DIM--Dumass Institute of Movement

DIM

Dumass Institute of Movement

Have you always thought of yourself as clumsy? Do you trip over your own feet several times a day? Do you struggle with co-ordination, balance and movement?

You may suffer from a condition called DYSPRAXIA which is a developmental coordination disorder (DCD) affecting fine and/or gross motor coordination in children and adults. It is believed that one in ten children show symptoms of being dyspraxic.

Dr Ima Dumass, founder of the Dumass Institute of Movement, has a identified a sub category of dyspraxia called DYSPRAXIC OVERESTIMATION where the dyspraxic individuals grossly overestimate their co-ordination abilities causing them to repeatedly injure themselves in absurd ways. Her research shows that one in every five dyspraxic people show signs of Dyspraxic Overestimation. Dr Dumass has devoted her life to this group of poor, deluded individuals.

The Institute works with Dyspraxic Over-estimators to help them be aware of their limitations and not take risks that will lead to injury. Here are just a few of our success stories:

Heather, Wales

I jumped off a rock in the park while trying to imitate Eddie Van Halen and fell and shattered my coccyx. At the time I was extremely confident that I could pull this move off. Thanks to the Dumass Institute of Movement, I realise that I am not a rock star and never will be.

Rosie-Mai, England

I was running on a beach with friends. In my mind I was picturing that scene in Chariots of Fire and so I decided I could skip across the sand without a problem until I fell over and my hand went purple. This was the first of many overestimation injuries I received before I found the Institute.

Here at the Institute we teach dyspraxic individuals to ask themselves these crucial questions before attempting a physical task:

1. Can I do this?

2.  Seriously, can I actually do this?

3.If I did do this, is there a way it could go horribly wrong?

Our motto is: If in doubt, don’t attempt it.

The Dumass Institute of Movement has helped countless people lead better lives by helping them to avoid daft injuries while messing about with their friends.

The Case of the Suspiciously Bristly Moustache

Hello friends. One of the things that I love about Spiderman is that we can still stay up all night discussing random topics. We’ve done this for years—even before we were married—we would often stay up deep in conversation in EV Commons until the sun rose.

We once stayed up all night having a marathon of film versions of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and keeping a log about how textually accurate (or inaccurate) they were. We kept big complicated diagrams and charts about certain passages of prose and how they were handled in each film. The winner—the film deemed to be the most textually accurate was The Muppet’s Christmas Carol.  

So, recently we have been watching a marathon of all the Inspector Morse episodes we own (which is nearly all of them). This has led us to discuss how Morse in the show played so beautifully by actor John Thaw as a hard-drinking, opera-loving, crossword addict grouch is much sanitised from the books. Author Colin Dexter definitely softened the character who was more patronising to women and obsessed with sex. He was less likeable in the books. And there were other changes as well. His sidekick Detective Lewis is Welsh in the books (a fact neither of us remembered) because we are used to seeing him as Geordie (from Newcastle) actor Kevin Whately. Sixth Doctor incarnation Colin Baker played him on stage, much more like the books, and would have been very good at it if you recall his arsehole version of the Doctor. This really wasn’t Colin Baker’s fault…an actor can only work with what he was given. But he would have made a wonderful textually accurate Morse.  

This led to discussions about other long running detective shows where the actor becomes the *true* version and you forget what he or she was like in the books.

Looking at versions of Sherlock Holmes we both agree that Basil Rathbone is good, but Jeremy Brett is THE Holmes. He did it the longest and it nearly drove him mad. He *became* Holmes, which is not a very good thing to do considering who Holmes is—a drug addict and most certainly bipolar. Brett himself famously battled mental illness—many of the same demons that plagued Holmes. I have also often thought Holmes was on the Autistic Spectrum. And while we *adore* the new Sherlock with Benedict Cumberbatch, they are more a subversion of the genre filled with a wink and a nod to the original source like cases such as the Speckled Blond (the Speckled Band) and the Geek Interpreter (the Greek Interpreter). They are magnificent in themselves, but are not textually accurate.

We got onto Miss Marple (again…Joan Hickson is THE definitive Marple) who may not look as the books describe. I have a real memory of the words “bird like” in one of the books which would suit fantastic-actress-but-all-wrong-for-the-part of Miss Marple Geraldine MacEwan, but not Joan Hickson as she was stockier. Also, the character mellowed over time in the books—she was a right nosy parky and bitchy gossip in the first book The Murder at the Vicarage. We always just think of her as beloved spinster.

Miss Marple inevitably led us onto Hercule Poirot. Again…many have played him—some good, some bad—but to us the definitive was David Suchet, who played him for a quarter of a century. We loved Albert Finney in the 1974 Murder on the Orient Express. He seemed to capture Poirot’s fastidiousness and vanity. I *hated* Peter Ustinov even though I adored Death on the Nile (1978) and Evil Under the Sun (1982). Ustinov was all wrong. He was just playing himself with a Frenchy accent and his OWN MOUSTACHE.

I am not the only one who thinks this. According to Wikipedia:

Christie's daughter Rosalind Hicks observed Ustinov during a rehearsal and said, "That's not Poirot! He isn't at all like that!" Ustinov overheard and remarked "He is now!"

This led us into several days discussion about Poirot’s Moustache which is where all this has been leading.

David Suchet

                                                   

Why we loved Suchet’s performance so much was his attention to detail about Poirot’s appearance and his moustache. In case you don’t know Poirot was a Belgian refugee who fled to the UK during WWI. In his first appearance in The Mysterious Affair at Styles his moustache was described as stiff and military owing to the fact that he was refugee and didn’t have the money for haircare.

Here is where book and video versions start to merge or separate. Spiderman and I both recall clearly the books talked about Poirot having little curling tongs to curl the ends of his moustache. We remember a moustache kit with waxes and oils. We remember his vanity and sleeping with a moustache guard to keep it in place.

Peter Ustinov

This is why I hated Peter Ustinov—it was not Poirot’s moustache—it was just Usinov’s. The moustache was like a separate character to me. It had a life of its own, like a prissy little hairy friend of Poirot perched on his upper lip. Ustinov’s has no style. It was also salt and pepper which annoyed me as I recall Poirot’s vanity where he dyed his moustache and his hair.

This is where I loved David Suchet. His moustache was magnificent, prim, prissy, curled, and overly dark. It seemed exactly as Agatha Christie had written it.

Branagh and the walrus

When the advert for the new Murder on the Orient Express came out we fell about laughing. What the hell did Kenneth Branagh have on his face??? Where did that giant walrus of a moustache come from? Didn’t he read the book for Frith’s sake??

This is where WE were wrong. We had spent so long looking at David Suchet that we had somehow made his moustache the definitive one.

According to AgathaChristie.com

The more Poirot became an established private detective, the bigger his trademark moustache became. By the early 1930s his famous facial hair had evolved from being stiff and military into a magnificent, luxurious asset which gained much comment from himself, narrators and other characters within each story. Throughout Christie’s stories, his moustache was described as ‘gigantic’, ‘immense’ and ‘amazing’, pointing to the importance of this physical asset. By 1934 Poirot himself was described as ‘a little man with enormous moustaches’ in Murder on the Orient Express. By this point and beyond it was clearly his greatest physical attribute, being described as ‘an immense moustache’ in The Labours of Hercules in 1947.

So, why does Kenneth Branagh’s moustache feel so WRONG to us?

It is just ludicrously large.  Branagh defends it in article after article calling on the text to back him up, but I just don’t buy it.

It may be an enormous moustache, but it is doesn’t seem well cared for or groomed with wax and oils and it certainly not dyed. The salt and pepper thing he’s got going on does not work for me—Poirot was too vain for that. In Appointment with Death it is described as suspiciously black. And what the hell is that little goatee/soul patch thing???? I might could live with the ridiculous moustache if it weren’t for the unexplained very un-Poirot like tuft of hair. 

What are your views? Have you seen the new Murder on the Orient Express? Did you want to punch Kenneth Branagh in face throughout the film?

Who are your favourite versions of literary detectives?

I leave you with this Tom Gauld cartoon which says it better than I ever could. 

                          

Law and Order SVU (Snail Victims Unit)

I had a dream last night.

This is not unusual. I dream vividly every night. A few nights ago, I had a terrible nightmare that I left bread baking in our oven and went off to Canterbury Cathedral with my in-laws who were here on holiday and our house burned down killing the Spiderbabes and the Bronte snail GALS.

No, this was one of my “crack-ass” dreams (as Spiderman calls them.)

                              

I am a firm believer that your everyday life bleeds into your dreams. We have been watching DVD marathons of Law and Order  from seasons 3-7. The good ones—the ones with Jerry Orbach as Detective Lennie Briscoe. I have such a crush on him. 

Anyway, in this dream Charlotte Bronte the snail was on trial for murder of a homeless man. I missed all the Law part…I did not dream of her arrest, only the Order part where she was actually on trial. She was being defending by Jack McCoy (played by Sam Waterston) and the prosecutor was Tovah Feldshuh (she is on many episodes as a lawyer). I think of all the lawyers that have repeat parts on the show my dream picked her because she is also in another favourite show Crazy Ex Girlfriend playing Rachel Bloom’s mother.

Interestingly, as I write this I have just realised that the roles were reversed—on the show McCoy always is the prosecutor, not the defence. In the dream, he was the defence.

Much of the dream is lost into the ether, but a few fragments remain which I will try to recreate them for you.

                      

They had Charlotte in her little terrarium on the witness stand.

Tovah Feldshuh: Where were you the night John Doe was murdered?

Charlotte: (eats lettuce)

Tovah Feldshuh: I ask you again, where were you?

Charlotte: (eats lettuce)

Jack McCoy: Your honour, she’s a snail. She can’t talk.

Judge: Sit down, Mr McCoy. The witness must answer the question.

Charlotte: (eats lettuce)

Jack McCoy: The witness can’t answer! She’s a snail, for God’s sake!

Judge: Pipe down, Mr McCoy or I will find you in contempt.

Tovah Feldshuh: Permission to treat as hostile, your honour?

Judge: Permission granted.

Tovah Feldshuh: (takes lettuce leaf away)

I don’t remember what else happened here, but the next bit I remember was this.

Tovah Feldshuh: You claim your name is Charlotte but isn’t it true you are both male and female. A hermaphrodite!

Jack McCoy: Objection! Irrelevant!

Tovah Feldshuh: Goes to credibility, your honour. If the witness lied about this, then we can show she lied about other things.

Jack McCoy: The witness can’t lie. She’s a snail!

Judge: Overruled. I’ll allow it. Answer the question, Miss Bronte.

Charlotte: (eats lettuce)

Tovah Feldshuh: Isn’t it true that as a Giant African Land Snail that you are a menace to society, eating everything that gets in your path?

Jack McCoy: Objection!

Tovah Feldshuh: Giant African Land Snails have been known to decimate crops. Is that what you did to John Doe? Did you decimate him, too?

Jack McCoy: Objection! She’s badgering the witness! Snails don’t eat people! They are vegetarians! Besides, that’s not even what happened to the victim.

Judge: Calm down, Mr McCoy. I’ll allow it.

The rest of the trial is a blur, but the ending I remember clearly.

Judge: Madame forewoman, you have deliberated for three days. Is there any indication that if you have more time, you will be able to reach a verdict?

Forewoman: No, your honour. We are deadlocked.

Judge: Then I have no recourse, but to declare a mistrial. (bangs gavel) The jury is dismissed.

The last bit of the dream took place in Adam Schiff’s office. In the show they always end with him saying something pithy in his trademark gruff way. God bless Steven Hill who was a wonderful character actor in this role.

Adam Schiff: Well, you got the snail off. Until the next trial.

Jack McCoy: I heard it was eleven to one. Eleven people could clearly see that a small snail couldn’t have possibly stabbed a homeless man 37 times. Snails can’t hold a knife. They’ve got no arms!

Adam Schiff: One holdout, eh? Must have been a gardener.

So, this is what happens when you watch too much crime drama from the 1990’s.

You get crack-ass dreams.

Dancing Queen

There is thing about me.

A weird thing.

Maybe it is a weird thing about you too.

I am musical and by that, I mean I have hundreds of CDs and listen to music nearly all the time. I *always* have my i-pod when I am on the go by myself. I like to listen to music while I work, sew, cook. I like to sing along (rather loudly) when I am at home. When there is not music playing, I am making music all on my own. I hum and sing to myself and often don’t know I am doing it until Spiderman points it out. I get this from my dad.

When we lived in the US, I was the sort of mad person you could see sitting behind the wheel of their car singing and possibly dancing to some private music that others could not hear. All they could do was sit at the traffic light and look over at the woman making a spectacle of herself.

Uh huh. That’s me.

When you are ensconced in your car or your home you can sing your heart out and no one can hear you. This does not work when you are wearing an i-pod.

It is considered bad manners to be singing along loudly out in public where everyone can hear you.

Ask me how I know this.

So, I have to work *really* hard to reign it in. I mean *really* hard.

In order to stop myself from singing, I have channel that energy elsewhere.

Which means that I am often dancing when I don’t know it. Out in public.

Certain music has that effect on me. I’m trying hard to just discreetly tap my foot or just drum my hand surreptitiously on my thigh….but suddenly I realise I am like Mary Tyler Moore spinning around all full of wonder in the big city while I throw my beret into the air like I’m going to make it after all.

                               

This seems to happen all the time. I don’t know I am doing it. It is only when a see stranger hold me at the corner of their eyes and snigger, that I realise I am at it again.

Certain songs have choreography that MUST be done as I listen. Do you know the song Tainted Love by Soft Cell? There is a THUMP THUMP at the end of several lines that is just *begging* for a sort of fist-raised-in defiance-pump to go with it. This has been a long-standing habit with me. I used to pound on the ceiling of my first car in time to the beat as I listened and eventually the light fixture fell off from repeated listening of Soft Cell.

And any song with a bell means I have to shake my booty in time with the chimes. Maria by Blondie springs to mind. There is a lovely BONG BONG BONG on the line Maria, you’ve got to see her (bong bong bong) go insane and out of your mind. She also has this slippery way have making the oo sound like in lines like Fool for love and full of fire that makes me do this slippery hip slide.  Don't even get me started about listening to Shakira.

A few months ago, I was in the queue at Lidl and listening to Love at the Disco  by Tom and Olly and I am not only drumming, but clapping. Listen to it here and you will see what I mean. There is a clapping bit right at the start. It was only when the lady in front of me turned around, did I realise I had done it.

Last month, I was coming out of Tesco listening to the theme from the cartoon Hong Kong Phooey (I have rather eclectic tastes) when I realised I was doing a karate kick. A karate kick with a chop! I only realised it because a group of men were laughing.

I cannot allow myself to listen to the theme from H.R Pufinstuf (off the same CD as Hong Kong Phooey—all Saturday morning cartoons covered by cool punk bands) because there is a bit at the end where they sound like a cheerleader and I find I unexpectedly have invisible pompoms.

Listen here and you’ll see what I mean:

Last Wednesday, I was meeting Spiderman at the library when he got off the bus from work so we could walk home together and I was listening to Why Can’t I be You? By The Cure. I could see him coming down the street towards me and I thought I had it under control, but clearly not because he said, “Why are you bopping up and down like you need to wee?” Some music makes me do a wee-wee dance. FACT.

Yesterday, I was standing in the rain by the green man crossing waiting for a signal to cross while listening to Fight (for your right to party) by The Beastie Boys. Only when a cyclist nearly fell off her bike laughing did I realise I was throwing rapper hand shapes. /oh the shame/

Some songs have a spiral effect on me. They make me want to spin. I don’t realise I am doing it until my bag flies off my shoulder as I pirouette on the pavement. Many songs have this effect on me, but this one in particular has a strong effect on me. It’s a cover of London Calling by The Clash sung by the amazing folk band The Bad Shepherds who folk up this punk song. The urge to spin is especially powerful on the last word of the line London is drowning and I live by the river. It is followed by a compelling violin solo that just increases the likelihood of me spinning like a top.  

Listen and enjoy and see if you don’t want to twirl too.

I have tried to not embarrass myself in public, but clearly, this isn’t working. The only alternative is to not listen to music when I am out and about, but this is just not an option.

I think I will just have to go on being my exuberant self by letting the music sweep me away while pretending not to notice the way other people are laughing. 

Does this ever happen to you?

RIP Sergeant Peppermill

                                     
Sergeant Peppermill was adopted into our family on November 26th, 2011. You can read about his arrival here.

He was an integral part of our kitchen and was used daily. In the early years, he was a cheerful fellow who never minded us twisting his head to make pepper come out of his butt. But as he grew older, his joints became stiff and his pepper butt was often constipated. The paint on his face began to peel from over-handling and he grew cranky.

He used to really love being filled with knobbly peppercorns and made it easy for us to do, but as years passed he seemed to resent having his head taken off and peppercorns poured down his neck. In protest, he refused to allow us to put his head back on until all the peppercorns had been poured back out and reinserted with tweezers one by one. We did not begrudge him for this, as he was old and you have to make allowances for the elderly.

Over the past year, we could really sense he was shutting down, so it came as no surprise tonight when we tried to twist his moustached head that it refused to turn. I think he was giving us a message.

Please let me die (he seemed to say).

So it is with great sorrow, that we report the death of dear friend and kitchen companion Sergeant Peppermill. Rest in Peace, my friend.

He will not be discarded or recycled, but his empty shell will stand on the mantelpiece (well, the kitchen shelf) in memory of our heroic friend who ground pepper so lovingly over our food for the last six years. He will be replaced in the kitchen (but not in our hearts) with travel pepper grinder who is not nearly as cute, but a helluva lot easier to fill.

In lieu of flowers, please send peppercorns.

Thank you.

The Earworm That I Used To Know (Four ways)

Do you know what an earworm is? You know that song you can't get out of your head?


Spiderman would say that an earworm is a BAD thing. But I like it. I routinely become obsessed with a song and then hum or sing bits of it over and over and over to myself.

I don't even notice I am doing it.

Spiderman notices.

I don't think Murder Ballad Monday has been easy on him.

However, I am currently obsessed (Obsessed, I tell you!) with Somebody That I used To Know by Gotye (feat. Kimbra). I love the song, but am completely enamoured with the video.

I had always pronounced his name Got ya! Like Gotcha, but without the cha. Apparently, it is actually pronounced Go-Tee-Ay. You know, like Jean Paul Gaultier. Who knew?

But back to the video.

I adore this song and video so much.

• I love the way the volume is so extreme--practically a whisper and then a shout. 
• The way he sings at the beginning without seeming to move his upper lip, the music barely sliding out of the corner of his mouth. 
• I love the way on the shouty chorus his mouth changes from a tiny crevice to an enormous cave. He's like a wide mouth frog. I have tried lip-syncing this song in front of the mirror and cannot, for the life of me, get my mouth to be this cavernous. 
• I love the duel perspectives in the narration. 
• I love the way she stands beside him and shouts her bit into his ear and he flinches.
• Of course, the paint. I love the paint. I want to be painted like that. 

Watch the video here to see what I am talking about:

.  Isn't that bloody amazing???

OK, so while I was playing this song on repeat (when Spiderman was at work--I didn't want him to murder me) I discovered there was a Star Wars parody!!!! It is all about the travesty that began with The Phantom Menace.  You know what I'm talking about. Like Simon Pegg's character in Spaced ranting at that kid in the comic shop who wanted to buy the Jar Jar doll. "You weren't there in the beginning! You don't know how good it was! How important!"

In my opinion, the only good thing that came out of The Phantom Menace was Weird Al's The Saga Begins to the tune of American Pie.

So watch the Star Wars That I Used To Know  right now:

Isn't that brilliant??? I just love that they even made George Lucas do Kimbra's shoulder shrug!! Plus I really love that the whole background was slowly becoming a green screen.

Then, if that wasn't enough, I found a cover version of the song by Walk Off the Earth. The song is good, but the video is fantastic. Five people play the same guitar and sing. Yes, you heard me right. Five people simultaneously play the same guitar. Watch it here and be amazed:

That's pretty impressive, right? But wait. It gets better. The Key of Awesome has done a parody of the Walk Off the Earth version, complete with five people sharing a guitar, but for a very different reason.
Watch it here and be ready to laugh:

Now, you have an earworm too! However, I can't be held responsible for what might happen if you go around humming this to yourself all day.

Unwitting

I had another one of my funky dreams last night.

"No you didn't," Spiderman replied as I was telling him this morning in bed.

But I did.

It was a weird half American/half British dream where it seemed perfectly normal for things to be mixed. It was only on waking and thinking about it that I thought, "That could never happen!"

So the dream:

We were in the car park of a large Tesco Superstore (British) on Highway 28 east, Pineville Louisiana (American).

We had a huge amount of groceries and some small tables and chairs that we had bought and we thought "How will we ever get this home? It is too heavy to carry."

I remember saying to Spiderman, "Why are towns set up so you can't walk everywhere like you can in the UK?" (So I must have known I was in America) and then Spiderman went off to find the freephone that  all British supermarkets have to be able to call a taxi. So we must have been in Britain.

A few minutes later he drove up in a maroon four door car. It was definitely  a right hand drive car so the car was British. I was confused as we haven't driven in over a decade and neither of us have a valid drivers licence, but we did in America so this must be America. I asked where the car came from and Spiderman said:

"I went to the freephone and it was out of order and this bloke asked me if i needed a car. He said he could get me one. Tesco must have a car hire service now. Anyway, I paid him £10 and he came back with a car." The use of the word bloke, the term car hire instead of rent-a-car and the £10 made me think this was now Britain.

I recall thinking, that I had never heard about Tesco's new hire car service before. As we were driving down Highway 28 east, I started to look around and notice that the car seemed strangely lived in. There was a scrunched up McDonald's bag on the floor and a car seat in the back.

I also noticed that there was no key.

"Where's the key? How did you start the car without a key?"

His reply:

"There was no key when the bloke brought it over to me. He told me to be careful and not let it stall out or I wouldn't be able to get it started again."

That seemed perfectly reasonable to me. But suddenly I had a thought:

"Once we get it home, how are you supposed to return the car? Do you have to drive it back to Pineville to return it? How will you get back home again if you can't call a taxi?"

His reply:

"No, don't worry. The bloke said I could just abandon the car anywhere and someone would be round to pick it up."

Something was niggling me, but I just couldn't put my finger on it.

It was at this point in my retelling that Spiderman began to sing Punk Rock Girl by the Dead Milkmen.
You know, the line that goes:

We hopped into a car
Away we started rolling.
I said 'how much you pay for this',

she said 'nothing man it's stolen.'

Then we were pissing ourselves laughing (not literally--we were still in bed) and I never did discover if the dream-me ever figured out that we had just unwittingly stolen a car to take all of our stuff home from the Tesco in Pineville. 

So that was my dream. Spread over two countries, undoubtedly triggered by my Mum and Carl's recent visit. 

Sweet dreams. 

Something to read that's not a book

Oh my days.

I got a parcel in the post yesterday from my Mum. She had hinted to me that there was a wee treat winging it's way to Wales from the US. Her clue was It is something to read that's not a book.

What could it be? She also said that in no uncertain terms that I would love it.

She was right. I opened it on my way to work and laughed out loud the whole way to the shop. Not just a titter, but a loud guffaw like this:

Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Admittedly, several people stopped and stared and looked upon me most curiously, but I could not stop myself.

So what was it, you ask? Oh best beloved it was this:

Do I love Doctor Who? Hells yeah. Do I love Mad Libs? A resounding HELLS YEAH!

I had not thought about Mad Libs for years--decades even. They were a huge staple of my childhood. Do you remember Scholastic? If you grew up in the States then you probably got a leaflet full of enticing, reasonably priced books sent home from school on a Friday and if you were lucky you got to bring it back on Monday with some money and order some books. Then came the delicious anticipation of waiting two weeks until the Scholastic box arrived in your classroom and you waiting impatiently for your teacher to find a moment to sort the right books to the right person. Would they manage it by the end of the day or would you have to agonisingly wait the whole night before your new books were put into your hot sweaty hands the following day? They never would give you the new books first thing as they (rightly) knew little sods like me would be sneaking a peek under their desk rather than paying attention to the lesson at hand. You had to wait until right before the bell. It was exquisite agony!

I was always blessed. My parents always, without fail let me order books from the leaflet of dreams any time it was ever sent home. I still have a few books that I ordered as a child such as my copy of Clifford the Big Red Dog which includes my name in a childish pencil scrawl.

When I was teaching in Louisiana we got several leaflets from Scholastic and various other companies which I dutifully sorted out all the $1 books and photocopied them onto one page so my kids could choose good quality books at affordable prices and not be tempted into sadness by books they could not afford. They could pay in instalments if needed. A few pennies here and there, a quarter every once in a while and soon they had the money. I also paid the difference if they were a few pennies short of their goal as I know the value of having books to read that belong to you.

But I digress.

Mad Libs. I ordered one every single time Scholastic had them in the leaflet. Every. Single.Time. I found them hysterical. I loved the randomness of the way they came out--sometimes silly, sometimes hilarious, sometimes dumb, sometimes weird.

I had special, favourite ways of doing certain clues.

A liquid was always pee or nitro glycerine (because bodily functions and blowing stuff up is funny) and a female's name was always Farrah Fawcett (because I was obsessed with Charlie's Angels. C'mon--it was the 70's) and a male's name was always Shaun Cassidy(because I was in lurve with him. Again--it was the 70's--although a few years later I decorated his album cover with a green marker giving him green measles and snot because I was showing my distain for him and all he stood for!) A number when I was alone was always a google because my dad told me it was the biggest number--a 1 followed by 100 zeros. We used to say to each other I love you a google. Other less educated friends used to say I was making it up so I just used to say a billion or a trillion when playing with others to avoid being beat up.

Now, as an educator, I can really see that they are sneakily educational. I mean--you have to know the parts of speech to fill one out properly.

If after all my rhapsodising you are thinking--what in the world is she talking about--then I will explain. Basically, they take a mundane passage and leave out words. you randomly fill in the missing parts of speech (no peeking!) and read it out and pee your pants laughing.

So you might get something like this:
One of the Doctor's oldest foes are the depraved jaguars known as the Daleks. The Doctor has chased these terrible and curly creatures from the North Pole to Wales.

This Doctor Who themed one is particularly funny with titles like The Ood One Out (geddit?) and Judoon Platoon.

Thanks Mum! This has made me relive my childhood--all the best bits--not the being beaten up by people who couldn't understand my genius bits.

Now all I need is a blue raspberry slushie while I do my Mad Libs and I am transported back to the days of my childhood.

Who needs a TARDIS when you have these?  

  

The Road To Hell

I had a nightmare the other  night.

A driving nightmare.

A driving at night, nightmare.

A driving at night on the road to hell, nightmare.

Where did this come from? Who knows. I haven't driven a car in over a decade. I have *never* driven a car in the UK.

I am not sure I even could drive here.

Everything is on the wrong side for me. They drive on the opposite (wrong!) side of the road.

Even the inside of the car is on the opposite (wrong again!) side for me.


I have always had issues with my left and right. When driving in the US I *always* wore a hair scrunchie on my left wrist so I could tell them apart quickly.

Imagine having to do that on the opposite side of everything?

Um....no thanks. I am sure the people are Britain are breathing a huge sigh of relief.

Plus even when I used to drive in the US, I never enjoyed it. I am NOT a petrol head. The reasons are this are two fold.

1) Driving always killed my back. When you are a shortie with a broken coccyx sitting in a bucket seat designed for a tall person without a broken tailbone--well....it ain't pretty. I was in agony every time we had to drive long distances. And pretty durn uncomfortable driving short distances.

2) I have no sense of direction. At all. Zero. Zip. I am the person who literally could not find my way out of a paper bag with a map and a torch.

So being in agony, trying to tell my left from my right and trying to read signs and navigate made for a very stressed, very tense little Spider.

So anyway,  this was my dream.

I was driving a car at night down a multi lane motorway somewhere in England. I know it was England because the signs were not bilingual as they are in Wales.

It was night, visibility was very poor. It had been raining. That in itself is a REALISTIC situation a person might find themselves in.

Then it got weird.

The exit signs were all in RIDDLES. Seriously! Spiderman had to try to spot them from far away, we had to decode the riddle, I would then attempt to maneuver the car across several lanes of busy traffic and then exit. We kept wishing he had a telescope so he could see them from further away to give us more time to decode them as some of them were quite tricky.

The only riddle I can actually remember was this one:
Seven chickens turn thrice widdershins. What am I?
Answer:



Seriously, they were all like that. And what's up with the use of the archaic word widdershins? I only knew it meant anti-clockwise from reading the book/watching the excellent miniseries Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. Because that is how Richard Mayhew has to summon the Marquis De Carabas for the Lady Door.

the wonderful Patterson Joseph as the Marquis



So basically, I woke up in a cold sweat with my heart hammering away like an armed policeman.

Spiderman thought it was hysterical and said,
What do you get when you cross a spider with a fruitcake?
Answer: YOU

Later I was able to laugh about it. But more than anything, I am thankful to live in a nation, in a country, in a town that encourages and allows public transportation and walking.

Because if you have to stand on a street corner and surreptitiously check your left from your right or squint at buildings that may or may not be familiar to remember your way home then at least no wanker is beeping their horn at you or crashing into your tail end because you hesitated.

The End Is Nigh

 

If you are a regular reader of this blog you will know how much we love Jonny and the Baptists.  Oh how we love their silly songs, their serious issues songs, their satirical look at the world songs, their trying to make the world a better place songs, their chemistry together with Paddy's brilliant guitar playing and Jonny's soulful voice.

They *are* comedy blues.

You can also imagine how we felt when we moved to Wales. There might be no more Jonny and the Baptists for us. We used to see them quite regularly when we went to Distraction Club in London on the first Tuesday of the month. They are fantastic musicians and because we have chatted a few times at these gigs and had some email correspondence  I can honestly say they are also all-round nice blokes as well.

Most things in Wales are brilliant, but there was a giant Jonny and the Baptists shaped hole in our lives.

But no more!

Yesterday we took the train to Cardiff which is two hours for us and then walked about 30 minutes in the rain (this is Wales after all) to get to the Chapter Arts Centre. We were all jiggly with excitement because we were gonna see us some Jonny and Paddy!!!!!!
We got there early and brought a bag load of food as we knew we were going be back later. Really late. Spectacularly late. Next day late. But we were wet and weirdly steamy (plastic waterproof coats and hot weather are not a good mix) and so we perused the menu at the Chapter Arts Centre and it was AMAZING. There was a vegan menu. There was a gluten free menu. With a bit of cross referencing on our parts to find stuff v/gf we managed to order a large plate of homemade kidney bean vegan sausages over mash with brown gravy and falafels with hummus. Plus they had that posh rose lemonade I love by Fentimans.


Soon we were dry and well fed and it was time for the fun to start.

There were about 90 people there and we were a very appreciative audience. We even laughed at the duck butler joke.

Jonny had grown a beard and Paddy occasionally let down his golden hair like Rapunzel. The show was called The End is Nigh and was all about Jonny and Paddy trying to stop climate change after Jonny frightened his favourite four year old niece Isabella by telling her the world was going to end because we were not doing enough to stop climate change.

He made her cry and this tour is out  to rectify that.

It was a mixture of serious and silly with lots of facts about climate change and saving the environment (there was a song about weeing in the shower because of how much water is used when you flush the loo) but also a striking indictment of those who walk the walk as opposed to those who talk the talk.


When the show was first written it featured a man named Mathew Hancock who was at that time the Minister of State for Energy which was a strange appointment as he was a bit of a climate change denier and was seen as slightly controversial after hiring a private jet to take him home from a climate conference. A climate conference!!!!

What a dick.

Which is where the next part of the show went. There was a toe tapping number called Willies about...well drawing willies on things. Spiderman spent a decade working at an all boys school. He is an expert on this. If there is a blank, available space--a boy will draw a willy on it. FACT. The song lamented a simpler time when all you had to do was draw willies on stuff (like when studying WW1 about the Germans and French you'd draw a little willy poking out of the trench) but now we need to take action and solve climate change and it is not as easy (or as much fun) as drawing willies on stuff.

Oh, and they also dressed a member of the audience up as Mathew Hancock and then drew a willy on him.


The show ended all too soon with a rousing chorus of the song We're All Going To Die and that had us giggling and singing it all the way back to the station (once again in the rain). We kept mouthing it to each other on the train--fearful of singing it too loud lest someone get the wrong idea. The happy vibe from the concert and all the humming and laughing made the two hour train journey back to Carmarthen pass quickly.

Before we left, we stopped to say hello to them and as always they are just genuinely lovely human beings. They used to sell CDs but now after looking at the environmental aspect of them have decided to go to the download version only. We spent a fiver for a photo of them on recycled paper which had the download code for getting the music online. They signed it with--what else--a drawing of a willy.


If anyone out there would like to hear more about them (and you totally should) go to http://jonnyandthebaptists.co.uk/ where you can download their music for a reasonable rate and watch their videos.


We love you guys! Thank you for coming to Wales!

Elementary my dear muppet

It is no secret that I have some weird-ass dreams. Most mornings start off by me saying, "I had this weird dream last night" and Spiderman interrupting to say, "No you didn't." 

Recently I had a crazy dream about the characters from Sesame Street starring in an adaptation of Sherlock Holmes.

Sherlock Hemlock

This is clearly not an original idea, but in my dream there was some different casting.

Bert was the obvious choice for Sherlock. He could be be quite moody and intellectual on the show. In the dream he was striding around the room like Benedict Cumberbatch (you were expecting him any moment to give an impassioned speech about refugees).

If Bert was Sherlock then of course Ernie had to be Watson. Ernie always has been the comic element who keeps Bert from getting too serious (much like Martin Freeman does to Bendict Cumberbatch).

Always put-upon Prairie Dawn was the natural choice for their housekeeper/landlord Mrs Hudson. Prairie Dawn was always one of my favourite muppets because she was so sweet and ladylike until she had had too much nonsense and then she blew her top. Much like Mrs Hudson.

Cookie Monster was there as Fat Mycroft (as he is portrayed in the original stories and on the delightful Christmas episode)

Mark Gatiss as Mycroft

 This was a huge surprise as the actor Mark Gatiss is whippet-thin. 

Lastly, Grover as the well meaning but never-gets-it-right Inspector Lestrade. 

The weird thing was it was using the exact same set as the Benedict Cumberbatch Sherlock programme. The exact same costumes, set, props --everything. Just with muppets. 

I was just waking up as i was trying to work out what story they were filming. 

Too late...the memory faded away. But this helped us to speculate what it might have been.

Have you ever watched Monsterpiece Theatre? it is a parody of Masterpiece Theatre on PBS originally hosted by Alistair Cooke.  The Sesame Street one was hosted by Alistair Cookie who wore a smoking jacket (and smoked a pipe until the mid 80s then the pipe was cut for sending a bad message to kids) 

They show such classics as:

The Old Man and the C

The King and I (about a king and his dance partner the letter i)

Twelve Angry Men (there was a mix up--they showd Three Sad Cows followed by Two Proud Pigs instead) 

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (other numbers fly as well)

The 39 Steps (where grover runs up and down a bunch of stairs and wears himself out)

and my personal favourite:

The Taming of the Shoe by William Shoespeare--famous podiatrist) Where a defiant shoe refuses to go on Grover's foot so he can walk to the Padua mall. 

If you are interested, many of these episodes are on You-Tube. Check them out. 

Anyway, with this sort of parody already in the muppet's repertoire how about these for Muppet Sherlock episodes?

A Sandal in Bohemia (perhaps a sequel to the Taming of the Shoe)

The Red-Headed League and A Study in Scarlet (insert other colours)

The Five Orange Pips and The Sign of Four(substitute other numbers) 

The Man With the Twisted Lip and The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb (substitute any other body parts) 

The Adventure of the Dancing Men (Substitute other actions like jumping, hopping, skipping etc)
The Hound of the Baskervilles (substitute other animlas like cat, cow, goat, spider, whale etc) 

And my personal favourite Holmes story: 

The Adventure of the Speckled Band (Substitute in striped, spotted, checked, chevron, flowered--any other type of clothing pattern)

So there you have it. My dream cast and suggestions for episodes. Anyone want to take me up on it? BBC? PBS? Anybody?