Just back from three days in Italy, visiting A's family. So the blog begins from 1/6/12.
Ah. Does anyone remember reading the fabulous book 'The Little Vampire?' I loved it as a kid and A has them all in Italian. So he thought it's be a great way for me to learn some more Italian as after 7 and a half years I am still a rem.
Of course, after one sentence I fell flumoxed. The literal translation was something ridiculous like He informed himself. What? That doesn't even make sense. He'd asked his mother a question so surely it should have said he asked, not he informed himself. I don't get it. I hold my hands up. I don't get it!
Anyhoo, that lesson didn't last long. But the next day we took a road trip with A's parentals to the lovely Lago di Garda (Lake Garda) and the little penninsula bit called Sirmione. Very nice and apparantly George Clooney lives there most of the year, but we didn't see him.
Check out the mini milk trees:
Anyone that doesn't remember mini milk, they were an ice lolly you used to be able to get for about 5p when we were little. You could get milk, strawberry or chocolate and they were yum! But these trees really are the exact shape. (Made me laugh anyway.)
Oh yeah, and check out the awesome castello (castle):
And a trip out in the blistering heat (when Helen didn't have her suncream) wouldn't be complete without some roman ruins:
At this point I was actually melting. I know shame on me for forgetting the sun cream but we got some on the way back to the car and I rapidly applied.
We hopped off to Verona and one thing I must stress at this point was that I was struggling to use the toilet as they were the evil standy-uppy ones. If I wanted to stand up and pee, I'd get a penis. Honestly, it's barbaric. So, I was definitely doing the wee dance in the streets of fair Verona where we set our scene.
We went to see the balcony of Juliet. Oh dear Lord, it was hideous. There was chewing gum all over one wall and graffiti everywhere. Granted the balcony itself was lovely, but the lead up for horrific.
Anyhoo, in fair Verona where the toilets are really expensive........70 cents for a piss. It's worse than London. (30p at most train stations.) but at least I could stop the toilet dance, I'm not sure Verona was ready for it.....ha ha.
Grabbed a sneaky gelato!
And so, our visit to Italy culminated in an Earthquake or Terramoto. Luckily not too high (5.1) but still another one in an area already blighted with them in the last two weeks. I hope they stop soon, it didn't affect us so much but it was still pretty freaky. Made me think of those we had in Manchester when we were at Uni. I remember the cafeteria at the top of the Adelphi building shaking side to side. Craziness.
We arrived back today and watched Murray in the French Open. How rude were the crowd? Oh my word, they had to be shushed so many times. I tell you what, that wouldn't have happened at Wimbledon. No way. Bloody booing the winner as well. It ain't panto. They were like a bunch of obnoxious kids. Really disgusting!
And so, I'm here again with a run down of a long concert. Forget Eurovision, this is the Queen's diamond Jubilee. (I'll try and be brief, though we know how that usually goes.)
Awesome opening from the Royal Scot's Guard. Interesting long trumpets, with keys. I hadn't seen those before. Still, a great build up to.........Robbie Williams....(disbelief) He's a bit old now and seems to have little to no voice left.
Will.I.Am cannot sing, therefore should not be on the stage and should never be allowed to give criticism on others for singing. Therefore he should not be a judge on any sort of talent show. Jessie J on the other hand could sing, I just don't like her. And like A said, "There's nothing interesting about her face. I would walk straight past her in the street." (To be fair he'd walk past a lot of people. Ha)
I would like JLS to grow a pair of balls between the 4 of them. Just if they could try, I'd appreciate it!
Oh dear Lord, why did Gary (actually fairly talented) Barlow ever agree to try and harmonize with that. Cheryl you disappoint me. More than that, you disgust me. That was the weakest vocal performance I've probably ever heard and I think one note was in tune the whole song. Her only saving grace was that fantastic blue eye makeup. I'll have me some of that please. It's all about the blue eyeshadow!
Cliff.Cliff. (Shakes head. Tut.)
Lang Lang. Yes yes! Played some classics. Rhapsody in Blue. Mwah!
Alfie Bo. Big belt buckle. Though when he tried to rock up the cornetto song, I think we all heard Pavarotti turn in his grave. What the fuck?
Lovin' the random drunk shots of the crowd. "I love flags me." He he. Excellent.
Jules and Ruby. Great voice Great piano playing, but slightly slow and boring. (Just saying it like it is.)
GRACE JONES.......LEDGE! What amazing legs and to be hula hooping the whole time. Absolute quality! She's 64 and shit hot! Well done love. She didn't drop that hoop once.
Ed Sheeran kind of reminds me of my ex. Cute little ginger thing. Has a beautiful voice, though he must be sick of singing that song by now. Felt it wasn't really appropriate for the party spirit though.
ANNIE LENNOX.....another ledge! Loved the wings and was one of my favourite songs as a kid. She looked good and she definitely still had the voice. It wasn't pitch perfect but she was going for it. She gave a performance and she winged it.....(ha do you get it? Surely I'm almost as funny as all the compering that was going on tonight. For comedians they had a distinct lack of comic timing.) Oh and great female guitarist too. whoop for the ladies!
Rolf Harris. Dear Lord.
Renee Flemming. Excellent voice (or as A said - Boring enough to go and cut some strawberries. Mmmm, and they were yummy too.) I hope some of my kids were watching as she did some fabulous vibrato sections and I'd been teaching my kids about musical ornamentation and we'd been shaking our bodies around to make them vibrate. Her way may be more effective but our way is definitely more fun.
TOM JONES. Mama told me not to come. Anyone remember his duet with Kelly Jones from Stereophonics....yum! Delilah (The weetabix ad). Of course he had to do this. Awesome voice, you big white haired fox.
Oh and finally Harry's enjoying himself. Everytime the camera panned on the royal box he had a face on, but this time he was smiling. He just needed a bit of Jones.
Hey, finally the queen's arrived. She's missed half of it already. She looks different without a hat on. So cute and small.
Robbie Williams again? I was sceptical but he was actually good with the big band. Sung in tune and fairly convincingly, plus he seemed like he was actually enjoying it.
Okay, the SING thing. HMMMMM. It was so thin, the overall sound, considering there were 200+ people on stage. Whoever the red haired woman was, she couldn't sing for shit and whilst it was kinda cute, it wasn't great.
And cue SHIRLEY. Amazing! What a voice, what a dress and yes, she's still got it.
Who would want to follow Shirley? Certainly not me. But Kylie gave it her best shot and I have to say 'step back in time' was great. Made me feel like a kid again.I would say though, who decides how many songs people play, because some of them had four, some only one and some of the ones that did one should have done at least two. I dunno, felt a little unfair.
ARGH, thought they might murder a song from West Side Story (My favourite musical) but I guess they didn't. At least they picked people who could actually hold a note. And the light show on the palace was really something. Plus there was a great 'shit, I'm supposed to be singing moment' from Alfie Bo, which cracked me up.
And finally, Mr ELTON JOHN. A was happy at this point. Pink and twinkly Elton today. He was rockin' on the piano and considering he had a respiratory infection 2 days ago, his voice was really good. Such energy, such passion and those crazy fingers. I really liked his purple mic. He's still got it!
The Princesses were havin' a lovely time at this point.
Rolf was being a right kiss ass and they were clearly stallin' for time. But the Queen wasn't arsed. I don't think she was even listening to half of it.
And cue Stevie. Excellent voice and of course he did the classics, but why would he bring out Will.I.Am, again? As if he deserved to be on stage twice. Ewwww.
And finally the Queen is smiling. It just took a little bit of Wonder.
And now the bit I'd been waiting for the whole night.......MADNESS on the roof! Whoop! They really are too cool for school. They are essentially a load of geezers in funky suits, just jammin' and chillin'. I love it. Really amazing light show too, but the ultimate disappointment that they didn't play Baggy Trousers. BOO!
I'm sure the Queen must have had a pair at some point.
Random and nice to see Peter Kay and then Mr McCartney whose voice was not great, but he did play a couple of classics. We even managed to catch the fireworks from the communal hallway in our building. We could only see the tops of them but it was still pretty cool.
And there ends my coverage from the Jubilee concert. It was actually quite good. The golden oldies were all my favourites though: Madness, Grace Jones, Annie Lennox, Shirley Bassy, Tom Jones and Elton. The young 'uns, not that there were that many of them, but they kind of let the side down. And really Cheryl Cole should never be allowed to murder another song, unless it is one of her own. Sorry love but I'm saving you from embarrassment in the long run.
And so, I think its approaching bed time and woo hoo, no work tomorrow either. Thanks Queenie.
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