Another Musical Interlude

Don’t worry, this wasn’t turned into a music blog while I was away; it’s just that I’m excited to share this particular video and couldn’t wait a couple of weeks as originally planned.

Old Older Regular readers from TLH’s past life may recall that my son, Alex – Spud – was an aspiring actor and played the lead in a musical about the First World War. Well, finally, composer Oliver Mills has begun to release songs from the show, The Tree of War. It is a fantastic piece of theatre by Ollie and Rachel Mann, who wrote the book and co-wrote the lyrics, deserving of a wide audience.

This is Alex singing Bert’s solo from the trenches:

If you like this one, there are three more great songs from the show available on YouTube, and the soundtrack is coming soon.

Incidentally, Alex is no longer an aspiring actor: he graduated from drama school in 2019, obtained an agent, and is currently residing in London, where the work isn’t. The work isn’t anywhere.

And in other news, Happy Boy is engaged to a lovely young maths teacher and they hope to marry in 2022, coronavirus permitting. And I subtract from that that if they begin multiplying, it will equal Happy Mum and Dad.

Enjoy the show!

Joke 865

Kids!

• You spend the first two years of their life teaching them to walk and talk. Then you spend the next sixteen telling them to sit down and shut up.
• Grandchildren are God’s reward for not killing your own children.
• Mothers of teens know why some animals eat their young.
• Children seldom misquote you. In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn’t have said.
• The main purpose of holding children’s parties is to remind yourself that there are children more awful than your own.
• We childproofed our home, but they are still getting in.

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Thanks to my friend Michelle for this one.

The Laughing Baby

Fridays are now The Friday Laugh day.  Here’s today’s:

 

Joke 770

A small town prosecuting attorney called his first witness to the stand in a trial – an elderly woman.  He approached her and asked, “Mrs Jones, do you know me?”

She responded, “Yes, I do know you Mr. Williams.  I’ve known you since you were a young boy.  And frankly, you’ve been a big disappointment to me.  You lie, you cheat on your wife, you manipulate people and talk about them behind their backs.  You think you’re a rising big shot when you haven’t the brains to realize you never will amount to anything more than a two-bit paper pusher.  Yes, I know you.”

The lawyer was stunned. Not knowing what else to do he pointed across the room and asked, “Mrs Jones, do you know the defense attorney?”

“Why, yes I do.  I’ve known Mr. Bradley since he was a youngster, too.  I used to baby-sit him for his parents.  And he, too, has been a real disappointment to me. He’s lazy, bigoted, he has a drinking problem.  The man can’t build a normal relationship with anyone and his law practice is one of the shoddiest in the entire state.  Yes, I know him.”

At this point, the judge rapped the courtroom to silence and called both counselors to the bench. In a very quiet voice he said, with menace, “If either of you asks her if she knows me, you’ll be in jail within three minutes!”

Thanks once again to Elizabeth for today’s joke.

Bring Me Sunshine

Sidey’s Weekend Theme is Sunshine.  Here in Stockport we don’t get much sunshine, being the English equivalent of Twilight‘s town of Forks, minus the pretty vampires.  So, just rain, then.

We have to make our own sunshine, so here you go – some fake sunshine, courtesy of You Tube:

Now that you are as depressed as we Stopfordians usually feel, here’s something that actually works like sunshine is supposed to:

Have a great weekend, flowers!

Big Sunflower (Photo credit: eggheadsherpa)

How to have fun in spite of rain:

 

Joke 449

 

Image via CrunchBase

Image via CrunchBase

 

 

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Thanks to Katherine Trauger‘s son for this one.

Announcement!

In the near-future, FaceBook, Twitter and You Tube are to merge. 

The new company will be known as YouTwitFace.

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And Now For Something Completely Different

Adam loves Lucy.  Adam wants to propose.  Adam joins a choir and persuades the members to sing Lucy’s favourite song on the Tube:

I’ve Been Re-possessed

As regular reader knows, from time to time I vacate The Laughing Housewife premises to let a real writer talk about their new book.  Today it is the turn of…

…Musician, Nemo James:

Born and based in England, Nemo James worked as a professional musician and singer/songwriter for more than 30 years. He now lives in Croatia with his wife Federika and their cat Jutko, who is becoming intolerable following his rise to fame on Youtube.

The book: Just A Few Seconds.

The story of one man’s experience in the music business. It is an amusing and true story of a successful freelance musician whose gigs ranged from private parties, to the rich and famous, to the roughest London pubs, where playing the wrong song at the wrong time meant the difference between life and death. He takes more twists, turns and knocks than a mouse trapped in a pinball machine.  The ending shows how the road to success can lead us down the strangest and most desolate of paths.

If you are looking for the usual rock star memoirs full of sex, drugs and rock and roll, then this book is not for you; if you are interested in a unique insight into the music business that reads like a thriller, then this book won’t disappoint.

Cooking Tips from Nemo James

Since the publication of my book Just A Few Seconds, several people have emailed me to ask whether my cooking has improved since the chapter entitled A Recipe For Shoestrings. In it, I wrote how during a very difficult time in my life, I was living on a budget of £1 a day for food. Some people are able to do wonders with £1 spent wisely on ingredients but I am definitely not one of them. I was not only on a shoestring budget, my meals actually tasted like shoestrings.

Then I met and married Federika who, apart from being amazing and gorgeous, is also a fantastic cook specialising in dishes from all corners of the globe, but particularly from Peru, where she grew up. I am never going to win any awards for my cooking but she has taught me a lot and in particular shared that secret that all you crafty cooks have been keeping to yourselves all these years: The Kitchen Timer. 

Until I discovered the kitchen timer I used to use a smoke alarm to tell me when my food was cooked. In a terraced house in the UK it was not a problem as I would always put the smoke alarm within easy reach so I could turn it off quickly. But one day, while I was living in Los Angeles, I was heating up a lovely chocolate muffin for my breakfast when the phone rang with a call from a prospective agent. I completely forgot about the muffin until the smoke alarm went off but, being accustomed to this event, I continued talking to the agent whilst removing the muffin from the oven and jumping up and down on a chair, trying to blow cold air onto the alarm. As most of the buildings in L.A. are made of wood everyone is paranoid about fire so just as I thought I had everything under control and had the agent interested the building manager started banging on my door and screaming at me to let him in. I never realised cooking could be so difficult.

Here are a few more tips that I have discovered that I would like to pass on:

• Using an apron means that cooking doesn’t always require a change of clothes.
• The oil you use for cooking is different to the type you use in your car.
• Oven gloves save a lot of pain.
• Keeping the kitchen floor clean from grease means you don’t have to wear a crash helmet while you cook.
• When breaking an egg it is better to use the edge of a knife than a hammer.
• A baguette is not a small shopping bag.
• You don’t get black eyed beans by punching normal beans.
• You can’t make white sugar go brown by leaving it in the sun all day.
• Crab apple is not a seafood.
• Hitting a halibut with a hammer doesn’t make it a flatfish.
• You can’t scald pasta by telling it off.
• Molasses are not moles’ bottoms.
• Strong currants in Muesli are not dangerous.
• There is no such thing as Semolina poisoning.
• If you are running short of Tofu for that special dinner party, try adding half a litre of water to a roll of toilet paper and blend in with one large packet of wallpaper paste. No one will ever know the difference.

If you have a cooking tip you would like to share with others please leave them in the comments.

For reviews and other information visit Pump Up Your Book.

Nemo James’ website and blog.

Nemo James’  You Tube videos.

Related articles

• Working Smoke Alarms Save Lives – Install, Inspect, Protect (kannapolis.wordpress.com)

‘One’ Is The Loneliest Number

Image by lioil via Flickr

What one feature do you wish WordPress had?

Only one?  Okay, here’s my one:

1.  I wish it was like Word and had the right-click box for Bold, justify, colour and so on.  When you write posts as long as mine, scrolling up and down to italicize a word here, a phrase there, indenting a short paragraph, bullet pointing and the like, takes for……………………………………………………..ever. 

I’d settle for a ‘Return to the top of the page’ button.

1.  I wish it wouldn’t keep changing the rules: a month ago, I knew exactly how to embed a You Tube video.  Then it stopped working that way.  Nobody told me how or why.  Now, it takes me for……………………………………………………..ever to shove in a video, and it doesn’t always work.  When I schedule a post, the video has disappeared, leaving a lot of pink gobbledygook behind.

1.  I could do with a ‘Draft Posts’ category under the ‘All Posts’ heading, because I draft many of my posts.  When I see a joke I like, or I get an idea for a post which I don’t have time to write, I put it into a draft and come back to it.  When I’m scheduling several posts at a time, it takes me for……………………………………………………..ever.

1.  I wish the visual toolbar let me fix default settings so that I could change my font colour permanently from grey to black.  It takes for……………………………………………………..ever to Control-A-red-show-Control-A-black-show.  I have to go via red because it absolutely will not go from grey to black.

1.  I wish, when I pressed that big button on my keyboard to move down a line, WordPress would listen.  As soon as I save the post, if there’s no text, the spaces disappear.  Sometimes I want a double space gap.  Are you listening, WordPress?*  At the moment, I have to use asterisks and colour them white to hide them.  It takes for……………………………………………………..ever

1.  I wish WordPress would link my blog to ‘Freshly Pressed’ at least weekly.  Or even once.  Then I’d be happy for……………………………………………………..ever.  Or at least a month.

1.  I wish it had a ‘Stop writing now, Tilly; your readers are asleep’ button.  Some of them tell me I seem to go on for……………………………………………………..ever.**

1.  I wish I hadn’t started this stupid for……………………………………………………..ever meme.  It stopped being funny at, well, the first time.  But it would take for……………………………………………………..ever to go back and change it.

*Sorry for shouting, dear reader; but sometimes, it’s the only way to get them to listen.

**  Not really.  I’m just fishing for indignant comments defending my honour.

New list (and thus no for……………………………………………………..ever):

1.  I wish the Zemanta images would go back to being moveable instead of sitting in the right-hand corner the whole time, like me at a party.

1.  I wish the photos I insert wouldn’t mess around with the text.  I want the text to be me at a party.

1.  I wish WordPress knew how to count past ‘one’, because then I would have loads of complaints for it.

1.  I wish this post was more interesting.

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The Day The TV Stood Still

Image via Wikipedia

Sidey’s theme this weekend is UFO.  I can never hear ‘UFO’ without thinking of that programme from the Seventies with Ed Straker; do you remember it?

Here’s the thing: I’m pretty sure aliens were using it to control me.  Whenever I was off school – which wasn’t often – the same episode would always be on.  It didn’t matter if I was off morning, afternoon, all day or Saturday: the episode with the car driving down the road was on.

I think aliens were sending me subliminal messages not to drive.

Hmm.  Could the Hub be an alien?

<a href=”http://www.youtube.com/v/rB1k02yh43A?version=3“>

I’m still having problems embedding You Tube videos, so you’ll have to click on the link.

What’s In A Name?

Image via Wikipedia

What is the story behind your given name?

Short of taking out a superinjunction – the first requirement of which is a need to be super-rich – my feeble attempt when I started this blog to keep my name a secret was foiled by my listing on the right-hand side the places I had been published, with my full given name on view for anyone who cared enough to check.

So, here’s the worst-kept secret in the Tilly Budosphere: my given name is Linda. 

Oo, that WordPress prompter is sneaky, worming it out of me like that.

My name may once have been a diminutive of Belinda, just as I am a diminutive of a regular-sized person.

In Spanish it means pretty.

Before my head swells like a cobra’s, in German it means snake.  Also soft, tender, weak.  The Germans don’t miss a trick.

The Italians say I’m neat.  Thanks, Italy; I think you’re pretty neat, too.

But I haven’t answered the question: what is the story behind my given name?

My Mum’s friend had already taken Mum’s first choice of Amanda for her daughter, born a couple of months before me.  I never met that friend.

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In honour of my name, I give you my favourite-ever Linda Ronstadt song: Invincible. 

Names are tricky things.  You Tube insists it is my favourite-ever Pat Benatar song.

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<a href=”http://www.youtube.com/v/5A4xBp2rizQ?version=3“>390px; width: 640px”>

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On the subject of names, I have several readers with the name Elizabeth who might be interested in this: The Gathering of Elizabeths.  Sort of like Highlander for Nice Girls Who Don’t Behead Each Other.

This story has been tickling me for several years now.  The town of Elizabeth, Illinois, attempts each year to gather together the most women with that given name.  From the website:

Over 175 years ago, three brave women named Elizabeth stood up during a raid from legendary Black Hawk and his tribe in present day Elizabeth, Illinois at the Apple River Fort, making history and saving their village.

Are you an Elizabeth or have a family member/friend who is?  Become apart of history while creating life long memories by helping to set a new world record for the most Elizabeths gathered in one place at one time.

This from THonline:

The event was held in 2008 and 2009, with 436 (the current world record) and 250 participants, respectively. The event was recognized with a Governor’s Home Town Award in 2010.

Registration for the event and information is available at http://www.mostelizabeths.com. Participants who pre-register on the event website will be given a T-shirt and goody bag after checking in at the Elizabeth Community Center.

I know I said this wasn’t a poetry blog anymore, but I wrote this poem when I first read about the story and I like the opportunity to give it an airing:

The United Beths Of America

Elizabeth town in Illinois state:
four hundred women meet up for a date.
A new world record those Elizas set:
most gals in one place with the first name Bet.

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Dumb’s The Word

Image via Wikipedia

What are your favorite slang words?

I don’t have a favourite that I’m aware of, though I may use some inadvertently; but I have one I abhor.  My hatred of it is such that I actually wince when I hear it, and I want to clap my hands over my ears, squeeze my eyes tight shut and sing ‘lalalalalalalalalalalala’ until the whole sordid experience is over.  But, as you know, I’m not at all given to exaggeration in any form whatsoever at all no siree, so I don’t.

What is this awful word?  And there we have a problem: I hate it so much, I can’t tell you.  Instead, I’m going to send you some clues and you can figure it out for yourself.

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Go here first: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0291928/

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The last illustration represents the biggest half of the word and also the whole word.

It is possible that my non-Brit readers may not have heard of the word, so you can check it out here, if you like.

This word is the reason I lost interest in politics, doing the job that the sleaze and scandals and pocket-lining and sheer incompetence could not: when I heard it used in Parliament, I knew then there was no low a British MP would not sink to.

 

The Laughing Baby

Something to really brighten your day:

I’m Just A Girl Who Can’t Say No

What can’t you say no to?

These stupid WordPress prompts.

And Maltesers.

I’m sorry: I also can’t say ‘no’ to an obvious joke.

No Contest

When you’re feeling down, what music cheers you up?