Monday 30 September 2013

Musical Monday #28










Never mind, it’s Musical Monday!

Make ’em Laugh from Singin’ In The Rain
Performed by Donald O'Connor

This was The Favourite musical number when I was a kid.

I’m wearing a cape because it’s cold.

Sunday 29 September 2013

T. Rex



Usually when I finish a drawing I want to type ‘True Story’ underneath.  But there’s no point because they’re all true stories.

Except for this one.  This one is a false story.  I actually had this conversation with myself.



True story.


Monday 23 September 2013

Musical Monday #27

As you (should) know, it was The Birthday recently and I’m still receiving belated gifts.  In fact, pretty much every gift I’ve received this year has been belated.  Which is fine by me.  It just means that it is still The Birthday.


I like presents.  Feel free to give me presents.

Today this present arrived:




The Church Mice Adrift
written and illustrated by Graham Oakley, 1976.

‘They were really feeling quite hungry because it was at least ten minutes since they’d finished their seventeen-course breakfast in the vestry.

After the thirty-fourth helping the rats felt a bit better, and ready for a little after-dinner revelry.  This was the moment the waiters had been waiting for.  They quietly crept ashore and if Humphrey hadn’t chosen that moment to improve the rats’ minds with a lecture on Etiquette in the Court of Louis XIV and Arthur hadn’t waited for him, they too might have escaped.’

This brings The Collection up to EIGHT, meaning I only have FOUR more to go.

In this, the fifth Church Mice book, Sampson and the mice are unceremoniously chucked out of the vestry by a bunch of homeless rats and have to come up with a plan to take back their home.

‘When he had got the mice together and explained his plan they admitted it was not bad considering he was only a cat.  Anyway everybody was sick of being soldiers.  So Sampson who was good at scavenging was put in charge of finding provisions and Arthur who was practical was put in charge of construction and Humphrey who was not very good at anything was put in charge of the artistic side of things.’


It is, as usual, beautifully illustrated and very witty.

YAY!

See HERE and HERE for more on this series of best picture books ever.


So let’s celebrate this two-thirds completion of a life goal with a musical number.  And not just ANY musical number:

Johnny B. Goode from Back To The Future
Song performed by Mark Campbell and Tim May, scene performed by Michael J Fox
Written by Chuck Berry




Monday 16 September 2013

Musical Monday #26

IT’S STILL MONDAY!  Been a busy day, had blog plans but didn’t have time, forgot, then suddenly had chilling realisation that I didn’t want to wake up tomorrow to more of this:





So here is Musical Monday for you insatiable Mondayers:
Buttons And Bows from The Paleface
Performed by Bob Hope
Written by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans

Because you just can’t have enough Bob Hope.


Wednesday 11 September 2013

Another Birthday

Today is my birthday so I was going to write a really amazing post, but it's taking me too long, so I'll put it aside for the moment and instead tell you the weirdest thing The Housemate said today:


Tuesday 10 September 2013

Perspective


So I was going through some old books from when I was a kid and deciding what to keep and what to give away when I found a couple of books I had when I was a teenager.  I never liked the books much, but they were supposed guides to being a teenager and therefore mentioned sex and therefore I read them.  Anyway, in the back of one of them is a tiny questionnaire where the idea is to fill it out one year and then fill it out the next and see if anything has changed and if this gives one perspective on one’s life.

So, thirteen-year-old The Hill,
let’s hear what you have to say.


Date: 4th February 1998 (Wednesday)
Biggest worries: When my cats will die.  Death, family, me being too skinny and The Butler.
Biggest hopes: The Butler (my boyfriend) will kiss me.
Best people: The Butler and The Person I Presume Must Have Been The Best Friend At This Time For Some Reason.
Best things: DRAMA
Other (worries, fears, hopes, dreams, loves, hates…): What career I want.

Well, wasn’t that fascinating.

Now, fourteen-year-old The Hill,
uh, your answers please:

Date: 5th Feb 1999 (Friday)
Biggest worries: Will Michael J. Fox get better from Parkinson’s Disease.
Biggest hopes: That he will be cured and that I will become a famous actor!
Best People: Michael J. Fox and The Person I Presume Must Have Been The Best Friend At This Time For Some Reason.
Best things: My six ‘Hill’s vids’
Other (worries, fears, hopes, dreams, loves, hates…): The Butler dumped me on 2nd Feb 1999!  I don’t care, there’s more important stuff in life to worry about.
Perspective on last year: This page is now completely wrong!

Well, wasn’t that completely enlightening.

For further enlightenment, feel free to ask me questions in The Comments and I will answer them now and then answer them again NEXT YEAR and we will all gain perspective.  Hoorah.


Monday 9 September 2013

Musical Monday #25

So this is what I did this weekend:



As for Musical Monday, I can't think of a more apt musical number than the one below after the weekend I've had.

Movin’ Right Along from The Muppet Movie
Performed by Jim Henson and Frank Oz
Written by Paul Williams and Kenneth Ascher









Thursday 5 September 2013

I Want My Hour Back

Today I had an entire hour of The Life stolen from me.

First I wasn’t allowed to leave a building for half an hour because the person who was dealing with my travel was on lunch.

And then one of the buses that I needed to catch due to the above travel thing was half an hour late.

That’s two separate half hours in which I just had to sit and wait and do NOTHING just because someone else was poorly organised at their job.

So today =
This is also my impression of Gerty from Moon.

Wednesday 4 September 2013

Why I Never Became An Actor #2

Reason Number 2: Unable to escape the chorus.

Today The Mouse in its war against The ‘Art’ destroyed a really good drawing I had created of The Butler.  So when you look at The Images below, just remember you could be gazing at a drawing roughly 73% more amazing if The Mouse wasn’t EVIL.

Anyway…

By the time I’d reached double digits, I still hadn’t had any speaking roles in The School Plays (or The Church Plays for that matter – pretty sure I once got to be a flower).



So Junior School: the only roles that hadn’t yet been cast in this year’s school nativity were Mary and Joseph.

The Butler and I were standing in The Chorus (i.e. all us chumps who weren’t allowed to actually be in The Play) singing, kinda depressed because we wanted to be acting not singing, but still hopeful because we knew not every part had been cast yet.

The Director walked along the line of chorus, bent over, head tilted. 

The Bizarre Strut fascinated me and I closed The Mouth and watched.  What on Earth was she doing?

As The Director passed us, The Butler (allegedly my best friend) shouted:


like that would be THE WORST THING IN THE WORLD.

The Director shook her head.

She walked off, still bent in half.



Another crushing defeat.



Tuesday 3 September 2013

CHOCOLATE!

Today I am going to tell you a wondrous tale of magic.

Recently The Raw Chocolate Company ran a fun competition to come up with who their aubergine looked like.  Yes, you heard me.

Anyway, it clearly looked like Jeremy Hillary Boob PhD, the Nowhere Man from Yellow Submarine.  I’m talking doppelganger here.

Short story even shorter, I won vegan chocolate!

And it arrived today!

Hooray!

Did I say a tale of magic?  I meant a tale of chocolate.



Monday 2 September 2013

Musical Monday #24

First off, a reminder that The Mouse is a JERK and it might have The Upper Hand right now and ruin all The Drawings but one day I will have The Upper Hand and there will be a hammer in that hand and then who’ll be laughing?
ME, that’s who.

So anyway…


And that’s true.

If a person is trying to say something like
All I hear is ‘Marvel’ before The Brain starts asking questions about what film Marvel is (are?) making next.

And the words ‘low key’ are absolutely ruined.  I never really noticed them before but now people seem to manage to slip them into conversation almost daily
and I 100% of the time always hear ‘Loki’.

And then this morning I went past this building on The Bus:
which to The Brain sure looks like a giant banner proclaiming

And also this morning I was innocently walking across the city square when suddenly I could HEAR Tom Hiddleston’s voice.  I considered The Possibility that I was going insane, but then I turned around and there was Tom Hiddleston on The Giant TV Screen we for some reason have in the city square.

It’s getting kind of annoying.

The Worst Part of it is that I’m not that obsessed with Loki any more.  You probably won’t believe me due to certain stick figures I may occasionally draw.
But it’s hard to stay interested in a character who is only in one thing I own (coz hell no I’m not buying Thor), and, well, Loki already has a massive army of fangirls (and boys) and for me that kinda makes it feel pointless to join in.

I’m just not sure how long it’s going to take The Brain to get The Memo with its desperate attempt to mishear and misread as many words as possible as Loki.

And as I consider The Previous Obsessions, like the Due South obsession and The Producers obsession and the ironic Captain Scarlet and The Mysterons obsession and The Bill obsession, I know that they always fade away until it’s weird to remember how silly I got over them.

It’s not as if years later they still flare up.

It’s not like this happened today or anything:



It’s not like I immediately ran giggling into the shop.  And then wrote a blog post about it when I got home.


It’s not as if I’m typing this post sitting at a desk with a toy Buick and my Homburg and a large talking Captain Blue doll and a key ring of DI Manson on it… 


Oh, and that Loki doll.


Okay, I know, you came here for Musical Monday.

Well here it is:

Welcome To The 60s from Hairspray
Performed by Nikki Blonsky, John Travolta, Nadine Ellis, Arike Rice and Tanee McCall
Written by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman



Sunday 1 September 2013

Are Dragons Real?

First of all, I think you should know that The Mouse is broken.  When I left click, it double clicks, when I right click, it left clicks, and when I hold and drag it intermittently clicks on and off.  So drawing in Paint is suddenly about as easy as painting on a canvas if your brush kept jumping out of your hand and skewering the canvas or spewing its bristles all over your wet paint or stabbing you repeatedly in the eye until you went crazy and threw your painting out of the window into traffic and then had to go to court for causing a pile up and were sentenced to anger management sessions which were taught through the medium of art, except you still had The Same Bastard Brush.

You probably won’t notice any difference in the quality of The Illustrations though.  That is one of The Benefits of having zero talent.

So on with The Post.

I recently saw a photograph of a dragon.

The Immediate Reaction was
And then about a millisecond later The Rationalisation caught up, but I was still excited.
And then the rest of The Brain caught up.
(The Hair gets curly when it’s thinking)
And I realised
So I decided to look for The Original Image.
I found it.
(adding wings is a bit of fun, but changing its COLOUR?  That’s just evil trickery)
And so in conclusion