A feast of culture

Dot writes: our hits on this blog (which hold up surprisingly well thanks to that old Anatoly Boukreev post) were unusually low yesterday, and I can only suppose that it was because everyone was busy watching the Eurovision Song Contest. Anyway, even before that particular artistic extravaganza Hugh and I had already been accumulating cultural capital by attending a performance by Scottish Dance Theatre. It was part of the Dublin Dance Festival, which is on at the moment, but it was also a family show aimed at children and held at the Ark.

I admit that I booked this in the first place because I wanted to see it and only in the second place because it seemed like an opportunity to have a special outing just with Hugh (the show was for ages five and up). Hugh likes to dance sometimes, given a suitable song on YouTube and an admiring audience, but he has shown no special interest in watching dance. I, on the other hand, was a little girl who did ballet, and I still love to attend dance performances of all kinds on the rare occasions when I get the chance. I was a bit worried I would be dragging Hugh through the doors, especially when he decided on Friday night, on no evidence, that the Ark was boring and he didn’t want to go there. However, in the event it was a success; he behaved beautifully on the journey in, after a fit of shyness on the stairs consented to eat cake at the pyjama party before the show (though not to wear pyjamas – who can blame him?), and was delighted by most of the performance. Afterwards we filled in the feedback card and Hugh went for ‘enjoyed it very much’, the top rating. Nice of him, as there was one part when he announced loudly “This is lame. Can we leave?” But there were other parts that made him laugh, and he amused our (adult) row-neighbours in a section with Chinese music by saying “This is ninja music. They must be ninjas!” He likes ninjas.

The show was called ‘What on Earth!?’ and its basic conceit was that the five dancers were going to bed for the night and then had dreams (or one of them had dreams in which the others featured) about various plants and animals. The style of the music varied from section to section and so did the style of dance, to some extent – thus an Indian song was matched to quasi-Indian dancing. The opening was all about going to bed, with the five dancers all trying to get into the same double-bed and constantly rolling off it, fighting over it, jumping on it etc; this shifted into the dreams, which involved (in order, as far as I can remember) vampire bats (Hugh liked that bit); a tree that was threatened with being cut down; two insects or possibly lizards having a fight (the ninjas); waterbirds; a bird flying; struggles over the bed again. The dream-scenes were enhanced with animations projected onto the backdrop. At the end the curtain calls kept turning back into dancing, which annoyed Hugh who wanted to know whether it was one or the other. Then they let the children onto the performance area.

I thought it was wonderful: funny, lively, clever and beautifully performed. Hugh enjoyed it too, as has been noted, but I was interested in what appealed to him and what didn’t. He liked the slapstick moments but was less amused by general comical body-language; there was a sequence in which a tall, lanky male dancer with rubber gloves on his feet pretended to be some sort of wading bird, which I thought was beautifully observed and very funny but which left Hugh cold. There were quite a lot of little touches like that where I don’t think he had the life-experience to appreciate the joke. He found the first part of the tree sequence particularly puzzling because it wasn’t very clear what was happening – trees don’t dance, after all. Hugh wanted a clear narrative; he wanted denotation, and wasn’t interested in pure dance or even in general mood-painting. However, he responded to the energy and loved anything that looked like fighting.

Ken and I used to go to see Scottish Dance Theatre in Dundee when we were working at the University of St Andrews. I don’t think any of the dancers were the same that I remembered from back then, but it was a nice reminder of Scotland. At one point an image of a TV was projected onto the backdrop and we heard part of a nature programme supposedly being watched by one of the dancers as she struggled to go to sleep. The nature programme was narrated in a Scottish accent, which made me happy.

So, onto Eurovision. It wasn’t as good as Scottish Dance Theatre. However, some of the songs were pretty good, though as usual the voting didn’t correspond at all with my own tastes. My facebook friends were divided between the ones who offered a running commentary on the songs and the ones who only tuned in for the voting. Here are some proposals for improving Eurovision, or alternatively spoiling it completely, depending on what it is you enjoy about it:

1) All the contestants should sing in their own languages. For English speakers this would save us the pain of knowing what the words mean.
2) Nobody is allowed to change key halfway through in order to make a tiny musical idea stretch further.
3) Any performers who look as though they’ve strayed in from an adult revue should be issued with leggings and a big woolly jumper.
4) Songs should be screened and any that have appeared in the contest before, even under a different name/country, should be rejected. I’m sure I heard the Belarus entry last year.
5) The Scandinavian countries, the Balkans (not that they were in it this year) and parts of the former USSR should no longer be allowed to vote for each other.
6) Bonus points should be given for entertaining facial hair.

My favourite entry on balance was the Greek one. It would have done well out of (6).

Peak Lager

Ken writes:

The latest issue of Brewer and Distiller International reports that Heineken are trialling a new bottle equipped with a battery pack and LED light display that will light up when two Heineken bottles are clinked together. What extraordinary lengths to go to to get people to drink a particular beer! Surely this is an indication that, at least in the first world, we have reached peak lager. The market for lager is as big as it can possibly get and it will only downwards from here. What particularly strikes me about this news is the fact that the container (be it bottle or can) is the largest component of the cost of beer, comparable if not slightly more than the tax in even the most heavily taxed economies like the UK. So by making the container even more expensive, Heineken are effectively taking even less of the value of the sale. They are obviously gambling that the gimmick will result in increased sales, but I find it hard to see how the strategy can be sustainable.

A nice trip to the zoo

A nice trip to the zoo.

Snippets

Hugh and I passed an old couple as we walked to the gate of the park. Hugh said: “We must be very nice to old people. If you jump out suddenly on a very, very old person you know what might happen? They might DIE.”

I was romping with Frank and making growly chomping noises at him. Frank said: “Mummy, you mustn’t bite my brains, because if you do it will hurt my feelings.”

Dream, phonetics

Dot writes: this morning Frank woke up absolutely convinced that Ken had brought him four new Octonauts toys – specifically, the Gup-B, Gup-C, Gup-D and Gup-E, which are four of the little submarines the Octonauts use. “Was this in your dream, Frankie?” No, the toys were downstairs, and he was eager to show them to me. But when we went into the living room and looked in the box they weren’t there (and Ken, of course, is still in Edinburgh, doing exams). Poor Frank was very disappointed.

In unrelated news but the same blog-post, I thought I’d share these videos I found when looking for resources for my new History of the English Language course. There’s a whole series of them: look for KentLinguistics on Youtube. Here’s the introductory one and a couple of others.

Some stuff, mostly boy-related

Dot writes: it’s really astonishing how much Frank can talk when he gets the chance. Today I took him for his follow-up appointment at Crumlin (no further surgery advised for the present, hooray) and then it occurred to me to drop in on my friend Sinead, who lives in that area and is expecting a baby in a few weeks’ time. We managed a brief discussion of birth and a viewing of the newly prepared nursery, but mostly Frank talked about the Octonauts, in great detail and with rather the air that Sinead was going to be tested on it afterwards. Normally Frank has to contend with Hugh, who has a lot to say for himself, so I think he relished the opportunity to capture ALL of our attention. Even though we did quite want to talk to each each other. Never mind.

We are counting down the days to when Ken will come back permanently from Edinburgh. The magic date is 2nd May and it can’t come soon enough. Frank is sure that Ken will be bringing some Octonaut toys with him. Hugh wants to play Monkey Quest. I want to sink back gratefully into the library, having had a rather good week’s work immediately after we came back from Norfolk, when Ken was still with us, and since then an unsatisfying period broken up with hospital appointments and other little engagements. I find it hard to get properly absorbed in what I’m doing when I have to keep stopping, and I really notice how much tireder I feel when I’m the sole parent in charge. Hugh had a rather changeable weekend – sunshine interspersed with strops and sulks – from which I emerged feeling battered. (I also have a cold.) I do wish Hugh and I could have a less tempestuous relationship; I love him so much, but he makes such outrageous fusses about such minor things, which is dreadfully draining. I spend a lot of energy worrying about him, even though deep down I am quite sure he will turn out fine, if I can just refrain from murdering him. This evening he was being very funny and charming. He was dancing to Buena Vista Social Club: dancing rather well and clowning around to entertain us. Also, yesterday he expressed warm appreciation for my home-made fish fingers (actually salmon steaks cut into strips, dipped in egg and breadcrumbs and fried), which pleased me.

Some little pieces of progress can be noted. Hugh now almost always dresses himself. He’s been capable of this for a while, but though the flesh was strong the spirit wasn’t willing. Frank is reliably dry at night. We took no pushchair on our Norfolk trip and didn’t really miss it; the only regular use of the pushchair now is when Julie takes Frank to pick up Hugh from school, a journey that has to be done a bit more quickly than Frank can walk. Before Ken went back to Edinburgh we had our friends Niall and Meredith round for dinner, and not only did I do all the cooking (glow of pride) but Niall said he thought Hugh had calmed down, which was a nice indication of improvement. (Often hard to see this from close to.) Hugh is getting reading homework from school and can definitely read a little now. (I’m bemused by the idea of giving five-year-olds homework, but on the other hand it’s nice to get a sense of what he’s doing.) Hugh has also rather taken to maths and likes to do sums on the way to school. Sometimes I ask him the questions and sometimes he asks me. When he’d asked me three in a row and I’d dutifully answered them he remarked, “You know, you’re very good at this, Mummy.” Frank has made some friends at playschool and dreamt last night that one of them, a girl called Chloe, was in our house and wouldn’t go home. The boys are also getting better and better at playing with each other. And we are very pleased with the trampoline Grandma bought us. It has been bounced on right through the winter, whenever weather vaguely permitted, and now the air is finally warming up it is in daily use.

Ho-hum. Because this post has no single topic it’s rather hard to know how to stop it. I think I’ll hit publish and burble the rest to myself on my way to an early bedtime (with book – Baugh and Cable’s History of the English Language, which I’m reading for teaching purposes). Night night.

Things fall apart

Dot writes: yesterday the children and Julie were sitting in the living room and it seemed a bit dark to me, so I turned the light on and, in a little shower of sparks, the glass part of the light bulb fell out of the lampshade and onto the floor. Frank had just climbed up onto the sofa or the bulb would have fallen directly onto his head. Also, earlier today the roof-box that belongs to the car fell off the bracket on the garden wall where it lives, severing one of the strings that Ken has just put up for his hops to climb. Also, we have signed up for a SIM-only contract with Vodafone, but when I collected the new SIM and put it in my phone my phone turned out to be locked and won’t talk to me any more. So I no longer have my old Meteor service but can’t access the new Vodafone one. I have been told to ring the Meteor customer care line but warned that because my number has been transferred over to Vodafone Meteor may have trouble tracing my account.

The title is not a reference to Chinua Achebe. It is meant literally.