Wear the fox hat!

11 Sep

I say, I say – did you hear the one about Charles opening a leisure centre in Scunthorpe? On the big day, the streets were lined with scunners eager to catch sight of the man yet to be king.

Finally a gleaming roller drew up. Out popped an immaculately tailored Charles but to all round astonishment, as he cut ribbon and declared Scunthorpe Leisure Centre open, his three-piece whistle, coiffured locks and outstuck ears were topped to the north by a Davy Crockett hat of finest fox fur.

Breaking the perplexed silence, a cub reporter from the Scunthorpe Inquirer found the courage to ask the question on everyone’s lips.

Excuse me your royal highness but why are you wearing that hat?

Well now, that was mummy’s idea.

Really, sir?

Yes. When one told her one was going to Scunthorpe she replied, “wear the fox hat!”

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11 Replies to “Wear the fox hat!

  1. Ha! Very good! (sort of). You’d better be careful, or Big-Ears will have you up on a treason charge. Seriously, it seems that a woman in Glasgow has been arrested for holding an anti-monarchy sign. WTF is happening to us?

    Looks like Big-Ears and Noddy Truss are leaving the nursery (presumably in Noddy’s blue but constantly misfiring car), but her sense of geography is so poor that they will probably end up in the Ukraine and be reduced to smarmy, ugly little entitled fragments by a Russian missile – with any luck.

    Whatever. I now propose that any mention of the new ‘sovereign’ refers to him by his most prominent physical feature.

    So: “Hail, Big-Ears, lang may yer lum reek – although it probably won’t if it’s gas powered, and/or if the coming anti-pollution laws get passed” Too bad.

  2. Just as well small places like Dungworth or Penistone cannot afford such luxuries as new leisure centers or other (privatised) civic buildings these days.

    • Indeed! And while we’re asking who put the penis in Penistone, I take it you’re alluding to a question more burning still. Who put an incredibly rude word beginning with the third letter of the alphabet in the middle of Scunthorpe?

      • If we are going down that route its worth considering the question of:

        As people from Birmingham are referred to as ‘Brummies’ what would be the appropriate way of referring to people from Goole?

        • And then there’s Arsenal, Bolsover, Twatt and the sadly now extinct Gropecunt Lane. Probably have to be careful with the first one, if you’re a fitba’ fan.

          • Bolsover is a bit of a tricky one. I used to work with someone years ago who originated from that place who never missed an opportunity to remind anybody that the whole world pronounces it incorrectly.

            Apparently, locals pronounce it “Bowser.”

            Bit like the suburb of Greenhill in Sheffield. Everyone pronounces it as Green Hill, whereas locals pronounce it as ‘Grenill.’

            • The mangled syntax of the hymns we sang as children often bamboozled me. When we piped in unison about a “green hill far away, without a city wall” I’d wonder how on earth that helped distinguish it from thousands of others. I couldn’t think of a single green hill which did have a city wall!

              Yes, the denizens of Greenhill do pronounce it “Grennill”, though I didn’t know about those of Bolsover calling it “Bowser”. Not that Sheffield and its environs have any monopoly on such proper noun peculiarities. Londoners need to know there’s an “L” in Holborn, and New Englanders that there are three “C”s, not two, in Connecticutt.

              • To be fair Sheffielders have something of a reputation for lazy pronunciation of traditional Yorkshire words like “Thee” and “Thou.”

                This is why people from Chesterfield refer to us as ‘de da’s’ – eg: instead of “Now then thee, tha Wincobank Chuff” it invariably comes out as ‘Now den de, da Wincobank Chuff.”

                You will also find that ALL dogs in Sheffield are called “Den.”

                Don’t believe me? Just visit the city and watch any dog owner call their dog towards them. You will always and inevitably here the call “Come on Den.”

                Works with kids as well a lot of the time.

    • I first encountered ‘Cockermouth’ in 1963, on a signpost in Keswick where I was on a YHA break with dad and two brothers. The pleasures of fellatio – grossly misrepresented by the term, as misleading as it is unenticing, ‘blow job’ – being unknown and unimaginable to a ten year old me, I was amused and repelled, but above all thankful I didn’t have to tell anyone I lived there!

      (And that’s my last word on the subject too.)

      Will check out the video.

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