Celtic Granny

I confess that I am almost disinterested in sport. This morning I tuned into Sky News & I saw the ultimate in sport boredom. There is a village in France that hosts snail races. Yes snails,—- you know those slimy creatures that gobble stuff in your garden? People come to this village & bring their own snails. The snails are grouped in the middle of a round table. They are given team colours & the race begins. The first snail to get mobile & creep to the edge of the table is the winner. Do the humans watching have a life? The reward for the winning snail? I would have thought retirement to a luscious garden would have been appropriate but no. The winning snail is spared the cooking pot. His/her other slower brethren cooked & gobbled by the watching spectators. Here was I in my ignorance thinking that watching ladies at the Olympics standing stockstill, squinting their eyes & shooting missiles at a target was the ultimate in boredom. I was wrong. It has to be snail racing. Ah well the whole world is very odd. Thank the lord for the differences I say. We are all the victims of our genes.

Cheers from a somewhat bewildered blogger.

I had plans last night to watch the closing ceremony of the Olympics. Alas! The best laid schemes o’ mice & men etc. I fell asleep in my chair. When I woke up again I gave up the struggle & went to bed. I crashed until six this morning. But with any luck I will be watching re-runs on T.V. for the next month.

Of course the excitement surrounding the Olympics was nothing compared to the excitement generated by our snowfall last week! As short & sweet as it was it was a really exciting happening. Yesterday morning when I went out at 8.15 as usual to go to church I was met by an icy & I mean icy wind. As an Afrikaans speaking friend explained to me, dit gaan deur murg & bene & that it did. For one mad moment I thought some geographical power had shifted Gauteng to the North Pole. How did I survive so many British winters? I have gone soft in my olds age. Roll on summer.

I am reading the Christopher Isherwood book, one of the Berlin Stories. This is the one that the show Cabaret is based on. In reading this I am astonished at the mind that could read this & evolve a show like Cabaret. It is a really dark story. A section of Berlin society at that time was in many ways perverted & sleazy. This is not Nora Roberts but I am enjoying it. In the meantime a friend has lent me three of John Grisham’s novels. They are crying out to be read as well. If I only had a robot trained to dust, sweep, polish, wash dishes, cook food, go shopping, answer the telephone & run my bath I could read & read & read. Maybe I am just bone lazy?

To prove that I am not lazy let me say cheers for now & go start washing bedclothes. 

Instead of having a public holiday on a Thursday why don’t the people in charge always pick a Friday? That way a lot of people would get the benefit of a week end. Instead of declaring the 9^th of August to be Woman’s Day it should be the second Friday of August is Woman’s day whatever the date.

Looking at my calendar here I see the 16^th is youth Day. Yet another holiday. It’s a mystery to me when I am at our local Mall to see the number of teenagers in school uniforms during what used to be school hours wandering around the shops. At my age I have become invisible to the youth. Generally speaking they are like a bitter cold wind. They would rather go through me as round me. Instead of Youth Day we should have a Geriatrics Day. There could be prizes for the person over 70 who could still turn cartwheels, touch their toes, dance a fandango, (what is that?)  There could be medals for the prettiest wheelchair or Zimmer frame. The possibilities are endless.

Enough! I must get back to the real world & have some breakfast, so cheers for now. 

The snow made yesterday a day to remember. It came, I saw, it melted. While it lasted I had an enchanted garden. Somehow this morning my grass looks greener & all the trees & bushes look rejuvenated. Imagination? Probably.

I am still recovering from the effect of seeing Cabaret last week. I saw the film years ago & enjoyed it. I thought the stage version superior to the film version. I think perhaps the stage version is nearer the contents of the book. Nobody to blame for that. Hollywood has to put a superficial gloss on everything or at least it had to in the days when they first made Cabaret. On the stage there was no character who was lacking or weak. They all came across as believable. I don’t know when the show ends at Monte Casino but if you intend to see it don’t read any further as I will tell too much of the plot. 

It is a dark story to turn into a musical but it worked for me. Two songs stood out. In the film it was a young boy who sang the song about nature& the beauty of the land. In the stage version it was a lovely blonde young woman standing on a chair. You are lulled into a peaceful mood with the beginning words & lovely melody & then comes the chorus. “Tomorrow belongs to us”. The Nazi salutes start & you suddenly glimpse the true spirit behind this. Maybe it is hindsight but it gave me the creeps both in the film & more especially on the stage. The other song was ”If you could see her through my eyes.” I have never forgotten Joel Gray in the film singing this & my shock at the cruelty of it. The stage young man was equally, if not more, cruel. The Emcee of the Kit Kat Club is dancing with a gorilla. The audience is laughing at him. At the end of the song he sings with such a sweet cruel smile—“If you could see her through my eyes, she doesn’t look Jewish at all.” Even though I knew it was coming it still shocked me. One thing I don’t remember in the film was the finale where the Emcee takes of his leather jacket & reveals his yellow star which marks him as a Jew. It is such a contrast to the usual musical light hearted story where boy meets girl & etc., etc., & they all live happily ever after. I grew up with the Noel Coward & those other airy fairy Englishmen whose music I still enjoy so Cabaret is for me light years away from that era.

In November all being well I will return to Monte Casino to watch Dirty Dancing. As you can imagine my musical taste is very varied. Rap singers & Gospel singers excluded. Cheers for now,.