Ghasted flabber as the party unravels in the south of Mahe

Man's best friend in the Seychelles. Presumably this one is attached to metal.

It was probably some divine retribution. After debasing ourselves at the karaoke, the other one and I headed outside whereupon the other one glancing at the car discovered… Do I have to spell it out?

A BLEEDIN FLAT TYRE.

THREE, THREE??! IN AS MANY WEEKS.

I took myself to the nice happy land of public transport again while the other one huffed and puffed trying to change the wheel. Unable to jack the car up properly, help was proffered along with the discovery that the problem with the jack was that it wasn’t under a bit of the car that was metal so couldn’t get a grip. Good to know.

Silent prayer sent up to car saint for no flat tyre on the drive home, having no tyre to spare.

Read Full Post »

Jaunts to the south of Mahe – more Seychelles directions hurrah!

Oh so sadly not the case

Day 2 of half term and a receive a text inviting us to an afternoon soiree, A mini adventure as not been to H’s place before,so we set off , fortuitously finding the newbies are behind us (that’s the Seychelles for you) – and they know where they’re going but then they disappear from the rear view mirror. The phone rings and they tell us that we should have turned off by the building with the blue roof – we’d been told red ho hum. Follow the newbies, both cars climb up a very steep hill to find it’s the wrong one so have to reverse back down again much to the other one’s chagrin (I’m thinking if we do this overseas school thing again, perhaps we go to the Netherlands, v flat).

Arriving at H’s and spotting the balloons and birthday cards, the little monkey hadn’t told us it was a birthday party so I wish her happy birthday and then tell her off. The drinks flow, the food is yummy, topped by the biggest most chocolately chocolate cake you’ve ever seen. You don’t see cakes like this just anywhere and I learn that you can get them done at Seychelles airport (where else?) by Skychefs or something- assuming they’re the airline caterers!

could have sworn they wore bobble hats...

H then drops the bombshell that karaoke is next. Let me be clear – I don’t usually do karaoke. My strategy is one of shoop shooping backing dancer. However, during an exclusive appearance at the other one’s 40^th where I mauled The Proclaimers ‘500 miles’ relying on a bobble hat and manic marching to get me through (a friend managing to extricate himself from the startled audience, joining me to spare (share?) my humiliation) broke the seal on doing embarrassing things to entertain other people (drunken antics being a separate category and too numerous to cite). As it was H’s birthday not and we had to get the party started, I thought what the hell, can’t let H do it all on her own. So, the other one and S found ourselves in H’s living room with the Grease soundtrack the only karoake CD working – the High School Musical crack of the 70’s. So we got stuck into some groin thrusting for Grease Lightning, disillusioned crooning to Beauty School Dropout and lord have mercy, skipped a solo effort of Sandy from the other one as we couldn’t find it (allegedly)..

It was then someone’s great idea for the other one and I, to sing we go together.

What the chuff?

We go together like biddy bop bop, chitty chang de de dop de wop?? I might have sang. The other one probably sang something completely different.

Danny and Sandy, rock and roll cool, everyone together having a great old time at the fair.

Me and the other one shouting gobbledekook into a microphone with a couple of bemused onlookers.

What a right pair of *obs.

Technorati : dance, entertainment, random, seychelles
Del.icio.us : dance, entertainment, random, seychelles
Zooomr : dance, entertainment, random, seychelles

Read Full Post »

There’s no business like show business

Sweet relief that the dress rehearsal for the dance extravaganza moved from 9.00am to 1.00pm giving me ample time for a lie in. On arrival however, I found out that there was no rehearsal and instead three hours to get ready. Three hours to put on a pair of shorts, t- shirt and a bit of make up in a dressing room shared with mostly teenage Seychellois girls. Even those of a high maintenance bent would struggle to fill that. I could have stayed in bed godammit.

So to while away the time (I wasn’t even on until the end of the second half) I wandered backstage navigating the running, squealing fairies, angels, chefs and wolves etc all awaiting their turn to perform in high pitched excitement. I went over the moves in my head prompting one of the girls to ask me if I was ok (who knows what face I was pulling) and once the curtains were up, I did my utmost to watch the show from the wings (frowned upon but I was a grown up, so there). There was a great mix of entertainment, from crowd pleasers inspired by the likes of Mary Poppins, Ratatouille, Prince of Egypt and Red Riding Hood to more contemporary pieces, immaculately performed by the older ones, making me wistful for Monday nights at the Manchester Youth Contemporary Dance Theatre.

I got a lunchbox during the interval, never had that before (though it wasn’t that edible!) but still it’s the thought. I’d be surprised if they made any money from the show given that the ICC is a pretty good facility and there was full stage management yet there’s still a commitment to this kind of stuff. As a kid I remember numerous school and youth performances at the Royal Northern College of Music no idea – do they still do it? – if not, it’s a shame…

…after all who would want to miss out on me heffalumping to the funky beats of the High School Music 3? I did my very best to ‘perform’ managing not to freeze, fall over or make an idiot of myself though dancing while surreptitiously trying to remove hair that was sticking to my sweating face under the glare of the lights, was no easy task. The other one captured some of it on our camera, which horrified me when I saw it later on – the group as a whole was under rehearsed and it could have been far better and then there was  that bit where I seemed to have  completely forgotten what came next… Wonderful how technology exposes the lies that our brain would have us readily believe! Ah well, its all in the name of fun.

Read Full Post »

And on

I find out through someone from school that the date of the show has changed again, it’s a day earlier. The date of the run remains unchanged.

That means the dance show is the day after the run.

Brilliant.

Read Full Post »

Keep that good news coming

Found out today from a potential car buyer (not having access to internet, TV, radio or paper) that the government had some kind of budget thing this week. Guess what?

They’ve reduced the tax on imported cars by at least half. That’s the bottom falling out of the second hand car market then.

Great.

Read Full Post »

Social calendar clash calamity

I’ve just found out that the Christmas dance show is scheduled for the same day as the 80km run.

Hmmmmm.

Making an idiot of myself dancing on stage with a bunch of kids vs making an idiot of myself trying to run in an 80km relay. There’s a choice I wasn’t expecting six months ago.

Read Full Post »

There’s no business like show business

Help. The National Conservatoire of Performing Arts has a Christmas Show – and I’m expected to be in it.

Prancing on stage with teenyboppers; youthful, supple, slender things who wouldn’t know what cellulite was if it came and bit them (mercilessly) on the bum is not quite the anticipated paradisiacal lifestyle.

At least on a beach you can either:

a) lie prone, breathe in hard
b) dart quickly between water and shore, breathe in hard.

Dancing on stage, giving maximum opportunity for wobbly bits to wobble and maximum exposure for flexible parts not to flex, isn’t the sophisticated Seychelles image I was after. Let alone the nightmare potential for heavy sweating.

I ask if I have to be in it.  ‘You’ve been practising like everyone else’ is the sneaky neither yes or no reply.

Bugger that means she’s leaving it up to me. And the thing is now I’m involved. I’m part of the routine. And being so pathologically polite, I don’t want to let them down…

Better start scouring the island for decent anti-perspirant.

Read Full Post »

Pathologically polite?

Politeness can be an evil thing. It makes me do things I don’t really want to do. I went back to the dance class as the lady had been very nice inviting me in the first place and I didn’t want her to think that I went once and thought it was rubbish.

I then saw the kid from school who dances and he chatted to me about it enthusiastically and said that he’d see me there next week. Now he probably couldn’t give two hoots whether I go next week or not but it was really nice seeing him coming out of his shell and relating to me on that level. So I think it would be rude (and I’d feel bad) if I don’t go.

I think if there is such a thing as being pathologically polite…this guy once threw up on a coach near me on a very long journey and everyone got up and moved and I felt bad for him and didn’t move. I think that was weird.

Come to think of it I only came to the Seychelles cos the other one asked so nicely.

Read Full Post »

The Crazy One at the Back

knackered like me

I remember clearly one of the jazz classes I went to at Pineapple in Covent Garden. Though billed as a general ability class, it became apparent that actually everyone was really rather good, attended regularly and knew all the moves to the obviously set warm up. Doing a routine to ‘Kids’ they all started leaping in my direction and I stood there like a lemon finding comfort from one small fact; there was a bloke about 60 with the most ridiculous headband who couldn’t dance for toffee. Mean I know, he was giving it a go, but his being there meant that at least I looked a little less stupid.

I am now that man.

Trying out the dance class I was invited to (busting out the music and moves 2) I was surrounded by 13 year- olds (maybe younger!) and yes a boy from the school who I knew only because he’d been victimised by my chronically bad German once when he’d come to the office ill (he was German I wasn’t trying to be funny in some random Yoda is not welsh way). I think I had said ‘Was ist los?’ but didn’t actually wait for a reply as I wouldn’t have understood it (unfortunately, it hadn’t seemed apt to come out with my favourite killer German line ‘Ich bin ein Hotelbus’).

Anyway, they’d all been learning this routine and I was invited to join in. I gave it a good go but felt pretty wretched; my kicks weren’t high, I had to clamber on a chair and jump off it – that can’t be good for the bones – and worse, I used to always pick these things up really quickly but like everything else driving, kayaking, my brain ain’t what it used to be and I HAD TO COPY PEOPLE.  My professional dancing pride took a knock. I thought sack it, got home eventually (after doing my 5km run too) and had a beer thinking I may as well kill a few more brain cells while I’m at it. At least I’m old enough to drink. And I’ve been through puberty. Suckers.

Read Full Post »

Bust out the music and moves (Part 1)

 The Seychelles has its own equivalent to the New York Academy of Performing Arts (aka ‘Fame’ school), ‘The National Conservatoire for Performing Arts’ a noble enterprise in a country with 80,000 inhabitants. As part of the Paradise Promised lifestyle change, I feel it necessary to investigate further. The other one has always fancied playing the piano, and having murdered the violin for a couple of years at primary school (flogged unceremoniously at a car boot, not that I’m bitter dad), I know not to go near it again. Instead, I rather fancy myself as a saxophonist playing a raft of jazz standards, like Kenny G but with a better name. I try not to let the nightmare reality of never developing beyond Clair de Lune (if I’m lucky), Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (something to aim for) or London’s burning (run for the hills) intrude upon this fantasy.

Visiting the school, I learn that all the classes are full for this term and that for most classes you need your own instrument except for piano; a fact that means I may have do piano instead. It is no minor understatement to say that the other one will not be happy. A similar experiment in learning Spanish, theory being that we would both encourage and support each other (ha!), ended badly as the other one was revealed as a super swot, sitting upfront and answering questions (it was all I could do to stop him from sitting in teacher’s lap), which in itself wouldn’t have been that bad if he had actually bothered to share his homework and answers with me but he didn’t. I mean really.

I ask anyway about what other instruments I could learn and get one of my favourite random responses. The guy waves vaguely and expansively at a poster of musical instruments, generously inviting me to pick any. Really? But surely there must be a minimum number of students to run a class? How do I know which classes will be running? I persist with my logic. Bad move. Clearly I’m overcomplicating things, just fill in the form saying what instrument and at what level, I’m told. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I bid them farewell, application form in hand and bury my desire to break down distraught, pleading ‘it’s not on the poster but please, please let me learn the accordion. I’ve got this beret…’

Read Full Post »