2022 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

Liverpool_Anne

Hi all, well the fingerless gloves are getting better. I changed my casting on from thumb to cable and it seemed to help. I started with the thumb as I didn't want it too tight but I think it made everything too loose. Anyways I am getting along with it slowly to make sure there are no more slips etc and I am getting more used to it so onwards and upwards as they say. Does anyone else ever wonder who these people are who say things?
Take care everyone

PipneyJane

Liverpool_Anne said:

Hi all, well the fingerless gloves are getting better. I changed my casting on from thumb to cable and it seemed to help. I started with the thumb as I didn't want it too tight but I think it made everything too loose. Anyways I am getting along with it slowly to make sure there are no more slips etc and I am getting more used to it so onwards and upwards as they say. Does anyone else ever wonder who these people are who say things?
Take care everyone

Glad to hear it, @Liverpool_Anne.

I have a friend who used to sign off her posts on the Motley Fool with "Onward".  I believe she stole it from the knitting great, Elizabeth Zimmerman, used to sign off her newsletters that way.  (Mrs Zimmerman is credited with being one of the most influential hand-knitting designers of the 20th century.)

- Pip

Laura_Elsewhere

Eric Robson who presents Gardeners' Question Time on Radio4 has ended every programme with 'Onwards and upwards' for about a thousand years or so!

I use "Onwards! Excelsior!" a lot, and gradually the 'Excel' bit has been replaced by whatever I'm just girding my loins to do - "Onwards! Kitchencelsior!" or "Onwards! Knitcelsior!" or whatever... 

Excelsior means sort of both onwards and upwards, so the 'Onwards and upwards' is a kind of translation of the one word 'Excelsior' which is repeated a lot in a ghastly Longfellow poem of the 1840s - which has a delightfully gleefully wicked parody by Housman.

The original starts:

The shades of night were falling fast
When through an Alpine Village passed
A lad who bore, mid snow and ice,
A banner with this strange device:
Excelsior!

(device meaning a logo or symbol, rather than a mechanical thing )

So Housman just added lines in between and gleefully turned it into:

The shades of night were falling fast
The rain was falling faster
When through an Alpine Village passed
An Alpine village pastor and
A lad who bore, mid snow and ice,
A bird that wouldn't chirrup and
A banner with this strange device:
Mrs Winslow's Soothing Syrup! 

 

Liverpool_Anne

@Laura_Elsewhere, gardeners qt, what a great programme and, yes he does say that
Take care everyone

PollyWollyDoodle

Ha, I’d forgotten that Housman parody - thank you for reminding me of it and bringing a smile to my face 😀

PipneyJane

That parody is brilliant!  Thank you @Laura_Elsewhere.

- Pip

Cherryfudge

I hadn't heard that version! I knew the (Girl Guides'?) version where the 'strange device' (sung at great speed) was 'You pie dee eye dee eye dah, you pie dee, you pie dah, you pie dee eye dee I dah, you pie dee eye dah'!

I can't vouch for the spelling.

I looked up the Housman version and I think we should all be further enlightened by its uplifting lyrics:

Excelsior: the Shades of Night

The shades of night were falling fast
And the rain was falling faster,
When through an Alpine village passed
An Alpine village pastor;
A youth who bore mid snow and ice
A bird that wouldn't chirrup,
And a banner, with the strange device —
'Mrs. Winslow's soothing syrup.

''Beware the pass,' the old man said,
'My bold and desperate fellah;
Dark lowers the tempest overhead,
And you'll want your umberella;
And the roaring torrent is deep and wide —
You may hear how it washes.'
But still that clarion voice replied:
'I've got my old goloshes.'

'Oh stay,' the maiden said, 'and rest
(For the wind blows from the nor'ward)
Thy weary head upon my breast —
And please don't think me forward.'
A tear stood in his bright blue eye
And gladly he would have tarried;
But still he answered with a sigh:
'Unhappily I'm married.'

florianatwobob

These are all more erudite than I’ve been this week. 

Clearly my Mum’s been on my mind so this week as I’ve found myself singing ‘(I love you a) Bushel and a Peck’, the song about Hitler, Goebels et al and their *cough* ‘organs of increase’, and the Boer War song about The Baby’s Name. All songs I associate with her. 

Cherryfudge

florianatwobob said:

These are all more erudite than I’ve been this week. 

Clearly my Mum’s been on my mind so this week as I’ve found myself singing ‘(I love you a) Bushel and a Peck’, the song about Hitler, Goebels et al and their *cough* ‘organs of increase’, and the Boer War song about The Baby’s Name. All songs I associate with her. 

We are a scholarly lot, aren't we?

Pass the biscuit tin someone, please.

nannygladys

I've never read Longfellow or Houseman but I really enjoyed the parody, now I know what one is. I actually stood up and read it out loud!!
My knitting has halted for a couple of days as my wrists are still painful, but I will have another go at a mug rug this weekend, as the other one I made wasn't quite big enough, I couldn't fit both mug and hm biscuit on it!!!
And I've found an old cross stitch kit that hasn't been started, I was looking for for some cotton so I might start that some time in the near future. I really didn't think I had all these not started or unfinished things about, they must go back years to when I had a small caravan, and when I sold it all the crafty stuff from there just got put in any box, tub or bag then discarded in my craft room (ok it's the box room without the bed lol). 
Happy knitting, sewing etc over the weekend, I still have a pair of socks to darn and the new mug rug to make.
Nannyg