Seasons Greetings from the H. Family!

I have just re-read our 2007 Seasons Greetings and am tempted simply to reprint it for you as 2008 has been remarkably similar in many ways to last year. The temptation to make up stuff for a more interesting read is quite strong however I will try to stick to the facts, dull as they may be!

 We continue to live a happy and settled life in Chesterfield. There was a wobbly few weeks in the middle of the year when the prospect of a re-location to the Far East looked very likely, however thanks to the Credit Crunch and imminent world recession K’s company thought better of the idea and so we are staying put for the foreseeable future. This has obviously deprived us of acres of interesting news and anecdotes to regale you with, however we shall try not to be too bitter about it! 

 The kids never had an inkling of the possibility of this move to sunnier climes but we think they would have been quite dismayed as they are both leading very happy lives here. In fact when L catches me perusing the property pages she shoots me an alarmed look and booms: “We are NOT moving again, are we?!!” 

L is now in Year 5, continuing to do very well both at school and with her extra-curricular activities. We watched her yesterday evening playing the violin in her Elementary String Orchestra’s Christmas concert and very much enjoyed watching her perform several ballet and tap routines in her dance school’s bi-annual show earlier in the year. 

G is now a right cool dude. Everything is “right” this and “right” that – the Derbyshire influence has finally caught up with him. He has grown up so much we are now no longer allowed to refer to him as our little boy – which is fair enough as he is as tall as some 9 year olds we know! He had a glowing report from his teacher this term and continues to enjoy going to football training and has taken up Tai-chi too. 

 Both children have also learned to swim this year which is a great achievement and a big weight off my mind (terrible mother that I am, I only got round to arranging weekly swimming lessons this year!) Fortunately the kids were greatly inspired by Britain’s achievements earlier this year in the Olympic pool and motivated too by the fact that we spent two weeks on holiday in Spain in a fabulous villa with private pool. In fact our Spanish holiday was by far and away the highlight of our year  

Despite the present worrying economic climate K’s company is still doing very well, and his job has taken him all over the world this year – India twice, Central America, Germany, Belgium, Ireland, Eastern Europe, (Moscow next week!), the Middle East – we don’t see much of him these days and his carbon footprint is a source of some embarrassment but let’s not dwell on it – at least he has still managed 100 journeys to and from work on his bicycle this year and has successfully grown a whole row of spring onions in our vegetable patch. Plus, we went from being a two car to a one car family (kept the low-emissions Prius of course!) so I’m sure that is some small contribution to saving the planet.   It was also K’s 40^th birthday this year, an event which passed by with only a very low-key celebration (an Indian takeaway and a bottle of champagne I think – or was that our 10^th wedding anniversary in May?)

And it is  with great shame that I have to report that last year’s promise of a plan of action to get up off my behind and away from the laptop has so far failed to come to fruition, however there’s always next year! 

Wishing you a very Happy Christmas and all the best for 2009 - love, M, K, L and G xxxx

Happy New Year to my reader. 

We went to our friends G & A round the corner last Saturday for a soiree.  Their friends S & J were also in attendance.  The kids had their tea first while the grown-ups drank lashings and lashings of beer and wine.  Then, as the grown-ups sat down for their meat-free lasagne, the children (all 7 of 'em) proceeded to run riot through the house, performing kung fu kicks on each other, screaming their lungs up, doing dance routines to "Wannabe" by the Spice Girls (hot new girl group all the tweenies are into at the moment!) and generally being hyper and hysterical.

The only solution for the adults was to drink more until the noise became tolerable through the warm fuzz of alcohol.  When dinner had been eaten, and chairs pushed away from tables, G got up to spin a few 7" singles from his youth.  This soon turned into a game of "Beat The Intro".  K and I first of all impressed, then right royally pissed off G, as every  7" he tersely threw on to the turntable we guessed in approximately one second.  Record after record, G muttering "You'll never get this one", we were able not only to identify correctly but also give year of release and other assorted bits of trivial information.   S & J looked on in bemused near silence.  The coup de grace (that I like to think will go down in Chesterfield folklore for years to come) was when I got "Echo Beach" by Martha & The Muffins from the first millisecond of the slow fade intro (yes I know it has one of the most recognizable intros of any pop tune ever but I am talking about the bit at the very, very beginning, before the guitar riff, the synth line before it gets even barely audible).  Oh, the applause, the gasps of amazement, the high fives and the huge sense of personal achievement.   Actually I think the truth of it is that the locals will now talk about us behind our backs as those weirdos from down south who have an autistic-like ability to identify Top 40 hits from the late 70s early 80s just from the opening note.  I think we actually scared them a bit. 

We finally got stumped by a Basia non-hit which despite me identifying it as Matt Bianco and therefore being nearly right brought that little game to an anti-climactic ending.  Then someone decided to get Operation out - what a rubbish game that is!  It went on for about 4 hours, and despite hundreds of attempts to pick up the tiny little bits of plastic with the crappy tweezers without making the buzzer sound, noone managed a successful operation (well, except me that is - 3 bits out despite all the wine - two fine wins in an evening, what a night to remember!!!)

By which time the kids had resorted to stabbing each other in the eye with a sonic screwdriver and using the spinny office chair as a fairground ride whilst simultaneously trying to scale the venetian blinds.  Oh, and one of the guests produced some 70% proof, slightly dodgy whisky which was our cue to leave before any further damage was done to our collective person.  Fab evening!

Why is that every time I go to the hairdressers I always expect to come out looking like this:

But I always come out looking like this:

I'm conscious of the fact that it's been a month since my last entry.  There is a simple reason for this: nothing of note or interest has occured chez nous for a whole month.  Life has been steady, dull, monotonous, routine, uneventful.  Just the way I like it! 

Anyway, today the postman brought me a letter from my parents which contained an article from the Telegraph a few weeks ago  which contained a load of amusing signs from around the world, sample:

from a small hotel in Cornwall "Will any guest wishing to take a bath please make arrangements to have one with Mrs Harvey"

and from a hotel in Munich "In your room you will find a minibar filled with alcoholics"

and (my personal fave) from a restaurant in China: "Dumplings stuffed with the ovary and digestive glands of a crab".

This reminded me of the single most funny thing I have ever read.  It came out years ago and I remember at the time laughing until tears rolled down my nose.  I wondered if I would be able to find it using Google and I got it straight away (the wonders on the internet).  I googled: "Madonna Interview Translation Funny" and here it is below.  Yes, it is very, very old and you've probably seen it before.  Having said that when I re-read it just now I howled again, particularly at the "Slut Book" comment by the reporter.  I don't know why, it just really REALLY amuses me:

An Interview with Madonna which was translated from Budapest’s Blikk Newspaper:

When the Evita production company came to Budapest, Madonna,had an interview with the Budapest newspaper Blikk. The questions were posed in Hungarian, then translated into English for Madonna, whose replies were then translated back into Hungarian for the paper’s exclusive.

Soon after, at the request of USA Today, Madonna’s comments were then retranslated from Hungarian back into English for the benefit of that paper’s readers.

The end result is far from the original but much funnier. “I am a woman and not a test-mouse!” The translations have Madonna exclaim.

This is a complete transcript, verbatim.

Blikk: Madonna, Budapest says hello with arms that are spread-eagled. Did you have a visit here that was agreeable? Are you in good odor? You are the
biggest fan of our young people who hear your musical productions and like to move their bodies in response.

Madonna: Thank you for saying these compliments [holds up hands]. Please stop with taking sensationalist photographs until I have removed my garments
for all to see [laughs]. This is a joke I have made.

Blikk: Madonna, let’s cut toward the hunt: Are you a bold hussy-woman that feasts on men who are tops?

Madonna: Yes, yes, this is certainly something that brings to the surface my longings. In America it is not considered to be mentally ill when a woman
advances on her prey in a discothèque setting with hardy cocktails present. And there is a more normal attitude toward leather play-toys that also makes
my day.

Blikk: Is this how you met Carlos, your love-servant who is reputed? Did you know he was heaven-sent right off the stick? Or were you dating many other
people in your bed at the same time?

Madonna: No, he was the only one I was dating in my bed then, so it is a scientific fact that the baby was made in my womb us­ing him. But as regards
these questions, enough! I am a woman and not a test-mouse! Carlos is an everyday person who is in the orbit of a star who is being muscle-trained by
him, not a sex machine.

Blikk: May we talk about your other “baby”, your movie, then? Please do not be denying that the similarities between you and the real Evita are grounded in basis. Power, money, tasty food, Grammys – all these elements are afoot.

Madonna: What is up in the air with you? Evita never was winning a Grammy!

Blikk: Perhaps not. But as to your film, in trying to bring your reputation along a rocky road, can you make people forget the bad explosions of Who’s
That Girl? and Shanghai Surprise?

Madonna: I am a tip-top starlet. That is my job that I am paid to do.

Blikk: O.K., here’s a question from left space: What was your book Slut
about?

Madonna: It was called Sex, my book.

Blikk: Not in Hungary. Here it was called Slut. How did it come to publish?
Were you lovemaking with a man-about-town printer? Do you prefer making
suggestive literature to fast-selling CDs?

Madonna: These are different facets to my career highway. I am preferring
only to become respected all over the map as a 100% artist.

Blikk: There is much interest in you from this geographic region, so I must ask this final questions: How many Hungarian men have you dated in bed? Are they No. 1? How are they comparing to Argentine men, who are famous for being tip-top as well?

Madonna: Well, to avoid aggravating global tension, I would say it’s a tie [laughs]. No, no, I am serious now. See here, I am working like a canine all
the way around the clock! I have been too busy even to try the goulash that makes your country one for the record books.

Blikk: Thank you for your candid chitchat.

Madonna: No problem, friend who is a girl

                                                                  $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$


Ahhh...*wipes away tears*... it still cracks me up, hope you enjoyed it too!

Right, I must go out and make something interesting happen so that I can share it with you here.  Later...

OK, I may possibly be the last person in the world to have seen it (we are currently in the process of catching up with all the cinema releases we have missed in the last few years) but I just had to try and express how very amazing this film is.  If you have not seen it either I urge you to do so, although if it ruins your evening (as it did mine) that please don't hold it against me.

I knew it wasn't going to be easy viewing when we sat down to watch it last night.  After all, it is a film about the fourth plane to be hijacked on September 11th 2001, the one that never hit its target but which crashed just short of Washington DC.  It is rare for a Hollywood movie to deal with such subject matter in such a chillingly matter-of-fact way: it was filmed in a documentary-style, using many of the actual air traffic control people to represent themselves, the other actors are all unknowns and much of the acting was ad-libbed to add to a very naturalistic portrayal of the horrific events on that day.  In fact, it was so realistic that I actually had to keep on reminding myself that it wasn't a documentary. 

However, the inescapable fact is that the events shown in the movie did really happen: the confusion and disbelief in the air traffic control room as planes are highjacked and rammed into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, the terror in the cabin as the highjackers dispatch the pilots and take control of the plane, the heart-breaking last phone-calls to family and friends, the heroic struggle of some of the passengers to overcome the highjackers in the last few moments, as plane spirals towards the ground.  Weirdly, even though you know exactly how this story turned out, the the tension when watching the film is so intense, you find yourself hoping against hope that everything will turn out OK in the end, that the plane will land safely and when it doesn't and the screen goes black...well...I burst into tears. 

As I said, it put a real downer on the rest of the evening, but it's still a film I would throughly reccomend (unless you're about to go somewhere on a plane shortly) - so powerful, so gut-wrenching, so moving, such a fitting tribute to the ordinary, but brave people on Flight United 93 who lost their lives that day.  Best film I've seen for years!





Just to balance things out I would like to nominate "Hot Fuzz", starring Simon Pegg as my Turkey of The Week - what a load of pony! 

Now watch out for other Mazzymoo film reviews for such up-to-the-minute releases as:

This Is England
Pan's Labyrinth
Babel 
City Of God

!

Yes, the finger has well and truly slipped of the pulse.  Never mind - perhaps there is some kudos in being the very last person to review a film?  

I 'm really very cross now, having just spent an hour tonight updating my blog with more tales of our Summer Holidays, the whole thing has disappeared, despite me pressing "post to Mazzymoo" twice.  
To precis:
Saw Simpsons Movie - it was great.
Went to Disneyland Paris - it was great too.
Holdiday in France - fab.
It's all you really need to know, the rest was just padding...