Sushi For Breakfast

No really, I am - which is why this is the first post of 2019 even though it's March. Am in the depths of assignments for my course at work, this is number five of six, and I really hope I've passed number four, because I don't want to go back and think about finance again if I don't need to.

I am also three-quarters finished with my current cross-stitch. It's a large kit, and I'm ready to have it finished now so that I can get on to the next project, which is from a magazine and has fancy typefaces and beach huts. I've also rediscovered eBay, and today the second batch of old cross-stitch magazines I've bought on eBay arrived. I've also bought a couple of current magazines recently, including one today.

I have also been spending money on other things today - got my Comic Relief T-shirts today. This year it's Mickey and Minnie Mouse, and as they'd got both designs in my size I bought one of each. I've bought two Comic Relief T-shirts in the same year before - I think the first time they did more than one design, which was just a white one and a red one with the same basic design. I think there's only been two times when I've not got the T-shirt - the first year (1988), and then I think in either 1995 or 1997 when they sold them at one particular petrol station which was the other side of the city and they sold out really quickly. Now they have them at TK Maxx so that's not too bad. It's still Sainsburys for other Red Nose Day goodies, like the noses and pins and wristbands. And the show (Friday next week) looks good, there's this which I'm really looking forward to:

I've mentioned this before - a Two Ronnies TV film (approx 50 minutes long) called By The Sea, about a group of relatives and friends who spend a Bank Holiday weekend in a seaside town. A few comedy cliches of the time (early 1980s), but fun nevertheless, and it made me want to stay in a hotel when I go on holiday. Still no sign of an official DVD release it seems, but someone has YouTubed it in five parts, so I've put it all together for your viewing pleasure. I hope you like.

( To Tiddley Cove )

You can also read about this in Ronnie Barker's book "All I Ever Wrote" which is must be the thickest book I have. And that's just the paperback version.

For the first time ever, I didn't watch any of the Red Nose Day TV show on my television. After last time, where I had to sit through several hours of people I had either never heard of or thought had been banished for mediocrity in order to see ten minutes of proper stuff, I decided I wasn't fussed about watching. I did buy the T-shirt, the nose, the pin badge, and the George Michael single (and a pack of Stephen Fry Up crisps which probably taste nicer if you are hungry).

I do, however, have some 24 Hour Panel People to sit down and watch - this is David Walliams taking part in TV panel shows past and present for 24 hours in a row, I have QI, Give Us A Clue, Whose Line Is It Anyway? and Call My Bluff to watch. Also, there was the now-obligatory Doctor Who special short:

( Under the cut, in two parts )

Also I heard John Prescott's reading of the Shipping Forecast which was so much yayness :D And apparently £74 million has been raised so far, which is super duper yayness. If anyone else knows of other Red Nose Day show YouTubery I should look out for, please let me know. I must admit to feeling so lame about not watching the show, like all those prissy schoolteachers who never watched and who thought Comic Relief Red Noses were so beneath them. I was hoping to be tuning in late on, ie after all danger of Davina MacCall had passed, I was going to watch 24 Hour Panel People highlights scheduled for midnight but someone tweeted to say there was an extended news bulletin so everything was being rearranged. Instead, I was listening to The Fry Chronicles, covering his university years, and all the now-world-famous actors he encountered, including a tall chap with blue eyes and blushing-red cheeks who said "Hullo", while tootling around Google Earth.

If you enjoyed the Doctor Who ep and want to see more of Matt Smith, you can see a whole lot more of him tonight at 9.30pm on BBC2 in a 90-minute TV film Christopher And His Kind, where he is "louche, saucy and naked" according to the Radio Times in the title role of Christopher Isherwood. Should be good. I was always sad I never got to see Alan Cumming's Cabaret, I feel like Isherwood is one of those writers I will be forever trying to catch up on.

Rather than completely spam vanillafluffy's LJ with YouTubery (see my previous post), I thought I'd share here so I can link back. I totally love Tom & Jerry, have done so consistently since I was small. When we had our first video recorder in 1983 and joined a video rental club, the first kids' video we rented was a Tom & Jerry video. Over the two or three years we were members of the club we rented the same video five or six times, and then we eventually managed to buy a copy, which I still watched lots even though I was in my early teens by this time. Now I have the Tom & Jerry collection on DVD, and they're just as much fun to watch as they ever were.

So, a few selected cartoons, beginning with The Cat Concerto, one of the best-known, and one of the Oscar winners:


( More here )

I hope you enjoyed those. Cheer-up-athon was created by vanillafluffy; this is spreading the word and the cheer.

My viewing of my Christmas DVDs continues, and last night I watched Monty Python Live At The Hollywood Bowl. I remember the first time I saw it, how I recognised the Hollywood Bowl itself from the Tom and Jerry cartoon:



I love Monty Python Live At The Hollywood Bowl because it's clear that all the performers are having a great time. One of the documentaries on the Monty Python's Flying Circus DVD Boxset talks about how John Cleese was more chilled with fans at live performances by the time Hollywood Bowl came around, he was OK with them knowing all the words and yelling out catchphrases and so on. And they're an octet - the six Pythons, plus Neil Innes and Carol Cleveland.

( Some favourite moments )

Honourable mention to I'm The Urban Spaceman, performed by Neil Innes & Carol Cleveland, of which there is only one fuzzy copy on YouTube. And the down-in-the-audience sketches - Albatross, and the The Travel Agent. Awesome.

I've been downloading loads of comedy stuff from YouTube, and I came across some old Rowan Atkinson live performances which I've mostly never seen before, so I thought I'd share. Starting with ones I know, from 1979's Secret Policeman's Ball:

The Schoolmaster


( More here )

I had no idea that last item existed. One of the funniest things I've seen ever.

Day 299 Had to stop for petrol on the way home from work, so I went to Sainsburys. Now, the little shop at the petrol station sells stuff you can't get in the main store for some unknown reason. This includes Rowntrees Randoms:



They're jelly-like sweets in random shapes. And very nice too, I've been wanting to try some ever since I first saw the advert:



:)

Yay. This has the correct music at the end which doesn't drown out the dialogue, unlike on the DVD release.

Happy birthday Hugh xx

NASA have film up from the STS-132 TCDT, which happened a couple of weeks ago IIRC:



I can't believe we're into the finale missions! :'( Assuming they don't add another mission on the end, this is the final trip into space for Atlantis. Soooo sad. Although it's difficult not to get caught up in the usual buzz of the lead-up to lift-off (due 14th May), particularly as Commander for this mission is Ken Ham, one of the astronauts I met in Bradford. One thing that's not good about prep for this mission is that none of them are tweeting. I can't believe they're all shy (Garrett Reisman is noted for his non-shyness) so I don't know what's going on there.