jello.
Old Lady has enjoyed the Wellie Song so much she has to sit down for a minute and compose herself.
Now where is that sweet little bat? Old Lady has knitted it a soft, multi-coloured jumper to wear when the evening gets rather chilly.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 09 May 20 - 01:51 PM

Old Lady and TB launch into the Wellies song again:

Chorus
If it wisnae fur yer wellies
Where wud ye be?
You'd be in the hospital
Or infirmary
Cause you wid hae a dose o the flu
Or even pleurisy
If ye didnae hae yer feet in yer wellies!

Wellies they are wunderful
Wellies they are swell
They keep out the watter
And they keep in the smell
When your sittin in a room
You can ayeways tell
When some B***r takes aff their wellies.

Chorus

When ye're oot walking in the country with a bird
And your strolling about the fields, like a fermer's herd
And someb'dy shouts"Keep aff The grass"
And you think how absurd
Squelch you'll find why fermers wear wellies.

TB's mind is noo well-blawn and she needs no just crumpets, but a guid wee dram o single malt: nae jello in it, please!

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: Donuel
Date: 08 May 20 - 05:19 PM

I hear a familiar tune
from the back room

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: Donuel
Date: 08 May 20 - 05:04 PM

Tonces (Tune-sez) is a cat who knows how to drive a car, however poorly.

Just like stable genius' who know how to do things.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: keberoxu
Date: 08 May 20 - 03:30 PM

I thought the cat was known
as Sam the Skull,
or is this a different cat ...

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: Donuel
Date: 08 May 20 - 03:27 PM

Tonces the cat leapt for the bat behind the bar and started a domino avalanche of liquor bottles. Without hardly moving Mryz caught a single malt scotch and began to pour into a red solo cup.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 08 May 20 - 02:28 PM

A congress, a parliament and a party create a pandemonium in a congregation. The bat objects strenuously, being without its cloud. Flush the battery! quarrels the committee. The bat, in foul disgust, stops reading collective avian terminology before a murder is committed. Even one with exaltation would be a wrench, chimes a wisp of unkindness.

But just then there is a loud crash...

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: Rapparee
Date: 08 May 20 - 11:37 AM

Looking at the bartender, he remembers that a gator wearing a vest is an investigator and wonders if WHO's interested now.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: Donuel
Date: 08 May 20 - 09:49 AM

All the songs about pandemic I heard in the tavern were morbid or profane. Suddenly STEEL DRUMS pick up my spirit with zippy calypso beat and a tune we all already know.
You know, the one sung by a red crab. Finally I hear A Happy pandemic tune
Under the sea:

The sickest are always greener
In somebody else's State
You dream about going 'up' there
But that is a big mistake
Just look at the world around you
Right here at blue heaven's gate
Such wonderful things surround you
What is your ultimate fate?

In Quarantine
In Quarantine
Each little griever
Down with a fever
Take it from me

Up in Montana they work all day
In the meat plants they slave away
The Navy's devotin'
No Hospital boatin'
Docked in the bay

Out there all the folks is happy
Like hot dogs snug in their roll
The old in a home ain't happy
They sad 'cause they got a cold
But folks on the phone are lucky
on a cruise you have a worser fate
One day everyones sickly
eatin off the same ol' plates

In quarantine
In quarantine
Nobody beat us
We jus breathed dust
Stuff we can't see

Its the old folks who are on the hook
Lots of food for the young to cook
They got no troubles
Life is all bubbles
In quarantine (out on the beach)
In quarantine
Since life is sweet here
We got the beat here
Naturally (Naturally)

Even the doctor and the nurse
They get the surge an ride the hearse
We got the spirit
You got to hear it
Above the streets

Yeah, In quarantine
In Quarantine
playin the B ball
life is in free fall.
In Quarantine

The mail man can play
The grocers on strings
The krauts rockin' out
The agent she sings
The spanic and the black
They know where it's at
An' oh that trumpet blow

Yeah, In quarantine
In quarantine
When the projects
Begin the concert
It's music to me (It's music to me)
What do they got? A Stienway grand?
We got a hot apartment house band
Each little fam here
Know how to jam here
In quarantine
Each little bug here
Cuttin' a rug here
In quarantine
Each giant whale here
Know how to wail here
That's why it's better
Under the weather
Ya not much luck here
Stuck in New York here
in quarantine

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 08 May 20 - 09:02 AM

But moths get cut off.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 08 May 20 - 09:01 AM

Mothers of all genders, mothers of invention, mothers of pearl, and even moths all get free drinks.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: keberoxu
Date: 07 May 20 - 06:52 PM

What is the Mudcat Tavern
doing for Moth-er's Day, anyhow?

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 06 May 20 - 09:51 AM

The diff between Walt Disney and a Scotsman is that the Scotsman wears a kilt, but Walt disnae, squeaks the bat in an awful fake burr, dripping crumpet butter and scattering crumbs. Loud opprobrium from all the Africans, be they pretty or ladies, or both, or neither, as well as from everyone else, chases the grinning bat back into the rafters. The bartenders are thinking of cutting them off (the bat, not the Africans).

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: Senoufou
Date: 06 May 20 - 03:15 AM

The frown on Old Lady's face was merely due to a touch of indigestion (far too many crumpets!) and she begs TB to sing the Wellies song right through, so she can join in, using her best Glasgae accent. African Man hasn't a clue what it all means, but he's heard the song many many times on Youtube (Old Lady has a habit of playing it over and over) so he does his best to sing along.
TB's attempt at the Mapouka is mind-blowing. Loud applause from all the pretty African ladies.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 05 May 20 - 07:45 PM

Oh dear, late to the party again! "In comes I" says the tardy Tattie Bogle, then launches into "If it wasnae for your wellies". Old Lady frowns, so TB switches to singing "California Girls". One of the bats has hitched a ride on her shoulder, but soon flies off when he hears the concertina and pipes. Tattie settles down to a very large crumpet drenched in butter, which gives her enough energy to try the Mapouka with African ladies. She then re-arranges all the sunbeds to be exactly 2.0000000000 metres apart, before taking off her wellies and sprawling full length on one.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Tavern Reopens!
From: Senoufou
Date: 05 May 20 - 01:17 PM

Old Lady is delighted - all the Beach Boy songs are excellent!