Chip's Place

I have just discovered a new talent that I have. I can make balloon animals. As with many other activities (pole-vaulting, the one they sometimes do on Channel 5 with people jumping bikes over canyons while doing handstands on the saddle), I'm not quite sure how you're supposed to realise you might be good at it. Kind of like many of the Church's arguments against evolution - exactly how you notice in PE lessons that you're naturally suited to holding onto a long piece of fibreglass while contorting your body over a bar that's 5m in the air, without going through any intermediate stages, is a bit beyond me.

Anyway, judge for yourselves.



In the interests of completeness, I should probably add that I discovered my balloon-poodle-creating talents at Fibbers, while watching David Devant and His Spirit Wife. This is a very good band, whom I'd only heard of via Tom (who once received a maths exam through the post from them because he was a member of their fan club) and Helen (who owns a T-shirt of them in the style of a blue history plaque). For some reason, they opened their act with a 5-minute slot on how to make a balloon poodle, with helpful diagrams, finishing off with a painting of said poodle through which the lead singer then walked.

Apparently this is tame by comparison to former gigs Tom and Helen have seen, where at least 3 other members of the band served no useful musical purpose on stage, and one was there merely to provide grated carrot and to be a receptacle for custard.

I can only describe the lead singer's hair by referring to There's Something About Mary, and the scene where Cameron Diaz uses ... hair gel. In this case, it would seem that the lead singer has been quite busy. All his hair stuck up in the air, not just the fringe.

In a related topic, Helen offered to sponsor me to shave off both my beards (one at a time - not together, that'd be silly!), and donate the proceeds to "The Fund for Beardless Couples", which is apparently like a sperm bank for people who can't grow facial hair. Or she might turn the beards into a handbag. Or I could post them to Tom at work in an envelope.

The post title refers to one of their signature tunes, Auntie Mabel, which everyone chanted when they came back on after the encore. Only I misheard. I did quite a lot of that tonight - I thought one of the earlier bands was called Hawaiian Shirt Lady and the Bloody Marys, whereas in fact it was Ryan Shirlow and the Bloody Marys. (I'm sure Lint will correct me since I'm about certain that's still wrong, but once I've got something named in my head, it's stuck there. It took me nearly 2 months to start calling one of the guys in my Uni hall Marco rather than Michael. People should enunciate better.)

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