Category Archives: Humour

A Shawshank Redemption Moment

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No, it wasn’t a moment like the scene when Brooks Hatlen (played by James Whitmore) hanged himself, nor was it like the gang rape scene (Heaven forbid!); it wasn’t anything like the moment that “Red” (Morgan Freeman) finds the box awaiting him under a stone by a wall near a tree in a field, and it wasn’t even like the scene when Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) asks Warden Norton (Bob Gunton) if he was deliberately “being obtuse”. There are so many memorable moments in the film “The Shawshank Redemption” but the one to which I’m referring is one of the most unexpected and uplifting scenes – when Andy plays the Sull Aria (purportedly sung by Maria Callas) from Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro” over the loud speakers and the inmates (most of whom, ironically, are outside) are transfixed by the heavenly singing.

Not feeling particularly well (after a doctor’s appointment and a mammogram earlier in the day – not connected) I was just about to go to bed when I heard the whistle on my phone which tells me a Whatsapp message has come in. In fact, it was an audio message from our friend Roland in Brisbane. But what a message! Where on earth was he? Beautiful classical music was being played loudly. He was at work – Roly is a painting contractor – on a building site and one of the carpenters is a classical music buff (the tradesmen in Brisbane are a rather cultured lot!).

Dear old Roland, he thought the music would cheer me up; and he was right – I went to bed with a big smile on my face. I’m not at all a classical music buff and even Chris, who is, could not put a definite name to the composition or the composer but he said he thought it was Italian, perhaps Ottorino Respighi. Perhaps you will know the piece: I managed to record the audio message on YouTube and I added a few photographs of the work site and its beautiful surrounds so that you’ll be able to imagine yourself listening to the music on site. Sadly, I’m not an expert at transposing sound recording clips from Whatsapp to YouTube… But you’ll get the picture.

Speaking of pictures, the butcher at our local Sainsbury’s supermarket (sorry I’m always going on about supermarkets) is something of an artist and wit, and he’s rather desperate to sell expensive lamb. Here are some of the offerings he chalks up on his blackboard…

 

Just click on the print in blue to listen to Roland’s recording.

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A Shawshank Redemption Moment

by Sally Porch
  • 3 views
And now for the real thing: according to YouTube (they recognised that the music has copyright restrictions) and they kindly informed me of the name of the piece in question. Simply click on the blue print below and listen to what the tradesmen enjoyed.

Gaîté Parisienne: Allegro moderato (Mesdames de la Halle …

www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEsrKlFxQdk
13 Feb 2015 – Uploaded by #ManuelRosenthal

Gaîté Parisienne: Allegro moderato (Mesdames de la Halle) ….Valse moderato – Vivo – Valse – Allegro molto – Valse moderato (excerpts)  …

Supergran Tames Savage Guard Dog at Lidls

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It happened last Saturday…

Take a Little Boat

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Take a Master and Commander (a regular old Captain Birdseye with a taste for fishing) and a couple of young novices; give them a little boat called “So What?” and an early start on a beautiful sunny morning on the Southside of Brisbane. Take the cheeky boat to Victoria Point (where the ferries leave for Coochiemudlo Island) and ease it off the boat ramp into the water of Moreton Bay.

Start engine of perky boat first time and venture out into the bay… for two hundred and fifty metres. Find that engine stops abruptly for no obvious reason and try to restart… too many times to count. Discover that the tide is taking wilful little boat in the direction of the ferry jetty and, quickly, throw out anchor. Also put out fishing lines (Captain Birdseye never misses an opportunity) while considering what to do next.

In the blink of an eye a one metre long mud shark lurking close to shore (according to the good Captain) likes the look of the Captain’s speciality squid and decides to have it for breakfast. After a mighty tussle the shark is netted, de-hooked and swimming back in the water. Before long one of the novices feels a strong tug and sees his rod bend in the middle – another big one! After a long and exciting battle the second shark, almost as large as the first but a different variety, makes it on board for a quick bit of surgery and is soon back in the salt water (which is good for his sore mouth). But the stubborn little boat still has to make it back to the boat ramp…

Captain Birdseye is not worried; he is prepared for any mishaps at sea (or on shore in this case). He puts the back-up engine, albeit just a little one, into action and thirty minutes later they arrive at the ramp. By midday they are home for lunch (maybe fish fingers).

The captain laughs as he considers what he shall tell other fishermen when they ask (as they always do) where the best fishing grounds are… He decides he will not tell them to anchor two-hundred and fifty metres from the shore, near the ferry jetty at Victoria Point – it will be his little secret. He doesn’t fancy answering any difficult questions like “Why take a boat?” Do you say “so what?” – precisely.

End of the World

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It wasn’t the end of the world, of course, but it felt like it…

“Better keep at it,” I suggested to Chris.

“I will,” he agreed, “it might take some time though. First I have to establish that it’s really dead. How did you find it?”

“Dead as a dodo. Everything is dead.”

“I suspected as much,” Chris looked concerned, “mine’s the same but I’ll take a look upstairs to make sure I’ve done all I can at our end before I call someone.”

“Can you still call out?” I asked. (I meant on the phone.)

“I hope so,” Chris didn’t sound very confident.

“What if you can’t? How are we going to manage?”

“Everything will stop – it will be the end of our world as we know it,” Chris tried to add a bit of levity.

I laughed halfheartedly. Inside I felt rather panicked and desperate. I wondered how long we could last out before going mad…

From the kitchen I heard Chris talking on the phone, then he took the phone upstairs.

“How is it now?” Chris called out (this time to me downstairs, not on the phone).

“The same,” I said, “no signs of life.”

A long while later Chris came downstairs. He was tired and crestfallen.

“He was quite a nice chap,” Chris enlightened me, “but he didn’t know the answer. He’d never come across anything like it before. He thought it was something to do with us. I couldn’t understand his accent very well and we were both tired by the conversation so when the line went dead I didn’t really expect him to get back to me – and he didn’t.”

“So what shall we do?” I asked anxiously.

“Well, we could do like he said and wait five days for the new…” Chris began.

“Oh my God! Not five days! Darling, I don’t think I could last out for five days, or four, or three….” my voice became a little high-pitched.

“But we don’t have to follow anyone else’s advice…” my husband smiled, “I have another idea. Somehow we’ll have to live without the Internet for one night and in the morning we’ll go out and buy a new router.”

And that’s exactly what we did, which is why I’m on top of the world again, tapping out my thoughts to the world. It’s funny to think how our world has changed so much over the last decade; how reliant we are upon a technology that is frighteningly alien to many of my generation and how easy it would be to destabilize a population…

Sharp as a Razor

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I do a lot of thinking in the shower, especially when I’m in there for a bit longer than usual washing my hair. Sometimes I formulate great stories in the shower, or future masterpieces in oil; other times I try to work out what my dreams mean, and occasionally I just have a secret few tears to myself for whatever reason because I think nobody will hear me crying, and also because the water falling over me seems rather cathartic (not that I ever want to ‘wash that man right out of my hair’). This morning I was thinking a lot in the shower (as I washed my hair) but this time there were no tears or stories, or wonderful artworks in my mind; it was a mystery!

Almost exactly a week ago I bought a four-pack of pretty pink disposable razors for the princely sum of eighty-nine pence. They looked good and the “Triple blade system – specially positioned to give you a closer shave in one single stroke” sounded just the thing; the rubber grip handle promised “greater comfort and control even when wet”; and the glider strip was there to “reduce irritation” and the pivoting head was for “greater control”. In spite of the low price, those pink Trinity Ladies Razors had to be the business because they also carried a warning: Keep out of reach of children and babies. Misuse can cause serious injuries.

I had a little laugh to myself – one of those wry laughs – because I had been using one of the pack of four, Triple blade system, disposable razors every morning for a week now and there was absolutely no evidence of any serious injuries… to even a single hair! I ran the razor over my legs again and I checked, futilely, for the expected smoothness of a close shave. Now wouldn’t you think that even a cheap razor should be of merchantable quality? Okay, they were only eighty-nine pence but surely they should work properly at least once?

“I’m going to take those razors back and ask for my eighty-nine pence back,” I thought to myself, “so much for the pivotal head with the triple blades”. And with that I held the pink razor closer to my eyes for an inspection (albeit without my glasses on).

This time I laughed heartily out loud. In fact, I had a fit of the giggles so loud that Chris popped his head around the door.

“What’s so funny?” he asked.

“All week I’ve been shaving my legs with a new razor…”

“With plastic over the blades,” Chris interjected correctly.

I know, yet again I “should’ve gone to Spec Savers”!

A Bit of a Cold Fish

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Do you fancy cold fish? No, neither do I. Actually, I didn’t know what it was when I took it out of the freezer; it was something white and shrivelled, with a touch of grey for good measure. It could have been chicken breast – a very old chicken breast that had languished in the freezer unnoticed for several years – but, as it began to thaw, it seemed more fishy than chicken-like. The other plastic bag plucked from the lowest drawer in the freezer at the same time definitely looked more like chicken. Before deciding what to cook for dinner last night I held up the ‘lucky dip’ bags of thawing frozen animal parts and plumped for chicken on the basis that, although rather small for a dinner for two, at least it didn’t smell fishy.

So I sliced the small portion of chicken breast into four slivers (to make them look less identifiable, aswell as more plentiful) and popped them into the griddle pan (that gives those attractive barbecue-style stripes) along with sweet chili peppers, onions and tomatoes. Done that way the chicken “goujons”, as I called them, were quite nice (for two dieters) and in my mind’s eye I already had the idea of cooking the fish in the same manner for a light lunch today.

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“It would have been better deep fried,” I said two hours ago. At the time I was putting the plate on the table before Chris.

Chris eyed the fish suspiciously. Being bereft of batter or breadcrumbs, the fish appeared to be rather naked, white and unappetizing.

“Would you like some toast with it?” I asked, as if toast was a perfectly normal thing to accompany barbecued fish strips.

“No thanks,” he answered, so I didn’t feel able to have any either.

“At least it doesn’t smell too bad,” Chris held the plate up to his nose for inspection.

“No, it can’t be that old.” (Earlier Chris had suggested that it was two years old.)

“It must be the cod we put in the freezer a few months ago. It’s funny how nice it looked before it was consigned to the freezer,” Chris’s mouth turned down at the corners.

“Isn’t it?” I agreed and we both nodded.

At last, after the chit-chat and prevarication, we each took up a knife and fork, and I waited a moment longer to watch Chris cut into one of his pallid goujons and bring it to his mouth. Seeing as he didn’t spit it out I decided to do likewise.

“Does it taste right to you?” I asked after swallowing my first small mouthful.

“It’s not the worst thing I’ve ever tasted.”

“Oh, no, certainly not. My attempt at Chinese cookery – without using a recipe – was much worse; and my beetroot soup was the foulest thing I’ve ever tasted! My cakes without sugar weren’t very nice either,” I concurred.

“But it’s one of the nastiest fish dishes I’ve ever seen,” admitted Chris as he pushed a water-logged ashen flake of nude fish with his fork.

“Let’s not eat it then, if we don’t want too…” I said perkily.

“And we don’t want to,” my husband was already closing the knife and fork together on his plate.

“How about a nice piece of toast?” I rallied.

“But not on this plate please,” Chris laughed.

So Chris had toast and lemon curd from a clean plate and I had toast and honey. The cooked cod goujons went into a bag and back in the freezer, just for a short spell longer… until I go to the farm again. I wonder if Rosie’s dogs will like a bit of a cold fish? Think I’ll bring along a tin of tuna, too, just in case!

 

A Case of the Blues

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“Oops!” I said aloud, although there was no-one around to hear me (Chris was inside, up in his workroom, and he is a tad deaf anyway). Now if I’d had a bucket of water handy I would not have had to think twice – I would have put my foot in it straight away – but I didn’t… All I had was an old paint rag. I didn’t even have my mobile phone on me so I couldn’t take a shot of it (and it would have been a beauty of a photo).

To be honest with you, it was the second time today that I’d had a mishap with the blue paint, and rather thin and runny paint that outdoor wood paint is… In the morning it was just the paintbrush that fell, fully laden with runny blue paint, from the top of the landing by the bridge, down the magnolia-white garden wall, over the Diana statue and into the fuchsias; of course, on it’s way down the paint splattered everywhere. That time I acted swiftly by running down to the bottom immediately and grabbing the hose; with the water pressure on high I aimed the hose at the top of the wall and brought it down over all that had been zapped with blue, which was pretty much everything. And whilst I was about it I hosed the stones, the white garden table and chairs and the conservatory glass door, all of which had been dumb recipients of the drips of blue paint that had seeped through the gaps in the wooden planks of the bridge.

Ah, no lasting harm done except for a few spots of blue paint that had dripped through those same planks onto my back while I was hosing. My favourite white top went into bleach and my orange shorts into detergent; my apron was okay because the paint caught me only on my back (should have worn my apron around the wrong way!).

Later on, when I went up to admire our newly painted blue bridge, I noticed that some splashes of water from the hose had caused the paint to dry oddly. “That won’t take me long,” I thought to myself. I put on my still clean apron again and, armed with a rag and a small bucket half-filled with the left-over paint from earlier, went back up to the bridge a brush; the bucket used to contain yogurt and was just the right size for small paint jobs. Unfortunately, the yogurt bucket is made of quite thin plastic with precious little substance and the lid was on tightly, and when I managed eventually to pull the lid off… well, you can imagine…

What would you have done with half a yogurt bucket of runny blue paint landed on your foot? And no water in sight, just a paint rag? I dipped the brush on my blue covered foot and painted the bridge; then I put the rag around my foot and hot-footed it down the steps to the hose…

It’s funny how blue pigment is so difficult to remove. The worst of it came off. It came off my thong sandals and it almost came off the quarry tiles; it came off my skin, although three toe nails are still sky-blue (who needs nail varnish?); I fear it will never come out of my favourite orange pants but I’ll like them nonetheless as a painting outfit.

Now I’m done with painting for the day. I’ve had two showers (as have the walls, plants and the statue of Diana) and I’m not risking any more accidents. Am I feeling a bit blue? Not really, the bridge looks lovely and I’ve had a bit of fun recounting the tale to you.

The photos below were taken after second hosing down.

 

Apple Pie Etiquette?

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“Can I do anything to help?” Chris asked. (I expect he thought I would say no because I was making an apple pie at the time!)

“Would you like to peel the apples while I core and slice them?” I responded.

Rather surprised, but unable to retract his offer, Chris set to peeling the apples. I cut out the cores and put them to one side to go in the organic bin, and the peelings went into a plastic bag which contained other peelings and scraps that I had been saving for Rosie’s goats. Those lucky goats, in that bag were all sorts of delicacies awaiting them… like potato peelings, carrot skins, butternut pumpkin skin (I made pumpkin soup a few days ago), stale bread, and – best of all – quite a lot of porridge that I couldn’t face for breakfast three days running (back on the Dukan Diet).

“What shall I do with the skins?” Chris inquired at the end of his task, “Do you want them for the goats?”

“Yes please,” I said, “they can go in the big plastic bag for the goats, not the other one. I had to de-core the apples because the seeds are poisonous, so I’m keeping those separate.”

“I suppose the goats like to eat with some decorum!” Chris quipped.

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An hour or two later we joined Rosie’s family and friends at the farm for a lovely roast lamb dinner.

“Is this one of your sheep?” I asked as I looked at the lamb on my plate (I’m a wee bit squeamish about eating animals I have known, however briefly.)

“Yes…” Rosie answered tentatively (catching my drift), “but I don’t think you knew it.”

“It’s not the little old one that had its eye pecked by the birds and I helped nurse back to health – is it?”

“No, that one’s still alive. You didn’t meet this one,” Rosie assured me.

Secure in that knowledge, I stopped picturing the sheep with the bad eye and I tucked in to the tender and delicious lamb. As we left the goats were about to be fed – I hope they like porridge better than I do; on a whole I’d rather eat pumpkin skins… or apple pie… Well, I had to have just a little, after all I was the one who de-cored ’em.

 

 

 

Sunset Skies and a Surprise Meeting on the River Beach

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“Oh, Sally, the sky is a beautiful pink!” said my dear old mum who is nearly blind. We were chatting on the phone at the time, a little earlier this evening. She must have been looking out of the window from her chair by the phone in her kitchen. Mum knew that after our call was finished I would go out onto our balcony to see the same sunset pink clouds.

Our house faces south-east so we get wonderful sunrises over the sea but never sunsets. However, occasionally (like this evening) the sky is aglow with some of the colours of the sun setting gloriously in the west. The back beach at Teignmouth, just three miles away, is the best place around here for taking in the sunsets, which reminds me…

The last time I was at the river beach as the sun went down was about a month ago, when it was still summer (if a tad cold, even so); Chris and I went with a party of family and friends to have an alfresco dinner on the tables outside the “Ship Inn” before going on to see a play (“Beyond Expectations”, which really was beyond expectations!). Loads of holiday-makers aswell as locals were out enjoying the sunny evening and the bustle of life on the river beach. Just prior to leaving for the play I thought I’d take a photograph of the scene. I was holding out my mobile camera in an outstretched arm when I recognised a face on the screen…

“It’s Nigel – isn’t it?” I beamed.

“Hello Sally,” Nigel answered, just as pleased to see me as I was to see him.

“You haven’t changed a bit!” I thrilled (it’s always great to note that people haven’t changed drastically over the years!).

“Nor have you,” he was equally as enthusiastic.

“I can’t remember how long it’s been since last I saw you,” I said.

“Surely it’s not that long ago,” he replied, “but I’m often here in the evenings if you ever want to see me.”

A pal of his laughed and we all laughed.

“Well, I have to go – we have a play to see in about five minutes – it was so good to see you – can I take a photo of you before I go?”

So I took a photo of Nigel and we kissed and hugged goodbye (his mate smiled). I didn’t tell Nigel that it must have been at least twenty years, perhaps more, since we met last. It wasn’t a long conversation for such an exciting reunion, I realise, but everyone was waiting… and we weren’t that great friends at school.

 

 

Pesky Photographers

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Don’t you just hate going out for a walk with a photographer? He or she doesn’t even have to be a professional photographer either – the keen amateur is far worse – and nearly everyone these days is a keen amateur (just not in my circle of friends). Modern mobiles have such great camera capabilities now that many owners get rather carried away with the idea that everything in sight might be that special, one in a million, sensational shot (quite by accident, of course).

Most people have a particular style of walking in the countryside (or Fells in this instance). Some race on ahead of the others in a party – they are the natural leaders (and fitness experts); they assume the role of the pace-setter and carry on charging ahead to a point which they think would be a good resting place… perhaps by a gate or tree. They wait by the pretty spot and recover their breaths until the plodders arrive at the resting place, after which they instantly shoot off again to their favoured position fifty metres in front.

The plodders are the dreamers and altruists. They know full well that they could easily keep up with the leaders if they wished but they don’t wish to; for them the enjoyment of taking a walk in the countryside is considerably heightened by taking their time, and breathing in the beauty as they go along, rather than gasping by a gate or tree after a fast stretch. Another reason why the plodders walk at a leisurely pace is because they worry about the stragglers behind. A sense of concern and their empathy with the underdog suits them well in certain circumstances, such as walking in the countryside, because this gives them an excuse to go against the urging of the natural leaders – after all, the dreamers don’t want to be led, they simply want to amble around freely to look at butterflies, heather, gorse or even brown thistle stalks… if they fancy! Sometimes they take pleasure in applying guilt tactics to persuade the leaders to wait a few more seconds at the resting place, maybe holding the gate open, until the straggler catches up.

The keen photographer is both a straggler and a mountain goat. But the photographer does not lag behind intentionally to irritate; one’s love of every single minute detail of nature (not to mention the chance of that million-to-one brilliant shot) draws one off the path –  up a rock, under a bough, through a gap in a fence, crouching down to the height of a chicken, any and every angle possible (for that something special and unusual). And poor weather is no deterrent –  there is “drama” in the shadows and “magic” in the mist; an interested cow or a stoical goat on a hillside is a model of perfection worthy of its moment of fame behind the lens. Then, with a sureness of foot akin to a mountain goat, the lagging photographer runs over rocky terrain to catch up with the plodders who are passing through the gate held open by the leader…

Feeling rather fit and innervated by all the bursts of ambling and running, the photographer overtakes the leaders and at last manages to take some portrait shots… How irritating! Don’t you just hate walking with a pesky photographer?