God Bless Us, Every One!
Warming Up
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Hilariously I thought I might get through Christmas without eating sweets or chocolates. I allowed myself a toffee from the Quality Street a few days ago as a treat, but otherwise I was going to be healthy and more or less stick with my Zoe diet.
I have eaten nothing but sweets, cakes and cheese for the last three days and my coat no longer does up and it's not even Christmas Day! I either have unwavering self control or no self control. I only come with two settings. Which is one more setting than my love making.
I don't know how many times I have to go through this before I learn that I absolutely cannot just eat one piece of chocolate and then leave the rest of the chocolate. If you've been here for over three weeks then you must be bored with me failing to learn this lesson.
I am not going to beat myself up about it. And if I want to eat three packs of brandy snaps in three days (because that's the only quantity I could buy them in) then I shall. A relapse like this can't do you any harm. Just ask any drug addict. You can just stop again after Christmas.
We watched Muppet Christmas Carol for the second time this year, but you have to watch on Christmas Eve so you can get excited that there is literally only one more sleep to Christmas.
Yesterday I'd read an article about facts you didn't know about the Muppet Christmas Carol (I can't find it now so I might have dreamed it) and I made the film much better for the family by chipping in with the facts at the relevant places. I didn't tell them about the article. I just let them know the facts. When Sprocket the Dog appears at a window early on I pointed out that this was the first Muppet film to not feature any characters from Sesame Street, but there is a cameo from Sprocket.
When Gonzo appears I told them that 85% of his dialogue in the film comes from the Christmas Carol book (which I was pretty much aware of anyway) but did they know that originally they had intended to make a Charles Dickens puppet to narrate the film. Imagine how shit that would have been. Gonzo taking on this role and playing it straight and being amazing at it is one of the absolute triumphs of this movie. I've never seen this more brilliantly explained than by Joel Morris in this fantastic podcast about why the film works
On the viewing earlier this month I had noticed that Clara (Scrooge's nephew's wife) did not appear in the final dinner scene at the Cratchett house and had wondered why, but now I knew that the actor playing the part (who of course would later play one of the mums in the Inbetweeners) had a scheduling conflict and couldn't make the final day of filming. I wonder if she regrets that now. I bet whatever else she was working on is not being viewed annually thirty years later. I'd have been tempted to not have the nephew in the scene either, as one being there and the other not raises all kinds of questions. Though I sort of want to see the film that explains the absence of the character who perhaps was suspicious of Scrooge's sudden transition (which everyone just accepts in a way that I don't think they would in real life) or doesn't want to abandon her own Christmas plans to schlep across to the poor part of town to share an admittedly large but not large enough turkey with 100 strangers. Or maybe she doesn't want to impose on another family or is wondering who is going to cook the turkey and how. And why don't any of those other characters have Christmas plans?
I had way more amazing facts and Catie couldn't understand where all this was coming from, but compared it to the Community episode where Piers gets some comedy writers to come up with lots of quips to make during a showing of Kickpuncher. I was amazed how many of them I remembered. I doubt my family have ever had such an enjoyable evening.
Michael Caine is so brilliant in this film, playing it all straight as is the only way to do it right adn I genuinely think he should have won an Oscar for this performance
This is my favourite scene in movie history
and perfectly demonstrates why the Oscar should have been his. Everyone playing it straight, especially Beaker and it being the funniest thing possible as a result. And did you know that Michael Caine found it difficult to retain his serious facade in this scene as he found the rats reactions and volte faces so funny?
I've got millions of these.
We surprised the kids by playing the version with "The Love is Gone" in it. They didn't like it that much. But they were wrong. The film is better with it in. And it should also have included the song they cut. Didn't you know about that? I did.
(actually might have ruined my favourite cinematic scene).
Should have mentioned yesterday, but 6 Best of RHLSTPs are going out over the next two weeks. You can listen to the first one here.
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It's Christmas morning, let's open up our presents ....
Phoebe's last Christmas before falling off the Santa belief cliff (and she's clinging on by her finger nails - thanks Google). The first thing she said when she saw her bulging pillow case was "Mummy, why does Santa have the same wrapping paper as us? - Catie had inadvertently wrapped one late present in a paper she's used elsewhere (Like the mum in the SNL sketch Catie has done so much to get this Christmas going - I just wish I'd bought her a robe and pretended it was her only gift- and this was just really bad luck and incredible sharp eyes from Phoebe as only one other present had the same paper). But luckily the prospect of loads of presents pushed this question away.
Ernie has no doubts and whilst the magic is losing its sheen for Phoebe, it's the perfect age for Ernie and so if nothing else I am glad we kept the leaking Santa ship afloat for Phoebs as she'd definitely have ruined it for Ernie if she was sure. He got loads of guns and post it notes and Feastibles and even more remarkably a money-printing machine, (which may have been a trick) and he went crazy when he got his Jet Pilot Interactive Dashboard. The mad dash to get it had been worth it, even if Grandma and Grandad got the credit (until Ernie is old enough to read this blog). And once the batteries were in it was actually a pretty cool toy with loads of great features and I played with it too. 57 is 3+. It's allowed.
We had a great day. Phoebe gave me rainbow coloured hair with some hair dye pens, Ernie somehow took possession of the crackers I had bought yesterday and managed to sell them for £1 each to everyone (including me) I made parmesan sprouts and seeded the idea of overthrowing tradition and having nice food for Christmas dinner (though I actually really enjoyed the turkey so maybe I will step back from Christmas Armageddon). Christmas dinner was basically the first non-sugar based or cheese based food I'd had since Friday. Though I made sure that I ate lots of sugar and cheese as well. Tomorrow I go back to being healthy me. And let's see how long that lasts. Place your bets.
The second RHLSTP Best of ep went up today. Listen here.
And great news conversation fans. 1001 Emergency Questions is one of the books that is currently 99p as an ebook on Kindle and Google Books (and maybe elsewhere too). You don't need a kindle to read it, just download the app.
Also loads of Book Club books are discounted in there too including Eleanor Morton, Can Schreiber, Richard Ayoade, Jenny Eclair, David Grann, Lucy Worsley. Katherine Rundell and many more
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