And the moral to that is...

So much for that pretentious rave about Candide/Voltaire. The refrain "You have been a fool and so have I" still applies - we had learned nothing until life imitated art! We just spent $1k plus to send our 14 yr old to a Department of Sport and Rec winter camp at which she lasted a mere 48 hours of the intended 7 days! Too depressing to relate the details here but the morals to be drawn from this experience are:

• never select an activity reactively - because you think you ought to or because all the other kids are doing it; ask is it right for my kid?
• don't dismiss your empathy/gut feeling about issues like homesickness, feeling they don't fit in etc; if you believe that's how you would have felt at 14 there's a good chance that's how your offspring will feel
• don't use your child's life to try to expiate/redress shortcomings in your own childhood
• don't clutter up school holidays with elaborate plans - just hanging out is all important
  
• often planting a veggie garden and visiting the local pool are more satisfying than expensive junkets.

So, neither pure, nor wise, nor good, and $1K the poorer, we'll tend our home and prune our trees, we'll make our newly established veggie garden grow, we'll relish each others' company and that of our little furry charges and do the best we know.

`Tut, tut, child!' said the Duchess. `Everything's got a moral, if only you can find it.' And she squeezed herself up closer to Alice's side as she spoke.

Alice did not much like keeping so close to her: first, because the Duchess was VERY ugly; and secondly, because she was exactly the right height to rest her chin upon Alice's shoulder, and it was an uncomfortably sharp chin. However, she did not like to be rude, so she bore it as well as she could.

`The game's going on rather better now,' she said, by way of keeping up the conversation a little.

`'Tis so,' said the Duchess: `and the moral of that is--"Oh, 'tis love, 'tis love, that makes the world go round!"'

`Somebody said,' Alice whispered, `that it's done by everybody minding their own business!'

`Ah, well! It means much the same thing,' said the Duchess, digging her sharp little chin into Alice's shoulder as she added, `and the moral of THAT is--"Take care of the sense, and the sounds will take care of themselves."'

`How fond she is of finding morals in things!' Alice thought to herself.

Chapter 9, Alice in Wonderland

Non sequiter: check out these wonderfully altered episodes of the classic anime series Yugioh. My son introduced me to them today. They are really funny!

On being human

Voltaire is my kind of guy. I am ashamed to admit I haven't read 'Candide' but it's adaptation as a musical by Leonard Bernstein is a delight!

Here's the finale, 'Make Our Garden Grow' which is the characters' conclusion, after all sorts of tragic, fantastical and testing ordeals, that all we really have is this flawed existence and we should try our best to be good and productive:

CANDIDE
You've been a fool
And so have I,
But come and be my wife.
And let us try,
Before we die,
To make some sense of life.
We're neither pure, nor wise, nor good
We'll do the best we know.
We'll build our house and chop our wood
And make our garden grow...
And make our garden grow.

CUNEGONDE
I thought the world
Was sugar cake
For so our master said.
But, now I'll teach
My hands to bake
Our loaf of daily bread.

CANDIDE AND CUNEGONDE
We're neither pure, nor wise, nor good
We'll do the best we know.
We'll build our house and chop our wood
And make our garden grow...
And make our garden grow.

(ensemble enters in gardening gear and a cow walks on)

CANDIDE, CUNEGONDE, MAXIMILLIAN, PAQUETTE, OLD LADY, DR. PANGLOSS
Let dreamers dream
What worlds they please
Those Edens can't be found.
The sweetest flowers,
The fairest trees
Are grown in solid ground.

ENSEMBLE (a cappella)
We're neither pure, nor wise, nor good
We'll do the best we know.
We'll build our house and chop our wood
And make our garden grow.
And make our garden grow!

To me this is not only Voltaire's damning of Dr Pangloss's foolish philosophy of optimism (that we live in 'the best of all possible worlds') but an antidote to religion's promise of a sublime hereafter and to man-made hierarchies of worth.

A bit of on-line research and I've found out that Voltaire was not an atheist but there's no doubt that his championing of reason and civil rights and his rejection of nationalism and a corrupt church and aristocracy make him a founder member of the secular humanist team that I bat for.

And on the subject of being human, with all the tedium, pain and ecstasy the condition implies, check out 'Being Human' - refreshing, clever and stylish television with a level of enlightenment I think Voltaire would condone. It's writer, Toby Whithouse, has done for my relationship with werewolves and vampires what Annie Proulx did vis a vis cowboys!

Mrs Slocombe’s pussy - more than just 9 lives!

Vale Mollie Sugden who left us at the respectable age of 86 last week. Hearing about it on the radio news I commented on her passing and my daughter asked ‘how come everyone is dying?’ An impression she had gained from the reported deaths of Farah, Michael, Karl Malden and Mollie within a few short days more than from the 140 or so casualties in rioting Xinjiang which have received rather less coverage.

I don’t know how many members of the show business world pass on in a typical week but it does seem like it’s been a bit of a bonanza for the eulogy writers lately! Of course these 4 celebs are not all from the deep end of the talent pool. It seems universally acknowledged that MJ was the ‘King’ of Pop and that Mr Malden put a few high quality performances on celluloid before paddling in the shallows with American Express and The Streets of San Francisco. Ms Fawcett seems to have been considered a ‘nice person’ who endured a lot of suffering with cancer but I can’t actually recall ever seeing her do any (good) acting.

Now, Mollie Sugden is a different phenomenon altogether. Graduate of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama she may have been, but her cult status rested firmly and solely on her creation of Mrs Slocombe in "Are You Being Served?"

This joyously contrived, formulaic, smutty tour de force of stock characters enjoyed an initial seven year run and then countless re-runs and brought John Inman and Mollie Sugden adulation of the sort today enjoyed by the Little Britain artistes. Which is fitting as they further immortalised Mollie in a series of sketches where David Walliams (in drag) insists loudly in public on every possible occasion that she was Mollie Sugden’s bridesmaid. I believe there is an episode in which Mollie herself contradicts this. I will have to Google it.

Mrs Slocombe’s haughty demeanour, frequently fraying to expose some North Country vulgarity, her hair, bigger and more wisteria coloured than Dame Edna’s at the time, and her undying solicitousness for her ‘pussy’ were all hallmarks of the ultimate pantomime dame. But, as a real woman, rejoicing in projecting a self parodying persona, she won genuine affection from audiences.

Her ‘pussy’ will of course remain immortal – it is already enshrined in the title of Stuart Jeffries’ excellent book of reminiscences about British telly between the 60s and the 90s. Its plight, whether ‘frozen solid’, ‘soaking wet’ or ‘tearing at the walls’ because she is late home, will be referred to for years to come. See http://tvblips.dailyradar.com/video/mrs_slocombe_s_pussy/ for a compilation.