Rise up through the whelk...

 'Pooh?'

'Yes, Piglet.'

'Do you ever think about dying?'

'Nope. Happy with the colour I've got.'

'No, I mean mortality.'

'Oh, beetling around this vole of tears.'

'Yes.'

'Can't say I have, much. I mean, we're in this life, each of us coiled round our mortal. Not that I've ever met mine. Must be dead shy.'

'I think the phrase is this mort--'

'No, as Mr Creedence Clearwater enjoins us, we must simply keep on chooglin'.'

'How do you choogle?'

'For pity's sake, Piglet, we've been doing it for long enough. You must have a clue. We...you know, get up, wash, brush teeth, dab of Blue Stratos, swift pre-choogle, breakfast, post-pre-choogle, out the door, major choogle for the whole day till we --'

'Un-choogle?'

'As we beguile the twilight with a splosh of Ovaltine, yes.'

'Yes but...where do we go when we go?'

'Oh, you mean that. Well, it's all arranged.'

'Is it?'

'We rise up through the whelk.'

'You mean the welkin.'

'I don't think its family comes into it. We rise up through the whelk and there's Saint Peter flashing his pearly whites. He says how do, you say not so badly apart from being dead, bit of a crimper but never mind, he asks to see your loyalty card, you say half a mo, I've got a barista pass with one bit unstamped, he says fair enough, in you go, keep to the paths, no spitting or ball games, harp distribution in an hour.'

'But some folk think we have to keep coming back...you know, doing it all again and again till we achieve --'

'Oh, I don't hold with that. Having to drink endless Carnation. Addles the tum.'

'I don't think that's quite --'

'No, Piglet, up we go and that's that. And back here we're remembered with a phrase of suitable plangentiousness. "At rest...called home...gone before".'

'Before what?'

'Before we would have gone if we hadn't known we would have been after if we hadn't gone before. Honestly, Piglet, you can be a touch dim-wattled at times.'

'But a lot of people don't believe in heaven and all that.'

'Oh, them. I've no time for Arthurians. Poking people with their lot of lances, brandishing that dead important sword.'

'Excal --'

'Exdirectory...thinking they're so great for going on errands, we all do it, who hasn't picked up a carton of milk at the all-night Londis, we don't wave it about and yell "My liege, behold, attend, vouchsafe - I bring you the necktie of the gods - here, you're not lactose intolerant, are you?"'

'Well....'

'Look Piglet, to put your mind at rest, come round tomorrow and I'll explain exactly how to choogle.'

'And the Blue Stratos. Is that indispensable?'

'Oh, no...pump-action.'

"Quaff some Cool Tize with me..."

 

'Well, Piglet.'

'Well, Pooh.'

'Big celebrations this week.'

'Big -- ? Oh, right, the 6th.'

'I thought I might arrange something here in the Wood. You know, commemoration, celebration of the wartime spirit.'

'Ah.'

'A chance to sing all the old songs. "Run, Rabbit, Run". "Wish Me Luck As You Wave Me Goodbye".'

'Oh, yes, Britain's train lament.'

'"Down at the Old Bull and Bush". Particular favourite of mine.'

'Is that a wartime song?'

'Well, you know, it's part and parcel. So uplifting:

"Come, come, come and make eyes at me

Down at the old Bull and Bush"...well, come on, Piglet.'

'Oh, sorry...dah-dah-dah.'

'And the rest.'

'Dah-dah.'

'"Come, come, quaff some cool Tize with me -- ".'

'What?'

'Cool Tize. Honestly, Piglet, do you care not a jot about our wartime inheritance? Short for "Cool Tizer". What we poets call an abbreviary. You know, everyone got fed up of going round saying Wotta Brainy Yeats, so he says, fair enough, W.B'll do...Piglet?...say something.'

'I'm just trying to imagine in what possible context Tizer could be called --'

'As in chilled, Piglet. As in just out of the fridge. I mean, the song's over a hundred years old but no matter, every household in the country had a fridge back then, be it never so bumbling.'

'Did they indeed?'

'Of course. Running water, electricity, full stomachs. The benefits of Empire.'

'Right. But I thought the next line was "Come, come, have some port wine with me".'

'And in what possible way could "port wine" rhyme with "make eyes"? Eyes...Tize. See? Assonance.'

'Same to you.'

'No, that's what it's called when two vowels--oh, Heaven help us if you're ever chosen as the nation's Poet Laurelei.'

'But "eyes" and "wine" have the same vowel sound-- '

'Piglet, desist! You speak of that of which you know not whatnot.'

'Go on, call me young feller-me-lad.'

'I shall not. You are utterly devoid of culture--a mere plasticine.'

'Alright...but what about that line "Hear the little German band"? I mean, weren't we fighting -- ?'

'Oh, the song was written long before all that. The line refers to a small but regrettable international incident.'

'I sometimes think that's what we are.'

'What? Anyway, Hans Kreuzer, citizen of Hamburg, was on a cycling holiday over here, and he thought, Mein Gott, why don't I into the Old Bull and Bush gedroppen for a snifter of schnapps?'

'Mein Gott...he actually thought that...because all Germans preface every thought with -- '

'I'm adding a bit of colour, Piglet. I'm setting the tone.'

'Sorry.'

'So in he goes, frags his Frage.'

'What, for all to see?'

'Asks his question, Piglet. Colour...tone.'

'Right.'

'And of course they say, no schnapps here, matey, but we've got a special offer all week on Cool Tize, how's about that for an amuse bouche?'

'Amuse bouche...an English barman...to a German.'

'You do realize that you were the sole reason we were chucked out of the EU.'

'I rather think that we chucked our-- '

'Anyway, Herr Kreuzer, he says no way Jose, and it all kicks off, with the net result that he's herausgeturfened -- '

'-- Mein Gott-ing as he goes, no doubt -- '

'And spends the next half-hour inveighing bitterly against the lack of Hospitalitischenkeit. As he said, he thought Englanders were all about mi casa su casa.'

'Handy that he was on speed-dial Duolingo at the time.'

'So the line is actually "Hear the little German -- banned".'

'Well, well...and he actually passed on cool Tizer.'

'No accounting for taste, Piglet.'

'I think that was their strapline.'