Iestyn Edwards Wonders...is it Lumpy or Runny?

     All I remember about this night was the Royal Marine  confiscating my chocolate HMS Victory canon ball...   Lovely mention from  The Telegraph  about the Trafalgar 200 supper on board HMS  Victory  with Her Majesty and the Duke of Edinburgh as guests of honour.  Lula, harp, and I performed the Duke of Edinburgh's favourite song. 

You know those times when we get borderline catatonic watching all and sundry chase their goals? Hearing them tell us how to achieve ours? It gets that bit too glossy, bossy — and, yes, drossy . (I may have invented that word…) But then what do I know? I can’t even use the IG filters prettily. Perhaps, first let’s admit how, far from having all the answers, we don’t even know the questions. Then — maybe, let’s not push this — consider one thing we might know. What we don’t want in life . Start there. List those things. Along with the very beginning , knowing what you don’t want in your life is a very good place to start! Look at that — a Sound of Music reference for first thing on a cloudy Thursday. Talking of today’s weather - earlier, I came out with this spoonerism: ‘Oh, it’s gone a clit boudy …’ Ooh, er , missus. #goals#goalsetting#selfhelp#motivation#motivational

 

                            Therese, soprano, never uses a library. ‘Oh, no, Iestyn. Unlike you, I pride myself on always buying my books.’ I agree with Helene Hanff, who said that buying a book you haven’t read is like buying a dress without trying it on. ‘How do you know the dress will fit, Therese?’ I asked. ‘I always know what’s going to fit me, book-wisely speaking. I tune into asking the universe what it needs me to read for the greater good, go into the bookshop and find that I’m drawn to a department, then a section of carpet, then the particular shelf and there will book the book, in a sort of outline of almost light picked out from the others around it.’ ‘But there are billions of books out there, Therese, in umpteen shops, divided into squillions of bits of carpet and…’ She was giving me her look: a nurse at my hospital bed telling me the prognosis was far from ideal. ‘Yes, but with me it’s narrowed down q...

                                                                 Being camp in Camp Basra... Stacks, ex-Royal Marines Commando, recently watched my Tutu Went AWOL! show on Zoom. He had notes. I was shifting from foot to foot, he said, and gesturing too much. 'And you must put back the stuff about the Brigadier and your fellow comedian being homophobic...' The Brigadier had been sneering about my act, saying it would be more suited to Butlins. But, more importantly, he believed I was an 'inappropriate influence on 42 Commando'.  Stacks, deadpan, commented, 'Sir, before Iestyn started hanging out with us, sir, it had never occurred to him to play Tiddlywinks with anything other than his thumb, sir.'  My fellow comedian, who I'll call Mark, because that's his name, asked Reg, Garrison Sergeant Major, in front of ...

I overheard this on my walk earlier: WOMAN. Look, those cows are lying down because it's raining. MAN. Is that really a thing? WOMAN. Well, they're lying down, aren't they? MAN. Yes, but those other cows further up there are standing. WOMAN. I expect that's because they  want  to get wet.  #overheard#eavesdropping#life#funny#comedy#humour#humor#publicspeaker#talks#theatre#walks

We've had such a heatwave here, Ellen Marsden nearly started sleeping outside early.  Ellen is next door neighbour to Carl Frint, gardener at Longacres House.  He'll tell you, 'I can mark my seasons' clock by first hearing Ellen squidging around on her air mattress. I'll be taking  Penny out to do her business last thing, and Ellen will call over the wall - council still hasn’t repaired it: eleven years and counting - “Here’s me then, sleeping outdoors for the foreseeable”.  And I'll call back, being careful not to mention the obvious, "Well, you need to be comfortable".' The obvious being that Ellen weighs thirty-five stone. Carl has other season markers. Dahlias blackened by first frost, first car accidents due to dry ice, first ducklings mauled by Sadie and Buster, Lady Dawn's German Shepherds.  Those markers remind me of Halberdier Glass from Waugh’s Sword of Honour trilogy. ‘Two of our platoon overstayed their leave this morning’; ‘Major ...

At the Turkish Barbers' Academy yesterday, I asked the stylist for a number three on top, two on the sides. He asked if my wife liked me to always have three and two? 'I'm not married.' 'Why not?  You're a man.' 'Are you married?' 'No.' 'But you're a man...' Later, during the Q and A after my Women's Institute lecture, a member asked me to lift up my tutu so she could see my knickers properly.  'No.' 'Well, please pirouette again, it flew up when you did that.'  'Then you've seen already, no?' Another wondered if I would like an extra piece of her (delicious) cake to take home to my wife.  'Husband, possibly,' I said, bemused. 'Well, I don't like to make assumptions.' The nurse at the NHS walk in centre thinks this kind of behaviour is a by-product of lockdown.