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  • Susan Elaine Jones

One for sorrow, two for joy...

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!





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