for the love of loud jewellery...

********************************

I love brass bands - I
always wear one on my ring
finger. Who needs gold?...

********************************











What's not to love about Chinglish? - To add to the never-to-be-forgotten 'Wankelong Supermarket' (with obligatory piped music to wankelong to), a bus company here goes - very slowly - by the name of 'King Long' (as in 'every bloody journey's so ***king long') whilst a rival supermarket rejoices in the name of 'Yu Rong' (an emporium where the customer's not always right, apparently). You couldn't make it up. Well - you probably could. But I didn't ... Vincent Hefter, Guangxi Province, China.



(17 Syllables)

The Baker's Round

**************************

...and so would you be
if you ate as many of
his buns as he does...

**************************







- doh!...(or should that be 'dough!'?)





(17 rather sillybles)

saddled with a sister - for life...

*****************************************

an identical
twin's life-cycle? - what else could it
be but a tandem?...

*****************************************









Free Breakfast with Every Coffee (that's what it says on the Guilin coffeeshop menu - talk about 'arse about face'): it's the two Chinas - whilst the hoi polloi purchase tuppenny-ha'penny dumplings in the street to start their day, the nouveau riche frequent expensive coffeeshops where just one drink can cost a local peasant's daily earnings, and the food? - well, it's thrown in for free.
Not my sort of place, really - I just happen to know an employee there...




('17 Syllables plus' re-mix)

role reversal - that's a good thing, right?

******************************

"Look! A right pair of
ornithologists," whispered
a couple of tits...

******************************









Seen on a Guilin menu yesterday: 'Crashed Pork with Corn Rice'. - Might that just be Chinese for 'Roadkill'?...





(17 Syllables)

because voices in their cornflakes tell them to?...

********************************

one in six Britons
suffer from mental illness -
the rest enjoy it...

********************************












Vincent Hefter, Guihua Lu, Yangshuo - not far from Embroidered Emerald and Anti-Invasion Roads (true). Sure makes good old 'Sheen Lane' seem pretty dull...


(17 Syllables)

it doesn't half exercise the Mrs, mind (when she finds out)

*****************************

all I exercised
in the gym today was my
right to do sod all...

*****************************







- hey, if the marriage isn't working out, why should I?...





('17 Syllables plus' re-mix)

Yangshuo Landscape College for Foreign Language...

****************************

it's so easy as
ABC: I am teaching
now English since years...

****************************





-------------------- 'Everything is but a floating cloud, coffee is still a force' --------------------------

The above is a sign I rode past today on my 'hell of a state' (of-the-art) Chinese rent-a-bike in the magnificent Guangxi countryside. I detect a certain college's influence in the wording...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------




(17 Syllables)

scholars earn dollars, the dense cents...

**********************************************

"a penny for your
thoughts?" I asked the blonde - boy, did
she get a good deal...

**********************************************















('17 Syllables plus' re-mix)

the vegetable patch - it's spreading...

*********************************

The leek took a pee,
the pea took a leak. And the
tap went drip, drip, drip...

*********************************









(but the cabbage had already bean)






('17 Syllables plus' re-mix)

talk about making a meal of things...

*******************************

the best thing my wife
makes in the kitchen is my
day when she leaves it...

*******************************










- staying in: it's the new eating out - out of packets, that is...






(17 Syllables)

well, it sure ain't the six-pack...

**************************

my girlfriend tells me
I'm a bit of a hunk - but
won't tell me which bit...

**************************







- "a prick, perchance?" came the cry...






(17 Syllables)

a somewhat unexpected side effect...

*************************

Our vicar, who takes
Viagra religiously,
is now a rector...

*************************








- behold, he is risen. Small 'h'...





('17 Syllables plus' re-mix)

"now look me in the face and say that" - and he did...

******************************************************************

It's not only beauty
that lies in the eye of the beholder.
My bloody husband does, too - through his damned teeth.
No beauty, he...

******************************************************************










sure, the truth hurts - but lies hurt more...

lost in translation: China, May 18...

***************************************

jelly, coffee and
string? - not quite what I meant by
a three-bean salad...

***************************************








- guess I should have stuck with the dumplings - or that good old standby, the Green BaoZai Fan blasting fatty intestine...





(17 Syllables)

someone's got to do it...

******************************************************

"You do nothing?" I enquired, quite impressed -
"And for hour after hour!" said my guest,
"It can take 3 or 4,
Perhaps even more,
For it's hard when I'm not at my best"...

******************************************************













- indeed, over the years, he had sought out some of the world's most interesting locations in which to do - well, nothing, really. And not always on his own. He had truly got it down to a fine art ...

sex and the settee...

*******************************

these days, the best part
of the night rarely lasts the
best part of the night...

*******************************









- Million Dollar Man? - sadly, it's more a case of Waning Powers than Austin Powers...











('17 Syllables plus' re-mix)

it's that old anthropomorphic vanity thing...

******************************************

"good point, well made," I
smiled - boy, how pencil sharpeners
thrive on compliments!"...

******************************************












(17 Syllables)

no reason...

******************************

"Me? - No, I'm really
not the inquisitive type
at all. Why d'you ask?"...

******************************












('Game, Set & Match': 17 Syllables)

a non-rhyming 'England, centre of the uni' verse...

***************************************************

Some parts of China used to hate foreigners,
maybe still do -
but what did I care?...
I wasn't a foreigner - I was English.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Still am, in fact. Still travelling, too.

***************************************************








(travel light - leave your brain at home)





Vincent Hefter, News at Ten, Yangshuo, China

blank verse...

*********************************

reading between the
lines, this has to be one of
my finest couplets...

*********************************




(17 Syllables)

it does what it says on the tin...

*********************

opening my tin
of evaporated milk,
I found that it had...

*********************










('17 Syllables plus' re-mix)

----------------------------------------------------------

"Nothing is more beautiful than a woman in a cheongsam. Except perhaps a woman stepping out of one"...

Vincent Hefter, News at Ten, Cheung Chau Bun Festival (101 things you can do with a bun on one of Hong Kong's outlying islands - happily, "eating one" scraped in at No 93, so I had 2). I think it was that way round.

----------------------------------------------------------

a lady of easy virtue...

*****************************

my girlfriend's got a
very strange gait - luckily,
it's always open...

*****************************






('17 Syllables plus' re-mix)


------------------------------------------------------

'Thank you for choosing City Flyer route A21 "bounding for Hung Hom Station in Kowloon,"' read the airport bus sign; (a destination soon to be known as 'Well Hung Hom Station', after a recent lick of paint). Good to be back in the madness that is Hong Kong - whatever you think of it, it has to be one of the world's greatest urban landscapes. In fact, I gather it's now a legal requirement to 'sign in' on arrival by taking the Star Ferry across Victoria Harbour just to see it in all its dazzling nighttime stunningnicity. Landscape, seascape, whatever...

With just a little bit more bounding, it was on to the good old Man Hing Lung doss-house for a surprisingly warm welcome, a complimentary beer and saturation coverage of the 7th Annual Cross-Straits Conference on Economy and Trade. Easy, tiger...

------------------------------------------------------

the seven ages of man (well, this man, anyway)

*********************************

my wife was on the
phone this morning and I had
to wait ages and...

ages...and ages...
and ages...and ages...and
ages...and ages...

********************************







(I was lucky to get away with seven, to be honest)





(a 17 Syllable double)

blood's dangerously low IQ count...

****************************

as blood is thicker
than water, it's probably
got no idea why...

****************************













('17 Syllables plus' re-mix)

"table for three, sir?"...

********************************

The schizophrenic
was beside himself with Joy.
Then all three sat down...

********************************












('17 Syllables plus' re-mix)

the art of one-upcatship...

*******************************

my cat ignores me
in the mornings - but today
I ignored him first...

*******************************














('17 Syllables plus' re-mix)

seventeen rather sillybles...

--------------------------------------------------
I come from a long line of haikuists...
--------------------------------------------------

------------------
- or should
that be three
short lines?
------------------












('17 Syllables plus' re-mix)

a fine example of an abstract pen and ink...

********************************

'A Cart Drawn By Two
Horses,' it said. Poppycock! -
It's a Picasso...

********************************






(it just looks like some horses might have drawn it)





(17 Syllables)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Royal Wedding ps:...

Tut-tut: the verger who was caught on film cartwheeling down the nave in Westminster Abbey has been officially carpeted...

- red carpeted, naturally. (see 'cartwheeling verger' - youtube)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------