Farting in Italy, nudity in Canada and the dead in the trenches of World War I

Blood-red ceramic poppies pour out of the Tower of London

Today is Remembrance Day.

I forgot until I switched on the BBC News after lunch and saw the Tower of London’s moat filled with the 888,246 ceramic poppies.

There are two unrelated posts in this blog today – about cultural events in Italy and Canada. It ends with poppies in Vancouver.

My farting chum Mr Methane has returned to the UK bearing a gift for me: a fridge magnet of Pope Francis – the only current world religious leader to bear a striking resemblance to 1980s British TV gameshow host Jim Bowen.

I mentioned in this blog last Friday that Mr Methane – who farts around the world professionally – was in Italy but I could not say why. This was because the Italian TV show he was appearing on wanted him to be a surprise for viewers and presumably they thought my increasingly prestigious blog, being widely read in Italy, might give the game away.

But now they have put the Mr Methane clip online on Vimeo, so I can tell you that, last Saturday, Mr Methane surprised the nation that gave us Punch & Judy and The Renaissance.

Mr Methane performed to an unprepared Italian nation on primetime television last Saturday night…

It was, perhaps surprisingly, Mr Methane’s first appearance on Italian TV.

“Did the audience know you?” I asked him yesterday.

“There was a buzz as I entered from stage right,” he told me. “The sort of buzz that tells you people in the audience know exactly what you are going to do. I think this shows that the power of the internet and YouTube over conventional TV is growing.”

“Did the Italians,” I asked, “react in any different way from other countries?”

“Well, it’s definitely different from Norway, Sweden, Finland, France or Germany,” said Mr Methane, “but its hard to say how exactly. It was certainly a more open, intellectual and civilised approach to the subject than Simon Cowell could manage.”

(Mr Methane was invited to appear on Britain’s Got Talent in 2009. There is a clip on YouTube. It has currently had over 33 million views.)

“I think the nice bit on the Italian TV show,” said Mr Methane, “was the ending. We managed to wheel out a few old jokes that may possibly be almost as old as the fart joke which, you will remember, Michael Grade discovered was the world’s oldest joke

“The set up on Saturday was:

Panel:  Are You Married Mr Methane?

Me: No

Panel: I wonder why not.

“Then we all laughed hard at the razor-sharp wit of the judging panel while at the same time enforcing some social stereotypes and norms – a good thing to do on a traditional Saturday night family TV show and a good way of smuggling farting into the format.

“I was worried that the main host, Seniora Mara, might mess up on the cake routine as there had been no rehearsal but she positioned the candles very well for a first-timer. She seemed to have an empathy with what was going on. This could be because she has a degree in chemistry, but it is more likely because she is just an intellectual and open-minded European. I mean, could you imagine Amanda Holden being able or willing to pull that one off – She’d be worried shitless about her image etc etc etc.

Les Dennis on Cardiff Bay in 2010. Does he fart dramatically? (Photograph by Ben Salter)

“In the early 1990s Bobby Davro told me that Les Dennis (Amanda Holden’s former husband) could perform the art of Petomania. I wasn’t sure if he was pulling my leg but about a decade later I was working on a Sky TV show with Les Dennis so I asked him about what Bobby had told me and he confirmed it was true although he said he had not tried it for a few years and didn’t know if he still had the abililty.

“So, to be fair on Amanda, as she lived with a man who possessed the gift of petomania, maybe – just maybe – I’m being a bit harsh about her ability to be able to hold candles up to a man’s arse while he farts them out. But what happens in the privacy of a person’s relationship should stay that way, so I can only speculate using the information available and come to the conclusion that while such a scenario was possible it probably never happened.”

“Did you try to speak Italian on the show last Saturday?” I asked.

“I spoke a little at the end to say Thankyou to the viewers but, for all I know, I could have been saying: I want to fuck a dead hamster.”

“What’s next?” I asked.

“A French TV show about super heroes is in the offing,” Mr Methane told me. “We just need to see if we can work the money and travel – I’m hopeful we can do as I really like the sound of the project and they seem to like the sound of me.”

Pope Francis on my fridge with a picture of my home town

“Thanks for the fridge magnet of Pope Francis,” I said. “Have you ever performed for any religious groups?”

“No,” said Mr Methane. “Although I was once thinking of reaching out to that market by releasing an album of faith-based recordings entitled Touching Cloth. In the end, I decided not to as I respect other people’s beliefs and would not want to offend them.”

Meanwhile, yesterday I also received news from this blog’s occasional Canadian correspondent Anna Smith.

She told me: “I met an exceptional 23 year old man this summer.

“It was in a park on the waterfront in Vancouver. He was apparently from Dublin, but wasn’t. He said his name was Eddie.

“I told him: There’s a song with your name – Eddie Don’t Like Furniture.

“He surprised me by saying: I HATE that song.

“You KNOW that song? I asked.

“I know it and I hate it, he said, clenching his teeth.

On Pender Island, there was a man who disliked all furniture

“I met someone on Pender Island, near Vancouver, who reminded me of it. He hated furniture too – partitions, anything resembling furniture at all…. He ripped them all out…He did it to a caravan and he did it to a fiberglass motor cruiser – right down to the bulkheads. He even did it to a Boston Whaler. He tore all the seats out until there was nothing left but the hull and a shredded-looking steering column. Like a maniac, he steered it through the shipping lane across the Georgia Straight from Pender Island to Richmond standing up as if it was a scooter. He never wore belts or shoelaces. He thought they were bad for the circulation.

“When people sink boats deliberately I try not to become overly involved. I loaned somebody my axe once and I never got it back.

Anna Smith is thinking of a book

“Maybe I should write a book with nothing but isolated paragraphs like that I think I could easily write a short string of striptease stories as I have told them many times over, just never written them all down.

“People do seem to enjoy those.

“The places I worked in… Very strange.

“I once performed a striptease at a library in Don Mills, an affluent suburb of Toronto. And I broke my foot flying off stage into a crowd of uranium miners in Northern Ontario. I was happy that happened on a Saturday, because it meant I only missed two shows out of the week.

“People in Vancouver are taking their clothes off in November for no particular reason and standing around outside the art gallery. The naked people are doing it because they want children to have a future and they told me it was not a protest but a Vigil for Vulnerability.

The Man in The Lego Mask & cape (Photograph by Anna Smith)

“I took photos.

“The man with the Lego mask and cape is Simon Leplante.

“He said he had made 50 of the Lego and chicken foot masks and given 48 of them away, mainly to women artists. He told me that he had performed a dance recently at a downtown nightclub and left the stage strewn with tiny bits of Lego.

“Outside the art gallery, the naked vigil enlivened the afternoon for a street vendor selling tourist trinkets. He shouted:

“You gotta LOVE the art gallery!

The Vancouver Vulnerability Vigil (Photograph by Anna Smith)

“The Vulnerability Vigil was originated by a woman from Victoria, British Columbia. The man in the photo with the tattoos is an art school model. They were very friendly and appreciative that I took many photos with their own cameras.

“Then a burly young security guard emerged from the art gallery but he did not call the police nor ask them to clothe themselves. He merely asked if they could move to a spot slightly to the west, as he said they were too close to the gallery restaurant.

“So they did.

“After I paid my phone bill I went to the library. There was an information fair outside the library where activists were promoting a movie about peyote and handing out stickers of opium poppies to remind us of the victims of all the wars.”

A potpourri of Plantar Fasciitis, the Egg Throwing President, farting & the Pope

The prestigious Andy Dunlop

I think the word for this late-posted blog today is ‘potpourri’ in lieu of any transcription time.

Various people who read yesterday’s blog suggested various sources of various Chinese medicines to me.

Andy Dunlop, the already highly prestigious President of the World Egg Throwing Federation, picked up on the thought that I may have got Plantar Fasciitis in my right foot. He wrote, with the merest hint of self-publicity:

I got Plantar Fasciitis in one foot and the other later following ‘flying’ off Worthing Pier to win the 2012 Worthing International Birdman’s Kingfisher Class.

The Worthing International Birdman is an annual competition in which human ‘birdmen’ attempting to ‘fly’ off the end of a pier into the English Channel. These attempts tend to end in ignominious failure. Andy continued:

My aim was to manage 100metres (to win £10,000) then turn left, head for France, land, stock up on beer, take off and fly back. This plan was curtailed when I only managed to fly 18 metres, including 11 metres downwards. I hit the water, feet first, at around 35mph. This tends to damage a foot and causes it to stretch. It was bloody agony. 

I am not allowed to take part in the Birdman contest any more as my wife says the risk of injury is too great for her to bear my groans and moans. 

This blog’s occasional Canadian correspondent Anna Smith also contacted me, asking:

Might there be a pain clinic in London? There is a pain clinic at St. Paul’s Hospital here in Vancouver. It is something to do with retraining your mind to react differently to the nerve impulses which are telling you you are in pain. Neuroplasticity, it is called. There is a book called The Brain That Changes Itself. You might also suffer less pain if you stay away from comedians.

Anna Smith, on a recent low-key visit to a Vancouver hospital

Anna continued:

I just had an appointment confirmation email from Cardiac Care at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver. I learned a new word. Apparently I am an aortopath.

Then she got a little off-subject:

Don’t even think of asking (she named a British comedian) about drugs. They never had any effect on him whatsoever. He is one of that small percentage of people whose mind is utterly unresponsive to THC. When I was in Lonon, he could never fathom why I would impulsively grab £5 and bolt down to Brixton. He seemed to think I went to those clubs because I wanted black men to put their hands into my pockets.

The only time I ever saw him high was late one night after a party in a photography studio in Soho. We had eaten some carrot cake at the party and were walking over Waterloo Bridge afterwards. He made a comment about the reflections in the river looking pretty. This was completely out of character for him. So I realised it must have been a very strong carrot cake. Other than that momentary observation about the lights, his composure was completely unaffected.

I did go and meet three senators one night at a very luxurious Vancouver airport hotel four years ago. It seemed a little odd to be meeting senators in a hotel room for non sexual purposes.

I went there with three other friends to petiton the senators not to close staffed lighthouses along the coast. Our lighthouses are not automated as they are in the UK. But our coastline is far more jagged and isolated. Boaters, especially fishermen, have had their lives and vessels saved innumerable times by the light keepers… Somehow I became fairly involved with that battle even though my boat has never been out of the river.

Alright, it was actually two senators and an Olympic ski champion, but the skier was also a senator, so I guess that does make three senators in total.

The senators had no idea that I was an ex-comedienne. They thought I was an angry mariner.

I grew up along the banks of the Mississippi. Actually, the city was on the Mississippi but our house was closer to the zoo. We could hear lions roaring as we fell asleep.

After this, my chum Mr Methane, who was on a secret farting mission to Italy this week, e-mailed me, totally ignoring my tragic foot (and shoulder) pain:

The Daily Mirror spotted a resemblance between purveyor of beloved populist fantasy Jim Bowen (left) and Pope Francis

I am back home in England. I have been travelling all day. No direct flights so I had to go via Germany. I had a ride on an open top bus in Rome yesterday and thought I saw Jim Bowen in a shop doorway but it was, in fact, a life size Pope Francis cut-out. I have bought you a Pope Francis fridge magnet from a souvenir stall outside the Colosseum in Rome, I thought you would like it as he really does look just like Jim Bowen.

This rubbed salt in my wounds, as I was recently passed-over for the role of Pope Francis in an upcoming pop video.

Life can be cruel.

But I am available to play the part of Jim Bowen in any upcoming pop videos.

How Bernard Manning was almost cast in a classic British children’s story…

Comedian and actor Matt Roper is going to the Edinburgh Fringe in August and should have a baptism of fire, as he is performing in two separate productions – as his comedy character Wlfredo in Wilfredo – Erecto! at the Underbelly and as a Satanic and sometimes singing spin doctor in the satire Lucifer: My Part in the New Labour Project (And How I Invented Coalition Government)at The Phoenix.

Matt is the son of George Roper, one of The Comedians in what was at the time the startlingly original and cutting-edge 1970s ITV series which introduced the British Isles to the ‘old school’ likes of Bernard Manning, Frank Carson, Stan Boardman and Jim Bowen.

I went with Matt to Soho last night to see London-based New York comic Lewis Schaffer‘s extraordinary on-going thrice-a-week Free Until Famous show. It was Matt’s third visit. I go to see the show maybe once every month – as Lewis Schaffer says, it is “never the same show twice”.

Matt, though every inch a ‘new-school’ comedian, grew up hanging round the old school comics as a kid.

Granada TV producer Johnnie Hamp was a seminal figure in British comedy of the time – he is also credited with putting The Beatles on TV for the first time. But I did not know until Matt told me last night that Johnnie had also put a young Woody Allen on British TV screens for the first time.

The most surprising story Matt had, though, was that his dad George Roper and Bernard Manning were originally considered for the parts of Tweedledum and Tweedledee in the mega-all-star 1972 movie version of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

At the time of the casting read-through in London, George Roper was starring nightly on stage at the Palace Theatre, Manchester. On the day of the read-through, train hold-ups in the North West of England delayed him to such an extent that getting down to London and back up again in time for his appearance on stage in Manchester was going to prove impossible, so he had to cancel his trip.

The ever-exuberant and straight-talking Bernard Manning did make it down to the session, though, striding brashly into the room where Dame Flora Robson, Sir Ralph Richardson, Sir Robert Helpmann, Dennis Price, Peter Bull and other creme de la creme of up-market British theatrical nobility was holding court.

With an outspoken fucking this and a What the fucking hell is that? and a right old fucking load of old fucking bollocks, Bernard soon made his presence felt and…

as a result, neither Bernard Manning nor George Roper were cast in the film.

The parts of Tweedledum and Tweedledee went to the Cox Twins

I can’t help feeling that Bernard Manning and George Roper would have been a casting made in  movie comedy heaven.

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More Matt stories Here.

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