Thursday, February 11, 2010

Should life be a musical?

Myself and @ramblerclive had an amusing conversation on facebook a few years ago. This is how it went:

Simon Willo see? life should be a musical. then everything ALWAYS has a happy ending :)

Clive Rambler except Carousel

Simon Willo oh so there's an exception or two...

Clive Rambler yep... you seen carousel... her husband kills himself in the end and then they all sing"You'll never Walk Alone"... Lovely stuff
Can you tell I'm still in my pit of depression?

Simon Willo hmmmm... and in Moulin Rouge Nicole Kidman dies too...
Ok so maybe musicals wasn't such a great theme...

Clive Rambler Yes.. she dies while he sings "Come What May"
And in Grease Sandy starts smoking at the end so she'll probably die too...

Simon Willo And in the Sound of Music they still have to leave their home and move to Switzerland which is a really expensive country and they have no income because Captain von Trapp lost his job and Maria doesn't exactly have much work experience. So they will be homeless...

Clive Rambler Exactly... so they'll probably die...
And Evita dies...

Yes, Simon... why can't life be a musical?

Simon Willo In Jesus Christ Superstar he was crucified!
OMG what have I done?

Clive Rambler yes... he died too... but apparently he came back to life ... like the girl in Rent... so maybe all is not lost...

Simon Willo ok so maybe musicals aren't a good analogy for life.
let me think up another tactic... that one failed miserably.

Clive Rambler It was fun!

Simon Willo just to point out... Christine and Raul still hooked up at the end of Phantom, so they were happy, and Joseph's whole family got to move to Egypt and eat as much as they wanted during the 7 years of famine... so they were happy too...

Clive Rambler Yah, but she hooked up with a dude witha deformed face and with the way he sings he's probably gay... and lets not forget that Joseph's family first starved and the dad thought Joseph was dead. So he was depressed and malnourished. Eating probably made him die sooner... and Joseph wore make-up after meeting the Egyptians. Fag.

Simon Willo so there is nothing wrong with a couple of homos... musicals were designed around us. Joseph looked much hotter with make-up btw... Joseph's family had a bad run but still had a happy ending. At least his dad died with a full tummy and was happy knowing his son was alive.

There is no way Phantom was gay. He would ...never have looked like that if he was. He would have turned to plastic surgery sooner and wouldn't wear black all the time.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Plane noisy juveniles

There is nothing that can make me angry like a noisy child can. Recently, my flight was delayed and I spent an extra four hours in the airport, took off at 00:45 and landed around 02:30am. Awesome huh?

Add a screeching juvenile sitting behind me. I nearly had a stroke.

I fail to understand parents who let their kid bawl and scream and perform when others are stuck in the situation with them. Like an aeroplane or a train. In fact, I was on my way home the other day, sharing a plane row with a woman bearing very loud spawn which blatantly ignored the bellows being voluptuously expressed by putting her iPod on and drowning her very own irritant out - for herself only. The rest of us had to endure her product for the rest of our journey.

I don't expect draconian control of the products of one's loins, nor do I think it is realistic for a child to be silent all the time (outside my Utopia). I also get that kids just get pissy sometimes, and they are noisy things. But do I have a right to get angry and/or irritable when children are kicking up a fuss and the parents are doing nothing about it? Yes, I think I do.

I do not, for one second, believe that parenting is an easy job that can be done with any kind of flippant attitude that I am displaying right now. And I am not typing the solutions or proffering any kind of non-parent-scribed patronising advice - particularly from a person that has never been in charge of anything more important that a glass bottle of gin, nor noisier than a television.

The point I am making is that I have a right to be irritated when someone else's child is making a noise, the decibels of which are greater than a constantly-regurgitating Maria Sharapova snort.

So how can we come to a happy medium? My suggestion that children, other than going to school, are left at home until age 16 would probably not suffice, and is as extreme as letting them all run wild, like an infestation of noisy and unconquerable ants.

Is a happy medium a quiet kid? Is it an iPod for non-parents? Is it perhaps to sit people travelling with children together on an aeroplane? Is it more patience on my behalf?

Lest I offend all parents, let me make it quite clear that when I point fingers, I point them at myself too. I get as annoyed by constantly barking dogs, my neighbour's angle grinder (I swear, it must be his hobby to carve things up) and the noise of the extractor fan in my kitchen. I am not standing here as a paragon of quietus virtue, condemning all of those who breed or make noise.

What I seek is an active solution to prevent me from hiding your kids' oxygen masks, should there be a sudden loss of cabin pressure.