Flip!

So it's Tuesday, which means it's time for the Crack'd Pot. But it's also Shrove Tuesday which, to non religious people, (IE Almost everyone I know) means it is Pancake day! I'll let you take that in a minute.

So Pancake day, possibly the greatest day of the year (except maybe talk like a pirate day). It's the day where we make pancakes. It's a plain and simple holiday, a real "Ronseal" Job:
"It's Pancake Day what do you do?"
"Make some Pancakes"

As opposed to:
"It's Christmas day! What do you do?"
"Christ some mass? I'm at a loss"

Really Pancake day is the least confusable day. Which is really pretty sweet, it involves no brain power at all. Which we like. So Happy Pancake day to you.

So, it's obvious that I have forgotten (or never knew) the real reason of Pancake Day, Shrove Tuesday, but apparently it marks the day before Ash Wednesday (which was the second choice in naming the hero of the Pokemon series) and is a time for Christians to repent and clear themselves of sin in preparation for Lent, the whole forty days, forty nights thing that gives fat people a chance to make up on their failed new years resolution of "put down the fork". Which makes some sense to me, this is how the religious people see it:

Flour, Eggs and Milk are the equivalent of our sins
So we use up all the Flour, Eggs and Milk to show repenting our sins.
This leaves us with no Flour, Eggs or Milk, showing we have no sins.

Or, how I see it:
Flour, Eggs and Milk are really hard to find in your cupboard.
We Buy Flour, Eggs and Milk to make pancakes in preparation for our forty days of giving stuff up.
We then have no Flour, Eggs and Milk. Which means fat women have no cake baking ingredients, so they can "put down the fork"

I'm just saying it's one of the religious celebrations which has REALLY lost it's meaning; sure Christmas is commercial as hell, but you still have the whole Jesus thing with pancake day it's lost all meaning and is just about making awesome food. Not that I'm complaining.
That's all I'm saying, that and it's a conspiracy to make fat chicks thin again.

But I'm not here to talk only about Pancakes; those delicious, cakey, pans. No, I want to talk about holidays in general. With Valentine's day just gone (which is just swell), Easter around the corner (an early one this year), Christmas was a month and a half ago, and bonfire night and Halloween shortly before that it's clear to see that winter is a season of holidays.

Now I remember in School the teachers telling us that this was because of the shorter days of winter, and people needing cheering up, which for once, I buy. I mean cases of S.A.D (yeah, awesome mnemonic) are vastly increased in winter, when there's less vitamin D coming from the sun, because the damn clouds cover it (Darn you clouds!). So people need celebrations like Christmas, Bonfire Night, and Valentine's day to make you feel happier (though some may argue Valentine's doesn't make everyone cheery).

But that leaves summer. Now most summers are lovely and warm with the sun out and shining and what not, but if you're English, and live in England, you will have noticed, the sun is not that happy to be out and about in the summer.
Which leads me to my point, why don't we have some sort of holiday celebration in summer? almost every month has one up until June, and then after September, but there is a lull halfway through the year.
Thinking about it, it's quite simple. Everyone is happier in the summer in general, the sun has more chance of coming out, (now it's starting to sound like a closet homosexual) and most people have time off.
And, I suppose we do have holidays in the summer, just not religious ones. For music lovers, there's Glastonbury, for Comedy Lovers there's the Edinburgh festival Fringe, for Art lovers there's the Festival itself, and for sports lovers.. well I'm sure there's some sort of championship. This leads me to believe that summer is actually a relatively new invention, and the creators of this season realised we didn't have that much going on in those three or four months, so gave us these new "modern" things.

So once again in "The Crack'd pot" the point has been alluded and all discussion nullified.
Happy Pancake day!

Joe Strange
Is pretty damn excited about the summer.

My Festival Education

So with Glastonbury behind us now, I didn’t go but I was assured it was an insane experience, my thoughts this weeks go to festivals and all round excitement about events.

First of all there’s the excitement for the smallest happenings, a party? Everyone prepare with military precision who, what, when where, and then get ready with the hilarious anecdotes about what the crazy guy did that night. There’s always one, and if you don’t know them, you probably are them. In fact it goes further than the preparation, some small events are so saturated with alcohol, flashing lights and squirrels, that it seem like the biggest party in history even if it is just a drink down the pub that went a bit far. Now speaking of a bit far, I’m a relatively calm guy, I’m not one for getting “wrecked” or snorting sherbet through a toilet roll tube (it’s all the rage apparently). But that’s not to mean I don’t enjoy a few glasses of pimms and watching my butler juggle the family cats. But there are some people I know, no names but a lot of respect to these crazy people, which will see my few pimms and a juggling butler and raise me a crate of absinthe and a butler with the hiccoughs swallowing swords. These people truly are insane. They make horrendous claims such as “it must have been a good night, I don’t remember a thing” that sounds rather inconvenient, especially since you can’t figure out how you lost a kidney and grew an extra toe. And my favourite, “F***, What A F***ing Awesome Weekend. Alcohol, Unknown Drunken Injuries, Drink Driving On Dodgems, Sickness, Studio Bar, Skinny Dipping.... F*** Glasto, The Party Is Right Here.” (edited for your young pretty little minds)
This guy is so excited about a small celebration that he said to Glastonbury; “No, screw you, and your atmosphere and music, I’m fine being inebriated at a fair ground”

Before this year Glastonbury never really appealed to me, bands who I most likely won’t like, mud everywhere and sleeping out in the cold? When you’re as picky with music as me you get hesitant about spending a lot of money to see a few bands, most of which you’re not sure of if you can even stand. Of course you say that to any music fanatic and they will assure you, with a lot of force, I mean a lot of insistence, non of which is violent, that it’s not just a “few” bands, and in fact the atmosphere is something not to be scoffed at, in fact some say it is to be gawped at, and that if you say this again they will shove a small, claustrophobic mammal down your throat so it can reside there until the fear gets too much and it claws it’s way out. Apparently. So I now I have been educated in the awesomeness that is Glastonbury and the music there, I still have to be persuaded that the mud, strangers, cold and over all socialising is all worth it. It’s apparent that it is, according to eye witness reports, it doesn’t always rain at “Glasto”, not every one is going to murder you and jumpers are on sale everywhere. Oh and socialising isn’t all that bad either.

And well, looking at the past line up, well the one that was this weekend, there are so many stages and acts I must like at least one of them right? Yeah I thought so. It may be because I’m only a country boy trying to live the city life (on the basis I know how a computer works) but previously I thought all people wanted to hurt me. Who wouldn’t, with all this scare mongering about killers and stuff? I was also under the impression that the cold would kill you and that the only good company to keep was tree’s, sheep, and people you’ve known ever since you learnt to judge character. But apparently my West Country teaching was all a lie, and the above facts aren’t even true!
So I’m sold, on Glastonbury.

This all came to me about 9 months ago (it was just under 9 months later that I realised Glastonbury might not be terrible) when I was at a BBQ on one of the sunny days in the abyss of terrible weather that was last years “Summer”. I was talking to a new “friend” about comedy (my go to conversation) when some drunk old man comes into the kitchen and leans over the counter to us and says in a gravelly yet wise voice. “I couldn’t help overhearing that you like comedy” yes I replied to the drunken mentor. “Well may I kindly suggest…” a very long pause. Yes I thought, you can suggest anything kindly, just don’t bring out a blade (I was still under the impression all people where out to get me by now) “… that you go to the Edinburgh festival, its full of comedy, and some gigs are free, and you can heckle at the crap ones” Great I thought, it had already crossed my mind. But my doubts about the huge venues and lack of funds had kept me back from seriously thinking about it until then, but this drunken guy had told me it wasn’t too much of a problem, and so far he hadn’t brought a knife to my throat so he also threw that “lie” out of the water.

So a year or so later, I have decided to get my act together and organise a trip to Edinburgh for the festival in august, 5 days of comedy and theatre shows, and so far, in the planning stages it hasn’t blown up too badly. In fact we are almost ready to go, just got to wait until the date and save up for what will most likely be the funniest, most expensive 5 days of my ever so short life thus far.

Joe strange

I’m taking a break from my usual comical quips to say that during my Edinburgh trip I will most likely be keeping a blog and will have a few videos of the trip. How I intend to keep the “real time” blog without a computer, I don’t know, I may do a retrospective blog on the Saturday when I get back to Cornwall. So stay tuned!