Midgetgems Comedy

This scrap of paper is one of my most prized possessions. I remember asking my Dad to get it for me on one of his outings to the BBC. Every time I look at it I find it ironic that I should be wished ‘Light, Peace, Happiness’, three things that seemed to evade the great man. I hope he has found them now. Not sure what the squiggly legend at the bottom says but my interpretation is ‘Peter Sellers - Legend’.

Three cheers and a ‘Spirit Of Basil Fawlty Award’ for Ian Taylor, the man who cut his car in half!

And thank the Lord for petty bureaucrats registering zero on the laughter scale! They are a gift of inspiration for us writers. If we didn’t have people whose sole purpose in ‘life’ is clamping down on anything quirky, there wouldn’t be anyone to laugh at!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/gloucestershire/7395452.stm

“May 9, marks the anniversary of the day in 1950 when the European Union was conceived. French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman gave a speech calling for European countries to combine their coal and steel production under a single European institution, paving the way to our current European Union.”

I was once asked by some German friends around the time of re-unification what the Brits say when they cross the English channel (well of course it’s English). They wondered if we say, “I’m going to Europe” or “to the continent”, “abroad” or some other phrase. I confess I had never thought about it at the time. The subtext to their enquiry was, “Are you in Europe or not?”

Coal and steel issues seem a little dated now so I can probably state with some degree of confidence that Britain is a constantly metamorphosing island kingdom made up of several wannabe nations ruled by a queen with little authority and situated far enough off the coast of Europe to be comfortingly isolated but within easy reach of the duty-free booze. The subtext of my long-considered reply then is, “Dunno, hard to care, more important issues - next question”.

Climate change blamed for absolutely everything

Scientists now say that climate change is responsible for much more human activity than was previously thought with at least 30% of the earth’s population removing items of clothing as temperatures rise.

In a recent survey it was discovered a worrying number of people leave windows and doors open and even venture outside during warm spells. Alarmingly, 83% of people still fail to wear a vest in areas where temperatures fell.

‘I am particularly worried about the unsustainable number of buildings constructed only of sand on vulnerable areas close to the sea’ said Ron Scared, manager of a small flag printing works in Bolton.

The Environment Agency is expected to issue a statement from the Secretary of State stating it’s really nice not to blame humans for everything and let’s not forget about volcanoes.

Having the wool pulled over one’s eyes is an expression which, taken to its logical conclusion suggests that not only is the vision impaired but that audiologists everywhere receive steady employment removing the fluff from our ears. I would urge governments to initiate such ‘de-wadding’ programmes as a matter of urgency as I fear that a duping of grand proportions has been underway for the last couple of centuries at least in Western society if not the world over.

From the earliest years, man has sought to make music of the most pleasing kind and has largely succeeded in this venture except (and this is where I risk being stoned to death, but would be pleased to be martyred for the cause) with the solo violin. Somehow the world has been lulled senseless by the aptly named ’strains’ of this instrument. Let us consider the evidence:

The whole course of history would have been a lot more bloody than it actually was had David the shepherd boy attempted to soothe King Saul’s mood swings with a violin instead of the gentle harp. He learned the harp whilst out in the fields chucking stones to keep wolves away (perhaps the violin would have been more effective) but anyway, Saul would have had him disposed of and then who would have stood up to Goliath?

It is reputed that satan himself is not only a mean player of the thing but it wouldn’t surprise me if he was the supplier of its name, a corruption of ‘ vile din’ or ‘viol din’ or ‘defiled thing’. Indeed, if it were true that it is an innocent and sweet instrument, why do we insist on calling it a Fiddle? We know very well as we walk into the concert hall (usually dressed in black for the inevitable funeral), that we are about to be subjected to such a hellish experience that we must pull the wool over our ears in order to survive. The unwitting violinist or fiddle agent may strive to bring us a technically brilliant performance and we may go to the bar during the interval and hastily gulp down over-chilled beer to calm the nerves. But we all pretend, rather like the crowd in the story of the Emperor’s new clothes, that we are having a good time. For goodness sake, why? When a knife is scraped across a plate, we don’t all smile and call out for an encore! Can anyone really take their hands from their ears, put them on their heart and say they actually enjoyed a solo violin piece? Yes, they will tell you they were deeply moved but press them on that one next time and they will run out of the building in crisis.

Further evidence is found in the fiddle agent’s inability to cope with the ordeal. Menhuin has to spend hours standing on his head after performing in order to regain his senses and Kennedy, poor chap, made it obvious that he would rather have had a normal life. Vanessa Mae as a young gal, was obviously driven insane by the sound she made and cried for help by asking us to look at her as a woman, a heartfelt plea most men decided to hear. But watch them as they play; all have their eyes screwed tightly shut.

Curiously, the combined sound of this dreadful instrument produces a different and altogether more pleasing effect. This, I suspect is simply a more complex part of the Grand Fiddle (violins=violence?), a matter too profound for the simple human mind to grapple with and a matter in which we ask God to save us. In the meantime, I call upon those still left with any power of mortal reason to rise up in rebellion and dance with joy around communal bonfires made from violins. Return to your pianos, accordions, cellos, clarinets , French horns and Spanish guitars. Awake to the sounds of hissing spruce and crackling varnish and banish from this earth, the evil violin. Consign it to Obliviolin.

Copyright © Midgetgems Comedy 2007