Wednesday, 3 April 2013

Blown by Alice

I have a cold.  It came on yesterday, and like a good and proper man I am full of misery and near death.  This may be my last post.  I'm looking for sympathy if you don't mind.

Grandma in Cyprus will for a short period be Grandma in Cyprus Not In Cyprus again.  She's arriving today for a couple of weeks.  Why on earth anyone would want to willingly leave the sunny sandy shores of bankrupt Cyprus for the frozen, miserable landscape of Albion is beyond me.  Surely it can't be because she wants to see her family?  Anyway, it will come as a shock to her, as she now finds 20 degrees cold.  We have a big Bradstock family gathering on Monday...around twenty of us with a combined age of more than 1500 years.  I'm looking forward to seeing everyone again.

I'm all in favour of making sure that benefits only go to people who deserve state support, but Iain Duncan-Smith (our local MP) has made a total arse of himself suggesting that he could live on £53/week.  So if you haven't done it yet, please sign this petition which encourages him to do exactly that.  A friend of ours that knows has seen the break down of how social security payments are spent and tells me that actually most of the money goes to people who are employed, but not fully or at a low wage, rather than the unemployed.  So perhaps the solution to the problem doesn't lie with the 'scroungers' but with the corporates and the government establishment.  And this all on the day where it's been revealed the banks have been given another £1billion tax break to help them through choppy times.

Coincidentally, I see there's a new survey of social class.  I do find these things both tiresome and at the same time completely irresistible.  So I had to complete the BBC quiz here to find out which class I fit into.  I'm not saying where I ended up, but you are all plebs and I demand to be allowed to take my bicycle through the main gates.  Perhaps if as a nation we could put aside the idea of class, that would be a better way of encouraging equality.  Just a thought.

Last night we went off to see more poofs in tights*.  As you must know by now, I love dance as an art form, and ballet is the finest form of dance.  IMHO.  We were able to combine my love of dance with The Cat's Mother's love of Alice in Wonderland which was being performed at the Royal Opera House.  It was simply beautiful, stunning, wonderful and amazing.  The imagination that has gone into creating Alice's Adventures is breathtaking.  If you can beg, steal or borrow a ticket, please do, you'll be amazed.  Failing that it may well be playing at your local cinema as a simul-cast I think.  Failing that buy the DVD.  One remarkable evening.



*yes, sorry, it's post-modern-ironic humour, which some may rightly find offensive