I wanna tell you a story

My earliest experience of being in the presence of celebrity occurred when I was only about 5 years old.

The New Cross Empire was just a short walk from my chlidhood home.

It was built as a music hall in the early years ot the 20th century.

One day, as I was being wheeled towards the theatre, a figure came out which, even at my very young age, I recognised as Max Bygraves.

Max was a popular entertainer. He had many hit songs and TV shows. Everybody knew who Max was. The Empire was a local venue for him, as he was born in neighbouring Bermondsey, SE London. His catchphrase was "I wanna tell you a story." His most famous songs include "Tulips from Amsterdam" and the naive (children's?) song (these days I wonder...) "You're a pink toothbrush, I'm a blue toothbrush".

A few years ago I idly googled Max and was surprised to find he was alive and well and living in Australia. No more. On Friday he died, a last link with my childhood.

The theatre itself was demolished many years ago. This is what they did with the site:

That's right, folks. For more than 50 years it has been a used car lot. Every time I went to secondary school the view slapped me in the face, as the site is bang opposite my school building.

What a waste.

Lady's Man - Day 17

I think he's got what he needs...in more ways than one.

NBC Shame

I'm choosing Post 3800 to express my disgust with NBC at something far worse than cancelling LOCI.

They have bought the US rights to the Paralympics, but are not showing them. They are going to make a one hour highlights show after the Games have finished.

The disrespect to both the incredibly talented athletes, and to every disabled person worldwide (apparently there are 38 million in the US alone, and the number of disabled ex-service personnel must be vast) is just unbelievable.

Over here people are complaining about the ad breaks and the crass commentaries, but there is wall-to-wall coverage and every stadium is packed to the rafters.

Let's hope this leads to the US never again being awarded the Olympics, or at least not until the country and its broadcasters learn to give parathletes, and the disabled in general, the regard and respect they deserve.

And SHAME on NBC.

Lady's Man - Day 16

Look how his little nose scrunches up when he's laughing!

Top Treats

As this morning was fine, I decided to pay a return visit to Port Lympne Wild Animal Park to see if I could catch up with some of the creatures I missed two weeks ago. I was luckier than I ever could have imagined.

I managed to see both the Carpathian lynx and her cubs, though only one was visible enough to photograph. They were eating dead bunnies.

This is the mother:



The cub was making a meal of it:







There were four tigers visible today, three of them posing nicely together.



The barbary lions looked cosy together.



I've never seen a binturong before.



This lemur was not the bamboo one on the sign. I think it's a type of sifaka. Very beautful.



The rusty spotted cat was tiny.



The margay was gorgeous.



Then the very rare fossa put in an appearance. Like all the animals I saw at feeding time, he was voracious.

Lady's Man - Day 15

Bobby's almost as good an actor as Vincent.

An Anniversary and an Almost

I have a huge sense of guilt that I missed the anniversary of my beloved Henry, who died on 25th August 2009, snatched from me by the inadequacies of a supposedly specialist vet and a virulent respiratory infection.



He was special, naughty, sweet, entertaining, clever, affectionate, scornful, a proper little person, who talked to me a lot - as long as he felt like it.

Today is the second anniversary of my darling Shelley's death. He was 19-and-a-half, a wonderful age for a wonderful boy. He passed away in his sleep just before midnight on 30th August 2010.



You cannot imagine a more affectionate and sweet-natured cat, not to mention absolutely beautiful.

I will remember, love and miss them both for as long as I live.

Lady's Man - Day 14

Bobby's such an attentive listener. That's good, I have a lot to tell him...

Lady's Man - Day 13

Even in repose, you can't take your eyes off him...

Three in a row

Having just had two days of watching Vincent, today I topped up with our annual UK Vixens reunion in London. (OK, I know last year we had two, when Maui came to visit, but that was a lovely exception.)

You just can't have too much Vincent.

Ann, who doesn't blog any more, but will always be a treasured member of the Gang, is in charge of finding restaurants. Today we came out of Victoria Station and looked across the road. There was a perfectly decent restaurant just a short stumble away, and we ensconced ourselves for a couple of hours eating pizza and delicious desserts, and talking Vincent. Good find.

Ann had to go fairly early, so we walked past Buckinham Palace and through Green Park to get her to a convenient tube station, then Eliza, Diane and I carried on to look at the Bomber Command monument I blogged about at its unveiling in June. Then we retraced our steps and found  a coffee shop where we all had - Ta-Da! - tea.

Diane thought I might photoshop her picture. Even if I could, I don't see why I'd need to:



I just had to get a picture of Eliza's handcuff necklace. I wonder why she wears that?



They insisted I have my picture taken. If I could have photoshopped anything, it would have been my boobs out of this shot:



For some reason Diane and Eliza wanted to know all about Chained. They even insisted I tell them about the "twist". Diane was quite to keen to know if Vincent's character dies, and if so how.

We also reminisced about those who have come and gone from the Vixen and V-blogging world. We, of course, are here to stay.

Missing Vixens, where are you? Let us know.

Lady's Man - Day 12

Oh to be Eames.

Film Review - Sinister

Well, yesterday was the first part of my Vincent D'Onofrio long weekend Frightfest film fun.

The evening started with the introduction by one of the festival's organisers, Paul McEvoy, of one of the film's writers, C. Robert Cargill, whose first visit to the UK this was. He was to answer questions at the end, but it was by then gone 11pm, and it was time to get to the station for the last trains home.

The film was pretty scary - though it would have been less so without the impressive sound system, which was used to great effect to help every sudden loud noise make you jump out of your seat. At the start, you can't help thinking that Ethan Hawke's character Ellison Oswald is bonkers to take his family to a house where another family had been killed and a daughter gone missing, when he has a daughter himself and a disturbed son. Then, when strange things start to happen, you can't understand why he doesn't get the hell out, financial problems or not. When things finally get so serious that he moves them out in the middle of the night, you're sure they will not be allowed to go. But they get back to their own home, where Ellison eventually takes a call that turns everything on its head, and leads to the final shocking denouement.

The acting was very good, especially Michael Hall D'Addario as the disturbed son. Vincent's role as Professor Jonas, to whom Ellison turns for advice on the symbology from the crime scenes, is small, and takes place only in a window on a computer scree - not much chance to shine, though of course, being Vincent he makes his cameo count. He sounded as if he was suffering from a bit of a cold.

All in all, worth seeing, especially in a big cinema with a good sound system, but enjoyable enough to give you a good fright on your TV at home.

Lady's Man - Day 11

Big man leaning on big arms. On top of me...

Lady's Man - Day 10

That big barrel chest would be perfect for me to lay my head on.

Lady's Man - Day 9

Has Bobby been partaking of the grain or grape?

Lady's Man - Day 8

No, Bobby, that's not my bed, over here, over here!

Lady's man - Day 7

I would LOVE to have my view obscured by that big back!

Lady's Man - Day 6

Love the way the light enhances his lovely features.

Lady's Man - Day 5

Oh my gawd look at those arms!

The Moors Murderers - Pure Evil

Back in the mid 1960s Britain was shaken by the discovery that a pair called Ian Brady and Myra Hindley had tortured and murdered three children. Their victims were buried on Saddleworth Moor, near Manchester.

Ultimately it became clear that they had five victims, but the body of one, Keith Bennett, has never been recovered. Hindley died in prison in 2000, and Brady is in a mental hospital because he wants to starve himself to death, so he has to be force fed daily (hope it really hurts). Winnie Johnson, the mother of Keith Bennett, repeatedly asked Brady to tell her where her son's body was, so that she could bury him properly. He has never given her any hope.

Then a regular prison visitor, when being interviewed by a TV crew, dropped the bombshell that he had given her a sealed letter, which she thought contained the whereabouts of Keith Bennett's remains. It was to be given to Keith's mother after Brady died, to give her some relief.

It took the TV company 10 days to tell the police. It took the police 2 weeks to do anything about it. Meanwhile Winnie Johnson was in a hospice with terminal cancer, and had slipped into a coma. She died on Friday after 48 years of torment, without realising her wish of burying her son.

Brady knew she was ill. He knew the authorities wouldn't let him return to prison to starve himself to death. He just wanted to torment this poor woman to keep her in his power, to make her a further victim of his evil.

The police have searched unsuccessfully for the letter.

I hope Brady gets a really nasty but slow terminal illness, that they give him no relief, and that he dies in agony after months or years of suffering. The man is evil incarnate.

Lady's Man - Day 4

I wonder whose finger this is? I wonder what else he could do with it...

Lady's Man - Day 3

I'm sorry, those shoulders just bewitch me.

Lady's Man - Day 2

Bedroom eyes.

One Determined Lady

Lady? Well, perhaps not!

Scottish wild cat keeper Neville told us yesterday about his Bengal cat.

Bengal cats are a relatively new breed, and they are incredibly beautiful:

Neville acquired his from the daughter of the original owner of the two animal parks, millionaire casino owner John Aspinall. He and his wife looked after the cat soon after she was bought while her owner went on holiday. His wife became attached, so when Ms Aspinall was concerned at her behaviour in her place in London, she asked them to adopt the creature so she could go outside.

Of course, in reality, she was just coming into season. She disappeared for seven days, and came back with a large black tomcat in tow, pregnant.She had 3 kittens.

The vet advised they get her spayed as soon as she stopped lactating, but as soon as the kittens were eight weeks old she disappeared again, and the cycle repeated itself. This time she had 7 babies.

They decided to keep her in an enclosure in the garden, but once she realised what they had in mind she went missing ahead of her season.

By the time they managed to get her "fixed" she had given birth to 27 kittens. One determined little kittie!

As the family also keeps Maine Coons, I'm not sure if it was one of them, or one of the Bengal's kittens, who was so big he had to have a dog collar, as a cat one big enough could not be found.

Lady's Man - Day 1

Carrying on where we left off,  Bobby in his warm coat (I'm snuggled inside).

One of those special days

I took my friend to Port Lympne Wild Animal Park today. we saw some wonderful things. There was the dusky langur with her ginger baby:



I'd never seen bush dogs before. They made a sweet little high-pitched noise, but I'll spare you the horror story of how they co-operate to hunt prey:



The male Siberian tiger has huge paws, but instead of using them to walk on, he sticks to lying by the fence and using them as a pillow:



He managed to stir enough to give us a glimpse of his big face:



One female was displaying her amazing stripes:



The other did some rolling over and tummy-baring, then eventually showed us her lovely face:



We'd especially wanted to see the Scottish wild cats, but they didn't appear on the site map. A member of staff told us that the new park set-up meant they were off display, but she arranged for the keeper to meet up with us to go and see them. A couple of years ago the same man had taken me around the park to make up for the fact that I had missed the cats on a visit because they were not signposted, and my friends and I could not find them. He's lovely - the stories he told us were funny, amazing, I could regale you with them forever. But instead, let's see the female wild cat, Skye:



She's like a super-beautiful pussy cat. Her would-be mate, Sid, has a real wild cat look. He was in one of the overhead walkways that were built for them:



He did relax a bit after a while and let his ears return to closer to their normal position:



These pictures were taken inside the outer enclosure.

Sadly Sid is minus a toe. They moved in another female for a while to mate with him (he and skye have yet to produce young) and when she left and they were reunited, Skye bit his toe and broke it, so it had to be amputated!
We failed to see the newly arrived fossa because the keeper, Neville, couldn't persuade him out. They are odd-looking creatures, I would love to have seen one:

We also missed the new Lynx cubs. we couldn't go back to the area of the park where these two species were kept, because it is a huge and hilly site and we were exhausted. There are safari trucks and trailers which will take you to the bottom of the site, but the harder task of getting back up the huge hills, at the end of a tiring day, is left to visitors' feet. Makes no sense to me.

Anyway, here are some other lynx cubs from the internet, so as not to disappoint you:

Family Values - Day 15

Bobby to the rescue in the dark, dark woods.

Family Values - Day 14

Getting inside the perp's head. Rather you than me.