AUG 30, singable satire: a reggae ballad: "F.O.P. -SHOP WINE"

PARODY-LYRICS

ORIGINAL SONG : "Red Red Wine",  Neil Diamond 1968, covered by the reggae band UB40, 1983, with addition of a "toasted" rap section.

PARODY COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, November 2015.

UKULELE and GUITAR-FRIENDLY LINK: Our whole series of songs can be found in a friendly format for ukulele (and guitar)-players on our sister blog "SILLY SONGS and SATIRE" with chord-charts for both the parody and original song, as well as helpful performing suggestions. 

 To find ukulele and guitar chord-charts to help you accompany  "FOP-SHOP WINE" on your favorite instrument, click HERE. 

In my province of Ontario and a few other Canadian provinces, licences are granted to shops which allow customers to make their own beer or wine "for personal consumption". These stores are generally referred to by the public as "wineries" or "wineshops", but the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario who regulates these outlets, refers to the stores as UVin or UVin/UBrew, and to the process as FOP (ferment on premises). Some customers who have appropriate space and ambient conditions in their basements prefer to buy equipment and kits for FAH (ferment at home). I personally have been an enthusiastic user of FOP for 15 years, (although I must admit that I have seldom referred to it by this term). 

FOP-SHOP WINE

(to the tune of "Red Red Wine" - reggae version by UB40)

FOP-store wine 

wine kits for sale
in an Ontario store

My kind of sh-o-o-op 

They take my credit card, 

Do all the wo-o-ork.

FOP-shop wine 

Add yeast to mu-u-ust 

Then when my batch is done

Remember to sho-o-ow

Must schedule to show.

I’ll get called - 

Bottling time

Box up thirty that you’ve cleaned

Labels choose

Shrink-wrap tops

After using cork-machine.

The FOP process

FOP-shop wine 

Save half the co-o-ost

Take up no basement  space

Yet fill home wine-racks.

Pay no high tax.

(the "toasted" rap section as per UB40 version) 

 FOP-shop wine, you help reduce the cost

Keep me from feeling me money is lost

FOP-shop wine, you make me feel so grand

We host lots of parties 'cause I’ve always wine on hand

FOP-shop wine, when you’re gone you make me think

Empties need washing in the basement laundry sink. 

FOP-shop wine, I can get to where you are

Boxes in a taxi, when I’ve broken-down old car.

FOP-shop stores, Canucks call them UVin

Personal consumption is seen as no sin. 

Some province license UVin and UBrew
(Brew-shops in the USA who'll do your wine are few.)
FOP-shop wine, might be in your neighbourhood

Quality can vary, but most kits are quite good.

 Twenty years - a few bad bottles, five or six

Never short of holiday or birthday gifts.

 F-O-P means "ferment on premises"
Lots of varieties to please your picky missus
FOP-shop kits always come from foreign lands
Must be some reason local growers not at hand 
FOP-shop kits which we'll really like I know
Aussie shiraz, French or Chilean merlot
Need no special gear, technique's not too hard
Fermentation start by stirring with your credit card.

Reprise: final verse

(FOP.......tax)

staff workspace
in a UVin/UBrew shop

Fade

 

AUG 29, exotic destination: Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina

Other verses about 'Exotic Travel Destinations' can be found on our blog 'Edifying Nonsense'. Click HERE.

shoreline of Charleston Harbor,
cruiseship approaching in shipping lane

approachable 'wild' waterfowl,
an attraction at the Shem Creek boardwalk

AUG 28, planet-saving verse: summer air quality

Authors' Note: Although meat-eating is a practice that we personally have avoided for almost 20 years, we do accept that most people around us continue to indulge in this ancient tradition, appropriate to when the planet and our species were younger. We would not make you happy if we continued on a rant (kvetch = complaint) about this issue; we prefer to remain silent, and live and let live. Inhabiting a downtown neighborhood with very small urban lots has its limitations, and the smells and smoke of dinner being barbecued by our neighbors almost every summer evening is one of them. 

By the way, we and our partner continue to eat seafood and fish on occasion to ensure adequate protein intake, but one person in our immediate family is a true vegetarian (but not vegan). As you know, the terms to describe these eating patterns are complex and even misleading, but all non-meat-eaters would prefer that others keep their steak-smoke to themselves.    

You can help save the planet by viewing all our verses in this series at "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE!

AUG 27, wordplay: Scramble-towns eastern Canada,10

 

LINKS to other nonsense in this series: 

Forward to the next Canadian map (11), eh?

Back up to the first Canadian map.

Back up to the first American map.

AUG 26, American satire (prolongation): taking the fifth

Recent news ...

 

We hope that you enjoyed this verse. You can find 40 more on this topic in 6 collections on our full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense'. Click HERE to start! 

AUG 25, submitted palindromes: RANDOM PILES 25

 

You have reached the "Submitted Palindromes" thread on the blog "Daily Edifying Nonsense", a light literary entity that emanates through the blogosphere daily (almost), i.e. 30 times per month.

  On the 25th of each month you will find a slide-filling group of palindromic phrases submitted to the editors by a panel of 7 palindromists. These folks have all been working on this project since January 2020. The personal profiles for each of these contributors are displayed in panels published here at the start of things, and then, we have asked them to provide (palindromically, of course) their views on one of the iconic items in the classic literature, starting with "A man, a plan, a canal -- Panama", continuing with other well-known phrases, such as "Dennis sinned". Otherwise, their contribution will be grouped in monthly random piles (a phrase that you might recognize as an anagram of the word p-a-l-i-n-d-r-o-m-e-s).

You can access this delightful entertainment right here by entering submitted palindromes in one of the two search bars at the top of this post and scrolling downwards through the wordplay posts that you will discover, OR, just follow the links indicated above. 

Devotees of palindromic wordplay can further explore limericks and other short verses about the classic palindromes (and quite a few recent concoctions) that are randomly scattered on this blog after September 2000, or collected into grouped postings on our more encyclopedic blog "Edifying Nonsense" -- start HERE.

AUG 24, patients and their maladies: intermittent claudication

Authors' Note:

claudicant: limping, lame

 Pain occurring in one or both legs with exercise in patients with blockages in their leg arteries is termed 'intermittent claudication', a condition particularly prevalent in longterm smokers. 

 Discarded cigarette butts, which may release toxins injurious to wildlife, have been identified by environmentalists as an ecological hazard. 

You can view these verses in a wider context by proceeding to 'Nurse-Verse: Patients and their Maladies' on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE!

AUG 23, Canadiana: compassionate use

Authors' Note (originally written in 2016):  

   Growing marijuana seems to be a major activity on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, centred in the city of Nanaimo (nuh-NAHY-moh). Exemptions from restrictions on the substance are given for certain medical conditions, termed compassionate use; however, the criteria appear loosely applied, and overlapping recreational and medicinal use of the substance underlies the region's laid-back attitude.

   It is unlikely that Nanaimo will successfully challenge the dominance in limericks currently held by Nantucket. The island of Nantucket has been the setting for a number of limericks; the most famous clean one deals with a crotchety old man whose daughter rips off his poorly hidden cash.

You can review poems, pictures and diverse nonsense related to Canada on the post "Canadiana" on our full-service blog  "Edifying Nonsense".

AUG 22, funny bones: olecranon (elbow) fracture

Happy Birthday, MMH!!

Authors' Note:

funner: a neologism for 'fun-seeker', as used here; also, a disputed equivalent to the comparative expression 'more fun’

  The olecranon is the bony process (extension) of the forearm's ulna that extends into the elbow joint. Fractures of the olecranon are moderately common, due to direct trauma (fall on the elbow), but even more so due to indirect trauma (transmission of intense force with a fall on the outstretched hand). Owing to the proximity of the ulnar nerve, a broken funny bone may be associated with numbness and tingling extending into the fingers.

  Such injuries have bedevilled joggers and elite athletes, but recently have become more common with the popularity of personal electric transport devices. Surgical treatment is generally required for these fractures that often have displaced bone fragments. 

 You can view more than a dozen other verses on this topic in a wider context by proceeding to the post 'Breaking News: FUNNY BONES' on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE!

AUG 21, classic palindrome: 'dogma: I am God'

                                                                     

You can review these illustrated verses in a wider context by proceeding to 'Reversing Verse: Limericks About Classic Palindromes' on the full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense'.

AUG 20, singable satire: Neil Young sings "COACH the NESTLINGS"

 SONG with UKULELE CHORDS

ORIGINAL SONG: "Teach Your Children" 1970, lyrics by Graham Nash, recorded by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.

PARODY COMPOSED: Dr G.H. and Giorgio Coniglio, April 2019. 

PARODY-SONGLINK: To access ukulele chord-charts to help you accompany "COACH THE NESTLINGS" on your favorite instrument, click HERE.

For collections of illustrated verses on other planet-saving themes, click HERE. 

COACH the NESTLINGS

(to the tune of "Teach Your Children")

You, who are on the wing,

Must have a thing, that you can sing to;

But Man won't understand

This fragile planet's all we cling to.

Coach your nestlings well,

Their inland habitats may go dry, 

And breeding sites marine

May leave the scene, as oceans rise high.

Greenhouse gases in the sky,

(Equatorial zones may fry)

Moving polarward they'll try,

And trust in Gaia.

Cetaceans on the float

Should take a vote, and send a note to

That shameful human race,

Who will not face, there's no place to boat to.

There's no Noah's Ark to ride,

There's no place we all can hide,

Stable atmosphere provide,

In skies above you.

AUG 19, toxic vignette: digitalis toxicity

Authors' Note: 

(di-JOK-sin)

Digoxin, a cardiac glycoside derived initially from the garden plant digitalis (foxglove), has been used to treat chronic congestive heart failure and to control the heart rate in atrial fibrillation. During the author's professional lifetime, there has been a major reduction in the death-rate and in the incidence of hospital admissions for digoxin poisoning, also known as digitoxicity. This improvement is due to more judicious assessment of factors, e.g. decreasing kidney function, that may result in increasing blood levels of the drug, but also to limitation of the drug's use as alternatives have become available.     

 Review all our poems of toxicologic interest by clicking HERE.  

AUG 18, Italian loanwords: cicerone

Authors' Note:    Guides for tourists in Italy are often given the interesting name cicerone (plural -oni). The label is derived from the Italian Cicerone (chee-che-ROH-neh), the surname of the legendary Roman orator Marcus Tullius Cicero (SIH-suh-roh in Anglo-Latin, 106–48 BCE). The term has been applied to Italian antiquarians, as well as to talkative guides and interpreters.

 

   The Roman family's name was related to the word for chickpeas (ciceri in Latin, ceci in Italian). ‘Baloney’, an anglicism derived from the globally popular Italian sausage mortadella bolognese, has come in American slang to mean exaggerated claims or nonsense.

 You can review our entire poetic outpouring about Italian loanwords by proceeding to a post on our full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense'; click HERE.

AUG 17, palinku (poetic novelty): Canadiana

Heartfelt birthdaywishes to RCH

   In this post, we continue with a novel form of poetic wordplay. Inspired by Japanese haiku poetry, this new form is used for a terse verse with a total of 17 syllables displayed on three lines. Unlike its earlier analogues, this cross-cultural haiku-like concoction does not mandate the precise distribution of the syllables among the three lines, but does stipulate that each word in the poem be included in a palindromic phrase or sentence in English (i.e. one that can be read either forwards or backwards). 

  To help the reader discern the origin of the lyrics, each palindrome (generally occupying one of the three lines of the poem) has been color-coded. 

 You can view all our verses of this type if you  proceed with a single click to our more encyclopedic blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE. (Or if you prefer, you can stay on this particular blogsite and look for the offerings for the 17th day of each month -- there are now more than 60 of these.)

AUG 16, waterfowl: habitat restored (Crab Bank)

Heartfelt up coming birthday wishes to RCH!

placard on site

 You can review these illustrated verses in a wider context by proceeding to 'Immersible Verse: Limericks about Waterfowl' on the full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense'. 

AUG 15, American satire (prolongation): FBIer

Author's Note: FBIer is a term that is occasionally used to denote an employee of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. The search in question in the above verse was carried out by warrant after a federal judge had been persuaded that a crime hae been committed in the premises, in this case a south Florida golf-club. Apparently, as subsequently shown, negotiations for the return of the unlawfully sequestered documents had gone on for months, and a subpoena had been issued. (See, also, our verse 'Classified (Espionage Act)'.

We hope that you enjoyed this verse. You can find 40 more on this topic in 6 collections on our full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense'. Click HERE to start! 

AUG 14, STD-poetry: the 'gon-dom' and the condom

 

Authors' Note: These lyrics are intended to be sung in rap format.

Life-threatening medical aspects of the often-discounted STD (sexually transmitted disease) gonorrhea are well described in the Author's Note to SheilaB’s verse ‘Chaldaea’. 

  Gonorrheal infection of the external genitalia, caused by the bacterium Neisseria gonorrhoeae, may also result in pelvic inflammatory disease in females, epididymitis in males, and chronic infertility. Transmission of the disease is prevented by condoms.

You can review verses on this topic in a wider context in a post on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense" by proceeding to the post 'Ruination, Rumination and Reminiscence: STD-Poetry'. Click HERE. 

AUG 13, birdlore: cattle egrets

Authors' Note: The cattle egret is a wading bird most closely related to the herons of Ardea species, but is also a cousin of the common egret and snowy egret. Unlike the latter birds, it may breed in drier areas further inland, and consume terrestrial insects as a substantial portion of its diet. Recently documented changes in its range include expansion to much of the United States, South America, southern Africa and Australia. In general, the bird's enlarged domain has followed that of domesticated grazing mammals.

You can view an encyclopedic collection of illustrated poems on this topic by proceeding to the post 'Poems about BIRDLIFE' on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE. 

AUG 12, folio-entry, couples: black-crowned night herons

 

You can view this sample from our portfolio of 'Couples' portraits in a wider context on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense" HERE. 

AUG 11, defining opinion: holdout

 Our blogpost "Defining Opinion" on the topic-based blog "Edifying Nonsense" shows a selection of similar verses submitted to OEDILF (the online Omnificent English Dictionary in Limerick Form). You can see all of these on one visit by clicking HERE.

AUG 10, a brief saga (American satire): Mar-a-lago, the dacha

Authors' Note: 

NARA (NAY-ruh): acronym for the US agency National Archives and Records Administration

‘M.B.S’: Mohammid bin Salman, Saudi prince

 The name of the Florida estate, Mar-a-lago, might have been better formulated by its builder Marjorie Post in Spanish as Mar-al-lago, or in Italian as Mare-al-lago. 

  It is noted that the following are palindromes:

Deified  (but not ‘declassified’)

Dacha: ah!, cad. 

Mar-a-lago: O, gal, a ram!

  The Mar-a-lago estate, purchased by Donald Trump in 1985, served since 2016 as the 'Southern White House’. In 2021, having lost the national election of November 2020, Trump decamped from the White House to Mar-a-lago, taking with him, contrary to regulations, a substantial number of government documents.  

  John McCain and Jeff Flake were Republican senators from Arizona who became vocal opponents of DJT. 

 For the purpose of this blog, a 'brief saga' is defined as a poem, usually narrative, but occasionally expository, that tell its story in at least 15 lines. Most commonly, the format involves three stanzas in limerick form, constituting a single submission to the online humor site 'Omnificent English Dictionary in Limerick Form'. On the OEDILF site, rigorous standards for content and format are involved in a collaborative editing process that may take several weeks to over a year. 

 There are now over 40 of these lengthier bits of doggerel featured at OEDILF in Giorgio's "Author's Showcase". The OEDILF number for each accepted multiverse poem is shown here on the slide with its first verse. We have been blog-publishing these poetic adventures here monthly since January 2020.

To access the next 'brief saga' (September 2022), proceed to Beri-beri (vitamin B1 deficiency).

To access the most recent previous 'brief saga' (July 2022), back up to 'Careers --  pluralia tantum' (Grandpa Greg's advanced grammar). 

To access all of our 'brief sagas' by the year of their creation, click on your selection below.

 

2021
2022
2023.