Yes, Friends, have YOU been to the cinema or theatre recently? Well, tell me, would it have hurt to have asked Yours Truly to come along, paid for an extra ticket, and let some of those moths fly out of your wallet?
Examine your conscience haha !!!!
typical moths flying out from some "tightwad's" wallet !!!!
Certainly, there's a lot going on in local theatres and cinemas these days, and Onion News have at last today acknowledged that fact by debuting their shiny new pull-out-and-use-for-kindling Theatre News Colour Supplement, to put it mildly!!!! Just feast your eyes on these "doozies" from their inaugural issue!!
What madness, isn't it !!!! But these are just the kind of headlines to bring a vapid smile to the faces of me and my wife Lois, here in semi-aquatic Liphook, Surrey - and that's a "given" !!!!
my wife Lois and me - a recent picture
And we're laughing because today we "took the plunge", and booked two seats at a "fringe" London theatre to see two plays written by my "baby sister" Gill, which is exciting! We'll be travelling by train into central London - "yikes, scary!!!" - in company with our daughter Alison, who lives in nearby Headley, with husband Edward and their 3 teenage offspring.
(left) Yellow Coat - the theatre company putting on the plays, and (right)
my "baby-sister" Gill (68!), with two members of the company
Lois and I haven't been to a London theatre performance since the early 1970's, just before we got married, when we saw a performance of Hair the Musical, featuring full frontal nudity in the name of "Peace and Love", which was a shock, to put it mildly!
We had foolishly booked two seats in the front stalls, which made it, like, a billion times worse - "worser" probably!!!
But what madness!!!!
flashback to the early 1970's: Hair the Musical - with the cast displaying their all to the audience, all in the name of "Peace and Love" (!)
- what madness, wasn't it !!!!
At time of writing, we don't
think there's any nudity in either of Gill's two plays, but - memo to self! - we must check with her again before we go (!). We can always pack our old airliner "sleep masks", if there's any doubt!
You see, I think Gill has left room for "adlibbing" by the talented Yellow Coat Theatre players performing her plays, so an impromptu "strip-tease" can't perhaps be totally ruled out, perhaps, so better safe than sorry, maybe?
I wonder.... !!!!
09:30 Otherwise today is yet another busy day for Lois and me, because, "for our sins" (!), we're both members of the local U3A "
Intermediate Latin for Old Codgers" group, run by retired local schoolteacher Joe, with meetings taking place in Joe's own comfortable. and nicely-furnished, retirement flat in a gated complex in nearby Haslemere, just over the county line in Surrey.
us with fellow "old codgers", in local retired schoolteacher Joe's comfortable
retirement flat sitting-room, all trying to master "Intermediate Latin", which is mad!
Our little group is currently studying Roman poet Vergil's account of the Greek Army's long siege of the enemy city of Troy, in his epic poem "The Aeneid".
After 10 fruitless years surrounding and besieging Troy, the Greeks eventually hit on the idea of building a giant wooden horse, secretly concealing armed warriors inside it. The plan was to persuade the Trojans to pull the great wooden horse into the city, after which the concealed warriors would creep out in the dead of night, and open the city gates to their Greek comrades, thus paving the way for a Greek victory in the long war.
As the Greeks said to each other at the time, "Yes, it is a crazy plan, but it might just work!", and guess what, it did! And the rest is history, as we know!
But there's something weird here! Because, in the extract from the poem that our little group is reading this Monday morning, we can't help noticing that one of the lines is unfinished, which is a surprise!
Vergil managed to write the two words, "disce omnes" but then the rest of the line is totally blank, which is totally weird!
a portion of Roman poet Vergil's epic poem "The Aeneid", with its
mysterious, half-finished line, "disce omnes", which Vergil
never got round to "tidying up", which was a pity!
It's a line where, it's assumed, Vergil ran out of ideas, leaving the line unfinished, hoping to get back to it later, we imagine.
And our group-leader, Joe, reminds us that Vergil never completely finished the poem, and even asked his family to burn the manuscript after he was dead. However, the Emperor of Rome at the time, Augustus, forbade Vergil's family from burning it.
However, luckily, perhaps, for subsequent generations, Augustus, like many "supreme leaders" (!), was also a bit of a narcissist, and was very anxious that the poem be preserved for posterity, because it painted him, the Emperor, in a specially good light, which was mad!
11:00 The class ends, as Joe, our teacher, has arranged to take his young granddaughter to see the latest remake of a film about the Trojan War, and its aftermath - Christoher Nolan's "The Odyssey", which is kind of appropriate.
14:00 However, as for Lois and me, after getting home, and taking our usual afternoon nap (!), we spend some time trying to finish the that mysterious '
unfinished' line, on Vergil's behalf, which is a bit mad!
Lois and me try to finish the 'unfinished' line in Roman poet Vergil's
epic poem "The Aeneid", all about the Trojan War
After some thought, we decide the 'unfinished' line would be the perfect place for a tasteful advert to be included in the poem, so we suggest filling the gap with the words "But now a word from our very distinguished sponsor...", Latin: "sed nunc, sponsor tam nobilis inquit"....
We've also thought of a suitable advert to include, would you believe! We're not sure what companies were around in Vergil's day, but the oldest jingle we can remember is the famous "Pepsodent" jingle from the 1950's, which we used to hear when Lois and I were very young children: "You'll wonder where the yellow went, when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent".
Sheer genius, and "Kudos, that ad firm, whatever it was!", to put it mildly!
flashback to the 1950's: (left) me with my baby brother Steve and our mum and dad,
(centre) Lois outside her parents' "prefab", and (right) a 1950's Pepsodent advert
After much thought, we've come up with our wording, I can now (exclusively) reveal!
Our provisional Latin version for the advert goes: "Miraberis quo flavus color abierit, cum dentes Pepsodente purgaveris", although, naturally, we'll have to work a bit on getting the "metre" right, which is mad !!!!!
I wonder.....!
But your suggestions welcome - postcards only!!!!
[That's enough whimsy! - Ed]
Will this do?
[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzz!!!!