Author: sven

And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

Thucydides wrote of a night encounter during the battle of Epipolae, where the sides could not distinguish friend from foe.

Well, Old Dan Tucker, was a fine old man,
Washed his face in a frying pan,
Combed his hair with a wagon wheel,
Died with a toothache in his heel.

Get out the way! Old Dan Tucker,
You’re too late to get your supper.
Get out the way! Old Dan Tucker,
You’re too late to get your supper.

Old Dan Tucker, he’d come to town
Riding a billy goat, leading a hound.
The hound dog barked, the billy goat jumped,
Landed ‘Ol Tucker on a stump!

Get out the way! Old Dan Tucker,
You’re too late to get your supper.
Get out the way! Old Dan Tucker,
You’re too late to get your supper.

Now Old Dan Tucker got drunk and fell
In the fire and kicked up holy hell,
A red-hot coal fell in his shoe
And oh my Lord the ashes flew.

Now old Dan Tucker has come to town,
Swinging them ladies all around,
First to the right and then to the left,
Then to the gal that he loves best.

Get out the way! Old Dan Tucker,
You’re too late to get your supper.
Get out the way! Old Dan Tucker,
You’re too late to get your supper.

————–

Old Dan Tucker was a fine old man,
Washed his face in a fryin’ pan,
Combed his head with a wagon wheel,
Died with a toothache in his heel

So get out the way, old Dan Tucker,
It’s too late to get your supper
Supper’s over and dinner is cookin’,
Old Dan Tucker just standin’ there lookin’

Old Dan Tucker come to town
Swingin’ the ladies round and round
First to the right, then to the left,
Then to the one that you love best

Old Dan Tucker clumb a tree
His Lord and master for to see
The limb it broke and he had a fall,
Never got to see his Lord at all

Old Dan Tucker come to town,
Riding a billy goat, leading a hound
The hound dog barked and the billy goat jumped
And it threw old Dan right over a stump

Old Dan Tucker was a fine old man,
Washed his face in a fryin’ pan,
Combed his head with a wagon wheel,
Died with a toothache in his heel

So get out the way, old Dan Tucker,
It’s too late to get your supper
Supper’s over and the dishes are washed
All that’s left is a piece of squash

—

I come to town de udder night,
I hear de noise den saw de fight,
De watchman was a runnin roun,
Cryin Old Dan Tuckeer’s come to town,
So get out de way! Get out de way!
Get out de way! Old Dan Tucker,
Your too late to come to supper.

Tucker is a nice old man,
He use’d to ride our darby ram,
He sent him whizzin down de hill,
If he had ‘nt got up he’d laid dar still,
Get out de way! Get out de way!
Get out de way! Old Dan Tucker,
Your too late to come to supper.

Tucker on de wood pile–can’t count ‘lebben,
Put in a fedder bed–him gwine to hebben,
His nose so flat, his face so full,
De top ob his head like a bag ob wool,
Get out de way! Get out de way!
Get out de way! Old Dan Tucker,
Your too late to come to supper.

High hold on de holler tree,
He poke his bill in for to see,
De lizzard cotch ‘im by de snout,
He call old Tucker to pull ‘im out,
Get out de way! Get out de way!
Get out de way! Old Dan Tucker,
Your too late to come to supper.

Tucker he had cash a plenty,
Dressed to death–his old trunk empty,
To kiss de galls he thot was useless,
‘Cept he kissed wid a sway-back-looseness,
Get out de way! Get out de way!
Get out de way! Old Dan Tucker,
Your too late to come to supper.

Here’s my razor in good order,
Magnum-bonum–jis hab bought ‘er,
Sheep shell de oats, ole Tucker shell de corn,
I’ll shave you all when de water gets warm,
Get out de way! Get out de way!
Get out de way! Old Dan Tucker,
Your too late to come to supper.

I went to meetin de udder day,
To hear old Tucker preach and pray,
Dey all got drunk, but me alone,
I make ole Tucker–walk-jaw-bone,
Get out de way, Get out de way,
Get out de way you hard’end sinner,
Your too late to come to dinner.

And if any man hunger, let him eat at home.

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face.

The homes of the natives are the woods and groves; they worship the gods severally and in congregations; all discord and all sorrow is unknown. Death comes to them only when, owing to satiety of life, after holding a banquet and anointing their old age with luxury, they leap from a certain rock into the sea: this mode of burial is the most blissful.

More profound than Oscar Wilde. More wild than Johnny Profumo.

British authorities agreed to the creation of a “sterile zone” around the President with a series of road closures in central London and a security cordon keeping the public away from his cavalcade. The American had also wanted to travel with a mini-gun, which usually forms part of the mobile armoury in his cavalcade. It’s fired from a tank and could mow down hundreds of terrorists on the President’s say-so. This is especially helpful during peacekeeping deployments.

A reclusive pensioner who booby-trapped his home with the intention of killing his estranged family, died himself when he inadvertently triggered one of his own devices, Belgian police revealed last week.

Louis Dethy, a retired engineer, had hidden a number of booby-traps in walls, ceilings and household objects throughout his three-storey home in what appeared to be a final revenge on the children and grandchildren he claimed had abandoned him.

At first Belgian police assumed that the 79-year-old had committed suicide and bled to death from a gunshot wound to the neck after finding him at his home near the town of Charlerois.

It was an assumption which nearly cost one detective his life as he searched the house and opened a booby-trapped wooden chest. A shotgun hidden inside went off, missing the policeman by inches.

The detectives beat a hasty retreat and called in military mine-clearance experts who, after unravelling a series of enigmatic clues left in the engineer’s scribbled notes, uncovered a total of 19 death traps, among them an apparently harmless but lethal pile of dinner plates, the television and even an exploding crate of beer.