Strange world and pirates
Dec. 20th, 2006 12:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mad_andyIt's been a funny old day.
After the debacle at the doctor's I hid under the bedclothes and sulked for a while until Slay came home. Then I dosed myself up to the eyeballs with every cold and flu med in the house, got changed, and headed over to my parent's place.
With some trepidation, I might add. My parents and I have our...Issues, one might say.
I get along very well with my dad - so I'm a daddy's girl, bite me - but my mum and I, well, yeah. Put it this way. She hasn't been in my house for six years because she thinks it's too untidy. She hates my lifestyle choices. She wishes I would grow out of the music I like, tidy my house up, get a regular nine-to-five and start wearing skirts. Oh, and have the ink lasered off.
So, to say that she's a soothing person to hang out with when I'm feeling stressed would be an utter lie. We're not big on comfort. I was raised to think that you should Just Cope - depression was an imaginary illness and all your troubles should be kept to yourself. Calling in a counsellor was (is) tantamount to treason.
We don't exactly see eye to eye. And if she was going to be a bloody nuisance about what's been happening lately then I didn't want to be around... but some days she and I get along just fine. Albeit with a bit of an underlying tone of disapproval....
Anyway. My dad, as I may have mentioned before, dances for Long Crendon Morris. You know, Morris Dancers. Bells and sticks and white hankies. Google it if you're not sure.
Every year, they do a Mummer's play - which is the morris men become mummers for the night and perform a play through the village, stopping off in every pub. Old pagan tradition, frightening off the evil spirits or something - more likely a Victorian invention to ensure a bloody good pub crawl.
They have several drinks at each pub, and by the time they reach the last one are all completely hammered - which, bearing in mind that none of them really know their lines in the first place, is pretty bloody funny in and of itself. And then there's more drinking and singing and dancing and I love it to pieces.
This year dad isn't in it (they do three performances - the practice, which was tonight, Christmas eve, and New Year's day in the neighbouring village of Brill) but we were asked if we wanted to come along to the rehearsal anyway - it's held at a friend's house (she's known my mum since my parents first got married - in 1967) then at a local pub for the first performance.
This year's subject...pirates!
(In some ways it's very traditional - you have a hero [who is St George in the absence of any other more topical figure], a bad guy, Beelzebub, a doctor, the doctor's assistant, and father Christmas. And a cast of supporting noisemakers. However, they write their own script and every year it's themed, usually to something that's been big news through the year. The Iraq war one was possibly the funniest [if most bizarre] thing I've ever seen. o.O)
So. Rough plot:
In comes father Christmas, who tells the audience what's happening, followed by the stooge - Roger the cabin boy. (Yes, I know.)
Then you get the bad guy, this year - Blackbeard. The good guy (Captain Morgan *groan*) flounces in, long black curly wig and eye makeup. They fight and Blackbeard wins.
Enter the doctor (Dr No, James Bond, geddit?) and his assistant - this year it's the mayor of Thame, one Nigel Champken-Woods dressed in little more than a bikini and a set of flashing earrings - Pussy Galore.
It's funny as hell, but not necessarily sophisticated...!
The doctor cures the hero with the aid of his Magic Jollop (usually a fiendish mix of whiskey, rum and vodka with correspondingly alarming food colouring), and the following chant:
"The ipsy, the mipsy, the palsy and the gout,
The pains within,
And the pains without!"
--roared with great delight by the entire pub.
Hero leaps to his feet, defeats the villain and bows out victorious. Enter Beelzebub (chap called Robin who wears obscene tights and aims to kill at least one person with hysteria every year, and usually succeeds) who threatens the crowd that they will be going to Hell unless they donate lavishly to charity.
...
Reading back on this it doesn't make a lot of sense. But fear not! Christmas eve I shall be accompanying the mummers around the village and shall take many pictures and video footage. You really have to see it to believe it... and the jokes get ruder every year. This year a few of them are awfully close to the bounds of anything approaching taste (which is why they're so damn funny)- for instance, Roger the Cabin Boy (yes I know) is wearing a tee shirt with the legend on the front:
'Kiss me Hardy'
Only it doesn't - it says 'kiss me hardon y'
Subtle it ain't...
But I smiled and laughed until my cheeks hurt, roared along with the rest of the pub and generally had a jolly good time. Dad is a bit morose that he isn't in it this year, but they're away for new year as well and thus can't do it.
Although I did find myself somewhat irritated by the nice middle class matrons who found it appropriate to stare at me and whisper to each other. Er, I can see you, y'know? And by all means look, but the way you're doing it is just downright rude. I'm inked, not blind. Jesus. I think I need a shirt making up with some suitably unpleasant slogan on it. (Prizes for best suggestion!)
So. Nasty foggy drive home. And I find myself in a rather odd mood - fun evening, but as usual lots of subtexts. Fair bit of disapproval, all too often from people who ought to know better.
However.
Having seen the play? Roll on christmas eve, I say!
By the way, who saw SkyOne's production of the Hogfather? Good, wasn't it?
After the debacle at the doctor's I hid under the bedclothes and sulked for a while until Slay came home. Then I dosed myself up to the eyeballs with every cold and flu med in the house, got changed, and headed over to my parent's place.
With some trepidation, I might add. My parents and I have our...Issues, one might say.
I get along very well with my dad - so I'm a daddy's girl, bite me - but my mum and I, well, yeah. Put it this way. She hasn't been in my house for six years because she thinks it's too untidy. She hates my lifestyle choices. She wishes I would grow out of the music I like, tidy my house up, get a regular nine-to-five and start wearing skirts. Oh, and have the ink lasered off.
So, to say that she's a soothing person to hang out with when I'm feeling stressed would be an utter lie. We're not big on comfort. I was raised to think that you should Just Cope - depression was an imaginary illness and all your troubles should be kept to yourself. Calling in a counsellor was (is) tantamount to treason.
We don't exactly see eye to eye. And if she was going to be a bloody nuisance about what's been happening lately then I didn't want to be around... but some days she and I get along just fine. Albeit with a bit of an underlying tone of disapproval....
Anyway. My dad, as I may have mentioned before, dances for Long Crendon Morris. You know, Morris Dancers. Bells and sticks and white hankies. Google it if you're not sure.
Every year, they do a Mummer's play - which is the morris men become mummers for the night and perform a play through the village, stopping off in every pub. Old pagan tradition, frightening off the evil spirits or something - more likely a Victorian invention to ensure a bloody good pub crawl.
They have several drinks at each pub, and by the time they reach the last one are all completely hammered - which, bearing in mind that none of them really know their lines in the first place, is pretty bloody funny in and of itself. And then there's more drinking and singing and dancing and I love it to pieces.
This year dad isn't in it (they do three performances - the practice, which was tonight, Christmas eve, and New Year's day in the neighbouring village of Brill) but we were asked if we wanted to come along to the rehearsal anyway - it's held at a friend's house (she's known my mum since my parents first got married - in 1967) then at a local pub for the first performance.
This year's subject...pirates!
(In some ways it's very traditional - you have a hero [who is St George in the absence of any other more topical figure], a bad guy, Beelzebub, a doctor, the doctor's assistant, and father Christmas. And a cast of supporting noisemakers. However, they write their own script and every year it's themed, usually to something that's been big news through the year. The Iraq war one was possibly the funniest [if most bizarre] thing I've ever seen. o.O)
So. Rough plot:
In comes father Christmas, who tells the audience what's happening, followed by the stooge - Roger the cabin boy. (Yes, I know.)
Then you get the bad guy, this year - Blackbeard. The good guy (Captain Morgan *groan*) flounces in, long black curly wig and eye makeup. They fight and Blackbeard wins.
Enter the doctor (Dr No, James Bond, geddit?) and his assistant - this year it's the mayor of Thame, one Nigel Champken-Woods dressed in little more than a bikini and a set of flashing earrings - Pussy Galore.
It's funny as hell, but not necessarily sophisticated...!
The doctor cures the hero with the aid of his Magic Jollop (usually a fiendish mix of whiskey, rum and vodka with correspondingly alarming food colouring), and the following chant:
"The ipsy, the mipsy, the palsy and the gout,
The pains within,
And the pains without!"
--roared with great delight by the entire pub.
Hero leaps to his feet, defeats the villain and bows out victorious. Enter Beelzebub (chap called Robin who wears obscene tights and aims to kill at least one person with hysteria every year, and usually succeeds) who threatens the crowd that they will be going to Hell unless they donate lavishly to charity.
...
Reading back on this it doesn't make a lot of sense. But fear not! Christmas eve I shall be accompanying the mummers around the village and shall take many pictures and video footage. You really have to see it to believe it... and the jokes get ruder every year. This year a few of them are awfully close to the bounds of anything approaching taste (which is why they're so damn funny)- for instance, Roger the Cabin Boy (yes I know) is wearing a tee shirt with the legend on the front:
'Kiss me Hardy'
Only it doesn't - it says 'kiss me hard
Subtle it ain't...
But I smiled and laughed until my cheeks hurt, roared along with the rest of the pub and generally had a jolly good time. Dad is a bit morose that he isn't in it this year, but they're away for new year as well and thus can't do it.
Although I did find myself somewhat irritated by the nice middle class matrons who found it appropriate to stare at me and whisper to each other. Er, I can see you, y'know? And by all means look, but the way you're doing it is just downright rude. I'm inked, not blind. Jesus. I think I need a shirt making up with some suitably unpleasant slogan on it. (Prizes for best suggestion!)
So. Nasty foggy drive home. And I find myself in a rather odd mood - fun evening, but as usual lots of subtexts. Fair bit of disapproval, all too often from people who ought to know better.
However.
Having seen the play? Roll on christmas eve, I say!
By the way, who saw SkyOne's production of the Hogfather? Good, wasn't it?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-12-20 01:32 am (UTC)Perhaps you need a shirt that says 'England expects every man shall do his duty, and I'll fucking kill you if you keep staring....'
no subject
Date: 2006-12-20 02:08 am (UTC)I myself become highly irritated when I'm stared at, the reason not the least of which, I don't look that strange. So wtf are you looking at?
*grumbles*
no subject
Date: 2006-12-20 02:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-20 06:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-20 09:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-20 10:38 am (UTC)T
no subject
Date: 2006-12-20 04:46 pm (UTC)