Where have all the vegetables gone?

[nineveh_uk]

My middle school had long assembly three times a week, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I quite enjoyed assembly, which wasn't that long even in its long format, and one got to sing. I did not, however, like all the hymns. Top of my "most hated" list was Where Have All the Flowers Gone. To this day I get irritated when hearing pre-pubescent female humans blamed for the first World War.

Nonetheless, when I opened the fridge tonight and discovered that the only green veg I possessed was a couple of leeks, I had to accept that the answer was that I had eaten them. I'm not sure how this happened, as there was a fair amount there on Saturday and I am not the sort of person who considers raw broccoli a delicious snack. But apparently it has. I don't mind leeks. Leeks are OK, particularly baked, but even raw. But I was looking for the courgette that was supposed to be in there.

Comments

Re: Hullo hullo 'ullo.

[wren-chan.livejournal.com]

It IS rather fit, isn't it *grin*

Certainly more pleasant to contemplate than dire hymns.

[wemyss.livejournal.com]

Of which there are far too many, I see.

[azdak.livejournal.com]

Can your daughter please come and stay with us to set an example? My family leaves the lights blazing everywhere, all the time, including in the cellar and in the sitting room when they go to bed, and I have whinged and nagged so often that everyone hates me. Now I am resigned and just go around turning them off after people, while cursing myself for turning into a typical Hausfrau whose life involves clearing up other people's messes.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Oh dear.

Get low-energy bulbs and tell her that as they are fluorescents it is actually more energy-efficient to leave them on when you're out of the room for a short time...

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I am amazed you don't throttle them. Maybe this is why I am not cut out for parenthood.

It could be worse. We had an email round at work this week saying that it was great that we were all obeying the sticker by the lightswitch in the ladies' loos and switching the lights off when we left - but please could we check there was no-one in the other cubicle first...

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Will it give you ammunition if I tell you that this song formed one of our primary school magical rituals, aimed mainly around making it rain at morning playtime in the depths of winter so that we could stay in?

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I don't think that Cookridge in 1985 had heard of Vietnam.

[azdak.livejournal.com]

Maybe this is why I am not cut out for parenthood.

It Is Not Just The Children. (She said, in tones of utter gloom)

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I am not sure that I see a snowy owl being held down long enough to be plucked.

[alexandralynch.livejournal.com]

COurgettes? (does mental translation) Oh.Those. I like them in bread. Otherwise they don't sit well with me.

At least traditional C. of E hymns have musical sense to recommend them. I have seriously offended people by explaining that my great bar against converting to evangelical Christianity is the godawfulness that is the genre called Christian Contemporary music. It's supposed to be bad so you focus on the lyrics.

(Well, that and the complete understanding that my ass is wholly and entirely owned by a rather older Goddess, who has no interest in letting me off leash.)

[tree_and_leaf]

So did mine, though we didn't sing that one. "Last night I dreamed the strangest dream" was a regular "favourite" though.

[tree_and_leaf]

Oh, that one regularly made me borderline suicidal.

Re: Odd. I assumed, actually ...

[tree_and_leaf]

I don't think we ever had to sing WHATFG (though we did get "Last night I dreamed the strangest dream", where I lost my Liberal Pacifist credentials for ever by thinking it sounded like a shame to burn all the pretty uniforms), but I have an abiding memory of an earnest teacher explaining that "To a Daisy" told us how it was Evil to pick flowers because it killed them and, by extension, the planet.

Even at the age of seven, I could see that (a) this was an interpretation of the poem that didn't have much to do with what the poet actually sang, and that (b) picking the odd daisy doesn't kill the plant, unless you actually rip it out by the roots and (c) the environment had bigger problems than my daisy chains.

[tree_and_leaf]

But the lyrics are bad, too!

[alexandralynch.livejournal.com]

Well, yes. But often good music has bad lyrics, and they can be overlooked.

[tree_and_leaf]

True. Which explains the abiding popularity of some fairly dire Victorian stuff.

[tree_and_leaf]

Why did teachers think it was appropriate? Why?

Re: Odd. I assumed, actually ...

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

We had LNIDTSD too - I'd forgotten about it, but now it is all coming back. I didn't mind that one, because the tune was pretty.

The people who really annoy me are the "domestic cats are making songbirds extinct" crowd. No, domestic cats are an additional pressure on birds that we have put much, much bigger pressure on.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

No, Oh Canada and GStQ are much, much worse.

I admit to surprise about the lack of concern for the courgette. I did find myself thinking "have I got a mysterious courgette thief" for a moment.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

And why non-comic operas should not be translated into English.

[sam-t.livejournal.com]

Mine too (that is, we had to sing it, not that it was my favourite (or indeed "favourite" - I didn't really mind it. (These brackets are getting out of hand)))- also 'Little Boxes', 'The Ink Is Black' and (less politically) 'Puppet On A String'. And for singing when not in Assembly (e.g. sort of music lesson-y things or singing to parents), 'Yesterday', 'When I'm 64' and 'Obladi Oblada'.

[sam-t.livejournal.com]

Do you know the Generic Graham Kendrick Song? The one where each of the verses describes a different characteristic of Graham Kendrick Songs Everywhere?

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

The Ink Is Black was my second-worst hymn. The tune was bloody awful, the lyrics had the subtlty of a sledge-hammer, and I'm sure it made the one non-white child in the whole school just great.

[antisoppist.livejournal.com]

I want to go and live by myself on an island. I always did. I have no idea how I ended up in a house with four people who don't pick things up off the fucking floor (and leave the bloody electric fan running in the kitchen and radio 4 on when they turn out to have gone shopping).

You could have had Daughter willingly yesterday when she was screaming that she couldn't get dressed because she only had odd socks and couldn't look for any more because she had nothing on and socks have to go on first, obviously, otherwise the world will end, but this has resulted in an agremeent that she will do all her own washing so her socks are never mixed up with anyone else's and I have decided that there are benefits to being a useless housewife and a domestic failure.

[antisoppist.livejournal.com]

We have, but she looks suspiciously at us.