"IN THIS STYLE..."

CAPTION COMPETITION
THE RESULTS!

The photo I asked you to caption was of a somewhat demented-looking Hatter bearing down on an overdressed Disneyland visitor (hat, gloves and pearls) back in 'sixties...



Your suggested captions included references to the millinery high- (0r low-) lights of guests at the recent Royal Wedding; what I take to be allusions to Irish leprechauns (prompted, I guess, by the Hatter's "wearing of the green") combined with the ubiquitous reference to underwear; and the halluciagenic effects of magic mushrooms.

One or two other entries suggest that their authors were themselves under the influnece of substances that probably oughtn't to be investigated more closely!

This competition was graciously adjudicated – from an anonymous list of entries – by Guest Judge, GILL, and here are the results, beginning with the...

RUNNERS UP

Boll Weavil

EDITOR'S PICK "The thing I love about Internet dating is you never know who you're going to meet. I just tapped in 'smartly dressed man' and I'm SO excited to see who turns up."

"Would you be ready for the underpants shots now. I have my foinest Shamrock's on for the lady so I do."


David Weeks

A rubber-head and a mannequin, in a fantasy setting. So where has reality gone?


Good Dog

“Back and to the left... Back and to the left... Back and to the left...”

“Will somebody please explain to this frightful little man that however sure he thinks he is, I’m not his, my name isn’t Heather, and I do not feel at all lucky!”

“And I thought that Sarah Palin and her Tea Party was just plain nuts.”


Nicholas

"You think that's a hat? THIS IS A HAT, LADY!"


Roger

Prince Andrew goes to his daughters' milliner.


SharonM

Woman to Hatter: "I know a princess who would just love your hat for the next royal wedding!"


Sheila

She (proudly): I've got a hat!
He (in an Australian accent): That's not a hat - now this is a hat!


Suzanne

HIGHLY COMMENDED "Alice? Oh! My! God! How many mushrooms did they give you?"

"Alice, you have to kick that mushroom habit"

"Can I be the porpoise to your whiting?"


Snow White Sanctum

Hatter to Woman: "Hey lovely, since your husband's busy birdwatching, how'd you like to come join me for some tea?"


TokyoMagic

"Hey, Mr. Hatter... coffee, tea or ME???"



And now – roll on drums, toot on trumpets – the FINALISTS!!

THIRD PLACE

Boll Weavil

Woman: "These tabs ARE good stuff. Mine are kicking in already..."

SECOND PLACE

Andy J Latham

Take the damn picture George, I do NOT wish to be hatted again!!

FIRST PLACE

Suzanne

"Well hellooo! Wanna hunt some snark?

CONGRATULATIONS

to Suzanne and the other finalists and thanks to Judge Gill and to everyone who threw their hats into the ring!

The photo was originally posted on the blog of the very excellent Mr Kevin Kidney

A FIVE-YEAR-PLAN...

...is exactly what there was not!

When I blogged for the first time on 14 May 2006, I would never have imagined that I would still be blogging (on several different blogs!) five years later. In fact, I doubted I'd make it to the end of a week!

But here we are 1,317 posts and 33,9895 hits later and it is time to say a big thank you to everyone who follows or reads this blog, leaves comments, enters competitions and sends photos and ideas of things to blog about. Without you, I'd have never lasted five months let along five years!

Here's to the next half decade!

HAPPY BLOGDAY!

THERE WAS AN OLD POET NAMED LEAR...

...Who was born at this time of the year.
This was the day
When friends would say
"Happy Birthday" to old Edward Lear.

To celebrate that old Derry down Derry and great panjandrum of nonsense (who was born in London on this day in 1812), I'd like to share a cartoon I came across recently on the entertaining blog by my pink half of the drainpipe...


I have long held Edward Lear in great affection and from childhood have had many of his verses by heart. As I grew older I discovered that these tales about owls and pussycats, jumblies, pobbles and a dong with a luminous nose were far more than just exercises in humorous rhyming. Beneath the apparent silliness and delightful word-invention, lay a deep and troubled sea of emotions: loneliness, despair, self-loathing and unrequited love.

It was that gradual realisation, followed by some research into the troubled life of a man who was not only a great nonsense poet but also a brilliant landscape painter, that led me, many years ago now, to collaborate with my composer friend, David Hewson, in writing To Sea in a Sieve, a musical exploration of Lear's life which was staged at the Edinburgh fringe and, subsequently, in London at the late Westminster Theatre.

I appeared in the role of the poet and Miss Polly March played everyone else in Lear's life (well, all the women anyway, from his mother to Queen Victoria whom Lear taught drawing) as well as being the Lady Jingly Jones to his Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo and, obviously, the Pussy Cat to his Owl – as well transforming herself into one of those spectacular parrots that he painted so gloriously.

Time for a revival, I think!

Meanwhile, I'm raising a glass of Marsala (Mr Lear's favourite tipple) to the man who wrote...

How pleasant to know Mr Lear,
Who has written such volumes of stuff.
Some think him ill-tempered and queer,
But a few find him pleasant enough.

DON'T FORGET: The CAPTION COMPETITION closes tomorrow at midnight!

BOARD DISCUSSION

Wood you believe it...?

ALICE IN CAPTIONLAND

It's

COMPETITION TIME
again!

One of my favourite blogs is that of former long-time Disney designer and on-going, all-round renaissance guy, Kevin Kidney.

Last month, under the heading Storybook Fashions, Kevin reproduced a series of a dozen fashion photos outlandishly modelled against the fantasy backdrop of Disneyland, California. Unearthed by Tim Haack, the photos were taken for the April 9, 1961 issue of Midwest Magazine, a supplement to the Chicago Sun-Times.

One of these curious photos is the subject for this CAPTION COMPETITION...


The original caption read:

Why is a raven like a writing desk?
Who cares when you look like this!

However, going on past experience, I reckon readers of this blog can come up with one or two better offerings than that!

What is the Hatter, the woman or both of them (or even the guy in the background) thinking or saying?

Answers via comments below (or e-mail) by Friday 13 May.

DICKENS OF A QUOTE

I came across this wonderful simile in Charles Dickens' reminiscence, 'Night Walks'...

The wild moon and clouds were as restless as an evil conscience in a tumbled bed.



'Night Walks' was originally published in the weekly magazine edited by Dickens, All the Year Round, and was later reprinted in the collection of essays and sketches, The Uncommercial Traveller.

This evocative portrait of London after dark as viewed during Dickens' wanderings as an insomniac can now be found in volume 88 of Penguin Books' Great Ideas series, Charles Dickens – Night Walks.

Image: 'Hawaiian Moon' by Elizabeth Hoskinson

PLUMB DAFT!

Whatever these plumbers charge, you certainly get a pun for your money!

And, with their Satanic red livery, they may be just the company required by anyone, post-Easter, still experiencing Jesus-in-the-drain-pipe issues!

Image: Photo by David Weeks

DE-TAILING

Here's an Easter greeting I received (can this really be true?) forty-one years ago!

A drawing by Ernest H Shepard – illustrator of A A Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh and Christopher Robin books – depicting my favourite character, Eeyore the old grey donkey and the tail that was lost and regained...

True the line is a little shaky, but Shepard was 90 years old at the time and it was over forty years since he had drawn his original pictures of Eeyore, Pooh and the other denizens of the 100 Aker Wood.

"What's happened to your tail?" [Pooh] said in surprise.

"What has happened to it?" said Eeyore.

"It isn't there!"

"Are you sure?"

"Well, either a tail is there or it isn't there. You can't make a mistake about it, and yours isn't there!"

"Then what is?"

"Nothing."

"That Accounts for a Good Deal," said Eeyore gloomily. "It Explains Everything. No Wonder."

"You must have left it somewhere," said Winnie-the-Pooh.

"Somebody must have taken it," said Eeyore. "How Like Them," he added after a long silence.

HOLY, HOLY, HOLY

EASTER GREETINGS

Image: Stained glass window in the former St Mary's-at-Lambeth, London, now home of The Garden Museum © Brian Sibley, 2010

You can look into more of my windows on my blog Window Gazing and my flickr photo set, Windows

EGGSCESSIVENESS!

A seasonal offering from Zoeycakes ('little cakes. big taste'): take one Cadbury's creme egg and bake inside a chocolate cupcake, top off with vanilla butter-cream and a Cadbury's mini-egg...

Serve, eat and...

...prepare to be very ill!

Incidentally, as in the photo above, why does a cupcake (or a muffin) always look so much less attractive when its paper case has been peeled off? Rather like a stripper that doesn't quite have the body imagination had led one to expect...

You can find more photos of heart attacks on Zoeycakes flickr photostream and on their www.zoeycakes.com.