My beloved and I visited Le Champignon Sauvage ( a Not the Nine O’Clock News sketch there–’when I met Gerald he was completely wild’, ‘wild? I was livid’) this week. And very good it was too. I broke my incipient and collapsing vegetarianism by eating duck hearts. And very nice they were as well.
It’s the sort of place which allows you to enjoy yourself. Laugh, have fun. We had fun by writing our new Edinburgh show. ‘Major moments of world history through the medium of mime’. We got Diana’s death, the Kennedy assassination (Mrs W. doing a particularly good impression of the magic bullet I thought), the Vietnam War, Anne Frank (though that required some vocalisation, ‘fuck this, not another diary…’).
Any other ideas?
Glad to see the Winter Olympics starts today. A couple of weeks watching British people hurtle downhill or slide around for no apparent reason other than the chance of glory and for David Vine (is he still around?) to mention their name as they finish up in twenty-second place or somewhere similar.
But why no Special Winter Olympics? We have to put up with a Summer Special Olympics after all, and a winter one would be a lot more fun. The chance to laugh at a lot of disabled people being frankly pretty crap at everything they do should always be encouraged.
Of course we’re all meant to nod along to the notion that the Special Olympics is about bravery and passion and real talent. But it’s patently not. It’s about freaks and a modern day freak show*. Watching not very well-coordinated people limp along in the ’sprints’ and blind people having to be guided through long-distance races by being tied to partners is just about on the level of a School Sports Day. Though Potato Sack Races for Five year olds have nothing on the pure bloody delight of blind football. Watching them attempt to find the ball through listening to the rattle and then kickout at thin air is frankly bloody hilarious, and no amount of sanctimonious nonsense from the commentators will make it seem anything more.
I have no problem with the differently abled having their own events, but why this universal kow-towing to the collective delusion that it’s sport? I’m pretty good at some sports and bloody awful at others, but I don’t get the chance to be celebrated in front of millions as I compete in the ‘not very good at this’ games, and it’s only the fact I’m only emotionally crippled that stops me. In fact, I’ve never seen dwarves or midgets at the Special Olympics. Why such discrimination between handicaps?
A winter Special Olympics featuring blind slalom. amputee speed skating, tourette’s ice dancing, and the afore-mentioned thalidomide bobsleigh would go down a storm. Certainly would increase the level of interest anyway.
* I of course except Wheelchair sports, which are very little different from cycling or rowing in my opinion, and if the latter get recognised, I don’t see why the former shouldn’t as well. Just be honest and let fully abled people compete too, and stop being all precious over whether someone is really disabled or not. Actually, also put turbo engines on the back.
I can remember 99. Watching the Cup final, willing Man U. on. Even in Leeds we were (secretly) doing it. But tonight, there’s nothing but schadenfreude. Getting rid of Beckham was a mistake. Keane, even worse. It’s not only City fans laughing (I can hear them across the rooftops of Manchester), it’s everyone.
Time for the Scottish drunkard to go. Mr. Sacchi? I think there’s a vacancy waiting to be filled.
I know this has been covered in extremis, but it’s still my top turn-on...Girls with corpses magazine.
Reminds me of a more jokey version of Buttergeit’s Nekromantik (and, I guess, Nekromantik 2). Once banned, now available through amazon. It’s the end of civilization I tells ye.