Passover

I'm not going to pretend I'm pleased about missing out on the Queen's Honours list.

Again.

And yes, I know there's always New Year.

But... Van Morrison and Lenny Henry??

Really?

Van effing Morrison. What did he get it for? Services to being a miserable bastard?

Okay, I like Brown Eyed Girl. 

But Lenny effing Henry. 

What was that award? ABC? Anything but Comedy?

Talk about salt to the wound.

The sooner I complete my 50 years as a selfless, lovable, lollipop lady the better.

I think the community will agree. 

It can't come soon enough.

This is an appeal on behalf of Bernard Hill

Bernard's mouth is very dry. He's been walking miles to voice-over studios in every corner of the land for over 70 years.

Bernard Hill has done every single voice-over for every dubious cause. Ever.

If there's a starving child in Africa that a camera crew is keen to film rather than feed, Bernard will be all over it. He  does not let the tens of thousands of pounds spent on the advert which would feed a village for months worry him.

If there's a nice looking animal you can pretend to "adopt", stop.
Don't do it without calling Bernard Hill first.

Flies around an African child? Bernard Hill

Children with some make-up around their eyes? Bernard Hill.

For God's sake everybody, look very sad! It's Bernard Hill.

For a mixture of Merseyside monotony and highly saleable melancholy, for pity's sake... Call Bernard Hill.

Please.. 

Call Bernard Hill now.

You may remember him in full vigour in Shirley Valentine or Boys from the Blackstuff.

But now Bernard is thirsty.

Very thirsty indeed.

Bernard hasn't had a drink of water since he came into the studio four minutes ago.

He's worked intensively for almost 40 seconds, and he's got at least another 30 to go.

Please help.

£1.50 will buy him a Fruit Shoot.

Just a pound will get him a branded bottled water from the Coca-Cola company.

For £3 a month, we can keep Bernard fully hydrated.

Don't tell him to drink tap water.

It's Bernard Hill.

Please.

Call now.

[Remember....Hill, not Cribbins. 

They look a bit similar. But sound totally different].

Tim's Shoe Fiddle

I had a brief dream last night featuring Tim Rice and Elton John (towards the end of last night I believe).

I can't think of anything immediately punchy related to the Circle of Life so pay attention and I will bring this baby home as soon as I can.

He was opposite me at a big oak table, as though we were in a library (Elton was off to the right and not really involved). He told me in that calm Countdown way of his...

"I bought a new pair of shoes recently. They cost $848".

"Wow, OK", I probably said.

"Yes, they were nice though", he continued. "I think they was worth blowing the departmental budget on".

That's odd I thought.... and then I thought... actually Tim that is quite droll.

(And this from a guy who wrote "although I'm dressed up to the nines, at sixes and sevens with you". So you can see my expectations were not high).

So I told him.

And he agreed.

Knock It Off

aRRGH.

dON'T YOU HATE IT WHEN YOU LEAVE CAPS lOCK ON

aNNOYING.

vERY ANNOYING 

iNDEED

Hi, Cal!

​

...and Justice for all

I think we need to combine Springwatch and Crimewatch.

The sooner we get some of those magpies,cuckoos and sticklebacks behind bars the better.

Come on, general public, there must be a few eagle-eyed hawks out there.

Don't make us wait for the Channel 5 dramatisation .... When Thrushes Attack

Or some BBC3 Stacey Dooley Presents Pigeon Porn effort.

I know a seagull who once nicked my chips.

He's going to be first up against the wall.

Part 2 - The Gender Agenda

And she replied....

There may well be many reasons that woman might want to lead or a guy want to follow. They may prefer to dance the non-traditional role, or they may want to improve their dance by understanding the dance from the other role. I dance both roles, which has really improved my dancing. Leading and following feels very different and I get that variety during an evening of dancing. And it means I can always get up and dance, be it lead, follow or solo.


Perfectly reasonable reply.
It even took me a while to realise that it totally misses the point.
And I'm not as stupid as you are.

There's no mention of gender.
I'm perfectly happy to follow. You'll often find me 10 yards behind the old ball and chain on a Saturday afternoon, or standing outside Dorothy Perkins, rolling my eyes at the other poor unfortunate morons.

It's not about showing women respect. That's why we have Christmas.
That is why the baby Jesus gave us Milk Tray. And Fry's Chocolate Cream. I could go on.

It's not about gender at all.
It's about communication.

So I communicated...back

It's not the lead-follow. There is no problem getting everybody to lead or to follow.  You could set that up with a bingo ticket of who is doing what.

I do improv. We follow all the time. We lead all the time. Gender has no issue. There is no ego, sexism or racism but this is partner dance. The instructor calls the shots. An extreme would be to get the men dancing together and just the women together - why not do that? 

There are many reasons why.

It makes it look more about agenda than gender. 
It maybe wasn't but it needed a tweak to ensure everybody's comfort. That's job number one. The Blues can hang till that's done.


My Mum gets sick of having to dance with women. I'll ask her what she thinks of pairing the men up... and then retire from the phone by a few inches...

I got away with it. When it was my turn to dance with smelly old man, I pretended my ingrowing toenail was playing up and sat out for 30 seconds while somebody else took one for the team. 
(There was a slight license there. The men weren't smelly as far as I could smell from my distance. Just an alcoholic woman who made your eyes burn with fumes of vodka and an unidentified mixer).

I continued... (I'm just including this for information now about what I've learnt)
The flexibility of lead-follow is definitely a cardinal..the cardinal... difference to understand in Blues, without precedent for me (and maybe others). Good, the men have carried that one for too long. Its hard work. In fact it's largely the way it needs to be for flow. I reckon it's not chance that that's the way most dances play out. Not sexist, just the best way to finally get women to do as they are bloody well told.


She'd informed me there was solo dancing in the blues too.......

I responded.

Hmm...so there's solo as well ! .. I can't find anyone on youtube making that look good...
I have found three categories, 70s disco sidesteppers, excruciating posers, and hardcore African junglers.
Frequently accompanied by a hysterical baying crowd. Many of whom may possibly benefit from a punch. And not a fruity one. One with a base of chin where someone arrives with ice.

Its OK-ish but defining fusion even at its most generous, it gets pretty scrappy and loses its identity, for me. 
Where identity leads....charm, grace and impact follow.

Incorporation of solo moves must be the way to go..but breaking into solos the way some American youtube instructors do it is like introducing divorce half way through a marriage. Then trying to patch it up to get to the end of the song so you can complete the contract with the minimum of bloodshed and retain whatever dignity is musterable. 
It doesn't scan. 
It breaks mood. 
It's a failure of communication.
Pretty much like using a word like 'musterable'. Although technically correct, it's hardly acceptable.

That's not to say intensity doesn't need punctuation, just that we Brits need to show 'em how.


Then I realised what you've just realised. I'd spent so much time writing the e-mail, that I had to call it a blog to justify it, stop drinking Rioja, and go to bed.

Goodnight.

Part 1 - Blue Nights

I'm a blues dancer.

Okay, I've been to one lesson.
Get lost.
Who made you Bruno Toniolo?

It was a small firm crowd on top of a pub I used to frequent as a student in a regular Friday evening which followed a weekly faculty meeting, the sort sponsored by somebody puts on a barrel of Fed special, King of Beers (ahem).
And there was an American instructor, guesting from the West Coast.
As she had a strange accent that I hadn't heard on the Anglesey Ferry, and she didn't look as though she'd just stolen my hubcaps (credit to Ken Dodd), or taking a photograph of some fucking rainbow on the Isle of Skye, I assumed it wasn't the British West Coast she was originating from. But, to be honest with you I didn't give a monkeys. I wasn't there to make friends. I'm not social.  I can prove it. Even my friends don't like me.
I was there to learn how to learn a task.
And acquit in a semi-adequate manner.
Are you happy now, Craig Revel fucking Horwood?

(Note to self: no Rioja after midnight)

So I went to the class,

Blues .... not the modern stuff in this clip which I rather like..

Apparently this too counts as modern blues dancing.
(I'm just learning that modern blues dancing doesn't need the blues.. and that ain't no bad thing, mama! The dog will certainly be relieved and it really makes me feel as though don't absolutely have to paint that porch swing this year.)

I did find one thing that was very odd..(apart from an instructor who covered her feet with trousers that look like two floaty fabric bags, so it was hard to see her feet).

This is what happened.... and I can't explain it unless it was some American Politically Correct thing.

"Who wants to lead?" she said.
At this point there's just a few more women than there was men.
And a few of the women put their hand up.
So the women started dancing with the women.
Leaving some of the men to dance with the men.

I have to say I wondered if I walked into some sort of lesbian birthing-pool surrogate-mother men-hating annual night out or menstrual get-together , and three or four pussy-whipped geriatric men had been sent out of the house, because the girls were coming round to watch Dirty Dancing.
Actually...swap out Dirty Dancing for... I don't know... what movies did chicks like.... something with cancer in.... Beaches? I haven't seen it but it's almost certainly features something as entertaining as terminal disease.

But it turns out that it wasn't some sort of "Why men are bastards and always will be!" workshop.
I had in fact got the right night after all and it was a Blues class above a local pub.

There is always a slight gender imbalance in every class in every genre, sometimes one way sometimes the other. It doesn't matter. Nobody comes in pairs. But to create one by pairing up women unnecessarily was very strange, you might say antisocial even. (Which would normally suit me just fine).

But it became obvious to me that this is a male led partner dance.
It is really. But also it's not really. It's complicated.
But whether you're leading or following, you might as well do it with somebody of the opposite gender if they happen to be in the same room, Rather than with grandad Geordie from down the road.

I was perplexed. It made me feel like the instructor thought traditional dancing was 'sexist'.
The random reader (there aren't any) may have speculated that political correctness is not my "thing".

So I e-mailed the boss. (The boss of the event. Not of me).

And she replied .....

but good night for now.....

Threesomes

As a nation we can seemingly overlook the overt guilt of the central
banking system and FIFA. (Powww...take that!).

But we British must be experts at finding inner guilt.
It is the only way of explaining the pangs I get if I don't have three
mustards on the go.

The Cosmos beat this into me recently when I open my pantry doors.
It's hard to talk about but it all came to a head with an event that
happens slightly more frequently than the passing of Hayley's Comet
but considerably less frequently than a total solar eclipse.

I was coming to the end of my English mustard and I was already on the
last dregs of my Dijon. A double whammy you might think.
But no!
It was a particularly poignant triple whammy as I'd been out of
wholegrain for over a month.

What had I become?
I've been living with the guilt for some weeks of only having two
mustards on the go. And while I barely use the tip of a knifeful every
two months, it was getting to me. I was almost down to one jar.

Who was I?
Who had I become?
What if somebody found out?
What if they checked my CV and found that I've never actually been to
school, and I was born a poor Mexican boy who went on to either find
some magic beans or steal passports depending on how charitable you're
feeling?

And where was this guilt coming from anyway? Direct from 1975?
Was I subconsciously craving the acceptance of Audrey Forbes-Hamilton?
What the bloody hell is the matter with me?

It was with some considerable relief today that I corrected the
universe by adding a Wholegrain to my shopping basket and delivered it
to what can only be described as my "collection", this being a number
of items with very little practical use.

And while I was at it I thought "hang the 59p", I'll just throw a Dijon in.
Having recently purchased an English I now had a full triumvirate.
Natural order restored. These yellowish stars won't align again until
three kings have ruled these lands.

The three jars stand in my cupboard each in their rightful place.
English. Dijon. Wholegrain.
Proud, upright monoliths.
Testaments to the passing of the ages.
Each correct in a duty fulfilled and yet each quietly sneering at even
the possibility of emptiness.

It's times like these we should all take stock.
I certainly do.

But why I honestly need to have chicken, beef and vegetable cubes in
play is beyond me.

Man Walks into a Steam Room

On walking into a steam room or sauna, there is a dilemma about whether or not to say 'hello' to the other residents.

I do it on maybe slightly more than half the occasions that I appear depending on my fettle.

And the word 'appear' appears apt as you are likely coming through a doorway of rolling steam.

"Tonight, Matthew, I'm going to be in my trunks looking for a hot place to sit down"

The dilemma is enhanced on entry to the steam room because you don't necessarily know if there is anybody in there.

The steam tends to rise so faces will be more obliterated than legs, but it still may be hard to make out anything at all.

Now, of course nothing is lost if you risk a 'hello' and there's nobody there. It's unlikely that you'll be picked up on it by a casual bystander who thinks you are a nut, having a conversation with himself. Although the 'being on bluetooth' excuse that is currently concealing a generation of schizophrenics simply will not hold at the pool.

If you offer your greeting and you do indeed have an invisible audience, you are in the game, at least halfway towards an empty victory.

Because of course they can't see you either.

All they've heard is a disembodied voice.

They will undoubtedly have been aware that somebody was entering the steam room.

They may well have wondered whether to expect a greeting.

They may even grunt a steamy response out of politeness.

Or more likely....

Not.

Today I walked into the steam room and noticed the legs of somebody and offered a brief "Hi".

There wasn't any response but it was only when I advanced further effectively reducing the opacity of the water vapour (I am picking myself up on my sloppy use of the word 'steam' earlier) that I realised she was Japanese. Probably.

Now I'm not fluent in Japanese but I do know my Shogun.

I know my 'Hai' from my 'Sayonara' (even if she didn't know my Hai from my Hi). 

OK those are the only two things I can say Japanese - yes and goodbye. 

Two words incidentally when spaced over an 11 minute period which can serve you remarkably well in the ruby district of the Dutch capital.

Well I am linguistically underselling myself. Yes, I know... again.... stoppit...you're embarrassing me! 

Richard Chamberlain taught me a little more than that.

In fact, if there's one thing you can say about me it is that I know my 'konnichiwa' from my 'wakarimasen'.

So here's a big "Yes, hello, I understand", straight from somebody who only otherwise knows Osaka from Karate Kid 2.

I even thought 'petacetera' was a Japanese pleasantry until I realised that he was the one who performed 'The Glory of Love' in Karate Kid 3 .

In the 70s, I would have walked into a sauna and perhaps opened with a couple of minutes of my 'Three puffs walk into a bar routine', but towards the end of the decade it wasn't hitting quite as reliably as it had been. 

In the 80s, I walked onto the pine stage with a bit of politics and some Thatcher-bashing material. You should have seen the rosy cheeks of appreciation lined up from the stalls to the gallery. Again, as the decade wore on the act became dated and there were a lot of empty benches. I took a couple of years away from the sauna scene, but returned in the 90s with a gentler rehash of old concepts and mixed quite a lot of pathos to reflect how meaningful we were all becoming then. Unfortunately 9/11 took a lot of my edge and I found it hard to deal with any environment where I can't permanently stare at a mobile phone. So much so that I am thinking of going on a lesbian walking holiday so I can sing folk songs and start a long-delayed macrame project.

Anyway... I walked into the steam room and said "Hi".

In retrospect I can understand the confusion on the face of the Japanese woman.

If a long sexy Englishman walks into a steam room that you have carefully occupied, (and ancient culture demands that you commit harikari due to the enduring shame such an event would bring on your family for generations), then you have a right to be perplexed.

Especially if he comes in and says 'yes' at you.