Strange Conversations: Part One Hundred and Eighty-Six
Posted 17 August 2009 in Strange Conversations by Catriona
Whinging about the administrative details that have piled up a little this week:
ME: They’re like an Ancient Mariner around my neck!
(Note: I know. I know. It’s ripped off from Sue Townsend.)
NICK: Of course, you have to take the rime off before you can eat an Ancient Mariner.
ME: Did you make that up yourself?
NICK: Yep!
ME: That’s quite clever.
NICK: Thanks.
Share your thoughts [4]
1
Heather wrote at Aug 17, 10:57 pm
Corvus Corax! Corvus Corax! Omega!
(Sorry, that’s what ran through my head when I read your ‘strange conversation’—you’ll have to ask Michelle about the poem that had this line in it. Also, I know it’s a Raven and not an Albatross…but it’s still what ran through my head. I haven’t had enough coffee yet, obviously.)
2
Tim wrote at Aug 18, 06:31 am
(applause for Nick)
3
Drew wrote at Aug 18, 08:20 pm
shouldn’t that be an Albatross around your neck, not an Ancient Mariner? I suspect I’m missing the joke since I’m sure you know the distinction, but it sounds like you’re getting hit on in some sleazy nautical pub somewhere.
4
Catriona wrote at Aug 18, 09:19 pm
It’s a borrowed joke from one of Sue Townsend’s Adrian Mole books, Drew—I can’t remember which one, but either The Secret Diaries or The Growing Pains.
If you haven’t read them, he’s a thirteen-year-old would-be intellectual who never quite gets it right, like when he thinks Jane Austen should write something a bit more modern or that Evelyn Waugh (and later Auberon Waugh) is a woman.
This is one of his mistakes: he notes wearily that the old-age pensioner he works with is like an Ancient Mariner around his neck.
It’s always appealed to me. (Especially since I’m not so big on birds. They’re all crispy.)