Sunday, December 5, 2021
TOP TEN + 2 BEST CHRISTMAS MOVIES
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Thinking about Christmas approaching started me thinking about one of my favourited Christmas flicks, Love Actually. I had the feeling that I would like to watch it again this Christmas.
That in turn started me thinking about other favourite Christmas films, which has inspired this further Top Ten + 2 list.
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Some comments about the list:
- This list is also based on my Watchability Index ©, that is, movies that one likes so much that one watches them again and again. It is therefore not based on art, critical acclaim, feelings of what one should be liking etc. That will no doubt draw flack from friend and film purist Steve M and I anticipate some critical emails, which I will post. Everyone is free to agree or contradict me and you are invited to let me know.
- The list will be published in parts in the leadup to Christmas so bear in mind that your favourites may still appear.
- For this list Christmas must be an integral part of the film and not merely incidental or a background with no significance. For that reason, Die Hard doesn’t make the cut.
- I am only including films I have seen, Unfortunately, Steve, that means I have to exclude Joyeux Noelle, a fictionalised account of an actual event that took place in December 1914, when Wilhelm, German Crown Prince, sent the lead singer of the Berlin Imperial Opera company on a solo visit to the front line. Singing by the tenor, Walter Kirchhoff, to the Württemberg regiments led French soldiers in their trenches to stand up and applaud.
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Love Actually:
What is there not to love about this 2003 film? A top cast appear in various stories of love, many of them interlinked and coming together at Christmas. The theme and charm are set by the opening voiceover by Hugh Grant as the Brit PM:
Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion's starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don't see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often, it's not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it's always there - fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge - they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I've got a sneaky feeling you'll find that love actually is all around.
My favourite story? Jamie (Colin Firth) and Portuguese lass Aurelia.
Some trivia:
- The airport greeting footage at the beginning and end of this movie is real.
- In 2017 Red Nose Day Actually was broadcast, both a sequel to the 2003 Love Actually and a part of the fundraising event Red Nose Day 2017. Love Actually writer and director Richard Curtis returned alongside cast members Hugh Grant, Liam Neeson, Colin Firth, Andrew Lincoln, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Keira Knightley, Martine McCutcheon, Bill Nighy, Thomas Sangster, Lúcia Moniz, Olivia Olson, Marcus Brigstocke, and Rowan Atkinson.
- Watch the trailer at:
- The later film is set in March 2017, 13 years after the events of the original film.
Juliet is watching television with her husband Peter. When the doorbell rings and she opens the door, Juliet finds Mark, who, similarly to 13 years ago, communicates with her by using cue cards, having her pretend to Peter, this time, that Mark is a fund raiser for Red Nose Day. They tell each other that they are very happy with their respective lives, and Mark presents his new wife, who is none other than Kate Moss, whom, 13 years prior, he jokingly said he was going to marry. Mark's final card proposes that they see what happened to the rest of their friends.David, who has lost and recently regained his position as Prime Minister since the first film, dances in his official residence once again, even continuing in great pain after falling down the stairs. His wife and former employee Natalie amicably reprimands him, and offers to make him tea. Later in a public speech, he states that although times are harder for a lot of people now, he still believes that love and the good in people will win in the end.Billy Mack recently released a charity single, a cover of the ZZ Top song "Gimme All Your Lovin'". As the reporter interviewing him on radio tries to help him raise awareness for Red Nose Day, Billy openly admits to not caring about children (except for the ones that buy his discs) and that he only promotes the charity to, in truth, get free publicity for his upcoming autobiography, which he has admittedly neither written nor read. He then reveals with sadness that his manager Joe has died from a heart attack since the first film, before stating that the greatest sex he ever had was with one of the Kardashians, although he cannot decide which one.Salesman Rufus proposes, among his products, a red nose in honour of Red Nose Day. When a child buys one and agrees to having it gift wrapped, Rufus proceeds with great delight to take an absurdly excessive amount of time doing so, the waiting line soon becoming so long that it blocks car traffic outside.Meanwhile, on their way to pick up their kids from school, Jamie and his wife Aurélia recall their first days together. Aurélia says in Portuguese that even though life makes it impossible to be completely happy, love sometimes makes you feel like you are. She then reveals to Jamie that she is pregnant with their fourth child, though he misunderstands her and believes she was telling him what was for dinner.Sitting on a bench, Daniel receives a surprise visit from his stepson Sam, who is now 26 and lives in New York City. When Daniel expresses concern because Sam had not been in touch, he is surprised to see Joanna, Sam's childhood crush 13 years ago who had left for America. She asks for Sam's hand, and Daniel, delighted, jokingly answers that he will think about it.The film then ends with footage showing various people and actions supported by Comic Relief, and some of the film's cast wearing red noses.
More to come.
Saturday, December 4, 2021
MEMORIES OF GROWING UP . . .
A poem from an American viewpoint so there is a lot that doesn’t apply to growing up in Oz but equally there’s also a lot that does. See if it brings back memories of being a kid and days gone by . . .
Kid Stuff
Brian A. Bendall
February 2018
Many, many years ago
When I was just a kid,
And I had just began to grow,
There's stuff I had and did.
I'm thinking back on all those things
That life saw fit to give me.
If I can't remember everything,
I hope you will forgive me.
Chocolate candy cigarettes
And big bubble gum cigars.
Mini Bricks and Red Ball Jets,
Hopscotch and Dinky cars.
Mercurochrome and iodine;
Band-aids in a can.
Your watch required a daily wind,
And Etch-A-Sketch was grand.
In school, the teacher had to see
Just what you had to do.
You held one finger up for pee;
You held up two for poo!
Marbles, Slinkys, Lincoln Logs,
Ker Plunk and Pick Up Sticks,
With Yo-yos, you could "walk the dog,"
And ice cream came in bricks.
Arrows all had suction cups
And guns had rolls of caps.
Paddle Balls and Tonka Trucks
Big red lips were wax.
Bumps on heads, being black and blue,
Was minor when compared to
Being sick with cold or flu!
Have fun? You're not prepared to!
Measles, mumps, and chicken pox
Always seemed to flare.
They opened up Pandora's Box
And caught us unaware!
With medicine and care from mom,
Our time in bed was cut!
But I can't remember anyone
Allergic to a nut!
Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys
And also Brothers Grimm.
But Mark Twain was my pride and joy!
I never could resist him!
Hide and seek and tag were there.
New energy we found!
No more teacher scorns to bear
When summer came around.
PF Flyer running shoes,
Steel roller skates had keys.
There were phone booths we could use
If there's emergencies.
Rolling down a grassy hill
In parks was a delight.
Nicky Nine Doors was a thrill,
But only played at night!
We rode our bikes with playing cards
Flapping on our spokes.
We played in all our friends' backyards
And told our "Knock Knock" jokes.
Climbing fences, climbing trees
Were common things to do.
Getting bruised or skinning knees?
That was nothing new!
Two wheel scooters, kiddy cars,
We had Soap Box Rallies.
Baseball teams and monkey bars
And close by bowling alleys.
In winter, there were snowball fights
And snow forts for protection.
And when a bitter wind would bite,
Few kids raised objection!
Speeding down a snowy slope
On sleds and blown up tires.
"Is it too steep?" We all said, "Nope!"
We wanted to go higher!
In our teens were Levi jeans,
Duck and pony tails.
Sock hops were a common scene
Where dancing would prevail.
Bobby socks and poodle skirts
And continental slacks.
White buck shoes and fancy shirts,
Guitars and wailing sax!
Computers? What on Earth were they?!
Well, they would show up later.
And none I knew could dare display
Cell phones or calculators!
Many things I've mentioned here
Are still with us today.
But lots of kids, it does appear,
Ignore this great buffet!
What happened to the world I knew?
Have kids today stopped growing?
If time machines were really true,
I know where I'd be going!
Dick, Jane, Spot and Puff
Are nothing now but jokes.
But maybe I have said enough,
So I'll say, "That's all folks!"
Friday, December 3, 2021
FUNNY FRIDAY
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So we’re now in December and Christmas approaches, along with the end of year holidays, Here is some humour to set you on that path but, as always, a caution that there is risqué content ahead.
Stay safe, readers.
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SOME HUMOUR:
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From a US website . . .
Apparently a man in Australia, who was so drunk that he was kicked out of the bar, decided to go to a local zoo where he climbed into the enclosure of a 5m saltwater crocodile and tried to ride it.
It almost defies belief.
I mean, how fucking drunk would you have to be to get kicked out of a bar in Australia?
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I helped my neighbour with something this morning and she said, ‘’I could marry you!’’
I couldn’t believe it.
You do something nice for someone and they threaten to ruin your life in return.
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Text message . . .
Hi Bob, This is Alan next door. I’m sorry buddy, but I have a confession to make to you. I've been riddled with guilt these past few months and have been trying to pluck up the courage to tell you to your face, but I am at least now telling in text as I can’t live with myself a moment longer without you knowing. The truth is I have been sharing your wife, day and night when you're not around. In fact, probably more than. you. I haven’t been getting it at home recently, but that's no excuse, I know. The temptation was just too much. I can no longer live with the guilt and I hope you will accept my sincerest apologies and forgive me. I promise that it won't happen again. Please come up with a fee for usage, and I'll pay you.
Regards, Alan.
Bob, feeling insulted and betrayed, grabbed his gun, and shot his neighbour dead. He returned home where he poured himself a stiff drink and sat down on the sofa. He took out his phone where he saw he has a subsequent message from his neighbour.
Hi Bob, This is Alan next door again. Sorry about the slight typo on my last text. I expect you worked it out anyway, but as I’m sure you noticed that my autocorrect changed ‘Wi-Fi’ To ‘Wife’. Technology hey?!? Hope you saw the funny side of that.
Regards, Alan.
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By way of explanation and comment, New Zealanders have a habit of adding “eh” to the end of their sentences. They also pronounce the “e” sound as “i”, so that “pen” becomes “pin” . . .
2 Kiwis in conversation:
“What’s a Hindu, bro?”
“It lays eggs, eh.”
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Some more in the same vein . . .
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How was the Canadian able to put out a fire while vacationing in Mexico?
With the help of a hose eh.
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Canada was originally supposed to be called Canad.
But whenever anyone spelled it, it came out as: C A N A D Eh.
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LIMERICK OF THE WEEK:
There once was a girl from Hoboken
Who swore her cherry was broken
From riding her bike
On a cobblestone pike
But it was really broken from pokin'.
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GALLERY:
Some Herman Humour by Jim Unger . . .
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CORN CORNER:
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Go to the dog shelter for a dog and you are a saint....
Go to the women's shelter for a new girlfriend and everyone loses their mind!!
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A man walks into a pub and asks the bar tender for the WiFi password.
The bartender replies "You have to buy a drink first"
So the man buys a Coke.
"Ok now what's the WiFi password?"
The bar tender replies "you have to buy a drink first, all lower case, no spaces"
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Took my car to the mechanic because it was making a terrible noise.
He removed the Mariah Carey Christmas CD, and now it’s fine.
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I swallowed a dictionary.
It gave me thesaurus throat I ever had..
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I have a bumper sticker that says “Honk if you think I’m sexy.”
Then I just sit at the green lights until I feel better about myself
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Thursday, December 2, 2021
SOME ANECDOTES FROM HISTORY
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There are two versions of how the Mongols killed the Caliph al-Mutasim when they sacked Baghdad. One is that he was rolled into a carpet and trampled to death by the horde. The other is that he was locked in his treasury with all his jewels and baubles with no food or water and left to die reflecting on how he should have spent his gold on an army rather than wasting it on his own vanity and greed.
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The Mongols were very original at killing powerful people. To prevent Mongol power from eroding itself by warring Khans they had a de facto honour law that made "spilling the blood" of any other Khan taboo. They solved that by killing their captured feuding Khans by slowly boiling them alive in hot water. No blood was spilled.
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Alexander the Great was in Corinth and all the great men of the city came to pay him tribute. When he didn't see Diogenes among them, he went out to find him, and met the philosopher sun bathing next to the barrel on which he lived. Alexander, conqueror of half the known world, greeted him and asked if there was anything he could do as a favour to the famous thinker.
Diogenes answered, "Yes, move over a little. You're standing in my sun."
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One that I have posted previously . . .
Sourced from John Aubrey's Brief Lives; the Earl of Oxford bowed down in front of Queen Elizabeth I and farted. He was so embarrassed that he travelled around Europe for years. On the day he returned to court the Queen saw him and said, "My lord, we had quite forgot the fart".
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Also posted in the past . . .
President and Mrs. Coolidge were being shown [separately] around an experimental government farm. When Mrs. Coolidge came to the chicken yard she noticed that a rooster was mating very frequently. She asked the attendant how often that happened and was told, "Dozens of times each day." Mrs. Coolidge said, "Tell that to the President when he comes by."
Upon being told, President asked, "Same hen every time?"
The reply was, "Oh, no, Mr. President, a different hen every time."
President: "Tell that to Mrs. Coolidge."
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Haydn and Mozart were cohorts,,
Haydn being something of a jokester and Mozart being...well, Mozart, they one day made a bet that they could write a piece of music that the other couldn't play.
So the day of the competition came. Mozart played Haydn's piece without incident.
When it was Haydn's turn to play, he starts strong...but stops halfway though and claims that no one can play this song, because it calls for middle C when one hand is on the lowest octave, and the other on the highest.
Mozart then said that he could do it. If you have ever seen a picture of Wolfgang Amadeus, you can see that he had a pretty big schnoz.
When the "impossible" part came, Mozart leaned in and hit middle C with his nose, and finished the impossible song, thus winning the bet.
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December 23rd, 1944, during the Battle of the Bulge.
As a tank destroyer from the 7th Armoured Division moved west from Salmchateau on the highway toward Fraiture, the commander spotted a lone trooper from the 325th digging a fox hole for an outpost near the road.
The commander stopped the vehicle and asked him if this was the frontline.
The trooper, PFC Vernon Haught, with Company F, 325th GIR, looked up and said, "Are you looking for a safe place?" The tank destroyer commander answered, "Yeah."
Haught then said, "Well, buddy, just pull your vehicle behind me. I'm the 82nd Airborne Division, and this is as far as the bastards are going."
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Tuesday, November 30, 2021
WE DIDN’T START THE FIRE continued
Continuing a look at the events and people in Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire.
Each two lines represent a year.
Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, "Bridge on the River Kwai"
Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball
Starkweather, homicide, children of thalidomide
Buddy Holly, "Ben Hur", space monkey, Mafia
Hula hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go
U-2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy
Chubby Checker, "Psycho", Belgians in the Congo
1957:
Little Rock:
- By 1957 the US Supreme Court decision of Brown v Board of Education that declared “separate but equal” in America’s public schools unconstitutional had been in force for 3 years. Nonetheless hostility remained strong in the South.
- Following enrolment in the summer of 1957, nine black students attended at Little Rock Central High School to commence classes. Their enrolment was a challenge to segregation.
- The students had been warned by the Little Rock board of education not to attend the first day of school. They arrived on the second da,y accompanied by a small interracial group of minister, and encountered a large white mob in front of the school, who began shouting, throwing stones, and threatening to kill the students.
- About 270 soldiers of the Arkansas National Guard, sent by Arkansas Governor Orval Eugene Faubus, blocked the school’s entrance. Faubus had declared his opposition to integration and his intention to defy a federal court order requiring desegregation.
- The confrontation in Little Rock drew international attention to racism and civil rights in the United States as well as to the battle between federal and state power. Television and newspaper reporters devoted substantial coverage to the “Little Rock Nine,” as the African American students were called.
- Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Governor Faubus, and Little Rock’s mayor, Woodrow Mann, discussed the situation over the course of 18 days, during which time the nine students stayed home. The students returned to the high school on September 23, entering through a side door to avoid the protesters’ attention and wrath.
- They were eventually discovered, however, and white protesters became violent, attacking African American bystanders as well as reporters for northern newspapers.
- The students were sent home, but they returned on September 25, protected by U.S. soldiers. Despite Eisenhower’s publicly stated reluctance to use federal troops to enforce desegregation, he recognized the potential for violence and state insubordination. He thus sent the elite 101st Airborne Division, called the “Screaming Eagles,” to Little Rock and placed the Arkansas National Guard under federal command.
- The Little Rock Nine continued to face physical and verbal attacks from white students throughout their studies at Central High.
- Melba Pattillo had acid thrown into her eyes and also recalled in her book, Warriors Don't Cry, an incident in which a group of white girls trapped her in a stall in the girls' washroom and attempted to burn her by dropping pieces of flaming paper on her from above.
- Another one of the students, Minnijean Brown, was verbally confronted and abused. She said
I was one of the kids 'approved' by the school officials. We were told we would have to take a lot and were warned not to fight back if anything happened. One girl ran up to me and said, 'I'm so glad you're here. Won't you go to lunch with me today?' I never saw her again.
- Minnijean Brown was also taunted by members of a group of white male students in December 1957 in the school cafeteria during lunch. She dropped her lunch, a bowl of chili, onto the boys and was suspended for six days. Two months later, after more confrontation, Brown was suspended for the rest of the school year. She transferred to the New Lincoln School in New York City. White students were punished only when their offense was "both egregious and witnessed by an adult".
- The remaining eight students, however, attended the school for the rest of the academic year. At the end of the year, in 1958, senior Ernest Green became the first African American to graduate from Little Rock Central High School.
- Governor Faubus was re-elected in 1958, and, rather than permit desegregation, he closed all of Little Rock’s schools.
- Many school districts in the South followed Little Rock’s example, closing schools or implementing “school-choice” programs that subsidized white students’ attendance at private segregated academies, which were not covered by the Supreme Court’s decision.
- Little Rock Central High School did not reopen with a desegregated student body until 1960, and efforts to integrate schools and other public areas throughout the country continued through the 1960s.
- In 1996, seven of the Little Rock Nine appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show. They came face to face with a few of the white students who had tormented them as well as one student who had befriended them.
- In February 1999, members created the Little Rock Nine Foundation which established a scholarship program which had funded, by 2013, 60 university students. In 2013, the foundation decided to exclusively fund students attending the Clinton School of Public Service at the University of Arkansas.
- President Bill Clinton honoured the Little Rock Nine in November 1999 when he presented them each with a Congressional Gold Medal. The medal is the highest civilian award bestowed by Congress. It is given to those who have provided outstanding service to the country. To receive the Congressional Gold Medal, recipients must be co-sponsored by two-thirds of both the House and Senate.
- In 2007, the United States Mint made available a commemorative silver dollar to "recognize and pay tribute to the strength, the determination and the courage displayed by African-American high school students in the fall of 1957." The obverse depicts students accompanied by a soldier, with nine stars symbolizing the Little Rock Nine. The reverse depicts an image of Little Rock Central High School, c. 1957.
- On December 9, 2008, the Little Rock Nine were invited to attend the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama, the first African-American to be elected President of the United States.
Gallery:
The Little Rock Nine –
Melba Pattillo, Ernest Green, Elizabeth Eckford, Minnijean Brown, Terrence Roberts, Carlotta Walls, Jefferson Thomas, Gloria Ray, and Thelma Mothershed
The Little Rock Nine being escorted by the National Guard to Little Rock Central High School, Arkansas, 1957.
African American students walking onto the campus of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, escorted by the National Guard, September 1957.
Young U.S. Army paratrooper in battle gear outside Central High School, on the cover of Time magazine (October 7, 1957)
A white student slugs an effigy of a black student outside Central High.
Hazel Massery nee Bryan, a student at Little Rock Central High School, depicted in an iconic photograph made by photojournalist Will Counts showing her shouting at Elizabeth Eckford, one of the Little Rock Nine, during the school integration crisis. In 1963, having changed her mind on integration and feeling guilt for her treatment of Eckford, Bryan contacted Eckford to apologize. They went their separate ways after this first meeting but later became friends. The friendship came to an end as a result of Bryan severing ties as she felt an irreconcilable tension between them.
Memorial at Arkansas State Capitol
The Little Rock Nine: Thelma Mothershed Wair, Minnijean Brown Trickey, Jefferson Thomas, Terrence Roberts, Carlotta Walls LaNier, Gloria Ray Karlmark, Ernest Green, Elizabeth Eckford and Melba Pattillo Beals on the steps of Little Rock’s Central High with Bill Clinton.
Monday, November 29, 2021
Sunday, November 28, 2021
BOOKS
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Laurie Kilmartin is an American comedian and writer who is a single mother with a son born in 2006.
In a recent stand up gig on The Late Late Show with James Corden she spoke about children today losing the ability to use books. A transcript follows, see the actual clip at:
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Laurie Kilmartin:
I am a strict Mom, I don’t let my son have a smart phone, obviously for porn . . but also, kids don’t know how to use reference books. They just google stuff and I think that’s really bade for their brains, you know. I was raised on encyclopedias, anyone else?
(Applause and cheering).
Yeah, that’s right.
Here’s my point.
I still have all my childhood encyclopedias for nostalgia purposes, so I took my son to the storage unit and I said “If you can use these books to tell me who was the Prime Minister of Great Britain in World War 2, I will get you a brand new $1,200 iPhone right now.” And he goes right to the W encyclopedia and I was like oh no, I’ve underestimated him, he’s gonna look up World War 2. But instead he tried to look up “Who was the Prime Minister of Great Britain . . . “
(Applause and cheering).
What an incredible victory for me. I’m still high off of it.
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Some thoughts:
- Who would not prefer a google check to looking into an aged set of encyclopedias?
- We still have a set of Brittanica obtained when my daughter was a baby. for her future use. It has never been used except sometimes by me early on.
- I prefer paper books to electronic.
- I use only a paper diary.
- Handwriting, I have been told, is also a disappearing skill.
- Likewise the ability to carry out maths.
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Saturday, November 27, 2021
PETER O'TOOLE
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Peter O’Toole (1932 – 2013) was a renowned drinker.
Some stories . .
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In an interview on Letterman in 2010, Letterman had the following exchange with O’Toole, which can be viewed at:
LETTERMAN: You are of the school and perhaps the heritage and the time where drinking was just something you did when you weren’t doing anything else. Is that a fair way to express it?
O’TOOLE: And when you were doing something else.
LETTERMAN: And when you would go out for an evening, anything ever untoward happen, like, would you the next day would you wake up in a , , , I mean, how did that work?
O’TOOLE: Many, many . . . Well, there’s one in particular which I’m fond of. It’s, my friend the late Peter Finch, and we were in Dublin together, on the lash.
LETTERMAN: Lash?
O’TOOLE: Lash usually means having a drop of something cheerful and then doing a lot of leaping and shrieking and saying why not.
And Finchie was living a few miles out of Dublin and I went back with him to his house where we were going to spend the night and it was not too late, about four-ish . . .
LETTERMAN: Four am?
O’TOOLE: Yeah; and there was a tiny little hole in the wall bar, and we thought we’d just drop in for a last one. Well, we went in and we had a couple of drinks, and the barman, it was a tiny little dirty little place, and he said “Boys, you had enough. You’re having no more.” So Finchie and I said “No No No No No. We’re having much more!” “No No No No” says he, “You’re out!”
So we bought the bar!
LETTERMAN: There you go. Problem solved.
O’TOOLE: The following morning I woke up and Finchie said “You know what we did last night, mate?”
I said “No.”
He said “We bought a (pause) bar.”
I said “What?”
So immediately we telephoned to cancel cheques but they’d not been cashed. So we went to the bar and there was the man with the two cheques and he said “Now you two boys gotta behave yourselves.” And we fell for him. I mean he was such a sweet guy and he hadn’t bothered cashing . . . he gave us the cheques back and we tore them up. About a year later – we used to pop in there every night on the way back to Finchie’s place – about a year later he died, so Finchie and I went over to Ireland for the funeral, because we’d gotten to know him a little bit, and his family, went to the cemetery and there was this group around the grace, the family, sobbing noisily, and Finchie and I joined them. On our knees (makes hands clasped in prayer gesture), and a woman came up and tapped me on the shoulder, and we were at the wrong grave.
LETTERMAN: It all counts. At any time during your life, speaking of that, have you thought what you might like as a final message on your tombstone?
O’TOOLE:
Oh yes, Oh yes. This arrived in the sixties. I had an old leather jacket of which I was inordinately fond and it was covered in Guinness and blood and muck, the usual, and I sent it off to the cleaner, or my wife sent it off to the cleaner and it came back and pinner on it was a large note saying “Sycamore Cleaners. It distresses us to return work which is not perfect.” So I’m having that on my tombstone.
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Rising with a new generation of actors, O'Toole's drinking buddies included men who would go on to become acting legends in their own right. Michael Caine was his understudy for the 1959 play The Long and the Short and the Tall at the Royal Court Theatre. One night after the show O'Toole invited the then unknown actor out for dinner.
"Was there a wildest weekend that you remember?" chat show host Jay Leno once asked Caine. "There was a wildest weekend that I don't remember," Caine replied, referring to what followed.
Caine said that after the dinner he had woken up in a strange flat. The last thing he remembered was eating a plate of eggs and chips. "What time is it?" asked Caine. "Never mind what time it is," said O'Toole. "What fucking day is it?" It turned out that it was five o'clock in the afternoon two days later.
Back at the theatre, the stage manager informed the pair they had been banned from the restaurant for life. Caine wondered what they had done. "Never ask what you did. It's better not to know," said O'Toole.
Source:
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On a night out drinking with Omar Sharif in Beirut whilst filming Lawrence of Arabia, they drunkenly ended up in a brothel and tried to pay for sex They couldn’t work out why the women were so unresponsive, it turned out that they were in a nunnery.
Source:
From The Definitive Biography, by Robert Sellers, reviewed at:
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Friday, November 26, 2021
FUNNY FRIDAY
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Son Thomas and wife Jess had a baby a few days ago, their first and our first grandchild. A beautiful bonny boy.
So there is some baby humour thrown in the mix in today’s Bytes, none of the scenarios applying to them, I hasten to add.
Caution: risque humour ahead.
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SOME HUMOUR:
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I think, I'm going to lose my drivers licence and all just because of a stupid police officer...
The conversation went like this, when I got pulled over in my car:
Officer: "Licence and registration, please, I think you’re drunk!"
Me: "I assure you, I did not drink anything."
Officer: "Ok, let's do a little test! Imagine driving in the dark on a highway at night, when you see two lights in the distance. What is this?"
Me: "A car."
Officer: "Of course! But which one? A Mercedes, an Audi or a Ford?"
Me:" I have no idea!"
Officer: "So, you're drunk."
Me: "But I didn't drink anything."
Officer: "Okay, one more test -- Imagine, you drive in the dark on a highway at night, and there is one light coming at you. What is it?”
Me: "A motorcycle."
Officer: "Of course! But which one? A Honda, a Kawasaki or a Harley?"
Me: "I have no idea!"
Officer: "As I suspected, you're drunk!"
Then I started to get annoyed and asked a counter question.
Me: "So..., counter question -- You're driving in the dark on a highway at night and see a woman on the roadside. She wears a mini skirt, fishnet stockings, high heeled shoes and only a bra as a top. What is this?"
Officer: "A prostitute of course."
Me: "Yes, but which one? Your daughter, your wife or your mother?"
Things went downhill from there and now I have a court date to attend...
------oOo------
Woman chatting over the backyard fence in England (this is better if you imagine this in English accents) to her pregnant neighbour . . .
Woman: “So is your husband going to be there at the birth?”
Neighbour: “Ooh, I don't know why he should, he wasn’t there at the conception.”
------oOo------
Why do anti-vaxxers not lock their bikes?
Because they know someone whose locked bike was still stolen.
------oOo------
A pharmacist walks back into his shop after taking a break.
He finds a man leaning against a wall and asks his assistant “What’s wrong with him?”
“He came in for some cough syrup”, explains the assistant, “but I couldn’t find any so I gave him laxatives instead.”
“What!” exclaims the pharmacist, horrified. “You can’t treat a cough with laxatives!”
“Of course you can.”, the assistant says. “Look at him, he’s far too scared to cough.”
------oOo------
A mother in law said to her son's wife when their baby was born:
"I don't mean to be rude but he doesn't look anything like my son."
The daughter-in-law lifted her skirt and said: "I don't mean to be rude either, but this is a pussy, not a fucking photocopier."
------oOo------
Observing the baby one night a wife found her husband standing over their baby's crib. Silently she watched him. As he stood looking down at the sleeping infant, she saw on his face a mixture of emotions: disbelief, doubt, delight, amazement, enchantment, scepticism.
Touched by this unusual display and the deep emotions it aroused, with eyes glistening she slipped her arm around her husband. "A penny for your thoughts," she said.
"It's amazing!" he replied. "I just can't see how anybody can make a crib like that for only $46.50."
------oOo------
Two men are arguing and shouting while a crowd gathered to watch. A by-stander asked a small boy, "What's going on here?"
The boy replied, "My father and our neighbour are arguing."
The by-stander asked, "Which one is your father?"
The boy answered, "That's what they're arguing about. "
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It was many years ago since the embarrassing day when a young woman, with a baby in her arms, entered his butcher shop. She confronted him with the news that the baby was his and asked what was he going to do about it..???
Finally he offered to provide her with free meat until the boy was 16. She agreed.
He had been counting the years off on his calendar and, one day. the teenager, who had been collecting the meat each week, came into the shop and said. "I'll be 16 tomorrow."
"I know," said the butcher with a smile.
"I've been counting too, tell your mother, when you take this parcel of meat home, that it is the last free meat she'll get and watch the expression on her face."
When the boy arrived home he told his mother.
The woman nodded and said "Son, go back to the butcher and tell him I have also had free bread, free milk, and free groceries for the last 16 years and watch the expression on his face"
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From the vault . . .
A young and busy Melbourne barrister had been taking his summer holidays at a remote Tasmanian holiday resort. Last year he was finally successful in seducing the resort owner’s beautiful 19 year old daughter. He was thus anticipating with excitement coming back to the resort.
When he got of his car he noticed, to his surprise, his lover with a small baby on her lap.
“Kim, why didn’t you write or phone me when you found out you were pregnant? I would have rearranged my court schedule and would have flown here as soon as possible. You know I care for you and we could have got married, and the baby would have my name.”
Kim replied: “Well, when I told my parents that I was pregnant and that you were the father, we had a thorough discussion about what I should do. We all came to the conclusion that it would be far better to have a bastard in the family than a lawyer.”
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LIMERICK OF THE WEEK:
On a maiden a man once begat
Triplets named Nat, Tat and Pat.
‘Twas fun in the breeding
But hell in the feeding:
She hadn’t a spare tit for Tat.
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RELIGION SPOT:
The three wise men were visiting the little baby Jesus.
As Melchior leans over to get a closer look at the infant he bumps his head on the roof of the manger and shouts, "Jesus Christ!"
Mary looks up and says, "I like it, I was going to call him Irving".
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GALLERY:
Some funnies from Leo . . .
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CORN CORNER:
------oOo------
Two cows . . . .
Interviewer: How much milk do these cows give?
Farmer: Which one? The black one or the brown one?
Interviewer: Brown one.
Farmer: A couple of litres per day.
Interviewer: And the black one?
Farmer: A couple of litres per day.
Interviewer (naturally a bit flummoxed): I see. What do you give them to eat?
Farmer: Which one? Black or brown?
Interviewer: Black.
Farmer: It eats grass.
Interviewer: And the other one?
Farmer: Grass.
Interviewer (now annoyed): Why do you keep asking which one when the answers are the same?!
Farmer: Because the black one's mine.
Interviewer: Oh, and the brown one?
Farmer: It's also mine
------oOo------
Last month, I gave half of my salary to charity.
That's probably why my wife found out about her.
------oOo------
My wife said to put a baby monitor in the crib with our son...
but I don't think lizards make very good pets for babies.
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