IN YOUR DREAMS

Next time you settle back on the psychologist's couch and prepare to face the challenge of confronting your Ego and your Super-Ego, enjoy the added comfort afforded by a pair of --- Freudian Slippers...


And if your psychologist pushes you too far and your tortured Id finally rebels, you can always use them to give him a good slippering! After all, as Sigmund himself observed: "Sadism is all right in its place, but it should be directed to proper ends..."

NOW WE ARE TWO

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DEAR BLO-OG!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!

The Sibley Blog - weighing in at just a little over 700 posts - is two years old today! This occasion provides an opportunity for the entire editorial team (!) to express its gratitude to everyone who's contributed to keeping this blog going with ideas, photos, jokes, and oddities -- and, of course, all those of you who've regularly (or even occasionally) left comments.

Many Happy Returns to Us All!

Now, as it happens it's not just my blog's birthday, it's also my un-birthday, so I thought I'd give everyone a small un-birthday present...

The term un-birthday was first coined by Lewis Carroll in Through the Looking-glass and What Alice Found There, the 1872 sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

It is Humpty Dumpty who explains to Alice the concept of the un-birthday present as being a "present given when it isn't your birthday..."

Alice considered a little. "I like birthday presents best," she said at last.

"You don't know what you're talking about!" cried Humpty Dumpty. "How many days are there in a year?"

"Three hundred and sixty-five," said Alice.

"And how many birthdays have you?"

"One."

"And if you take one from three hundred and sixty-five what remains?"

"Three hundred and sixty-four, of course."

"And that shows that there are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents---"

"Certainly," said Alice.

"And only one for birthday presents, you know. There's glory for you!"

When, in 1951, Walt Disney made his animated film of Alice in Wonderland, Humpty Dumpty didn't make it into the movie; but, instead, the Mad Tea Party became a Mad Un-birthday Party complete with a special song for the occasion.

Whether today is your birthday or your un-birthday, have fun!

IN THE BEGINNING... Well, last Thursday

At last! --- Sunday!

I don't know about you, but I've had a hell of a week: anxieties and tensions, worries about work and health (or deficiencies thereof), This 'n' That and So-on 'n' So-forth. But Thursday evening turned out to be a wonderful, recuperative oasis, in a desert of despondency.

That was the day of the official launch, at London's Westminster Central Hall, of Lion Hudson's new book, 50 Favourite Bible Stories - an event noted in the pages of The Times and other papers.

The reason for there being fifty such stories is because - with a synchronicity that only the media can achieve - they were chosen and are read, on three accompanying CDs, by Sir Cliff Richard who happens to be currently celebrating exactly that number of years in showbusiness. And if that fact makes any readers feel old, well then that probably means you are (or on the way to being so!) whereas Sir Cliff himself has definitely worn rather better than most of the rest of us...

When I was approached to write - or, rather, retell - the fifty selected stories, the project struck all kinds of chords with me. I had met Cliff on various occasions in the past and, a couple of times, had even shared a stage with him -- or, at least, appeared on the same bill!

But the driving imperative was the indelible memory of my own first collections of Bible stories - especially a pop-up book which showed (in the nearest equivalent to virtual reality as 1950s paper-folding could manage) the animals processing into the Ark, the parting of the Red Sea, David's defeat of Goliath, Daniel in the Lion's Den and, my personal favourite, Jonah stepping out onto the beach from the open mouth of the Whale...

Over the lifetime that has followed, my reading and understanding of the Bible has passed through many phases but, whatever questions I have grappled with, I have always believed that the Bible is a great - arguably the greatest - work of literature. Whether you read it as an orthodox, a fundamentalist, a liberal or, even, an agnostic - it's pages are crammed with unforgettable exploits, monumental dramas, potent imagery and sheer soul-stirringly magnificent poetry.

For several decades now - as the world in general knows - Cliff has been open about his simply-held, strongly-maintained Christian faith and has successfully ridden out the derision and mockery of those who sought to put him down or - because of his beliefs - attempted to denigrate his talents and achievements as one of the most enduringly successful performers in the world of pop and rock. At the press conference on Thursday, he spoke passionately about his wish that people would read what has increasingly become "a closed book".

He is right. Consider, for example, the impact of this book across the centuries: the way in which it has motivated far-reaching social reforms and inspired some of the greatest works of art in the history of civilization - Michaelangelo, Veronese, Handel, Milton, Blake, T S Eliot, the list is endless. If on no other level, the Judeo-Christian narratives that make up this book - or, accurately speaking, this library of books - provide a timeless perspective on human nature: not just in its examples of vision, heroism, courage and sacrifice but also in its catalogue of frailties, failings and foibles.

Anyway, something of all that has, I hope, found its way into the pages of 50 Favourite Bible Stories (25 from the Old Testament and 25 from the New) which has been vividly and vibrantly illustrated by the talented Stephen Waterhouse, whose imaginative interpretations of these well known stories fizz and zing with colour and energy.

Here are Stephen and I with the man who has been rightly described as 'Music's Mr Nice Guy'...


At the top of this post and below are two of Stephen's pictures accompanying the account of Creation in the opening chapters of the book of Genesis...

Click to enlarge

And this is Sir Cliff at Thursday's launch, reading my version of this oft-told tale - and coping with banging doors, passing emergency vehicles other such twenty-first century distractions that God certainly didn't have to put up with...



You'll find lots more examples in Stephen's illustrations on his website's Portfolio; and if you're interested in knowing about the genesis of the Genesis creation story, you'll find a good starting point here on Wikipedia...

Illustrations: © Stephen Waterhouse 2008
Photo: © Anne Rogers
Video: © David Weeks

THEY'D DO ANYTHING...

Knowing how many of you enjoyed the Grand Central Station Freeze staged by Improv Everywhere. Here's another of their missions: sixteen 'agents' infiltrate the food court in Baldwin Hills Mall, Los Angeles, California, and improvise a musical!

The patrons' ability to ignore something they don't understand must, I guess, be one of those traits that separate the human being from other animals!



But the real question, after seeing this, is who needs Andrew Lloyd Webber and Cameron Mackintosh in order to make a star out of a waitress and a sucker out of everyone else?

MISS JULIE ANDREWS: AT HOME

It's one of those occasions when you have to pinch yourself and ask, "Is this really happening?" I'm sitting in a suite in London's Dorchester Hotel with Julie Andrews - yes, the Julie Andrews - Mary Poppins! Maria Von Trapp! - who is asking, "Shall I be mother?" and pouring me a cup of tea.

"Sugar?" Just a spoonful...

Ten years ago, 1998. Radio producer, Malcolm Prince, and I are finally about to have an interview for which we've waited weeks. It's been on, it's been off an, now, it's back on again...

Julie is in London, rehearsing with the cast of the new musical, Doctor Dolittle, in which she is providing the voice of Polynesia the Parrot, and she's agreed to give us an interview for a radio series we're making on Disney's Women - the real and fictional women in the life and films of Walt Disney.

The evening of the interview eventually arrives. We are on time - well, absurdly early, of course! - but Miss Andrews is delayed. Detained at rehearsals....

An hour passes. Then another... We sit in the Dorchester bar, drinking over-priced orange juice, not daring to risk any alcohol - just in case the interview actually happens! I'm unaccountably nervous. It feels how, I imagine ,it would feel if you were waiting for an audience with the Queen...

I look at my watch. It's getting late. Miss Andrews is now stuck in traffic. The interview will definitely get rescheduled... Then the call to go up to her suite.

If possible, I am now even more anxious: at the end of a long day of rehearsals, she'll be tired, she'll be hungry. She's certainly never going to be able to give us the promised hour of her time...

In the suite we sit and wait some more. So near and yet so far... I hum to myself: "Fa - a long, long way to run..." How true.

Then the door opens and in comes Mary Poppins - spit-spot, hurry up, no dawdling...

She greets us with a big, warm smile and instantly defuses all anxiety. "Gentlemen! I am terribly sorry to be so late and to have kept you waiting!"

We shake our heads. Was she late? Had we been kept waiting? Really? We hadn't noticed!

Malcolm ventures that we'll try not to keep her too long. Again: the reassuring, I-have-confidence-in-sunshine, smile...

"I think we said an hour. Let's do it!"

Always the trouper, her on-with-the-show, vaudeville origins coming to the fore.

"But first, I need to freshen up - and then I think we all need a cup of tea!"

She vanishes into the bathroom, an assistant phones room-service and in a twinkling - only Disney magic could have done it quicker - a tray with a silver tea-pot and bone china tea-cups materialises before our eyes.

Then she's back, settling herself beside me on the sofa and asking if she should be mother...

Perfect! In fact, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!

The interview - which flows effortlessly and runs for well over an hour- passes in a kind of hazy, pink blur...


Disney's Women was duly broadcast - to considerable acclaim - and, subsequently part of the interview relating to Mary Poppins found its way into an essay I contributed to A Lively Oracle, a book about Poppins' creator, P L Travers - which also published one of Andrews' fascinating (and revealing) letters sent to Travers from the Disney sound stage in Burbank.

When, last year, I wrote (with Michael Lassell) my book Mary Poppins: Anything Can Happen If You Let It, I'd planned to include part of what Julie had said about Walt, Mrs Travers and playing the practically perfect nanny. But word came down from on high in the Mouse's Kingdom that the Andrews references and quotes would have to go.

The only reason I supposed that this curious decision had been taken - for Julie's presence in the film was crucial not just to the movie itself, but also to her own future career - was that, for some time she had been reportedly working on her autobiography. Maybe she was anxious that we didn't preempt her own book... Who knows? Anyway, the problematic passages were excised and that was that.

And, once again, I waited for Miss Andrews - or, rather, this time, for her book!

And now it's here. Home: A Memoir of My Early Years is, as you'd expect, a charming read. But it's much more than that, being uncompromisingly honest - whilst remaining, as she would say, "polite and decent".

Home is jam-packed with insightful stories: the benefits and pitfalls of being a born-in-a-trunk child star; singing (aged 13 years) for Queen Elizabeth and Princess Elizabeth at a Royal Command performance on the stage of the London Palladium; appearing on radio with Peter Brough and that other Andrews - Archie; getting the role of Polly Browne in the first Broadway production of Sandy Wilson's The Boy Friend (as a result of a recommendation from fellow Educating Archie regular, Hattie Jacques); and, later, her fairy-tale romance with Tony Walton; playing opposite Richard Burton and Roddy McDowell in Camelot and becoming friends with T H ('Tim') White, the idiosyncratic author of The Once and Future King, the book on which the musical was based.

And, of course, there are the chapters that will doubtless excite most reader-interest - her experiences during the creation of Lerner and Loewe's classic musical, My Fair Lady. Fascinating to learn, incidentally, that they nearly called their show Fanfaroon - a man who blows his own trumpet! All things considered it's probably just as well that they didn't...

Here, Julie reveals the monstrous egocentricities of Rex Harrison, the lovableness of Stanley (Alfred Doolittle) Holloway and Robert (Colonel Pickering) Coote, the utter beastliness of designer ,Cecil Beaton and the devoted, nurturing care and attention which director Moss Hart showed towards his inexperienced young star at a point when everyone - and, in particular, the monstrous Rex - considered her a total liability and the show's undoubted ticket to the graveyard of theatrical flops and failures...

"She'll be fine," Hart told his wife after 48 hours of ceaseless coaching, "she has that terrible British strength that makes you wonder how they ever lost India."

Of course, what I was most interested in was what she would say about Poppins? Would it differ in some crucial way from my own interview account? But, no! There it is, virtually word-for-word as it was told to me over the teacups in the Dorchester...

The first volume concludes with Andrews getting the Poppins role, so there's plenty more to come in volume two: The Sound of Music, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Star!, Darling Lili, Hitchcock and Torn Curtain, Blake Edwards, S.O.B. and Victor/Victoria and the story of what happened to that extraordinary voice - not to mention the Shrek and Princess Diaries movies.

Meanwhile, if you'd like to read part of the missing text of my book, you'll find it posted on my Ex Libris blog...

TAKE A SEAT

It's some years since local vandals demolished the benches in the shelter in Kennington Park. Since then it's had a paint-job (in a nasty, lurid - even bilious - green) but the seats have never been replaced --- leaving it, as a shelter, pretty useless.

Fortunately, some public-spirited citizen has addressed this need...


Now, if they can spare the sofa as well, that would be perfect!

HIGHLY STRUNG

I grew up with a dad who played the violin: not as often as I would have liked because the lady next door used to complain about his practicing! As a lad he had played in the Crystal Palace Orchestra in its days in Sydenham before it burned down (the lengths people went to to stop him playing!) and when I was a child he would tell me little musical stories illustrated on the violin.

It was from my Dad that I inherited my love of musical humorists such as Gerard Hoffnung, Flanders & Swann, Victor Borge and Jack Benny...

I first saw the American comedian famous for his bad playing of the violin on a TV broadcast of a Royal Variety Performance and fell for his dead-pan, high-camp persona that - rare among great comics - gave the gag-lines to his supporting cast and made himself the butt of everyone's jokes while never being anything less than the star. And no one - not even the incomparable George Burns - could beat Benny's comic timing.

In his most famous exchange - based on his character's allegedly mean and miserly personality - he is held up by a crook at gun point. "Yer money or yer life!" snarls the the robber. There is an interminable pause and then the robber repeats his threat: "Yer money or yer life!" And back comes Benny's irritated response: "I'm thinking it over!"

Brilliant!

When I saw him live at the Palladium on his last UK tour, I was riveted by his ability to do nothing and make people laugh. Like our own Tommy Cooper, when Benny walked on stage - before he said so much as a single word - you simply had to smile. He was the incarnation of funniness!

Being, at the time, an aspiring cartoonist, I sent a caricature of the Maestro round to the stage door. Though not as accomplished as the portrait by the great Hirschfeld (above) it must, at least, have tickled the comic's funny bone because I received, by return, a signed photograph.

This was 1973, just a year before Benny's death, and despite being 79 his photographic likeness miraculously doesn't look a day over his perennially-held age of thirty-nine!

Relatively few Britishers know Jack Benny's work (compared with that of Burns or Hope), but his prolific career is worth checking out. Many of his classic radio shows and some of his TV shows are on CD and DVD and everyone should make a point of finding his superb performance opposite Carole Lombard in Ernst Lubitsch's 1942 classic, To Be or Not To Be.

In the meanwhile, here are two YouTube offerings for your amusement: a sequence on Benny's violin playing from the 1995 TV tribute, Kelsey Grammer Salutes Jack Benny; the other from The Liberace Show in which legendary pianist meets legendary violinist and with a cameo performance from Richard Wattis as Lee's fraffly English butler!

Incidentally, the long-suffering violin teacher in the compilation is played by Mel Blanc, a regular on the Benny shows and the voices of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Sylvester the Cat, Tweety Pie, Foghorn Leghorn, Yosemite Sam and - in The Flintstones - Barney Rubble...






Image: Al Hirschfeld