A sale's pitch...
Piccalilli man
What shall I do
With this piccalilli?
Jars and jars of it
Driving me silly.
From door to door
And house to house,
No-one will buy it
Not even one ounce.
The hole I've dug
To bury the stuff
Is starting to ooze
It's not large enough.
A garden of pickles
A bed of lilies.
I don't relish
Chutney and chillies.
Please won't you buy
Just one jar?
I'm piccalillied out
Way, way too far!
What shall I do
With this piccalilli?
Jars and jars of it
Driving me silly.
From door to door
And house to house,
No-one will buy it
Not even one ounce.
The hole I've dug
To bury the stuff
Is starting to ooze
It's not large enough.
A garden of pickles
A bed of lilies.
I don't relish
Chutney and chillies.
Please won't you buy
Just one jar?
I'm piccalillied out
Way, way too far!
2 Comments:
LOVE THIS POEM. It really sums up a particular time of sharing a flat with a not very good pickle salesman. Yes, my mate was that PICCALILLI MAN! Eeeee I remember being stuffed with the stuff in t' flat in Muswell Hill! There were so many jars we could all only just squeeze down the hallway of this flat. He just couldn't sell the stuff so brought it all back to the flat.
My main memory was of him burying the stuff in the back garden at midnight when I came home with one or two drinks inside me. I really did think he'd either gone bonkers or I was hallucinating. It was particularly eerie because the garden backed onto Alexandra Palace park so there was complete darkness except for a lamp, a man with spade and a crate load of piccalilli. He was also burying horseradish, and jars of stuff of a general pickle nature. There was literally a pit load of the stuff bubbling away there.
Dave C (Tex)
Burying Picallilli? I was there for this event - weird to read about it 30 years on....
Tim Cullen
University of Greenwich
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