Anton's Ideas

Anton Wills-Eve on world news & random ideas

Month: February, 2015

25/02/2015

A HOLE LOT OF LOVIN’


<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/three-perfect-shots/”>Three Perfect Shots</a>

 

                                       A HOLE LOT OF LOVIN’

 

The top players all agree, golf is a game you play in your head. It’s all psychological.I’m so lucky. My study window just overlooks, if you lean out and use a pair of binoculars, the tenth hole at the Royal Liverpool Golf Club at the Wirral seaside town of Hoylake in North West England. It has staged the British Open golf championship twelve times, one of the world’s four ‘majors’, and so also more often than any other course in England. We had it again this year. The whole place was packed for a week with foreigners and it was all great fun.

But try playing Hoylake in mid winter. Gary Player, Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus all rate it the most difficult course in England and it probably also holds the world record for the most number of swear words uttered within a radius of 500 metres of any one spot in a year. I have probably contributed a high per centage.

But oh the short 13th (depending on how the course is set up) is a golf maniac’s dream. The only way you can do it in par three is to hit all three shots incorrectly. Play it as advised by the professionals and you will end up in a bird sanctuary, on a sandy shore with ten foot waves at the wrong time of day, or simply in a bunker in which you cannot even see your feet let alone the rest of the course.

Well if I MUST tell a ‘golfie’, let me take you back 28 years to that wonderful April day when I hooked my drive so badly it struck the pin on a neighbouring green and ricocheted  back onto the fairway, missing the dreaded bunker. This left me a delicate pitch into the wind, only 30 yards from the pin. I smacked it so hard it finished up 30 yards the other side of the green. My playing partner put his bag of clubs on the ground, we carried our own bags in those days. It was to the right of the flag, off the green of course, but towards my ball. He played a decent chip to within 15 feet from the hole and looked happy at the thought of a four. I decided to cut under the ball and try running it across the green and hope it went towards the flag. It didn’t. I tweaked it so badly it shot like a bullet into the the side of my friend’s bag, shot back onto the green and sped like lightening towards the hole. 

Oh wonder of wonders! I’d cracked it so hard it wedged between the flag stick and the side of the hole. I Knew I was allowed to remove the flag stick as long as I did not move my ball. I very carefully lifted the fluttering number 13 high into air and stood in stupor as my ball dropped into the cup for an unprecedented three. I really was on cloud nine.

Now if you wonder how I remember the details of that exploit so well imagine trying to perfect something and succeeding only once in 46 years. Anything at all, believe me you don’t forget a second of it. And every time you recount the feat the exaggerations get just that little bit more unbelievably brilliant. Ah  yes, the only way to play the greatest game really is in your head!

 

Anton Wills-Eve

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23/02/2015

WHENCE I CAME


<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/local-flavor/”>Local Flavor</a>

on ‘word prompt’ about where I came from.

WHENCE I CAME

 

My father and mother were fourteen thousand miles apart, give or take the odd furlong, when they first heard about each other. He was eight years younger and she was reputed to be looking for a third husband, preferably a toy boy, and was impatient that she should captivate someone suitable before the war broke out, as all expected. This was in September 1938. She happened to be lounging by the pool of her Thames side mansion in Buckinghamshire opposite Windsor, give or take the odd furlong.

She was very attractive, one of the highest paid female entertainers in Britain, and her colleagues and cronies, one did not have friends in the theatre and film world in England in those days, all placed bets on which current up and coming matinee idol  would suit her taste. She was reading the back page of an Australian newspaper, which a fellow thespian had dropped in her lap out of spite, and she was intrigued by the photograph of a young dentist who had recently qualified to practise his science, and even won a scholarship to go to England and  start his career there. She drew a red circle round his name and dropped the paper on the outdoor coffee table  where she envisaged alleviating her boredom later that evening.

By chance that same day a young, newly qualified dentist, in Brisbane, Australia, happened to see an advertisement for a new film about to take Australia by storm, or tornado or whatever things take Australia by, and was overcome at once by an attack of paroxsyzmal atrial fibrulation  which continued throughout the voyage to England, six weeks on a boat via the Suez Canal.

As happy fate would have it he was walking down Piccadilly shortly after his arrival in London, one never walks up  this thoroughfare though for the life of me I have no idea why not, when who should he bump into but the film star of his dreams.

“You!” She heart throbbed at him,  –  you know like mad; really hammed it up.

“You,”he replied, for Australians are a race of few words and soon, he hoped, to be of fewer teeth.

Well a week later before the glitter of Fleet Street cameramen and columnists they were wed amid unalloyed joy and the whole of the west End was in raptures. Thirteen months later they had a daughter, an absolute cherub who was just a weeny bit too young to star in a war picture, but fifteen months after that they had a son. He was a child of immense charisma and obvious talent, even at that age, so I am told. And who am I to dispute this tribute for that little boy was I.

THE END

Anton Wills-Eve

 

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21/02/2015

BUCKETS AND SPADES 2035 AD


<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/tourist-trap/”>Tourist Trap</a>

tourist destination prompt.

 

                             BUCKETS AND SPADES, 2035 AD

 

“Oh, mummy, look! The sea. And a big match stick going up into the air at one end.”

Her mother laughed.”Anita, that’s not a matchstick it’s Blackpool Tower. It’s famous. All the poor working class people used to go there for their summer holidays  because there were donkeys on the beach and they lit the whole town up at  nine o’clock at night. And look, see that bit going out into the sea for miles, that’s called Blackpool Pier. There are games and things all down one side of it. Or so I’ve been told. I’ve never actually been on it myself.”

Ten year old Adam then asked, with a puzzled frown, “But why aren’t there any working class people playing at being tourists there now? Maybe that beach is all pebbles and you’d hurt your feet?” His father, behind the wheel of their Rolls Royce, chipped in. “No it’s not that, Adam, it’s just that nobody works in England nowadays. We don’t have factories or Northern families  any more, their not allowed by law. Well not in England. No, the last government banned them and gave them one thousand  pounds a head to go to Europe for three weeks every August so there’d be room for the illegal immigrants to have a good time in between working on the fiddle and not paying taxes. Well, we have to be good Christians and look after the destitute somehow.”

Adam was still very puzzled. He wondered what the plastic bucket and spade were meant for. He’d been given them when the Rolls entered “Blackpool, Gateway to the Sea”, nobody had told him what to do with them. He asked his mother about this. “Oh it’s all part of the fancy dress holiday we are having this year. Because daddy is rich, very rich, he has to wear a Fez when driving so we won’t be mistaken for English people. Especially in this hot bed of starving Lancastrians. If they thought we really were rich, white, English Christians our lives up here would be a nightmare. In fact I think we had better be getting back, don’t you Dear?” she suggested to her husband.

She did not have to. he had already turned back towards the exit to the motorway sign posted ” London and the South. Rich people only.” 

 

Anton Wills-Eve

 

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Quote | 19/02/2015

WHY HELEN?


In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Buffalo Nickel.”

<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/buffalo-nickel/”>Buffalo Nickel</a>

 

WHY HELEN?

 

William, who hated being called Bill but could just about put up with Will, was in a state of serious apprehension. Although he was considered one of the better ‘catches’ amongst the first year students at his university he could have murdered his twin sister for lining up a blind date for him. All he knew was that she was called Helen.

“Look tell me something about her, please. You’ve given me two good seats for the concert and you know I like classical music, but does she? Come on Sally tell me something about her. I mean why did you pick her, did she ask you to or do you feel sorry for her? She hasn’t got anything wrong with her has she?”

Sally laughed, “Will, you know where I met her. The only reason you haven’t met her is because this is our first term at university and she and I are doing biochemistry and you are doing modern languages. Our campuses are nowhere near each other! But she did tell me she loved classical music and you know I don’t. I merely said I’d been given tickets for this do and had given them to you, adding that you would like to take her as you didn’t know your fellow linguists’ musical tastes yet.

“We were lucky getting places at the same university weren’t we? I’ve put her phone number on the envelope with the tickets. She said to text her.”

With the concert only four days away Will sent a very brief text to the mysterious Helen. It read, ‘I haven’t asked Agamemnon’s permission yet but I do hope you can make it over the Hellespont on Friday to take in the concert and a bite later. OK? Paris.’

Her reply told him two things that roused his curiosity enormously. She was well educated and had a sense of humour.

‘I know a short cut, via Thebes and Thermopilye  – You see it keeps my togas dry :).  Shame it’s the first date though, Paris never gets a bite until vetted. No, I don’t mean that sort! A painless vetting 🙂 But a fig or two later would be lovely.  H.’

Will could not resist his reply. ‘ Meet @ amphitheatre front arch’ I’ll be wearing a smart, casual laurel wreath’ expect you to be carrying smart casual Grecian urn.’ At this point anything could happen. Go for broke and laugh along in the manner begun, or dress normally and carry a laurel leaf for identification. It was too tempting. Will borrowed a full Greek tragedy outfit from the drama department. But on arriving at the concert hall on Friday night he nearly dropped. Helen did not so much arrive as burst upon the scene.

A figure clad in a sweeping white gown with her dark brown hair wound round her head like Medusan snakes, descended from a chariot, spear in hand and each toe nail painted a different colour as it peeped twixt the thongs of her sandals. Will was in heaven and took up his part immediately. He swept up to Helen, bowed and handed her a ticket’ The vastly entertained onlookers just thought it all a student prank and clapped when they took their seats in the hall.

As they looked at the programme and the first item, an, overture, began Will suddenly realised that neither of them had spoken a word. He wondered what joke Helen was leading up to next. She certainly kept it up well, really well. The overture finished and over the noise of the applause Will heard his mobile phone go off. Embarrassed, he opened it in seconds and saw it was a text. It said ‘We Greeks have all the inventions of the world, mine just vibrates so we will converse thus’. Helen smiled seductively at him and Will felt the missile from Cupid’s bow which she had aimed at him strike home exactly as she had prayed it might. All he replied was the texted image of a shattered heart.

They kept up the joke thoughout the concert and a really nice dinner afterwards which Helen allowed Will to pay for. As he took the bill she sent a message and a grin. ‘Just checking your bank balance.’ It was only a short walk across a lawn to Helen’s rooms and they sauntered, ever more slowly, to her door. Nobody was in sight when Will could contain himself no longer and finally broke their evening’s silence.

“Helen, thank you for the greatest date of my life. I have slowly fallen completely in love with you, and you never even said a word. No bites, promise, but may Paris kiss Helen goodnight?” The embrace lasted twenty minutes but she had the last word, texting,  ‘see you at Sally’s for lunch tomorrow’.

Will arrived early at his sister’s next day and she asked him how the evening went.  While he described it he was surprised to see tears starting to roll down her cheeks. It was then she explained. “Will, Helen has been keen to meet you for weeks but had to find out how you felt about her first. We concocted last night’s charade because, Will, your lovely Helen has an awful impediment. The poor girl is stone deaf.  She can talk perfectly well, granted, but last night she never heard a note of that music!”

 

Anton Wills-Eve

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18/02/2015

MANY MOONS AGO


<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/undo/”>Undo</a&gt;

MANY MOONS AGO  

All the time that Adam spent learning to become a gardener would have been wasted if his huge tome had not included that chapter on fruit trees!

For a start  I could not even have written this post.

AW-E

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17/02/2015

CINQUE PASTA


word prompt Feb 17/2015 five foods

<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/five-a-day/”>Five a Day</a>

 

 

                                                     CINQUE PASTA

It was awful being flown to the island, especially as my kidnappers had hijacked a jet with nothing but first class seats on it. It was almost ready for take off to Florida when they threw me on board, the crew and stewards off board, and we were away into the scarlet sunset sky. I wondered who on earth they thought I was.

The US president? No my suit was obviously hand made in London or Milan. Emma Watson? Whoever made that mistake was going to get his face seriously rearranged! President of the European Bank? No that was obviously him flying the lane. Well Warren Buffet then? No I had no loan sharks with me. Then I got it. They had made a mistake!

“Wotta you take for me mister Bond? I noah spy in disguise anywhere. Saya your last words before I shoota you”

I had to play along. Well I’d been rumbled. I needed some last words quick. Oh God, and they had to be memorable too. “Dis guy’s what?”

“Dat guy’s Watt? You sure Mr Bond? Okay Watt, degame’s up.”

“I say’ what.” A voice whispered in my ear as I woke up over the Pacific. “The food’s very good on this airline’ isn’t it? Try the caviar’ But really old chap I do think you look like Bond.”

I was starting to like my traveling companion, and replied “Yes I have been taken for Daniel Craig once before.” As I was nodding off back to sleep almost at once I could have sworn he said, “Thinking of Sean Connery, actually.”

The highjackers brought the plane to a skidding halt on a deserted island and threw me into a wooden shack and grimaced, “Au revoir Senor Bondo. But we no starve you, wotta you ‘ave?”

“Well I’d love some crisply fried whitebate and some caviar. Then a tourndos steak Rossini, some very soft brie cheese and Strega drizzled creme brulee. For drinky poohs a Montrachet ’93 and a Crozes-Hermitage ’07……”

“Eh. Oo d’you fink you are? All we got is five Pizzas! An’ day are all da same!”

 

Anton Wills-Eve

 

 

4 Comments
16/02/2015

BRING ON THE CLONES


Feb 16 prompt

<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/clone-wars/”>Clone Wars</a>

           BRING ON THE CLONES

If I could clone myself there would be three of me! The original me and my copies. Think of it, to put all my original self into a single clone would create nothing, like 1 x 1 = 1 (the original one) in maths.

Responsibility would then not come into the discussion because by definition if I did make two or more identical images they would still look, think and act exactly as I – the creator – would dictate. Of course by this simple logic this would probably not be true cloning at all.

In short, this is the most ludicrous prompt I have ever seen on this site.

AW-E

 

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15/02/2015

Nothing to speak of


reply to wall to wall prompt Feb 15th

<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/wall-to-wall/”>Wall to Wall</a>

NOTHING TO SPEAK OF

 

We have nothing on the walls of our house

And nothing on the ceiling or the floor.

And as every room is empty and deserted

We’ve nothing to admire from door to door.

 

You see we only bought it new last week

And as we don’t move in for seveal days.

The whole place is totally bare and boring’

Not even any furnishings or displays 🙂

 

Anton Wills-Eve

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14/02/2015

ODE TO MY WIFE


word prompt for Feb 14. St.Valentine’s day

<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/cupids-arrow/”>Cupid’s Arrow</a>

 

              ODE TO MY WIFE

 

To thee, my wife, my love, my life

I own all pleasure I have known.

My guardian through all harm and strife

Whose heart beats always with my own.

I offer you everything that is mine

And pray each day in gratitude

To God who made you so divine.

Adopting no hypocritical attitude

In praising your eyes, your hair, your face

Without which I’ll die each morn and night

When thou art taken to a higher place

To dwell forever in God’s loving sight.

 

But, my darling I well can see

T’is better mourning fall to me,

Than thou remain, thy tears to shed,

Each night without me in thy bed’

 

Anton Wills-Eve

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Quote | 13/02/2015

WHATEVER NEXT?


                                 WHATEVER NEXT?

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Sliced Bread.”

<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/sliced-bread/”>Sliced Bread</a>

 WHATEVER NEXT?

 “Put that bread knife down, Nicky! How many times do I have to tell you?  And don’t argue back. Seven year old little girls don’t use dangerous kitchen utensils.” Her nine year old brother was not so sure. He was a pompous little boy whom many people fantasised about strangling.

“I say mother, no really that is a bit much. Why only yesterday I caught you showing young Nicola  –  he never called his sister ‘little’, he thought it insulting  –  how to use the electric mixer to make cakes. Seriously, now, which is the most likely to harm her? An electric machine that could short circuit and kill her in seconds, or a blunt, outdated knife that might just scratch her if she’s unlucky?” 

Nicola said nothing. She was just beginning to realise the advantages of having a pompous older brother. She simply stared vacantly at her mother awaiting the court’s decision on whether or not she should continue hacking the loaf to pieces. She did a superb imitation of an angel.

“Christopher! How many times has your father told you not to start stupid debates with your elders?…..”

“Up to this morning at eight o’clock, seventy three times, that I can remember. He may of course have done so before I was two years and eight months old, but were that the case I fear my small brain would have been unable to recall such a censure. A shame, for I am certain I would have made a hilariously amusing reply, would I not?” His mother knew when she was losing and was letting the matter drop when little angel faced Nicola joined the conversation.

“Oh, Christopher. I can’t believe your brain was ever small. You are far too clever and must have said something if Daddy had told you off at that age. But he would not have done, surely?” Their mother was not the only family member becoming worried that her daughter was starting to imitate her brother’s way of talking.

Finally the parent took matriarchal control of the situation. “Christopher, your sister does not use a bread knife because her mother says so. That is the only authority either of you need in order to do what you are told in this house. Understand?” Christopher did not look as if he understood.

“Isn’t that a bit thick on poor papa?”He queried. “I mean to say if he can tell me how to behave seventy three times, and that on one subject only, he surely must have some standing in the judicial hierarchy of our little quartet?” Nicola liked ‘hierarchy’ and ‘judicial’, they were new words to her and she stored them up. Fortunately for all three of them the tone of the conversation changed as their father came in from doing an hour’s gardening. He looked none too happy.

“That bloody mower needs sharpening, I’ll have to take it to pieces again. The electric lead’s too short as well!”

Christopher looked at the head of the household with great disapproval.”Father, I may at times use words a little too esoteric for my audience in this house, but on your orders I never swear. Not very good at practising what you preach are you? Bad language, fiddling with a machine that will electrocute you and giving poor, innocent Nicola here the idea that she can play with really sharp things whenever she pleases. I don’t know what we are all coming to, I really don’t!”

At this point father and mother united to lay down the house rules once and for all. No arguing with elders, no swearing under the age of twenty one and no playing with or trying to use potentially dangerous tools and implements. The children meekly agreed, fully aware they had won the day. Their mother rounded off the talk with the following remark.

“That charter of behaviour  –  Christopher liked charter and looked at his mother with fleeting admiration  –  is the best thing to enter this house since sliced bread.”

Nicola looked at her stunned. “Mummy do you mean you can buy bread already sliced?”

“Yes, answered Christopher, and it is even rumoured they are soon bringing out self-sharpening lawn mowers that run on batteries and don’t swear!”

Anton Wills-Eve

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Quote | 11/02/2015

DAYBREAK


 

 DAYBREAK                               

The starless, sunless start of daybreak

Was not the sole sunless overture that day.

The place beside me, as I awoke early,

Was deserted. My lover had gone away.

The night before, as she seduced me,

I ignored my heart and placed my trust

In her passionate words of true devotion,

Believing they betokened love not lust.

Tears flooded down my sunken cheeks

As the sun appeared in the Eastern sky.

Yet even then I could not bring my mind

To picture her face and to say goodbye.

Now, I wonder, will my soul ever know

So cancerous an emotion or heart so sore?

If she never returns how can I forgive her?

For I would, she has only to open my door.

No note, no sign that all she wanted

Was carnal pleasure at my expense.

She was lovely, as only those we love are;

Against her smile I had no defence.

The dawn, to morning, fast is changing,

The heat of the day will soon burn all.

And yet my heart will stay cold as ice

And my hopes as empty as trees in Fall.

Darling, I beg you, return again to hold me

Please let us enjoy one more night of desire.

For then, if again you should try to leave me,

I will feel no chill while rekindling our fire.

AWE

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Quote | 10/02/2015

THE BRIDGE


In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “The Transporter.”

THE BRIDGE

“Stop! Stop!” But it didn’t hear me. At the age of only just five I didn’t know that big, red, double decker London buses couldn’t hear, but they could abduct your mother and sister and drive off with them leaving you on your own without another soul in sight. It was so terrifying I was too scared even to cry.

Think what it must have been like. The bus stop was on the Surrey side of the Thames at the start of Hammersmith bridge with its never ending open air tunnel of iron arches. I knew I couldn’t swim, so I couldn’t step onto the bridge in case I fell off and was drowned. I turned round to put the bridge behind me but that was worse. A mile long, so it seemed, dead straight road of private houses on both sides. We weren’t allowed to go into strangers’ houses.

I was trapped! I wanted to wait for the next bus, but I had no money. If you tried to dodge paying the fare you went to jail. They locked you up and left you alone to starve. I was begining to shake and then felt I needed to go to the toilet. But if you took your willey out in public horrible perverted men would jump out of the bushes and do dreadful things to you  At least there were no bushes by the bridge, but no toilets either!

I was really worried now and finally had to edge back to the bridge and pee up against the iron stanchion. As I went on looking at the huge bridge I could not understand how people could cross it on foot. I must have been on the point of full blown panic when a bus pulled up on the other side of the road and my mother and sister rushed over to make sure I was okay. On seeing I was alright they treated the whole episode as a very good joke.

A few days later my mother had one of her posh friends round to tea. I heard her say, “Dorothy, we’ve always made a point of making sure the children understand why they should behave correctly, especially in public. The last thing either of them would do is appear rude, afraid or upset in front of other people.”

That was sixty seven years ago and on really bad days I can still barely cross the road outside my house. As for bridges I have still never walked across one anywhere in my life. Just the sight of one brings on a panic attack. But I could never tell anybody like a neighbour or doctor this at that age. They might think me very odd and try to do something about it.

Anton Wills-Eve

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09/02/2015

THE GREAT ESCAPE


Take a quote from your favorite movie — there’s the title of your post. Now, write

I’ve used the title instead.

a href="https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/silver-screen/">Silver Screen</a>

                        The Great Escape


I remember the helicopter being hit,

Forcing us downwards in a spin.

Six of us on board, all scared to death,

Each one feeling his fear begin

To take control of heart and mind,

About to discover who was brave or yellow

Or just a normal, petrified young man,

Voice barely heard above the engines’ bellow.

Jim, the pilot, gave in to his panic first

As we brushed the jungle trees below.

He screamed “ I can’t, I can’t just let me out’,

Undid his harness and jumped. I’ll never know

Whether he lived or died because all I cared

Was whether I could fly the chopper in his place.

The others pushed me into Jim’s empty seat

As I tried to focus on the controls before my face.

Fred, the comic of our little band,

Then lost the plot as he deliberately blew

His brains out and slumped across his gun.

Willy tipped his body out continuing to chew

Relentlessly on his soft, cool mint gum.

Somehow I kept us flying straight, though now

It was more by luck that we made it to a clearing

With room to land. “Someone, please tell me how!”

Side to side we swayed among the branches

Then Jeff screamed “Fire. Look, at the back.”

A burning stench took the breath from all of us.

Tony and I, in front, saw the oncoming attack,

Shells shattered our windscreen, blinded, Tony fell

Sideways into the jungle. My best buddy. Dead.

In hell I ceased to care about the guns or fire,

Save the others! But I ran out of time instead.

The chopper lurched smashing, side-on, into a tree;

Sheared in half, the rear exploded leaving me alone

Swinging from a branch by only my parachute cord.

I Looked down, the ground was miles away and a bone

Stuck crookedly out of my lower leg. “God take me,”

I remember praying out loud. Agonising pain and fear

Accompanied me, sliding downwards through the jungle.

The earth rushed up, and the ground was deathly near.

Vision blurred,

The last sound I heard,

Maybe the last word,

Was, “Nurse. Absurd!

“Not even a bird

Could survive that fall”.

But I did. After all,

All the dead can recall

Is a flag for a pall

And a lone bugle call.

Anton Wills-Eve

_____________

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Quote | 08/02/2015

THE INFERNAL MACHINE


In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Proud.”

I have always had a tendancy to dislike being confined or in a small space, but not full blown claustrophobia. So when the specialist said I needed an MRI scan I must admit I was scared.

My wife and I attended a long explanatory session with the radiologist who showed me the long, narrow tube in which I would be confined, motionless for about an hour. At least there was no ban on alcohol and they promised me some tranquilisers. But come the day I was shaking like mad.

They wanted to examine my chest and my lower stomach so I was totally trapped in the ghastly magnetic resonance imaging machine. As it started the whole thing made a terrible noise and I was petrified not knowing how I was going to last an hour in it.

When it was all over and I was restored to the real world, my darling wife hugged me and said,

“How on earth did you manage it, I’m so proud of you!” How was I going to tell her the machine broke down and we had to go back the following week!

Anton Wills-Eve

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08/02/2015

HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO DIE?


The world seems awfully preoccupied nowadays with the whole subject of legally terminating peoples’ lives. The oddest thing about this to me is that the various reasons for legalising capital punishment seem to upset its opponents far more than the way in which the death sentence is carried out.

Currently the extreme followers of Islam get the worst press because their ‘legal’ defence for what they do is that they are upholding a religious law.But that’s been going on for some five thousand years and long, long before Mohammed reached his beliefs. I believe there is a campaign going on at the moment against the Sultan of Brunei in Borneo for suporting the stoning to death of people who are not heterosexual. The imortant point here, surely, is that nobody should ever stone anyone to death.Why the mock, shock horror just because of their sexual orientation? Execution by stoning is inhuman and a crime in itself.That is what protesters should be opposing most vehemently.

Texas is a great examle of the other side of the coin. There the authorities actually boast that they kill criminals in the most acceptable way. Is incarcerating someone for twenty years, never knowing if tomorrow is the day they are going to die, even slightly human? No, it’s far worse than stoning. At least that isn’t preceded by years of mental torture!

All premeditated taking of human life is murder in my book no matter what the reason. For if you plan to kill someone it follows that you also do not have to do it.The best definition of murder I know.

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07/02/2015

Not Tonight Josephine


In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Bone of Contention.”

<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/bone-of-contention/”>Bone of Contention</a>

couldn’t resist this chance to write another acrostic poem. It’s not so much about a bone of contention as a ‘Bone- Apart’.  🙂

Not Tonight Josephine

(an acrostic poem)

Napoleon was the ruler of the whole of France,

Oh to his tune how everybody did dance,

Thinking him without any doubt to be

The greatest soldier in the French army.

Only his pretty girlfriend, Josephine,

Now an empress but never a queen,

Invites him regularly for an evening of fun,

Generally after a day of playing with his gun.

Hence his reluctance, so we’ve been told,

To accept her advances, no matter how bold.

«Josephine, pas ce soir, cherie, je t’en prie

Oof, how much your loving takes it out of me!

Soldiering is such a very strenuous thing,

Even so, though, I do love our occasional fling.

Perhaps, Ma Petite, you’re so greatly to be desired,

How about tomorrow evening if I’m not too tired?

Indeed I adore you, Ma Cherie, mon amour.

Nothing turns me on like approaching your door.

Eh bien, Josephine, ce soir let’s try it encore!”.

Anton Wills-Eve

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07/02/2015

More Must Save Items


<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/burnt/”>Burnt</a&gt;

my second five items  in order of regret. following the top five items I saved from the house on fire yesterday.

                                            More Must Save Items

This is easy.

6. My Tablet

7. The second tablet I take to make the first one work.

8. The doctor’s emergency phone number because that second tablet didn’t look the right colour.

9. The clouds I usually float on after tablets 1 and 2.

10. Oh and of course tablet number three for my memory loss problems. You know, the one I usually Forget!

Anton Wills-Eve

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07/02/2015

Now listen to this!


Take a complicated subject you know more about than most people, and explain it to a friend who knows nothing about it at all.

<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/daily-prompt-2/”>(Your Thing) for Dummies</a>

 

NOW LISTEN TO THIS!

 

“That was a very good meal, Wally, beautifully done steak and the wine was superb.  You comfy Mate? Good; this brandy’s not bad either. What were we talking about?

“Cricket, are you sure I could have sworn it was magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI for short. You ever been in a tube, Wal? No not the underground the radio active x-ray thingy that rips all the metal off you to show up the bits of you that aren’t working properly. Sure you’ve never had one?”Here have another glass of this Armagnac , Wally, great little drop of stuff, ole, boy just the ticket after a meal like that. But you were telling me about your radio active television set. You weren’t? Oh no I’m the one who’s having one tomorrow, you’re playing baseball. Right?

“Cricket? Really, didn’t know they played it in Australia, Wal. You any good? You are. How interesting, but I was saying about this NM, that’s nuclear medicine to the thickies like you mate, or you can have a CT scan if you’re in the mood. Which would you prefer?

“Another of these Army knackered  drinks? Well why not, good drop of stuff. Always said the Poms knew their gin. I mean Aussies knew their brandy. Well, anyway Wal, you must hear this one. Stop me if you’ve heard it, as Bennet Cerf used to say. Cerf, ole man, Yankee story teller! Well they all are aren’t they? Ha ha ha. Well there was this scantily clad nurse, no nurse clad to do a scan, of an unclear medicine bottle full of iron magnets. Got the picture? You haven’t? Well look, just wake up a little and have another of these throat burners, and you’ll learn a thing or two about Cat Scans.

“No not pussey cats, these are radio active kittens scanning each other for bits that have gone wrong with the TV or the radio or something? Got the picture? Well the nurse hadn’t, she was still twiddling with the dials when the patient in the tube sat up and asked if we’d passed Piccadily yet, and I told him it was twelve o’clock which set him off a bit I can tell you.

“I say look, wake up old Wally, or you’ll miss the best bit where the scanner has another glass of some French drink or other and  … Wake up Wally.

“I say, where’s the fellow gone? Infernally rude to walk off like that in the middle of a match. I think I’ll just have another small one before the nuclear explosion tomorrow.”

Anton Wills-Eve

 

 

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06/02/2015

Solo Con Te


In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Pens and Pencils.”                            

<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/pens-and-pencils/”>Pens and Pencils</a>

 Solo Con Te  

It was several months since I last wrote anything of any importance by hand, but recently a strange necessity arose to make me do so. Edgardo, the youngest of my three sons and four daughters,  just five years old at the time, had been asked to reply to a birthday party invitation and the card even had a reply form attached with  a lined space for a child of his age to write on. But it was beyond him.

“Eh, Papa, non possedo ecrire in questo language. Mio caligrafico es crap!”

When I was his age I would have received a clip round the ear for that reply but it’s illegal nowadays. Okay he was born in America and had been brought up in France, Switzerland and Italy by an English/Australian father and an Italian/Austrian mother, but that was no excuse. I knew where his deliberate bad language came from. His nine year old sister Lucia, one of twins, delighted in telling him how to really annoy me and pretend it was because he was linguistically over challenged. So I played along and tried to understand his difficulties.

“Mio bambino caro, this exercise will be all in English, capisce?”

“Capisce is no English. You liar, Papa. God will punish you”

A voice from the doorway did not help either,

“Si, and quoting from an Italian opera ain’t gonna teach the kid much English either, in it?” You know those moments when the woman you love most in the world suddenly changes from ‘my wife’ to ‘his mother’? Well this was one of them. I lost my patience with her.

“Francesca. I’m trying to teach Eddie polite English. Give me a break, please!”

She roared with laughter and said our two months in London wasn’t improving the children’s English or the family’s bonding. That was when I realised Edgardo had wandered off to play elsewhere so I just scrawled ‘thank you. I’d love to come. Eddie’ on the invitation, sealed it and addressed it to the daughter of the Australian High Commissioner. Francesca posted it that afternoon.

The farce concluded two days later when our eldest child, twelve year old Maria, came rushing up to me and said “Daddy, Daddy  is Eddie going to that girl’s party? Her brother’s just texted me to ask because they couldn’t read the handwriting on his reply.”

Anton Wills-Eve

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06/02/2015

CASCIA


Is there a place in the world you never want to visit? Where, and why not?

<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/no-thanks/”>No, Thanks</a>

                                                   CASCIA

In 1944 when I was two, my father jokingly said to my mother, on getting a free weekend at our family home on the Thames in Buckinghamshire, “Well, with all our bombing of mainland Germany hotting up at least I will never have to visit Berlin. I can think of nowhere in the world I would hate visiting more!” Mum merely smiled. Two weeks later the news organisation for which he worked as a war correspondent told him that he was to join the invasion forces on D-Day.

Yes, you’ve guessed it, by the following late Spring dad was one of the first journalists to enter bombed out Berlin where he found it as close to hell as he expected. My mother merely chuckled and remarked that her superstitions should  be taken more seriously.

It got worse. Dad hated everything to do with racial discrimination and swore he would never cover any stories which involved him having to obey discriminatory regimes. So of course March 1960 found him in deepest South Africa covering the Sharpeville massacre and its aftermath and not being allowed to publicly oppose apartheid!  I can well remember my own dislike of all aridly dry  countries and how I could not get out of my first free-lance assignment. During the university vacation I found myself covering the Franco Algerian war in North Africa for my father. I had to go, the money was too good.

And so it went on . I moved from the Sorbonne to follow in dad’s footsteps which saw me in Vietnam for three years after swearing I would never set foot in the place. The fighting in Northern Ireland really upset me mentally. As an English Catholic I literally prayed I would never be asked to see the Emerald Isle only from the bloody viewpoint of bigotry and bloodshed. My three years in Belfast were probably the worst of the lot. I started to wonder if I had inherited my mother’s superstitious premonitionary accuracy. A happy marriage and family of my own led me to change to writing about European politics from 1985 onwards and I started to work in places I quite liked. But I was very careful not to promise I would never visit places I really did not think I would like.

All my life I have had a favourite saint who has stood by me, protected me, loved me and helped me retain my faith through some of the most awful places on God’s earth. St.Rita, the patron saint of hopeless causes, we really get on well together. She’s great and has never let me down in my life. I am currently fighting my third cancer in the last five years which is why my sister queried me, wide eyed with astonishment, when she heard me telling a friend I hoped I would never be asked to visit Cascia. It is in Umbria, central Italy, and is the city where St.Rita lived in the middle ages and is entombed.  “But I thought you loved her?” my sister said.

The train tickets I showed her, from Rome to Perugia and on to Cascia, were all the reply I needed.

Anton Wills-Eve

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