Wednesday 2 May 2012

Clowning

Those of you who come via a feedreader will see that I deleted a post earlier on today - it was just that a blogfriend was unable to get a photo not to print sideways, so I tweaked it for him, posted it to make sure, deleted the post and emailed the picture to him.  Because I'm helpful like that.

I went to a brilliant lecture today - not at all a fine art lecture although it was NADFAS, it was about clowns and by a clown - this one.  He started by telling us of his early life, building up to his first venture onto the stage as a 15-year-old schoolboy at a school entertainment, and then on to his National Service, entertaining troops and his first professional engagements.  Then he showed slides of early circus shows from the 19th Century, bringing it more up to date with clowns he had worked with, and he spent the last 15 minutes on several  brief acts wearing hat, wig and false nose as disguise.  He is a brilliant mime artist, it was hilarious and the lecture was very interesting.  He's still working, although he'll be 80 in September (I'm so glad the Sage wasn't with me, he never intends to retire, though I wish he would, and it would just spur him on).

I did cycle in to town, for the first time in weeks ... mind you, I was away for a fortnight and it's rained every day since ... my bike tyres need pumping up.  I didn't have time to stop and take a picture, but there was an odd sight on the bridge over Earsham Dam, a row of baby clothes spread over the railings.  I don't know if someone had washed them in the river - it's normally shallow there and cattle use it for watering, though the depth of water builds up in times of flood of course.  It's called the Roaring Arches bridge, which is a bit of an exaggeration really.  Anyway, they were gone by the time I came home.

I had various plans for this afternoon, but annoying bits of life intervened and I hardly got anything done. I think I'll have an early night and give it another go tomorrow.  It's the Sage's sale on Friday and I haven't got my papers ready yet - not that I have a lot, he does most of the bookwork as you'd expect at this stage.  I don't exactly dread it, but I don't enjoy the sales any longer.  And we've got three this year.

By the way, the Sage will be on Radio Suffolk on Friday lunchtime - I think it's 1.40 pm, for about 10 minutes.  It's been recorded, but I don't know what he said as I was out at the time.  I'll listen to the website on Saturday - we don't receive Radio Suffolk here very well anyway, so I'd be listening online in any case.

7 comments:

Tim said...

Clowns scare me, they're sinister. Like politicians.

Compostwoman said...

I am with Tim on clowns!

Anonymous said...

For some reason clowns irritate me. Used car dealers and real estate agents scare me.

Rog said...

I used to work for an 80 year old clown. He was left handed too.

Macy said...

I'm stuck on the picture of people washing their clothes in the river. What a quaint wee backwater Norfolk is!

Z said...

It's the mask, isn't it. I can't be doing with farce or slapstick normally either. But he did make me look on it from a new angle and with a greater understanding. He was a very interesting and enthusiastic speaker - and enthusiasm always gets me going, I love to hear someone who loves his subject - and his brief routines (no makeup, minimal props) were superb.

Please don't get me started, Rog.

I know, it's the whole NFN thing, Macy!

mig said...

Clowns go into the same category as Sooty and Sweep for me. I always used to dread the pratfall and it made me anxious. Possibly an unfortunate sense of identification with the character who took the falls.