Today a colleague told me a merry anecdote of her time in Aleppo which included the line "So anyway, we jumped over a pile of skulls..."
My life has been far too sedate to match material like that. The nearest I came was walking through a pool of someone's blood, which was bad enough and gave me occasional nightmares for a year or so afterwards. And it wasn't even my blood.
For those with an interest in the Islamic world, my colleague's anecdote was in response to an office discussion of when exactly Idul Adha falls this year.
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9 comments:
I've jumped over a pile of drunks before... needs must etc
Sx
I had to jump over a pile of sarmale in order to officially wed Mrs Dilo.
"So we jumped over a pile of skulls.
Live skulls."
Sorry, couldn't resist it.
Scarlet - I take it you were wearing trousers at the time.
Gadjo - was that part of the official ceremony or had the catering gone awry?
At some point I'll detail the things I had to do to wed Mrs Byard. Multicultural weddings can be a blast.
Boyo - I left that feedline hanging in the air especially for you...
I've never told this publicly before, but I backed out of marrying a son of the desert when I found myself clutching my little white handbag in my prospective in-laws' courtyard, in 45 degrees heat, under a plastic washingline with a huge lump of sheep fat drying on it. I didn't mind his mother, although she had a tattooed face and spoke no language known to man or beast, but I just knew I would never be able to ululate.
Daphne, you've just described my parents' back courtyard. Was it my brother Triongl that you were due to marry? He sometimes howls about thwarted desire from the upper storey.
Wordver: torom - Hungarian rallying cry against the Slovak Menace, as in "Nem, Nem, Torom!"
Triongl. Rings a bell. Literally. Was he the one involved in the seagull incident?
It's official, Gyppo - one is required to eat it, jump over it, look at it and (most irritatingly of all) talk about it constantly in order to be accepted here. It has the same role as the Ford Cortina had in British pub conversation 30 years ago.
Ah... I think it might have been my fishnet and DM phase...
Can't say I like the sound of ululating... I think I would have refused as well Daphne...
Sx
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