Miss Liberty at Sheffield University

The songover is Alex’s voice

You readers must be wondering why this blog seems to have turned into an Alex Cosgriff fan page.  The problem is, the Hub does nothing; Wary Boy tells us nothing; I remember nothing.  Alex is the only one who does anything worth writing about.

I can tell you that I did something on Sunday that I did exactly a year ago, but without the defecation: I went to a brass band concert with my friend Alison.  I enjoyed it.  

That’s about as interesting as it gets; if you want the poo story, I suggest you re-read last year’s visit.

This week, Alex is singing in a concert – with some dialogue, including narration by someone from The Great British Bakeoff (not Paul Hollywood or Mary Berry) – of the songs from Miss Liberty.  The cast is singing with a 40-piece orchestra.

Miss Liberty is a forgotten musical by Irving Berlin.  As far as is known, it has never been staged outside of the States, and has rarely been staged there.  As a result, the concert at Sheffield University is creating noise here and in the US. There have been some radio interviews and articles on the BBC, The Stage, Playbill, Broadwayworld and elsewhere.

For the background story on why it is being staged, read here.

The concert takes place on two nights, including four songs for one night only:

…on Thursday 10 December 2015 audiences will have the opportunity to hear world premiere performances of four songs that were cut before the musical opened on Broadway in 1949. They were discovered by McHugh and Malone in Berlin’s papers at the Library of Congress and special permission has been given to perform them for one night only by the Berlin estate.

University of Sheffield News

Can you tell me, then, why I spent all of yesterday upending Alex’s room to find the two suits, one jacket, one shirt, several ties, and two pairs of trousers Alex simply MUST have if he’s going to appear on stage this week?  And why that was a complete waste of time when I couldn’t find half of them – the suits in particular – and Alex suggested I look behind the door…and there they were?  I’m not in it, so why is there so much work for me?  That boy is taking a liberty.

I suspect I’ll get payback in being able to poke fun at him, however: Alex, who thought the modern dancing he did in Godspell was naff (and read here for how I let that slip to the choreographer), is going to TAP DANCE without benefit of any training whatsoever, in front of a live audience.

I’m cringing all ready.

Hee hee hee.

Big Brother Is Watching You…Eat

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/Fatmouse.jpg

I download a lot of free books from BookBub.  I strongly recommend it: many – but not all – of the books are self-published and if I’m honest, there’s a lot of dross; but I have discovered some real gems, including the Talented Saga by Sophie Davis, which I absolutely loved.  The first book was free but I bought the next three because I enjoyed it so much.  The whole collection cost me less than £6.50 and I will definitely re-read them; and more than once.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13466202-talented

Last night I started reading another free download, Gone by Christine Kersey. It’s a YA novel about a teenage girl who runs away from home on a whim; realises her mistake; struggles to get back; and finds herself in a parallel universe, where it is illegal to be fat.  The government sends anyone over the weight limit to F.A.T. camp, forcing them to sell their house to pay for their mandatory treatment.

http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2012/294/a/4/funny_picture_by_metalmario2345-d5ijd9x.jpg

It’s an okay book but I thought the premise was a little preposterous.  And then I read Sky News this morning: it appears that fat is now a government issue.  The current incumbents, if re-elected in May, propose to strip benefits from anyone deemed obese who refuses to go on a diet.  

You couldn’t make it up.

Or you could; but the real thing is much more frightening.

Please, take a read of the whole Sky News story and tell me what you think.

Poets Are From Earth, Haiku Go To Mars

So NASA emailed me to say my haiku had arrived on Mars…

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There’s a sentence you don’t read (or write) every day.  And what’s great is, it’s true!

Truth is relative, of course.  NASA did email, as they do every day; I’m subscribed to their website.

I did write a haiku, however, and it did go to Mars…along with thousands of others submitted to their competition.  NASA put all of the entries on to a DVD in case the Little Green Men like Japanese poetry.

According to the website:

NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft successfully entered Mars’ orbit at 10:24 p.m. EDT Sunday, Sept. 21, where it now will prepare to study the Red Planet’s upper atmosphere as never done before. MAVEN is the first spacecraft dedicated to exploring the tenuous upper atmosphere of Mars.

It doesn’t say anything about my haiku but I guess they’re kind of busy with all the, like, sciency stuff and that.  Go figure.

But hey – I can say with absolute truth: my writing is out of this world 🙂

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That Was The Week That Was (I)

 

Such a good looking boy…

Hello Readers.

I don’t know if you remember me – I used to blog.  I’ve been so busy lately, however, I haven’t had a chance – well, we’ve had a couple of weeks here at Tilly Bud Towers!  A bruised scapula from chasing a rabbit; a septic appendix; and a hysterical teenager.  Not to mention exam results and poetry readings.  I’ll break it down into diary form or it will take up a third of the page just to repeat, ‘…and on Suchaday we…’  It will probably take a couple of days to regale you – you know I can never make a long story less than Lord of the Rings length.

Saturday 9 August

In the week prior to a week-last-Saturday, First World War anniversary fever hit me hard.  The Hub, Spud and I attended a candlelit walk around the park on Monday 4th, along with several hundred others, following a piper and six flag-wielding WWII veterans.  A short service followed before the Last Post was played, and all candles were extinguished at eleven p.m., to signal the moment one hundred years ago when Britain began to be at war with Germany.  It was incredibly moving.

I don’t know if my non-Brit readers know the story of Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey, but it is worth repeating:

A friend came to see me on one of the evenings of the last week […]. We were standing at a window of my room in the Foreign Office. It was getting dusk, and the lamps were being lit in the space below on which we were looking. My friend recalls that I remarked on this with the words: “The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time.”

From Grey’s memoir, published in 1925

To commemorate the start of the war, my church held an open morning with the theme, The Lamps Are Going Out.  As I was one of two people organising it, I spent the whole week working with my friend Pam The Great Administrator (she’s amazing and must only be spoken of in capital letters in my hearing) to collect artefacts, set up a slide show, arrange for costumes, rehearse poems and heavily promote the event.  The last bit worked especially well because we more than quadrupled our usual Saturday morning numbers.  Actually, it was even more than that, only I don’t know the correct term for ‘five times as many people came into church than is usual’.

We expected two tables of old bits on display but we had six.  Some people brought a table’s worth alone, and stayed with their stuff to chat to visitors and explain the (fascinating) history.

Pam baked delicious Anzac biscuits.  The children decorated glass candle holders.  We had period music playing in the background.  And Spud and I gave two readings of poems written between 1914-1919.  The whole event was a huge success, not least because it reminded us of what was sacrificed, at home and abroad.  Spud remarked to me that, as he was just eighteen, if he’d been born a hundred years ago he would probably have been off to war with all of his pals.  A sobering thought.

Sunday 10 August

Morning

Church followed by Stockport Writers.  It was my turn to chair.  I wanted to take the August meeting so I could use the theme, The Start of the War.  I hadn’t considered, three months earlier when I put down my name, that it came back-to-back with yesterday’s event and I woke up in a cold sweat in the middle of Thursday night, realising that I had nothing prepared.  Two hours and one irritable Molly later, it was done: I pared fictional and actual events down to their bare essentials – e.g. the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand became An angry teenager with a gun – and used them as prompts.

Afternoon

I had been in five minutes and had just poured boiling water into three mugs when there was a knock at the door.  A neighbour had seen a runaway rabbit and called at my house because I was on the corner and therefore would probably know who it belonged to.  With logic like that, it’s hard to believe we can win a raffle, never mind two world wars.

Still, I’m a sucker for a scared pie filling so I went out to help, calling for my pretty assistant the Hub to come along: animals love him and if anyone could catch it, it would be him.

Turns out anyone couldn’t catch it, including the Hub – it sat in a shrubbery patch, snaffling the carrots we used to entice it and ignoring the umbrella-thrashing we gave the bushes in an attempt to frighten it out.  The last we heard, it had eloped with a runaway pig and they had set up home in Tamworth.

The poor Hub didn’t have such a lucky escape: it was raining and he slipped on some cobbles, landing flat – hard! – on his back and breaking his watch, to the amusement of those neighbours who had come out to watch us chase the rabbit but felt no need to join in.  Or to help him up.

When I got him back inside, Spud was in a spin: having had a late night, he had only just got up.  He came downstairs to find half-made tea, still warm; the car in the drive; the back door unlocked; but no parents.  He tried calling us but our phones rang inside the house…he was creeped out like only a half-asleep teen with a vivid imagination can be.  The Hub would have laughed if it hadn’t hurt so much; but he refused to go to the hospital.

The Hub wasting away because of my neglect

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Tune in again – date to be determined because the excitement is still ongoing.

Coming soon: A day trip to Wales

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hoo-Ray!

So glad to see Ray Quinn win the last-ever Dancing On Ice.  Incredible to think he’s an amateur.  Here’s his Bolero:

My favourite skate:

His solo skate:

What am I going to do now DOI has finished forever?  Sad face.

I guess I’ll have to watch Strictly.  Sadder face.

It’s National Poetry Day

As it’s National Poetry Day, I thought I’d share some news: I have another poem coming out in an anthology.

For me, this one is kind of a big deal, because I get to be an anthology buddy with Carol Ann Duffy, our Poet Laureate, and Ruth Padel, a big noise in the British poetry world.  You can’t see it, but I’m dancing a joyful jig right now – I’m an ’emerging poet’!

Contributors have been asked to publicise the event, so here goes:

Press Release

In Protest: new poetry anthology explores human rights and social justice

Poets from around the world explore themes of human rights and social justice in a unique collaboration between the Human Rights Consortium and the Institute of English Studies (both School of Advanced Study, University of London), and London-based poetry collective the Keats House Poets.

In Protest: 150 Poems for Human Rights is an ambitious new publication aiming to bring together the fields of human rights research and literature in an innovative way. Selected from over 600 poems submitted by established and emerging poets, it provides a rare international insight into issues ranging from the trans-Atlantic slave trade, the Hola massacre and indigenous peoples’ rights to the current war in Syria.

All the poems received were anonymised and the final 150 chosen include works from jailed Colombian human rights activist David Ravelo and acclaimed UK poets Carol Anne Duffy, Ruth Padel, Moniza Alvi and Douglas Dunn. Campaigner and philanthropist Sigrid Rausing, who wrote the afterword for the anthology, said:  ‘Poetry brings tiny details to life, and in a world where human rights is mostly about reports and abstractions, where real life and real details are lost, poetry can still make us see and feel.’

Co-edited by Helle Abelvik-Lawson (Human Rights Consortium), Laila Sumpton and Anthony Hett (both Keats House Poets), the 251 pages make up a body of contemporary works that is truly outstanding for its exploration of human rights. The poets come from a variety of backgrounds from more than 16 countries.

Divided into 13 themes – Expression, History, Land, Exile, War, Children, Sentenced, Slavery, Women, Regimes, Workers, Unequal, and Protest – the poems vary in style from compelling personal stories to reflections on contemporary events experienced via the evening news. With the forthcoming centenary of the First World War, this anthology also proves vital reading for an insight into contemporary war poetry, covering conflicts ranging from the Spanish Civil War to Syria.

‘This book has validated my suspicion that there is space and enthusiasm for literary creativity in human rights,’ said Helle Abelvik-Lawson. ‘Reading and writing poetry is a very therapeutic way to process some of the darker aspects of humanity. That said, it’s not all doom and gloom – there are some very empowering, fun and funny poems in this book. The feeling of solidarity is palpable, and I feel very privileged to have been able to read so many incredible poems. Like any good anthology, each poem offers something unique, telling a different story about the human experience.’

The editors, together with a number of poets, will speak at an event marking the UK launch of In Protest: 150 Poems for Human Rights (paperback) at the Bloomsbury Festival finale in Senate House, University of London on 20 October at 18:00. Discounted copies will be available. A series of events connected to the anthology are planned throughout 2013-14.

 

Poached, by Dr William Fowlds

Warning: the pictures in the video below are distressing.   I’m not ashamed to admit that I cried when I saw them.  If we don’t help these magnificent animals, they won’t be around for much longer.  We are brutalising them into extinction.

I don’t usually do grim here at The Laughing Housewife, but I saw this story on Sky News and I have to share it.  I have included a short extract but I beg you to read the whole story and watch the accompanying video.

The number of rhinos killed in South Africa looks set to exceed last year’s record total.

With just three months left in 2013, the number of rhinos killed is more than 500 and appears almost certain to top 2012’s death toll of 668.

One man doing his fair share [to help] is veterinarian Dr William Fowlds who is the founder of Rhino Lifeline.

Dr Fowlds was the first vet on the scene when three rhinos were attacked by poachers 18 months ago on the Kariega Game Reserve. One was so badly mutilated, he died hours later.

But somehow Dr Fowlds’ prompt work managed to bring the other two back from the brink.

The rangers were traumatised by the sight of these animals with their horns and part of their faces ripped off by the poachers.

Seven billion humans live on this planet: are we all going to stand by while a greedy few exterminate an entire species?  I don’t want to have to explain to my grandchildren that, in this information age, when a group of like-minded people with computers can put enormous pressure on individuals, huge organisations and even governments, I said nothing; I did nothing; I let others worry about it.

This is not someone else’s problem; it is ours, right now.  I urge you to blog about it; tweet about it; talk about it on Facebook; start a petition; lobby your MP, Congressman, political representative.

Don’t let us lose another species because we were too busy watching cute kitties on You Tube.

Joke 886

High Street, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, 2010 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Edinburgh Fringe Festival Funniest Jokes – a sample from 2008-2013

• “My girlfriend said ‘did you know that hippopotamuses kill more people every year than guns?’. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but a gun is easier to conceal’.”
  – Lloyd Langford
• “When I was a kid I asked my mum what a couple was and she said ‘oh, two or three’. And she wonders why her marriage didn’t work.”
  – Josie Long
• “The Scots invented hypnosis, chloroform and the hypodermic syringe – wouldn’t it be easier just to talk to a woman?”
  – Stephen Grant
• “I’m sure wherever my dad is he’s looking down on us. He’s not dead, just very condescending.”
  – Jack Whitehall
• “Hedgehogs – why can’t they just share the hedge?”
  – Dan Antopolski (winner, 2009)
• “I picked up a hitch hiker. You’ve got to when you hit them.”
  – Emo Phillips
• “I bought one of those anti-bullying wristbands when they first came out. I say ‘bought’, I actually stole it off a short, fat ginger kid.”
  – Jack Whitehall
• “Dave drowned. So at the funeral we got him a wreath in the shape of a lifebelt. Well, it’s what he would have wanted.”
  – Gary Delaney

From the Huffington Post

Ewwww!

county-clean-fatberg-image1 (Photo credit: walt74)

This is probably the grossest thing I’ve ever read, so naturally I want to share it with you.

From Sky News:

 [A] 15-tonne mass of festering food fat mixed with wet wipes and sanitary products threatened to send raw sewage spurting onto the leafy streets of Kingston upon Thames.

“The sewer was almost completely clogged with over 15 tonnes of fat. If we hadn’t discovered it in time, raw sewage could have started spurting out of manholes across the whole of Kingston.

“It was so big it damaged the sewer and repairs will take up to six weeks.”

The foul blockage was discovered when residents of nearby flats complained they could not flush their toilets.

Mr Hailwood added: “Given we’ve got the biggest sewers and this is the biggest fatberg we’ve encountered, we reckon it has to be the biggest such berg in British history.”

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All I can say is, I’m glad my London trip wasn’t last week; ’cause you know the Hub would have blamed it on me.

The fatberg was the size of a double-decker bus.  

Seriously, London: it’s time to diet.

 

Bottoming & Bung

English: Cory Monteith as Finn Hudson on the Glee Live! In Concert! tour. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Apologies that I haven’t replied to your comments for days.  Our German visitors – who were lovely and, contrary to popular British opinion, proved that Germans do have a sense of humour – left yesterday and I collapsed on the couch in front of the TV, catching up with Glee (I’m up to date with ER).  It was rather poignant to watch what were probably Cory Monteith’s last scenes.

I have been reading your comments even if I haven’t had time to reply; and also your emails.  Please accept my apologies for not replying to those, either.  I was too tired to go near the computer yesterday, and I am about to go out just now, catching two buses to a sleep clinic in Manchester.  

Sadly, it doesn’t live up to the hype of its name: no sleeping for me; just an oxygen thingy for my finger, to determine whether I have sleep apnoea.  I will probably have to go back again tomorrow, as the NHS needs to hold on to its oxygen thingies for other sleep-problemed patients; so I may not get a chance to reply until Thursday.  I really am sorry. Or I would be, if I could stay awake long enough to care about social conventions.

One Thousand Years of German Humour with Henning Wehn and Otto Kuhn (Photo credit: dullhunk)

I have enjoyed your discussion of the meanings of ‘bottoming’ and ‘bung’.  I didn’t have a title for this post until I wrote that last line, so thank you once again, dear readers.

I can tell you now what bottoming and bung are not: they are not the named partners of a dodgy law firm.

Keep guessing; or tell me what you think their real meanings are – or are not.  

The funniest reply will receive an answer in the comments from me.  Can’t say fairer than that, can I?

No, really, I can’t: my temporary crown has given me a lisp.

 

Four Fun Facts For The Fourth Of July

1. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both signed the Declaration of Independence; went on to serve as Presidents of the United States; and died on July 4th, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary.  Adams’ last words were said to be, ‘Thomas Jefferson still survives,’ not knowing that his friend and rival had died several hours earlier (no internet back then).
2. Fifth President James Monroe, another Founding Father, died on July 4, 1831.  He was the third consecutive President to die on Independence Day. Fourth time was the proverbial charm, to the relief, I’m guessing, of John Quincy Adams.
3. The Declaration of Independence has been celebrated since the first anniversary in 1777, but the 4th of July was not declared a national holiday until 1941. It was first referred to as Independence Day in 1791.  Ideas caught on slowly back then – like I said: no internet.
4. Three times I have declared a Will Smith Day, because he is the King of Independence Day.  No government either side of the pond has taken me up on it.  You can read the details here, but here’s an extract to whet your appetite:

Sadly, Will won’t be starring in my forthcoming movie, in which large blonde dogs band together and betray humanity to an alien species.  I call it Independence Day: Boomer’s Revenge.  Tagline: The Day The Dogs Bit Back.

Happy Independence Day!

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Britain’s Got Talent

We watched the final last night and believed there was a worthy winner, but we’d have been happy if any of four acts had won.

The Luminites were brilliant throughout the comp and we were astonished they weren’t in the top three:

Richard & Adam have gorgeous voices and were so professional when the viola player ran on stage to throw eggs at Simon Cowell, I thought at first it was part of the act and she was throwing stars into the audience:

Jack Carroll, only 14 and with Cerebral Palsy, is a brilliant comedian and must surely have a big future ahead of him:

And here’s my favourite performance from Attraction, the winners, though they were all good:

 

A Treat For Downton Abbey Fans

Breaking News!  Downton Abbey has cast its first black character – Sean Combs, better known as P Diddy.

Don’t believe me?  Hear it from the horse’s (occasionally foul) mouth:

For more details, go to Sky News

 

A Man In A Can

I saw this wonderful clip about astronaut Chris Hadfield on Sky News:

The Bowie purists might not like it, but I do.

In other news…

Last night, the Hub and I heard what I can only describe as a weird chattering.  I thought it might be magpies but it was after their bed time and higher-pitched.

Turns out it was a couple of courting foxes, lying in the road and making eyes at each other.  Once they saw us watching, they ran off.

I can’t blame them; I’d be spooked, too, if someone peered into our bedroom at an interesting moment.

 

Today Is M.E. Awareness Day

The Hub has M.E. and I had intended to write about it and him but – somewhat ironically – after the day I’ve had, I’m too tired to blog.

Instead, I will re-post last year’s article (which is actually a re-post from the year before, but nothing has changed so I don’t feel guilty), and ask you to spare a thought for people like the Hub, facing prejudice and disdain from those who believe he is too lazy to work, on his best days; and too lazy to get up, on his worst.

 

Today is International CFS/ME Day.

That’s a mouthful so, in layman’s terms: millions of people across the world suffer unexplained fatigue, excruciating pain, the stigma of being called ‘lazy’, and are generally considered too idle to work.

Please consider me sticking two fingers up at those who say my husband who, before he became ill, ran his own business, travelled all over sub-Saharan Africa, trained under-14s at football, was a qualified referee who covered as many as five games every Saturday, set up and ran the official MCFC Supporters Club of South Africa and occasionally came home to remind himself of what his family looked like, is lazy and too idle to work.  I don’t buy it.

I don’t know how much you know about ME but here’s a bit of info to get you started:

It has many names, including:

• Yuppie Flu
• Myalgic Encephalomyelitis
• Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
• Post-Viral Fatigue Syndrome

Fibromyalgia is similar but not exactly the same, though I can’t really tell you the difference; and I don’t think it matters to those who suffer from these dreadful and debilitating conditions.

It robs you of a meaningful life.

You will spend your time in a haze of pain, exhaustion and prejudice – because ‘you don’t look sick’.  Someone once said to the Hub, ‘I wish I had it; I could do with six months off work.’  Now that person does have it, and it’s been a lot longer than six months.  I don’t gloat over that because I wish nobody had it.

Symptoms vary from person to person.

That’s one of the reasons it’s so difficult to diagnose and treat.  It doesn’t help that many in the medical profession don’t believe it exists.  It took two years before the Hub was taken seriously by a doctor.  He would be in bed for weeks.  When he could drag himself to the doctor’s he would invariably be told to ‘take two paracetamol and go to bed.’  One doctor said he needed a psychiatrist.

When a doctor finally did take him seriously, it took many more months for him to be officially diagnosed: the only way to do it was to rule out anything else.  He has had every kind of scan, blood test, whatever, available on the NHS.  They were thorough, but what a waste of money.

Then, once diagnosed, you are left to get on with it because there is no cure.

A few of the symptoms:

• severe, debilitating and disabling fatigue
• poor concentration
• brain fog
• poor memory
• useless sleep i.e. you never feel refreshed
• muscle pain
• headaches
• migraines
• joint pain and inflammation
• swollen glands
• sore throat
• hot sweats
• cold sweats
• noise sensitivity
• light sensitivity
• anxiety
• insomnia
• too much sleep with no benefit
• short-lived paralysis
• numbness
• twitching muscles
• tinnitus
• blackouts
• depression
• feeling spaced out
• mood swings, particularly bad moods
• nausea
• IBS
• lack of temperature control
• allergies
• chest pain
• sinusitis 

This is not a complete list.

Not pleasant, is it?

So, if you know someone with CFS/ME or Fibromyalgia, please don’t take it personally when they cancel a long-standing date or seem fidgety and uncomfortable when you visit.  They simply don’t have the required energy.  If they live alone, offer to help with their shopping, take them to appointments, or anything else they might need.

Be nice.  Don’t judge until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes – you’ll have to do it, because they can’t walk a mile in any shoes.

And be careful yourself: slow down; don’t feel the need to do everything.  Believe me, M.E. can happen to anyone.

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An apology: I had intended to write a good-humoured piece that would send you on your way with a smile and hopefully leave you thinking a little about this illness.

I couldn’t do it.  The sufferer has all the suffering, but their loved ones have to stand by, helpless, watching as their lives go on hold.  I hate it.

The saddest thing he ever said to me was, ‘I never got to play football with my own children.’

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Two Useful Links:

If you need help claiming benefits: AfME Fact Sheet

From a convert to the cause: Daily Mail Article