The Frumplingtons

Trick or treat?

Today is Hallowe’en. And tonight’s the night when ghosties and ghoulies (none of the usual jokes, please) will be out and about, on a mission to scare us all half to death.

Needless to say, our friend Ezra will be keen to join them. Ezra is more than just an inflatable skelly; he is our constant companion. He has been with us for three (yes, three) whole years, spending most of his time perched atop a hi-fi speaker (he likes to ‘feel the vibes, man’). And today is his birthday. He collects bow ties; obviously, he fancies himself as a bit of a dandy. You have to admit it, he is quite a dapper fellow. Although how he expects to frighten anybody with that big goofy grin of his, I’ll never know.

Why is he called Ezra? Because we bought him for only one pound (from a shop called Superpound, if you must know). Thus his full name is Ezra Pound. All very poetic, I think you will agree. Oh, by the way, Ezra has a message for you. Here it comes (hope you’re not the nervous type):

“Boo!”

Chris

Being a sociable sort of chappy, I decided to leave a comment on someone else’s blog a week or so ago. Viper Squad Ten was the blog. Trouble is, I got a bit carried away and promised to put a picture of our bathroom online for all to see. Well, a promise is a promise and I don’t like to disappoint, so here’s the pic. Shower curtain by Blue Banana; pink paint by Wilko’s; grouting by some shoddy amateur (probably one of the landlord’s hired underlings).

The combination of skull ‘n’ crossbones imagery and pink walls must be, we think, unique among the bathrooms of these isles. If yours is even more unusual, feel free to tell us all about it.

Chris

The Rick Kirby sculpture of a face, which was deemed ‘monstrous’ by members of the Lincoln Civic Trust (Lincoln split over Rick Kirby’s frightening face) has, according to the Lincolnshire Echo, finally been approved. The eighteen foot high sculpture will be put up on the side of Lincoln’s Drill Hall in the New Year.

Trustees of Ruston Drill Hall had previously said they felt the design would highlight the hall’s current use as a modern arts venue and would be Lincoln’s newest piece of public art to be proud of.

The Frumplingtons would like to extend their congratulations to Rick. We may not know much about art … but we know what we like.

Chris

At around five o’clock this afternoon, just inside the entrance to Lincoln’s Arboretum public park, a band started playing. I must point out that this was a band of the musical variety, just in case you thought it might have been one of the many bands of ne’er-do-wells that are regrettably over-abundant in the Arboretum area.

To the best of my knowledge this was a totally impromptu musical performance. (I certainly don’t recall seeing any flyposters advertising the event.) And this might give you the impression, especially if you don’t know the Monks Road area of Lincoln very well, that this is Lincoln’s equivalent of, perhaps, somewhere like Montmartre in Paris: an area that is thronging with artistes of all kinds, who might spontaneously erupt into song at any moment.

Well, there are indeed plenty of artistes in the area. But, judging from what usually passes the Frumplingtons windows, they are mostly piss-artistes, and the only thing they might spontaneously erupt into at any moment is random violence; or, on a good day, expletive-ridden shouting matches instead.

But hey, I’m not working for the Tourist Board. I’m doing the first ever Frumplingtons gig review. Let’s get back to the action…

Among other things, the band played several cover versions of Shania Twain and Texas songs. (Somehow, I can’t imagine the real Sharleen Spittoon of Texas playing this kind of venue, but you never know…) As far as I could tell there were more bum notes than a tramps’ orchestra. (By the way, I might have used that simile before somewhere. If I have, and you can prove to me that I have, I shall award you a prize: a year’s free subscription to The Frumplingtons blog. Second prize will be two years’ subscription.)

Unfortunately, I am unable to furnish any keen readers with the name of today’s performers, because I didn’t actually go and see them. They were perfectly loud enough to be heard right here in our living room; the Frumplingtons pied-à-terre is less than a hundred yards from where this racket was taking place, and when the anonymous band (in fact, I think that’s what we’ll call them : The Anonymous Band) first started playing, I was watching the snooker on tv. More to the point, I was trying to listen to the hushed and reverential tones of the snooker commentators. The commentary was, alas, made completely inaudible by The Anonymous Band’s efforts.

Even worse, Shana was having her afternoon nap. Shortly after today’s gig got underway Shana appeared in the bedroom doorway, sans jimjams (although I might have imagined that bit) and with furrowed brow and gave her own gig review, to wit: What’s all that bloody noise supposed to be?

Shana is nothing if not forthright in her views. If the NME would like to offer her a regular reviews column I would be only too happy to put them in touch. I must warn them though, my fees as sole agent are likely to be nothing short of astronomical.

Chris

Looking on eBay earlier tonight, we suddenly got sidetracked by a novelty dog toy. (We don’t even have a dog.) It seems you can buy this from Gizmo and Widget’s online store.

In case you are wondering what on earth you would do with one of these toys, here is an excerpt from the accompanying blurb,

Ask your pet to carry this dummy down to the park and you will be sure to turn heads and meet interesting people.

Made of heavy duty rubber. Remember, this is for your dog. Please resist the temptation to try the Dog Lips out for yourself.

Now it all makes sense. And it goes straight to the top of this year’s Christmas wish list.

Chris

I’ve only recently started cross-stitching again. And after wrestling with a large piece of canvas decided I needed to get an embroidery hoop or frame. Frames scare me, you have to stitch the fabric to the frame before you start real stitching!

Trundling around the interweb looking for yarns for macrame, I found a wonderful company called Texere Yarns. I can highly recommend you order their catalogue, it comes with a stack of yarn samples, which I find irresistable!

Also at Texere Yarns, I found Easy Clip Frames. This is surely the best thing since sliced bread. You simply lay your fabric over the frame, then using plastic clips secure it in place. Tighten the top and bottom bars and hey presto! you’re ready to sew. They do a range of sizes, I use the 12″ x 18″. I did notice when I first used the frame it coloured the fabric a little. So I’ve wrapped masking tape around the top and bottom bars, not a major problem. You can find more info here; Easy Clip Frames

And no, I don’t receive any commission from them!

Shana

Or ‘Nightmare in Cross-stitch’ (an Apocryphal Tale)

A few seconds of extra concentration and this would not have happened.

A spell-checker — hell, even a cheap dictionary — might have helped too.

But what’s done is done.

And after all that work, well, you’ve got to display it haven’t you? Chances are, nobody’ll notice. And if they do, you could argue that the mistake simply adds to the charm of the piece.

You could bluff your way through: (”Oh, it’s meant to be like that. It’s done in the ‘naive’ style.”)

Or just admit you made a boo-boo. (”Aw, f*ck it!”)

But whatever you do, don’t get yourself into the following exchange:

“Well, I suppose you could give it to your mother for Christmas.”

“What are you implying? ‘It’s a reject so we might as well dump it on my mother.’ Is that what you’re trying to say? Hmm? Well, why don’t we give it to yours instead?”

“Oh, now who’s making assumptions? You needn’t bother trying to fob your factory seconds off on my family. I tell you what, why don’t we frame it and hang it in the bathroom instead?”

The motto of this story is, always check your work.

And, as a wise man once said, “Don’t sweet the small stuff.”

Chris

British ISP Easynet were apparently the victims of a robbery earlier this week and had a large quantity of their equipment stolen.

Late on Monday, two thieves used a swipe card to drive a van up to Easynet’s Brick Lane headquarters. Once inside they began loading equipment into their van. They were watched by two security guards - one was doing his rounds and the other watched by CCTV - but both assumed the thieves, with their legitimate swipe cards also had a legitimate reason to take the kit, according to our sources.

source: The Register

Some sources, according to the article on The Register put the value of the stolen equipment at around six million smackeroonies. (That’s ‘English pounds’ to you.)

Easynet are not saying much, except that there has apparently been a power outage.

There is as yet no news of whether any confidential details (including bank account information) was on any hard drives that might have been among the items stolen.

Chris

Poor old Rick Kirby. You’ve gotta feel sorry for him, haven’t you? He spends half his life perfecting his artistic skills, producing some wonderful works of public art such as Cross the Divide, a sculpture of two figures reaching towards each other outside St Thomas’ Hospital in London. And the excellent Formation.

But when Rick is asked to create a sculpture to adorn the entrance of the Drill Hall arts centre in Lincoln, it seems to us that he has finally come up against the brick wall of philistinism, not to mention provincial attitudes. The stainless steel mask sculpture would measure 13ft 6in by 8ft 6in and would go on the gable end outside the hall in Free School Lane.

Members of the Lincoln Civic Trust however, said they think the artwork is “monstrous” and should not be allowed planning permission.

Ken Brown, chairman of the civic trust’s planning sub-committee, said his organisation was calling for planning permission for the artwork to be refused on the grounds that the design is “frightening and horrid”…

This is considered to be gratuitous art, monstrous, depressing, irrelevant, out of context and totally unnecessary….

source: thisislincolnshire.co.uk

Rick Kirby’s sculpture of a face (pictured at the top of this post) is very similar to the one planned for Lincoln, and is currently on show at Burghley House, near Stamford.

We think the Civic Trust are overreacting somewhat. ‘Frightening, monstrous and horrid’? It’s all a bit rich isn’t it, coming from a city that has become world-famous because of a local (and hugely popular) ugly-mug? No, of course I’m not talking about the Bishop. I’m talking about this:

Will Rick Kirby’s sculpture get the go-ahead? D-day is Wednesday, October 25. We’ll keep you posted.

Chris

This is Marmaduke. Correction: Mister Marmaduke. He was originally just plain old Marmaduke; the ‘Mister’ was added when we saw a horse called Mr Marmaduke on some televised horse racing a few months ago. We’re not interested in horses particularly. We were just trying to pick up fashion tips from Clare Balding.

We don’t have any dogs or cats; just bears. Loads of them. And eventually they simply take over. Just look at the picture. He’s got my teacup, my — well, Shana’s — tv remote control ‘zapper’, and our sofa. We’ll just sit on the floor then, shall we?

University Challenge was on last night. Of course, we can never watch it without having to have a mascot, just like the competing teams. Now, who do you think was our mascot yesterday evening?

I’m not going to reveal how many questions Shana and I managed to answer. It was more than we did last week though.

Chris