Musicals

Nothing exciting or interesting has happened to me this week. I know this never normally holds me back when writing this, but although I have passed the time in a very pleasant way (saw the world’s fattest man when I was swimming, had a very pleasant picnic next to the biggest pile of dog’s muck I have ever seen -we didn’t see it until the end of the picnic), there is nothing I have done that has been worthy of note. Which made me think: this would never happen if my life was a musical.

I love musicals. Deeply. Even the bad ones. I am one of the few people who can sit through “A Chorus Line” and not want to hang myself. I just think they’re great. I love the heightened reality and the idea that you can get so excited or so moved that you must sing, and then limit your thoughts and words of wisdom to ones that rhyme. Having to rhyme is a real problem in songs. I’m sure Frank Sinatra would never have sung “for heaven rest us, I’m not asbestos” unless he was really stuck for a rhyme, and god knows what Snap were thinking when they thought “I’m as serious as cancer, when I tell you that rhythm is a dancer” was a stroke of lyrical genius. But even still; imagine being able to express yourself in everyday life by having a little sing a long. And when you’re having your sing a long you find that market stall holders, bin men and flower sellers all know the words, tune and are able to harmonise with you. Somewhere in to the second verse you are all able to do a massively choreographed dance routine despite never having been introduced to one another.

Of course some of the musicals fall down when they decide to have no speaking what so ever and so end up having to sing everything, no matter how dull. “Oh I am going to go to the shops, and buy some heavy things which I might drop(s).” The most horrific example is by R Kelly. Yes! He wrote a musical. It is the most awful thing I have ever seen. I have only watched bits of it on you tube as I can’t bring myself to pay £10 for it on amazon. It’s called “Trapped in the Closet” and from what I can work out it’s about a woman who is married to a cop. Sadly the woman is also having an affair with a midget. The cop comes home and despite hiding the midget in the cupboard under the sink it all comes out in the open. The greatest thing about this is that no one else speaks or sings in the musical, R Kelly sings it all. He even puts on voices for the other characters. So whilst this woman is flapping around in her nightie, ‘R’, as I like to call him, is stood in the corner singing “ the man jumped over the table and landed on the midget, the midget starts kicking and yelling out Bridget, Bridget”. It’s very important in some musicals for people to have easily rhyming names. You never get a character called Orange.

But genuinely I think musicals are brilliant. I love going to the cinema to see something that makes no attempt to be realistic and has people being moved to song and dance routines. Although it is an acquired taste I deeply love Moulin Rogue (Ewan McGregor may be a strong persuading factor in this love). But I think it is an amazing piece of film making. As are: Chicago, Mary Poppins, Bugsy Malone and the Sound of Music (although I would prefer it if it stopped after the wedding and missed out the bit about the Nazi’s).

My ambition is to make my life a musical. It’ll take a bit of doing given that I can’t sing, play any musical instruments, score music or dance but I am willing to try. Living on my own may banjax the harmonies as well but I can pop my head next door and see if Mad Mary wants to join in. I think it will make life far more enjoyable and if I don’t like it I shall sit next to a rain splattered window and sing about my favourite things until I don’t feel so bad.

Big Brother

It’s that time again. Yes, Big Brother is back. I’ve not watched it all, but I’ve seen at least two episodes which I believe entitles me to form hard and fast views about a bunch of strangers.

Mario
Sponge Bob Square Head. Weird. Changed his name from Sean Astelbury to Mario Marconi as he thinks he looks like Sylvester Stallone. I know. It makes no sense. It’s like me saying I look a bit like Clare from Steps and changing my name to Ted. I don’t look like Clare from Steps, by the way. I look like something out the Beano. Much like Mario. Likes to think of himself as principled and all knowing. Actually just a very strange man.

Lisa
Mario’s other half. Although for the first weekend had to pretend she’d never met him whilst Steph pretended to be his girlfriend. Seems to be confused on the differences between being up for eviction and the electric chair. “Mario we could be up for eviction, you must sleep with Steph and convince everyone she’s your girlfriend”. “We must do this, we could be up for eviction!”. All said in a breathless, nervy voice, like she’s in the resistance trying to escape the Nazis.

Steph
Thick and moody. Now I can see her point about not wanting to share a bed with Mario or pretend he’s your boyfriend but nearly vomiting everytime he goes near you isn’t going to make anyone think you’re going out. She got in to the final 25 on Popstars the Rivals. She was thrown out as she was only 13. This was discovered by Cheryl Cole and Steph has come on Big Brother to get revenge. Bet Cheryl’s terrified. Also means we have to endure Steph singing all the time. You know the type. They sing happy birthday and Steph’s still going 20 minutes after everyone else has finished as she’s attempting harmonies and putting Mariah Carey style flourishes on every word.

Luke
Odd. Quite funny in an absolute gimp kind of way. Seems harmless enough.

Alexandra
There are no words. Oh hang on, yes there are. Vile cow. I loathe her. Shouts over people, refuses to listen to what people say, bullies people because she can and then says that she’s not arguing. A good reason not to do anything about knife crime in the hope that she becomes a victim.

Dale
Thinks he’s good looking so hasn’t bothered to cultivate a personality.

Darnell
Interesting. Was bought up in America so hasn’t tried to copy any previous housemates. Is an Albino black man and is dealing with failing sight. Got slightly more going on than other housemates (mentioning no names Dale) so is interesting to watch.

Dennis
This years camp Scottish person.

Jennifer
A right wing glamour model. Told Dale that she has a wisdom and life experience that only comes with age and Dale has nothing like that. This is fine until you realise, and indeed Dale pointed out, that Jennifer is only seven months older than Dale. She seemed to take this as him agreeing with her. Therefore I can only assume that she still has the mind set of a 6 year old and counts her age in halves and quarters.



Kathreya
This year’s thick housemate. But with a twist – I don’t hate her. She is genuinely very sweet and is not pretending she doesn’t know what a car is or anything. Just a very sweet, slightly thick, girl.

Michael
Michael is a blind, cross dressing comedian who also works as a radio producer. Given that he is not even slightly amusing you have to hope that he is slightly more skilled as a radio producer. Some housemates have decided to interpret him being blind as him also having had a lobotomy and being incapable of doing any wrong. Mikey has decided to go along with this and I applaud his game playing. I’m sure at some point he’ll decide to reveal that he lives alone and has a complicated job and is therefore capable of getting himself a glass of water but if people are willing to do it for you why not let them?

Mohammed
I like him. Facially he reminds me of the Pilsbury Dough Boy but slightly less creepy. Seems quite normal and laid back. Works as a toy demonstrator which surely isn’t a job.

Rachel
Shreiky. Leaps around all day. Speaks all day. To be fair doesn’t have an ounce of malice in her but if I was in there I’d drown her and make it look like an accident.

Rebecca
Actually I’d pin Rachel’s murder on Rebecca. She is fantastically annoying. She wobbled in wearing what looked like an old nighty with a belt strapped round it and then proceeded to scream solidly for 10 minutes. Was the first one to strip off and throw herself in the pool. In short she’s awful. In real life she works as a nursery nurse. Yep. People pay her to look after their children.

Rex
An “executive chef”. Nope, me neither.

Sylvia
A chameleon. Can on occasion seem very pleasant and then talks to Alexandra and becomes an uber bitch. Very pretty but as we all know this is not enough in Big Brother.


All in all they seem less annoying that last years lot. There will be the usual rows. A lot of people who like to slag people off all the time and then when someone asks them to shut up they will say that they are being “disrespected”. At some point someone (I’m guessing Rebecca or “The Bex” as she calls herself) will play the thick card and start pretending they can’t read or make tea in the hope this makes them adorable and cute rather than worrying. I reckon Rex will walk in the next couple of weeks, Steph will be first out, Mario and Lisa will be repulsive and I’m going to go out on a limb and say Mohammed will win.

Advertising

I have found a way to buy birthday presents for impossible people. Think of what you would like to get them if money were no object, google it and then realise that money is an object and then think laterally and get them something nothing like the original thing you thought of. It’s like that game you had to play at junior school where no matter what you said the answer was “Grey elephants in Denmark”. The upshot of this is that this is how we bought my dad’s birthday present. He turned 60 last week and he is not an easy man to buy for. But we struck gold. Gold in the form of …. Personalised Monopoly! And some glasses for 100 people in the third world (he’s an optician – there is a link). But the Monopoly is great. We’ve changed all the street names – goes through where his mum and dad were born, where they met, where he was born, went to school, met my mum, worked and ends up with where they’d like to retire. It is in short; genius. Although he did open it and point out two mistakes we made.

The best present I ever got was a cabbage patch doll. Being terrified of most dolls and having parents who shunned most commercial goods (you want a Mr Frosty? But why? Here’s some ice and a hammer) I was delighted to have a toy that wouldn’t make me soil myself and was recognised by other children (unlike my other doll Flang Wang Ci Agnes, who was a “rice paddy doll” from Hong Kong. Had her own passport but took some explaining). My Cabbage Patch Doll was called Suzette Dahlia and accompanied me everywhere. Even to church where some woman in a very unchristian manner felt the need to shout out “ooh innit ugly”. I can only hope she was talking about the doll.

Advertising was better when we were young. Mainly because the adverts didn’t have to be truthful. Mr Frosty could produce delicious icy drinks rather than requiring the strength of Geoff Capes to produce a small melted piece of ice. You could cook the delicious meal of swiss roll and baked beans on an a la carte Kitchen although when you used it in real life all you could really do was open and shut the oven door. Now what is there? I am going to go out on a limb and say that the only three memorable adverts in recent years are Cillit Bang (I bought some, it doesn’t work, but that’s the power of advertising), Shelia’s wheels and that Frosties advert with the intensely annoying child.

I am easily influenced by adverts. Not that they make me go out and buy stuff (with the notable exception of Cillit Bang) but they do make me change the way I speak. I will quite happily tell people that I am “not happy Jan” and if someone asks me how I am feeling I will reply by gunning both hands and saying “I’m excited”. Now both of these adverts are at least 5 years out of date and were shown on the other side of the world and in one case the person who pioneered the saying is dead (R.I.P Big Kev) but that doesn’t stop me. A while back in our office a girl was ringing round Monsoon stores looking for a dressing gown. We persuaded her that it would be a good idea to start each enquiry with “it’s just possible you could save my life”. This amused us enough but it was the spontaneous outburst of “You do” that really made us laugh. And that JR Hartley advert must be a good 20 years old.

Why is it that we still can remember to “drinkapintamilkaday”? “Shake and Vac to put the freshness back” and that “Happiness is a cigar called Hamlet”? But can then watch an advert for a car and barely be able to realise it’s for a car let alone what brand it’s for? We need to start singing again in adverts. It’s the only way forward. Singing and lying – that’s how you flog stuff to kids.

Summer

And then on to a weekend of glorious sunshine. Which was… disappointing. I hate summer. Yes, yes, yes. I’ve heard all the arguments but I’m sorry summer is foul. No two words strike more fear in to my heart than “Indian Summer”. Just extends the fear. I begin to dread summer around March, I know the good times of winter are about to end and we’ll be plunged in to misery. I just don’t get it. It’s filthy hot and all people do is talk about how hot it is. You smother yourself in cream that doesn’t rub in properly just so you can go outside and not burn to death. And even then you miss a bit and so have one very weird shaped patch of bright red skin, which then peels. Or you forget your factor 60 when you put the bin out and come back with a bright red face which you then put make up on making you look like some sort of trial cosmetic surgery patient or the result of a child attempting to find “flesh” colour in a box of crayons “well there’s nothing here that looks like flesh, I’ll use neon pink instead”.

Also you’re expected to be outside all the flipping time. Running around rejoicing in ants and gnats. You know what I thought would be fun? If we took all our dinner outside and ate off a rug. To make things more “fun” I thought we’d eat off some plastic plates, seeing as you have to eat off your knees it’s nice to have a plate with a bit of flex to it. And for extra special fun we’re going to do away with using the oven and char our food over an open fire. You know, like the cavemen did.

After all this “fun” you can return to your own oven, more commonly know as your house and sweat to death in your bed for 8 hours until it’s time to get up and take your first shower of the day. You will take the second one moments after stepping out of the shower and realise you are instantly covered in sweat again.

To enhance the joy there is a soundtrack. Every radio station in the land will play Summer in the City, In the Summertime, California Dreaming and of course Summertime by Will Smith. Which has the unique skill of making you nostalgic for summers you never actually had. I have never hung out on a basketball court watching little girls playing double dutch. Oh and a grown man who calls himself “Jazzy Jeff” should be shot in the face. Sounds like a paedophilic uncle.

People also lose the ability to dress themselves. I have no desire to see your mid-drift, your cellulite, your camel hoof or your weird peeling skin. Summer also seems to reveal that there are many people in this world suffering from the terrible condition of “four boob syndrome”. This is easily solvable – go up a size. Oh and while you’re there, hoik them up a bit.

But the worse thing is people unable to accept that you just don’t like summer. You ask to sit in the shade and you get told that you should be enjoying the glorious sunshine. You say you don’t like it. Oh but it’s wonderful. Oh but it’s not. Oh but it makes you feel so happy. No it makes me plunge in to a mood until I can put tights on for winter. Well I like it. Well good for you, I hate it now shut up. I don’t expect people to dance around all winter, revelling in the joy that is cold, I accept your short comings now accept that anything above 7 degrees sends me in to a mood. I spend most of summer praying for rain. Now let me get on with it.

Still hopefully over soon eh?

Sex and the City

Now bear in mind that these particular words of wisdom would have made slightly more sense ooooh about 4 years ago. But they didn’t occur to me then. So if you could imagine it’s 2004 then that may well aid your enjoyment. It was all triggered by a pretty crap weekend. Thought I’d cheer myself up by watching a bit of Sex and the City on Sunday evening, instead it set me thinking. Indeed, in the words of the horse faced Carrie Bradshaw: I couldn’t help but wonder….

If New York is the city that never sleeps, and these are all meant to be such fabulous women who loved themselves each other and their lives; why the hell did they all have such a crap ending? Carrie gave up a career which enabled her to live in Manhattan and wear Manolo Blanhiks in return for 20 minutes of work a week, to move to France with a craggy faced dwarf and be ignored. Luckily, Schnozzy bear who’d treated her like crap for the last 6 years went over and got her and then she returned to her apartment that the dwarf was paying for and wait for Schnozzy to move from Nappa. Girl Power! Meanwhile Charlotte, who gave up work after she made a million out of her first 4 month marriage (aka the ho route) changed herself and her religion to enjoy her second marriage, she then spent her days redecorating and cooking nice meals. Samantha finally admitted that she was better off in a couple and Miranda got to soap down her naked mother in law in a bath. Bet she was thrilled her law degree was finally put to good use.

It seemed a rather bizarre end to a show based on the concept of four single women living in New York who enjoyed their lives. It’s almost as though they wished they could have ended on a giant sign that just read “GROW UP” and in order to grow up you have to get married and have children. Until then you are just being silly. Now I know this wasn’t the most realistic of shows and I’m not really that upset about it but it seemed very strange that not one of them ended up on their own and was fine about it. Is that not considered an ending? Is marriage an ending? Now they’re paired off their story is over? If so I find that equally as sad, surely it would be far nicer to see it as a beginning. I know, I know, they’re not real.

Many tv shows do that. I was ridiculously pleased when Joey and Phoebe didn’t get together at the end of Friends. I was delighted when This Life ended with Millie smacking Rachel and we never knew what happened until This Life + 10. I was equally annoyed when Will and Grace ended with them all grinning at each other in an overwhelming burst of smugness and cheesiness which went completely against the rest of the show.

I couldn’t help but wonder… should I get a life of my own?

Still I suppose SATC (as no one calls it) had to end some how. Samantha was getting on a bit and had exhausted all the men in New York, literally. Miranda had an astonishingly ugly child so had her own problems. And I suppose pairing off is slightly more up beat ending than watching Samantha die of syphilis. That said I am really looking forward to the film.

Standard of Living

It would appear that I have a slightly different standard of living to everyone else. Not in status or level of living (I live like a troll and survive mainly on cornflakes) but in what I feel is acceptable. This came to light when I was at a friend’s house and I went upstairs to use their bathroom. Whilst I was there I thought I’d have a nose through their bathroom cabinet, sadly the door came off in my hand and I made rather a lot of noise. When I went downstairs I was asked what I’d been doing. Unable to think of an excuse quick enough I said “I was looking in your cupboard and the door came off”. From the looks on everyone’s faces you’d think I’d said “I was being sick in your bed”. Now if someone was going through my pant drawer, or I came upstairs to find them dressed in my clothes using my toothbrush, then I’d be a bit miffed, but looking in my bathroom cabinet wouldn’t bother me at all. It made me think of all the other views I hold that no one else agrees with.

Scarlett Johansson is not attractive.
In fact she is quite unattractive. I went to see ‘The Other Boleyn Girl’ the other day. It was very good. Only enhanced by the woman behind us saying at the end “So is this based on a true story?”. Natalie Portman was very good in it and was stunning. Absolutely stunning. Scarlett Johansson looked like Pob. If Pob was ever so slightly deformed and had a flesh beak for a mouth. And she can’t shut her mouth. It’s constantly hanging open. She just mings to be quite frank.

Fawlty Towers is not amusing
I understand that is very well written and beautifully performed and has stood the test of time etc etc. It should be admired on it’s own terms and respected as it set a new bar for comedy etc etc. But after watching an episode, usually on a plane where I have no choice, I am usually reduced to shouting “oh come on. Just explain”. It’s incredibly frustrating and irritating and there are better things out there. Some Mothers Do Ave Em affects me in a similar way. I do not find Frank Spencer amusing. I want to beat him. About the face.

Ice Cream is Disgusting.
It is dirty, dirty filth and should be banned. Whereas calipos and frozen water lollies are great, ice cream is grim. In fact the majority of puddings are horrible and the whole course could be done away with and replaced by a nice cup of tea. Now I know that I don’t look like I turn down a lot of puddings, but I find that I am able to maintain my fatty boom boom status through savoury alone and the odd bit of chocolate. Especially the odd packet of chocolate buttons. Indeed ever since I threw a tantrum in the office over my need for chocolate buttons, I have been overwhelmed by them. But it doesn’t happen often. And I have never longed for ice cream. When I was younger I was at a friends house and his mum offered me an ice cream float. Having never heard of one I accepted and then saw her heavily soil a perfectly good drink by putting ice cream in it. The resulting mess she gave me repulsed me and made me realise that not only is ice cream disgusting it is also evil as it ruins good things.

The Original is not always best.
Now I know that the majority of things should be left alone, classic films, classic songs, Melanie Griffiths face. But the original is not always the best and there is nothing more annoying than mentioning a song and someone butting in and saying “well of course it’s not a patch on the original, oh my god have you never heard it? What a philistine you are, you obviously don’t know music and should have your ears cut off”. And I am not saying that I prefer Ray Quinn’s version of “My Way” over Sinatra’s or CandyFlips version of “Strawberry Fields” over the Beatles. I am saying that I like “The Tide is High” by Blondie rather than the Paragons. Just because it wasn’t the original doesn’t mean that it can’t be improved. Then someone goes and releases a remake of “The Italian Job” and you realise your theory has a massive flaw in it. Perhaps my whole belief system is flawed.

French Exchange

I am thinking of a holiday in France. Well more than thinking, planning a holiday in France. God, I am so proactive. Well actually I am not. I have given my input and someone else is planning it. I originally put a plan together but given that my Geography skills are non-existent (I gave it up at 13, didn’t really want a life of wearing wellies and going on strange field trips. We went on one once where a man ate mud. I don’t need that in my life), my plan would have involved a good three days worth of driving and shares in Esso. So I was removed (therefore my actual plan, worked perfectly).

So I am off to France. I have been there before. I went on a school French exchange when I was 15. I think I can safely say that it was one of the more horrific experiences of my life. My exchange partner was a fat voluntary mute who stayed with us for two weeks without changing her clothes once. As you can imagine I was longing to get to France and stay with her and her family. I arrived and was told to sleep in a room full of dolls. Admittedly they weren’t to know of my terrible fear and my French didn’t stretch to “excuse me I am scared the dolls will come to life in the night and kill me” so I waited till everyone was asleep and slept on the sofa every night. Mute remained a mute. To be fair I didn’t help her much. I was always reasonable at French but actually being in France demonstrated to me that I had been cruelly failed by the education system. I was completely unable to talk to anyone. If Mute had been willing to have an animated conversation about sandwich fillings or directions we would have got on like a house on fire. I could have even sung her a song about things I could see (voici le port, voici le camping, voici le chateau, et le sandicat d’incinative). But sadly she wasn’t interested. So instead we sat in silence. Her mother seemed to watch insane porn on the tv, it could have been a French soap opera as it was on telly at reasonable hours of the day and her father amused himself by walking in on me having a shower. Occasionally we were summoned to the table to eat some under cooked horse and then we resumed our silence.

Thankfully I was away with the school so was able to escape now and again. This also enabled me to hear stories of other people’s exchange families which made me think I was quite well off. One girl was kicked out by her family when she refused to let her exchange partner sleep with her boyfriend in her bed. Another was taken to an all night rave where she was abandoned. Another girl’s exchange partner went on holiday for the last week so she came to stay with us. She was made to share a bed with me. Which was nice given that we hadn’t ever spoken to each other at school. Also meant I couldn’t escape the dolls. On our trips out we pooled together knowledge for survival. My friend was given no food. I was sent off everyday with 2 french sticks filled with sweaty ham, a family sized bag of crisps, a WHOLE BAG of fun sized Mars bars and 4 litres of water. All I needed was a pack horse to carry it around on. I practically fed everyone on the coach. We must have been the only people in town longing for traffic jams so we didn’t have to go home.

Part way in to this delightful trip the mute broke her silence to tell me “we are going to my grandmothers today”. How lovely I thought. I collected my book and my purse and was good to go. I was wearing a light summers dress; it was a lovely day, no need for a jumper. Mute and Mother gave me some odd looks but I ignored them as I settled myself in to their Citroen ready to enjoy some delightful French pop music (sadly not by the group Téléphone, made popular by the Tricoloure books – Fifi LeFolle was a massive fan). 6 hours of driving later I realised the meaning of those looks. We stayed with her grandmother for four days. Not only did I spend my days in that dress, I also had to sleep in that dress as I had to share a bed with the mute. It was also about 90 degrees for most of the time I was there. No one commented. The grandmothers flat was decorated with posters of the tour de france, so I was able to use my vocabulary of transport words. In many ways these were the halcyon days of the exchange.

This trip to France will not be like that. I shall take a variety of outfits, I shall speak about topics other than the Tour de France and I shall put a lock on the bathroom door. Bon Vacance.