Billing Road

Sharon had no chocolate,
no alcohol
and she was completely hormonal.
Still, if she could find a man to nag,
then maybe the day could be salvaged.

Hush Little Baby, Mockingbird, Uncle Tom's Cabine and Others...

Portrait shows Florence Thompson with several of her children in a photograph known as "Migrant Mother". The Library of Congress caption reads: "Destitute pea pickers in California. Mother of seven children. Age thirty-two. Nipomo, California." In the 1930s, the FSA employed several photographers to document the effects of the Great Depression on the population of America.

Hush Little Baby

“Hush, Little Baby” is a traditional lullaby. It is thought to be American (mockingbirds are from the American continent), but the author and date of origin are unknown. The lyrics promise all kinds of rewards to the child if he or she is quiet.


Hush, little baby, don't say a word,
Mama's gonna buy you a mockingbird.
If that mockingbird don't sing,
Mama's gonna buy you a diamond ring.
If that diamond ring turns brass
Mama's gonna buy you a looking glass
If that looking glass gets broke,
Mama's gonna buy you a billy goat.
If that billy goat won't pull,
Mama's gonna buy you a cart and bull.
If that cart and bull turn over,
Mama's gonna buy you a dog named Rover.
If that dog named Rover won't bark.
Mama's gonna buy you a horse and cart.
If that horse and cart fall down,
You'll still be the sweetest little baby in town.
So hush little baby don't you cry,
Cuz Mama loves you and so do I.


Fullpage illustration by Hammatt Billings for Uncle Tom's Cabin (First Edition: Boston: John P. Jewett and Company, 1852). The engraving shows Eliza telling Uncle Tom that she has been sold and is running away to save her child.


…158 later

Eminem’s Mockingbird


Yeah
I know sometimes things may not always make sense to you right now
But hey, what'd daddy always tell you?
Straighten up little soldier
Stiffen up that upper lip
Whatchu crying about?
You got me.

[Verse 1]
Hailie, I know u miss your mom
And I know u miss your dad when I'm gone
But I'm tryin' to give you the life that I never had
I can see your sad
Even when you smile
Even when you laugh
I can see it in your eyes
Deep inside you wanna cry
Cuz you're scared
I ain't there,
Daddy's with you in your prayers
No more cryin'
Wipe them tears
Daddy's here
No more nightmares
We gonna pull together through it
We gon' do it
Lainie's uncle's crazy ain't he, yeah
But he loves you girl and you better know it
We're all we got in this world
When it spins
When it swirls
When it whirls
When it twirls
Two little beautiful girls
Lookin' puzzled, in a daze
I know it's confusing you
Daddy's always on the move
Mama's always on the news
I try to keep you sheltered from it
But somehow it seems, the harder that I try to do that
The more it backfires on me
All the things, growin' up
As daddy, daddy had to see
Daddy don't want you to see
But you see just as much as he did
We did not plan it to be this way,
Your mother and me
But things have got so bad between us
I don't see us ever being
Together ever again
Like we used to be like when we was teenagers
But then of course
Everything always happen for a reason
I guess it was never meant to be
But it's just something
We have no control over
And that's what destiny is
But no more worries
Rest your head and go to sleep
Maybe one day we'll wake up
And this will all just be a dream

[Chorus]
Now hush little baby don't you cry
Every thing's gonna be all right
Stiffin' that upper lip up little lady I told ya
Daddy's here to hold ya through the night
I know mommy's not here right now and we don't know why
We fear how we feel inside, it may seem a little crazy
Pretty baby but I promise, Mama's gon' be alright

[Verse two]
It's funny,
I remember back one year when daddy had no money
Mommy wrapped the Christmas presents up
And stuck 'em under the tree
And said some of 'em were from me,
Cuz daddy couldn't buy 'em
I'll never forget that Christmas
I sat up the whole night crying
Cuz daddy felt like a bum,
See daddy had a job, but his job
Was to keep the food on the table for you and mom
And at the time every house that we lived in
Either kept getting broken into and robbed or shot up on the block
And your mom, was saving money for you in a jar
Tryna to start a piggy bank for you
So you could go to college
Almost had a thousand dollars
'Till someone broke in and stole it
And I know it hurt so bad it broke your mamma's heart
And it seemed like everything was just starting to fall apart
Mom and dad was arguing a lot
So mama moved back on to Chalmers in a flat
One bedroom apartment
And dad moved back to the other side of 8 mile on Novara
And that's when daddy went to California with his CD
And met Dr. Dre and flew you and Mama out to see me,
But daddy had to work, you and mama had to leave me,
Then you started seeing daddy on the TV
And mama didn't like it
And you and Lainnie were too young to understand it
Papa was a rollin' stone, mama developed a habit
And it all happened too fast for either one of us to grab it
I'm just sorry you were there and had to witness it firsthand
Cuz all I ever wanted to do was just make you proud
Now I'm sittin' in this empty house,
Just reminiscing. Looking at your baby pictures it just trips me out
To see how much you both have grown it's almost like you're sisters now
Wow, guess you pretty much are and daddy's still here
Lainnie I'm talking to you too daddy's still here
I like the sound of that, yeah
It's got a ring to it don't it
Shhh, mama's only gone for the moment

[Chorus]
Now hush little baby don't you cry
Every thing's gonna be all right
Stiffin' that upper lip up little lady I told ya
Daddy's here to hold ya through the night
I know mommy's not here right now and we don't know why
We fear how we feel inside, it may seem a little crazy
Pretty baby but I promise, mama's gon' be alright

[End chorus]
And if you ask me to, daddy's gonna buy you a mocking bird
I'ma give you the world, I'ma buy a diamond ring for you,
I'ma sing for you, I'll do anything for you to see you smile
And if that mockingbird don't sing and that ring don't shine
I'ma break that birdie's neck, I'll go back to the jeweler
Who sold it to ya
And make him eat every carat
Don't fuck with Dad (ha ha).




Illustration of Tom and Eva by Hammatt Billings for the 1853 deluxe edition of Uncle Tom's Cabin.

E-MAIL

E-MAIL

Леля Теми получи и-мейл от сина си чак от Америка. Разпечатката й донесе комшийчето Румен. Руменчо бе съученик на нейния Кайо. Той живееше в съседния вход и бе най-големият компютърен спец в махалата. Та съобщението всъщност пристигна в неговия компютър. Румен на мига го разпечата и изтича до леля Теми да я зарадва. Тя му благодари, почерпи го с бяло сладко и чаша вода от хладилника и когато той си тръгна, грабна очилата, изпи една мастичка за кураж и седна да чете и-мейла. Когато видя обаче чуждите букви, се отчая.
И-мейлът впрочем започваше така:

„Zdravei, mamo. Az sum dobre. Shtom polucha zelenata karta, shte si doida v Bulgaria da te vidia. Oshte ne sum se ojenil, zashtoto tuk jenite sa mnogo grozni i debeli. Kato si doida, shte se ojenia za bulgarka. Ne se kahari za men, a si gledai zdraveto. Tche vnutzi shte gledash.“

Чуждите букви подскачаха пред очите й. Тя първо страшно се ядоса на сина си как може така да й пише на чужд език. После обаче го оправда. Рече си, че сигурно вече е започнал да забравя българския. Пет години са това, не е шега работа.
И леля Теми реши да се бори. Прибра писмото под мушамата на масата в кухнята, където държеше кръщелното си свидетелство, няколко употребявани бръснарски ножчета на покойния й съпруг и сметките за тока и се записа на курс по английски.
След няколко месеца с гордо вдигнато чело тя потърси Румен, за да му връчи един лист със строгата заръка веднага да го изпрати по и-мейла на сина й. Румен обаче го нямаше. Той също бе заминал за Америка. Леля Теми се потюхка, пък взе един плик, пъхна листа вътре, написа адреса на Кайчо в Ню Йорк, залепи плика и отиде до пощата да пусне писмото. На нейния лист впрочем пишеше:

„Ай лав ю вери мач. Хау ду ю ду? Ай ем файн, тенк ю. Ай ем стадинг инглиш. Ем ай стадинг инглиш? Йес, ай ем. Кис ю, бейби.“

Сетне, като се прибра, седна в кухнята да плете бебешки терлички. Вече бе напълнила два кашона с тях, но продължаваше упорито да плете.

Деян Енев

As the government trots up and down the country trying to root out support for welfare reforms...

Flying pigs Butch and Sundance evade the chop


BLAME it on the El Niño effect, but the August stories are happening in January this year. As Tony Blair trots up and down the country trying to root out support for welfare reforms, the great British public is more concerned with the welfare of a couple of heroic swine who escaped their destiny with a fried egg and hit the road (all right, the bramble thicket) like a porcine Bonnie and Clyde.

The two Tamworth pigs gave their minders the slip at an abattoir in Malmesbury, Wiltshire, 10 days ago and have since consistently hogged the headlines (generating a lot of pig-puns, some rasher than others). Originally dubbed Fred and Ginger — after their fancy trotter-work — they transmogrified on the run into Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Pig.

According to the Wiltshire police spokesman PC Roger Bull (no relation): “These are obviously cunning and devious animals and it appears to be a well planned escape.”

The celebrity of the Tamworth Two began shortly after their arrival at Newman’s slaughterhouse in Malmesbury. To start with they were the Tamworth Three, but one of their number — a sort of Pete Best of the group — dropped out and, according to the slaughterhouse, was “processed in the usual way”.

The Two, however, each weighing a hefty 110lb, made a bolt for it and wriggled under a fence. What happened next is perhaps most movingly described by the in-house poet of The Independent, who wrote a ballad in their honour:

For having gained some distance
From the slaughterhouse’s thugs
They swam the River Avon
Like a Chinese team on drugs.

Fording the Avon was a daring snouts-above-the-water mission that stirred folk memories. Just as we cheered for Steve McQueen to leap his motorbike over the wire in The Great Escape, so we backed the bacon-dodgers.

“On behalf of our Women’s Institute,” said Betty Ross, 75, who works in the village Oxfam shop, “I’d like to say: go for it, pigs!”

As police opened a “pig hotline” for information and warned that the pair “may be headed towards Prince Charles’s home, Highgrove, which is only a few miles away”, public sympathy snowballed. Offers of sanctuary arrived from, among others, the Born Free Foundation in Surrey — “they should be given another chance after being clever enough to run away”.

Careless of such temptation, Butch and Sundance remained snuffling for apples in a thicket on Tetbury Hill on the outskirts of Malmesbury. Like their outlaw namesakes they did not realise the firepower gathering against them.

The Daily Mail dispatched 10 reporters who, after a night of muddy chases, claimed to have captured Butch — and in the best Fleet Street traditions promptly whisked her off to a safe sty to be “grunted an exclusive interview”. Meanwhile, the Daily Express promised to buy them for an animal sanctuary. The Times ran an editorial: “Ze swine have escaped”. ITN hired a helicopter. And never mind Malmesbury, the global village could not resist stopping to talk about the pigs as they appeared on French television and CNN.

A pig’s life is by no means an easy one. As the columnist Beachcomber (JB Morton) once noted: “One disadvantage of being a hog is that at any moment some bloody fool may try to make a silk purse out of your wife’s ear.” Yet the Tamworth Two episode made us reflect on the ambiguous relationship between pig and man. “Dogs look up at us, cats look down on us, but pigs treat us as equals,” said Churchill.

As the net closed on Sundance, NBC, the American television network, sent a correspondent to keep viewers posted. A price had been put on Sundance’s head. His owner, Arnaldo Di-julio, a council roadsweeper, had sold his pigs for £15,000 to the Mail, whose proprietor, Viscount Rothermere, counts among his clubs the Beefsteak.

Sundance, cornered in a thicket, still needed the efforts of eight men and the local vet to immobilise him. He was carted off to solitary confinement on a nice bed of fresh straw at the local veterinary surgery. A policeman stood guard — there were fears of pignappers among the press — until yesterday he was taken out to be reunited with Butch at an animal sanctuary. Honourable retirement beckons.

Butch and Sundance still live at the Rare Breeds Centre at Woodchurch, Kent. Peter Taylor died in 2002 aged 56

From the archive:1998

SUPPORT GROUP for Doctors from Eastern Europe, Russian and Bulgarian doctors

Foreign Doctors from Eastern Europe, Russian and Bulgarian doctors in the UK
Support group “Dr Maximoff”
For the attention of those foreign doctors, who are striving to achieve their registration and get employment.
Why don't we establish a support group between us?
I am familiar with the registration process and with some employment matters and I am happy to share my experience with those of you , who are interested
You are kindly invited to contact me:
Kolokol_05 @ bk. ru “Dr Maximoff”



Russian translation

Врачи из Воссточной Европе, в том числе из России, Болгарии и т.д, проживающие в Соединенном Королевсстве
Группа взаимопомощи “Д-р Максимов”

Вниманию тех врачей, которые пытаются пройти необходимую регистрацию и устроиться на работу.
Почему бы нам не создать Группу взаимопомощи?
Я знаком с процессом регистрации и с некоторыми нюансами устройства на работу, и я готов поделиться своим опытом с вами.
Если вы заинтересовались этой идеей, пишите мне по аддресу
“Д-р Максимов”
Kolokol_05 @ bk. ru



Bulgarian Translation

На вниманието на лекари от България и бившия Съветски Съюз, които срещат затруднеиня при регистрацията си и търсене на работа в Обединено Кралство Великобритания.
Група за взаимопомощ “Д-р Максимов”


Предлагам своя опит в случай, че имате въпроси относно регистрацията си и процеса на търсене на работа
“Д-р Максимов”
Kolokol_05 @ bk. ru