One criticises because one loves

I love Britain, like most Britons I get desperately upset at her failings: when it goes wrong, when it gets it totally totally wrong, when it's shoddy, when it's inefficient, incompetent, rude, vulgar, embarrassing, when it slips into national torpor or boils into bouts of embarrassing national fever. I can moan about health and safety gone mad and leaves on the line, rail networks and crap service and crap weather and crap sporting achievements and crap politicians and crap newspapers and crap attitude. I can do all that.

In fact it's the defining signature quality of my Britishness to talk like that, to complain and to self-castigate but does it mean that I don't love this damned country? Does it mean that I don't get weepy when I think of its history, its people, its countryside, its richness, its plurality, the cultural and artistic energy, the good humour, tolerance, the ability to evolve for good, achingly slow as that ability might be? Does it mean that I don't as it were stand to attention when I think of the sacrifice of our military, the selfless good of so many working in hospitals and schools and rescue services and the million acts of unremembered kindness, decency and good fellowship practised every day by unsung heroes and heroines in every walk of life? Of course it doesn't mean that I don't love and respect that. One carps and one criticises because one loves.

It is the birthday today of Stephen Fry, actor, broadcaster, comedian, director, audiobook narrator, writer, raconteur and "national treasure".

Stephen Fry explains British etiquette

All hail!

Lovely in a fluffy moist kind of way

“I think it was Donald Mainstock, the great amateur squash player who pointed out how lovely I was. Until that time I think it was safe to say that I had never really been aware of my own timeless brand of loveliness. But his words smote me, because of course you see, I am lovely in a fluffy moist kind of way and who would have it otherwise? I walk, and let’s be splendid about this, in a highly accented cloud of gorgeousness that isn't far short of being, quite simply terrific. 

 The secret of smooth almost shiny loveliness, of the order of which we are discussing, in this simple, frank, creamy sort of way, doesn't reside in oils, unguents, balms, ointments, creams, astringents, milks, moisturizers, liniments, lubricants,embrocations or balsams, to be rather divine for just one noble moment, it resides, and I mean this in a pink slightly special way, in ones attitude of mind.

To be gorgeous, and high and true and fine and fluffy and moist and sticky and lovely, all you have to do is believe that one is gorgeous and high and true and fine and fluffy and moist and sticky and lovely.

And I believe it of myself, tremulously at first and then with rousing heat and passion, because, stopping off for a second to be super again, I’m so often told it.

That’s the secret really.”

- Stephen Fry, A Bit of Fry & Laurie

The godlike genius and "national treasure" that is Stephen Fry is 65 years old today!

All hail.

I couldn't have liked it more

Everyone with even a modicum of taste agrees that Noel Coward was one of the most talented entertainers this country ever produced - "The Master", indeed.

And so it was, a few weeks ago, that Madam Acarti and I were overjoyed to discover an free online revue [on a new service called stream.theatre] by way of a tribute to the man's life and work [apparently it would have been the centenary this year of his debut in London's West End, but who neds an excuse?], featuring an absolutely top-notch panoply of talented artists including such favourites as Sir Derek Jacobi, Dame Judi Dench, Stephen Fry, Alan Cumming, Dame Emma Thompson and Robert Lindsay, and several big names from British and American theatre including Kate Burton, Montego Glover, Cush Jumbo, Kristine Nielsen, Bebe Neuwirth, Julian Ovenden, Kate Royal, Giles Terera, Indira Varma, Josh James and Lia Williams.

The whole thing was, of course a major fundraiser by the Noël Coward Foundation on behalf of struggling players and workers whose income has been battered by the coronavirus pandemic that closed so many theatres and venues this year*.

Many and varied are the gems that this production includes - not least real-life married couple the gorgeous Julian and Kate singing A Room With A View (which was all the more poignant given the summer's lockdown), a beautiful rendition of If Love Were All by Mr Terera, real-life mother and son Lia and Josh acting a scene from The Vortex and Sir Derek's impish extracts from Noël's autobiographical The Boy Actor.

Speaking of mischief, Alan Cumming was a delight as ever with Me and the Girls, Robert Lindsay popping up here and there with witty Coward aphorisms provided a good linking thread, and Stephen Fry was the best choice of all to recite (rather than sing) the ultimate paean to a middle-aged widow's rediscovery of fun, courtesy of the mythical isle of Capri:

I'll sing you a song, it's not very long
It's moral may disconcert you
Of a mother and wife who for most of her life
Was famed for domestic virtue
She had two strapping daughters and a rather dull son
And a much duller husband who, at sixty-one
Elected to retire......and later on expire
Sing Halleluhua, heigh-nonny-no
Heigh-nonny-no, heigh-nonny-no
He joined the feathered choir

Having laid him to rest by special request
In a family mausoleum
As his widow repaired to the home they had shared
Her heart sang a gay TeDeum
And then in the middle of the funeral wake
While adding some liquor to the Tipsy Cake
She briskly cried "That's done,
My life's at last begun"
Sing Halleluhah, heigh-nonny-no
Heigh-nonny-no, heigh-nonny-no
"It's time I had some fun"
Today, though hardly a jolly day
At least has set me free
We'll all have a lovely holiday
On the Island of Capri

In a bar on the Piccola Marina
Life called to Mrs. Wentworth-Brewster
Fate beckoned her and introduced her
Into a rather queer, unfamiliar atmosphere
She'd just sit there, propping up the bar
Beside a fisherman who sang to a guitar
When accused of having gone too far
She merely cried "Funiculi, just fancy me, funicula"
When he bellowed "Que bella Signorina"
Sheer ecstasy at once produced a wild shriek
From Mrs. Wentworth-Brewster
Changing her whole demeanour
When both her daughters and her son said "Please come home, Mama"
She answered, rather bibulously "Who do you think you are?"
Nobody can afford to be so la-di-bloody-da
In a bar on the Piccola Marina

Every fisherman cried "Viva, viva and que ragazza
When she sat on the grand piazza
Everybody would rise
Every fisherman sighed "Viva, viva, que belle Inglese"
Someone even said "Whoops-a-daisy"
Which was quite a surprise

Each evening, with some light excuse and beaming with goodwill
She'd just slip into something loose and totter down the hill
To that bar on the Piccola Marina
Where love came to Mrs. Wentworth-Brewster
Hot flushes of delight suffused her
Right round the bend she went, picture her astonishment
Day in, day out, she would gad about
Because she felt she was no longer on the shelf
Night out, night in, knocking back the gin
She cried "Hurrah, Funiculi, funicula, funnic-yourself"

Just for fun, three young sailors from Messina
Bowed low to Mrs. Wentworth-Brewster
Said "Scusi", and abruptly goosed her
Then there was quite a scene
Her family in floods of tears cried "Leave these men, Mama"
She said, They,re just high-spirited, like all Italians are"
And most of them have a great deal more to offer than Papa
In a bar on the Piccola Marina!

However, quite rightly, the producers of this spectacular saved the very best till last...

...as none other than the iconic Dame Patricia Routledge was encouraged out of retirement and gave us the best interpretation of A Marvellous Party we have heard in a long while!

Our joy was further compounded when, a while after the broadcast had expired, I discovered that the entire thing is available on YouTube [not a publicly-searchable video, I might add].

And here, for your delectation, it is!

Noël Coward Foundation - A Marvellous Party

Utterly ravishing.

[*All donations gratefully received by Acting For Others (in the UK) and/or The Actors Fund (USA).]

“Bicycle face”, blushing turkeys, Albert Einstein’s eyeballs and an official yeti hunter

The brainy BBC quiz QI, hosted (at least for the moment) by the eternally droll Stephen Fry, is a staple of our viewing here at Dolores Delargo Towers. Now, just in time for Xmas, the "QI Elves" (the nickname for the programme's tireless researchers) have compiled a new book - 1,234 QI Facts to Leave You Speechless.

From (of all unlikely places to find facts) the Daily Mirror, here are 60 of the most bizarre...

• The Big Bang was quieter than a Motörhead concert.
• The scientist who analysed the plutonium for the first atomic bomb was called Mr Doom.
• The president of the World Chess Federation believes that, unless we play more chess, the world will be destroyed by aliens.
• The world champion of French Scrabble doesn’t speak French.
• The ancient Greek cure for cataracts was to pour hot broken glass into the eyes.
• There are at least 17 types of ice, but only one exists outside the laboratory.
• Magic mushrooms grow in the gardens of Buckingham Palace.
• Table tennis was banned in the USSR from 1930 to 1950 on the grounds that it was harmful to people’s eyes.
• Wearing white at Wimbledon began as a way of hiding the fact that women sweat.
• In 19th century London, fake ice cream was made from mashed turnip.
• Kim Jong-un is the only person in North Korea called Kim Jong-un.
• The four most common first names among New York cabbies are Mohammad, Mohammed, Muhammad and Mohamed.
• Not a single car was sold by Buzz Aldrin in the six months he worked as a car salesman on his return from the Moon.
• More people monitor the internet for the Chinese government than serve in its armed forces.
• Four million songs on Spotify have never been played.
• Kaiser Wilhelm II loved riding so much he sat at his desk astride a saddle. He said it helped him think more clearly.
• Albert Einstein’s eyeballs are in a safety deposit box in New York.
• Dolphin’s milk is as thick as toothpaste.
• In the late 19th century, women cyclists were warned they might get “bicycle face”, giving them a jutting chin and bulging eyes.
• In 1900, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle caught fire during a cricket match at Lord’s. The ball hit a box of matches in his pocket.
• In 2011, two Iranian football players were suspended for celebratory bottom-patting.
• Mini golf was invented for women not allowed to play real golf.
• The Pope cannot be an organ donor because his body “belongs to the whole Church”.
• Baths kill more people than terrorists.
• In 2014, more bets were placed on who killed Lucy Beale in EastEnders than on the Champions League football final.
• 15,000 years ago, cannibalism was practised in Somerset.
• Immediately after the Wright brothers’ first flight, a gust of wind flipped their plane over and broke it.
• When male turkeys see female turkeys, they blush.
• A live chicken strapped to the body was thought to cure plague In the Middle Ages.
• Mary Shelley kept Percy Shelley’s heart wrapped in a poem for 30 years after he died.
• Abraham Lincoln was a licensed bartender.
• Rod Stewart lost his job as a wallpaper designer because he was colour-blind.
• Vladimir Putin’s grandfather was a chef for Stalin, Lenin and Rasputin.
• The Ancient Greek translation of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone is the longest text in that language since 3AD.
• Agatha Christie talked to imaginary friends well into her 70s.
• Afghanistan is the world’s most accurately mapped country.
• The first cow to fly in a plane was Elm Farm Ollie in 1930. Cartons of her milk were parachuted down to spectators.
• Jingle Bells was the first song played in space.
• Americans eat 350 slices of pizza every second.
• After six months monitoring two suspected Chinese spy drones invading their airspace in 2013, the Indian army discovered they were Jupiter and Venus.
• The Tlatelcomila cannibals of ancient Mexico ate human flesh with chilli sauce.
• Ninjas sent secret messages using coloured grains of rice.
• Every hour, one US war veteran commits suicide.
• Bhutan has an official yeti hunter. (Found any? Not yeti).
• US chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer was at school with Barbra Streisand. She had a crush on him.
• Teddy bears are named after US President Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt.
• Roosevelt’s sons Theodore and Kermit were the first Westerners to shoot a giant panda.
• The Hodges Meteorite is the only meteorite known to have hit a person: it slightly injured Mrs Ann Hodges in Alabama in 1954.
• Walt Disney put his testicles in ice to boost his sperm count.
• Under medieval Welsh law women could divorce their husbands if they had bad breath.
• Aztec mothers who died in childbirth were regarded as highly as warriors who died in battle.
• One of the world’s biggest lift firms is called Schindler’s Lifts.
• Misbehaving policemen in Thailand have to wear Hello Kitty armbands as a punishment.
• In 1952, the Great Smog of London was so bad that blind people led sighted people home from the train stations.
• Due to heavy snow in 1891, the 3pm train from Paddington to Plymouth left on 9th March and arrived on 13th March.
• Bees can fly higher than Mount Everest.
• Eating chocolate improves your memory, but only if you eat so much it’s bad for you.
• There is a village in Russia where every single person knows how to tightrope walk.
• You can smell a flock of Macaroni penguins from six miles away.
• Actor Basil Rathbone led covert First World War missions disguised as a tree.

QI (Quite Interesting) website

St Stephen's Day

"Taste every fruit of every tree in the garden at least once. It is an insult to creation not to experience it fully. Temperance is wickedness."

“The only reason people do not know much is because they do not care to know. They are incurious. Incuriousity is the oddest and most foolish failing there is.”

“I am a lover of truth, a worshipper of freedom, a celebrant at the altar of language and purity and tolerance. That is my religion, and every day I am sorely, grossly, heinously and deeply offended, wounded, mortified and injured by a thousand different blasphemies against it. When the fundamental canons of truth, honesty, compassion and decency are hourly assaulted by fatuous bishops, pompous, illiberal and ignorant priests, politicians and prelates, sanctimonious censors, self-appointed moralists and busy-bodies, what recourse of ancient laws have I? None whatever. Nor would I ask for any. For unlike these blistering imbeciles my belief in my religion is strong and I know that lies will always fail and indecency and intolerance will always perish.”

“It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so fucking what."

“It would be impossible to imagine going through life without swearing, and without enjoying swearing.”

Stephen Fry. A saint among men.