JUST FOR A LAUGH

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Thanks to Andi, Erik, Brendon, John, Brenda and Anon.

Bonus:

There was a documentary about Kenneth Williams on Channel Five tonight. Not having a telly, I only read about it on Twitter.

I thought that he was immensely talented, probably more than most of the other ‘Carry On’ “stars”.

I saw these on Twitter:

Andy Price@imandyprice·‘I can’t stand innuendo. If I see one in a script I whip it out immediately.’ – Kenneth Williams

46 thoughts on “JUST FOR A LAUGH”

  1. Triffic selection today, Tris!

    That last number by Kenneth Williams was brill.

    I saw him once on the street in London’s West End one day, actually. He looked like himself, only smaller. I respected his privacy, of course, not being an effusive sort of fangirl.

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    1. I also saw him once, in Hyde Park. I didn’t approach – might get the wrong reputation. Interesting that his great friend Stanley Baxter last week said that neither of them were comfortable with their sexuality.

      He was extremely intelligent and cultured. On Just a Minute he had no problem blethering for a minute on some obscure subject.

      I did catch a mention of Petula Clark in his song. That must have taken a bit of research to find that clip, Tris.

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      1. I don’t think Kenneth Williams did, but Stanley Baxter…

        We can’t be too hard on older guys – well, ancient by now – who stayed in the closet; it was bad enough for me growing up, and I was born in 1955, not ’45 or ’35.

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      2. I remember reading one of his diaries some years ago. He seemed to be most uncomfortable with his sexuality, although, as I recall, he never actually mentioned it in so many words.

        LOL No, there was no research at all, Dave.

        There was a Channel Five documentary about him and I saw that tweet and noticed that Petula and Sasha got a mention.

        You need googling skills as peerless as those of Mr Ed to be able to find something as obscure as that.

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    2. Yes, Ed. He was a lot more versatile than many of his contemporaries.

      I remember hearing him in a play on Radio Three about the Spanish Inquisition. There’s not much comedy in anything like that!

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      1. tris, I enjoyed that Kenneth Williams number, too, even though some of it was over my head.
        It reminds me of a song I once saw on a late-night show.
        The performer was known for a certain childrens TV series, the name of which eludes me.
        I can’t remember his name, either.
        But the song was quite rude, the last words in each verse being “. . . and Balzac”.
        That is not much to go on, I know, and I have never been able to track it down.
        My googling skills not being peerless enough.

        Maybe some muinginite could give it a shot ???

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          1. No, sorry, Dave, it definitely wasn’t Jasper Carrot.
            But the time-frame is about right. Mid-eighties.
            I knew about Balzac at the time.
            He was a coloured guy, maybe West Indian.
            The kids’ show might have been Play Away.
            And the song was quite out of character.

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              2. Hm. Now that I’ve followed the thread a bit further… Tiswas rings a vague sort of bell, but Derek Griffiths… Kevin’s peerless googling skills say Play School, and the guy looks vaguely familiar, but I haven’t watched UK TV in decades.

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        2. Ouch, that will require super-peerless googling skills.

          let’s see if we caqn gt it down a bit.

          The name of th performer…

          Stewpot, Eamonn Andrews, Philip Schofield, Andi Peters, Harry Corbett? Any other suggestions?

          Late night show…Parkinson? Ross?

          Any other ideas?

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  2. First here, it seems – and no, I haven’t been up all tonight to bring you the next instalment of Andy Stewart, The Untold Story. Almost 6am in Bulgaria and on my usual kick-start to the day of black coffee, Karelia, and MNR. So while I’m here, here’s Andy in Egypt. You’ll remember how he made his breakthrough with the Scottish Solder welding company…

    By now, Andy had really made his mark in the jingle business and as Scottish Solder expanded internationally, his reputation grew with it. New markets opened up for him as well, in Egypt for example, where extensions to the Suez Canal were planned and Hillsa Foam was specified as the approved product for coffer-dam welding.

    Although Suez has no locks, unlike conventional canals, the proposed expansion entailed construction of a lock to create a bypass on the Bitter Lakes that would enable two-way traffic and speed up transit time for ships. Andy was part of a Scottish Solder delegation that went to Egypt for preliminary research on the project, to be built at a town called Ballah on the banks of the canal.

    Ballah is also home to a centuries-old camel market, where breeders from across the region bring their livestock by the thousand for the annual show and fair, an event that dwarfs similar markets in bygone Scottish days when Highland drovers would bring herds of cattle to the Falkirk sales.

    While in Ballah, Andy met the chief executive of the Suez Canal Company which was planning huge celebrations to mark the coming centenary of the canal. In the same way that the great Italian composer Verdi was commissioned to write the opera Aida to mark the opening of the canal in 1869, Andy was entrusted with the task of creating an equivalent masterpiece for 1969.

    And what an unforgettable production it proved to be! Drawing on his experience of Egypt and the impressions made – the camel market, the town of Ballah, and the nature of the proposed engineering works – he composed his memorable Camel Town Lock, the aria that celebrates the site and its attractions.

    Although the lock never did get built, to this day you can still hear the people of Ballah humming Camel Town Lock as they go about their business. They parrot the words “I wish you were whisky”, unaware (or perhaps not) of their meaning and their implication for Islamic strictures about alcohol consumption.

    The official sharia interpretation is that the wish is not the same as the deed, allowing Camel Town Lock to form part of the muezzins’ calls to prayer five times a day. And a giant mural of Andy, kilted and straddling a camel, has pride of place overlooking Ballah’s market square.

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    1. I understand from my network of informants that there was a project to set up a ferry service between Ballah and Suez proper, to avoid wearisome trips on camelback and to allow certain forms of otherwise prohibited recreational activities on board, taking advantage of the legal technicality of the canal being regarded (sensu lato) as international waters. The legendary South African ecdysiast Glenda Kemp was mentioned in that connection, along with specimens of the southern African rock python (Python sebae nataliensis), whose role must remain murky for reasons of good taste and propriety.

      The project was advertised as the Maid of the Lock tour, but the absence of a lock forced a change of venue to Balloch in Scotland, with which Ballah is serendipitously twinned thanks to the infinite wisdom of their respective town fathers (or mothers, conceivably, though maybe not in 1969, the era of the dolly bird). Though Miss Kemp suffered greatly in the chill of the Scottish summer, her decision to cover up her blue bits and goosebumps with chocolate sauce proved inspired, particularly when pre-warmed in a bain-marie.

      Though Miss Kemp received great acclaim at the end of each performance from appreciative and enthusiastic audiences with arousing cheers, the effect of the chocolate sauce on her pythons is not recorded. Nevertheless, savvy herpetophiles have been known to tempt their pet pythons, when off colour and off their feed, with amuse-gueules of chocolate-covered mice, available from all reputable herpetological stockists for a modest surcharge.

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      1. Parenthetical note: When queried by the Pinner and Hatch End Gazette on what the connection was between Ballah and Balloch, Councillor Godefroi Kemp (no relation) of the Balloch Free Presbyterian Republic is recorded as saying “We both have lakes or locks, but theirs is bitter and ours isn’t.”

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      2. Fancy, all these things going on in the world and I was unaware of them…

        Munguin has made a note of your veterinary tips for when he next comes upton an off-colour python the grounds of the towers!

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        1. Munguinites of a nervous disposition should not read on, as this post contains a description of nature red in tooth, claw and coil. Be warned!

          Tris, with his usual devil-may-care sangfroid, makes light of a serious problem he faces as custodian, gardener and factotum of Munguin Towers. It is a little-known fact that Broughty Ferry counts among its denizens Dundee’s highest concentration of sociopathic herpetophiles who, when they get bored with their pet pythons, have a regrettable tendency to dump them in the Towers’ famously sheltered grounds.

          We suspect that the reason that Munguin Towers is chosen as the locus delicti for these serious crimes of python abandonment is that the environs of the Towers, indeed all its lush demesnes and curtilages replete with grasses, forbs and foliage thanks to Tris’s constant, unremitting labours, are veritable havens for the kinds of small fauna that are to Python sebae spec. as Pringles crisps (chips to you, Danny) to Homo sapiens (more and less) sapiens.

          Sad to relate, Mr. Munguin’s repose is all-too-frequently disturbed by the screams of small mammals in their death throes, and Tris’s promising career in cavy husbandry had to be brought to a screeching halt. So remember, people: a python is not just for Christmas! (Danny, to you that’ll be “not even” rather than “not just”.)

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  3. Now there’s a hint. Look at the number of followers, hasn’t moved for a week or so
    https://mobile.twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1330368448552169474/video/1

    and compare it to my post here
    https://munguin.wordpress.com/2020/11/12/trumping-by-numbers/#comment-89106

    Who’da thunk it. Better get with the program instead of watching the MSM.

    Fraudulent elections going to be exposed.

    4 more years. Yeah!
    Fake news going down.
    Big tech social media going down.
    Big Pharma going down.
    Loads of Big Company Resignations.
    Politicians going down.
    Royalty going down.
    CIA DOJ FBI NSA DHS etc going down
    Traitors one and all.

    They’re all going to GITMO hip hip hooray.

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  4. Nice group of Trump cartoons. Sorry about his unfortunate influence on the queen. 😉

    Glad to learn that I’m not the only one with a lens fogging problem while wearing a mask.

    Good news this morning (but lacking cartoons) :

    1) Sidney Powell, the lady who appeared onstage with Rudy (while his sideburns dripped) to promote the election fraud conspiracy scam turned out to be too crazy even for the Trumpies. They threw her under the bus.

    2) The Pennsylvania case that alleged election fraud was thrown out of court. (This was the case that the reputable lawyers pulled out of and Rudy argued personally.)

    3) The name of President-elect Biden’s new Secretary of State has been published. More of Biden’s cabinet picks will be formally announced Tuesday.

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      2. Tris……It’s been a busy news month. I don’t know how many free articles you get from the New York Times and the Washington Post these days. It used to be 10 or maybe 2o. Usually a different browser or “incognito/private” browsing with the same browser works for me. (They start another count.) But maybe that wouldn’t work with VPN.

        Anyway, it’s in all the papers, on both sides of the water as you’ve seen. 😉

        https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/23/trump-campaign-cuts-ties-with-attorney-sidney-powell-after-bizarre-election-claims

        https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/21/politics/federal-judge-dismisses-trump-pennsylvania-lawsuit/index.html

        https://www.vox.com/2020/11/23/21573364/tony-blinken-secretary-of-state-joe-biden

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  5. Sidney Powell preached a version of the “Trump won the election” conspiracy theory that was apparently too crazy even for Trumpy and sweating Rudy….not to mention FOX News and the other right wing Republican Trump cultists. After a couple of days of ridicule, Rudy threw her under the bus, obviously under orders from fearless leader in the White House Trumpenbunker.

    Washington Post: “Powell…has lobbed some of the most convoluted claims, alleging a conspiracy that involved “communist money,” the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez and an algorithm favoring Democrats.”

    “Trump believed she was causing more harm than help, a campaign official said: ‘She was too crazy even for the president.'”

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/11/22/giuliani-releases-statement-distancing-trump-campaign-lawyer-sidney-powell/

    Liked by 1 person

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