Trump and trumpery: the antidote.........

I have been watching aghast as events have unfolded over the last week: the inauguration, that speech, the reaction to it, the massive protest marches in the U.S.A, and the reaction to that: the internet trolling , the ignorance, the vacuity, the vituperation and the spite........

It has left me feeling profoundly depressed.

If, like me, you are sickened to your heart with the whole shambolic circus, and the sheer viciousness displayed by all sides in it, then please click on the link below.

It may not be quite the antidote you had in  mind, but roll with it........

It works for me..........

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4KnlQwzl3Y

Those Quakers are definitely on to something..........

Under Milk Wood

As promised, here is the cast list. To get there: nearest tubes are Piccadilly, Leicester Square or Tottenham Court Road. By bus, the 38 and the 19 both stop at Chinatown, directly opposite the bottom of Dean Street. St Anne's Church is at the Shaftesbury Avenue end of Dean Street.

ST ANNE’S, SOHO

PRESENTS

The French House Players with a rehearsed reading of a compilation from

UNDER MILK WOOD

by Dylan Thomas

With

STRUAN ROGER as the Narrator

DOROTHEA PHILLIPS

MANSEL DAVID

PAUL RYAN

JOHN WITTS

TIM WOODWARD

LESLEY LEWIS

LIZ FELTON

MARTIN CORT

CAMILLA MATHIAS

Sound by TERENCE PERKINS  
                       
Directed by MARTIN CORT

7.30pm Friday 27^th January 2017

The French House and other stories

My favourite pub featured in the BBC News website magazine pages recently.

Here's a link:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-38384519

It's the seventh picture down, so scroll down for a look.

I was sat on the fourth stool in from the left last Sunday lunchtime with actress Dorothea Phillips to my left, then Terry, our sound man and Martin Cort our director.

We were occupying the 'Sandy Fawkes Corner' of the bar as we were having a "Production Meeting"..........

Well, we had just had a look at the Community Hall of St Anne's Church Soho to sort out the practicalities of The French House Players rehearsed reading of Dylan Thomas's "Under Milk Wood".

This will take place at 7.30 p.m. on Friday 27th January, running time is about 75 minutes.

Tickets will be available on the door, £10 each (£5concs), all proceeds to St Anne's Church.

I'll give you a full cast list nearer the time, but expect the likes of Struan Roger, Tim Woodward, the indefatigable Dorothea Phillips (she was in one of the original productions in the '50's....), Martin Cort, Lesley Lewis, and me.....

It should be fun!

Come along if you can!

Now here's a thing........

I have been keeping an eye on the stats page of this blog.

It's not vanity, just interest, as I'm sure the majority of visitors to this blog are not even remotely interested in the any of the content.

They are more likely attempting to strip-mine it for data that can be used for nefarious purposes: the use of spam-bots and the attempted planting of malware or links to pornographic sites springs immediately to mind.......

Perhaps this is just a feature of the modern internet and I should not concern myself too nearly with it.

However, a recent surge in the number of visits from Russia, Poland and the Ukraine has got me thinking.

Why???????

This week, 251 visits to 'The Last Post' alone, 95 from Russia and 92 from Ukraine.

In the last month, a total of 1859 visits from Russia, 319 from Poland and 139 from Ukraine.

Contrast this with 259 from the United Kingdom and 167 from the United States........

I certainly seem popular in the former Eastern Bloc........

And this is not a new phenomenon.

At the risk of sounding like I'm suffering from a good old-fashioned dose of Cold War Paranoia, I find this disturbing.

Is it just me?

Are there really that many Olegs and Olgas out there surfing the net in search of some vaguely boat-related light entertainment?

Or is something more sinister afoot?

Perhaps someone at GCHQ in Cheltenham could nip over to the Nissen hut that houses the Boaters' Blogs Monitoring Service this lunchtime and ask Neville to put his corned beef sandwich down, stop playing Freecell for a minute, and find out what the heck is going on?

Meanwhile, here's a few search key words to tickle the interest of our friends in the East.

Putin.

Megalomaniac.

Kleptocratic government.

Suppression of dissent.

Autocracy.

Pussy Riot.

And for good measure, here's some about his New Best Friend:

Trump.

Wazzock.

Puppet.

Presidential Inauguration.

Nuclear missile launch codes.

Private Fraser/Dad's Army/"We're all doomed."

That little lot should get them going.....

If this post now roars past the '500 visits' mark by Tuesday teatime, and more than 75% of those are from the former Soviet bloc, then I'll know I'm on to something.

What to do about it, other than dig a hole, get in it , then pull the hole in after me, I'm not entirely sure........

In the meantime, keep smiling, everyone.

:-)

I'm off to watch "A Beautiful Mind" again........