Notebook 48 Pg 139

Notes

• Who put the overalls in Mrs Murphy's chowder Captain English
• 40 arrows into the audience
• I'm playing Henry V and it's a pity I didn't perish at Agincourt
• Aburning
• Success: The bitch goddess whose smile hides a taste for blood - Hedda Hopper

Comments

"Who put the overalls in Mrs Murphy's chowder? Captain English
Right well where do I begin? My Mum is Mrs Murphy and her maiden name was Josephine English, but these facts only really serve to muddy the waters as to why I would possibly write about chowder and overalls. And then I found this...

WHO THREW THE OVERALLS IN MRS. MURPHY'S CHOWDER?

Mrs. Murphy gave a party just about a week a-go,
Everything was plentiful the Murphy's they're not slow,
They treated us like gentlemen we tried to act the same,
And only for what happened well it was an awful shame.

Chorus
Who threw the overalls in Mrs. Murphy's chowder?
Nobody spoke so we shouted all the louder,
It's an Irish trick that's true,
But we'll lick the "mick" that threw
The overalls in Mrs. Murphy's chowder.

When she dished the chowder out she fainted on the spot.
She found a pair of overalls at the bottom of the pot.
Tim Nolan, he got rippin' mad. His eyes were bulging out.
He stood upon the piano and loudly he did shout.

...it goes on in similar shades of Shamrock for another couple of verses. I am just glad that I'm not going as completely mad as I thought. I'm guessing this was somehow related to my reading about Orson Welles' trip around Ireland in a donkey and cart on his own when he was just 15.

40 arrows into the audience
What happened during Orson's first production of Henry V in New York where his taste for the truly theatrical led to the entire audience coming under fire.

I'm playing Henry V and it's a pity I didn't perish at Agincourt
A great line from the lead actor in the above performance which pretty much sums up the stresses and strains of working with Welles. Also of note is the fact that that actor was Burgess Meredith  known mostly today not for his Shakesperian eloquence but for being Rocky's Trainer and The Penguin in the 60's TV version of Batman. 

Aburning
I think this was just a word I thought worth remembering, possibly for use in some wet, musty doggerel dogged poetry I was devising.

Success: The bitch goddess whose smile hides a taste for blood - Hedda Hopper
Oh now this is a very good line. So much so that I am tempted to give it the so very now credence of reducing it to a tweet.