Category Archives: Humour

Well, Pardon Me For Putting My Toes Under Your Foot!

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I have a lot of pet peeves. I didn’t realise just how many things annoy me until I started to write them down.

Leaf-blowers

Leaf-Blower-ReviewsWhat is up with this? They make a lot of noise. They blow leaves from one spot and scatter them to another.  If Dyson can invert the technology they are most famous for from sucking up dirt into a bag to hand-dryers, hair-dryers and bladeless fans, why can’t whoever makes the leaf-blowers just suck up the leaves like vacuum cleaners? If they already exist, then why aren’t all gardeners using them already? (Do you hear me, neighbours?!)

Where did you get your license?

Poor driving is a very broad category so we could be here for a while. Let’s start with people who don’t understand the concept of signalling. Is it really that hard? You use that little indicator stick “thingy” in your steering wheel when you want to turn a corner or change lanes. Pretty obvious to me. Also, even if you have trouble telling the difference between your left and right, all you have to do is know which side you want to turn your car to and indicate in that direction. The number of times I have seen people indicate left and then turn right, or vice versa, is astonishingly high. 

How about people who brake going uphill? You may think I am joking, but I assure you I am not. I can understand the need to brake and slow down when going downhill, especially if it is a steep decline, but the law of gravity generally means that, in order to progress up a hill, you need to accelerate to move upwards. This happened many years ago when I was a passenger in a car that was following one such driver. Whoever the instructor was who taught that driver was obviously asleep during the lesson.

article-2288497-1872C859000005DC-392_634x427And then there are the inconsiderate parkers. I’m talking about the people who take up two parking spaces by parking over their assigned space, those who park in disabled spots when they are not mobility-restricted, those who double park in driveways so that you can’t get out or those who park too close to your driver’s side door so that you can’t get back into your car. If you don’t have a sun roof, good luck getting in.

Tailgaters. Need I say more? Continue reading →

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You Had One Job!

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Photo courtesy oscar.go.com

When I was a kid, I used to love watching the annual Academy Awards. Even if I was probably too young to have seen any of the nominated films, the family would gather to watch the glitz and glamour of Hollywood. Bob Hope was a family favourite. And then Billy Crystal became our new family favourite. His opening numbers set a new standard for all award shows. Jack Palance doing one-armed push-ups on stage to receive his Best Supporting Actor award at the age of 77 remains one of my favourite Oscar moments.

The 2017 Oscars are memorable, too. You don’t have to have been one of the millions of people who watched it live around the world to know this. I haven’t sat down to watch the Academy Awards broadcast for a few years now. The show seems to go painfully longer every year as each successive host tries to add more “fun” into the audience experience. Here’s how I envisage their production prep meetings went:

Producer: ” We need to keep the show to three hours.”

Host: “We need to do better than the last host.”

Director: “We need to give the audience something memorable, like a few big production numbers, and maybe a prank on someone.”

Producer: “Great. Now don’t forget we need to keep the show to three hours.”

Host: “Now, the nominees are nervous and anxious. Let’s do something funny to ease their anxiety.”

Director: “Great idea. How about we throw the spotlight on a few other people who got snubbed just to remind the nominees how lucky they are to have been nominated then they won’t feel so bad if they lose?”

Producer: “And let’s not forget, we need to keep the show to three hours.”

Show night. Four and a half hours later…zzzzzzzzzzzzz. Continue reading →

Never Too Old To Learn a New Trick

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I once went to see a clairvoyant with a friend. She told me I had an old soul. That is the only thing she said that was true. Some days I feel like I was born in the wrong decade, but perhaps that is just what getting older feels like. Whatever it is, I feel like my body is catching up to my soul.

My tastes and interests have always been heavily influenced by my parents – from what I like to eat to what I watch on film and television, to the music I listen to and books I read.  When I was a little girl (and when there was only one television set in the house!), I loved watching the old classic movies they would show on weekends. One of my favourite memories was of all the swashbuckling action: Stewart Granger in Scaramouche swinging from theatre balcony to stage, Danny Kaye under hypnosis in The Court Jester extinguishing candles with a flick of his sword, and I can never forgetting Richard Chamberlain in The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers, to name a few.

Back then, my parents mustn’t have seen me waving an imaginary sword around, jumping from couch to floor and pretending I was fighting off some bad guys. I was no Errol Flynn but I wanted to be. I was not born to be a damsel-in-distress waiting for a man to come rescue me from the pirates. I was going to be the one to swash the enemy’s buckler!

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Benedict Cumberbatch and the British Invasion Into My Psyche

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On a clear Friday morning, 7th March, 2014, I started my morning ritual by grabbing my iPad Mini while still in bed, checked my Facebook news feed as usual (don’t judge me – I bet many of you do the same), and almost jumped right out of bed when I read this announcement from Oz Comic-Con:

Oz Comic-Con are very pleased to announce Benedict Cumberbatch is set to join the fun at Oz Comic-Con Adelaide and appear at two exclusive Oz Comic-Con Q&A events in Sydney.

WHAT?! SHERLOCK IS COMING TO MY HOME TOWN??? 

From that point on, there was no turning back or calming down. It took the organisers another two days to announce details for ticket sales. But I was online and ready with my credit card details as soon as the box office opened. However, judging by the fact that there were about 150 other people sitting closer to the stage I guess getting my tickets within a minute of the box office opening was still not good enough. However, we did have excellent seats and I have absolutely no complaints. Anyway, I digress…

Cumberbatch in Sydney

 

There were 33 sleeps from the time I bought tickets to the day I, and my friend Asha, were due to see this very talented actor, and they felt like the longest 33 days ever. I found myself re-watching all three series of BBC’s Sherlock and going back through my “Cumber-collection” of his many other works that range from playing Hugh Laurie’s eldest son in the 2003 comedy series Fortysomething, to his short films (make sure you check out Inseparable) and even his various radio serials for BBC Radio (Cabin Pressure, Rumpole and Neverwhere) and audiobooks (your life will never be the same again after you hear Cumberbatch as Casanova).

Benedict U2 photobombWhile you may have never heard of Benedict Cumberbatch until you saw him photobomb U2 at the Oscars or heard Ellen DeGeneres introduce him as “the man with the best name ever”, once you look at his long list of filmography, you will realise you have probably seen him in a million things before without realising who he was. Ever since the announcement a little while ago that he was set to return to the London stage in autumn of 2015 to play the title role in Hamlet, I bet there’s been a renewed interest in reading the Bard again. Heck, he’s the only reason I paid to see Star Trek: Into Darkness (nothing against Trekkies, I’ve just never been one of them).

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Shopping Should Be A Joyful Experience!

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I'm not a shopaholicIt should come as no surprise that I like shopping. After all, my Twitter handle is @valshopaholic. However, as much as shopping can be a form of therapy – for we live in a society where we are taught to believe that having is better than not having, regardless of what it is that we have or how much of it we have – shopping is not always a pleasant experience.

I recently caught up on a wonderful British television series called Mr Selfridge which is a dramatisation of the life of Harry Gordon Selfridge, the self-made American entrepreneur who took his ideals to England and introduced a wonderful concept to the people called “the customer is always right” with his grand department store, Selfridges. The show is well-written and brilliantly acted and you cannot help but fall in love with every single one of the characters (or, in the case of the evil Lord Loxley and the jealous Mr Thackeray, you hate them from the moment you lay eyes on them).

But as much as I have loved the way the characters have been written, I have also become fascinated by the concepts around the act of shopping as an experience, much of which we take for granted now, more than a hundred years after Selfridges first opened its doors in London’s Oxford Street. Whilst we are all accustomed to the sight of cosmetics counters at the front of department stores and it may seem unfathomable that we are not allowed to try on clothes and accessories before paying for them, there once was a time when even touching a pair of gloves at the accessory counter was a big no-no. Harry Selfridge had the grand vision that shopping should be an experience for his customers and that his store should be presented as a place to dream, relax, enjoy, and basically spend their days (and fortunes).

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