Nice People Thread Number 11 - A Treasury of Nice People

Yorkie1

vivatifosi wrote: »

I am deliberately not listening to the songs so that I only see the two semi finals in the week before the final. I think I mentioned before that we are attending the jury final in person. ....

I didn't know the jury final was the previous night; does that just relate to some countries who don't have phone votes, or is it part of the country's overall vote or just a back-up in case of phone melt-down on the evening?

Just think how well we'd have done the year that the couple wore air steward/esses uniforms and were direly out of tune, if we could have gone for the jury votes instead from the previous night ...

Generali wrote: »

Yup, I'm awake.
...
This is horrible although a necessary part of getting well again.

Be kind to yourself and hugs to all of you.

vivatifosi

Yorkie1 wrote: »

I didn't know the jury final was the previous night; does that just relate to some countries who don't have phone votes, or is it part of the country's overall vote or just a back-up in case of phone melt-down on the evening?

All the countries, both those who make the final and those that don't, have two components to their vote. There's the national vote, which takes place on the actual evening of the contest. On top of that there is a jury vote. The jury is made up from music industry professionals from that country. Each has a weight of 50% of the vote. It is supposed to stop people voting on nationalistic grounds, but that doesn't always work. I'm sure CK will say if that's not a reasonable summary.

lemonjelly

vivatifosi wrote: »

Just finished the videos and quiz for week 3. Really enjoyed this week, probably the most interesting so far. Have decided to go for the harder track so have also submitted my first assignment (due I think in six days). Balancing two MOOCs at the same time is not easy. This is definitely my favourite of the two.

That's quick! I started week 3 this evening. Hoping to finish it off thursday, as a few things on tomorrow.

Nikkster wrote: »

I think I'm about to temporarily suspend having any 'spare' time starting on Friday Knew it would happen this month, I'm just getting into the swing of seeing friends, enjoying the garden etc. Oh well. Hopefully this will be the last year of my vacations in the office!

As soon as the house thing started I dreaded it interfering with the course. Were it not happening, I'd have gone the more intense route, but as a result am going for the easier route.

Nikkster wrote: »

I was toying with the idea of the harder version, but I think I'll stick to the easier one now. Might have to postpone the 2nd course too.
I've just done this weeks lectures too. Again, one of the experiments I completely disagreed with the conclusions drawn (can't remember which one now).

What other course are you 2 doing? Is it the same one?

I did see 2 others that were a bit interesting, & signed up for updates, as didn't want to start another one now.

lemonjelly

Generali wrote: »

Yup, I'm awake.

It reminds me of the line in Hitch Hickers Guide to the Galaxy that I feel horribly like being drunk.
What's so horrible about being drunk?
Ask a glass of water.

I had 4 hours sleep last night. My brain has been removed and replaced with recycled jelly-wrestlers' jelly and my neck is killing me. I've leaked blood all over the pillow.

This is horrible although a necessary part of getting well again.

:eek:

Hoping that you're healing well mate. Be taking care of yourself!

michaels wrote: »

Just this once we will forgive you for your jellyism....

:eek::eek:

silvercar

Generali wrote: »

Yup, I'm awake.

It reminds me of the line in Hitch Hickers Guide to the Galaxy that I feel horribly like being drunk.
What's so horrible about being drunk?
Ask a glass of water.

I had 4 hours sleep last night. My brain has been removed and replaced with recycled jelly-wrestlers' jelly and my neck is killing me. I've leaked blood all over the pillow.

This is horrible although a necessary part of getting well again.

Hope you start to feel a lot better soon.

I don't understand the joke.

tomterm8

It's quite nice to be in the first eurovision for ages where Britain probably isn't the most hated country in europe...

Generali

silvercar wrote: »

Hope you start to feel a lot better soon.

I don't understand the joke.

It's a play on words.

Being drunk is quite a nice feeling. Relaxing, conversation flows more easily etc.

However, for a glass of water, being drunk is an existential crisis.

Jokes are never funny when they're explained.

neverdespairgirl

ukmaggie45 wrote: »

I love Flanders and Swan - we used to sing The Hippopotamus Song to the DDs when they were little. I wonder if they will sing it to their kidliewinks!

hjd wrote: »

My parents sung Flanders and Swann to us; my grandmother joined in too. It was one of our favourite records.
I got a cd of them not long ago.
We (or at least I, as DH doesn't sing) sung F&S to our children too. Remains to be seen if they have children, but I'm certainly happy to sing their songs to any grandchildren I may have (scary thought!)

My mother used to play us Drop of A Hat and Drop of Another Hat in the car, and we'd sing them, too. I've played them to Isaac as well, and sung some of them as well (he particularly liked "I'm a Gnu" as a baby). He likes "Transport of Delight" a lot now, too.

I love "Madeira M'Dear" as well, with the wonderful lines such as She lowered her standards by raising her glass, Her courage, her eyes-and his hopes.

The preambles are as good as the songs - part of it for this one is:

What English national song have we got? "Jerusalem" . . . "There'll always be an England". Well, that's not saying much, is it? I mean, there'll always be a North Pole, if some dangerous clown doesn't go and melt it.

I think that the reason for this is that in the old days - you know, the good old days when I was a boy - people didn't, we didn't bother in England about nationalism. I mean, nationalism was on its way out. We'd got pretty well everything we wanted and we didn't go around saying how marvelous we were - everybody knew that - any more than we bothered to put our names on our stamps. I mean, there's only two kinds of stamps: English stamps in sets at the beginning of the album, and foreign stamps all mixed at the other end. Any gibbon could tell you that.

But nowadays nationalism is on the up and up and everybody has a national song but us. The Americans have national songs, like "My country 'tis of thee", which they sing to the tune of "God save the Queen", I may say, and which together with their long range forecasting of our weather I find hard to forgive. Yes, and the Germans - and whatever you say about the Germans (and who doesn't) - what a marvelous song that was: "German, German overalls". Now there's a song.


And the wonderful bit about flying to America:

We're often asked . . . sometimes asked . . . somebody asked me once - why don't you write a song about flying? It's not a bad idea, really. Swan and I have had to do quite a lot of flying lately - by air - and I must say it's rather marvelous when you think of it, isn't it, that, you know, if you want to go to New York, say, instead of lying about for days on end, like in a sort of floating Selfridges, doing nothing, eating far too much, all you have to do is just jump on a plane, seventeen miles outside London at two o' clock in the morning.

You'll be . . . you can be in New York too late for breakfast and just in time to go to bed at noon. Doesn't take your physical body more than about a week to catch up with this

neverdespairgirl

ukmaggie45 wrote: »

My father was supposed to go and work in Hemel Hempstead when I was 13, we were going to have a new build in St Albans. But then his company was taken over so we ended up moving to West Kirby (on the Wirral, I hate the place! Snob City!) and he worked in Liverpool instead. My mother never liked Liverpool - suspect she thought it was "common". :eek: I escaped to this side of the Mersey as soon as I could, just after my 21st birthday. Back in those days 21 was age of majority, and I damn near missed my own 21st party because of that as they weren't going to let me stay over at OH's parents' house because "You're not 21 YET!" until OH's Dad phoned and lied that he and OH's Mum would be there! LOL, it was only about 10 days before my birthday!

My parents were both born in Wallasey (on your childhood side of the river) and my mother left aged about 6 with her parents, and my Dad stayed there until he was 18 and left for uni in Bristol.

LydiaJ

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

I love "Madeira M'Dear" as well, with the wonderful lines such as She lowered her standards by raising her glass, Her courage, her eyes-and his hopes.

That one is so clever.

...he said as he hastened to put out the cat, the wine, his cigar, and the lamps...

and best of all:

He said "What in heaven?" as she made no reply, up her mind, and a dash for the door.

I love the way Flanders crafts the words together, and it was one of my favourites as a kid when I had no idea what it was about - although I didn't think it was about cake like Flanders's nephew (and Swann!). But, now I'm grown up, I realise that it's about date rape, and that spoils my enjoyment of the word-smithing. It's odd, isn't it, that in that era, so much more prudish than ours in so many ways, it was OK for them to write both that one and the Tongan one, and everybody just thought it was funny?

I like First and Second Law (obviously) and Misalliance and Ill Wind and The Sloth and Vanessa. Well, and lots of the others too.