Counting the Count

Tags

Count von Count, Countess Backwards, Countess Dahling von Dahling, Guy Smiley, Hunter virus, Jerry Nelson, Kirstie Allsopp, Marbella, Sesame Street, Sesame Street Muppets, The Tempest, Thought for the Day, Wallis Simpson

Dull and cool, but dry.  I suppose we should count our blessings.  At least we are not burnt to cinders in Marbella or incubating Hunter virus contracted from a holiday stay in log cabins in Yosemite.

Don’t you just hate smug people telling you to count your blessings- especially when you are sinking into The Slough of Despond and they are planning their third cruise in as many months?

But, if you were Count von Count from Sesame Street, you would adore enumerating the little positives in your day-to-day existence. Imagine him having a literal field day at the County Show when La Allsopp enters her baking efforts in all four categories:

One, two camera crews,

three,  four becoming a bore;

five, six, old dog; old tricks; 

seven, eight- rabbits a-mate;

nine, ten a big fat hen

has just waltzed off with all the prizes.

The Count’s bats were called Grisha, Misha, Sasha and Tatiana.  Their names will shortly be appearing in a kindergarten near you.  He also had a cat called Fatatita.  Maybe he was not keen on Kirstie A.

The Count’s girlfriends were Countess Backwards- don’t worry, she liked to count in reverse. This could have earned her positive discrimination in any Maths exam, as evidence of Special Needs.

His other enamorata was Countess Dahling von Dahling and she was last seen entering Costamuchamoulah in Suttonford, where she ordered a Wallis Simpson latte.  Plenty of The Anything People frequent such establishments- you know, the faceless muppets who could be anything you wanted them to be: Guy Smiley or, the lavender ones, such as Smart Tina, or the Various Kids.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:

The Count used to hypnotise people by waving his hand and stunning them.  Surely the police might study this technique to prevent them from shoving helpless, old newspaper sellers to the ground?

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012

All Things Are Possible

Tags

Alistair Darling, George Osborne, husband, Katherine Jenkins, Shakespeare, spiders, Summer 2012, swimming, The Tempest

Saturday.

Too darn hot.

A new family of spiders has been discovered called Trogloraptor, or Cave Robber.  One of their genus was behind my headboard last night and it definitely had claws.  This is one situation where the husband can make himself useful.

The theme of the summer, i.e. that all things are possible is continued in news items about a limbless Frenchman who is swimming between all the continents and a sixty three year old American woman who is making her 4^th attempt to swim between Havana and Florida, without the protection of a shark cage.  Last time she had to call it off as she was stung by jellyfish.   Mind you, the American probably needn’t worry, as thresher sharks have been seen basking off the coast of Wales, so they may be on vacation and might prefer a nice nibble of Katherine Jenkins instead.  Who wouldn’t?

Nasty weather is spreading from Wales towards the Midlands.  Heavy rain is forecast for Scotland.  Plus ca change.

Alistair Darling has been writing open letters to George, or Gideon Osborne in The People, asking him to change direction.  The problem is that no one knows where the Chancellor is.  He is not called The Submarine for nothing.  He will come up when the coast is clear. At the moment he would be well-advised to stay below the radar.  He certainly should resist any desire to adopt a stovepipe hat and jump on to The Tempest bandwagon, quoting:

If I have too austerely punish’d you…

…all thy vexations

Were but my trials of thy love, and thou

Hast strangely stood the test…

…be more abstemious.. 

If he surfaced with that kind of talk I think a thousand Portuguese Men-of-War would sting him to death.  And they would be of his own party.

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012

Closing Time

Tags

Annie Lennox, Boris Johnson, Brave New World, Darcey Bussell, David Cameron, Duchess of Cambridge, Eric Idle, Fatboy Slim, Grayson Perry, husband, London 2012, Lord Coe, Olympics, Poor Clares, Prince Harry, Prince William, Ray Davies, Russell Brand, The Queen, The Tempest, Trinity, Vivienne Westwood

The Tenth Sunday after Trinity

Clare of Assisi, Founder of the Minoresses (Poor Clares), 1253.

Maybe she would have something pertinent to say about the economy?

A scorcher with threatening thunder which disappeared after 2pm.

9pm saw my hubby and myself on our starter sofas, ready for action viewing.

A strangely nasal singer commenced the proceedings and a bad Churchill impression did not light my Olympic flame.  Same speech from The Tempest ; different hats.

Prince Harry appeared, instead of The Queen.  A solitary Duchess of Cambridge was there. Probably Wills was hovering overhead in a helicopter, watching in case his brother became too flirty with his wife.  If Harry got too fresh, Wills might have Kate sent to the Tower and could marry Pippa the following day.  They can be like that.

Batman came out of a Robin, but he was American, wasn’t  he?  What’s he got to do with it?

There was too much Our House, or One’s House, as someone joked at the Jubilee.  Probably the Royal version is One’s Hice.

The Ku Klux clan appeared to be cycling past, or was it a belated Semana Santa procession for the Spanish contingent?  No, it was The Pet Shop Boys.  One Direction  had the crowd singing the annoying Na-na-na-na refrain, while the whole of London seemed bent on street sweeping, which isn’t a bad idea.  Cameron wants 100% youth employment, so there’s your answer, Dave.

Ray Davies of The Kinks understood that the crowd were not completely thick and so gave them a variation to join in – namely, Sha-la-la-la, which made a change.  At least it was a catchy tune and distracted you from the bankers committing suicide by hurling themselves out of the Gherkin, which some would have found the best bit.

Russell Brand did his I am the Walrus act and I was glad that that awful mate of his, who only gets  him into trouble, wasn’t there, namely Mr Woss.  Grayson Perry, as Clare seemed to be with him, but, then again, it all happened so quickly that I might have been mistaken.

Fatboy Slim – I recognised the oxymoron, was at the centre of a huge octopus, while Jesse J gave everyone their big chance to sing La la la la confidently, because by now most of them knew the words.

The fashion parade was interesting but the commentators did not elaborate on the designers. I thought that Annie Lennox was probably in Vivienne Westwood for her number, but I failed to recognise the Dracula connection.

The pixels and lighting were stunning throughout. Eric Idle’s skating nuns would not have been out of place on Duddingston Loch .  Idle wasn’t shot out of the cannon, but Russell Brand, no, Russell Grant could have been. He had had plenty of practice on Strictly. Now that he has stopped dancing, he might have put on weight and got stuck, however. Sergei, the meerkat might have done it well, but he is anxious to maintain his dignity, so he might not have been too enthusiastic.

The rap did not appeal to me, even though the audience now had the opportunity to repeat, Ay-oh in response to Baby, let’s go.  I thought that was Teletubbie lingo.

Harry was getting a bit bored and started chewing, even just after the big We will rock you number.  I hoped that the Koreans  or Iranians wouldn’t get any ideas for a We will nuke you number.

The Greek flag was raised and that would have been a good moment for a whip-round, I felt.  The Mods on scooters could have whizzed around, collecting the bags.

From Greeks we fast-forwarded to Georgios Michael, who danced all over Damian’s sprayed flag, singing about Freedom and wearing a miniature For The Love of God skull on his belt buckle.  Again, that song title could have suggested a panty pad advertising jingle. Maybe he was out on bail or had a new release coming soon.  Wake me up before you go-go might have given the crowds a chance to vocalise the double syllables that they had been practising throughout the evening.

The London Eye becoming a baldacchino was a powerful symbol of immanence over a vacuum, I thought.  Maybe Zeus or Boris was meant to bless the gathering, but there was no sense of the divine that I could detect.  Lennon’s Imagine stated that there was no heaven nor hell, but only sky above us.  It was moving, but a profound sense of spiritual emptiness swept over me.  Were we meant to worship Man as Superman?  After the exposure of the clay feet of the Tiger Woods of this world, I could only feel limitation, not exaltation.

Past gods materialised in the shape of Mercury- Freddy, to be precise.  He raised the bar of audience participation by challenging the crowd to replicate fairly complex vowel sequences.  The figures on the screens made me think of Brave New World and the feelies.  Was I to become a pleb?

It must have been difficult to entertain everyone while 204 flags were being brought in and athletes were filling in the stripes, like painting by numbers.  Indian drums created tension and suspense, but the white box set building was a natural point for nipping off to the loo, but not if you were in the crowd, obviously.  I wondered about the facilities.  Basically, it was going on too long for anyone’s bladder capacity.  No wonder Philip had given it a miss.

Darcey Bussell’s Firebird section was dazzling, but then there were speeches and that French guy never seemed to smile, though he recognised that our hosting had been happy and glorious, to coin a phrase-not.  Coe smiled, but then he has a job lined up for the next few years, which is more than the marvellous volunteers probably have. To continue The Tempest references, we might echo Antonio, the usurping King of Milan:

Worthy Sebastian….

…methinks I see it in thy face,

What thou should’st be…

My strong imagination sees a crown

Dropping upon thy head..

I was relieved when the accident-prone Johnson managed to avoid setting himself alight, by furling his flag too close to the flames.  Maybe that was why the Duke of Cambridge was hovering overhead, ready to unleash gallons of water from on high.  Or was he on standby to douse Boris’ burning bush or to dampen Harry’s passion? Maybe he was trying to persuade his granny to jump.  Coe addressed Your Majesties, so he clearly expected them to drop in. Perhaps they had missed their cue.  As a fallback, the massed pipe bands could have played:

Oh ye cannae shove your granny oot a ‘copter-x2

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012

Opening Ceremony

Tags

Andy Murray, Arctic Monkeys, Daniel Craig, Danny Boyle, Great Ormond Street, Helen Mirren, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Kenneth Branagh, Kirstie Allsopp, Minack Theatre, MRSA, Neil Oliver, Olympics, Paul McCartney, Pierce Brosnan, Roger Federer, Sean Connery, Sergeant Pepper, Sir Chris Hoy, The Queen, The Tempest

I decided to watch the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games.  The only clouds over the stadium were Danny Boyle’s ingenious examples on sticks. I felt my brain was in candyfloss as I witnessed Kenneth Branagh in a stovepipe hat, spouting lines from The Tempest.  I felt that Boyle could have saved some money by hiring Neil Oliver as he had recently been reciting the same speech at the Minack on Coast.  I suppose he might have forgotten his lines by now.

But why was Isambard Kingdom Brunel – his middle name another possible question on Mastermind-ranting on Glastonbury Tor?  Why were child patients, bouncing in Great Ormond Street beds? They can’t have been so ill, being subjected to the terror of huge spidery monsters. Maybe the long-legged spinners represented MRSA bugs and other virulent and difficult to cure infections which seem to swarm all over our wards.

Why were Sergeant Pepper and his entourage hot on the heels of men in the trenches? I felt rather confused.

Then I was stunned that Daniel Craig brought in HM, and I don’t mean Helen Mirren. I wondered if both ladies might not have preferred Sean Connery, or Pierce Brosnan as an escort.  I know I would have.

At a crucial point, when Sir Chris Hoy was carrying our flag, the cameras scrolled to The Queen, who was examining her cuticles.  She may have been wearing a fascinator, but fascinated she was not.  She would probably have preferred watching it all on the telly.  She didn’t even get to light the flame, and she was probably the most qualified to do so, as she was Corgi-registered, according to some wag.

The Czech team made me laugh with their preparation for our weather.  Kirstie Allsopp was probably admiring their wellies with attitude.

Argentina marched past.  I was hoping that they would be overwhelmed by British confidence and would give up all claims to the Malvinas.

Some athletes were chewing, or texting on their mobile phones.  I thought of the minimum standard of behaviour that I had expected from my pupils and I bristled at the parade of bad manners.

There seemed to be an accompanying toga-ed young person who cradled a copper shell which looked like a begging bowl for contributions for the country being represented.  There was one Indian woman volunteer who was not in a toga and who simply muscled in on all the attention.  Later she did not seem at all apologetic.  I supposed that she had had her fifteen minutes of fame.  That Andy Warhol has a lot to answer for.

When Switzerland marched past I was disappointed that Roger was not carrying the flag.  He had sensibly gone to bed early as he had a match the following day.  He was very wise, as it meant that he avoided having to repetitively sing, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, at the instigation of a curiously puffy-faced Paul McCartney, who looked as if an early night and a healthy microwaveable Linda-meal would have done him good.  He needn’t have felt threatened by the Arctic Monkeys, at any rate.

Rafa wasn’t there either, but half of Spain seemed to be in their parade, so no one missed him.  I suppose that it gave Spaniards something to do, seeing as they don’t have any jobs.

There was a Hong Kong team and a mainland China one.  No wonder they win so many medals. They cheat by entering twice.

The fireworks and pixel lighting were sensational and Heatherwick’s copper petals came together symbolically and formed a flaming cauldron, worthy of Andy Murray’s mother’s spell-inducing incantation:

Make Andy triumph over ditch-delivered drabs.

It was one thirty before I hit the sack: I knew I’d regret it over the weekend.

Outdoor Pursuits

Tags

Bradshaw's Guide, Caliban, Corfe Castle, Gore-Tex, Kenneth Branagh, Lettuce, Michael Portillo, Minack Theatre, Neil Oliver, Nick Crane, Shakespeare, The Tempest

I thought that I would inspect the lambs’ lettuce I had planted a few weeks ago.  The earthenware pot was overflowing. So much for home grown five-a-day.  Oh well, it wasn’t the weather for salad, I consoled myself. I had to put the central heating on.

There was nothing on telly, but Michael Portillo, clutching his Bradshaw, eating whelks in Whitstable and avoiding salmonella.  Next was Neil Oliver hanging out of a steam train which was chugging its way round Corfe Castle.  The cameraman had chosen a very forgiving angle so that Neil could let his hair stream out of the window.  He then went on to play a lead role in The Tempest at the Minack Theatre, upstaging Kenneth Branagh, as it turned out:

The clouds methought would open, and show riches

Ready to drop upon me…

He should and could have been Caliban.  And there was the great British public, draped in Gore-tex in that curious collective, masochistic death wish to acquire pneumonia, vaccine availability or not.  That Nick Crane has the weather down to a fine art.  You don’t see him setting forth without his brolly being stuffed into his haversack. Bet his Mum is pleased.  She probably checks that he is wearing a vest and has a clean handkerchief.

Portillo doesn’t seem to carry anything, not even a poncho, which is what the partly Spanish would probably prefer.  He probably relies on the rain being mainly on the plain, not the train.

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012