Danda and the cinema

When Danda was younger, there was a cinema club on Saturdays that the young kids could go to. They’d watch a film together in the morning and they even had their own song:

“We are the boys and girls well known as the minors of the A! B! C!
And every Saturday all line up,
To watch the films we love and shout aloud with glee!
We like to laugh and have a singsong,
Just a happy crowd are we,
We’re all pals together,
The minors of the A! B! C!”

When not engaging in this fellow cinema-goer love, Danda spent a significant portion of his childhood sneaking in to the cinema by the side door.

The stories are plenty. There was the time when their friend went to the toilet during the film and found the box with the main electrics. Inevitably, he needed to test it so he turned everything off then on again before returning to his seat and asking Danda and co if anything had happened. They said that the whole cinema had been plunged into darkness and the film had gone off. The friend thought this was the funniest thing he had ever heard so got ready to make another trip for some mischief-making.

Unfortunately for him, the first blackout had alerted the cinema staff to the presence of a group of young boys who had not paid to get in. In came one of the staff with a policeman (they were pretty unoccupied in those days) to get those naughty boys.

The naughty boys, however, had noticed the arrival of the policeman and hotfooted it out via the fire escape. Conveniently enough (some might say it had been planned ahead), a bucket of water was on hand and while closing the door behind them, the bucket was left balancing precariously on the top.

They retreated to a safe distance and watched. The policeman charged through the door, followed by the cinema staff member, both of whom got drenched as the bucket fell. The boys laughed and laughed! In the confusion which followed they ran as fast as their little legs would take them, out of the cinema and off to a good hiding place.

There was the time they got bored during the film and went for a wander and ended up on the roof of the cinema.

There was the time they sneaked in to the box and worked out how to turn the film off.

Ah, the joyful exuberance of youth!

Danda, the phone and the dinner

Life with Danda is filled with fun. There are days out, there are long evenings talking nonsense and watching films, there are walks filled with Danda’s extensive knowledge of history, there are occasional bouts of cleaning and, weather permitting, lots of him gardening and me drinking tea and watching. Omygoodness, there is tea. So much tea. You can never have enough tea. But most of all, life with Danda is filled with hilarity. Stomach-clutching, eye-watering hilarity. Let me demonstrate.

Danda and the dinner
The other night, Danda offered to make the dinner. I’d like to think it’s because I had been working hard that day and was tired but I was probably just being lazy. We did one of those easy put-a-load-of-stuff-in-the-oven dinners. So I sat in the front room drinking tea, reading a book and listening to the sounds of Danda making dinner.

After about half an hour, he went to the oven to check and shouted that it was ready. I arrived in the kitchen and pottered around getting cutlery etc. As I turned around to collect my plate of food Danda had the two plates in front of the microwave as the microwave pinged.

In a moment of madness, he reached behind the plates and pressed the ‘open door’ button. The door did indeed open… sending one of the plates of food out at a hundred miles an hour before leaning gently to the floor and landing, surprisingly, facing upwards. The problem came with the speed that the plate hit the floor causing the fish and mushrooms to keep moving while the plate had stopped.

The plate that dropped, by the way, was mine.

Employing the three second rule, I whipped the food up off the floor quicker than you can say ‘clumsy’ and handed back to Danda to defluff.

I honestly couldn’t tell it had taken a little trip southwards as I ate it but, once Danda had got over his annoyance at himself, it was difficult to eat dinner because we couldn’t stop laughing about his casual lean around the plates to open the microwave door!

Danda and the phone
On Wednesday, Danda and I went to see Argo (fabulous, by the way). For those of you not in the UK, I don’t know if you get this thing called Orange Wednesdays. But basically, there is a phone company called Orange and if you are with them, you can text them on a Wednesday and they will send you a code to get two for one at the cinema. We have an old phone with a sim card in for Orange. Neither of uses it as our normal phone so this old phone sits in a drawer all week until Wednesdays, when we let it out.

So two days ago, Wednesday, I came home from work, turned on the Orange phone and sent the text to get a code. Until Danda came in, the phone was sitting on the table. When he came in, there was a flurry of phones and keys and purses, as the film was starting soon.

We walked to the cinema, it is only about fifteen minutes walk away. We got there with about ten minutes before the film would start.

“Two for one to see Argo please,” we told the boy behind the counter.

“Yep. Have you got your Orange Wednesday code?”

Danda turned to me. I checked my pocket. It wasn’t there.

“You must have it,” I said with certainty.

He checked his jeans pockets.

“I haven’t.”

My face dropped. I had made a point of tapping my pocket before we left and saying “Got the phone!” O man. I whipped off my jacket, held out my hands for the keys and said, “I’ll have to run back and get it.”

“No,” said Danda. “We’ll go together.”

I tried to insist on him letting me run back but he said we’d walk back together.

“Hold those tickets!” we told the boy and sped off out of the cinema and round the corner.

Laughing at ourselves, I mused aloud what had happened to the phone.

“I seem to remember something. Something about the phone and you keeping it or me keeping it. I had it in my pocket, remember? Where can I have put it?”

Danda chuckled good-naturedly, for he is a forgiving soul and wouldn’t hold it against me. It was a little chilly, so he put his hands in his coat pockets as we walked…..

And found the phone.

Yep.

It was in Danda’s pocket all the time…..

After a severe bout of laughing till we almost wet ourselves, we turned and ran back to the cinema. The film had almost started by now. We arrived a little out of breath, the same boy looking at us. We had only been gone about three minutes.

“It was in his pocket the whole time!” I exclaimed loudly, pointing at Danda.

At least I was in the clear….

P.S. I’ve got some time free today so will be on to some world-saving. I’ll report back tomorrow.

Things I learned from watching Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln was very tall.

He was also a Republican. I realised I don’t know what party most of America’s presidents were from (apart from the most recent ones). I know names and policies, eg Roosevelt and The New Deal. But I don’t really know whether they were Democrat or Republican.

It was really hard to get the 13th Amendment through. I didn’t realise how many educated men had opposed it.

The 13th Amendment was such a massive thing. I think we don’t realise it because we live in an age where slavery seems so incomprehensible.

Abraham Lincoln and his wife didn’t really get on a lot of the time.

All but one of his sons died before adulthood.

Everything was so dark at night time, pre-electricity.

Sometimes, as humans, we do the wrong thing. And sometimes we do the right thing. There is hope for us yet.

Abraham Lincoln was a self-taught lawyer. He read some Blackstone’s guides then passed the Bar and started practising. I reckon I could probably skip bar school and do the same. What do you think? (I didn’t actually learn from the film, I Googled it afterward.)

Lincoln was assassinated right in the thick of the war ending and the Amendment being passed. I hadn’t realised it was so soon.

Orange Wednesday is mental time to go to the cinema. I’ve never seen so many people waiting in a line to buy popcorn. (I learned that from the cinema experience itself, not the film.)

A bottle of water in the shop is £1. A bottle of water in the cinema is £2.75.

An afternoon of distraction and Pi

Yesterday, whilst heading out of the house, earphones in and audiobook playing, I had plans to go for a long walk as I was at a good bit in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. I’d get an hour or two of listening in and it would be great. I also really love walking when it’s cold. I love the crispness of the fresh air and how the river looks in the bright sunshine. I had a fabulous afternoon ahead.

Then Danda called, five minutes into my walk.

“Do you fancy going to see a film?” he asked.

“Alright,” said I, my dedication to my original plan immediately disappeared. “Life of Pi is on and someone told me it’s really good.”

As we approached the cinema and were asked for the small fee of a million pounds (or thereabouts) for the pleasure of seeing the film, Danda said…..

“So the film probably won’t be that interesting. The Life of Pi? It’s simple, isn’t it? You make it, you put it in the oven, you bake it, you take it out, you eat it.”

Ah Danda, ever the witty one.

And actually, the film is really good. I read the book when I was a student at Glasgow University briefly. I then read another book by Yann Martel, called Self, as I was doing a module on my English Literature course called ‘The Self.’ I always remember that module because my friend Jamie and I thought it was hilarious to call it ‘The Shelf.’

Anyway, I’d loved the book of Life of Pi. I even referenced it in essays that were about completely different things, as much as possible. I loved the section about how he trained Richard Parker. I loved the episode with the flying fish. And I loved the funny meerkats on the island.

I was really glad the film was so good because it was just how I would want it to be, had I thought about how to make a film out of such a fabulous book.

If you don’t know the basic premise, it is this – Indian zoo keeper and family decide to move to America, they are taking the animals with them on a boat, the boat sinks, one boy and a handful of the animals survive on a lifeboat. What’s not to love?! Go and see it if you get a chance.

And now I am off for a walk and to listen to Brave New World. I wonder what will distract me today?

My new yoga enemies

Today, I was going to finally deal with a Leibster Award I was given a few months back and was looking forward to it as I remember the questions being quite good. I had also planned who I was going to pass the award on to. It all promised to be very exciting. As I have the morning free, I was going to sit here and dedicate myself to it with gusto.

So I went back to the day I was given it, in early September, rifled through the comments and found the one which said I had been given the award. And I clicked on the link, all excited. And the link went to a generic WordPress start-up page with nothing on it. There was one post from 13 November which said Welcome to your new WordPress site. And nothing else. It totally threw me. I know I took a few months to deal with the award… but enough to make her pack in her entire WordPress career?

Hence, I am now a little stumped. I don’t have anything prepared for a post. But never fear! In my massively exciting world, in which I am constantly doing and saying really interesting things, I shall serenade you (serenade?) with a tale of what happened at last night’s yoga class.

I have been doing yoga on and off for about ten years now, sometimes at home from a DVD, sometimes at classes, sometimes just from a book. So I’m familiar with the yoga ‘scene.’ My friend (the one mentioned in this post) and I decided to go to a beginner’s yoga class last night, as she has never done it before. I called up that morning and booked us in and at 5.50pm, we arrived, legging-clad and ready to go.

We walked into the room and saw a bench in a corner, which had a few bags on it, so figured this is where we were supposed to leave our stuff. We approached the bench, put down our bags and were chitchatting while we took our socks and shoes off.

“Are you new to the yoga class?” an older lady asked, as we were taking our shoes off.

“Yes,” we said, thinking she was perhaps the teacher and about to welcome us in a friendly manner.

“Ok. It’s just that usually we go here.”

We were confused. Did she mean that the yoga class was happening over the other side of the room and she and the man standing next to her were doing something different there and we had accidentally left our stuff in the bit where they have a different class? But they had mats down as though they were about to do yoga.

“Sorry, what’s… Is this bit not the yoga?” I asked.

“Yes, this is where we have our mats.”

Let’s just get this straight. An older lady, one who should have known better, perhaps in her fifties, was telling us, in a rather condescending manner, that as ‘new’ people to the class, we should learn that this is ‘their’ corner. Like the naughty boys who wanted the back seat of the bus and woe betide anyone who sat there mistakenly!

I was clearly quite annoyed as we had not even made any moves to give the impression that we were trying to stay in that spot for the class. We were clearly just putting our stuff on the bench next to everyone else’s stuff and taking our shoes off. We weren’t even trying to put mats down or anything. We hadn’t picked mats up yet!

“Yeh, we’re just taking our shoes off,” I said, irritated.

She sensed my annoyance.

“O, I’m not being rude or anything, I just, it’s just that we usually go here. I’m not being rude.” And she smiled politely. As though I wouldn’t notice that she was being rude, simply because there was a smile on her face. I’m not fooled, lady! You’re still being rude, even if you’re saying “I’m not being rude” and smiling! You’re still being really bloody rude!

So we said, “Yeh, we’re just taking our shoes off,” and pottered off to get mats. We put them in the other corner of the room but we were still quite near them as the room wasn’t that big. Everyone else was sitting or lying down, doing a bit of relaxation before the class, being very quiet and concentrating on their breathing. The rowdy ‘naughty boys on the bus’ older couple stayed standing and discussing something or other quite loudly, considering everyone else in the room was silent. I caught snippets of conversation.

“…had sex for the first time in six weeks…. yeh, six weeks…. yeh, she’s not been well… had that fall….”

I mean, really now? You kicked us out of the corner spot that we weren’t even trying to go in and now you’re discussing sex at an unnecessary volume in a room full of silent people, trying to be silent and relax prior to their yoga class. What’s wrong with you people?

So the teacher comes in, she greets us and is saying that she can see a lot of new faces and doing the general ‘hello’ stuff and this silly couple, the ‘naughty boys at the back of the bus who love talking about sex’ couple, keep talking, right over the teacher. As if they’re trying to show everyone who’s really in charge here. It was honestly ridiculous.

So I shushed them.

That’s right. I shushed them.

ssshhhhhHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

It started small but they didn’t take any notice so it built until I was almost hoarse from shushing. It felt good.

The teacher joked that it was like a cinema. I presume she meant people shushing other people for talking through the film or being loud with popcorn. So I admit it. I am a shusher. I also used to do it at uni if people were talking through the lecturer’s teaching. That’s just me, ok? I’m a shusher!

So then the class started and I forgot about my new yoga enemies but as I’m writing this, I’m remembering all over again and am re-flabbergasted. So my friend and I have made a plan. Next week, we will arrive really early and TAKE THEIR SPOT IN THE CORNER! Mwah ha ha ha ha! We live on the edge. And if they say anything to us, we will say, all innocently, “O, sorry, we’re new, we didn’t realise. Well, we’re here now. That space there is just as good, try going there.”

Welcome to Blognor Regis

I spent quite a while thinking up the witty title to this post, which is going to be about my day at the seaside, in a little town called Bognor Regis…. Writing about Bognor…. In my blog…. Blog… Bognor…. BLOGNOR! Blognor Regis. I was quite impressed with myself for thinking this up so just humour me, ok?

Spending a day in Bognor Regis was rather a spare of the moment thing. Had I forward-planned, I probably wouldn’t have chosen to go there. It doesn’t sound particularly attractive, does it? Bognor. I’d heard good things though so took the plunge and decided to go for the first time.

The first thing I did was marvel at this cutesy little food stall.

Cockles and whelks! Amazing! I doubled checked that I was still in 2012 and had not accidentally stepped back in time to the 1950s. I was indeed still in the present but the town itself was pleasantly somewhere back in the 1900s.

The next thing I reached was crazy golf. I obviously had to have a go. Obviously. I love a bit of crazy golf. It’s one of those things that I’m very rubbish at but insist on playing anyway (same with table tennis).

The euphoria of a round of crazy golf reached new heights when I spotted the amusements on the other side of the road. Omygoodness! 2p machines! I hadn’t played on a 2p machine in years. I was VERY excited. If you’re not sure what a 2p machine is, I will explain briefly. There are slots for you to put your 2p into. They slide down onto a drawer full of coins, which is moving back and forth. If you’re lucky, your 2p will push a coin or two off the drawer and onto the section below which has loads more coins on it and, should any coins fall from this section, they come out into a little tray and are your winnings.

Clutching my pound coin, I found a change machine and got me fifty 2 pence coins. Inevitably, I pumped all the coins into one machine, the logic being that the more I put in, the more would come out. This logic failed me, as it always had. My pound disappeared rapidly, plus any winnings, which I put straight back in.

While leaving, though, I heard a sound that made the coolness factor of my day increase by 200%. I heard the unmistakable song of a dance mat machine! Now I don’t mean to boast, but I have dancematted in Asia against a local dancematting expert and won. Considering Asia is the part of the world which is thought of as the dancematting home, I’m still quite proud of this fact. I spent most of my first year at university with blisters on my toes and legs that were constantly sore in my mission to be good at dance mat.

So of course, when I heard the dance mat machine, I was right there, pound coin in hand, selecting my favourite tune. I started out by getting an A on my first go. Of course I got an A. Second song, another A. Last song, I made a foolish choice and came out with a miserable E. I had chosen one which was much too fast.

Defeated, I left the amusements and went and sat on the beach. I had a really great magazine with me full of really great facts about stuff and sat marvelling. For example, Christopher Columbus was a Knight of Christ, an organisation which was the reincarnation of the Knights Templar after they were destroyed and a few escaped to Portugal. Also, dragonflies can see 175 images per second (humans can see 16).

After my being-amazed session, the sea was calling…

…so I had me a little (freezing cold) swim. I could hear loud splashes every so often and couldn’t work out what it was. It was like the sound of people hitting water at speed. Intrigued, I went exploring and found a group of teenagers hurling themselves off the end of the pier!

One girl had a cut on one foot and after jumping they would all climb up the rusty poles underneath to get back on top and jump again and it all seemed a little bit dangerous. They were having fun though and it was nice to see proof that young people still know how to have fun outside. I’ve never doubted it but there are a lot of grumpy people, who like moaning, who talk about how ‘kids these days’ don’t know how to have fun anymore and they just stay inside on Facebook all the time.

Next, I went to have a look round the town. There was a lovely little market, which consisted of clothes aimed at 60+ ladies, sunglasses stalls and sticks of Bognor Regis rock. Past this market there was a lovely old cinema which has been there for over 50 years. The sign outside let me know that ‘We Ar Emore Than Justa Cinema’ and I wondered if the person proofreading the signs had been there the same amount of time. ‘Yeh, there are loads of mistakes but I’m so bored, I don’t care….’

While walking back to the beach, I saw a bowling green and had to have a game. This is bowls, as opposed to bowling, which is played inside, in a lane, with skittle things that you knock down. Bowls is played on a green and you first roll a little white ball until it stops then try to get as close to it as possible with your four balls. Here’s a picture of me taking the game really seriously and concentrating hard.

After bowls, evening was setting in and there was only one thing for it – fish and chips on the beach. The sky changed from clear blue, to yellowy orange to pale pink and grey until most of the colour had faded and it was hometime.