Doing a bit of industry research one evening I come across this book of poetry, “Dung Beatles Navigate by Starlight”.
I know I can give as good as it gets on the waffle game (and I’m not talking about sweet treats) but this is next level:
The book’s description reads:
“These poems explore the boundary between science and poetry, and juxtapose the lexicon of organic chemistry, in particular, with a botanical discourse which is more conventional in poetry, but which the scientific treatment defamiliarises. Far from being abstruse and heavy, the treatment here lightens the subject with an imaginative playfulness, as in ‘The First Green Human: The Observer Interviews Clorinda’, where Marvell’s pastoral character is turned, through a journalistic register, into a personification of current ecological concerns.“
My reaction?
I’m done. No way can I compete with that level of blurb-ery (#ShouldBeAWord) talent (and I’m not entirely kidding).
In other news, Mumma B says she’s reassured in knowing that her daughter isn’t the only one who can spout waffle. Whoop.
This post has been sparked off my Mumma B, who only the other day asked me about this year’s John Lewis Christmas advert.
The thing is, she comments about the lack of visibility, but at the same time records everything on her YouView box purposely to skip all the adverts. You see the dilemma here?
Basically I’m posting all the Christmas adverts for the main UK players so that my mum can see them in one place (and once only).
I’ll add to the list as and when any additional companies release theirs (please do also poke me with a metaphorical stick in the comments). Otherwise lets get to it! In no particular order…
UK Christmas TV Adverts (2020)
John Lewis / WaitroseSupermarket
Aldi Supermarket
Lidl Supermarket
Walkers Crisps
McDonald’s
TK Maxx
Argos
Barbour
Very.co.uk
Amazon
Tesco Supermarket
Asda Supermarket
Morrisons Supermarket
Sainsburys Supermarket
Boots
Lego
Dreamies Cat Treats
M&S Food
Disney
Coca-Cola
JD
Ralph Lauren
(Disclaimer: All videos above have been lifted from YouTube via the URL. I don’t own any part of these videos.)
**
This isn’t a sponsored post. Support an unpaid writer like me by donating to my funding page: Buy Me A Coffee
This post features images of taxidermy. To understand why visit the Powell-Cotton Museum website. “The past is a foreign country” – L.P. Hartley.
**
Sometimes on those rare moments of peace and tranquillity I take a step back and think to myself, “where does my creativity come from? My ability to construct a half decent sentence together that delves deep into an experience, item or concept while also being able to pull out some humour that keeps people coming back time after time to this humble website of mine?” It’s on such occasions I naturally turn to my family to find the source of my flowing words…
…and realise I really must have been adopted.
Despite the fact my normal dress sense makes me a walking advert for the French rom com Popularie (and something I’m completely fine with, even if it is set in 1958)…
…the Cotswold Bennett clan were in fact dressed up to the nines in the Powell-Cotton Museum at Quex Park for a family wedding. The union of my lovely cousin Stella with her Welsh husband-to-be Alun. Because if there was one thing our family needed, its more Welsh (given I’m only 25% of the rugby-mad stuff this marriage couldn’t come soon enough, our family is becoming far too English).
The day started in the same way most my weekday mornings do, wondering why the hell I was awake and why wasn’t I drinking coffee. Not that it got in the way of me catching up on the zzz’s, I woke up some 2.5 hours down the M25 to find a blob of saliva on my dress and a chicken roll having appeared on my lap. I think India might have thrown it at my face. If my bodily fluids didn’t ruin my make up before then the massive size-of-your-face chicken roll did. Again, I took a bite of the roll to be very concerned over the amount of red behind (thankfully my lipstick, not thankfully an expensive brand of the stuff).
Once we’d arrived at Birchington (where Mumma Bennett had booked the apartment for the extended weekend) there was a delightful scene where the postcode wrongly took us to the wrong spot, causing us to drive up and down the street multiple times. When people in mobility scooters and shorts start giving you looks you know you’re looking like class A muppets. A particular highlight was when Papa Bennett proposed us three women get changed at the wedding venue seeing as it was apparently so close to where we’d be staying. The response?
As if we’d even be dared seen by other guests before we’d got into our wedding gear. I only had one of my normal 50s outfits on! Men.
Flash forward a few hours once we’d finally found the apartment, got bags, got changed, went to the loo, changed shoes, updated make up, went to the loo again and hopped in the car for all of the two minute journey and were at the venue. One of the first people we saw when arriving at the venue was Aunt Shiona, mother of the Bride.
“What are you doing all here so early?! We had bets on you!” She said as she gave us all hugs and chatted briefly before dashing of to more important matters.
“What a funny thing to say about having bets on us.”
“I can believe it.” Mumma B said.
“I think she was joking.”
“We’re a whole forty minutes early Dad,” I interjected, “that’s not like us at all.”
And then we were chatting and chilling with relatives and I was complaining that I couldn’t be the little toddler who got to wear a pretty dress and roll around in the dirt on a wedding day.
“I mean you could,” Uncle Martin said.
“Don’t worry, on Alice’s wedding it’ll be all mud pies and S Club 7 songs” Mumma B said. While everyone laughed I muttered to India “do you think we can get Aqua live?”
And then the wedding happened. Sorry Stella and Alun, I know you guys love my blog but I honestly can’t think of much to say – I wish I could write something wonderfully romantic but unlike your friends I stuffed up my poetry module at A Level. Urm…
The ceremony was wonderful // Stella’s dress was anything but colourful.
(I think I’ll stick to the writing.)
Here is a very small sample of some of the photos taken of Stella and Alun on the day.
And here is one of the child I want to be when I grow up.
And here are a selection of all the many selfies I did whilst we were waiting for the drinks reception.
And then things ground to a temporary halt while we tried to fix the selfie stick/camera.
But luckily Aunt Yvonne was on hand to capture me at my most beautiful.
I never met the guy stood behind me in that photo but I think he liked me, that or he felt pity (very easy to get the two mixed up in my world).
And lets take a moment to admire how amazingly my bun held up, despite the four hour drive/sleeping/undressing-dressing/just being me.
You know, with some of the pictures I’m seeing here you’d think the official photographer could have taken the day off. Anyway moving on and back, the venue was lovely. I mean a wedding in a mother flipping museum is always going to get me excited. Don’t forget this…
…This was taken before the consumption of any alcohol. So I was living the dream being able to drink prosecco and wonder exhibitions with suited and other smart type people.
Even if it made me look like a horned beast.
But they had a kid’s trail (and seemingly unlimited prosecco and canapes) so I was prepared to overlook this.
We sat down for food and, you’ve guessed it, took more selfies (remind me again why we were there?) Mumma B tried to set the camera up for Bluetooth group photos, but by this point I was on the table wine with a stomach lined with a couple of mini spring rolls. Of course I wasn’t going to be taking anything seriously.
Stella and Alun then cut their wedding cake. FYI am I the only one thinking Stella was far too happy to be holding such a sharp knife?
Alun probably had his eye on it for his tomato addiction. His need to consume £50 worth of the little red things a week got a mention in every one of the speeches to much laughter. Everyone needs a hobby I guess.
After speeches, food and yet more table wine (suddenly the headache I had the next morning makes a lot more sense) people broke off while the function room was set up for evening entertainment.
Papa B, India, Uncle Chris and a few others got excited over a drone and Mumma B grabbed a photo just in time to get my typically Alice reaction.
Mumma B and I instead spent time wondering around the gardens and discussing flower beds and architecture. Standard. Once the evening portion of the night kicked off it was all dancing and fun way into the night. Have you ever danced to the hit song Nelson Mandela by The Specials at a wedding? Well you have not lived my friend.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m dancing for Mandela India! We’ve got to free him!”
“[Laughs] what the hell?”
“FREEEEEEE NELSON MANDELA! INDIA! IT’S MANDELA!”
(For context, Stella spent a good deal of time in Southern Africa growing up.)
And then eventually the whole night wrapped up with a UB40 song.
“What’s this?” India asked.
“The song played when the DJ wants you to bugger off.”
***
The following days were spent relaxing and enjoying the Kentish sunshine. A particular highlight was when the four of us visited Walmer Castle in Deal. India, with her expert technical knowledge helped restore my confidence that I must be at least related to her.
Further shored up when she got just as excited over a pair of mini Wellington boots as I did.
Tell you what, I have a lot of time for a young Wellington. Before I say anything further let me explain a bit of background behind the rationale.
Whilst loving life in Granada recently myself and one of the girls I was staying with developed an heightened interest in olives. Maybe it was the heat, maybe it was the fact we didn’t know each other and were jumping on the first connection we had but our lust of olives was just off the scale. Our friends would have told us to get a room, if we hadn’t already decided we were going to because of the olives. We bought a massive jar between us and in started taking ‘shots’ of olives and eventually skipped the middle man by carting the whole jar to bed with us at stupid o’clock (don’t ask me to explain why). Anyway, because the jar was so hard to open and because of how much we loved those olives I coined a phrase to subtly describe any man (or woman) that the perciever took a fancy to. I explain this to you now a) for future reference on any subsequent blog posts and b) because seeing a young Wellington in Walmer Castle prompted me to say it.
“Ooh. He can open my olives.”
“What?”
I related the above story to India.
“Again, what?”
**
I attended my cousin’s wedding with only my immediate family and happily so. It made me wonder why people have this need to put on their dating profiles “seeks +1 to attend weddings”. Why? What’s wrong with going solo? I had just as much fun being a plus zero, if not more so by being able to be classic Alice and wander around a museum late at night after a glass or two, pretending I was living my own version of Night at the Museum. Would I have wanted a plus one to see we twirling about and exclaiming “I love History!”? Goodness no!
The Cotswold Bennett clan left Kent early on Sunday having spent a four days in South East England, a part of the country that none of us had visited in any depth before. We came away feeling very relaxed and India and I with a long list of wedding ideas for that of our own one day (although for the love of God don’t let that be any time soon – Aqua don’t have the availability).
**
Big love to my cousin Stella and her husband Alun, I had a wonderful time at your wedding and wish you all the best now and long into the future. I’m no poet but I hope this, alongside the wire chicken egg holder (memories of hunting cheap eggs in London), I hope they both make you smile.
You with your words of wisdom, telling me, telling us, how to think, how to feel, how to be,
Spewing rubbish of the trash we’ve become. Of nature or nurture, who cares? To your kind we are but a limp beat on a heart monitor, beyond recovery but a drain on resource.
Decisive apes would hand us to fate but democratic baboons make you read a script.
Are we not the voices that matter? Are we just a box ticking exercise that helps you sleep at night?
Well no more.
It is true that a glint of hope dims with every dystopian prediction, but since when did guess set the rule?
Do you think we want to be in debt? That we cannot comprehend Brexit or Trump or taxes? Do you think we’re blind to the world beyond a screen? Please, don’t be so stupid.
I am my own future, their future and I am your future,
Don’t lecture but instead provide the tools to better myself and others. I cannot line my stomach with PowerPoint.
Think of us not as a large figure, but as an array of individual numbers. As I am.
Do not talk at me, but with me. As I am.
Educate, not lecture, inspire, not disillusion. It is not a plea, nor a beg, but pure common sense,
Stop thinking of what your role requires, but of what a broken society demands. I am not a child, but a world changer in training,
Look at me, think of me and treat me as a human being. As I am.
(Written in response to the WordPress Daily Prompt Lecture)
…You wouldn’t think the Holburne Museum and Art Gallery was located just off the centre of Bath Spa (Somerset, England). And yet, quite a literal stone’s throw from the beating heart of the city is this little gem of a place. All you need to do is cross the river and follow the dead straight road and you’ll reach this at the end (gotta love a Georgian straight road, it’s as if they predicted the advent of Sat Navs and thought ‘nah, why bother. Just make all the roads straight instead.’)
View from within looking out.
Originally a grand Georgian hotel, the building now houses the personal collection of Sir Thomas William Holburne and a great number of 17th and 18th Century artworks. Now, even though I studied History for three years, the only things it got me were £30,000 worth of debt and a couple of fun facts about executions, Victorian death rituals and lynch mobs. In short, I’m probably the last person on Earth to be providing a potted history for this place. For a timeline click here.
History aside, lets get onto the bit which 95% of my readership care about; how Alice’s brain has interpreted the contents of this museum (the other 5% Google searched ‘mermaids’ and are now bitterly disappointed by the contents of this site).
On the first floor is a room (and mezzanine above) which showcases the artefacts collected by Sir Thomas Holburne as well as family treasures.
There is more to it than this, trust me.
Whenever I see a good deal of random antiquities in a room, all laid out and nicely presented I think about the condition such priceless items would have been kept in before the advent of museums. I mean, when you watch documentaries of hoarders in Cheshire you don’t think ‘oh, I wonder if there’s a cheeky Faberge Egg under that newspaper pile?’
‘Now, where did I leave my 16th Century tapestry?’
See if I had a time machine that’s probably where I’d go, to the hoarding museums of the future. (I know right, why is this girl single?)
Funnily, when I went to the Holburne on a half day off I never expected to get home interior inspiration.
I mean a quick reckie around Swindon’s charity shops and some suspension cable and you’re away. In my house it would be life affirming – if you manage a flight of stairs without a vase landing on your head then you know you’re going to have a good day. If not…well you’re probably getting a day or two off work (=good day!)
Moving onto the art exhibitions in the other rooms, on the same level I was reminded that throughout history the same statement rings true; if it’s done in the name of ‘art’ then anything goes. For example, do you know that feeling when you get turned into a stag by the Goddess of animals and then killed by your own hounds whilst meanwhile everyone is too wrapped up in the Lapith/Centaur battle to care?
And you thought you were having a bad day.
In that sense you can’t really be too heavily critical about art because if you look at things through a sceptical eye it seems that everyone was/is on some form of hallucinogenic.
In the same room I felt equally reassured that I’m not the only one to have struggled with the perils of a dignified wet wipe wash.
If Venus can do it, so can I.
There were also a number of nice portraits in the room which didn’t inspire any wit from me at the time so didn’t get photographed. In my defence I was too busy chuckling at people reacting to the massive piece of contemporary art in the room. Needless to say most people weren’t getting it.
Michael Petry, A Line Lives in the Past and the Future
Upstairs then and on the second level was, you’ve guessed it, more pieces of priceless art. In a side room at the top of the stairs was a temporary exhibition on art of stage actors which gave me many a chuckle. This guy for instance could be relatable to any workplace environment…
‘What overtime for free? Say what now?’ / ‘You want me to deliver Wembley stadium in four months? Are you actually kidding me?’ / ‘Mate, what the hell are you wearing?’ – the list goes on.
And I doubt anyone has spotted it but me, but there was a weird love triangle taking place on the wall opposite.
‘This distance between us, it’s too much!’
(Directly below…)
‘Just get a exhibition room already.’
Unfortunately one of the galleries was temporarily closed whilst a new exhibition was being fitted, which took me therefore into the last available gallery on my visit. It was an exhibit of stuffed exotic birds, hah, just kidding, it was another art gallery.
Now it could be just me, but do you ever find it trippy when there’s a painting in a painting? And you’re being invited to look at that said painting in a painting by the painted figures as if there’s deeper meaning in the painting’s painting? That if you stare at it long enough you’re expected to understand? And then you don’t get it so you read the description by the side of the painting and think ‘ah, ok’ then look back at the painting and still don’t get it? And then you question your intelligence, take a moment to remind yourself you have a degree in the Arts, before looking back at the painting and wondering why you wasted your time trying to understand something which, at best, is a fairly average painting and doesn’t make that much sense?
It’s historic inception if you ask me.
In this gallery there were a number of very nice pieces of art work. The room steward and I had a lovely conversation about over a particular portrait. ‘He was well known for his ability to paint women. They used to say he was good with the wives of gentry.’ (The thirteen year old in me was making so many smirky comments it’s a wonder none of them got blurted out .)
Also, the lady in that particular exhibition dashed out after me and complimented me on the way I viewed the collection. Middle class win. Set me up right rosy for the afternoon that did.
After I viewed all the art I could handle, I stopped off in the café on the ground floor which for the record was really pleasurable. Art and coffee are the perfect mix anyway, but the coffee shop has been very stylishly done, with a glass backed wall facing the parks located at the back of the museum.
First floor view of the back.
Also, nice toilets.
After I’d completed my wander round the Holburne I strolled the grounds to the back of the old grand hotel. This area had originally been billed as the luxury pleasure gardens for the hotel’s guests and as I walked over regal bridges that crossed the railway line and ambled up to various pieces of Georgian architecture, I could see why. It was the perfect way to finish my visit.
I came away from the Holburne thinking myself as a sophisticated individual (I didn’t spill any coffee on me that day = proof) and given the Holburne is a free to enter, privately run, establishment I’d certainly say it was worth an hour of anyone’s time, even if it’s just for the cake and 18th Century banter.
More information on the Holburne Museum and Art Gallery can be found here (external website).
Come sit with me. Come sit here in the caffeine filled haze we call paradise. The legal high that our fathers and their fathers before have relished, for here we are one. The mothers, the students, the disapproving men with broadsheets in hand, everyone has a home here.
Let me pass you this extra I have acquired. Do you take milk? The sugar is over there. The chair next to me is a little worn and mismatched, but that is the norm. Brush off the crumbs of the previous tenant and join me in weekend conversation.
The background music will lull you into a false pretence of your own class and status. The type of music you recognise but do not know. They are the backing beats that serve as melodic distraction from the mess surrounding us. I have heard in booksheleved corners that it improves the taste, what do you think?
See that man behind my left shoulder? I know him to be a regular. The frustrated writer who huffs and sighs over work that will never make it to print. Chomping on cheap nuts and downing brown goo in paper cups, for he cannot afford the china. He is a freeloader of the establishment, clinging desperately to an image that cannot be sustained. I remember when he used to sip on only the finest quality beans and nibble on pastries with young women, but those days are gone. We have all changed since those days.
My friend, you look a little troubled. Don’t be. In this world we are all addicts of our own making. I only seek to show you the truth that lurks in the steam. Save your pity for Africa, it is a wasted emotion in this Latino supplied space. I see you have finished your drink. Would you like another? It would be my honour. They serve only the finest cheap substances here, it is why we never leave.
I am so happy you came to sit with me my partner. Now stress no more and relax, the fresh coffee will be here soon.
My Housemate's a Mermaid 