A particularly odd one. Any mention of an armadillo means a mental rerun of the 90s UK advert for the Dime/Daim chocolate bar. The animal is 'crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside' in comparison with the Dime which is the opposite. All in a West Country accent.
Oh gods, yes! I remember those ads!
ARMADILLOES! Once seen, never forgotten!
I have never been able to take the works of Dumas seriously (or anyway I take them even less seriously than they were intended to be taken) having been brought up on Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds. My mental picture of the heroes is forever canine.
Goose attacks. We have Canada geese around here, and they have a distressing propensity to do daft things like nesting over the main entrance to a busy building, and then hiss and menace the workers coming and going. I hiss back. I was harassed by a giant greenwing macaw for years, and any beak less impressive is not cutting ice with me.
I saw a French magazine once where Bishop of Bath and Wells was translated literally as l'Évêque des Bains et des Puits. Must have given a very strange impression of the structures of the Church of England...
I also find Blackadder hit and miss, but when it hits, it's great. I always found the original Blackadder the weakest of the four. Robbie Coltrane as Dr Johnson, and the actors teaching the Prince Regent to orate (Roar!!! and Do you mean Macbeth?) are comedic genius.
Ever since I've seen Posh Nosh, cooking shows that use stupid verbs make smile, whereas the make me angry. "As you see, these [vegetables] have already been embarrassed." Comedy as therapy.
I have never been able to take the works of Dumas seriously (or anyway I take them even less seriously than they were intended to be taken) having been brought up on Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds. My mental picture of the heroes is forever canine.
I own the DVDs because we used that ending of Blackadder Goes Fourth when teaching WW1. It's far more Not The Nine O'Clock News than anything else with Rowan Atkinson who I only liked in Blackadder and NTNON.
John Lloyd produced Blackadder with other regulars Tony Robinson, Tim McInnery, Stephen Fry, Ben Elton & Richard Curtis wrote it, Hugh Laurie was in some series, as was Miranda Richardson. It's more like Upstart Crow, also written by Ben Elton.
I am a big fan of Blackadder and I found the ending to be moving. However, I don't think that it represents WW1 very well. It gives the impression that everyone who went over the top was doomed and this was certainly not true.
When you look at some village memorials, you realise that in some cases, everyone in such places was doomed. And as soldiers went over the top they must have been aware that they could have been facing their individual dooms.
When my grandfather, who had served as a medical orderly, took me to the top of the Road of Remembrance in Folkestone, a road built to take the men down to the extra piers built for the ships to take them over to the place from where they could already hear the guns, he certainly gave me the impression that for many, many of those young men, their doom lay ahead of them.
Back then, the town still kept up the banks of rosemary along the sides of the road.
Apologies for the double post but something I read reminded me:
Anybody named Ralph (for readers of the Judy Blume book 'Forever')
It is a testimony to the standing of Forever in popular youth culture that I know what you are refering to, despite having never read the book. (Well, except for that one passage, because those who were reading the novel seemed to want everyone to know about it.)
@stetson That book went round my entire class. I seem to remember it wasn't bad (having read the whole work, not just the relevant chapter), even if my tastes at the time ran more to Douglas Adams than Judy Blume.
@stetson That book went round my entire class. I seem to remember it wasn't bad (having read the whole work, not just the relevant chapter), even if my tastes at the time ran more to Douglas Adams than Judy Blume.
Yeah, I know the book wasn't bad, in the sense of gratuitously pornographic or anything. Definitely the kind of thing that in Grade 7 had an aura of taboo-breaking about iy, though.
(That said, our school library carried books by Robert Cormier, which included scenes that were more-or-less as graphic as what was in Forever, but which no one seemed to think merited much excited commentary. Perhaps the fact that his books were aimed at boys had something to do with it. Or maybe that I was the only one who bothered to read them?)
(That said, our school library carried books by Robert Cormier, which included scenes that were more-or-less as graphic as what was in Forever, but which no one seemed to think merited much excited commentary. Perhaps the fact that his books were aimed at boys had something to do with it. Or maybe that I was the only one who bothered to read them?)
A copy of "The Chocolate War" used to float around at school. The previous owner had written on the inside cover:
Did you know that this guy is supposedly a children's author? Don't have too many nightmares!
(That said, our school library carried books by Robert Cormier, which included scenes that were more-or-less as graphic as what was in Forever, but which no one seemed to think merited much excited commentary. Perhaps the fact that his books were aimed at boys had something to do with it. Or maybe that I was the only one who bothered to read them?)
A copy of "The Chocolate War" used to float around at school. The previous owner had written on the inside cover:
Did you know that this guy is supposedly a children's author? Don't have too many nightmares!
As far as I'm concerned, Cormier's "nightmare" portrayal of school life was charitable, compared to the reality. Examples available upon request.
I haven't read the book, but I've seen the movie. Having taught in a Catholic high school run by the Marist Brothers and Dominican Nuns, I can attest to the reality.
I thought you said "run by Marxist Brothers and Dominican Nuns" and was briefly diverted wondering what this very leftist Catholic order I had not heard of, was all about.
Some of them could well have been Marxist. I personally witnessed the principal of the Boys Division, Brother Brendan, give detention to one of my students, a good, gentle boy who would never dream of misbehaving in the slightest, for closing his locker door too loudly.
I thought you said "run by Marxist Brothers and Dominican Nuns" and was briefly diverted wondering what this very leftist Catholic order I had not heard of, was all about.
I read it as run by Marx Brothers - trying to imagine a school where Groucho, Chico and Harpo were in charge. At least the music lessons would have been fun.
The Grieg piano concerto by Grieg just came on the radio. Masterpiece though it may be, in my mind, it is indelibly associated with Morecambe and Wise and "Andrew Preview" in All the Right Notes, Not Necessarily in the Right Order (also why the piece always has that name in my head).
We tried and tried to get into it- nope. Neither of us can see why it got any accolades at all. 🤔
While I'm always ready to admit that not every piece of entertainment (especially comedy, as all our senses of humour differ so much) is for everyone, I do think it's worth pointing out that Schitt's Creek is one of the most notoriously slow-start shows in recent TV history. Very few people like or get into it from the first several episodes. I watched an episode or two when it first aired, thought, "This is pretty weak, and feels very CBC comedy" (a damning-with-faith-damns that will be best understood by fellow Canadians). Didn't find it funny at all. Gave it a second try later when the series was almost over and had gained such popularity, and found that near the end of the first season I got very invested in the characters and started to love it. That's obviously not going to happen for every viewer, but I do feel that 1) it's a show that took awhile to find its rhythm, and 2) the humour in Schitt's Creek is 100% dependent on knowing and caring about the characters, which takes a lot of time to build.
This is not to say you need to give it another shot, but just to point out something that I think is true of a lot of shows, but especially of this one.
..... Dame Patricia Routledge,.....
I would have loved to see her as Lady Bracknell.
I did have the very great pleasure of seeing Dame Patricia Routledge as Lady Bracknell.
She was about as close to the image I'd held in my mind of Lady Bracknell, since studying The Importance of Being Earnest for O Level, as I think it was possible to get.
..... Dame Patricia Routledge,.....
I would have loved to see her as Lady Bracknell.
I did have the very great pleasure of seeing Dame Patricia Routledge as Lady Bracknell.
She was about as close to the image I'd held in my mind of Lady Bracknell, since studying The Importance of Being Earnest for O Level, as I think it was possible to get.
I am jealous!
It occurred to me the other day that I suspect she would also be entertaining to see as Eulalie Mackecknie Shinn (the mayor’s wife) in The Music Man. I can just imagine her Grecian urns and her “Balzac!”
We tried and tried to get into it- nope. Neither of us can see why it got any accolades at all. 🤔
While I'm always ready to admit that not every piece of entertainment (especially comedy, as all our senses of humour differ so much) is for everyone, I do think it's worth pointing out that Schitt's Creek is one of the most notoriously slow-start shows in recent TV history. Very few people like or get into it from the first several episodes. I watched an episode or two when it first aired, thought, "This is pretty weak, and feels very CBC comedy" (a damning-with-faith-damns that will be best understood by fellow Canadians). Didn't find it funny at all. Gave it a second try later when the series was almost over and had gained such popularity, and found that near the end of the first season I got very invested in the characters and started to love it. That's obviously not going to happen for every viewer, but I do feel that 1) it's a show that took awhile to find its rhythm, and 2) the humour in Schitt's Creek is 100% dependent on knowing and caring about the characters, which takes a lot of time to build.
This is not to say you need to give it another shot, but just to point out something that I think is true of a lot of shows, but especially of this one.
Agree - my family were split on it. It takes to the end of S1 before you see the genius. Which is more than some people can cope with.
We tried and tried to get into it- nope. Neither of us can see why it got any accolades at all. 🤔
While I'm always ready to admit that not every piece of entertainment (especially comedy, as all our senses of humour differ so much) is for everyone, I do think it's worth pointing out that Schitt's Creek is one of the most notoriously slow-start shows in recent TV history. Very few people like or get into it from the first several episodes. I watched an episode or two when it first aired, thought, "This is pretty weak, and feels very CBC comedy" (a damning-with-faith-damns that will be best understood by fellow Canadians). Didn't find it funny at all. Gave it a second try later when the series was almost over and had gained such popularity, and found that near the end of the first season I got very invested in the characters and started to love it. That's obviously not going to happen for every viewer, but I do feel that 1) it's a show that took awhile to find its rhythm, and 2) the humour in Schitt's Creek is 100% dependent on knowing and caring about the characters, which takes a lot of time to build.
This is not to say you need to give it another shot, but just to point out something that I think is true of a lot of shows, but especially of this one.
Thank you. I suspected this - we are not so difficult to please! When we run out of stuff to watch we’ll give it another go, if I can persuade Mr Boogs. We are lucky to have exactly the same taste viewing-wise.
[Niche alert] I can't take John Blow's Salvator Mundi seriously since discovering a small bit of "Twist and Shout" in the second soprano part. Yes, I did say it was niche.
Oh, and Beethoven's Piano Sonata Op.111 with the jazzy bit.
We tried and tried to get into it- nope. Neither of us can see why it got any accolades at all. 🤔
While I'm always ready to admit that not every piece of entertainment (especially comedy, as all our senses of humour differ so much) is for everyone, I do think it's worth pointing out that Schitt's Creek is one of the most notoriously slow-start shows in recent TV history. Very few people like or get into it from the first several episodes. I watched an episode or two when it first aired, thought, "This is pretty weak, and feels very CBC comedy" (a damning-with-faith-damns that will be best understood by fellow Canadians). Didn't find it funny at all. Gave it a second try later when the series was almost over and had gained such popularity, and found that near the end of the first season I got very invested in the characters and started to love it. That's obviously not going to happen for every viewer, but I do feel that 1) it's a show that took awhile to find its rhythm, and 2) the humour in Schitt's Creek is 100% dependent on knowing and caring about the characters, which takes a lot of time to build.
This is not to say you need to give it another shot, but just to point out something that I think is true of a lot of shows, but especially of this one.
This of course couldn't have happened in the golden days of TV -- they air the episode once and if you didn't catch it, you wait until it's in reruns. The ability to watch episodes on demand allows for slower storytelling, or maybe for the writers to take a while to get their feet. Or be sacked and replaced with better.
Hugh Jackman. I just keep wondering what an Ackman is and why he's named for having a huge one.
Well thank you for that, I'm never going to be able to take Mr Jackman seriously ever again!!
Well you have to feel sorry for the man. In Greatest Showman (which my daughter makes me watch, I might add) he sees his childhood sweetheart disappear to finishing school and by the time she gets back he's apparently aged about 15 years more than she has...
Tangent, spun off from the Wimbledon thread in All Saints, where this definitely does not belong. Every time I see the thread title, it turns itself into a novel as a religious version of "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell". As Emmanuel Wimbledon looks like a person's name, not a church.
Tangent, spun off from the Wimbledon thread in All Saints, where this definitely does not belong. Every time I see the thread title, it turns itself into a novel as a religious version of "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell". As Emmanuel Wimbledon looks like a person's name, not a church.
I thought the same. I see Emmanuel Wimbledon* as a rather eccentric Victorian churchman of good family.
"Emma" mattress ads have been making me smirk for a while now - having long ago had a girlfriend of that name, my first thought when I saw one was "It's been a long time since I sent a night on top of an Emma!"
Comments
ARMADILLOES! Once seen, never forgotten!
I have never been able to take the works of Dumas seriously (or anyway I take them even less seriously than they were intended to be taken) having been brought up on Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds. My mental picture of the heroes is forever canine.
Ever since I've seen Posh Nosh, cooking shows that use stupid verbs make smile, whereas the make me angry. "As you see, these [vegetables] have already been embarrassed." Comedy as therapy.
Earworm alert!
(Warning: gets a bit gruesome.)
I am a big fan of Blackadder and I found the ending to be moving. However, I don't think that it represents WW1 very well. It gives the impression that everyone who went over the top was doomed and this was certainly not true.
When my grandfather, who had served as a medical orderly, took me to the top of the Road of Remembrance in Folkestone, a road built to take the men down to the extra piers built for the ships to take them over to the place from where they could already hear the guns, he certainly gave me the impression that for many, many of those young men, their doom lay ahead of them.
Back then, the town still kept up the banks of rosemary along the sides of the road.
It is a testimony to the standing of Forever in popular youth culture that I know what you are refering to, despite having never read the book. (Well, except for that one passage, because those who were reading the novel seemed to want everyone to know about it.)
Yeah, I know the book wasn't bad, in the sense of gratuitously pornographic or anything. Definitely the kind of thing that in Grade 7 had an aura of taboo-breaking about iy, though.
(That said, our school library carried books by Robert Cormier, which included scenes that were more-or-less as graphic as what was in Forever, but which no one seemed to think merited much excited commentary. Perhaps the fact that his books were aimed at boys had something to do with it. Or maybe that I was the only one who bothered to read them?)
And I can never hear the Sermon on the Mount without thinking “Blessed are the cheesemakers”
Really? I must listen to that bit of Vivaldi to compare! If so, it will instantly join the list of "things I can't take seriously..."
A copy of "The Chocolate War" used to float around at school. The previous owner had written on the inside cover:
Did you know that this guy is supposedly a children's author? Don't have too many nightmares!
As far as I'm concerned, Cormier's "nightmare" portrayal of school life was charitable, compared to the reality. Examples available upon request.
I read it as run by Marx Brothers - trying to imagine a school where Groucho, Chico and Harpo were in charge. At least the music lessons would have been fun.
We tried and tried to get into it- nope. Neither of us can see why it got any accolades at all. 🤔
While I'm always ready to admit that not every piece of entertainment (especially comedy, as all our senses of humour differ so much) is for everyone, I do think it's worth pointing out that Schitt's Creek is one of the most notoriously slow-start shows in recent TV history. Very few people like or get into it from the first several episodes. I watched an episode or two when it first aired, thought, "This is pretty weak, and feels very CBC comedy" (a damning-with-faith-damns that will be best understood by fellow Canadians). Didn't find it funny at all. Gave it a second try later when the series was almost over and had gained such popularity, and found that near the end of the first season I got very invested in the characters and started to love it. That's obviously not going to happen for every viewer, but I do feel that 1) it's a show that took awhile to find its rhythm, and 2) the humour in Schitt's Creek is 100% dependent on knowing and caring about the characters, which takes a lot of time to build.
This is not to say you need to give it another shot, but just to point out something that I think is true of a lot of shows, but especially of this one.
I miss Terry Wogan.
I did have the very great pleasure of seeing Dame Patricia Routledge as Lady Bracknell.
She was about as close to the image I'd held in my mind of Lady Bracknell, since studying The Importance of Being Earnest for O Level, as I think it was possible to get.
It occurred to me the other day that I suspect she would also be entertaining to see as Eulalie Mackecknie Shinn (the mayor’s wife) in The Music Man. I can just imagine her Grecian urns and her “Balzac!”
Agree - my family were split on it. It takes to the end of S1 before you see the genius. Which is more than some people can cope with.
Thank you. I suspected this - we are not so difficult to please! When we run out of stuff to watch we’ll give it another go, if I can persuade Mr Boogs. We are lucky to have exactly the same taste viewing-wise.
Oh, and Beethoven's Piano Sonata Op.111 with the jazzy bit.
This of course couldn't have happened in the golden days of TV -- they air the episode once and if you didn't catch it, you wait until it's in reruns. The ability to watch episodes on demand allows for slower storytelling, or maybe for the writers to take a while to get their feet. Or be sacked and replaced with better.
Well thank you for that, I'm never going to be able to take Mr Jackman seriously ever again!!
Well you have to feel sorry for the man. In Greatest Showman (which my daughter makes me watch, I might add) he sees his childhood sweetheart disappear to finishing school and by the time she gets back he's apparently aged about 15 years more than she has...
He had a tough paper round.
I thought the same. I see Emmanuel Wimbledon* as a rather eccentric Victorian churchman of good family.
*or 'Emma Jelly' as autocorrect would have it.
"Emma" mattress ads have been making me smirk for a while now - having long ago had a girlfriend of that name, my first thought when I saw one was "It's been a long time since I sent a night on top of an Emma!"