Saturday, January 20, 2007

And it's Brennon on the Moor...

Radio 4, 5.55pm yesterday, gave the best 'and finally..' ever to a news programme. Listeners were treated to a hefty snippet of the old school-children's favourite programme: "Singing Together" (from 1967). We were invited to repeat the lines of a song once or twice so that, I feel certain, when the programme closed, everyone listening was giving a rousing rendition of:

"And it's Brennon on the moor,
Brennon on the moor,
Bold, gay, dauntless, stood
Young Brennon on the moor"

Maybe you 'had to be there', but it was grand! And following our national chorus of this fine Irish ballad (albeit from our many and varied and separate kitchens and dining rooms), the news-reader simply closed the show with the words: "singing together".

Thursday, January 18, 2007

Big Brother

Hah. Two Orwellian blog-post titles in a row.

I watched snippets of Celebrity Big Brother when it began a week or so ago - I switched off for good when the editors allowed one very unpleasant contestant, who decided that she was unable to pronounce Shilpa's name, to hog the limelight.

Apparently many celebrities who take part in this so-called 'social experiment' (an experiment that really did not need repeating more than once, in my opinion) enter the show so that the public can see 'what they are really like'. Well, we've seen that now, haven't we!

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Room 101

I'm pretty sure that in George Orwell's novel '1984', Room 101 contains the one thing that most terrifies you. In Paul Merton's TV programme 'Room 101', celebrities (of the type you might hear on Desert Island Discs rather than see on 'I'm a Celebrity...') nominate 4 things that most irritate them. Paul then decides whether to consign these tings to 'Room 101" and 'banish them for ever'. So you get things like 'post office queues' and 'serving suggestions' going for a burton.

Here are my nominations: four things for Merton's Room 101. (Orwell's Room 101 would contain spiders, for me. Or, possibly, deep water. Shudder.)

(And I'm going to have to be quick here cos 'Judge John Deed's on at 9).

1) Church fetes - boring, smelly, horrible things. I try to be our of the country when ours take place - not always possible, esp. now children at school

2) Turning right in the car - there are so many parked cars round here (massive ones because it seems that if you have children you can't possibly fit them in anything other than a 8 seater tank). I rarely turn right now, for safety reasons. I only ever turn left. (Mario's just had to go out to buy petrol...)

3) 'What's in the public interest' - I find the media so intrusive and unkind

4) Feedback TV-style (whether it's Simon Cowle, Gordon Ramsey, 'The dragons'....). Such feedback from celeb to 'average person' goes along the lines of "that was ****king crap &c). It's neither acceptable, constructive nor necessary to speak like that to someone - and yet it's paraded as being the right way to 'criticise' if you 'want to get to the top'.

You will see that it is now 9pm here and I've the living room all to myself and just time to get a cuppa and before my programme starts.

Ooh, I want a fifth - BBC News correspondents. Why do they nod ferociously these days before they say anything to camera???

Saturday, January 06, 2007

Happiness is...

...(actually I'd prefer to define 'contentment'): where reality meets or exceeds your expectations of what reality should be.

That's my opinion, anyway.

And on that note, I'm off to bed. And I do not expect to enjoy an unbroken night's sleep!









(And I'm not talking "how's yer father", by the way. I'm talking little girl with bad cough and cold who needs frequent cuddles day _and night_ at the moment)!

What in the World's Going On?

I won't bore you with the whys and the wherefores, but every Saturday I spend an hour in a 'caff', trying to avoid buying more than one latte, and reading the tabloids that are scattered about the tables.

I know very little about who's really who and what they're up to in the big wide world. If it were down to me OK and Hello magazines would be 'not at all OK' and 'goodbye'. But this evening, as a result of spending 60 precious minutes reading tabloid upon tabloid, I know that a world-famous singer with a 'girl-next-door' image may or may not have had a drink or two on New Years Eve, someone called Fiona Philips never really took to 'The Vicar of Dibley', and some rock star who's quite a maverick used to, in fact, act in school plays and was, apparently, a very well behaved pupil.

But what I don't know is what happened 30 meters down the road from where I live at 10pm the other evening (I turned into our road after an evening meeting to find an ambulance and police cars, and to see one person lying face-down on the pavement). Furthermore, I have no idea why two police cars drew up and called at the house next door but one at 3.30 am on New Years Eve.

The Road to Nab End: A Lancashire Childhood by William Woodruff, (excellent book) describes how in the early 1900s neighbours would drop by your house incessantly of an evening, for a chat or a game of cards. Within that neighbourhood, people would have known the full tale of 'the accident down the road' before it had happened! (This type of community spirit remains alive and well in parts of the country; I know. My mother enjoys something of it in Wales). But here in the big city, I might easily know so much more about the identity, family, habits and traumas of a singer in LA or Sydney Australia, than I do about the people next door, with whom I share a drive.

The book mentioned above is an excellent and thought-provoking read. My favourite story of the moment, though, is the fairy tale 'Emporor's New Clothes'. I've seen so many photos in the papers today of totally talentless, celebs perched on stick-thin legs with hair ironed straight, and I've read so much about 'Celebrity Big Brother' and other - oh gosh - wait for it - 'celebrity reality shows' that, upon finishing my, by-now-stone-cold latte, I just wanted to shout out at the top of my voice 'NONE OF IT MATTERS' and 'IRONED HAIR LOOKS AWFUL'.

Why write it? Why read it? I'll take me laptop to the caff next week and read blogs instead.

Friday, January 05, 2007

I'm not really here. I'm somewhere over the rainbow.

This week, I am passionate about Hollywood 1900 -1950. I have read a biography of Louis Mayer (of MGM) and last evening, after a pretty grotty day, I sat up and watched my newly acquired DVD of Easter Parade, starring Judy Garland and Fred Astair. And now I want my house to look like the set of an MGM movie and I want to wear beautiful Judy Garland clothes and to have an Easter bonnet, and to break into song next time someone accidentally bumps into me in Asdas and things....

I have always taken films slightly too seriously. I really expected, having seen Grease in 1979, that my life at secondary school (which began that same year) would be something along the lines of the Sandy and Danny experience. I could not understand why the boys at my school were the same height as me, or smaller, wore anoraks instead of leathers and looked about 11 - 16 years old. Reality was a bit of a let-down. It was a long time before I learned that some of the cast of Grease were actually in their late-20s and 30s when they took the parts of 17 / 18 year olds!

Perched on top of the telly, I have two more DVDs to enjoy: 'The Big Sleep' (thanks again Catherine!!) and 'Meet me in St Louis" ,which I adore. But this evening, I treated myself and my dear son to a bit of Laurel and Hardy. I'd tried Laurel and Hardy on him before and he wasn't really ready. But this evening, he 'got it'and was laughing his little socks off. Great! This could be the start of a beautiful friendship.

Monday, January 01, 2007

Naked

That's how my house looks now that I've taken down the Christmas decorations. I 'go for it big time' (gosh, I bet that phrase is, like, well dated) with the Christmas dex - and they do add a touch of magic to the house (thanks, primarily to the tree lights and candles I dot about the place). I felt sad at boxing them all up for another year..... or 11 months, really, if you think about it...

I love the magic of Christmas. I love the excuse not to face reality for a few days. I love the films and the music and the food and the drink....

....I love the way Christmas forces you to look back on years gone by (with sadness and joy). You just can't help it. (Some of the baubles on our tree, were hanging on the tree when I was a child, and were hanging on mum's tree when she was a child).

All over now - the magic, baubles and all, is packed away in the loft, and I've got to have the children's feet measured before school starts, take Isabel for a vaccination on Friday, go to the dentist, get Michael's hair cut, paint the skirting boards (please tell me how to do that with a two year old in the house), and, finally, re-visit my spending habits to see if there are any cut-backs I can possibly make because, at the moment, we can fund bills, car, food and ... everything - except clothes. We've no allowance for clothes. And I, for one, do not want to be still wearing this turquoise jumper, that didn't suit me much when I bought it three years ago, this time next year!!

Come on, Ruth, just think of a story. Something along the lines of Harry Potter, but obviously not Harry Potter. Just think of a story and write it down, get it published, and cast that jumper into the re-cycle bin for ever!!!