A TAG OF NO IMPORTANCE

I was tagged the other day by my Good Friend, Good Dog, requesting me to reveal six things of no real importance about myself; and, seeing as GD is a GF, I'll have to oblige but (since they are of no real importance) they shouldn't detain you long...

The only downside is that there's a rule that you then have to tag six other people. However, since these tags are of no real importance, they can probably be safely disregarded. I suppose...

Anyway, first (well, first-to-sixth) things first: my sextet of Unimportant Things:

1)
I played Hitler in an end-of-term school revue. I got the part because (a) I was good at art and (b) I wrote and directed the revue.

2)
When I was eight I won a Windsor & Newton paint box as a runner up in a Kellogg's poster-painting competition. My design showed a packet of Corn Flakes balanced on the top of an Indian Rope Trick, levitated by fakir in a turban: politically incorrect, but a indication of an early interest in magic.

3)
My highest score at playing Bejeweled is 1, 256,100...


...but I've never even approached that score since let alone equalled it, so goodness knows how much coffee I'd had that day!

4)
In my first job, I spent six weeks locked in the basement of Bromley Town Hall (for security reasons) drawing up an inventory of the supplies then held by Civil Defence (since disbanded) against the eventuality of a nuclear disaster. It was scary partly because there were a lot of cockroaches in that basement and because there were 8000 knives but only 7,984 forks. However, they did have 351 soup tureens although at least two of the lids were badly cracked...

5)
During a visit to Disneyland, I was twice asked for my autograph under the misapprehension that I was Francis Ford Coppola. The second time I obliged...

6)
My first pet was a fly called Fred.

I wrote about Fred on this blog three years ago, so it could well be time for a reprint...

MY FIRST PET
by
B. Sibley (Form 3)

My first pet was Fred the fly. Later we had a hamster called Hamlet (because he was sort of blonde coloured) but Fred came first.

Fred moved in at the end of autumn and stayed more or less until the beginning of spring, although as my dad says, to be truthful we never actually saw the going of him.

Being a housefly, Fred was already completely house-trained and never did any of those rather disgusting things that The Children’s Encyclopedia said flies do - or, if he did, we didn’t ever see him doing them.

Fred was a very intelligent fly and always sat on one corner of the TV screen watching everything from nature programmes like Tales of the Riverbank to Dr Who (mainly when they were fighting insect-type aliens), though my mum always said he would damage his eyes by sitting that close.

He also showed good taste when it came to music and would sit very still on the arm of our gramophone player for the whole side of a long-playing record. Fred's favourites were ‘The 1812 Overture’ (with live canons) and the soundtrack from South Pacific and my dad said he was probably the reincarnation of Beethoven, but we couldn’t test this out, as we didn’t have any Beethoven records.

When I grow up and can afford to buy a few more records, I’d like to have another fly and carry out some experiments to see if all dead composers become flies in the end.

The End

Image: Harriet Macdonald, 2006

AND THE WINNER IS...

So, Slumdog Millionaire cleaned up at the BAFTAS, apart from a posthumous award to Heath Ledger for his joking around in The Dark Knight and (following on from recent discussions here about animated films) a predictible honouring of WALL.E prior, presumably, to a re-run at the Oscars...

Meanwhile, the Sibley blog has been awarded a Premio Dardos Award by Irascible Ian. "A What?" I hear you asking, well, here's the citation...

The Dardos Award is given for recognition of cultural, ethical, literary, and personal values transmitted in the form of creative and original writing.

These stamps were created with the intention of promoting fraternization between bloggers, a way of showing affection and gratitude for work that adds value to the Web.

Premio Dardos is, apparently, Italian for Prize Darts (hence the use of the, presumably, oddly-translated word 'stamps') but whatever it is and however it started, I am - obviously - overwhelmed!

In fact, I cannot adequately express how I feel at this moment - but suffice it to say that I'm sufficiently choked up that if I were allowed anywhere near a microphone I'd make Gwyneth and Kate look like rank amateurs...

Actually, I'm very flattered to have been tapped by Ian who is not only an excellent blogger, but a discerning follower of blogs...

Premio Dardos seems to be a kind of blog tag since Google lists hundreds of recipients and one of the obligations of winning is to pass it on to five other blogs, so here goes...



Michael Sporn's Animation Splog is an endlessly diverting blog (or 'splog'!) devoted to animation, illustration and film by a man who is both an animator and a tireless enthusiast with a vast knowledge of the medium and the ability to make it exciting and inspiring for others.


And make sure you also check out Michael's Films.

***

Petrona is (thanks to the indefatigable Maxine) definitely one of the best reader's and writer's sites, full of news and views on books as well as challenging ideas and provocative thoughts on so many diverse topics that there's always something of interest.

***

Ian Culbard's Strange Planet Stories is a visually exciting blog devoted to comics, graphic novels and animation with regular sketches and working drawings from an superbly gifted artist.

He is also a regular contributor to the on-going comic adventure story published on another fun blogsite, HUZZAH!!

***

Phil Beard unceasingly garners a veritable treasure-trove of curiosities, old photographs, postcards, maps, advertising art, postcards...


...and just about everything and anything you can think of that might have found it's way into a couple of hundred years of pop culture.

***

Abecedarian is an eclectic potpourri of words, games, puzzles, illusions and allusions created by Craig Conley (below) acclaimed as "America’s most creative and diligent scholar of letters, words and punctuation".


Enjoy your awards, Premio Dardos winners (not forgetting to pass them on to five other recipients) and enjoy their work the rest of you...

TAGGED AGAIN

Bela of Slap of the Day has tagged me as follows...

Grab the nearest book. Open the book to page 56. Find the fifth sentence. Post the text of the next two to five sentences in your journal/blog along with these instructions. Don’t dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST. Tag five other people to do the same.

I'm sure I've been caught with this one before, anyway, this time I grabbed one of the several books that I happen to be simultaneously reading at the moment..

It's entitled Casanova - A Study in Self-Portraiture and is the work of the 19th Century Viennese writer, Stefan Zweig. Here's the relevant passage from page 56...

Instead of wearing sackcloth and ashes, instead of lamenting over a misspent life which is ending in abject poverty and dependence, the toothless old rogue writes with delicious impudence:

"I should regard myself blameworthy if I were rich today. But I have nothing left, I have squandered all my possessions, and that is a great consolation to me."

He has laid up no treasure in heaven, has not refrained from indulging any of his passions out of regard for the dictates of morality or the welfare of his fellows; he has hoarded nothing, either for his own sake or for others'; and from his seventy years nothing is left to him save memories. Even those memories he would not hoard, but, to our good fortune, has squandered them on us. Surely, therefore, we should be the last to complain of his spendthrift ways...

Would we could all be so resignedly philosophic!

I think I've previously tagged several unfortunates with this self-same game, so - this time around - you are all excused! Unless, that is, you are sufficiently sadomasochistic as to do it simply for the hell of it - or simply want to impress us with what you are reading just now!!

SING A SONG OF SEVEN

I was recently tagged by Good Dog as follows:

List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now.

Musically speaking, I'm not exactly known for being 'right into' anything - except a lot of very diverse classical music which I've discounted here - but I'm going to have a go!

So, here goes.............

First off is a reasonably contemporary performance (and the only one in my seven!): Jamie Cullum playing and singing the Stanley Adams-Maria Grever number, 'What A Difference A Day Made'.

I was hugely excited when I first heard Cullum's debut album, Twentysomething, and whilst his subsequent albums have rather failed to live up to my expectations, I still love his free-fall piano playing and that incredible voice - youthfully hopeful, smokily mature - which combine to create a mood that is both aspirational and nostalgic...

Next, and inevitably, is a Disney number! I often listen to Disney songs and I once made a BBC radio series about the studio's musical output. I have many favorites including (obviously) 'When You Wish Upon A Star' from Pinocchio and the entire original soundtrack from Mary Poppins which I play whenever I am feeling really depressed because it unfailingly lifts my spirits...

This is the title song from The Three Caballeros (1944) written by Ernesto Cortázar, Manuel Esperón and Ray Gilbert and featuring the Dinning Sisters, Ethel Smith at her famous electric organ (yep, you read that correctly) and the voice talents of Clarence Nash as Donald Duck, José Oliviera as José Carioca (he's the Brazilian, cigar-smoking parrot) and Joaquin Garay as the Mexican rooster, Panchito.

It's a memorable song filled with infectious energy and I can never hear it without smiling and seeing, in my mind's eye, those exhaustingly mad-cap visuals...

Now a duet between two of my favourite vocalists and musical legends: Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand.

Performed on The Judy Garland Show in 1963, Judy (aged 41) sings 'Get Happy', counterpointed by Barbra (then just 21) singing 'Happy Days Are Here Again'. Pure and enduring magic!

Camp? Well maybe just a tidge...

Let's get macho for a moment! Here's the cheese-grater voice of Tom Waits with a 1999 performance of 'Innocent When You Dream'.

I first heard this song when it was used in the 1995 Wayne Wang/Paul Auster film, Smoke, starring Harvey Keitel, William Hurt and Forest Whitaker. I bought the film soundtrack, played this one number to distraction and then set off in search of some more idiosyncratic numbers by Tom Waits.

The song is from his 1989 album, Frank's Wild Years and is called 'Innocent When You Dream' or 'Barroom'.

Some people probably find Tom too downbeat, melancholic -- OK, let's admit it, depressing! -- but I love that growling voice and the caustic sense of tragedy that runs through all his songs...

Now, in total contrast, here's a song by a performer I've 'discovered' only comparatively recently - the American singer and pianist, Blossom Dearie.

I love the languid, laid-back, late-night-café feel to her singing. This song, written specially for her by Michael Preston Barr and Dion McGregor, is from Ms Dearie's 1958 album Give Him the Ooh-La-La and was featured in the 2003 film My Life Without Me.

It is called, 'Try Your Wings'...

I have a passion for musicals (ancient and modern) and I could easily just have picked seven show songs including just about anything by Cole Porter, Rogers and Hammerstein, Lerner and Lowe, Jerry Herman or several dozen others - but, if I'm honest, probably nothing by Andrew Lloyd Webber!

Anyway, what I have picked is a song from one of my top-listed musicals (though there are those who argue that it is a modern opera): Stephen Sondheim's masterpiece, Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Recently Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter played Todd and his accomplice, Mrs Lovett, in Tim Burton's film version, but as much as I enjoyed it (which was a lot) the movie and the soundtrack album have sent me back to the original 1979 cast recording by Angela Lansbury and Len Cariou.

Here (from the 1982 National Tour of the show) is the wonderful Angela, here with George Hearn, singing my favourite song from the musical - the brilliant closing number to Act One: 'A Little Priest'...

For my last song, we stay with opera (or, more precisely, operetta): I frequently listen to recordings of songs by Gilbert and Sullivan - as opposed to Gilbert O'Sullivan - which have been part of my life since childhood. I was in school productions of The Pirates of Penzance (Third Policeman from the Left) and H M S Pinafore (Captain Corcoran) and, having a courtesy 'aunt' who was a member of the Kentish Opera Group, got to see a number of other Savoyard operas including The Gondoliers and The Mikado.

Among my first EPs were selections of songs from these operas and I learned several of the 'patter songs' by heart and have never forgotten them. In fact, if you'll pardon the name-dropping, I once performed this next song as a duet - albeit in private! - with Magnus Magnuson!

I love Gilbert's witty tongue-twisting lyrics and Sullivan's incomparable melodies, but as I wanted to end up with something that was pure FUN, here's a slightly abbreviated version of Ko-Ko's song, 'Tit Willow', from The Mikado --- as performed on The Muppet Show by Rowlf and Sam the Eagle...

So that's seven favourites and now I have to tag some others...

Who shall it be? Hmmm...

Well it'll have to be those with blogsites - although you really don't have to add all those YouTube links: the songs and singers will suffice - so here goes:Bentos (Bentos Animation); Ryan (Holy Embers of Dreams); Doug (Dog Rat); Bela (Slap of the Day); Andy (Andy's Animation)

And if any 'blogless' readers would like to tell me what they're listening to, I'll happily pass on your play lists and offerings can be checked out under More Thoughts below...

I can't find a currently available version of the Muppet Show version of 'Tit Willow', but the song was on Muppet Hits Take 2, so look out for it in charity shops and at boot fairs!

THE FINAL TAG

Hard to believe that there can be ANYTHING that you don't know about the funny and fragrant Qenny?

Then you'd best check out his blog-tag revelations!

TAGGING ALONG

Five tagged bloggers have blogged! Read their revelations here...

Anne
Cafrine
David
Ian
Ridley

And, better late than never, here's Good Dog...

...and NOW --- the Diva of Deception!

I’M IT!

There’s a game of blog-tag going around and I got tagged by Brian Sibley…

Yes, yes, I know…

But this is another Brian Sibley who lives in the USA.

The idea is that I have to reveal FIVE things about myself that no one (or most people) won’t know and then tag five other bloggers to carry on the game…

So, here are my five little-known Sibley facts.

I have…

1) Performed, solo, on the stage of the London Palladium…
My God, but it’s a big stage! By the time you’ve walked to the centre spot, you’ve aged six months!

2) Taken tea with Julie Andrews…
And she actually said: “Shall I be mother?”

3) Preached a sermon in the Chapel of Magdalene College, Cambridge…
Unfortunately I shocked the porter because I didn’t have any robes! “You’re a free-church minister then are you, sir?” he asked and when I told him I was a layman, he went very pale and almost fainted away!

4) Spent the night in Cannon Row Police Station...
All further details withheld!

5) Dubbed the voice of Christopher Lee as Saruman…
It was ONLY a TEMPORARY soundtrack mocked-up during the making of the extended cut of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, but if Mr Lee had ever found out he would have been seriously NOT amused!

That's five of my not-so-dark secrets revealed and I now tag the following bloggers:

Cafrine
David Weeks
Good Dog
Irascible Ian
Polkadots
Queen Anne's Revenge
Qenny
Ridley Walker
Silly Billy

So, what FIVE things about you doesn't anyone know? Tell me if and when you blog details of your secret life and I'll post a link.

Meanwhile, regular readers who have the misfortune (or possibly the good luck) to be 'blogless' are welcome to use my blog as a confessional!


[Image: Children's Games by Pieter Brueghel (including touch-tag)]