Top lines from Chaucer No. 103

Actually they're edited from The Washington Post's annual round-ups of topical neologisms. But Chaucer would have enjoyed them.

1. Coffee, n. The person upon whom one coughs.

2. Flabbergasted, adj. Appalled by discovering how much weight one has gained.

3. Abdicate, v. To give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.

4. Esplanade, v. To attempt an explanation while drunk.

5. Willy-nilly, adj. Impotent.

6. Negligent, adj. Absentmindedly answering the door when wearing only a nightgown.

7. Lymph, v.. To walk with a lisp.

8. Gargoyle, n. Olive-flavoured mouthwash.

9. Flatulence, n. Emergency vehicle that picks up someone who has been run over by a steamroller.

10. Balderdash, n. A rapidly receding hairline.

11. Testicle, n. A humorous question in an exam.

12. Oyster, n. A person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.

13. Frisbeetarianism, n. The belief that, after death, the soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.

14. Cashtration, n. The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.

15. Reintarnation, n. Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

16. Giraffiti, n. (Ital) Vandalism spray-painted very, very high

17. Sarchasm, n. The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

18. Inoculatte, v. (Ital.) To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

19. Osteopornosis, n. A degenerate disease

20. Karmageddon, n. It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.

21. Decafalon, n. The gruelling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

22. Glibido, n. All talk and no action.

23. Dopeler Effect, n. phrase The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

24. Beelzebug, n. Satan in the form of a mosquito which gets into your bedroom at 3am and which cannot be cast out.

Les Jeudistes Scottish Choir Tour No. 5 (final)

Desperate times

We spent the final night of the tour in the Holiday Inn, Ayr, a mile or two down the road from Prestwick Airport, a dismal place whose motto 'Pure dead brilliant' illustrates a characteristic Scottish thrift in its simultaneous combination of hyperbole and litotes.

The return flight, to Girona in northern Spain - the nearest airport to our base in France offering convenient flights to Scotland - meant checking in at 5.30am. We arranged to meet in the hotel foyer at 5.15, ready to embark in the minibus for the airport. The hotel reception staff said they didn't do wake-up calls, so we left it to the troops to manage their own mobile alarms. We suggested setting them for 4.30am.

Easier said than done. We should all have done it then and there, before saying goodnight, rather than leave it to each individual:

*Few if any had changed the time on their mobiles on arriving in Scotland some days earlier.

*Some were uncertain whether UK time was an hour ahead of, or behind, French time.

*And did the UK put clocks forward an hour at the end of March? Or did they put them back?

*Some had failed to advance their mobiles to take account of Continental summer-time.

*Did this mean that UK time was two hours ahead of, or behind, France?

*Some were uncertain if Spain and France had the same time.

The upshot was that alarms rang at 2.30, 3.30, 4.30, 5.30 and - the following morning, to M.'s annoyance, his mobile having been switched off for the flight - 6.30.

A further consequence was that M. and E., two of the lads, as they liked to call themselves having discovered that this is a popular term for 'man' in Scotland, had virtually to be dragged out of bed at 5.30 by one of the lassies, as they liked to call themselves having discovered that this is popular term for 'woman' in Scotland.

(Actually I should excuse E. from all this horological uncertainty. He leads a charmed life disdaining any kind of technology. He has no mobile, iPad, iPhone, anything like that at all. The most up-to-date artefacts he has about him are a comb and a two-coloured crayon. Sometimes I'm quite envious...)

But they all made it. Head lassie B. has put up a photo gallery of the whole trip here. Do have a look, tho' you would hardly gather from it that this was a Seriously Grand International Choir Outing and that we actually gave a few concerts here and there.

As for J. and me, we weren't flying back but returning a few days later by car. Of course I too in my imbecility miscalculated the alarm, which rang at 3.30. I wasn't too disgruntled. I went back to sleep for a bit. We both got up to drive the troops down to the airport, I went back to bed on return and got up for breakfast 3 hours later, by this time feeling really quite gruntled.

Les Jeudistes Scottish Choir Tour No. 4

I know I sometimes write the first thing that comes into my head, and anyone reading these effusions is clearly graced with the greatest forbearance (or has no idea how best to spend his/her time), but today's post is something special.

No, it's no illusion, no trick photography. It's the Sultan of Oman's Mounted Pipe Band. Look, you can quite clearly see the camels, with bagpipers mounted. How you do this I've no idea. And just think, the other day I could have found out, but the opportunity passed, and unless any of the myriad camel-mounted pipers that come here every day can enlighten me, it will have passed for ever.

We took Les Jeudistes to Cawdor Castle. It's the one in which Macbeth murdered King Duncan, according to Shakespeare. (In fact Macbeth, who reigned in Scotland - as it often does - at about the time of William the Conqueror wasn't a bad king at all. His queen was called Gruoch, or maybe she was merely clearing her throat when asked what her name was.) It's a fascinating place to visit, and I've known this castle for many years. I once borrowed - by permission of Earl Cawdor, a Campbell - the castle dinner gong for a performance in which I was playing percussion of Carmina Burana in nearby Inverness.

I arranged for a piper to meet Les Jeudistes, thinking we might as well go the whole hog. Mutedly resplendent in mainly blue tartan, he met us at the turnstile, led us in procession to a well-known march called The Old Rustic Bridge by the Mill to the castle drawbridge, where we were all photographed with him. When he stopped playing I asked him what his pipe-history was: usually pipers have served with some military unit or other. He wore a silver badge with a stag's head on it, the badge of Clan Mackenzie which eventually became, together with the motto 'Caberfeidh', the emblem of the Seaforth Highlanders, now merged into The Highlanders.

Yes, he'd served with the Seaforths, he said, but after leaving and before taking full retirement he'd been appointed piping instructor to the Sultan of Oman. Here he had to learn not only to ride camels but to play the pipes while riding. I was tempted to think he was pulling my leg, but he was a very serious-minded gentleman, not at all like his interlocutor, so I imagine it must be true.

Les Jeudistes thanked him and moved into the inner bailey, just beyond the drawbridge. Although open to the skies, the acoustic was excellent. Despite our rule never to sing out of doors, we thought we might have a go just this once. We formed up and sang a couple of our Occitan folksongs. Heads appeared at doors and windows, mulberry-uniformed staff forsook the cafeteria to listen. Enthusiastic applause. Not having perfect pitch, I borrowed J.'s tuning fork to find the right pitch. I suppose I could have borrowed the gong again if I'd thought of it.

There's another stag's head on the heraldic shield above the gate. This time the motto is that of the Campbells of Cawdor: Be Mindful.

I don't think we'll forget.

Les Jeudistes Scottish Choir Tour No. 2

At the door of Whinnieknowe, the retirement home where my mother is a few months into her second century, Eloi the basso profundo, perplexed by all the un-French Ws and Hs and Ks, asks me how you pronounce it. He might well be extra aware of the pitfalls of pronunciation: only that morning at breakfast Paul, our B & B proprietor, addressed him as 'Elloy' instead of 'Elwah'. General laughter. I pronounce it for him, telling him it means a small hill (knowe) covered with whins (gorse or broom).

We install ourselves in the south drawing room. We're all in uniform, red tops, black bottoms. Christine the accompanist settles herself at the Clavinova. She doesn't like electronic pianos. There's no control. This one is particularly brassy, even honky-tonkish in the higher registers. Christine does her best to draw a flowing cantabile out of it. It needs all her very considerable skill.

We've come to sing to the residents, who have been placed round the outside of the room. They're all more or less sane. My mother isn't among them. Maybe she's chosen not to come. She can be quite capricious. She's also almost totally deaf, so there isn't much point in her coming anyway.

We set off into Le Cantique de Jean Racine, a serenely beautiful sacred motet by Gabriel Fauré. We sing it in French, but the theology is so abstruse that no one would be much the wiser whatever language we sang it in. About three quarters of the way through the doors open and a flurry of attendants eases my mother's wheelchair through. She makes nods and becks and wreathèd smiles to all the company, who respond appropriately. Through the music, now coming to a close, I hear someone asking 'Foo's thon wifie?' This is local dialect for 'Who's that lady?' (My mother stays in her room most of the time.) Le Cantique comes to an end. They've sung it beautifully, despite this interruption. Polite applause.

Taking into account that my mother's entry has spoilt the other residents' enjoyment of this piece, and that my mother herself hasn't had a chance to hear it, and that maybe a particularly persuasive carer has got her to put her hearing aid in for once, I say to the company 'Would you like to hear it again?'

'No,' someone says from the other side of the room.

Les Jeudistes Scottish Choir Tour No. 1

Best joke of the tour :

J-C, when offered a slice of pressed tongue:

No, thanks. I don't much care for tongue. Somehow I don't relish the thought of eating something that's come out of some creature's mouth.

I'll have an egg instead.