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I belong to one of those "Video of the Three-and-a-half-weeks" clubs. It's not a bad thing as long as you never delay in telling them exactly what to do with their so-called 'directors' cut', but in spite of that they seem to think I'm a good customer and they recently sent me what they called a "customer reward certificate"---the reward apparently being that I could give them more of my money.
I mean I would get some videos for my money, but since the choice was limited to such delights as 'ChiPs', 'Charlie's Angels' and 'Xena: Warrior Princess' I feel justified in thinking that the reward was purely for the Club---that my reward was really theirs. Now I have a theory that things are more often than you'd think named for, not what they are, but what they are the complete opposite of. Look, for example, at life insurance. It should obviously be called death insurance because you aren't insuring against living but dying.
And it's a really old tendency.
Did you know that the Greek word theatre means "The place where you go to see stuff"?
Well it does, and the most interesting fact about Greek theatres is that while their acoustics are wonderful, unless you are one of the lucky ones in the first few rows, the actors have to be pointed out to you as those little blurry things way down there.
Why else would they have to wear those big masks and stilty shoes if not to try vainly to help the audience to see what was going on.
And talking of theatre reminds me of a rather interesting example. Which I'll get to by way of this:- In England we have two kinds of theatrical Dames. We have the Judi Dench species who are almost indistinguishable in ranking from theatrical knights and we have Pantomime Dames who are really indistinguishable in every way but rank from theatrical knights.
Yes as far as the pantomime type is concerned there is nothing like a dame, nothing in the world, there is nothing you can name that is anything like a dame.
Now this is a fascinating thing about the staid, conservative English that their idea of family-value wholesome children's Christmas entertainment has involved, for at least the last hundred years or so, young ladies in scanty leg-emphasising costumes playing male leads and old men in drag.
That's the pantomime dame---an old man wearing too much make-up and a dress. And as for the panto itself: it is loud and raucous with lots of songs and shouted interaction between the audience and the actors. And don't even get me started on the pantomime horse!
And of course these wild entertainments are called by a name otherwise reserved for totally silent dumb shows.
Cheerio for now
from Richard Howland-Bolton
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