The Prof's guilty pleasure on a weekend is breakfast in bed with Netflix
This morning he's been watching The Crown and although this romp-through-the -Palace drama is probably as historically correct as Mel Gibson's BRAVEHEART , I did notice some fine set pieces, noticeably the wonderfully bravura moment where the grieving Queen Mary ( Eileen Atkins) glides into Sandringham in full mourning attire like a spectre at the feast, to curtsy ever so slowly in front of the the new Queen Elizabeth (Claire Foy)
It's a fantastic piece of television
So, on this fairly drab Sunday I'm asking for your Biggest Moments of a drama ! This seems a sensible request from an ageing drama queen! But you'll get my gist.....
I can think of one moment in my life when after my paternal grandmother died in our home after a short illness, my father, in a Moment of what could only be described as grief fuelled hysteria actually accused my mother of killing her!
Now this scene was a scene worthy of Bette Davis in Whatever Happened to baby Jane?and although as a teen , even though I understood, where the screaming fit actually came from, the drama of the event is still hard and fast in my memory.
Share one of your most dramatic Of moments.
I'd be interested to hear them
The day my husband decided to scream and yell and ruin my then 14 year old's birthday and the 15 year old punched him into stunned silence. And the day our pick up rolled down the drive and smashed our small car was rather shocking, too
ReplyDeleteNow that's worthy of a further explaination
Deletewhich one?
Deleteby the way, I loved The Crown. I hope there is another series
ReplyDeleteBefore Nelson Mandela's release from prison, I remember a production of "Sizwe Bansi is Dead" by Athol Fugard, performed in the Studio Theatre at Sheffield's Crucible. It starred two black South African actors - John Kani and Winston Ntshona. At one point in the play Kani raced up the staging near me and ripped off his shirt declaring powerfully that even though he was black, even though he had been downtrodden, he was still a man. The moment was electric and it still brings tears to my eyes to think of it.
ReplyDeleteGood theatre can give you the shiver down the spine for sure
DeleteThe first dramatic moment of my life. My darling Auntie Ivy was in hospital when I was about five. One day I asked my Nan how Auntie Ivy was, only to be told quite bluntly 'Oh, she's dead'. I ran out of the house to my neighbours. They opened the door to find me in tears, took me in and gave me beans on toast. I've often wondered what made my Nan tell me the news so bluntly but now, having had to break similar news to my own kids, realise grief can strip us momentarily of diplomacy.
ReplyDeletePerhaps she too was in shock
DeleteDuring my divorce hearing. When my now ex husband accused the judge of sexism and threw his briefcase at his barrister. He just been told that I was entitled to more than £5000 of our joint assets that exceeded a £million. I never did get my share!
ReplyDeleteNow that's queeny !
DeleteWhen I was teenager I was sitting at the dinner table having Sunday lunch with my family. I accidentally put my elbows on the table as I was eating and my Dad told me to get my elbows off the table. I did it again without thinking and my dad flipped! He stood up screaming and shouting at me and when my Auntie got up to defend me he grabbed her spectacles off her face and screwed them up. My Mum, always of a calm presence, picked up my Dad's roast beef dinner complete with gravy and all the trimmings and just tipped it straight over his head!!!
ReplyDeleteHa!!!!! Love this!
DeleteNothing to share there, sorry. :-(
ReplyDeleteHeavy rain and wind in NYC for today and tomorrow .. then back to blue skies and sunshine on Tuesday. chilly. Autumnal ... This is a good time of year in NY .. the air feels good.
ReplyDeleteI am incredibly shy and avoid confrontation at any cost, However a few years ago the husband and me went to a meeting about education cuts. Our odious local M.P was chuntering on about how lucky we were to only have the cuts we did, thanks to his splendid work in parliament. The red mist descended. I gave him a very thorough piece of my mind and left the meeting to huge applause. I thought that would be the end of it....no. Our daughters headmaster had been at the meeting and he sought me out at school hometime to congratulate me on my "eloquent and passionate speech". I was a fetching shade of beetroot for days x
ReplyDeleteWaves flag for the little people!
DeleteI've been thinking about diving into this one on netflix. But right now, I'm halfway through "Mindhunter" and the new season of ""Stranger Things," so it will have to wait a bit.
ReplyDeleteOddly enough, I heard my parents have a similar encounter to yours except my grandmother had not passed. We were in a car accident where my father was driving, the accident was definitely not his fault, and my grandmother ended up fine, but my mom still made the accusation.
We can say awful things at moments like that.
And the root of the statement can be very deeply run me thinks
DeleteI lost my parents 10 days apart and was with both at the time of their deaths. I then immediately became caretaker of a grieving mentally challenged sister.that was 2005. Also the year I was diagnosed diabetic. I can now handle almost anything you can throw at me...not that I want to.
ReplyDeleteNow this reads as a miss marple story
DeleteI posted this once in my comments. The world being what it is, I may write a piece about it.
ReplyDeleteRe the Kent State shootings, my father, a turn of the last century army man, said "They didn't follow orders." I shouted "They did nothing to die for." He turned and walked several steps away. Then he turned back and said "I believe you're right."
I think it is acceptance that underlines to both parties that you had grown up
DeleteThe day (mid-December) my aunt found out her boyfriend had formed slightly too close a friendship with a female colleague and cycled to my parents house with an enormous frozen turkey balanced on her bicycle handlebars - on arrival she threw open the front door, bowled the turkey across the floor past a bewildered dog and announced "CHRISTMAS IS CANCELLED", then burst into tears.
ReplyDelete(It did all work out in the end but it was a Christmas of Dramas that year)
I adored the lunacy f this drama moment!
DeleteGlad it turned out well for your aunt. But am in stitches picturing a bewildered dog watching a frozen turkey slide across a floor all the while trying to figure out what it is, how to catch and how to eat it.
DeleteAbi and Cookiequeen, best comments ever !
DeleteI giggled
I loved this ! The part of the frozen turkey bowling across the floor past a bewildered dog is a scream!
DeleteI laughed so hard at this one, I nearly wet meself!
DeleteI was honored to work with family members who lost loved ones after 9/11. Our job was to escort them by ferry from NJ to a viewing platform at ground zero. They were saluted by military as they walked through, workers removed their helmets and a chaplain led them in a final goodbye. Unforgettable
ReplyDeleteAnd very humbling ..thank you for this
DeleteTear in my eyes.
DeleteI applaud you!
DeleteWhen I was about 12 my dad took me and the family to Oulton Park to see John Surtees and his motor bike part company down the long downhill straight off Esso Bend. It was my first time an it was real drama for a youngster. Afterwards we drove round the circuit in our Ford 8 and as we went round Esso Bend my dad stopped the car. Mum got in a panic saying it would tip over on the camber. Dad laughed and we set off down the the long straight and onto the road to go home.
ReplyDeleteI'm loved how varied these tales of drama are
DeleteMy parents did not allow drama, they wanted nothing to do with people who were dramatic. To explain this to friends I tell them this story. I had been taking care of my father in his final days, the day I went away is the day he died. When I went to the wake, it was the first time I saw him since before he had died. Seeing him dead was overwhelming, as I started to cry my mother looked at me totally annoyed and said, "hey hey pull yourself together, what will people think"! I laughed about that months later with my sister, only she understood that consistency.
ReplyDeleteYou are therefore well overdue for one himdinger of a hissy fit
DeleteWalking out of my job recently was quite dramatic. I ranted a list of things wrong, shrugged my shoulders, said, " whatever " and left.
ReplyDeleteWay to go girlfriend ! Remind me what was your job?
DeleteI used to manage a charity shop but for the last year have worked in the village green grocers and loved it. The shop changed hands and the new owners put their young daughter in as manager. In two months I was never thanked even when I went in early when her car broke down and changed shifts for her birthday.
DeleteRunning the lights on "The Music Man" and the stage manager kept feeding me hot buttered rum. I have a collection of such moments.
ReplyDeleteDo tell
DeleteIt was a wonderful read this morning catching up on your posts. Is New York ready for you?
ReplyDeleteYou better believe it baby
DeleteRecently my boss had a full scale melt down rant. Not worthy of movie scenes - like in Network - "I'm mad as hell and can't take it anymore", but still we all kinda stood there awkwardly watching.
ReplyDeleteThe Crown was a stunning production.
At least he didn't shoothimself on tv
DeleteI was cut up on the M6 one very busy Friday afternoon and lost control of my car whilst doing 70mph. I swerved from lane to lane; I have no idea how I didn't hit anything, and eventually I went into a spin and ended up on the central reservation, having hit nothing. Fortunately it was a grassy part of the reservation, and we'd had some really wet weather so it was muddy which slowed me. The motorway had to be closed while my car was moved by the police to the hard shoulder, and I ran across the motorway to it. How I drove the rest of the way home I don't know. It all hit me the day after and I was found sitting in the toilets at uni sobbing.
ReplyDeleteFate...kismet...providence.....call it what you will..you were blessed that day
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteDucking hell
Delete@liz - what a prick! you are better off without that arse!
DeleteA few days after my husband died
ReplyDeleteI was having a screaming fit of
anger and grief and guilt and all
those emotions that come at this
awful time.
My son (who happens to be a
trained psychologist) was sitting
uncomfortably listening to me rant
and march back and forth through
the house. After several minutes
of this I had no more words and
could only sit and sob.
My son looked me square in the face
and said "OK..You done Mom?"
I stopped crying and said "Yes".
He said GOOD! Let's go to Denny's
and get some breakfast.
Suddenly we were both laughing hysterically.
Talk about drama.
Let it.all.out lol loved that story
DeleteI'm afraid my family wasn't very dramatic. Now the hubs...if you'll pardon me for saying so...is a real drama bitch.
ReplyDeleteTell.it.like.it.is baby
DeleteMy brother Bill died on 12/12/1999. I knew he was having surgery and he didn't want me to tell our folks. For the past 17 years I have felt a great sense of guilt, as if I could have prevented his death in some way. Then my oldest brother told me that all knew this was happening, not just me. These years since he died have taken a toll.
ReplyDeleteWhat's done is done.
DeleteI do my upmost best to keep drama out of my life... and i guess i've done a pretty good job since i have nothing to ad... lol Hugs! deb
ReplyDeleteHaving worked in special education for many years I have therefore worked with a succession of Head teachers. All very different. Eccentric, elusive, weak, absent. My favourite was and will always be eccentric with a heart of gold. Many many tales and lovely memories of an an amazingly dedicated man with not only the vulnerable young people in his care but also their families and his staff who looked after them. It is not this man but one of his succsessors that I talk about. Said Head teacher arrived full of new ideas, in his pristine suit and exceedingly shiny shoes and became obsessed with the actual decor of the school rather than the children. He promptly moved his office onto the top floor far far away from any contact with kids and staff alike. One day he was walking down the corridor when a commotion was going on in a toilet. A very challenging young man decided to be artistic with the contents of his bowels up one of the newly painted walls as some sort of protest. Head teacher unlocked the door from the outside and then I heard raised voices and his footsteps retreating back down the corridor with the parting statement. " I will put up with a lot but I will not have smearing in my school!" I was still laughing about it hours later! Surfing to say he didn't last long and moved on. I think the final straw was whilst handing out student of the week certificates in a praise assembly a child vomited on his shiny shoes. He promptly walked out of the hall without uttering a single word leaving the pile of certificates on a chair as he left. Jules
ReplyDeleteOne has to draw a line in the sand ( or the wall) it may seem
DeleteI adore Eileen Atkins.
ReplyDeleteI loved her in cranford
DeleteHad a newly received document in my hand and went to boss to locate proper chart. Boss grabbed document from my hand. Looked at chart(which was what I was about to do). He screamed “they already sent me this document,why didn’t you look first and stop wasting my time “. This is his usual behavior. Glad he is retiring and closing his office next year, though job hunting is a real pain.
ReplyDeleteVideo him on your phone and play it back to him
DeleteI guess drama doesn't run in our family; I can't come up with a single thing! But I'm enjoying everyone else's . . . as usual :)
ReplyDeleteI was born a thrower and my marriage gave me plenty of reasons. Husband had driven me to hysterics one afternoon so I threw the nearest thing, a half opened can of tomatoes then realized I need it for the spaghetti so I scraped them off the floor for the sauce and fed it to him. Can't top the day I threw a Hoover cleaner through the front window at his retreating body thinking he had had the last word. Well maybe the Christmas he was so drunk we practically had to tie him to the chair to keep him upright. When I got home before him I emptied all his beer bottles in the back yard and left them standing in a row with a flower in each one.
ReplyDeleteWhy did you start me on this. My father and I had an understanding about not fighting, we were too much alike and it would have been swords and sabres. But after a row as I left for work, he threw his precious tv tray at me and I ran back and jumped on it, two perfect foot prints in the metal (high heels). Not a word said when I came in from work but a brand new tray sat in front of the television.
I understand this one. I once threw a plate of spaghetti at the Prof
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteMy little niece when she was three just learned to talk on the phone and she loved it. My brother (her uncle) just hung up the phone even though my niece told him a few times that she wanted her turn to talk on the phone.
ReplyDeleteAs soon as my brother stepped away, my niece angrily told him what she thought...Uncle...little people can talk on the phone and just cause I'm three ...I am allowed to talk on phones too...
You could hear a pin drop. She had the complete attention of all the adults in the kitchen. My brother immediately apologized. Then we made him call his wife back and hand the phone over to my niece so she could chat on the phone with her. It was an awesome moment to witness.
note: My niece really didn't care who was on the other end of the phone but she loved being able to talk with it
Shirley temple
DeleteMy nan and aunties were a bunch of drama Queens. They could turn the slightest problem or insult into a full scale production of flouncing , shouting, screaming and crying. As a small child I found it to be alarming, but as a teen, found the whole thing hilarious. Especially when I realised my nan always "fainted" onto the settee. Rough diamonds with hearts of gold and I miss them all.
ReplyDeleteDrama and drama queen behaviour is do very different though sound the same me thinks
DeleteWhen 10 of us filed an official complaint against the psychopathic bitch who was our boss (out of 750 staff members). She had the support of the equally psychopathic big boss (who I read spouting his crap about Brexit yesterday in the newspapers). It was hell. But the big boss changed and Cruella was stupid enough to threaten the new big boss. Eventually she "chose to leave" rather abruptly so on the day two of us ran to the front door of our organization and sat there waving as the smelly, personal hygiene challenged cow flounced out in her white Porsche. We just waved (one fingered if I remember). It took an awful toll to get rid of that cow since she had diplomatic immunity but we did it. Other than that, pretty much every day of my 26-year marriage was filled with his drama. Not my problem any more though Hope you are enjoying it Schmoopie! Anna
ReplyDeleteWhen I was 4 years old my mother had gotten a phone call telling her that her brother had been killed in a plane crash. My father was in the Army and walked in just as she hung up the phone. Without waiting to find out what was going on, he announced to her that he'd just been told that his division would be deploying to South Korea. My mother started screaming. It was awful. I was just barely old enough to remember, but I remember it well.
ReplyDeleteHow awful
DeleteMy ex-husband came home from the pub one night very, very late and very, very drunk just as I was going to bed. He stumbled towards me with an open tray of curry sauce and chips and slurred "I got these for you". I took the tray off him, sat back down on the sofa and then suddenly slung it in his direction, he sidestepped and we both watched as the curried chips in their tray slowly slid down the wall of our newly decorated living room.
ReplyDeleteNo mention was made of the incident the following morning, and he was the one who had to scrub the, luckily quite washable, wallpaper down.
Good for you girl
DeleteAwesome blog, i always enjoy & read the post you are sharing. Thank for your very good article...!
ReplyDeleteผลบà¸à¸¥à¹€à¸¡ื่à¸à¸„ืน