Hi Folks,

Here are the Murrumbeena Limericks:

1
I knew a cleaner named Serena
Who often worked in Murrumbeena -
Didn't dust and never mopped
Swept and vacc'd and then just stopped -
I've never seen a meaner cleaner.

2
The suburbs, they grow ever greener
As you drive out towards Murrumbeena
But it's not from the grass
Or the trees that you pass
It's your windscreen that needs to be cleaner.

3
The skyrail plans - Murrumbeena -
Are causing a bit of a scene-ah,
But Greg to their aid,
And plans will be laid
So the suburb will be so much keen-ah.

4
Once I drove a Ford Cortina
Through the Streets of Murrumbeena,
In its day, heads would turn
And for it today I yearn,
'Cause now I drive a bomb Barina.

5
Where are you from? I asked Sheena.
A girl with a timid demeanour
Her nerves made her stutter
So that all she could utter
Was, “Mu...Mu...Mu...Mu... Murrumbeena.”

6
Oh, a cad down in old Murrumbeena
Snagged a gal - but she soon proved meaner.
She teased him as a joke
Then found another bloke
Leaving him to wank his own wiener.

7
Met Tina once in Murrumbeena,
I'm telling you, you shoulda seen 'er,
Such elegant style
And that radiant smile -
I wish she'd play in my Arena.

8
A man who came from Murrumbeena
Had habits that could have been cleaner
It was not the nose picking
Nor the ensuing licking
It was the chewing and general demeanour.

9
On travelling to Murrumbeena
I met someone whose name is Sabrina
She seems awfully nice
But has one awful vice
Sharp teeth! I'm missing my wiener.

10
When Martin lived in Murrumbeena,
The Sheriff served him a subpoena
From a young girl who had
Claimed he was her Dad,
"Not so Sir, I've long been Martina!"

11
A cheap flat in old Murrumbeena
Would probably fit Thumbelina
The shopping's a devil
'Cause rail crossing's level
But folks think the grass there is greener.

Question:
Vote for your favourite

Choices:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11

 

Three measly votes? Come on folks!

I already voted

Hi Folks,

A few more votes would be nice, and if you have already voted some comments about why you chose what you did would make this thread more interesting.

Please Note: due to a miscommunication between myself and the author of Limerick No. 6, the punch line, which was meant to contain the spoonerism "wank his own yiener" now has the alliteration "wank his own wiener".

FYI: The Wordcraft spellchecker doesn't approve of wank, or wiener, or for that matter spellchecker or Wordcraft.

No more votes and no comments. I guess since the 11 limericks only came from 5 people, 6 votes is pretty good, I guess, since it means one non-player voted. Although I have already voted, it is looking like I am going to have to break the 2-all tie with a casting vote.

I voted for #5. It rolled off my tongue nicely, whereas some of the others I had a hard time with. The rhymes aren't perfect for me, but it made me laugh.

Not saying which one I voted for, or which one I will give my casting vote to if required to give one, at this stage, because that would give it away perhaps prematurely (although maybe it has been long enough now).

However I will say this about No. 5, for some reason it does seem to scan better and flow off the tongue better than any of the others, and certainly better than any of mine, despite some of them having an apparently very similar structure. There is a lot more to getting the rhythm right in a limerick than just having the right number of syllables and with the stress on the right ones. Some that look like they should work on paper, for some reason just don't when you read them. No. 5 was pretty funny too.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Greg S,

Agreed, Greg. I realize that others (East coasters, English, Australians, etc.) may get the rhymes (and in fact I considered that in my limerick's rhymes), so the rhythm and humor won me over.

We got another vote, but it didn't break the tie, so it looks like I will have to break the tie with a casting vote. I will do that Sunday if nothing has changed.

Speaking of Melbourne (Murrumbeena being a suburb thereof), we are the Sporting Capital of Australia, if not the world. Another Melbourne born lad, Ben Simmons, went No. 1 in the NBA draft today. I used to watch his dad play for the Melbourne Tigers. He follows in the footsteps of other Melbourne-born No. 1 NBA draft picks in recent years: Kyrie Irving (now an NBA champion) in 2011, and Andrew Bogut (an NBA Champion last year) in 2005. And despite getting no minutes in Game 7, country Victoria born Matthew Dellavadova is also now an NBA Champion, as were fellow Aussies Patty Mills and Aaron Baynes for the Spurs 2014. For what it's worth, I expect Ben Simmons to be the best of them all.

Apparently Melbourne now has more No. 1 NBA draft picks that any other city in the WORLD!!, having overtaken Chicago and Toronto, who were previous tied with us on 2 each.

What's the NBA? New South Wales Brick layer's Association?

quote:

What's the NBA?

I take it that's a tongue-in-cheek comment. But even if it's a fair-dinkum (Aussie slang for genuine) question, all you really need to know about it is that it's a sporting competition in the USA, where 19 yo No 1 draft pick, Ben Simmons, fresh out of College, will EARN enough money in his first season to pay cash for 4 houses in Murrumbeena, and retire on the interest he earns from what's left over after that. And that's even if he gets a career ending injury at the end of his first season, and it doesn't even include the lucrative sponsorship deals he signed this week with apparel manufacturer Nike, and footwear manufacturer Footlocker. But it's a non contact sport so he'll probably have a 10-15+ year career where his income will increase significantly every f*!?ing year. Even lowly rated Matthew Dellavadova who would have been lucky to average 10 minutes a game court-time this season, has been earning $1 million+ USD for the past few seasons, and the rumour is a rival team is about to offer him a $10 million a year contract. Every male human being who plays the game all over the world wants to play in the NBA, and why the F*!? wouldn't they. I know several Melbourne youngsters who got a free tertiary eduction in the US, just because they were pretty good at the game. None of them made the grade because they weren't good enough, but they don't care and nor do their parents - they got a free 3 year holiday in America playing the game they love and picked up a College Degree in the process. If you have male children or grand-children and they aren't playing the game, tell 'em they should be. Even some of the women in the game are starting to make a reasonable living out of it, these days.

He must be.

I had no idea you were such a fan! My son loved the Milwaukee Bucks' pick, too, though he is from Perth. Some analysis though gave the Bucks an F for that pick. The #1 pick was a no-brainer.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kalleh,

Hi Kalleh,

I am pretty sure we have discussed this previously, especially with our Luc Longley winning 3 championship rings with your Chicago Bulls.

Thon Maker was a Sudanese migrant to Perth. The doubt on him is that some have questioned his age, where they reckon he might be as old as 24 and not the 19 he claims to be, but even if he is 23, he is 7' 1", so if he's any good the Bucks won't care that he might be a bit older than he claims. It was surprising that the Bucks didn't hold on to Andrew Bogut for longer, but that's their loss. Speaking of him, real pity he got game time in Game 5, as the injury he sustained is going to put him out of our Olympic team, and it was shaping up as our best team ever and there were hopes of us getting our first ever Olympic Medal, not the Gold of course, getting the Gold off the Dream Team is tougher than getting the America's Cup off the Americans, but after 132 years we Aussies did that back in 1983.

My 21 yo daughter and I both had Monday morning (our time) off, so we went to a Pub together to watch the whole of Game 7 with a crowd. It was fun and the closest game of the whole series. She's a Cavs fan, and although I am a GSW fan I supported the Cavs because I wanted Delly to get a ring (pity he didn't get court time though).

FYI - I coached my daughter's basketball team for one season in under 15s. We were in Div 2 of our comp, but they do a re-grading after 3 rounds and against their wishes I asked for us to be put up to Div 1. The girls were not happy with me, especially after we lost 3 of our first 4 games in Div 1, but I was almost forgiven when we snuck into the Div 1 finals in 4th spot, and fully forgiven when we won the Grand Final by 1 point in extra time. Although she has played in many better teams and under many better coaches, and has been playing 2 seasons a year since she was 8, it remains her only Basketball Premiership win. A priceless memory we will share forever. I was a good game day strategist and had subtle ways of making them better without them even realising it. For example at training every 2-on-2 or 3-on-3 they played was always 2 points inside the paint, 1 point outside the paint, and as a consequence gradually it became part of their game to work the ball in for the money shot, instead of taking low percentage bomb shots all the time, which they did before I coached them.

Okay it is Sunday (my time) and no further votes, so time to make a casting vote. Authors were:

• 1. Me - no votes - just wanted to work "seen a meaner cleaner" into one
  
• 2. Bob - 1 vote - and I have seen windscreens that dirty around here
  
• 3. Kalleh - no votes - got the Skyrail debate here into it
  
• 4. Me - no votes - Ford Cortina and Holden Barina cars from rival Aussies car manufacturers, unknown outside of Aus I guess
  
• 5. Bob - 2 votes - rhythmically perfect, clever twist and quite funny to boot
  
• 6. B35 - no votes - alliteration or spoonerism whichever way you took it
  
• 7. Me - no votes - obviously Tina Arena is unknown in the US and the UK, but she is huge in Aus and even bigger in France, she's been a singer on our TV screens since she was 9 years old, hope some of you followed the links to hear her sing - my favourite of my entries
  
• 8. Bob - no votes - I have seen people like that in Murrumbeena
  
• 9. Geoff - 1 vote - without a spoonerism or an alliteration, Geoff's wiener joke fared better then B35's
  
• 10. Me - 1 vote - just wanted to work subpoena in as an A-rhyme, glad someone liked at least one of my 4 entries
  
• 11. B35 - 2 votes - Managed to work in, not only the level crossing debate, but also my earlier discussion with Geoff about the price of housing here (FYI - 4 bedroom cream brick veneer family home round the corner sold for $1.39 million at auction last Saturday). Got my vote and since I have the casting vote, it is hereby declared the winner.
  

Over to you B35 for the next game.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Greg S,

Yay, Bob! Very nice one.

Greg, we really should talk sometime. I love basketball so much, too. We probably did talk about Luc Longley. At that time, we had two ferrets. One was all white big and fat, and we called him Luc. The other was active, dark and quite scrawny. We called him Rodman (after the Bulls' Dennis Rodman, who now seems to be our connection with North Korea's Kim Jong-un.)

quote:

Yay, Bob! Very nice one.

I thought I declared Bethree5 the winner, which is not to say Bob's wasn't a nice one.

We could talk on Skype sometime Kalleh, I will send you details by PM, soon. I remember Dennis well and am well aware of his connection to NK. Hopefully he can do the whole world a favour and make sure Kim Jong-un doesn't drop Nuclear bombs on anyone.

Which reminds me, and I (having written an entire poem called Misunderestimated about his abuse of the language) know Dubya's English was as bad as it comes, but how the hell can he possibly get:

Nuke-You-Lar out of Nuclear ??

And how come almost all Americans think that Aluminium has a silent second "i"?

The same way that the English can get "maudlin" out of "Magdalan", "chummly" out of "Cholmondely" (which I may have spelled wrong) and "fanshaw" out of "Featherstonehaugh".

Whoa! There are ridiculous, and here I was thinking turning Leicester into Lester was a bit odd, but it seems normal in the light of those. I suppose they'd turn floccinaucinihilipilification into fornication.

I am sorry - I missed Bethree being declared the winner! Congrats, Bethree!

Then there is always Worcester Massachusetts, which I have never figured out how to pronounce.

Yes, let's Skype, Greg!

Quite similar to Wooster, Ohio, actually.

Same linguistic transmogrification as Leicester to Lester, and Leominster to Leminster. And eleemosynary (one of Stanley Kunitz' two favorite words) to alms, for that matter...

While Worcester natives pron it as Hab states, in RI we tend to go with W'stah.

So Hab, how do you pronounce Worcestershire sauce?

Oh my goodness! Sorry for the 1-wk delay. I could blame it on annual junk pickup & getting ready for housepainters. But truth is, forgot to check the site all week! Will post a location shortly.