HONORARY DEGREE ANYONE?

I noticed in this week's papers that Kim Cattrall of Sex and the City fame has been awarded an honorary degree. Kim flew over to her English hometown to receive her degree from Liverpool John Moores university. Also in the news were honorary degrees for Orlando Bloom from the university of Kent, and golfers Padraig Harrington, Arnold Palmer and Tom Watson from the university of St Andrews. At my own graduation ceremony last December, no other than actress Liz Dawn aka Corrie's Vera Duckworth was on the stage receiving her degree. I have absolutely nothing against Ms Dawn or Ms Cattrall or any of the other celebrities personally. But I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking do they really deserve it and who actually benefits from their receiving these prestigious awards? Here comes the violins, but my graduation was the culmination of three years of study slumped over books and writing essays until the early hours combined with working full-time in nursing. Here's where I have a problem with giving honorary degrees to celebrities:- 


Universities are places of scholarly learning. Places should be hard earned and seen as a privilege. Gaining a degree is generally a hard slog. Gaining a Masters degree or Doctorate is even more of an accomplishment. Many scholars devote their life to research in order to use their knowledge to improve the lives of others. Giving celebrities Mickey Mouse degrees simply for their notoriety demeans the importance and 'honour' of gaining a degree through hard work and diligence. If the university is so hard pressed that it needs celebrities to don a cap and gown and provide free advertising in the papers, then here's a novel suggestion... Stop providing Mickey Mouse courses in Media Studies or Complementary Medicine and rather than be interested in earning money from students or from 'celebrity' publicity, far better perhaps to try to retain academic integrity. 


There, I've said it. 

HE'S THE ONE.....

If you have read any of my blogs, you may have gathered by now that I'm a big fan of music and in particular how it is interpreted by bad dancing. I'm not stating for one minute that I'm a Dame Margot Fonteyn or Beyonce in the dancing stakes. Far from it. I love a good boogie on the dance floor and acquit myself quite well by keeping in rhythm at least. I have a massive appreciation of professional dancers who are often so good, they make it look effortless. Anyone who has had even a smidgen of dance experience will know how hard it is to maintain the fitness, stamina and agility for dancing not to mention having to remember all the choreographed moves. 
It's therefore with much amusement, and a huge dollop of perversity that I watch people hitting the dance floor at family parties or weddings and trawl You Tube for examples of bad dancing. I just love it. 
I found this little beaut of a clip of Nigel Lythgoe (the original Pop Idol judge who famously called Kym Marsh 'fat') who used to be in a dance troup called Young Generation. Anyone from my era will recognise Young Generation as the backing dancers and latterly an act in their own right on 70's shows such as Seaside Special, The Rolf Harris Show, The Cilla Black Show, Lulu etc etc. I don't want to be unkind, but boy, they were mightily crap. Not quite as crap as Pans People, but still pretty crap.
This clip just beggers belief. Nigel is playing the lead dancer and provides an early inspiration for Mike Myers as Austin Powers. And if Nigel isn't bad enough, check out the blond, long haired dancer mainly at the forefront next to the nodding lead dancer. He's generally off-time, forgets his routine, forgets his lines and just gets in the way. I'm guessing he's the son of a BBC producer who got a summer job in Young Generation in his gap year. He probably grew up to be Michael Grade. Or Craig Revel-Horwood. 


And check out the song lyrics 'He's the one, he's the one, the one they call....Nigel'. Enjoy the camp awfulness of the routine.

JUST CALL ME BERNARD...

I was looking through some old school photos the other day which not only brought back memories, but got me thinking on the people I went to school with and their names. Being one of the 1960's baby boomer generation, it seems that most of the names were definitely of that time and very rarely feature in the notices for new arrivals. 

Consider these girls names from my schooldays:- 

Alison, Anne, Barbara, Carol, Carolyn, Denise, Gaynor, Jackie, Jane, Julie, Karen, Kay, Lesley, Lyndsay, Marie, Michelle, Sandra, Susan, Teresa, Tracy and Wendy. 

And these boys names:- 

Alan, Andrew, Anthony, Brian, Carl, Christopher, Craig, Graham, Ian, Jason, Kevin, Lawrence, Martin, Mark, Peter, Paul, Stephen and Wayne. 

I doubt whether many of these names would feature in today's new baby top 10 listings of names. It's funny how many names rise in popularity for a decade or so, then wane when a new crop of favourites become popular. It seems TV and film have a big part to play in naming your baby. In the 60's, songs, tv, character names or actors and actresses helped in the popularity of names. Michelle by the Beatles, the character 'Jason King' in Department X, Diana Rigg playing Tracy Bond in Her Majesty's Secret Service. 

Nowadays, traditional names are still popular with a resurgence of Victorian names (particularly for girls) such as Martha, Beatrice, Florence. There's also the big influence again from tv and film.... Chardonnay, Chantelle, Madison, Alfie, Phoebe, Harrison. 

And whatever happened to the names of my grandparent's generation? Will the likes of Mildred, Edgar, Dorothy, June, Margaret, Edna, Enid, Joyce, Walter, Harold, Ernest, Leonard, Ronald, Gladys, Gertrude, Edith, Pearl, Lena, Hilda and the unfortunate Fanny, ever be popular again? I doubt it somehow. 

Y VIVA ESPANA

At last it's over. Spain are World Cup champions beating the Dutch in a scrappy final. It's a pity that the Germany v Uraguay game for the third place slot wasn't the final. Both teams went out to win and there were goals a plenty. Last night's over-hyped game was far from pretty and mostly ugly in some of the tackles particularly from the Dutch. 
And so the WC ends for another four years. I can't say it was memorable. I can't think of any great stars that shone or any great teams that emerged. For me it will remembered mainly for the grumpiness of the players. Was it just me or did the players and teams just look unhappy to be there? The tournament simply didn't take off or have the excitement build up through the stages like previous tournaments such as Italia 90 or the Euro 96 games. We saw the Republic Of Ireland get cheated out of a place and the tournament was poorer for it. We saw France implode and Italy capitulate. And England... well, they were just awful. Spain were worthy winners and I'm pleased they won. 
I'm also pleased I spent the evening with mates at Vic's having a chilli special with home-made chocolate mousse. The match was pretty awful to watch but at least the food was excellent! 

ALWAYS LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE OF LIFE...

Had an absolute blast on Saturday when I met up with my mates from Lancaster and we went to see Spamalot. I hadn't seen my friends since the infamous YMCA dancing night in Morecambe last March, so a meet up was well overdue and much anticipated. I hadn't heard of Spamalot previously but found out it was written by Eric Idle and in his own words 'lovingly ripped off from Monty Python and the Holy Grail'. We trundled off to Manchester and walked through hot and humid streets with perspiration leaking through my head faster than a United Utilities burst water main. We walked down Oxford Road and saw loads of people gathered outside the Radisson Hotel and was told it was Nicole from Pussycat Dolls just leaving. Our showbiz sources told us that the X Factor auditions were taking place at the nearby G-Mex and Nicole (otherwise famous for schtomping Lewis Hamilton) was a guest judge. And so on to the Opera House which was mercifully air conditioned and packed out. Spamalot was surprisingly good and very entertaining. It starred Marcus Brigstocke as King Arthur, Todd Carty as Patsy (a sort of Baldrick character) and Blackpool girl Jodie Prenger in the Lady of the Lake role. I know I'm biased, but Jodie Prenger was excellent - there's a really good comic actress lurking behind the West End musical voice just waiting to be picked out by some up and coming comedy production. After the show, like a troup of giggling groupies we hotfooted it round to the stage door and met all the cast and had our photos taken. Jodie and I chatted about our Blackpool connection (like you do) and we all flirted a little with Todd (like you do). 
After a quick review of the photos, we stopped for a refreshment stop in a open air plaza and just watched city life at its best. Manchester really is a cool city. The city centre has a continental yet young, wealthy and metropolitan feel about it. There's loads of bars, coffee shops and restaurants all doing very well. We sat out in a small plaza and saw people relaxed and enjoying the weather with glasses of wine and chatting surrounded by Victorian buildings of old and modern glass fronted buildings post Arndale IRA bombing. We then pootled off to a little Asian restaurant in Albert Square and enjoyed a bottle of bubbly and some pretty sensational Indonesian/Thai food. Great day with great company with plenty of laughs as usual. 

FUN UNDER THE DRYERS

Today's visit to the hairdressers went well. Well in that my greying hair has been dyed back to mocha brown with golden highlights, I got two cups of coffee and a read through four OK and Hello magazines. I love going to the hairdressers. It's a couple of hours of relaxing and catch up with the latest goss on Katie Price and Alex Reid. Of course nowadays, the colouring process seems to occur more often than I'd like. Only the other night at the pub quiz, my hair was scrutinized by my fellow quizzers with witty reposts such as 'ooh, aren't you grey?', 'have you left those roots in on purpose?'. The bastards. So, I hotfooted it down  to my usual sanctuary and left two hours later and £62 lighter. 
Nowadays, the colouring process is so easy. I sit there whilst my hairdresser sort of weaves a comb through a tress of hair and paints on the colour over a kind of hand-held paddle. It's come a long way since the bleached highlights or 'streaks' of the 1980's. Eee, those were the days. You had a great big rubber cap covered in holes stretched over your head and a crochet hook would pull your hair through whilst you sat there gently sobbing through the pain. And if you were really lucky, the bleach would soak through to your forehead causing a red burnt head which would itch for weeks. And then you'd end up looking like a cross between Wincey Willis and Myra Hindley  with big hair and a cocktail fag and huge shoulder pads for your accessories. 
Good to see hair colouring and products have moved on since the bleach-ridden days of the 1980's. So, it was with a slight surprised look and my eyesbrows raised that I spotted this little ad in one of my hairdressers magazines. Fun Betty (Color for down there) is.. yes you've guessed it... an American product for dyeing your pubic hair. Only the conservative Americans can market a product with the term 'color for down there'. I dread to think of the wording the Swedish or Dutch would use. 'Mocha your muff' or 'tinge your minge' perhaps? 
Anyway, Fun Betty comes in the usual colours of blonde, brunette and black plus hot pink which I'm sure would only appeal to:- 


a) Barbara Cartland 
b) Katie Price aka Jordan 
c) Pink (the singer) 
d) Betty 'Fun' Turpin 
e) Zandra Rhodes
f) Christiano Ronaldo - if the rumours are to be believed.  

PAULPOWER.COM

No-one in Germany was too surprised when they were knocked out of the World Cup by Spain because it had been predicted live on tv. Paul the octopus has achieved celebrity status due to his uncanny predictions. Dubbed the psychic octopus, Paul has correctly predicted all Germany's results so far. Two glass canisters are dropped into Paul's tank containing a mussel and a country's flag.  Paul hovered above the container before finally selecting the mussel of his choice which so far has been the winner of each of the German matches. 
Not everyone however is a fan of Paul. After Argentina lost to Germany in the quarter finals, the Argentines threatened to kill Paul and put him in a paella. Argentine newspapers even gave a recipe for anyone daring to capture Paul, including the tip 'you need four normal potatoes, olive oil and a little pepper'. 


Paul, by the way is British born although I don't feel inclined to welcome him as a fellow countryman. Never mind his football gambling predictions, where's that sick squid he still owes me?