TV Talent Shows

Still being in the land where t’interweb is the stuff of witchcraft means that the good WordPress robot has picked another story previously publised on the Jerrychicken Blogspot site a couple of years ago…

Living in our house as a child meant a relentless diet of tv talent shows, our dad was a big fan being as he was an amateur entertainer himself. He would only visit pubs or clubs that had a “turn” on, even just a bloke playing a piano would qualify as a “turn” for him and he was a huge supporter of the CIU, the organisation that supports and publicises the phenomenon of “working mens clubs” in the UK as it was in the clubs that he could indulge in his passion of grabbing a microphone at any opportunity to croon in a Sinatra stylee to the hapless audience.

Down Memory Lane – Ventriloquists

Being in exile in the North East for the New Year period with no access to t’interweb (its still all very Catherine Cookson up there) I have trawled the archives of the former Jerrychicken.Blogspot site to find a few posts that I enjoyed – a WordPress robot will post them in my absence over the next few days.

The first one was originally posted 9th July 07 on the subject of ventriloquists and attracted one particular very long comment that spoke in glowing terms of the art of ventriloquism and appeared to miss the flavour of the article by a margin of several miles – I think it was signed “Keith Harris”

Eagle

I requested, and received, a spiffing book as a Christmas present this year – The Eagle Annual – a compilation of “The Best of The Eagle” recently published but made to look shabby in an antique stylee complete with scuffed corners and mildewed pages – gosh, its a wonderful, absolutely marvellous  read, a must for all boys.

The Eagle comic was first published in April 1950 by a vicar and a cartoonist in an effort to divert teenage boys attention away from the nasty horrible American comic books that were flooding the country with lurid tales of violence and corruption – Batman and Captain Marvel were strong stuff for a vicar to stomach in that patriarchal society of 1950.

Roundhay Park

The best laid plans and all that…ditched the Garden of Rest tour yesterday and went instead for a gentle stroll with friends and Jake our Retriever around our city’s equivalent to Central Park NY, Roundhay Park, along with several thousand other people it seems.

Roundhay Park is billed as one of  the largest city parks in Europe at around 700 acres and was purchased by the city council in 1871 having been a hunting park since the 13th century.

Built on a sloping site a natural amphitheatre nestles in the middle with a 100,000 capacity (on a good day) where during random summers various artists such as Madonna, Springsteen, The Stones and Michael Jackson have entertained, none of whom have been seen by me.

Ten Years Today…

Ten years ago today, almost to this very minute that I am typing this, I plugged the telephone back into its socket from whence I’d deliberately unplugged it on Christmas Day, within 30 minutes the call that I’d been expecting since Christmas Eve came, a young male nurse advising that he was very sorry to inform me that my father had died during the night.

It wasn’t unexpected, hence the reason for leaving the phone disconnected the previous day so as not to “spoil” Christmas Day for my two young children, callous in some eyes, practical in mine, there was nothing to be served in spoiling their Christmas and nothing to be gained in learning the news a few hours earlier, maybe I’m just more practical than emotional about death.

Seasons Greetings

Merry Christmas everyone !!!

Yes, I know it looks like I forgot and just scribbled this on an old piece of notebook paper, and yes, that is precisely the truth, but its the thought that counts and next year you’ll all be wanting scribbled bits of notebook paper instead of proper christmas cards, so just think – you saw it here first.

Mr Holmes and his Ambitious Nativity Plans

So, ’tis the night before Christmas and all over the land parents will be tucking up their kinder for a sleepless night of “has he been yet” questioning while memories of their angels recent appearances in the school nativity play will bring lumps to throats and tears to the corner of eyes.

I bloody hated the school nativity plays when I was a kid.

Getting the brain back in gear

It was difficult to write yesterday, difficult because the brain was operating at less than 50% capacity having had a particularly heavy night of it on Friday in Birmingham and the company christmas “do”.

Ned and I split £100 two ways, spending on booze for the use of, (I have spent less than this amount on booze during the whole of 2008), we spent a little of this in the bar beforehand but by a stroke of good fortune Ned was handed a small red card by one of our fellow directors with the instructions that it was the company tab behind the bar – something that the MD apparently had no knowledge of even when she noticed that all the directors appeared to have one except her, her husband then produced one from his pocket and declared that yes, he had one too.

Clowns

Poor old PC Konk the Clown, strip searched by security staff at Birmingham airport before boarding a flight to, erm, Birmingham because his belt set off the metal detectors and the liquid bubble stuff in his saxophone wasn’t contained in a clear plastic bag.

Remind me again why I’m not bothered if I never see the inside of an airport again ?

Video Saturday – Leona Lewis

If this works correctly then this vid should upload during my absence and whilst I am trying to resurface from the depths of a very deep hangover – we shall see.

With the exception of Will Young I have yet to see an even half decent act win X-Factor, Pop Idol et al, but this performance of Snow Patrol’s  song “Run” by Leona Lewis was simply stunning when aired on X-Factor a couple of weeks ago.