PUPPET POWER

I was perhaps seven or eight years old and - rare event - had been given some money as a Christmas present!

So, what to spend it on? Well, in my mind there was no question! It was sitting there in the toyshop window and I been eyeing it up for weeks!

It was -- and you must promise NOT to laugh -- a Lenny the Lion glove puppet!

There! I’ve said it!

I was hooked on puppets and ventriloquial acts (my favourite radio show was Educating Archie with Peter Brough and Archie Andrews) and on television Lenny the Lion made a HUGE impact by being one of the first - if not the first - vent doll to be a character other than a child or an old man…

Lenny’s partner was Terry Hall who had the ability to operate the lion’s right arm (paw) in addition to the usual facial movements and this greatly increased the sense of animation.

I was an avid fan of Lenny’s television shows (one of which featured an early appearance by The Beatles), his weekly appearance in TV Comic as well as various spin-off books and annuals, not to mention records (he and Terry memorably recorded the seasonal hit I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas); and, I suppose, that what I really loved about Lenny was his personality that was - well, frankly - CAMP!

Lenny (or Terry) had considerable trouble with his “r’s” which meant that the character had a bit of a lisp! He was also very easily embarrassed which frequently resulted in a gesture - which all TV-Oldies will recall in which Lenny would fling a paw across his eyes and say: “Oh, Tewwy, don’t embawwass me!”

So the truth of the matter is that Lenny was very probably my first gay icon!

Anyway, back to the subject in hand - or to be precise the puppet in (or on) hand…

I really, REALLY wanted it and very, VERY nearly got it...

But (not for the last time in my life) sensible adults put a great deal of sensible pressure on the wayward child and finally convinced him that, instead, he should buy ---- a WRISTWATCH.

Useful, admittedly, but boring… So, I got the Junior Timex and waved goodbye to a life with the Lion.

To be brutally honest, I'ver never quite got over making what was obviously a very stupid mistake and one which, in all likelihood, accounts for the fact that I now only ever wear Mickey Mouse or Snoopy watches and explains why I’m still scanning eBay in the hope of - one day - finding a Lenny the Lion glove puppet…

OUT OF THE SHADOWS

Reading yesterday's edition of The Times, David spotted the following article on the issuing of a court injunction to give privacy rights to an adulterer "in the public eye".

He also spotted the (to us) very familiar accompanying illustration...


You see, the Hulton/Getty Images photograph (differently cropped) is also currently adorning the UK paperback edition of Shadowlands, my book about C S Lewis and Joy Davidman -- neither of whom, in case you wondered, were adulterers!


It's a fascinating example of how a single image can suggest several quite different things and I just hope that maybe the racier connotations associated with this photograph will have a subliminal effect on book-shoppers and help boost the sales of my modest little publication!

SPLASHING OUT!

For Today Only!
A Special Bonus Blog!

A couple of photographs I took yesterday on a beautifully sunny morning in Trafalgar Square...

THE MAN, THE MOUSE & ME

This day, 105 years ago, saw the birth of a man who has probably had a more profound effect on my life and career than any one else - including Lewis Carroll, A A Milne, C S Lewis, J R R Tolkien and, most recently, Peter Jackson!

That man was WALTER ELIAS DISNEY...


My first exposure to the Works of Walt came in the early 1950s when, as a birthday treat, I was taken to a news-theatre (now long gone) on Waterloo Station. The programme included - in addition to Look At Life newsreel footage - a comedy short featuring Laurel and Hardy and a Disney cartoon...

On this fateful day, the chosen film was an already vintage Mickey Mouse short entitled Brave Little Tailor.


Originally issued in 1938, the film was based on the folk-tale of the tailor who accidentally gets appointed giant-killer.

Much of the film's classic knock-about humour was derived from the sequences following a scene in which the giant inadvertently swallows Mickey, along with an outsized handful of pumpkins, and then washes down his "meal" with the contents of an uprooted well...

At the sight of the intrepid Mickey swinging perilously on the Giant's giant uvula, the audience exploded with laughter - with one exception: ME! I was so totally terrified that I screamed the cinema down and, to my parents great embarrassment, had to be forcibly removed!

In the hopes of mollifying this traumatised child, I was whisked away to a Lyon's Corner House where, I am told, I stood on a chair and used my ice-cream spoon to conduct the band...

But, too late! The scars were already there and the seeds were sown for what has been a lifetime obsession with Disney's dreams and nightmares.

So - apart from pointing out the obvious dangers of taking young and impressionable children to the movies - what can I say but...

Thanks and a Happy Birthday, Uncle Walt!

And for those too young to remember ever having seen a Disney short cartoon in a cinema, the good news, as reported by Charles Solomon in The New York Times, is that the Disney studio are going to return to Walt's movie-making origins and once again produce animated shorts for theatrical exhibition beginning with a goofy cartoon entitled How to Install Your Home Theater.

DOG CATCHER

Regular reader, JENNIFER MILLER, just happened to snap these two shots near London's Tate Modern the other day. They provide an excellent example of how Londoners manage to get round petty officialdom in the City!!

ADVENT 2006

Traditionally, within the Christian calendar, the season of Advent has a double meaning: as a preparation for Christmas, when Christ's First Coming is remembered and as a season when that the devout reflect on Christ's expected Second Coming at the end of time.

Like so much else connected with Christian festivals, the word ‘advent’ itself is of pagan origin since many pagan societies annually commemorated a certain date each year when one of their gods came and took up temporary physical dwelling in his or her temple.

The feast held in honour of this manifestation was called ‘adventus’, and on that day the temple, which was normally closed, would be opened for public adoration. All of which made it a useful word for the medieval church to describe the concept of God visiting the world and taking up residence within the ‘temple’ of a human body.


Whether or not you believe in the Christian origins for the festival of Christmas, there is a rich beauty and a primitive mystery in it’s telling - at least, in the way it was told in the centuries before the secular seduction of the season.

The following advent carol, for example (rendered here in modern English), was penned some 800 years ago…

Gabriel, from heaven’s King
Sent to the maiden sweet,
Brought her this blissful tiding
And warmly gave her greet:
“Hail to thee, full of grace aright!
For God’s Son, this heavenly light,
For love of man
Will man become
And take
Flesh of thee, maiden bright,
Mankind free to make
Of sin and devil’s might.”

The mild maiden softly gave
Answer to him then:
“However should I bear
A child without a man?”
The angel told her: “Dread thee naught;
Through the Holy Ghost shall be wrought
This very thing
Of which tiding
I bring;
All mankind shall be bought
Through thy sweet birthing
And out of pain be brought.”

When the maiden understood
And the angel’s words had heard,
Tenderly, with gentle mood,
The angel she answered:
“Our Lord’s servant girl I know
I am, who is above us here.
As for me,
Full furthered be
Thy words:
That I, since it His will is,
A maiden, outside [natural] law,
Should have a mother’s bliss.”

With that the angel went away
All out of her sight.
Her womb began to rise
Through the Holy Ghost’s might.
Into her was Christ placed anon,
True God, true man in flesh and bone,
And of her flesh
A-borne he was
In time,
Through which came God to us to dwell;
He bought us out of pain,
And let himself for us be slain.

Maiden mother matchless,
Of mercy full abounding:
Pray for us to him that chose thee,
To him who in thee grace found,
That he forgive our sin and wreck;
And clean of every guilt us make;
And heaven’s bliss,
When our time it is
To die,
Give us, for thy sake:
So to serve him here
That he us to him take.

I am indebted for this poem to The Socinian who sagely asks: “What can we learn from the Christian season of Advent, if we don't accept as literally true the historical events upon which its religious meaning is built? Perhaps it is that underneath the questionable historicity of the Advent mythology nevertheless stands a solid truth: that when your cup seems emptiest is right before it's about to be filled.”


[Images: © Brian Sibley, 2006]

There is the first of a series of Advent windows on Window Gazing .

SATURDAY IS WEEKS' DAY

BIRTHDAY GREETINGS

to
my friend, partner and favourite man of magic
DAVID WEEKS

David will be spending most of his birthday entertaining at Other People’s birthday parties, but hopefully we’ll find time for him to have a little celebration of his own.

For those who’ve not seen David at work here are a few images of him in some of his various performing personas: wizard, pirate, balloon-modelling gardener (at the premiere of The Curse of the Were-Rabbit) and as a scary Lemony-Snicket-Count-Olaf character…





And here he is as himself…


In case you’ve not seen it, there’s a great little film of Kylie Minogue’s personal appearance at Waterstone’s Oxford Street Bookshop in October to launch her book, The Showgirl Princess.

Following several minutes of footage of Kylie meeting her young fans (which, in itself, is charming and shows her for the star that she is) you’ll see Mr Weeks perform a little piece of pure magic for Ms Minogue that leaves her ecstatic with delight! Enjoy!

MANY HAPPY (and MAGICAL) RETURNS, DAVID!

NOTHING LIKE A NICE CUP OF TEA

Sipping my umpty-umpth cup of tea the other day, I was reminded of a story told me by my late friend, Canon Kenneth Druitt.

It was the 1930s and, for his first curacy, Kenneth was sent to an impoverished parish in the East End of London.


One day, he called on an elderly woman living on her own in a particularly dilapidated slum dwelling. The surroundings were squalid and the single room and its elderly occupant were both filthy. Her clothes were dirty, her face and hands black with grime and there was a fetid odour in the air…

“Sit down!” said the woman, taking a swig of tea from a cracked and chipped cup, and with only one chair (and that being occupied by the woman herself), the young priest had no alternative but to perch on the side of the unmade bed.

As soon as he was settled she asked: “Would you like a cup of tea?” Kenneth accepted but was then horrified to see his hostess throw the dregs from her cup into the fire and then refill it and hand it to her visitor.

What was he to do? He couldn’t possibley refuse the drink! Why, it would be as if the Lord Himself had declined her hospitality.

So, reasoning that God wouldn’t let him come to harm while “on duty”, he accepted the cup, but decided to take the additional precaution of turning it around in order to drink left-handed.

They chatted while he drank, the old woman intently scrutinising her visitor throughout.

Only when he had finally drained the cup, did she give him a gappy smile and say: “It’s odd that, ain’t it, Vicar? You and me both being left-handed…”

THE GIRAFFE WHO STUCK HIS NECK OUT

“I know I’m sticking my neck out,” said the Young Giraffe, “But those trees, way over there, look to me as if they are covered in really luscious leaves right at the very top.”

“What trees?” asked one of his elderly relatives.

“Trust me,” said the Young Giraffe, “with due respect, my eyesight is better than yours.”

So the whole herd followed the Young Giraffe and headed off for the trees, which were, even further away than they had at first supposed.

Although they began their journey almost as a canter, their speed soon dropped to a lope and, by the time they reached the trees, they were going at little more than a dawdle and were exhausted and very hungry.

They were pleased to discover that the trees were indeed covered in the most lip-smackingly luscious leaves at the very top of their branches. But unfortunately however far they stuck their necks out every single bunch of leaves was just beyond their reach.

As can be imagined, they were not best pleased with the Young Giraffe.

A few weeks later, the Young Giraffe coughed politely and said that whilst he was probably sticking his neck out once more, he could smell a waterhole full of fresh, clear drinking water off in the distance beside a large outcrop of rock.

“What rock?” asked another of his relatives.

“Trust me,” said the Young Giraffe, “I have a very keen sense of smell.”

Against their better judgement - and only because they were very thirsty - the herd agreed to follow the Young Giraffe to his waterhole.

After another long, tiring trek, they arrived at a muddy puddle at the bottom of a deep hole that was currently occupied by a bad-tempered and overweight warthog.

Even if they had been willing to drink a warthog’s bath water, it would have made no difference for however far they spread their long legs and however far they stuck out their long necks they couldn’t reach the brown, brackish sludge.

For the second time in too short a time, the Young Giraffe was not especially popular with his family.

A week or two passed and, one day when the giraffes were roaming the savannah, the Young Giraffe once again felt compelled to make an announcement.

“I know you are tired of me sticking my neck out,” he began, “but I really think that I can hear a pride of lions creeping up on us through the long grasses.”

“SHUT UP!!” shouted the giraffe family as one animal.

So he did…

Feeling unbelievably humiliated, tears welled up in his big brown eyes and it was at that moment that the lions sprang!

The first animal to fall was the Young Giraffe, proving that if you keep sticking your neck out, sooner or later, you are going to get your head bitten off…

© Brian Sibley 2006
Read more of my Likely Stories

10 THINGS (2)

After my recent blog on the subject of LISTS...

This is the second in an occasional series (well, at least there will now be two!) of TEN THINGS that have made my life richer than it might otherwise have been.

And today I’m offering my choice of

Ten Things That Have Made My Life More TASTY...

Oysters
Beetroot
Peas
Roast pork & apple sauce
Salted Popcorn
White truffle
Black pudding
Pepperoni pizza
Toast and marmalade
Battenberg cake (or anything with marzipan)

If it weren't too obviously decadent and self-indulgent, I would have also included more or less any make of ice cream -- but especially everything by Ben & Jerry (top choice: Phish Food!) -- and all sundaes and knickerbocker glories such as this one - aptly named The Matterhorn - which I sampled at the ice-cream parlour in Disneyland...


By the way, I asked my friend Buttons to pose beside this particular confection simply because - with a name like 'The Matterhorn' - a sense of scale and proportion was obviously called for in order to avoid any unnecessary charges of excessive gluttony!

[To find out more about Buttons, visit his web page and his recently-launched blog, a rabbit's ramblings]