Angela Lansbury Family History Celebrations Events: 2019

Thursday, 31 January 2019

What I watched on Singapore Airlines : Football Anthem, Johnny English, Freddie Mercury

I enjoyed music and humour on a Singapore Airlines Flight. The first film I watched was the history of You'll Never Walk Alone.

You'll Never Walk Alone
The song was written by Rogers and Hammerstein for the musical Carousel. Gerry and the Pacemakers, a Liverpool band, recorded it. They sang it at a football match in Liverpool and it was so popular that it became a regular song at Liverpool's matches, home and away, and spread to other football matches worldwide.

The film includes interesting material on the Hillsborough (football stadium) disaster, in which fans tragically died.

According to the film, the Sun newspaper, instead of joining in the local and nationwide mourning, blamed football fans for stealing from the dead. The Liverpudlians were so angry that for years afterwards many refused to buy the newspaper.

In addition to other musical tours of Liverpool (including the Cavern and the statue of the Beatles), you can see statues at the football stadium.

You'll Never Walk Alone summed up the need of the bereaved, feeling alone, without their nearest and dearest, needing to feel the comfort of the crowd.

After all that tragedy, I felt in need of some light relief.

Rowan Atkinson, who I remember most as the hapless Mr Bean, appeared in his new persona as a detective or spy defending the Prime Minister. Lots of absurd slapstick, culminating in a scene at a Scottish castle where Rowan Atkinson's character stumbles about in a suit of armour causing predictable disasters, all the funnier because you smile in anticipation.

After that I went back to music, the highlight of my flight (what a pun!) was the film about Queen and Freddie Mercury.

The promotion for the film points out that he started his career as a baggage handler at Heathrow in London!

The mystery of his having an ex-wife despite being so gay and getting aids, was explained. Simple really. He marries his sweetheart. He goes off on tour. Gets lonely. is propositioned by a male. Gets into drugs, orgies. Anything goes. Everything goes. He gets aids and dies. Meanwhile she has married a nice stable guy - who has the girl 24/7 but cannot compete with the memory of Freddie Mercury who can still summon his ex-wife when he learns he is dying.

What more can Wikipedia add? Usefully, the places where you can see mementoes of Freddie mercury.

Sites To Visit
Statue of Freddie Mercury at Montreux, Switzerland.
Plaque to Queen.

Gerry & The Pacemakers singing You'll Never Walk Alone on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV5_LQArLa0

Freddie Mercury
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_(band)
http://www.queenonline.com/

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Wednesday, 30 January 2019

Pack

Packing Lists
Where to keep the packing list?
On your phone,
laptop,
suitcase lid,
back of wardrobe door.

Have a column on the left to tick for packed (leaving home).
The column on the right is for re-packed (leaving destination).

Make sure you have both pairs of shoes and matched socks, bikinis, mobile phones with matching connectors in the same transparent bag.

Doorkeys.

A credit card.
Leave at home local cards for shops and services - in the usual place or make a note of where.
(Consider another credit card at home in case you lose one when travelling.)

Monday, 21 January 2019

Art Exhibition Winner - Pictures Without People - Or Animated Art, Banksy and Caravaggio

Problem
I seen to be out of sync with the popular vote for the best artist at the mall galleries in London. The winning artist has two pictures which contain no people and look to me like technical drawings of soemthing yet to be built. Lifeless.

They remind of an exhibiton I saw in London, England of works by Edward Hopper. At least he had figures. But they were lonely little people in vast empty landscapes. They conveyed depression and made me despressed.

I was never a fan of still life. I can see that stiff life serves two purposes. It focuses our attention on fruit and plants which are beautiful. They are easy for the artist for hours.

I prefer people scenes. Maybe because I am an extravert. I like people and movement and smiling faces. I find their emotion catching.

Lowry, for example. Even stick figures can convey animation.

I can admire the technique of showing light containing shadows. Even so, I like people, such as the chiaroscuro pianting s by Caravaggio.

I also like humour. That's why Banksy with his murals catches the popular imagination. He takes blank walls and adds people, life, movement, surprise.

Edward Hopper Nighthawks Wikipedia Public Domain (1942)
Friends of American Art Collection. Art Institute of Chicago.

So there you have it. Winners from the past and winner from the present.

Useful Websites
https://www.mallgalleries.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/fba-futures-2019?utm_source=Arts+Press&utm_campaign

Travel Information
visitbritain.com
visitbritainshop.com

Author
Angela Lansbury

Saturday, 19 January 2019

Braddell Heights Advanced Club in Singapore

My workshop on British English was great fun.

Singlish
1 I started with Singlish.
When you are running late what do you say?
Singlish: Reached.
British English: I am nearly there. I'll be with you shortly.

More Singlish to add next time.:
Singlish: 50 over people.
British English: More than 50 people.

The most successful part was the exercise when everybody in pairs invented and rehearsed a conversation between a telephone operator and a caller.

President Maria and her partner Marcus performed a scenario in which Marcus was dialling a wrong number.

The President, Maria, gave an enthusiastic thank you speech. She said the session was helpful to her because her job includes cold calling.

She described an incident in a Chinese market where she asked for two bananas. The seller kept nodding, "Banana, one?"
She kept replying, 'No, banana two - two bananas?'
It turns out that one or wun, is like uh-huh in English, or la in Singlish, just an interjection to finish a sentence.

We ended by asking for feedback. I was asked to do more written business English in my next workshop. The audience members asked for:
1 CV writing.
2 Covering letters.
3 Emails.

I have two companies interested in hiring me to teach correct English to their staff.

Here is a picture from the old days with a speech ribbon.

I am now ALB (Advanced Leader Bronze) and ACG (Advanced Communicator Gold - which means at least 40 speeches completed, following the old manuals which will soon be phased out and replaced by Pathways which is internet based.

I did teach EFL at intermediate level in three Singapore schools. The coursework was easy to prepare. I just took a chapter from the set book for the first two hours of the day.

The last hour I had to devise an amusing exercise involving audience participation.

Author
Angela Lansbury B A Hons.

Wednesday, 16 January 2019

Speechcraft on Structure.TME technical college.

The shortest speech I ever heard was a wedding speech. The groom stood up at his wedding and said, 'thank you' and then sat down. A popular saying goes, you don't plan to fail, you fail to plan.

My audience was technical college students. Not yet started work. They were under 18. they need to give speeches to their fellow students and will need confidence to speak up when starting work.

I talked about starting planning a speech with the end or purpose in mind. What do you want people to feel, decide and do?

Consider both your aims and those of your audience. Choose a suitable title so the audience knows what to expect.

Have an amusing, attention-getting start. Why is your speech subject important to them.

You might

Tell one two or three or more personal stories. Explain how many stories you will tell. A simple clear method is to count them off on your hands. I should say fingers, no hands. Keep clarifying.

Or move across the stage. You could tell one story from your childhood, another from secondary school, a third from college days.

Ideally end echoing your beginning.