Every Picture Tells A Story

Magpie Tales

Raven's Wordzzle's

In twenty years of marriage they had never exchanged an angry word.

The occasional cross sentence, yes. Frequent angry paragraphs, perhaps: the semi-regular educational pamphlets on painful bodily insertions it was true. But an angry word: never

That was until she came back from the portrait sessions pregnant, which at least explained the unusual smile that the artist had captured.

At first he had put it down to a particularly odd batch of mushroom soup that they had found in a small takeaway in Little Italy and it was true that they had both been bloated and shapeless for a couple of weeks after and it was many months before the magical tap-dancing aardvarks stopped appearing to him every night, but eventually it had to be conceded, no matter how charitable he might be, that his wife was well and truly, to put it in common parlance, “up the duff”

This considering that they had long ago decided that the key to a happy relationship, sans angry words, was separate rooms at opposite ends of a very large house: was something of a revelation

The artist, of course, denied everything: pretending to be in love with some chap called David until it was pointed out to him that he was a painter and not a sculptor. One spectator to the event would later claim that the language in the small enclosure of the artist’s rooms had been enough to turn the cheeks of even the coarsest sailor bright pink, but the fact remained that he was now forced to live with a painting that would forever show his wife in mid-term with someone else’s child.

Of course he would never have admitted that the child was anyone else’s but his, not even with one hand tied behind his back, but he took solace in one tiny fact

‘There is a tiny happy ending’ he said to his wife, sometime after the painting was complete, ‘the painting is somewhat small, and you have a funny smile: I doubt very much that anyone will ever want to look at it”

None Of The Above

This is based on a speech that I did last night at the first round (club level) of the International Speech Competition - the eventual winner of which competes in Las Vegas.  A speech, I should add, that failed to place in the competition. 

"Any person capable of getting themselves into a position of power is, by very dint of that fact, the absolute last person you should allow to be there"

Competition Chair, fellow Toastmasters, most welcome guests

Is it just me or are Politician's getting more similar all the time?  Think back to the 70s and 80s: the era of Thatcher, Kinnock, Hesseltine, Foot: you may not have liked these people, but you knew who they were and you pretty much knew what they stood for.

Today we have Cameron, Clegg, Milliband: three men who look like they all stepped out of the same cloning machine. They're all so busy trying to hog the middle ground that there can't be any space left.

All over the world in developing countries people travel for miles for the right to take place in a free election: often at great risk to their lives: yet here in the UK only about 60 per cent of the population regularly vote.

How many of you voted in the last election?  How many of those of you that voted really took the time to read the party manifesto and know exactly what the party you voted for represented?  And how many of you really believed that the party could deliver on those promises?  I suspect that by now we're talking about quite small numbers.

Take myself as an example: I'm not particularly politically aware.  I don't know that much about each of the parties, I don't particularly believe that any of them can deliver on their promises.  I think that all of them have some good ideas, but I don't necessarily believe in all of their ideas, so I find the process of voting quite difficult.

Also I live in an area that is considered to be a safe seat.  In other words the same party gets back into power pretty much every time: so my turning out to vote is pretty much a waste of time - I might as well throw my piece of paper up in the air for all the impact it has.

But I do vote - because I feel that it is important for my voice to be heard in some way, shape or form.

So how can my voice be heard?  Well - what about some form of Electorial reform?  Well - that's handy, because very soon now we are going to have a referendum on precicely that.

It's called Alternative Vote.  What this means is that instead of voting for a specific party you have to rank all the candidates in order of preference - say from 1-5.  The Liberal Democrat party, as the 3rd biggest party, think this is a great idea that can only benefit them: because let's face it - if your first vote is for Labour then your second vote is hardly going to be for Conservative - and so they will pick up extra points.

Great for them: but is it great for us?  Well, potentially it could be: because it could force some of those parties desperate for your vote to smarten up their image, to make it a bit clearer exactly where they stand.

However: it does mean that if there is an extremist party in your area, such as the British National Party, then you have to give them a vote.  It may be your lowest vote, but you still have to give it.  Now I have a problem with this - I find it hard enough to vote for a party I'm not entirely 100% in favour of, but I really object to having to vote for one I'm 100% against.

So what about the option to vote "None of the above"?  Currently people like myself have no option to state "I don't have any faith in any party" and to have that voice heard. 

Would the introduction of an option to say "None of the above" result in the collapse of the government?  Well, as it happens people in Australia already have the option to say this and I have yet to see their government collapse - so why couldn't we have the same here?

I'd like to leave you now with another quote from the late, great Douglas Adams, who as well as saying that "any person capable of getting themselves into a position of power is the absolute last person you should allow to be there" said: "The purpose of a politician is not so much to wield power: as to take attention away from those that do"

Competition chair.

(I Wanna Be A) Chartered Accountant

This post came out of a joke between myself and Argent last night at a quiz night.  And so, with apologies to Paul McCartney, I present:

Chartered Accountant

Dear Sir or Madam, let me read your books

If the Taxman's due, let me take a look

Coz I studied numbers, and I'm good at Maths

And I need a job, and I wanna be a Chartered Accountant

Chartered Accountant

I've always known what I want to be

Yes I've always dreampt of Accountancy

Coz I'm feeling fiscal and I know my sums

I can buy a tie, would you let me be a Chartered Accountant

Chartered Accountant

Chartered Accountant

suggestions for extra verses are most welcome in response

What Are You Rebelling Against? (The Poetry Bus Challenge)

Well it's been some time since I rode the poetry bus, but some challenges are just too tempting to resist: and so it was with this week's poetry bus, as driven by The Watercats

The challenge, should we chose to accept it, was:

1: PROTEST

2: IN A FOUR LINE POEM

3: WITH A RHYME THAT HAS A RHYTHM SUCH AS THUS;
dum dum dum dum dum dee dum
dum de dum de dum dee dum
dum de dum de dum dee dee
dum de dum de dum de dee.

So - I spent some time trying to decide what to protest about.  There are so many good causes out there that need highlighting, but from the start I was more interested in finding a spurious cause - one that really doesn't need public outrage.

I thought about protesting about protest songs, i thought about protesting about busses, sausages, nipples on men - until I remembered something I'd heard a while ago.

You see it seems (or so I heard) that Warner Brothers are keen to keep the image of the Dark Knight dark and, as such have chosen to encourage those responsible to never release the 1960s Batman TV series on DVD - and if there's one thing a protest song is good for it's getting something/someone released (just look at "Free Nelson Mandela" for proof)

So here it is - the We Need Batman Released protest song

WE NEED BATMAN RELEASED

My DVD needs some capers right now

The caped-crusader, in his blue-suede cowl

Oh Warner Brothers, won't you give me some peace

We need the Batman to be released

Funny? I Nearly Laughed

It's been some time since my last post - a long time by my usual standards, but I seem to have a bit of writer's block and can't think of anything to say.

Recently I wrote two half-songs (sadly they can't be combined into one), half a speech and half an introduction to a chapter before getting bogged down - so just because sometimes you have to just plunge in and write something I'm going to do a post i've been putting off for a while.

Those of you who read my blog regularly will be familiar with, and no doubt shriek with fear at the mention of, my ongoing List-O-Fives.  We've had concept albums, movies, books, sci-fi - and a while ago I threatened to do one on sit-coms. 

Problem is that there's too many for just a basic list of five - so i thought what i'd do is a list of all the sit-coms i like, in alphabetical order - and only pick out a few for more than a brief description.

Here we go:

The Big Bang Theory - despite playing to the stereotype that all scientists and clever people are, therefore, total nerds this is sharply funny and Sheldon Cooper is surely a classic creation.  I'm quite enjoying the ongoing joke about Sheldon's deadly rivalry with Wil Wheaton as well

Blackadder - starting at the time of Richard 3rd and ending up in the 1st world war several generations of Edmund Blackadder strove to do dastardly deeds and generally failed.  My personal favourite will always be Blackadder II with the genius casting of Miranda Richardson as Queenie (Queen Elisabeth 1st) - favourite quotes include:
Queenie: They've completely vanished
Lord Percy: ...like an old oak table (and so forth)

Dad's Army - 60s-70s show about the British Home Guard - don't tell him Pike!!  A very rare combination of 100% perfect casting, very distinctive characters and top quality one liners

Father Ted - enjoyably daft comedy about three Irish priests sent to a small island essentially to keep them out of harm's way.  I had the pleasure of attending the filming of an episode in series two and got to meet Fathers Ted and Dougall afterwards.  Top episode has to be the Eurovision one

Fawlty Towers - more farce than sit-com this John Cleese vehicle is one of the most infamous sit coms and is second to none in terms of tight writing, characterisation and cringe-enducing moments

Frazier - one of the best from across the pond, right up to the point they introduced Daphne's family - but often very hard to watch because of the stupid, down-right pompous things the main character did.  Home of one of my favourite quotes: "If we were looking through the world's most powerful microscope right now I still couldn't locate my interest in your problem"

The Good Life - 70s sit-com starring Richard Briers and Felicity Kendall as two surburbanites who turn self-sufficient, to the horror of their posh neighbours.  It has been said that no truly british man can think of Felicity Kendall in The Good Life without a sigh.

One Foot In The Grave - Richard Wilson as grumpy pensioner Victor Meldrew with his long suffering wife Margaret - endlessly ranting at the world.  Last series wasn't as good, but still very funny at its best

Porridge - Ronnie Barker's shining moment and one of the best written comedies of all time about serial offender Fletcher and his fellow inmates at Slade Prison as they try and outwit the guards

Red Dwarf - 3,000,000 light years from Earth a slob, a career-no-hoper, a cat, a mechanoid and a senile computer are trying to find their way home.  First two series were actually very clever sci-fi ideas with humour, then descended into a monster-of-the-week format (though still funny for another four years) - until finally took it a series or two too far.  Best lines increasingly went to the mechanoid Kryten, including when they had to go from blue to red alert and Kryten says, "are you sure sir, it does mean changing the bulb?"

The Simpsons - does this count as a sit-com?  Maybe not - once great, not as funny as it was, but still worth watching we are all familiar with the story of America's No1 family

Still Game - shamefully overlooked Scottish sit-com about a group of pensioners living on a rough estate.

Still - i couldn't leave you withouy a chance to watch at least a bit of one of these shows - so here's that Eurovision song from Father Ted - and if you don't smile there's something wrong with you!

Actor, Artist, Writer, Painter, Ponce?

Tonight, not more than an hour or so after I finish writing this, I intend to practice my saxophone.

It will be the second practice of the week and, frankly, I’m hoping that tonight I will be more in the mood.

Half an hour, it seems, is not long enough: you’ve barely plugged the mouthpiece on straight in half-an-hour, let alone looked at all the pieces that you’re supposed to be learning, all the scales you need to practice and thrown in a bit of light relief with a bit of improvisation.

Tuesday night I wasn’t really in the mood: a couple of random squeaks that sounded like a badger breaking wind, half a song here and there and half the pacific ocean’s worth of spit and that was it.

But despite all this – I am really enjoying learning the Sax, and am starting to get reasonably ok (if you ignore the high notes), but does the fact that I now play guitar, keyboard (chords only), bass and sax make me a musician?

Well: no. I would argue not

I also paint. Well, I attempt to paint. I will be attempting to paint quite a bit next week when I have a few days off – assuming that I can think of a project (anyone who wants a free painting should probably leave a comment as to what they would like in response to this post)

I was, in fact, having a conversation with someone at about midnight last night who actually can paint – he was talking about how he experiments with colour and when I was asked if I did the same I was probably a bit over-frank when I talked about how depressed I had got each week on my last Life Drawing course (to the point where I was getting so stressed about my piss-poor results that I physically didn’t want to go each week)

Because although I like to paint, I am not ever likely to be accused of being a painter

Nor am I a writer, a photographer or a cyclist – although I do all these things.

I suppose the difference really is twofold. Firstly – one must possess a modicum of ability. Secondly – and here, I think is the clincher – one should be doing it for a living.

Take an example if you will: Deluded Talent Show Competitor – who on the third week of the competition starts describing themselves as an “artist”

You are not a bleeding artist. It’s debatable that someone who has been recording for 10 years and has a triple platinum selling album is an artist or not: you are definitely not.

So what then should be on my passport? I work in Admin Support (IT), but that’s a rather depressing thing to admit to the gallant men and women at passport control. What will it say on the plaque on the wall of the house where I was born: Don’t Feed The Pixies, inventor of the XXX, lived here?

Maybe it doesn’t matter what we call ourselves – I still enjoy doing these things (when not throwing my easel out of the window with frustration or shouting “It’s a bleeding A, you can see it’s a bleeding A, so why are you playing a bleeding D” at my saxophone), so maybe it doesn’t matter that I will never be a musician, a writer, a painter

Maybe just painting, writing and playing music is enough?

Chinwag

So a week or so ago, before I achieved my superhero like powers, I was out with one of my closest friends.

Of course, being a bloke, I don't actually have close friends - blokes don't talk about stuff like emotions and feelings and issues: we talk about sport.  Sport was invented so that men would have something to talk about to each other, rather than just sit there in stony silence until it was time to go home: I truly believe this.

Which is why it's such a shame that I have no interest in sport - but there you go.

Anyway - we shall call my friend Dino, for reasons that will go unexplained.  We could equally call him anything, i guess - but that was the first name that came to mind - so, Dino it is.

So - me and Dino were out in our "usual" - and the fact that we now have a "usual" is a clear sign that we are getting on a bit, mentally if not physically.  Only old men talk about going to the "usual" - but nonetheless: we have a "usual"

The "usual" is an old-man's pub as it happens.  The kind of place where three generations of the same family have been drinking, where the music is quiet enough so you can actually have a conversation without having to use a megaphone.  A few years ago we might have wondered from place to place a bit, but we like it here now: it's busy enough to be interesting, without being crowded: there's a good mix of people who leave you alone, the bar staff are always friendly (but not too friendly) and you can have a conversation - something that is important when you only see each other once a month or so.

We go through the usual questions about work: complaints mainly about how our geniuses have, as yet, failed to be recognised by appropriate renumeration - and then I get a text.

The text is from a girl that we both know.  See - I met Dino through work about 16 years ago now and he was the sole recipient of the Funniest Thing I Will Ever Say In My Life (sad that it was only one person who got to hear it, but there you go) when we both shared an over-warm office in what must surely be a special corner of hell reserved for those with no ambition.

We will call the girl Daffy (having started on the cartoon thing) - and the text was to say that she was out with Bugs (ok - maybe I'm stretching the cartoon thing here now), another girl that we both worked with.

Back In The Day the four of us would go out after work some nights, trail around the bars and clubs and return in the wee tiny hours.  Most of the time, as I lived some distance away, I was Designated Driver and Registered Sober Person.

But since I left the company 7-8 years ago now I have barely seen Daffy and Bugs.

Daffy is out with Bugs - and they want to know if I'm free to meet up at the end of February.  This is somewhat unexepected, but I text back and say maybe, should be yeah

And that's when it comes: what I was expecting in the first place.  A) they want to know if Dino is available and B) they want to go clubbing - to somewhere that plays the sort of stuff we used to listen to Back In The Day (i didn't even know the harpsichord was still about, to be honest, but there you go)

And immidiately I'm annoyed, again.  Because it's like this every single time.  Whenever we get together, for whatever reason: they always seem to want to make it some big reunion thing.  It has to be the four of us together, or none at all.

And it annoys me because Daffy and Bugs already see each other on a regular basis, they already do the things they are suggesting to do.  It's been 12-18 months since I've seen either of them: what I want to do when I do see them is have a chance to talk: to catch up on their lives - get to know them again: not to try and re-capture my youth.  Those days are gone, and quite frankly its for the best

Also - being out with Daffy and Bugs together is somewhat difficult - they immediately go into girlie mode and it's almost like you are just there in the background, hanging onto the tail ends of their evening.

I don't understand why it is so impossible for me to just meet up with Daffy, or Bugs, for a coffee and a chat from time to time.  If they want to meet up with Dino they can do that as well - but it seems that the four of us together is the deal breaker and that my company alone is never sufficient for them.

I wouldn't be saying any of this if Dino didn't feel the same way: I think we both feel that we've grown up since those days and neither of us feels any desire to try and recapture our youths.

To be honest I never really enjoyed the club scene that much: I never quite knew where to put myself and how to start conversations: the thought of hanging out with people XXX years younger than me in a nightclub sends shivers down my spine. 

It's not too much to ask is it, to just have a normal friendship with both, where one, or the other, of us meets up for a chat?  You can never go back