Saturday 27 April 2013

Positive humour

I have signed up to receiving my daily horoscope with a site called Daily Om Horoscope and I often receive interesting daily messages that I think could apply to everyone,  this is one I think could apply to most British as British humour often takes the mickey out of someone:

While peppering your conversations with witticisms can make them fun and exciting, you may want to pay attention to the type of humor you are most likely to employ. If you should notice that your conversations are focused on negative things cut-downs, gossip, or criticisms you might want to take a deep breath and remind yourself that humor doesn't have to come at the expense of other people. Keeping your playful nature positive today could make your discussions not only clever and upbeat but also encouraging and constructive.

Humor is a wonderful conversational tool when used in an affirming way. So much of our wit is often used to poke fun at another person, which means that instead of being positive, the joy of our conversations comes from putting down another person. Changing the nature of our humor, however, reframes the way we interact; instead of putting ourselves above another person, we use our humor as a means to comfort and identify more deeply with others. Our interactions then become a means to connect instead of separate from the people around us. Using your humor in an encouraging and supportive way will infuse your interactions with the delight that comes from making others laugh with you today.

Thursday 11 April 2013

Wow the things one learns from our friend FACEBOOK


Today is Thursday, 11th of April 2013. Yes, I am British and I like the date the way we British say it, with the day of the week, the day of the month and the year, in that order. Sorry, my dear American friends but I just cannot get used to your way of putting the month before the day of the week. Why do you have your calendar that way? Yes I know that we say Potatoes and you say Podados but logically first comes the day and after a day comes a month and after 12 months a year. I don't mean to offend but I just don´t understand?
Anyway,  lets forget about the date.  Thanks to Facebook I found out  that yesterday was National Siblings day. However I celebrate this day everyday of my life. But as I've just found out about the official Siblings day I just thought I would put my pennies worth and share a few old photos of Sam and I when we were kids with the most wonderful haircuts!!! Our French grand-mother used to love reading Point de Vue (a French gossip magazine about Royal Families) and she thought we ought to have the same hairdoo as Princess Margaret of Great Britain's daughter Sarah Armstrong Jones. You can see photos below of Sarah Armstrong Jones with her aunt Princess Anne and with her parents Princess Margaret and the Earl of Snowdon



Celebrate Your Siblings on April 10th!

If you are not an only child, then April 10th is a special day for you! It'sNational Sibling Day! Of course, our siblings might be celebrated in our hearts and minds every day, but how nice to have a holiday to remind us how important they are
Whether you have a love or hate relationship with your sibling, take a moment on April 10th to appreciate them for who they are and what they have meant to you.





Wednesday 3 April 2013

I'm forever blowing bubbles......





Another look on the ephemeral nature of life symbolised by....

I'm in London for Easter and so I went to the Royal Academy to see the Manet exhibition, which was so crowded that it made it quite unbearable as it was impossible to get anywhere near the paintings. However I did manage to appreciate and ponder about the boy blowing bubbles and when I came out of the exhibition I found myself humming to the song (lyrics attached further down): "I'm for ever blowing bubbles". 






Édouard Manet (1832-1883)
France, 1867
Signed: Manet
Oil on canvas
100.5 x 81.4 cm
Inv. no. 2361

In this painting, Édouard Manet offers an individual interpretation of the subject of this painting: vanitas, the ephemeral nature of life symbolised by the soap bubbles. Aspects such as the dark background, the simple forms and the restrained composition recall another work on the same subject by the eighteenth-century French painter Jean-Siméon Chardin. Yet the allegorical content does not here dominate the artistic autonomy of the visual discourse. Manet creates his own form of expression and uses the motif to introduce his sensorial perception and subjectivity. The theory that this painting may be the artist’s reflection on the immortality of art cannot be discarded.

The model for this painting was Léon-Édouard Koëlla – Manet’s stepson – who appeared in the painter’s work for several years. The work’s free and direct style, with the clearly defined figure, also recalls the genius of such great masters as Murillo and Frans Hals.


By Jean Baptiste Simeon Chardin

Lyrics


I'm forever blowing bubbles, 
Pretty bubbles in the air, 
They fly so high, nearly reach the sky, 
Then like my dreams they fade and die. 
Fortune's always hiding, 
I've looked everywhere, 
I'm forever blowing bubbles, 
Pretty bubbles in the air. 

I'm dreaming dreams, I'm scheming schemes, 
I'm building castles high. 
They're born anew, their days are few, 
Just like a sweet butterfly. 
And as the daylight is dawning, 
They come again in the morning! 

[Chorus] 

When shadows creep, when I'm asleep, 
To lands of hope I stray! 
Then at daybreak, when I awake, 
My bluebird flutters away. 
Happiness, you seem so near me, 
Happiness, come forth and cheer me! 

Chorus


The music was written by John Kellette. The lyrics are credited to "Jaan Kenbrovin" actually a collective pseudonym for the writers James Kendis, James Brockman and Nat Vincent. The number was debuted in the Broadway musical The Passing Show of 1918, and it was introduced by Helen Carrington.
The copyright to "I'm for ever blowing bubbles was originally registered in 1919, and was owned by the Kendis-Brockman Music Co. Inc. This was transferred later that year to Jerome H. Remick & Co of New York and Detroit. When the song was written, James Kendis, James Brockman, and Nat Vincent all had separate contracts with publishers, which led them to use the name Jann Kenbrovin for credit on this song. James Kendis and James Brockman were partners in the Kendis-Brockman Music Company.
Becomes a hit
The walz was a major Tin Pan Alley hit, and was performed and recorded by most major singers and bands of the late 1910s and early 1920s. The song was a hit for Ben Selvin's Novelty Orchestra in 1919. The Original Dixieland Jass Band recording of the number is an unusual early example of jazz in 3/4 time.
The writer Ring Lardner parodied the lyric during the Black Sox scandal of 1919, when he began to suspect that players on the CHicago White Sox (a United States based baseball team) were deliberately losing the World Series to the Cincinnati Reds. His version began: "I'm for ever blowing ballgames."
The song also became a hit with the public in British music halls and theatres during  the early 1920s. Dorothy Ward was especially renowned for making the song famous with her appearances at these venues. The song was also used by English comedian "Professor" Jimmy Edwards as his signature tune - played on his trombone. Harpo Marx would play the song on the clarinet, which would then begin emitting bubbles. The melody is frequently quoted in animated cartoon sound tracks when bubbles are visible. The title air, or first line of the chorus, is quoted in the 1920s song "singing in the Bathtube" also a popular standard in cartoon sound tracks, including being repeatedly sung by Tweety Bird. 
The song features extensively in the 1931 prohibition gangster movie The public Enemy staring James Cagney. It also was sung by a white bird in the Merrie Melodies cartoon I love to Singa, The song is also sund in the 1951 film "On Moonlight Bay" starring Doris Day and Gordon MacRae, which was the prequel to the 1953 film "By the light of the silvery moon". A parody of the song was written and performed as "I'm forever Blowing Bubble-Gum" by Spike Jones and his City Slikers. In Ken Russell's 1969 film Women in Love the song is featured in an unusual scene where two sisters, played by Glenda Jackson and Jennie Linden wander away from a large picnic gathering and are confronted by a large herd of bullocks. In the early 1970s, The Bonzo Dog Band¡s stage show featured a robot that sand the title air while blowing bubbles. A solo guitar rendition is periodically featured within the action of Woody Allen's 1999 film Sweet And Lowdown Director Brad Mays paid homage to that scene in his 2008 film The Watermelon, in which actress Kiersten Morgan sing the song while dancing on a Malibu Beach.
WEST HAM connection: The song is now better known in the UK as the club anthem of West Ham United, a London based football club.
"I'm forever blowing bubbles " was introduced to the club by former manager Charlie Payner in the late twenties. A player, Billy J"Bubbles" Murray who played for the local Park School had an almost uncanny resemblance to the boy in the famous "Bubbles" painting by Millais used in a Pears soap commercial of the time. 
Headmaster Cornelius Beal began singing the tune "I'm forever Blowing Bubbles" with amended lyrics when Park players played well. 
Beal was a friend of Paynter, while Murray was a West Ham trialist and played football at schoolboy level with a number of West Ham players such as Jim Barrett. Through this contrivance of association the club's fans took it upon themselves to begin singing the popular music hall tune before house games, sometimes reinforced by the presence of a house band requested to play the refrain by Charlie Paynter.
In 2002 there was speculation that "I'm forever blowing bubbles" was sung at the Boleyn Ground by visiting Swansea City supporters during an FA Cup-tie in 1921-22. After a goaless draw away at Vetch Field the two teams met at Upton Park only to share two goals in the replay which resulted in a further replay at Ashton Gate, Bristol, which the Welshman won by a solitary goal. After such a marathon it is perhaps not surprising that a number of Hammers fans remembered the distinctive refrains and took the words as their own, if indeed the song had been sung by the opposing supporters.
To perhaps add som substance to that theory, David Farmer in his history of Swansea City FC does state, when recounting the period between 1920 to 1926, that in match reports "Bubbles" was sung at all home games. In one particular newspaper report of a match versus Bury on 8 January 1921 the comment is made: "A 2.20 pm came the ever popular singing of "Bubbles" from the main bank with one tremendous sway"

Millais 



 



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