Puff No Longer Went to Play

Where has all the innocence gone?.. I've been scooching around bits of other countries... being businessman, being a consultant...being with my loved ones,...and even being free of the newspapers and rolling news...and when you do that ..even for a week... and suddenly bump back down into it all again, you do wonder if western civilisation is eating itself up in an orgy of negativity.

Maybe you notice it all as you get older, because you have a rolling time frame of the past to judge the Now against, or was it all just hidden away back then.

Certainly you glance through any Paper, or TV news anywhere and they seem hell bent on bringing you as much doom as they can fill the airwaves with, as if to say we mustn't hide this stuff away, either that or its a Government policy to fill our lives with this junk just so's we say .."well my life's not so bad".

If struggling thru the usual fare of Murder, Child abuse, and general Low Life tales, you are then faced with a wall of Protesters, Strikers, and People telling you that everything you do is bad for you. I'm goggle eyed to read today that Activists have succeeded in having several types of inoffensive Books taken off the shelves in our major bookstores, on threat of action being taken against the store. All this passes without comment from the masses as if normal.

Then we have the Doctors of this fine island lobbying big time to get all Alcohol Advertising banned, in every form, just like Smoking, which if you look at most sponsored Sporting events, would mean the end of all those. Everyone has got an Opinion on everything, and the media is only too willing to give them the Oxygen to spout the most hairbrained stuff that hasn't troubled anyone, Ever.

And then the cherry on the top of all that is the demise of our celebrities that are dotted amongst the news as they were dotted through our lives and our growing up.

This week i find that we lost Dirty Dancing Patrick, our national Treasure chef Keith Floyd, and today I find (and really its what probably sparked this vent on Innocence ) that Mary Travers of Peter Paul and Mary has left us. I mean, the very names Peter, Paul and Mary themselves speak of a time of Innocence in the media, or when it wouldn't be something unspeakable shown on Adult-Tube.

They were even allowed to have a hit about the Vietnam war, can you imagine any record company promoting such a thing nowadays into the mainstream?.. My Favourite of theirs that rang around my head as a young person, was "Puff the Magic Dragon" even with all its implied urban Myth of Hippie naughtyness. So thanks Mary, for the wonderful voice .....and being the Sunny Knight that I am... i wanted to end this tired piece with two bits of the brighter side of Life, things that should may be put on the News.

The words to the Song about Puff, were written by Leonard Lipton after he read the poem by our Knight Ogden Nash called: Custard the Dragon. and So i reprint it here to make you all smile:

THE TALE OF CUSTARD THE DRAGON

By Ogden Nash

Belinda lived in a little white house,
With a little black kitten and a little gray mouse,
And a little yellow dog and a little red wagon,
And a realio, trulio, little pet dragon.

Now the name of the little black kitten was Ink,
And the little gray mouse, she called her Blink,
And the little yellow dog was sharp as Mustard,
But the dragon was a coward, and she called him Custard.

Custard the dragon had big sharp teeth,
And spikes on top of him and scales underneath,
Mouth like a fireplace, chimney for a nose,
And realio, trulio, daggers on his toes.

Belinda was as brave as a barrel full of bears,
And Ink and Blink chased lions down the stairs,
Mustard was as brave as a tiger in a rage,
But Custard cried for a nice safe cage.

Belinda tickled him, she tickled him unmerciful,
Ink, Blink and Mustard, they rudely called him Percival,
They all sat laughing in the little red wagon
At the realio, trulio, cowardly dragon.

Belinda giggled till she shook the house,
And Blink said Week!, which is giggling for a mouse,
Ink and Mustard rudely asked his age,
When Custard cried for a nice safe cage.

Suddenly, suddenly they heard a nasty sound,
And Mustard growled, and they all looked around.
Meowch! cried Ink, and Ooh! cried Belinda,
For there was a pirate, climbing in the winda.

Pistol in his left hand, pistol in his right,
And he held in his teeth a cutlass bright,
His beard was black, one leg was wood;
It was clear that the pirate meant no good.

Belinda paled, and she cried, Help! Help!
But Mustard fled with a terrified yelp,
Ink trickled down to the bottom of the household,
And little mouse Blink strategically mouseholed.

But up jumped Custard, snorting like an engine,
Clashed his tail like irons in a dungeon,
With a clatter and a clank and a jangling squirm
He went at the pirate like a robin at a worm.

The pirate gaped at Belinda's dragon,
And gulped some grog from his pocket flagon,
He fired two bullets but they didn't hit,
And Custard gobbled him, every bit.

Belinda embraced him, Mustard licked him,
No one mourned for his pirate victim
Ink and Blink in glee did gyrate
Around the dragon that ate the pyrate.

Belinda still lives in her little white house,
With her little black kitten and her little gray mouse,
And her little yellow dog and her little red wagon,
And her realio, trulio, little pet dragon.

Belinda is as brave as a barrel full of bears,
And Ink and Blink chase lions down the stairs,
Mustard is as brave as a tiger in a rage,
But Custard keeps crying for a nice safe cage.

And Finally... Not that I like smoking,..... I'd like to show you Winifred from the UK... who looked at Life and did what she damn well pleased, and to heck with all this talk about stuff being a threat to Public Health, as if that's an actual thing.

"There is 'my' health, which is 'mine', and 'your' health which is 'yours', but there is no 'our' health. D'you see?

Winnie followed the KMSA Code to the letter....that " We are Sovereign Rulers of our Own Lives" in other words.."I'll Decide to take my Own chances in Life.".

I'll Drink to that"

Winne Langley celebrated her 100th birthday the best way she knows how - smoking

An iron-lunged pensioner has celebrated her 100th birthday by lighting up her 170,000th cigerette from a candle on her birthday cake.

Winnie Langley started smoking only days after the First World War broke out in June 1914 when she was just seven-years-old - and has got through five a day ever since.

She has no intention of quitting, even after the nationwide ban forced tobacco-lovers outside.

Speaking at her 100th birthday party Winnie said: "I have smoked ever since infant school and I have never thought about quitting.

"There were not all the the health warnings like there are today when I started. It was the done thing."

Winnie, from Croydon, South London, claims tobacco has never made her ill.

She has outlived a husband, Robert, and son, Donald, who died two years ago aged 72.

The former launderette worker said she started the habit in 1914 - just weeks after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on June 28 - which sparked the First World War.

The 100-year-old, who is awaiting her telegram from the Queen today, said smoking helped calm her nerves during the two World Wars.

She said: "A lot of people smoked during the war. It helped steady the nerves."

Sir Dayvd (who on his Hundreth will do a little dance and Sing "My Way ")

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