I’ve just been watching Fawlty Towers again after many years and it is fantastic. The humour, the timing, characterisation and character interraction is just perfect and the scenario builds, layer on layer, adding tension and hilarity until the climax. the clothes, cars and decor is dated but the comedy sparkles as fresh as if written yesterday.

Other classic comedies have the same magic:-Dad’s Army, Please Sir, The Good Life, Porridge,George and Mildred, The Liver Birds, The Likely Lads, Bless this House, Steptoe and Son, The Young Ones, Some Mother’s Do ‘Ave ‘em, It ‘Aint Half Hot Mum, Butterflies, Father Ted, ‘Allo ‘Allo, Up Pompei, Last of the Summer Wine, Red Dwarf, League of Gentlemen, To the Manor Born, Rising Damp, Hancock’s Half Hour, ‘Allo ‘Allo, On the Buses, Father Dear Father, Are You Being Served…..and many more.

There is the odd current comedy that is good, but nothing compares to these!

Households are recycling their socks off while factories, businesses and even some schools and colleges have not even started.

Junk mail has not been banned.

The paperless office is a joke. Everything is printed out and filed and businesses have huge stores of archived twaddle.

Stores are finally being encouraged not to use plastic bags, yet food bags, freezer product packages, bin liners, nappy bags and dog poo bags have not been mentioned.

Most bins are made of plastic.

This train of thought was a result of junk mail from a water filter company which came in a clear plastic bag and contained various  stickers which stated:- ‘I’m an environmentally friendly cartridge‘ ‘recycle now,’ ‘better for you, better for the environment.’ Unfortunately these stickers were plastic. Enyaaaaaaaaaargrrrrraha!

Typically English mixture of stately home with grounds and woodland, wildfowl reserve, crafts workshops and a motor museum. I must admit it was a good day out despite the sinister black swan that looked as though it was going to take a chunk out of my leg at any moment.

Cool huh?

Beefeaters , guarding the palace and keeping a botox face

Footballers from small local teams where family supporters huddle in the wind and the rain to cheer them on, pubs with wide screen tv’s and cock-eyed punters cheering and belching , huge stadiums where faithful supporters droan the team anthem.

Morris Dancers…the bells, the bells!

British Bobbies. A rare sight on foot, and somehow in cars they aren’t bobbies.

Women from the WI (Women’s Institute) They really do make cake and jam and meet in church halls.

Men in bowler hats. Very few now , but still an image of the English. Must be something to do with the shape of the bowler-hatted head

Middle aged women on bicycles with baskets. Not necessarily nosy and into solving mysteries.

Cricketers in white on a village green where the sun always shines and cucumber sandwiches abound.

Milkmen. Bottles of milk placed on your doorstep - it sounds magical and historical already!

Horsey Dog walkers … or doggy horse riders! The horse/dog set wearing tweed and snorting as they laugh.

Cockney market traders. Rollaarp! Ieem not askin’ a tenna, not eeeeven a fiva, Ieeem not eeeeven goingta ask fooooar quid. No ladissandgenlarmen I can offa you this for the amayzing and once only price of thurreee pounds and fifty pence-!

Debutantes
Partying and clubbing by night, attending spas and beauty parlours by day, then they get married, and and go partying and clubbing at night and attend beauty parlours by day!

Crabby Pensioners at Bus Stops (or in Post Office Queues)
Hardly surprising given the draughty unwelcoming shelters, late buses and long queues.

Goofy Vicars well meaning, affable and dim.

Old Maids. School teachers with slightly pointy noses.

The story of a wealthy town family losing the father figure and moving to the country where the railway plays a key part in the children’s lives, and ultimately brings their father home is as popular today as when it was written.

The film is re-run every Christmas and it is wonderful to perform as a play.

The Bexhill production used a projected background for the railway and the family cottage which worked really well.

There is something about stage productions involving alot of children that brings an extra magic.

This particular interpretation had the Perks (railway master’s) children playing a key role in the story so that it was very child centred

The production kept the typically olde English feel and was played to a packed house.

I have not had much time to start writing a pantomime but I have started plotting it.

I’m still going with The Emperor’s New Clothes even though it may take a little longer to find a lead actor. This would be easier for a professional company but I’m not sure if I can think of any men in our company, willing to spend a good part of a performance night in lary boxers.

We do advertise the auditions, so it may bring some more talent into the company.

I may write it and find that the group don’t vote to put it on this year. We are very democratic and have a pitching night where anyone in the company can come to pitch plays for the group to vote on. However I’m sure we’ll put it on within the next couple of years.

Anyway, the basic plot is the good hearted Emperor with a major fault, vanity. He has an evil brother who wants to discredit him and become Emperor in his place. He hatches a plot with two rogues who pose as weavers and weave the magical and invisible cloth. They put the two current weavers/seamstresses ‘widow’ and ‘woe’s’ noses out of joint by taking their place in weaving the latest suit for the latest parade. The emperor is widowed but has a daughter, and she is the only one who admits that she cannot see the cloth. A visiting artist, due to paint the emperor in all his glory is her love interest, but they fall out because he pretends (like all the rest) that he can see it. The ending will be that the Emperor looks a fool on the parade, but the people love him and so forgive him, something his evil brother did not count on. The evil brother is banished - with his love interest and the emperor also finds love and happiness as does his daughter. There will be a fair bit of comedy including a character called ‘Special FX’ as its only a small theatre with a tiny budget so we’ll have to be quite creative with or special effects.

Watch this space for more as I firm up the plot and post excerpts from the panto…if I get it done that is!!

The day to day irritations that don’t ruin our lives but raise our blood pressure and our hackles and add to the quota of moans and grumbles circulating in daily conversation.

Council tax.

Road works

Speed Cameras

Petrol Prices (also gas and electric)

British Telecom

Vandalism

Builders

Waiting in for tradesmen or deliveries

Late trains or buses

Litter

Nosy neighbours

Noisy neighbours

Charity tin rattlers

Junk mail

Telephone marketing

Call centres

Binge drinkers

Late post

Un-gritted roads

MP’s

Shops and stores (as usual) use every marketing ploy to play on our guilt strings to ensure we can’t walk past chocolates, flowers, perfume and treats without buying something, or for those with a stronger will, making a mental note of the date and a vow to get something decent - which we may forget - resulting in a last minute dash to said shops and stores.

Every pub that serves food is booked up because most offer a Mother’s Day menu. Unfortunately these set ‘Mother’s Day’ menus cost more than double the charge of a normal pub lunch. Who can say no when Mum is sitting there awaiting her treat?

Children have always made a card, a paper flower in a pot or a little box with a sweet at school, and bear the little hotch potch of glue, tissue and cardboard with enough pride to win the Olympics.

Children also provide breakfast in bed which ranges from cereal floating in a pint of milk with burnt toast and a pile of marmalade, to egg so scrambled it’s plastic on slightly hard toast, both with very hot sweet tea. This is accompanied by home made cards oozing glue and love.

Mum’s with babies or toddlers get a large shiny card and a pressie from the tot, bought by hubby or partner who looks gleeful and childlike as they present it together.

Mothers day, imported and not originally British, may be commercial and cheesy but it does bring out true love and thankfullness and the chance to ponder on the goodness of one’s mother.

Leap year folk get one birthday every four years, which means that when they reach 100 they will only be 25.

It means that although they celebrate their birthday on 28th February or 1st March for the three years, and whatever  fun and partying takes place, it never feels completely authentic. But when the 29th comes round the celebrations accompany the feeling that the real birthday has arrived at last.

Be a female leap year baby and you have a major celebration and can propose if you feel inclined, although quite why a woman should only feel able to propose once every four years in this age of equality is beyond me.

However because leap year birthdays are rare, those lucky enough to be born on one get an ordinary birthday annually, and a supreme birthday every four years, with double celebrations and presents.

I know because I am one and it’s great!

There are a pair of swans on the pond in my village and every year they have a family of cygnets. The swans are so tame they lead their family up the road to local gardens or to graze bugs on the grass verges.

Sometimes they sit in the middle of the road and traffic has to wait for them to move or for a local to come out (eventually) to gently usher them off the road with a broom. This is perilous if done by anybody apart from those who have watched said swans, year after year, and know them well enough to do it properly. This means keeping a reasonable distance from the family, to come from the adult swan side and not the cygnets and to move slowly and gracefully rather than making any sudden movements so they get the idea of what you want them to do rather than that you are about to attack.

An angry swan protecting their young would could do some serious damage so they should be treated with respect.

The fact they are protected makes everyone more patient and they are an asset to any village or town pond which is safe enough for them to inhabit. Apart from their beauty and grace it’s wonderful to see the little grey gawky cygnets turn gradually into graceful swans. Families love watching them and it is nice, and even calming in this frenetic, fast, instant culture to have to wait on the whim of a swan in the road.