DAMN YOU, FINNEMORE!
That evil Genius, John Finnemore, has done it again.
You may have thought that he was "quite funny" on Cabin Pressure... then some years later realised that all the destinations were in alphabetical order.
You may have shared Susan Calman's panic when, in the hands of John Finnemore's planning, she opened an envelope with a blank sheet in it, when I believe she needed to breath into a brown paper bag as he gleefully exclaimed "I thought we'd just ask other people where they were going, and see which sounded fun!"
THAT'S.
NOT.
A.
PLAN!!!
You may have contentedly learned the capitals of Europe from his fun sing-a-long song.
And, if you initially thought "phew, Finnemore, you've lost it now with the latest series of the Souvenir Programme, I don't need to remember a song about how dogs bark, that's just a bit too much like "what does the fox say?""... but then listened to a couple more episodes to find a complex web of interlocking stories skillfully revealed
... but then listened to a couple more episodes to find a complex web of interlocking stories skillfully revealed slowly over the episodes and thought...
DAMN YOU, FINNEMORE!
And then, on the last episode, he adds in a the traditional rhyme about what magpies in a field means, and adds just a little touch of his own.
To save you all from the pain of the - pause, scribble, backtrack - transcribing, then here it is for you:
One for sorrow
Two for joy
Three for a girl
Four for a boy
Five for silver
Six for gold
Seven for a secret
never to be told
Eight for a wish
Nine for a kiss
Ten for a chance
you must not miss
Eleven for a wasp
Twelve for a bee
Thirteen for a coffee
Fourteen for tea
Fifteen for a pencil
Sixteen for a pen
Seventeen to hear
these options once again
Eighteen for pepper
Nineteen for salt
Twenty for an accident
in which you were not at fault
Twenty one for Jerry
Twenty two for Tom
Twenty three - where are all these
magpies coming from?
Twenty five no seriously
Thirty this is weird
Forty eight from where have all these
magpies suddenly appeared?
Sixty two stop counting
Seventy just run
Ninety nine the revolution
of the magipies has begun
Two hundred no more sorrow
Five hundred no more fears
One thousand for how long
the empire of the magpies will last
in years
Seriously. Just stop counting!