back again.. sorry....

So, herevwe are again, and first the beard offers apologies, both sincere and otherwise, for all those (and I know you are few...) who have been missing the regular missives from the world of beardiness..... but the beard which is wise and inebriates rarely has been having a busy time of it lately.... for those of you who have visited Beardsheim in the past, a surprise will be in store next time you cross the two tone bridge (still saving up for the full Rainbow model...) ... the Beard, with the incredibly useful help of Beard Junior, has actually been having a real sort out.. and I mean, a real one.... avoiding the piles of old rubbish, hoarded mathoms and offcuts of facial hair just got too much, and eing a great fan of arts and crafts, the wise one decided that if it aint beautiful and useful, it aint stopping..... so all i have left is a photo of Jenny Agutter, and a can opener..... seriously though, a lot of the accumulated stuff has gone.... although true to form, some of the more bizarre stuff has remained..... so much so that i have managed to rid the heim of five sets of shelves.... and my kitchen now appears to be the nine feet by eighteen that it actually is.... the lounge is basically tidy (apart from the boot-sale-bound boxes..) and the bedroom is unrecognisable..... all this partly due to the influence of a certain young lady.... on top of this, despite the amount of time invested, the beard has visited the cinema, gone to a concert, and has been regulary working on model railway projects and the upcoming novel...... all of which has been fantastic..... catharsis and relaxation, hard work that has actually been refreshing..... a strange ting... and the relatonship with that aforementioned young lady is growing stronger and stronger..... so things are on the up..... and up.... and up..... its very reminiscent of the scene in V for Vendetta (the comic.. not the film, which i still haven't quite seen.... but I digress...) where Evey says to V something along the lines of "don't you find that sometimes you want to get rid of the stuff from the past, and et on with the future.... " I'll try to find the exact quote if i can be bothered..... which brings me to the subject of Watchmen.... and my fervent hope that the americans haven't ruined the finest comic book ever written.... but as the second act of Siegfried begins to play, the Beard realises the time, and must fly... so until we can all have a jolly good clear out, Wisebeard salutes you!!!!!!!!!!

Nearly a Month

since last I posted.... and what a month... its seen the deaths of Tony Hart and patrick McGoohan (which means Portmeirion is definitely on the list this October...) and almost certainly several others.... I've been to Chesterfield several times, the West Mids regularly, and to Twycross, which i'll admit still feels a bit empty without Joe.... but its still a great place to visit.... and there have been plenty of wows.. so many indeed that they have become WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!s......... but there will be more from the beard at some point.. bed beckons though.... so until we can all use multiple exclamation marks to good effect, Wisebeard salutes you!!!!!!!!!!!

its happened again....

the dreaded double post.. and i know its probably......
until we all get two of it all.... wisebeard salutes you!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've probbaly said this already....

but I've always preferred funerals to weddings.... now, I have my reasons, mainly down to selfishness.... but mainly it boils down to the experience.... lets take it point by point.... firstly, at your typical wedding, in an attempt to make herself look better, the bride usually dresses her attendants in pastel dresses deigned to make them look fat and with bad skin... so it follows that the best looker at the whole event is off limits.. well, most of the time.... you're expected to look happy, despite having to give up at least two hours of valuable saturdayness, and you have to spend money on a present that they either don't want, can't use, or have named for themselves... thus destroying any possible element of surprise... on that subject, I was once invited to a wedding, and informed that i was down to buy the washing machine.. some others were down for four nights in Sydney, flights to said city, and such like.. few of us attended.... and those who did were treated to the sight of the bride crying because her stingy mates hadn't paid for her honeymoon... but I digress.. the worst thing about weddings is that three months after, you get invited to a christening, which is, if anything, even worse.... lets be honest, if i invited you to watch me pour water over a baby and make it cry, you'd phone the police.... but if i put on a dress and a dog collar.... and lets face it, you're stuck with eighteen years of buying an extra christmas and birthday present..... funerals on the other hand, are a god send.. the food is usually good, most women look good in black, some wear gloves, and if you look mserable nobody minds.... plus if any of the ladies are especially upset, well, you can always offer them some comfort.... you never know your luck.... on top of all this, the hymns are usually more suited to my deep voice, and its a great saving on presents for the rest of your life.... however, i'm sligtly revising my view of weddings.. yesterday one of my oldest friends (that is, one of my longest standing... although she has been known to sit occasionally) got herself married and treated me to some roast beef... and although i admit to having gone to only four weddings (and a funeral... good title.. must use it somewhere...) two of which involved the same bride, this was the best yet.... partly down to the company of a certain young lady, of whom all that can be said is Wow!! but i digress.. all I wish to say is good fortune to Heidi and Andrew, and i hope it all goes well..... so until we al get wardrobes, Wisebeard salutes you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've probbaly said this already....

Years ago.....

I was under the impression that Jim Carrey was a sort of cut price wrongly timed American versiion of Norman Wisdom.... i must say that I have revised that opinion since.. although I may say that I'm still not a big Ace Ventura fan..... the Mask I did enjoy, and Carrey's version of the Riddler was possibly the best bit of that Batman film... apart from Nicole Kidman in a tight black dress and heels, chained up... but I digress..... and I must say that I thought of him as avocet -like..... in that I did enjoy his first mainstream feature, the high school vampire flick, Once Bitten..... however, the man has grown on me.. I think he was possibly the only man alive who could have played man-in-the moon Andy Kaufman... and although he does tend to play Jim Carrey in most of his films, the role does actually fit most of his films... and lets be honest, it never harmed John wayne....or Norman Wisdom (of whom more later...) or Laurence Olivier for that matter... (waits for tomatoes...) but i digress yet again.... as it is, I really enjoyed Yes Man, his latest opus, in which he again plays Jim Carrey to good effect..... the film, based as it is on a true story, deviates from the truth greatly, as admitted by the author himself on radio2 a few days back..... but it is good... and one of its strengths ( or weaknesses, depending o your point of view..) is that it made the Beard think.. and Beard junior for that matter..... we both went expecting a replay of Liar Liar.... and to some extent thats what we got.. but only to some extent.... but think it made us do.... until I got back into scouting, I was the protagonist as he stood at the start of the film... making up excuses not to go out, for no other reason than that I couldn't be bothered.....and life was passing me by.... like Carrey's character, Scouting started me on the road to trying stuff again... saying yes when previously I would have said no.. now in my younger days i was very open to new experiences, but shyness closed me right up.... so i missed out on a lot.... especially between the ages of 13 and 21..... but I feel i'm more than making up for it now.... life is not a rehearsal... i still find myself saying no to simple things like going to the pub, but having watched the film i've decided to keep an eye on that.... and to make sure that if i say no, that there has to be a good reason....I'm certainly enjoying life a lot more at the mo, partly down to a certain young lady of my aquaintance..... and i have also determined that i'm going to stop moaning that people don't say thank you enough, and make a concerted effort to thank everyone who has ever affected my existence in a favourable way.... but it becomes late (or early..) and the realm of the electronic ether is tiring these wise old whiskers.. so until we can all say thanks and yes, Wisebeard salutes you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The end of the quest....

so, creator of two of my childhood heroes, Noggin the Nog and bagpuss, is no more.. and the world is a sadder place without him.... now, the Beard is not going to sit here and say that kids programmes aren't as good as they used to be, as that is of course relative.. I know many children of today who find the Night Garden just as tedious as Mr Benn.. and that goes for the children of yesterday too... but i think that nowadays kids are denied the simplicity of that earlier age.. Mr Benn getting a circus over a ravine or Ivor taking coal to Grumbly just doesn't cut it anymore.... and there is a stunningly obvious reason for this, ignored or at least unmentioned by correspondents on Jeremy Vines excellent show earlier today.... and that is this.. regardless of lessened attention spans, (of which more later...) and other such pseudo reasons, comes the simple fact that life is seen as being more complicated than it was... there is so much more for the young to master nowadays, including the fact that there is more history.. look at computers, mobiles, et al... whether this is a good thing or not is another matter... and as for the attentioi span.. well, lets be honest, although we could lay the blame on MTV, it's obvious to the beard thatlife in general has become more and more a series of soundbites as the years have gone by.... simply because we have the notion that there is more of it to fit in... long gone are the days when a child worked in the fields etc for most of the daylight hours, and sat by the fire listening to long stories while carving buttons.. and once the victorians had inventedthat myth called "Childhood" the fate of the nation's young was decided.. all of a sudden they had to be amused.. at least the ones who could afford not to work.. and that led to moves to let the poor ones play, and then we had to find stuff to fill their time, and school was invented because we thought maybe playing all day wasn't such a good idea after all.... for lets be honest, childhood is a very recent invention..... so recent that it is still only just reaching certain areas of the globe.... and it is this that has caused the gradual reduction in attention spans.... the fact that children are allowed to be distracted.. it has happened in adults too, but usually we're too busy chiding the kiddies to notice.... the reason tv programmes are the lengths they are is the result of our attention spans, not the cause of it.... but there we are.. and lets be honest, most people (even kids) can concentrate on something they enjoy for ages.... but if received wisdom is correct, none of you will have hung on this long, so until we can all be the only engine n a male voice choir, Wisebeard salutes you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!