Category: Culture

The Lost Weekend

An Old Classic

For those of you old enough to remember, this post’s title refers to a film starring Ray Milland and Jane Wyman about a man who goes on a bender and I immediately spotted the similarity between it and a rugby weekend in Llandudno. ‘Why Llandudno?’ I hear you ask, as you cut to the heart of the matter. A simple answer suffices – one member of the group had been conceived in Llandudno. No further details are necessary.

The LSG’s almost limitless patience was severely tested right at the start, I can tell you, when one of the Midlands contingent thought it would be good fun to get the meeting time wrong, arriving almost 45 minutes late. I shall refer to this sorry individual as TP (or TeePee), which stands for Tall Paul because a) he’s tall and b) his name is Paul. The other Midlands passenger was TT (the Tiny Tyke), who has been mentioned in previous posts.

Four hours later, instead of the 2½ promised by Google Maps, we arrived at our destination – this lengthy journey was partly due to the three satnavs in the car being unable to agree on the route to our hotel. The three satnavs were Google maps, TT and TeePee. I had printed out the directions to the hotel and asked TT to read these out to me because Google maps had gone into a sulk as we passed Rhyl and had stopped speaking to me (having been to Rhyl once, I can understand this). TWENTY MILES from Llandudno, TT started reading out the directions – EVERY SINGLE ONE, including street names, exits on roundabouts, left and right turns… Now, the LSG may have a superior brain and memory, but even she was going to have difficulty remembering all these instructions, so she politely asked TT to read them out once we got closer (I think the exact words may have been: ‘Shut up and don’t be silly. I’m not going to remember all those. Be like the satnav and read them one at a time when we’re actually in Llandudno.’ It had been a long day, Faithful Followers…).

We met up with the rest of the merry band, who had travelled from all corners of the globe – well, London and Hull, to be precise – and, after a reviving drink or two, we decided to go for a meal. The meal was pleasant enough and the bill was acceptable, but TT showed his Yorkshire colours when he rounded the bill up so that it would divide easily between six of us as well as allow for a tip … of £1.27.

The following day was taken up with watching the rugby in a pub chosen by the member of the group who had also chosen Llandudno as our destination for this year’s rugby trip. The pub was rather lacking in atmosphere – and rugby fans. In fact, it seemed to be lacking in Welsh people as well. (One of TT’s comments on the weekend overall was that he had been disappointed because Llandudno ‘isn’t very Welsh’. I think he may have been expecting to see hordes of women dressed in traditional Welsh costume, complete with tall black hats.) The nearest we came to another fan was someone standing behind our seats shouting that well known rugby chant: ‘Meat pie, sausage roll; come on, England, give us a goal… or a try.’ Youngest sibling even managed a few moments of shuteye in between games, but this is not unusual, since he falls asleep at the drop of a hat (Welsh or otherwise).

That evening’s meal was Indian… it was supposed to have been Chinese, according to TripAdvisor.

The journey home on Sunday was uneventful, mainly because the LSG knew where she was going and didn’t need to rely on TT, TeePee or sulky Google. The weekend was completed by an evening meal out with TT, TeePee and his new girlfriend (who hadn’t come to non-Welsh Llandudno). The LSG had opted for a casual look for the evening – i.e. jeans and trainers – because thinking of anything else to wear seemed too tiring after two days in Llandudno. Meanwhile, ‘new girlfriend’ had obviously had time to think about what to wear – a whole weekend, in fact! – and was dressed in a rather glamorous fitted red lace number and heels. Of course, as the LSG, I managed to rise above lowly feelings such as jealousy, thinking only that I would have somewhat resembled an overblown rose with a bad attack of ‘downy mildew’ should I have attempted to wear anything similar, whereas ‘new girlfriend’ looked like a willowy tulip. Shan’t be making her my new best friend.

And there you have it, Beloved Believers – a lost weekend in Llandudno. Highly recommended, but only once…

Words are all I have…

Words

As many of you know, the Lifestyle Support Guru loves words of all sorts – short words, long words, foreign words, words you can pronounce and words you can’t, and words that can make you smile, and it is with this in mind that I thought I would share some thoughts on words with you today.

Words can help you make career decisions:

For example, I have decided that I will not retrain as a phlebotomist, since the word is almost as difficult to say as it is to spell. The same applies to ophthalmologist.

Foreign Words

Foreign words can take people by surprise sometimes (even if that wasn’t the intention):
A close friend of mine (not the LSG, of course, because I would never use the wrong word) was once on a school trip to Paris where one of the students had been accused of stealing money from another (British) guest at the hotel. As the only French speaker among the staff (because it was a History trip) and the other British guests, the close friend had to translate for both the student AND the accuser once the police arrived. It was fairly late in the evening after a long day visiting various historical sites in Paris, so it would be fair to say that the friend was rather tired and perhaps not thinking as clearly as she might have when the accuser asked her to translate that he had made the assumption that the student had stolen from his wallet. It was when the French policeman’s eyes opened wide in surprise at the use of the word ‘l’Assomption’ that the close friend realised she had made the teensiest of errors – ‘l’Assomption’ refers to the ascent of the Virgin Mary to Heaven after her death and is a religious festival in France!

Wrong in Spain

This same close friend went to Spain at Christmas and, upon arrival at the hotel with an accompanying sibling, thought she would impress the receptionist (and sibling) with her knowledge of Spanish. However, upon approaching the desk, she realised that ‘We have two rooms booked’ had not been covered in her Spanish classes, although she would have been fine giving her age, profession, nationality, number of siblings and ordering beer and wine, all of which had been covered in the first five chapters. After a slight moment of panic before making the assumption (ha ha! See what I did there!) that the word for ‘room’ might be similar to the Italian, ‘camera’, she confidently said, with a smile, ‘Dos camareras’. The receptionist’s eyes opened wide, rather like the French policeman’s, since the friend had confidently asked for two waitresses. An easy mistake, I think.

Speedy Freda

And, finally, words can make you smile (again, unintentionally):
The much-loved mother of some very good friends of mine has just died. I know we all find it difficult to find the right words to say at times like those, but I thought the response from TT (the Tiny Tyke, who has featured in many of my tales and who has a Yorkshireman’s way with words – brief and to the point!) was a classic. I sent TT a text to tell him the news, because he had met Speedy, as she was affectionately known, when he had come on rugby trips to Wales. I read his reply while I was making my way round Sainsbury’s and I got some very strange looks when I laughed out loud.
What was his response? ‘I’m so sorry’? ‘That’s sad’? ‘Please send my condolences’? No, his response was: ‘Unfortunate.’ UNFORTUNATE? ‘Unfortunate’ is when you spill a cup of coffee on the cat; ‘unfortunate’ is when you trip over the said cat and break your leg; ‘unfortunate’ is not what you say when someone dies – unless he felt it was unfortunate that Speedy would now miss the 2017 Six Nations, due to start this coming weekend, and which she loved?
Farewell, Speedy Freda – you’ll live in people’s memories for a long time, FORTUNATELY!

Guide To A Good Funeral

Headstone

Headstone

A very good evening to you all from the Lifestyle Support Guru, although you may think that the title is rather inappropriate tonight, given that I wish to give a brief guide to… a good FUNERAL (take note, whoever’s going to organise mine!).
1. Get the ‘guests’ to wear a cheerful colour (but not pink, please; yellow is good). Black is so depressing and doesn’t flatter the older face.
2. Ensure that the organist can actually play, especially ‘Jerusalem’ – or maybe the version I heard today was a new ‘hipster’ one where the notes are played at half the speed of the congregation’s rendition and not necessarily in the same key all the way through. Or the organist may have been from the Eric Morecambe School of Organ Playing, where the notes are right, just not necessarily in the right order.

Church Choir

Church Choir

3. Unless you live in Wales, where they are compulsory, consider hiring a male voice choir (there’s usually one in every city, just hanging around waiting to be asked to a good funeral) – this will ensure that the hymns are sung with the right amount of gusto and volume and will drown out the sound of the organist (see above).
4. Choose hymns that are not too high in key (such as ‘Morning Has Broken’) – remember that some people are getting on and can’t reach those high notes unless they’ve got their knickers in a twist. (‘Bread of Heaven’ is always a pretty safe bet, catering for all voices, and harmony if required.)

Cream Bun

Cream Bun

5. Ask whoever does the ‘speech’ about the ‘dear departed’ to avoid phrases such as ‘an independent woman’ because this is just another way of saying ‘bloody-minded’, ‘annoying’ or ‘opinionated’.
6. At the ‘do’ afterwards, it is not a good idea to have large cream buns included in the buffet, as one or two of your guests will end up looking like they have been in a custard pie fight, which will be particularly noticeable on the dark clothes that everyone will be wearing (yellow is far less likely to show custard pie stains). Some of the more ‘refained’ guests will demonstrate how to eat a cream bun properly by cutting it in half first, or by separating the top from the bottom (so to speak), thus making those with cream and icing sugar all the way down their front feel that they have no class or style at all (this would not, of course, happen to the LSG, whose timeless sense of style and class is often imitated but never fully equalled).

On that note, I shall take myself off to bed. It is likely that I shall wake myself up at some point during the night with my own rendition of ‘Bread of Heaven’ (yes, that has really happened!), so I need to get as many hours of beauty sleep as I can before that happens. Sleep well!

Languages are fun – Quiz!

Dark Continent

Dark Continent

Now that I have returned from the Dark Continent, I felt I needed to share with you some of the things I have learned, one of which is that it is very easy to get by in Swahili with just a few words, BUT you need to make sure that you learn those words properly. The following examples – all taken from real life – will show you exactly how easy it is to make mistakes, especially when nervous and trying to say the right thing:

Role Play 1:
The Swahili for ‘Welcome’ is ‘Karibu’ or ‘Karibuni’.
Now imagine you are the retiring Head of an international school in, let’s say, Tanzania and you are attending your own retirement party in the school hall. How do you greet the assembled staff?
a) Karibu
b) Karibuni
c) Calamari
If you answered c), you have just called the staff a load of squid.

Role Play 2:
The Swahili for ‘Hello’ is ‘Mambo’ or ‘Jambo’.
Now imagine that you are a teacher walking out of the school gates, which are opened for you by a guard who is a local. How do you greet the guard?
a) Mambo
b) Jambo
c) Sambo
If you answered c), you have just put race relations back about 50 years! (If you answered a AND b, then you are not taking this seriously.)

Maribou

Maribou

Role Play 3:
You are on safari and your guide points out a large black and white bird. Trying to show off, you proudly announce that you know what it is. What do you say?
a) Marabou
b) Caribou
c) Karibu
The only correct answer is a), a marabou being a large stork. If you answered b), you are on the wrong continent, since caribou is the North American name for reindeer, and if you answered c), you clearly did not pay any attention to the information given in Role Play 1.

Role Play 4:
The Swahili for ‘Hello’ is ‘Habari’.
Now imagine that you wish to greet someone in the street. What do you say?
a) Habari
b) Haribo
The only correct answer is a). If you said b), then you have seen too many TV adverts.

Two of these were – gulp! – mistakes made by the LSG herself, proving that I, too, have some human frailties!

And there you are – ready for your first hesitant steps in Swahili, which will be of great use in Derby, Ponty, Devon, Non-Iron and many other places where I have FB friends. Hakuna matata!

LSG To The Rescue

 

Tropical Storm

Tropical Storm

Before I continue with tales of my exciting travels through Tanzania, I must relate my role in saving four young Americans from what would have been certain death in the harsh African environment.
My intrepid companions, DOT and TOFU, and I were returning from a long day out in the bush, having had our fill of wandering wildebeest (one can weary of wildebeest after an hour or two – they don’t do a lot and they don’t really have any ‘cute’ factor) when our driver screeched to a halt (a slight exaggeration, perhaps) upon seeing another safari vehicle at the side of the road with five people standing next to it. Bosco, our driver, spoke to the other driver in Swahili (in which I am now almost fluent, since I can ask for two OR three beers AND say ‘Please’ and ‘Thank you’), then asked us if we would mind giving the four passengers a lift back to their campsite because the suspension on their vehicle had broken. ‘Of course,’ I cried out straight away (being the natural leader of the group) and welcomed the young people into our own vehicle after directing DOT and TOFU in the rearrangement of our luggage, which involved no discomfort on my part but necessitated everyone else having to squash up, and off we set.
All the way to the camp, I was imagining what might have happened to them if we hadn’t stopped – death by starvation (although one of the group might have taken a little longer to starve than the rest) or an attack by lions in the night (wishing for a change of diet from wildebeest), but when we got to their campsite, all I can say is that either form of death would have been preferable to what they would face that evening! DAAAHHLINGS!! Positively primitive – small tents, a communal toilet block, such a lack of even the basics – no en suite, no television or mini-bar, doing your own cooking AND washing up! Unthinkable! We left them there and continued on to our own accommodation, which was all one could ask for, including more staff than guests and a view over the Ngorongoro Crater which ‘breath-taking’ doesn’t even begin to describe.

Ngorongoro Crater at dawn

Ngorongoro Crater at dawn

And now I will continue with my insightful TRAVEL TIPS, some of which may surprise you. I had not thought that Tanzania – and the Great Rift Valley in particular – would make me feel homesick for Wales, but there were times when I felt that we could be driving through the Brecon Beacons, such was the scenery – green, lush and mountainous. It was so easy to imagine oneself back in God’s Own Country if one discounted the coffee plantations, the oxen pulling carts, the goats and the Maasai warriors (although the natives of Brecon have been known to get a little wild after a couple of sherries on New Year’s Eve and who could forget Ivor Emmanuel holding off the whole of the Zulu nation with his rendition of ‘Men of Harlech’?).

What other TRAVEL TIPS may be of help? It is always useful to carry a flash drive (memory stick for the less technical) with your own cheerful choice of music on it, such as ‘Mad World’, ‘Fix You’ and ‘Someone Like You’ – this avoids having to listen to Jim Reeves’ ’20 Most Depressing Songs Ever’ at your hotel, including ‘God Be With You Till We Meet Again’ and ‘Life Will Be Better On the Other Side’, which make Leonard Cohen appear like a joyful, life-affirming person of irrepressible jollity!

That will do for now – I do not wish to overburden you with too much information because, unlike the LSG, most humans do NOT have an infinite capacity for retaining information. Usiku mwema, rafiki!