Happy Christmas or Something (2020)

[Mark Albrighton]

48 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

I saw Cats in the West End a couple of years ago.

Slowly but surely, piece by piece, I’m now building my own flamethrower.

 

I made myself watch the Elaine Paige version recently as it’s one of those cultural touchstones that I was obviously aware of but I literally had know idea what the plot was or anything about it (apart from there are cats and the song “Memories”).

Having now seen it, the best description of it I’ve seen is also pretty accurate - “it’s around two hours of cats introducing themselves and then one of them dies.”

Having said that, the one song, “Mr Mistoffelees” is quite good, for what it is.

[chrisp65]

8 minutes ago, Mark Albrighton said:

I made myself watch the Elaine Paige version recently as it’s one of those cultural touchstones that I was obviously aware of but I literally had know idea what the plot was or anything about it (apart from there are cats and the song “Memories”).

Having now seen it, the best description of it I’ve seen is also pretty accurate - “it’s around two hours of cats introducing themselves and then one of them dies.”

Having said that, the one song, “Mr Mistoffelees” is quite good, for what it is.

I have been to a Beverly Craven gig, where she sat the other side of a grand piano lid, out of sight, and gave a 20 minute lecture on toxic shock syndrome. The only saving grace was under every seat there was a free goody bag of tampons.

I have been to a Brian May gig, where he played the same Ford advert song three times. The saving grace there was my seat was next to the down pipe from the toilets so much of the music was masked by flushing.

Cats was another level, easily the worst thing I’ve ever been to.

 

[Seat68]

1 minute ago, chrisp65 said:

I have been to a Beverly Craven gig, where she sat the other side of a grand piano lid, out of sight, and gave a 20 minute lecture on toxic shock syndrome. The only saving grace was under every seat there was a free goody bag of tampons.

I have been to a Brian May gig, where he played the same Ford advert song three times. The saving grace there was my seat was next to the down pipe from the toilets so much of the music was masked by flushing.

Cats was another level, easily the worst thing I’ve ever been to.

 

I aint even joking when I say its one of the best things I have seen on a stage. 

[bickster]

Just sayin'

[Mark Albrighton]

Been going through “the twelve days of Christmas” this weekend, my daughter hasn’t heard it before.

Only just dawned on me how top heavy the first seven days are with various sorts of birds. You’d think they’d have been spread out a bit more across the lyrics. Yes, the gold rings on day five break it up a bit, but Christ you can’t move for poultry in the first week.

[sidcow]

Have I entered some kind of parallel universe with everyone on here raving about Muppets Christmas Carol? 

As an aside last night I watched the 1984 movie as a warm up for my Christmas Movies schedule. 

[Tegis]

Musicals on TV, meh!

Musicals on stage, can be very enjoyable depending on the script/music/performers. (Unless my kids are in them, then they are the best thing ever regardless...)

[Seat68]

12 minutes ago, sidcow said:

Have I entered some kind of parallel universe with everyone on here raving about Muppets Christmas Carol? 

As an aside last night I watched the 1984 movie as a warm up for my Christmas Movies schedule. 

You don’t like the Muppets Christmas Carol, you don’t like life. 

[villa4europe]

It's the one film that I'm disappointed they didn't do for the films that made us, only heard a tiny bit about MK doing it for his granddaughter I think and really enjoying it but I'm sure there's some great stories about getting him on board

And its a brilliant film, watched it Thursday and sang along to every song... 

And going OT but dirty dancing is the best musical, not even close 

[bickster]

Whilst looking for something completely different, I stumbled across this which may be of interest...

Quote

As I Please

in Tribune

20 December 1946

George Orwell

AN ADVERTISEMENT in my Sunday paper sets forth in the form of a picture the four things that are needed for a successful Christmas. At the top of the picture is a roast turkey; below that, a Christmas pudding; below that, a dish of mince pies; and below that, a tin of —’s Liver Salt.

It is a simple recipe for happiness. First the meal, then the antidote, then another meal. The ancient Romans were the great masters of this technique. However, having just looked up the word vomitorium in the Latin dictionary, I find that after all it does not mean a place where you went to be sick after dinner. So perhaps this was not a normal feature of every Roman home, as is commonly believed.

Implied in the above-mentioned advertisement is the notion that a good meal means a meal at which you overeat yourself. In principle I agree. I only add in passing that when we gorge ourselves this Christmas, if we do get the chance to gorge ourselves, it is worth giving a thought to the thousand million human beings, or thereabouts, who will be doing no such thing. For in the long run our Christmas dinners would be safer if we could make sure that everyone else had a Christmas dinner as well. But I will come back to that presently.

The only reasonable motive for not overeating at Christmas would be that somebody else needs the food more than you do. A deliberately austere Christmas would be an absurdity. The whole point of Christmas is that it is a debauch—as it was probably long before the birth of Christ was arbitrarily fixed at that date. Children know this very well. From their point of view Christmas is not a day of temperate enjoyment, but of fierce pleasures which they are quite willing to pay for with a certain amount of pain. The awakening at about 4 a.m. to inspect your stockings; the quarrels over toys all through the morning, and the exciting whiffs of mincemeat and sage-and-onions escaping from the kitchen door; the battle with enormous platefuls of turkey, and the pulling of the wishbone; the darkening of the windows and the entry of the flaming plum pudding; the hurry to make sure that everyone has a piece on his plate while the brandy is still alight; the momentary panic when it is rumoured that Baby has swallowed the threepenny bit; the stupor all through the afternoon; the Christmas cake with almond icing an inch thick; the peevishness next morning and the castor oil on December 27th—it is an up-and-down business, by no means all pleasant, but well worth while for the sake of its more dramatic moments.

Teetotallers and vegetarians are always scandalized by this attitude. As they see it, the only rational objective is to avoid pain and to stay alive as long as possible. If you refrain from drinking alcohol, or eating meat, or whatever it is, you may expect to live an extra five years, while if you overeat or overdrink you will pay for it in acute physical pain on the following day. Surely it follows that all excesses, even a one-a-year outbreak such as Christmas, should be avoided as a matter of course?

Actually it doesn’t follow at all. One may decide, with full knowledge of what one is doing, that an occasional good time is worth the damage it inflicts on one’s liver. For health is not the only thing that matters: friendship, hospitality, and the heightened spirits and change of outlook that one gets by eating and drinking in good company are also valuable. I doubt whether, on balance, even outright drunkenness does harm, provided it is infrequent—twice a year, say. The whole experience, including the repentance afterwards, makes a sort of break in one’s mental routine, comparable to a week-end in a foreign country, which is probably beneficial.

In all ages men have realized this. There is a wide consensus of opinion, stretching back to the days before the alphabet, that whereas habitual soaking is bad, conviviality is good, even if one does sometimes feel sorry for it next morning. How enormous is the literature of eating and drinking, especially drinking, and how little that is worth while has been said on the other side! Offhand I can’t remember a single poem in praise of water, i.e. water regarded as a drink. It is hard to imagine what one could say about it. It quenches thirst: that is the end of the story. As for poems in praise of wine, on the other hand, even the surviving ones would fill a shelf of books. The poets started turning them out on the very day when the fermentation of the grape was first discovered. Whisky, brandy and other distilled liquors have been less eloquently praised, partly because they came later in time. But beer has had quite a good press, starting well back in the Middle Ages, long before anyone had learned to put hops in it. Curiously enough, I can’t remember a poem in praise of stout, not even draught stout, which is better than the bottled variety, in my opinion. There is an extremely disgusting description in Ulysses of the stout-vats in Dublin. But there is a sort of back-handed tribute to stout in the fact that this description, though widely known, has not done much towards putting the Irish off their favourite drink....

There's more on the link

[Paddywhack]

The first spirit from the Muppet's Christmas Carol used to terrify me as a kid.

I still think she's freaky now, even if she does look like a poached egg.

[sidcow]

34 minutes ago, Seat68 said:

You don’t like the Muppets Christmas Carol, you don’t like life. 

I don't remember this

 

[Xela]

35 minutes ago, Seat68 said:

You don’t like the Muppets Christmas Carol, you don’t like life. 

Never seen it

[Mark Albrighton]

I often wonder whether the idea is that Scrooge is completely let off the hook or is still doomed to walk the afterlife in the chains he “forged in life” like Marley. Does Marley himself benefit from giving his old colleague a warning, does he lose a couple of padlocks or something in return?

[mjmooney]

Wouldn't touch the Cats musical with a bargepole. But I have a deep affection for the original T. S. Eliot poems, which I read and loved at primary school. I can still recite chunks of them verbatim. 

[sidcow]

21 minutes ago, Mark Albrighton said:

I often wonder whether the idea is that Scrooge is completely let off the hook or is still doomed to walk the afterlife in the chains he “forged in life” like Marley. Does Marley himself benefit from giving his old colleague a warning, does he lose a couple of padlocks or something in return?

Take it to the "Things You Often Wonder" thread pal. 

[chrisp65]

1 hour ago, Seat68 said:

I aint even joking when I say its one of the best things I have seen on a stage. 

A - this is a trick response as it’s the only thing you’ve seen on stage and therefore ‘best’ is a technicality

B - you’re drinks were spiked and Cats being good coincided with you waking up the next morning with a twenty stuffed in your sock

C - there is no C

[Mark Albrighton]

4 minutes ago, sidcow said:

Take it to the "Things You Often Wonder" thread pal. 

I will.

After those who want to discuss films take to the films thread. 

And then those discussing musicals take it to the musicals thread.

And finally, after those who don’t like the Beatles take it to the “Mark Chapman appreciation thread” 

[Xann]

1 hour ago, villa4europe said:

...dirty dancing is the best musical...

@mods - The accumulated wrongness in this statement surely merits a ban? 

[mikeyp102]

Watched Bill Murray Scrooged, got to be one of the best Christmas movies around