Saturday, December 10, 2011

"Don't come the raw prawn!"

Yep, in the Aussie vernacular, 'to come the raw prawn' is to behave despicably, the etymology of the expression escapes me, why a raw prawn? why a prawn at all? Aaah, language is a beautiful thing.
Never mind, the prawn (shrimp, ebi) in my Christmas etegami is well and truly cooked and honours our tradition of a casual summertime approach to Christmas dinner which is likely to be a barbeque featuring seafood. There are a few die-hards like the Prof who want the full disaster, the baked ham, pork, chicken and vegetables followed by some kind of stodgy dessert...dream on I say! It is hard to get excited about slaving away in the kitchen when the mercury is above 30 degrees Celsius.
All of this is merely a preamble to explain my Christmas etegami. This year I am trying a bold experiment, printing the original onto thin washi, pasting it onto cards and sending them off (my printer jams if I try to print onto cards).
I hope no one is offended that they receive a copy but I just didn't have the time or energy to do individual ones and as 'they' say "it's the thought that counts". Maybe I have 'come the raw prawn'?



Anyway, to my friends who read or follow this blog, a happy, healthy and peaceful Christmas season wherever you are and whatever the weather.

3 comments:

  1. I've made my own block-print cards every Christmas for about fifteen years now. The list is over a hundred. I hand-color each one after I print it. And then of course I hand write a letter in it. It's a complete bother and everyone expects it. This year someone talked me into making a few prints and coloring them and taking the best one to a print shop for the mass-production. I feel naughty, but they say no one will know the difference.

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  2. My understanding of 'don't come the raw prawn' is that it was used as the rationale for vomiting copiously after too much to drink, and the excuse was not accepted~

    I have just moved our furniture into its winter configuration with chairs drawn up to the fire: an Australian Christmas with barbeque and salad sound so alluring (though I know it's raining now in Sydney)!

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  3. Yes Tricia, like all of these expressions I guess it has many shades of meaning and that sounds about right, perhaps vomiting copiously and using the raw prawn as an excuse, comes under the heading of behaving badly.LOL

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