Lancashire Lads

Seeing Eric Sykes as a cadaver in 'The Others' (above) got me all nostalgic.

I lived in St Anne’s, Lancashire for a couple of years when I was a young kid. I always knew that my affection for Morecambe and Wise partly sprang from their north country personae, especially Eric's. (Although it obviously mainly sprang from how bloody funny they were).

It wasn’t until I picked up Eric Sykes’ memoirs in a remaindered bookshop this week that I realised that he too is Lancashire born. There is a funny mixture of innocence and jack-the-lad about both the Lancashire Erics. They make me feel sentimental.

Eric Sykes, like many of the comics of his generation, got his confidence and honed his sense of the absurd in the forces. There has always been a whiff of sadness or resignation about him and when you read that he didn't realise his real mother died giving birth to him until he was five and that he went through his entire childhood cold and hungry, un-hugged and un-kissed, you're surprised it isn't a full blown stench of despair.

I am only up to 1944 and Eric has just experienced fleshly passion for the first time and liberated Germany but the lovely mix of mischief and naivety is there on every page.

The Oestro Weekend

The ultimate depiction of the crucifixion as sheer human suffering - Matthias Grünewald's Isenheim Altarpiece

Well, of course, Easter is a weird conglomeration of Christian martyrdom/sacrifice mythology cobbled together with pagan fertility rites and CHOCOLATE! So basically something for everyone! Chocolate will never be irrelevant but reproduction (at a personal level) is for me now. The Christian story still has the power to move me amazingly. Last night I listened to something sublime called Gesualdo's Responsoria Feria Sexta and today I heard music by 7 different composers interspersed with texts by 7 different poets read by Sir Peter Peers all based on the 7 purported last statements uttered by Christ on the cross (known as the "seven last words"). Donne and Sitwell were standouts but I loved it all. I found myself in (very rare) agreement with Peter Jensen that creeping (I think he used a different word) secularism means it is somehow these days not quite proper to be familiar with biblical stories or to absorb the dignity and beauty of such images and messages. I am a card carrying atheist but I would never deny the poignancy and nobility of the Christian myth and the rich emotions of betrayal, sacrifice, suffering and transcendence the Easter story embodies. It has also inspired some pretty good tunes and pomes!

Our rabbit Waldorf appears to have been doing quite a bit of freelance modelling behind our backs. He is in Natalie Ambruglia's arms on page 16 of this weekend's Good Weekend magazine and was in DJ's Easter Treats feature in last weekend's edition of the same magazine! It is quite nice owning a cute bunny at Easter - feels like it gives you some inside running! We have enjoyed our fair share of chocolate already as my sister gave my husband a box of Adora's handmade choccies for his birthday last weekend and we have been steadily nibbling our way through them.

I have just read that the ever irreverent and politically flamboyant John Saffran had himself nailed to a cross in the Philippines yesterday for an upcoming ABC TV series. It is his prerogative as a Jew, a satirist and a curious human being to do so. I am keen to see how he uses the experience in his program.

Catch 22, subsection 3A

Well my claim has been rejected - I am not crazy enough to get Workers' Compensation! Like Yossarian (Catch 22), if I was truly crazy I would want to fly missions er, work with the moronic misfit yoyo I have been shackled to for 3 years! I can feel an anti-public service rant coming on but 'Jonestown' (which I have just finished) reminds me that insanity & manipulation are a given in most arenas of life. Why should my place of employment be any exception?

I have just seen a raw, poignant exploration of our need to love and to experience loss and pain, 'Elegy' Isabel Coixet's film based on Philip Roth's novel 'The Dying Animal'. Exquisite performances from Ben Kingsley and Penelope Cruz and a support cast including Dennis Hopper and Patricia Clarkson. Thank goodness that there is always art to upstage tawdry old reality!

Not feeling particularly inspired this Monday night. It looks like the only escape will be for me to relinquish my current job, hard won after 5 years of insecurity and freelancing, because the public sector's commitment to 'due process'* (which admittedly I've always championed) for one needy, squeaky wheel trumps its commitment to my well being and the contribution I could make untrammelled by the lunatic saboteur!

Well hush my mouth. I am living up to the epithet 'Queen of Indiscretion', conferred upon me in another life when I had a bit more to be discreet about. But honestly, I am a tad FRUSTRATED.

* 3 years is a bit overdue for any process to bear fruit in my opinion!

Need a good old fashioned larf? See Dustin Hoffman tell The Flea Joke - a complete joy!