Path: news.eternal-september.org!eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: William Hyde <wthyde1953@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: The Trouble with Geraniums...
Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2025 17:25:43 -0400
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Titus G wrote:
> On 23/06/25 06:46, William Hyde wrote:
>> Titus G wrote:
>>> On 21/06/25 10:27, William Hyde wrote:
>>>> Bobbie Sellers wrote:
>>>>>            "The Trouble with Vampires" by Lynsay Sands
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> The trouble with geraniums
>>>> is that they’re much too red!
>>>> The trouble with my toast is that
>>>> it’s far too full of bread.
>>>>
>>>> The trouble with a diamond
>>>> is that it’s much too bright.
>>>> The same applies to fish and stars
>>>> and the electric light.
>>>>
>>>> The troubles with the stars I see
>>>> lies in the way they fly.
>>>> The trouble with myself is all
>>>> self-centred in the eye.
>>>>
>>>> The trouble with my looking-glass
>>>> is that it shows me, me;
>>>> there’s trouble in all sorts of things
>>>> where it should never be.
>>>>
>>>> Mervyn Peake.
>>>>
>>>> s/geraniums/vampires
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> William Hyde
>>>
>>> Sounds like Complete Nonsense to me.
>>
>> But is the Dwarf of Battersea SF?  What would JRRT say?
> 
> I read the Complete Book of Nonsense decades ago and have not looked at
> or remembered anything until your posts. I have no idea whether there
> are serious references in it or not

You can read some that way.  But you need not.

> and I know nothing of Battersea.

I took  that book with me on my travels everywhere.  At some point I 
lent it out and didn't get it back.

"There was a dwarf of Battersea

(Oh lend me a tanner!)

There was a dwarf of Battersea,

Whose skin was white with leprosy.

(Oh, lend me a tanner!)."

Things don't go well for the dwarf.

Perhaps because he didn't have any hairpins:

"Crown me with hairpins intertwined
with plush that only spinsters find
at night beneath huge sofas where
the feathers, wool, straw and hair,
bulge though a lining old as time
and secret as a Beldam's lair.

Tired aunts that dine on sphagnum moss
are really quite the best because
they are less likely to get cross
than those less ancient ones who still
peer coyly from the window sill
until their seventieth year.

Go find an old and tired one,
secure the hairpin,
then have done,
With your relations, dear."

(Peake, to the best of my recollection.)

William Hyde