Wicked Audiences

I was clearing some flotsam from our writing desk today and found some old tickets to the production of Wicked!

We had seen the musical during our last holiday to San Francisco and whereas Chris hated it, I kind of got caught up with the silliness of it all, and enjoyed it immensely.

We have been to many,many theater productions in the US (mainly on Broadway) and I have never quite gotten used to just how rude American audiences can be (please no offence intended to American readers here)

On the whole UK theater audiences are quiet and rather subdued, but American audiences (even the one at the the New York Met's production of The Magic Flute have a tendency to chatter a lot, a fact that has nearly driven me to complete distraction on occasion!

Once when I was working in Pittsburgh I went to see the movie Serial Mom (why?) and couldn't hear any of the first half of the movie because a family of 10 behind me was chatting merrily with each other as they where eating a huge picnic lunch!!!
When I complained in my stuffy English accent... the mother of the group threw an empty KFC box of bones at me!!!!

This is why I enjoy going to the movies in an afternoon.. no one is around not in Wales!

Talking of theater going.. Nia my old theater going pal from the 1980s turned up today to say hello..... this is no mean feat as she now lives just outside Sydney Australia...but catching up with her on her whistle stop UK "tour" today reminded me , just how easy it is to meet up with true old friends and to pick up where you left off.

Nia ( which means Princess in Welsh) and family

Born Free?

Click the video before reading this blog!

Now I think it is fallacy that animals do not look up into the sky......true they don't generally day dream when cloud watching, but when there is something of interest to note ( a buzzard, a sparrow hawk etc) the field protectors such as the cockerels will look up and growl a warning to the rest of the flock.
William, on occasion has been seen sitting calmly watching a passing low plane with benign interest, and this morning I spied Camilla arching her graceful head up into the air, seemingly fascinated with something far away in the heavens.
I stopped what I was doing and followed her gaze, and there flying in an untidy "V" way out above the Gop was a flock of wild geese.
The breeze carried their cries down over Trelawnyd, and gently Camilla honked back, flapping her wings wide and bowing her head low then upwards again, her eyes never leaving the V as it ebbed and flowed across the clouds


For an awful moment I thought she would try and join them.


But then good, old dependable  Winnie ambled up beside her,
she also bowed and arched her head in acknowledgement of the interlopers, but did so rather half heartedly, and within seconds the two geese relaxed and started to graze the grass again quietly and without fuss.
...and I let out a small sigh of relief

Prestatyn Tribute- The Scala History Queue

I was born and bred (until the age of 21 that is) in the small coastal town of Prestatyn , which is only a couple of miles North of Trelawnyd.

The town, as I remember,  was rather genteel and somewhat refined. especially when compared to its neighbouring holiday town of Rhyl, and  I am all too aware that I have been quite vociferous when commenting on just how much the town has "dumbed down" in recent years, given the change in holiday tastes and the decline of the British seaside resort town.

However, I do big up the more positive aspects of Prestatyn. The Town's Flower Show and Classic Car Show have always been terrific successes in the effort to attract visitors to the town centre, and newly refurbished Scala Cinema and arts centre is a tiny beacon of "class" amid the plethora of charity shops and "tat" that are now taking over some parts of the High Street.

The Old Prestatyn Scala with a queue to see "King Kong"
The inspiration for the new art work

Last night my Eldest Sister Ann, rang up, rather breathless and excited. Her secret , she said,could be let out of the bag so to speak.......as she and her husband Tim had been chosen by the art centre and cinema to feature in a one off piece of artwork celebrating the History of the Town's Cinema and "bigging up" some of the prominent Prestatyn citizens that have given something back to the community!

(Ann has spearheaded the Flower Show for nearly two decades and Tim has founded and run the Town's Car Show and both have run successful retail businesses in the High Street for many years)

The Scala History Queue had been given it's official unveiling last night, and so this morning, I like a score of other locals popped down to have a look for myself.

The queue was fantastic
Each person had been photographed, some individually , then placed within the "mural". Many were representing differing aspects of their community role or individual personality
Below (centre) is Ann with her Flower Show secretary badge on

 Below is Tim ( in period dress and goggles) representing his Car Show.

 Far right is Clive Southerton, former vicar of the Town and below you can just make out former Bookshop owner and art critic Victor Hallet (third from right) who has commented on my film reviews on this blog from time to time.

The whole concept has been wonderfully concieved and executed, and is a delightful celebration of the more positive aspects of an evolving holiday town.
The instillation brought a smile to my face and gave me back a sense of  pride in my old birthplace

The Guy on the right is the Trelawnyd Male voice choir's musical director
Local Pop celeb Mike Peters is centre

Love the middle aged "geek" with the light sabre

12 Quotes

My Chair In the Window

Yorkshire Pudding (http://beefgravy.blogspot.com/) has a wonderfully eclectic blog
If you have a few minutes spare take a look at his "Swimming with tadpoles" blog entry (Unforgettable things to do before you die)....its a bit of a titter
I also loved his "Quotations" entry....especially as I am a real fan of a pithy one liner....so in homage to him and after six hours finishing off hen house cleaning, pig manure shifting and cottage cleaning, I thought I would sit down in the living room window seat  after a  hot bath ( you need a real hot bath with disinfectant to get the smell of pig muck out of your crinkly bits!)...and here I will list some of my  favorite quotes....

1.I don't drink water; fish fuck in it.~ W. C . Fields

2.I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals. ~ Winston Churchill

3.Why am I so good at playing bitches? I think it's because I am no a bitch......Maybe that's why Miss Crawford always plays ladies!~ Bette Davis

4.Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort~ John Ruskin

5.Yea, my lord, I thank it (my heart), poor fool, it keeps on the windy side of care.~ Beatrice in Much ado about Nothing

6 I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks.~Harper Lee

7.I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they're going to feel all day~Frank Sinatra

8 Boy George is all England needs - another queen who can't dress~ Joan Rivers

9.Bisexuality immediately doubles your chances for a date on Saturday night.~ Woody Allen

10.The East End of Glasgow is like the Olympics. Lots of foreigners in tracksuits struggling to speak English~ Frankie Boyle

11. Always make the audience suffer as much as possible~ Alfred Hitchcock

12. Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.~ Mark Twain

Being Thoughtful

In these modern times of instant e-cards, texts,facebook poking and the like, there is something rather reassuring in the arrival of a hand written card.
Contact from each of the above  can be seen as a thoughtful gesture, but a card , to me , shrieks politeness and just that extra mile of effort
The above card was hand delivered a day or so ago. It was from a lady in the village, who had heard about Constance's death.
It was brief , polite and sweet, and more importantly, it was thoughtful...and it gave me more support  and warm feelings than any platitude or comment.
Here's hoping that this little tradition does not disappear in the same way that letter writing and postcard sending seems to have done.
*********************************************************************************


This morning something odd happened when I was feeding the pigs....I know that at dawn I am not cooking on gas, so to speak....(in actual fact I look and feel like the Wreck of The Hesperus" until my first coffee at 8ish)...so I don't always pick up on nuances and small print.
However after I gave no 12 his banana, I was convinced that he actually murmured 
"lovely" 
when stood there chewing with his eyes closed in piggy rapture!
Am I going quietly nuts?

Joey Scarsbury - Believe It Or NoT

Yesterday's blog was a kind of homage to the the 1970's

Today's is a kind of Nod to 1981

In 1981 I was a bank clerk!.....and a very BAD bank clerk.

I was young.....had a beard and haircut the spit of Joey Scarbury's,dated girls and never once balanced my till in 18 months.......

I was only thinking of those faraway salad days last Saturday....as a patient a colleague was looking after turned out to be a fellow clerk from those old National Westminster Bank Days!

Funny that I recognized her.....she hadn't got a clue who I was, then laughed loudly......it's Richard isn't it?...I was invisible even then!

Anyhow enjoy Joey Scarbury.......  Andy Gibb and the towering transvestite introducing him are a blast!

If you didnt enjoy the first video...try this one!
love the fat guy at 22 seconds

House Party 1970 style

Next door had a house party last night. 

It brought back many memories of a social event that seems to have gone out of fashion somewhat since I was a boy, a fact that probably cannot be generalized, I know as last night's party, was probably not really  an exception to the rule. 

As a child, the house party seemed all the rage.

Father was in charge of the bar, which was set up either in a corner of the kitchen,(not the best area because bottlenecks of drinkers vrs diners would occur) or more likely was organised in a hastily constructed "pub bar" area in the living room or Hall!.

Some relatives and family friends were posh enough to have their own purpose built, full time bars, complete with plastic pineapple ice buckets, optics and decorative glass drink stirrers (My Uncle Fred being an ideal example) but my father generally preferred a sort of impromptu, amateurish affair!

At some parties my father would organize optics  for the spirits (to reduce expensive bingeing), the old fashioned party 4's and party 7's for the beer drinking men from the conservative club.......(complete with those "proper" beer drinking glasses ( see below)

There would be sherry for the "ladies" Bottles of Gin and Martini for my mother, Auntie Greta and Auntie Marjorie and the horrendously sweet Advocaat, the only drink that would be sipped by my grandmother.

Lemon slices and cherries in small jars would be lined up with military precision on the kitchen units, and would complement the colourful finger food, which had been prepared , in some cases 24 hours before hand.

Pineapple and cheese on sticks, sausages ON STICKS...... miniature pickled onions ON STICKS.... miniature sandwiches ON BLOODY STICKS.... the food was a triumph of engineering!

There was Vol-au-vents filled with grey looking mushroom filling, grey looking prawn cocktails, pate and crackers and a whole collection of peanuts, crisps and bread sticks, all arranged in their own glass dishes or else collectively displayed in "nibble" containers, those with four or six individual parts to them.

The "sweets" were laid out nearby.....and these my mother would really excel at.

Sherry trifle ( groaning under the quart of Bristol Cream), home made brandy snaps, filled with whipped cream and left under the hot kitchen lights for hours as well as home made sweets and the odd black forest gateaux all stood proud on the paper tablecloths

The family and friends started to arrive from 8pm. The television would be turned off and the noise of talking, the occasional shriek- the result  to a mucky comment- and laughter would increase in increments until midnight, when the alcohol effects would be at its highest.

My father would invariably do something silly. (run into the party in his underpants, slobber all over the most attractive lady at the party.....proclaim undying love to his best friend Fred)...There may have been a small family spat at sometime, but generally this was missed by me as a ten year old...I noticed other things....like just how much the smoke from cigarettes and cigars filled the brown and yellow living room, or just how much my Uncle Arthur acted like the suave ladies man, Terry Thomas .

1970s house parties were exciting, frantic, lively and even then, all rather silly affairs.......

We seem so much more sophisticated nowadays....

hummm

or are we?

Tantrums of a pig

I feel I have neglected the animals just a little this week.
Brother's house, old friend's reunion, Manchester, Work all day yesterday and work tonight.....it all feels as though I have not been around here....mentally and physically....and that feels a little odd.


Despite some dreadful weather, I decided to spend a little time in the field, and It was lovely to forget the badness of last week, even though I have been soaked to the skin.

Margie .throwing a strop worthy of Violet Elizabeth Bott

My first stop was the pig pen.
The only reason I chose them first was that I could sit inside their shed out of the rain, so after pouring some pig nuts onto the earth I made myself comfortable on the floor of the hut.
BIG MISTAKE!
No 12 and Margie ( the former 21) bounced over like a couple of overgrown puppies and started to stuff their fat faces on the pig food, but as number 12 is now a huge boar and not the timid little piglet we first got to know and love, competition between the pigs was bound to lead to conflict .
Every time Margie tried to take more that number 12 thought she was entitled to, he would knock her out of the way with a sharp nudge of his snout.
After four or five of these rebukes, Margie literally stopped dead squinting her sharp little piggy eyes at number 12  and with murder obviously in mind, she stamped her little trotters like a two year old madam , then proceeded on what can only be described as a mother of all temper tantrums.
Squealing like ( well.... like a pig)...she bounced around the enclosure biting at plants, fencing and her water bucket with a savagery which was just a little frightening and not content with biting at inanimate objects, Margie hurled herself into the shed, stamped her trotters again and took a mouthful of my pants firmly in her mouth and shook me like a dog.

I acted quickly and slapped her hard, which seemed to stop her hysterical tantrum for a second, but then, after looking at me in astonishment for a moment, she let out another scream and ran out into the enclosure for yet another performance......
All the while number 12 remained calm and unruffled.......
We have brought up a monster!

Camilla and Badger are slowly letting nature separate them (although having said this, every night they still share the same house)....Daytimes Camilla follows the bigger girls devotedly, trying to ingratiate herself into their good books. The older geese are not ready to accept her fully, but I have noticed that they are more comfortable in the presence of a prettier and more graceful  companion. By the autumn I hope that the four geese will be sharing the goose house together......

and talking of sharing- the rather knackered Phyllis Diller (centre) and Jane( the araucana) are still comfortable in their own little nunnery, away from the advances of the miniature cockerels and  bullying from the bog standard hybrids.
Phyllis is actually losing more feathers......and has a physique only a mother could love....


Are ANY of my animals normal?
answers on a postcard...please!