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Tag: video
Staying alive
This is what morning look like here when we’re all tired.
This is really amusing, in that almost a year ago to the day, RUN DMReenie was getting down to Christmas in Hollis Morges.
Hands…Face…Space
It’s been a long pandemic…
Comedy night date
Katy and I went on a date Tuesday night. We bought a ticket to a live zoom performance of Nina Conti, a British ventriloquist whose sidekick,Monk, is a cynical monkey who is continually insulting Conti and swearing when he does not have his demands fulfilled.
It was a blast. We were part of the live “studio” audience that was going to interact with her and another comedian, prior to the free broadcast. It was supposed to be just us, my laptop and a bottle of wine. Unfortunately, the small annoying one got in on the act and it was easier to just let him watch the show with us than to fight over him going to bed and miss the show.
Here are some videos from other shows.
Going to be a wild ride
So we have Lily and Eric for today and part of tomorrow. Don’t know what’s going to break first: coffee cup, TV or my sanity. It’s been a nonstop manic 30 minutes since Lily arrived, but it would seem to… cautiously… be winding down because both contestants are knackered.
Update: 5h later, we’ve finally achieved peace. Both doggos are snoozing, having completely exhausted themselves this morning. I honestly thought we’d need to have Lily go back to her place, but they’ve settled down. Mad props to Katy the dog whisperer.
#dateday
Has our first date day in a loooong time. Unfortunately, it started out with a frustrating 2h wait/argument at Barclays Bank to try and sort out a bank fuck-up on their part (still unresolved), but it finished with Wagamama and cocktails so it’s all good.
6 oz tomato juice
1 1/2 oz vodka
1 tsp wasabi paste (or less to taste)
1 tap balsamic vinegar
freshly ground black pepper and sea salt to taste
dash of hot sauce
ice
cucumber wedge and lime wedge for garnish
Also, random fox and gang signs :
What Christmas movie are we watching?
Yippee Ki-Yay, Mr. Falcon!
Friday lunchtime conversation topics
Are always a bit raucous. Today’s teasers include:
It took 300 years to classify the giant galapagos turtle because they kept being eaten in transit before they could reach London
Wild wallabies roam villages west of Paris
https://www.thelocal.fr/20150804/wild-wallabies-roam-villages-west-of-paris
In 1969, two blokes bought a lion from Harrods of London
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_the_lion
There is a thriving colony of wild Hippos in Columbia thanks to Pablo Escobar
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pablo-escobars-hippos-keep-multiplying-and-colombia-doesnt-know-how-to-stop-it/
Fete des Vignerons 2019
The Fête des Vignerons (Winegrowers’ Festival) is a traditional festival which takes place in Vevey, in Switzerland.
It has been organised by the Confrérie des Vignerons (Brotherhood of Winegrowers) in Vevey since 1797. The organizing committee is free to choose how often the festival takes place, but the maximum number of times is five times in a century. Up to now, the interval between two festivals has varied between 14 and 28 years. The current festival takes place in July and August 2019, which will be 20 years after the preceding one (1999).
The festival features a show celebrating the world of winemaking; many performances take place in the marketplace near the shore of Lac Léman, and festivities also take place in the town itself. Since 2016, the Fête des Vignerons has been included in UNESCO’s intangible cultural heritage.
The 2019 edition of the festival is recommended as one of National Geographic’s “world’s most exciting destinations”, one of The New York Times’s “places to go in 2019” and is listed in The Guardian’s “Where to go in 2019” list.
The show represents a year in the life of the vineyard through twenty scenes starting and finishing with the harvest. It combines the work of the vineyard (pruning/training, etc.), social moments (weddings, Saint-Martin’s Fair) along with more general themes (the seasons, water, the sun, the moon, the stars). It questions the link between man and nature and pays homage to the know-how of winegrowers. At the heart of the show is the Crowning of winegrowers rewarded for their excellence of work by the Confrérie des Vignerons. The narration is carried by a moving dialogue between a little girl called Julie and her grandfather, who enables her to discover the traditions and the work of winegrowers. Three “doctor” characters comment on the performance with humour and impertinence.
The music, which alternates with pieces of ensemble, orchestral pieces or in small formations, accompanied live by the Choeur de la Fête (500 choristers, 300 Percuchorists, 150 children’s voices), the Harmonie de la Fête (120 brass band musicians), the Big Band (16 jazz musicians), the Percussionistes (40 percussionists), the Cors des Alpes (36 Alpine horns), the Petit Ensemble (20 musicians) and the Fifres et Tambours (36 Basel musicians). The Fête orchestra is the Gstaad Festival Orchestra, which will record the score in the studio in spring 2019.
The choreographies of the scenes are performed by 5,500 actors and actresses in costumes, all inhabitants of the region. A total, magical, grandiose, dynamic and poetic performance conceived at 360°, it mixes with the music, the songs that carry the poems of the authors and the crowd movement images and videos projected on giant screens as well as on the immense LED floor of the arena.
To create the seventy different costumes worn by actors and actresses and singers, the costume designer was inspired both by the previous Fête des Vignerons, with a particular interest for the watercolours of Ernest Biéler in 1905 and 1927, and traditional Vaud and Fribourg costumes.
We hemmed and hawed for a long time before getting tickets to the show because they cost a bloody fortune. In retrospect, I’m glad we did because we didn’t have any preconceptions about the show and it was brilliant. Definitively the most Swiss thing I have ever seen – but also worthy of the name spectacle.
We arrived in Vevey in time to see the opening day parade, where all the actors, singers, musicians, winegrowers and animals walk through Vevey before the opening day show. It’s impressive!
I have a full gallery of pictures here: fete_des_vignerons_jul_2019
Because my phone battery crapped out, I also found a bunch of promo pictures from the interweebs:
Another set of pictures, from the interweebs:
I leave you with this video. Honestly moving moment of the show, and again, the most Swiss thing that I have ever seen.
Rowley Birkin, QC
When I was working at the EBI, a former colleague introduced me to The Fast Show, a BBC comedy sketch show program that ran in the 90s. It was one of the most popular sketch shows of its time in the UK. The show’s central performers were Paul Whitehouse, Charlie Higson, Simon Day, Mark Williams, John Thomson, Arabella Weir and Caroline Aherne. One of its recurring characters was Rowley Birkin QC, played by Paul Whitehouse.
Sozzled, rambling old barrister, Rowley Birkin QC, sits in his chair and spins yarns of foreign adventures, mysterious women and exotic beasts, attended only by his equally ancient butler. During his nonsensical mutterings you can make out the occasional phrase – ‘took it off below the knee’… ‘a rather striking mustache’… ‘SNAKE, SNAKE!’… ‘Her husband had been entombed in ice. Like this.’… and of course, ‘I’m afraid that I was very, very drunk’.
“Johnny! Johnny Ludlow!” Hahaha… [rambles] …terrible flatulence… [rambles] …you see?… [rambles] …the whole thing was made completely out of rubber… [rambles; make bubbling noises] …in fact, we communicated the whole time with sign language… [rambles] …a rather striking moustache… [rambles] …wow! you see?… [rambles] …you know, you can actually drive one of those cars, on three wheels!… [rambles] …I’m afraid I was very drunk.
Cairo!… [emits a high pitch squeak; rambles] …very unstable, politically, pandimonium!… [rambles; then mimes pushing through tall grass and gestures above him] …a poisonous monkey… [rambles] …very small chaps, but immensely strong… [rambles] …hah! like that. It was a completely wasted journey… [rambles] …Snake! Snake! Aah! Brrr! Gin!… [rambles; mimes holding something] …lift the thing up, I didn’t know what to do… [rambles] …I made a dreadful hash of his arm, I really did… [rambles] …I freely admit, that I was very, very drunk.
Vast ice floes… [rambles] …there he was, staring at me, six foot eight if he was an inch… [rambles] …the whole thing was made out of matchsticks… [rambles] …I laugh now… [rambles] …image of a four star Nazi General, licking a lollipop… [rambles] …I was feeling a little liverish… [rambles] …he punched me right on the nose… [rambles] …I didn’t feel a thing, I’m afraid, I was very drunk.
It happens to every young man, I’m sure… [quietly rambles] …she was a really beautiful woman and I … [rambles] …she had a very long neck… …very intelligent… …really piercing eyes… …of course, the war came along… that was it really between us… …really beautiful song: la la la, I can’t remember anymore… …I was in absolute floods of tears… …it was very, very cold, and… …and I held her in my arms… [stares silently at the camera] …I’m afraid I was very drunk.
Bang!.. right up the arse… [coughy rambling] …now did I ever tell you what happened to me in nineteen hundred and [rambles] she was saddest woman… the tallest woman I’ve ever met… her husband had been entombed in ice, like this [mimes being stuck in ice, rambles] …we’d been cut off by a terrific snow storm… …extremely cold, and we were plunged in total darkness… [rambles] … we head what sounded like a child’s voice like this… mamma mamma mamma mamma mamma mamma… [rambles]… closer and closer it came… [rambles] … she arched her back and scuttled across the room like a giant spider… [rambles] … she opened her mouth to spit… [rambles, butler arrives with a drink]… bugger off… [rambles]… it may have been a ghost… [rambles]… I’m afraid I was very, very drunk at the time
At the time, I was still a… [rambles] …like a giant marshmallow… [rambles] …fingerless gloves, very sensual… [rambles] …just off St Alexander’s Square, you know, behind the chocolate shop… [rambles] …the head became completely detached… [rambles; makes bubbling noises] …we always felt like we were being watched, like that… [rambles] …I went completely cross-eyed… [crosses his eyes] …I can’t do it now… [rambles] …I mean, you must have been there, oh you must go, it’s quite, quite, quite, quite beautiful… [rambles] …lorry load of interesting cheeses… [rambles] …there is no art to find the minds construction of the face, mmm… [rambles] …and then they made their burrows in rotten wood… [rambles] …a face like a mad baboon and an arse to match… [rambles; moves his arms as if running] …shoot him, you fool!… …I didn’t hear any of it of course, I’m afraid, I was very, very drunk.
[rambles]… in Shanghai! Shanghai!… [rambles] …stamp out piracy… …I was quite flummoxed by an outrageous cat… [rambles] …it was a Chinese warlord by the name of … [rambles] …I’m a very considerate lover… [rambles] …the most interesting about them is that there’s a permanent tap to the gall bladder of these bears… [rambles] …it was swollen to twice its usual size… hahahahaha… the surgeon with sandy hair, obviously homosexual… [rambles] …but I liked him… [rambles] …took it off below the knee… [rambles] the schock like uuuuhhhh… …jabbering on and on, ha!, made no difference to me, I’m afraid I was very drunk.
[rambles]… lazy things in your brain… [rambles] …the women there are absolutely sex-mad… [rambles] …I managed to drain the wound into a tin cup… [rambles, mimes using a blow dart] …right there, right in the neck… [rambles] …pierced labia… [rambles] …by Jingo, I mean as I’d married three of them, haha… [rambles] …then they made me their chief… [rambles] …the witch doctor never liked me… he was forever burying his… [rambles] …I realized I made a terrible faux-pas in their culture, ohhh… [rambles] …I bluffed my way out… they chased me over several weeks… [rambles] …was very surprised they didn’t catch me because I was absolutely smashed on poisonous frogs.
[snoring] six breasts! … [rambles, snoring] … completely covered in hair… don’t point that thing at me, she said, and then she came… [rambles] …blew my head off… [rambles, snoring] …penicillin… [snoring]
[rambles, playing the piano]… absolutely incredible suction… [rambles, playing the piano] …yes, haha… [rambles, playing the piano] …have yourselves a merry little Christmas, let your… [rambles, playing the piano] …next year all our troubles will be out of sight… [rambles, playing the piano] …I think that she must have misheard me because she brought me a bucket full of ankles… [rambles, playing the piano] …Chestnuts roasting on a open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your… [rambles, playing the piano] …it takes me back to my time in Anchorage with Stevie Wonder… [rambles, playing the piano] …so I’m offering this simple phrase to kids from one to ninety-two. Although it’s been said, many times, many ways… [rambles, playing the piano] …ahahahahaha… [rambles, playing the piano] …Although it’s been said, many times, many ways, once you actually break through the crust, all that was left was this foul jelly… [rambles, playing the piano] …Although it’s been said, many times, many ways, I’m afraid I was very, very drunk.
2020 Covid Update!!!
