New Blog

Am quitting this blog and have a new one now...
TheNewAdventuresOfKate.blogspot.com

Welcome to my world

Had such a surreal day. At 8am was already (literally) up to my elbows in someone else's poo. By 1pm I was sat in the boot of a people-carrier explaining to my work colleague Sammy who Gracie Fields was (a VERY 'Dinnerladies' moment: she was big in the 40s..."what, her from Rear Window?"...er...no that's Grace Kelly..."what matthew kelly's got a wife?"...) By 3pm I was negotiating wheel-chair-users through 1200 OAPs on the way to the Wycombe Swan toilets whilst waxing lyrical on the talents of a ukulele-player called Andy Eastwood. (How do you spell ukulele?- like this? should've just written BANJO) -actually-
TIME OUT. Before you start mocking me- this guy was proper amazing. Trad-Camp as doing George Fornby impressions may be (he is apparently the No.1 attraction at Blackpool this summer), find me a guitarist with half the skill of this guy and I will happily wear a big badge saying LOSER for enjoying his act so much. But you won't find one. And you'll never know anyway because none of you saw him, and unless you go to Blackpool this Summer you probably never will. He was so good that for 3 songs I watched his fingers like a hawk trying to spot a mistake and prove he was dubbed. But no, he turns out to be the UK's Number 1 (well probably, if we're honest, only) ukulele virtuoso. So there. If you would like to join my new banjo-love-in, go to his website (www.andyeastwood.com) you will genuinely never have seen anyone so passionate about the ukulele.
TOMORROW, I am watching my best friend Rob don luminous blue leggins and try and Fosse-dance (or frankly just stay on his feet) in a snake-costume that doesn't fit him in a totally off-the-wall musical about the Garden Of Eden directed by the same ex-Broadway-hoofer that cast me as a 49- year-old-nanny-turned-pirate not so long ago. I'd hate to think life was going to get any stranger...
ps. Jude&Michael- Apparently it is an am-dram group of ex-pats in Uganda who were so desperately in need of my copy of South Pacific. Funny, when my mum said that it sounded less random...

Natural Morality

Doing my rounds at the flats tonight, I caught a bit of a nature programme about the desert. It was totally baffling how many different creatures managed to survive in that bleak, thirsty environment. Perhaps that's some kind of profound metaphor. Perhaps not.

There were also these massive white spiders: the male would travel up to 2 kilometers across the sands to find a mate, then tap out a specific rhythm on the ground with its legs to signal to the female that he was ready to mate. If he got the rhythm right, she'd understand and they'd have little spidery babies together. (yeuch). In the case captured on the film, he unfortunately forgot the rhythm of "Born to Breed" and mistakenly tapped out "Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini", at which she promptly jumped out of the sand and ate him.

SuffraWHAT'S????

WE NEED MORE INTEREST, STUDY AND EDUCATION INTO THE HISTORY OF WOMEN
Don't believe me? First of all, on my first day of rehearsals for Ann Veronica, a boy in the ensemble held up his script and asked me what was meant by the term "suffrablooodeegetties"-
"No" I responded, "that says Suffra-bloody-gettes. It's suffragettes, with the word 'bloody' in the middle." "Oh." [2 minutes pass] "What is... suffragette?" [My face. Shock.]
Nobody in my cast knew what a suffragist was or in fact that the suffragettes were not the only women's group at the time campaigning for the vote. Or when women got the vote. Or why.
Last week on tour with Flan & Co. I was asked by a band-member that shall remain nameless if I'd had to burn my bra on stage. Several boys took a great deal of convincing that the suffragettes did not burn their bras- or indeed own bras, and seemed quite perplexed that there could have been two seperate occasions on which women asked for anything in the socio-political arena.
Anita Roddick, in a radio interview last month, commented that women's history is the least studied history of any people-group- and its OVER 50% of us!!! Realise how much I sound like a raving fembop right now but shouldn't we take the heritage of our own emancipation seriously?

Stories from today at the flats...

Fishing for poo: A lovely little lady, who I have a big soft spot for, left me a series of little surprises today around the communal bathroom. A couple on the floor and three in the bath water; culmunating in a comedy scene involving both said lady and I, both giggling, each with a plastic jug in hand, chasing spherical little poos around in the water.
The E.R. eye-pop: Following THAT episode of ER there seems to have been mucho discussion amongst us all about eyeballs coming right out of their sockets... Chatting to an amazing 94 year-old lady today I remarked that she seemed to have had a lot of operations.
Her: "Oh I've had my gall-bladder done, my guts, this part of my arm is artificial because I sliced it off on the radiator, I've had my eye-balls out and new retinas sewn in..."
Me: "Really? They took them out?"
Her: "Oh yes. They wanted to put me to sleep but I wasn't having that-I wanted to know what was going on."
Me: "You were awake?!? Weren't you scared?"
Her: "No no- I'd waited a year for that operation, I was glad. They took one out at a time, rested it on your cheek-bone. [Deadpan] You wasn't to sneeze or nothing like that, that've been the death of you. The nurse said to squeeze her hand if I wanted the machine to stop, but I thought 'what'd I want it to stop for? It'd only have to start again...' "
Me: "Blimey. You haven't half been through the wars poppet"
Her: "They thought I was dead once. Then I woke up."
The parable of the residential home: The same 94 year old lady was chatting about a friend she made 4 years ago when recovering in a residential home for a summer after fracturing her pelvis. She had been put in a respite room with a 96 year old lady called Elsie who had shattered her hip-bone and was awaiting a replacement. Elsie, who, my friend insists was a wonderful lady ("a much better person than me" she said), could barely move from her bed, so my friend would put everything within her reach, cover her with a shawl when it got cold and everyday wash her hands and face for her. Every night, when she heard Elsie stir, she'd get out of bed, make her way across the room and see what she could do for Elsie to make her more comfortable. A 90 year old lady with a fractured pelvis thought nothing of her own pain, tiredness or discomfort, but served her elder-of-6-years all summer. Elsie sent her several letters in the following years, all incomprehensibly illegible, all treasured by my friend in her wooden chest of precious things.

Shut up Trevor

Surely Trevor MacDonald is creating a "phenomenon" out of "Happy Slapping" by calling it one? I'm quite sure something as senseless as hitting a stranger around the head and taking a picture would get boring for any young person after a few attempts, and the mass majority of young people probably hadn't heard of it and wouldn't try it anyway- right up until the moment, that is, when parents everywhere turn to their teenagers and say "Have you ever done this 'Happy Slapping?' It's terrible- I saw it on Trevor MacDonald-apparently all the kids you're age are into it- don't you ever do it..."
I realise my hypocrisy in discussing the argument that we shouldn't publicly discuss stuff like this- but I figure since only about 5 people read my blog, none of whom are parents or teenagers, I'll probably not affect the trend too much...
I also have one more thought- It'd be interesting to know whether the so-called "Normans" that get whacked in this craze, are ever or often women. I would hazard a guess that the majority of "Happy Slappers" are probably boys, as this seems like a very 'boy' prank, and girls in puberty don't tend to be liking the contact thing so much. It would comfort me if there was still instilled somewhere within the psyche of young guys an understanding that hitting women is wrong.
P.S. It was the Daily Telegraph that started all this, but has anyone else noticed some really shoddy reporting on ITV lately? Use of inappropriate words for shock-value, etc.... Might boycott it- don't like the colour of their studio anyway...

Anyone got a catapult?

I am sat in the lounge, watching my parents out at the canal-side devising a plan for the best way to chase a squirrel off our roof. My mum is barking out instructions like "Get a catapult!" and my Dad is saying deadpan "I'm afraid I don't have time to go and buy one. An airgun'd do it but I don't have one of those either..." My dog who had been enlisted in the campaign, refuses to bark and wanders back inside to get out of the rain.
Eventually they give up, and my mum, making her way back up to her bedroom-come-revision-lab mumbles to herself "How am I supposed to concentrate on President Mugabe when there's a squirrel doing a dance above my head?" A question I can quite honestly say that in my life has never yet required an answer.

Finbar

I have a car.
He is called Finbar.
He is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.
That does not rhyme but it is true.

oh yes... TV

1. i missed desperate housewives last week. ah! what have i missed??
2. i did however see the OC and PLEASE PLEASE tell me someone else was watching for the classic spiderman-kiss moment! How hilarious was that? Emma was saying to me "Seth's gonna get hurt-he's gonna fall off that roof and be in a coma or something" and I was like "No-wait for it- there's a comedy conclusion to this- I can feel it..." (Also, are we all assuming that the exit of Lindsay on top of Marissa's progressing boredom with her live-in-lesbian-lifestyle is leading the way for another good old fashioned Marissa-Ryan Romance?)
3. has anyone else noticed that my favourite three shows are now sharing their actors?: Toby's wife (WW) is Lindsay's Mum (OC) / Rex (DH) is Jeff Haffley the House Speaker (WW) : Are these 20 odd people the only Americans who can act? Or do they have some kind of exchange scheme...

Apologies

These go to Rachel, Liz and all my other adoring site-fans who have clearly been crying themselves to sleep in my absence. You make a good point- no-one can do laundry for 3 weeks...
I have spent the last fortnight in rehearsal and performance of the women's lib cheese-fest Ann Veronica in London, and have divided my free-time between cast pub-sessions (absolutely necessary for company-bonding and character-interaction) and WW5 (erm..i just felt that my Agnes the suffragette, despite not actually having any lines persay, had nuances of CJ's hard-nosed feminist political player about her, and this sort of research just had to be done if I was to deliver more than a bland "musical theatre" (aka: tits and teeth) ensemble performance. )
Actually no lines is a lie. I had two:
1. (as un-named "landlady". Spoken.): "Sorry duckie, we don't let rooms to unaccompanied females."
2. (as Agnes the suffragette at the church picnic. Sung.): "But what's the use of a picnic in the glade, when only the table-cloth gets laid?"
So I'm betting you're all really sorry you missed that.
No seriously, it was actually a lot of fun, and the show was sold out all week. It had a lot of great ensemble songs in it and was a lot of fun to perform. You know me- what could be more fun than marching around a stage with a placard that says VOTES FOR WOMEN singing THEY CAN'T KEEP US DOWN ANYMORE. I also got to play the spoons, be groped by a GENUINE straight boy and faint! Actually, I managed to sustain a bonafide theatrical war-wound from the faint one night..I came off stage and realised the elbow area of my long-sleeved shirt was covered in blood- as I'd hit the ground it had taken off a scab that was already there from stage-faint-related-carpet-burn so I had to go back on stage and sing a whole number splattered in blood. Hee hee.
David Croft, Mr. I-wrote-every-successful-20th Century-British-sitcom-there-was, came and watched 4 or 5 times and was adorable and encouraging to us all. On sunday they interviewed him and Ian Lavender (Dad's Army/Derek in Eastenders/he was in the original cast of Ann V.) about the show and then our post-show party was full of theatrical royalty and the stars of D.Army/A.Y.Being Served/Hi-Di-Hi/etc all of whom were delights to chat to.
Hurray for cutie old luvvies.

News News News

Well I've just got back from the whole Caribbean schabang, and like Jude I am incapable of communication until i get my laundry/jobs/life under control... So look forward to lots of stories and who knows maybe even a picture or two if i ever work out how to do clever stuff like that... (I have a dead cute pic of me kissing a dolphin, not to mention me and Mickey Mouse hanging out on deck...I actually kid you not)
But before I sign off I have good news-
The show I auditioned for the week before I left have offered me ensemble, and I've taken it. It's expenses only and only a couple of weeks work (25th April-4th May rehearsals, 4th-8th Run), but it will be SO lovely getting back in the rehearsal room I'm really looking forward to it. Anyway, it's called Ann Veronica, part of the Forgotten British Musicals series at the Theatre Museum in Covent Garden. It's based on an HG Wells book about suffragettes and its written by that guy that wrote Dad's Army, Hi-di-Hi, Allo Allo, Are you Being Served, etc. Best bit is- my lovely lovely monkey Alan is also in the ensemble! Hooray we're going to have SO MUCH FUN!!!
anyway love you and leave you for now
ps. hello ben bell nice to hear from you!