Apple scrumping

[Mike Westbrook <mwest@atc-1s.HAC.COM>]

Boy, take a week's holiday, and it takes you a week to catch up!  Good thing
I switched to the Digest, or my mail queue would have been phenominal...

Easy topics first, then!  A little clean-up from the "apple scrumping" topic:

I'm not Thomas Hardy, but the definitions of "scrumping" (stealing windfalls)
and "scrumpy" (cider) are correct, to the best of my current knowledge.
(People around here only have Webster's, my Oxford Concise is in storage, and
I don't have a spare $1000+ for the OED...)  Along with the subsequent
"Birthday punching" line (like "bumps" and/or "a pinch to grow an inch"), it
was undoubtedly (to my mind) meant to evoke Jimmy's earlier youth and the
related activities of groups of adolescent males.

Alackaday, methinks the quotation, "To wantonly purloin nature's golden bounty
from the bough," misses the bull on two marks--it weren't from the bough,
squire, 'twas off'n the ground (fallen apples are more likely to be ripe, and
much easier to snitch in the dark); and of course you meant, "Wantonly to
purloin"...

It was a nice try, but there should be no connection to Apple Scruffs--apple
scrumping predates Fab Four groupies by eons.

And Mark, the Bonzo Dog Band dropped the "Doo-Dah" before their first album,
and "King of Scurf" (not "Scruff", scurf=dandruff) was on their "last" album
"Let's Make Up and Be Friendly".  And since Viv Stanshall was a good friend
of Keith's, I figured we ought to be accurate in this regard.  (I just wish I
could have seen the escapade where Viv and other member(s) of the Bonzo Dog
Band [Rodney Slater and/or Roger Ruskin-Spear?], dressed like 30's gangsters
and armed with tommy guns, kidnapped Keith, who was dressed like a nun, in
London in broad daylight, and drove away in a pink Rolls Royce.  You'd think
someone would have noticed...)

> Mike <


        I am the big shot.

        You heard me right the first time--
        Name of bachelor:  Johnny Cool.
        Occupation:  Big shot.
        Occupation at the moment:  Just having fun.