Hello Big Sis - sorry to have to correct you but I AM officially going to Glastonbury for the Today programme. We're not co-presenting from there, but will be doing little inserts and packages from there on Friday and Saturday morning. John H will be in London, unless he's going off-duty!
But of course if PM need me, as Michael Jackson sang ......"I''ll be there...".
sequin
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Which hotel you staying at?
I presume this mud-phobia is chronic :) xx
why does the Today program want 'little inserts and packages'from Glastonbury?
I bet John H wouldn't do it!
You go, Sequin!
But don't wear yourself out. Those batteries may run out.
I believe "I'll Be There" was actually sung by the Four Tops. Clearly, knowing this means that I am not cool enough for Glasto...
Oh Sequin, lucky you! Sadly, unlike you, I won't be there ..... but will be thinking of you, wishing you well, and deeply, deeply envious. Oh - and listening to your reports!
What a pity John H won't be with you. He's not too old to party .... Is he?
Where is everybody this week?
Eddie goes away - and the blog is left hovering around 100 comments!!!
Even the beach has gone quiet? - No it''s not your fault Carolyn - Honest!
But maybe we get used to Eddie's feedback - well as the day goes on! - you'd be amazed at how many click through here!
Come on boys, Carolyn -- stimulate us!
On that note - the Froogers song will be avaiable this time next week - and for anyone who hasn't yet seen Andy's latest PM special! :-) -- then just click on my name above , watch the video - and have a little chat about things - live - with other PM'ers.
Eddie Mair Plug
Although I have heard it mentioned, accross the network - here is another reminder-: Thursday (today) at 8PM on ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 4
20:00
Cleaning out the Camp
Eddie Mair:
Investigates the attitude and policy of the armed services towards homosexuality over the last 60 years.
The laissez-faire attitude during the Second World War quickly gave way to an anti-gay crackdown, despite the liberalisation of social attitudes leading up to the Sexual Offences Act of 1967.
So - tune in at eight - Radio 4 ! tonight!
Should we organise a one to one chatroom with our Blogmeister, after transmission?
Everything is possible :-)
Sequin- if you happen to see my daughter (long hair and always in jeans, noisy-you won't miss her....) could you remind her to keep her feet dry .
Oh, and could she let us know if she passed her finals- just a thought!
Kids today, eh!!
Actually, I adore them!
Enjoy Glas- don't worry about t.p- take your own toilet.
Mollyxx
Re: Cleaning out the Camp chatroom
Well, Jonnie, do you want to try to contact Eddie to ask him?
Incidentally, that title, combined with Mollie's posting, created a mental picture of Sequin in her wellies clearing mud out of the campervan/tent.
Big Sis :-
HaHaHa -- One of those moments when you made me laugh out loud!
jonnie @6 -- where is everyone, you ask.
If it was taking more than six hours for comments to appear, which it was for one of mine (and then of course when I tried to remember what I had said to repost it, both comments appeared at the same time) it may be simply a loss of the will to live, or otherwise abandoning hope like the wan swan upon the lake like a cake of soap. If there is that long a time-lag, conversation becomes a bit stilted. Also one feels a bit of a fool for being apparently out-of-touch with what may (or may not) have been said in the intervening time and appears first.
Was there a technical hitch going on yesterday and the day before, perhaps? The 'recent comments' listed are all about a day old now and haven't changed even though lots of other stuff has gone up since, and the Glass Box for Friday has vanished off the front page but not been linked to the Glass Box section, so it seems likely. I've written to the Frog Prince Marc about it and got no reply, and now I am worried: maybe he's ill?
re Little Inserts and Packages:
Is this the Sequin's Magic Potions dispensary, perchance? :-)
blimey..it aint 'arf dark in 'ere....did the blog get flooded in the recent storms or has Eddie taken the keys with him?
jonnie (7).... 'ow much is e payin' u to keep plugging his sidelines?
..or are YOU his new agent (provocateur)?
...the public has a right to know......init
Chris:- What poetic writing, a pleasure to read.
Why is the swan
Wan
On the lake ?
He has abandoned hope
Yes Chris - Eddie is probably responsible for more than we think in chivvying up the blog - anyhoo -
You got me thinking about sayings and quotes
Here's a funny one :-
The 't' is silent as in 'Harlow'.
Margot Asquith, explaining the pronunciation of her Christian name to Jean Harlow
Any other gems around from the Froggers
Jonnie, I think its that we are all busy. I've just had a year end, so acounts sfuff to keep me occupied. FF is off in the good old u s of a. fifi may be lurking. I have not the time to make considered and serious comments at present (not that the comments I make are particulaly serious)
Thanks forthe reminder about the thing tonight. Its kids bed time so it will be listen again or record it for me
Sequin,
If you take along a supply of dried fruit as I advised, there should be no need for little inserts. Packages, of course, should be examined carefully before partaking.
xx
ed
Di (13) As I've said before on the frog, I need all the reminders I can get about programmes I'd like to hear, and the one Jonnie listed is among them. I'll probably miss it, and the tape deck is playing-up, so poor prospects there.
I'm a bit confused by the word "Camp". I'd not heard of it as an adjective until c5 years ago, then on a recent R4 film programme someone was talking about a fairly old film being very camp. It sounded pejorative, what did he mean?
I know someone going to Glastonbury - be sure to get his autograph.
Re: DIWyman -- well I don't think it gets a repeat - and isn't on at the best time - but sounds interesting.
It's listed on the 'Listen again site as a 'Choice of the day' which is helpful.
/radio4/progs/listenagain.shtml
camp
informal
• adjective 1 (of a man) ostentatiously and extravagantly effeminate. 2 deliberately exaggerated and theatrical in style.
• noun camp behaviour or style.
• verb (usu. camp it up) behave in a camp way.
— DERIVATIVES campy adjective.
— ORIGIN of unknown origin.
Vyle - think Dale Winton and John Inman. Having said that it's a term I've heard for a long long time, especialy in the phrase -he's as camp as a row of tents' which I probably shouldn't find funny but do.
C A M P
Re Vyle:-
This is the description according to Wikipaedia :-
Camp (style), an ironic appreciation of that which might otherwise be considered outlandish or corny
Alluding to obvious signs of stereotypical homosexual behaviour.
I think I'd go along with the second one - but let's say Mr Humphries in 'Are you being served' was 'Camp' - probably all started with Julian and Sandy (Kenneth Williams and Hugh Paddick) from Round the Horne.
Aren't you bold! Vyle
hello all. chris @ 11 - thanks for your concern. Worse than being ill, I'm in Brussels for the EU summit, which means my eye is perhaps not as much on the pmblog ball as it normally is, what with not being chained to a computer as often. i am also away on holiday next week - my first of the year...any tips on Tallinn/Helsinki most welcome - so who knows what chaos might ensue in my absence. I have told all the grown-ups, such that they know who to contact in the event of an emergency. But my fingers are crossed.
Just heard on the World at One:
"Mr Brown's camp is engaged in a camp-aign, and deliberately went round the back..."
xx
ed
And now we have a "backdoor route" to a constitution...
;-)
jonnie @14, yes, sorry, I should have attributed the bereaved swan to Stevie Smith. My Ma used to quote it, and I didn't find out where it came from for about twenty years.
Meanwhile, p'raps we ought to remind Sequin of something Geoffrey Ashe once said: 'You only have to tell some crazy story in Glastonbury, and in ten years' time it's an ancient Somerset legend.'
(Several other people are also credited with saying that in Glastonbury.)
Ah, Julian and Sandy! Wonderful comedy, sadly not too well known now. With the wonderful inversion that Kenneth Horne's character was often the innocent abroad in those sketches, unaware of the (unstated) assumption that the pair of them were supposedly gay. A lot of the humour flowed from that lack of understanding, which gave some marvellous double entendres, such as;
HORNE: Will you take my case?
JULIAN: Well, it depends on what it is. We've got a criminal practice that takes up most of our time.
HORNE: Yes, but apart from that — I need legal advice.
SANDY: Ooh, isn't he bold?
And it introduced Polari to a mainstream audience. Interestingly a couple of words from Polari were in common use in the Navy when I was still there, namely 'batts' (for shoes/boots) and 'dish' for a person's backside. And probably others besides. Given that our Eddie's rogramme tonight covers the topic of the military attitude to homosexuality it's more topical than usual.
Si.
Marc @23: 'I'm in Brussels for the EU summit'
omigahd -- jonnie, this is serious! Quick, we must organise food parcels!
Get well soon, Marc, and have a lovely time in Finland. Somewhere on the Beach you'll find advice about keeping the mozzies at bay with Marmite and garlic. All the *best* people are heading that way this year, it seems. :-)
:o)
Bottom Lines
While rock star Sheryl Crow recently suggested that people might limit their toilet paper use to address climate change, the reality behind the tissue's consumption is no joke, according to figures in the July/August issue of . Per capita annual consumption of toilet tissue in North America is roughly 23 kilograms (50 pounds), versus 1.8 kilograms (4 pounds) in Asia and 0.4 kilograms (less than 1 pound) in Africa.
Wipe that grin off your face!
Thanks to all of you for explaining "Camp". I can see what the film critic must have meant.
As a child I used to find Julian & Sandie very amusing, without having a clue about many of the jokes.
Another joke(?) on WATO was the suggestion that with the departure of Mr. Blair there may be the risk of a hung parliament. Call me cynical, but I thought his departure was going to give the Labour Party better prospects.
And if he's going to the Middle East, he's got off to a good start with the Rushdie story.
Ed I (30)
Well, I use a lot of toilet roll to:-
• blow my nose when I have a bad cold (usually it's more to hand than facial tissues);
• wipe things clean in the workshop/garage, e.g. oily bicycle parts;
• mop up spillages of other things.
Maybe they have fewer colds in Africa, fewer dirty mechanical items and less concern about ruining their expensive floor coverings.
Oo-er; that was designated malicious. Sorry to have offended.
There there Sparky Marc, it will all be over soon.
Vyle;
You might be right about Blair and the Labour electoral prospects if all things were equal.
But consider the West Lothian question first raised by Tam Dalyell. That a Westminster MP, sitting in a Scottish seat, can vote for policies at Westminster that affect English and / or Welsh people, but which have no effect in his homeland, because the Holyrood parliament has those powers exclusively in Scotland.
Gordon Brown is such an MP. not just a backbencher, but next week the Prime Minister. Worse still, the Scots electorate, knowing of his imminent ascent voted against his party, so that Labour's writ no longer runs north of the border.
English people (especially) have a right to ask why such a man can govern fully in England and Wales, where he doesn't have a constituency, whilst his own country is run by another party.
This question, posed many years ago, will now haunt Brown all the years of his premiership. Every time he casts a vote on a matter where power is devolved there will be the potential for it to be asked again. Yet Labour needs those Scottish seats to maintain it's majority, so the Scots MP's will be whipped through the voting lobbies voting on matters which have no effect in their own constituencies.
In those circumstances one might expect a gradual fall in support for Labour. Add that to the fact that, for all his faults, Blair was charismatic and Brown is perceived to be dour and grim, despite the best efforts of 'Project Gordon' to change his public image. This does not add up to a good recipe for Labour in the coming years.
It still requires the other parties to be electable though. And that's by no means to be taken foregranted. Cameron has made a good start, but has stumbled over grammar schools in recent weeks, Ming has taken the LibDems backwards in the face of a weakening Government in the recent local elections. Add that to the shenanigans of the last two days regarding deals with Brown and his position has certainly weakened further.
Hung Parliament? Not necessarily, but the future is quite difficult to predict right now. My personal feeling, as a fairly middle-of-the-road Tory, is that Brown is a liability in England and will join the limited ranks of those who became PM but never won a general election.
Si.
So true, Si. See my similar comments here.
Deja vu?
ed
Middle of the road Tory? Rubbish! There is no such thing. A Tory is always right wing. Labour is now centre ground and sadly we have no recognizable left wing of any size in this country.
Back to topic, and I'm listening to Sequin splashing around at the moment...
...and now Evan drooling over the financial benefits to the local community.
Perhaps this week The Beach should be renamed The Field in honour of Sequin's adventure?
But I don't want to go to a field Mittfh! Especially not a muddy one!!
The Field of Honour?
xx
ed
(I woke up to Sequin's dulcet tones while I listened to gentle rain on the canvas above me, snuggled warm in my duvet. A squirrel was munching peanuts a few meters away...Heaven!)
How malicious (x3) can you get? I can do worse, y'know.
Monkey (36)
You have reminded me of the period leading up to Mrs. Thatcher's arrival at No. 10, when she was constantly talking about the "Moderate Policies" her party wanted to implement.
Delighted when she won, I voted for another party at the Euro elections that followed soon after. I particularly didn't like Sir Geoffrey Howe taking loads of money from the poor and handng it to the rich (via interest rate hike).
Si,
I agree with you. Can't help wondering if Ming thinks he's in line for a directly elected dynasty.
Hmml, that's been marked as malicious. Why? Well, I think the system can't distinguish between a preview and a submit that has been slightly edited after the preview.