...Is A Rubbish Title For A Blog

Selenium Arsenic Oxygen Nitrogen Aluminum 

Iron Lithium Carbon Iodine Titanium Einsteinium

That's what I wanted to call this post. Because it spells this (below). You know how much I love the Periodic Table, and this is the politest thing I've ever spelt with it. The relative atomic masses are all correct to one decimal place and everything. 

Science is well sexy.

I made this. I think it's brilliant. So does Brian Cox, or he would, if he saw it. He'd say, 'Mu's cake is brilliaaaaant!'

IT'S CHRISTMAS, and every year I share something seasonal. You can hear my traditional Christmas Eve ghost story here - I read it to my children an hour ago and, once again, they loved it. 

Here's something else, though. I read this, and the ghost story, at the Midwinter Poetry Cafe just last week. You can read my friend Crysse's blog post about it here. This is a bit of Mu-Nonsense to bring to mind a very important but much overlooked period in the life of Jesus: we all know the story of the First Christmas, but very little is written about the Fifteenth Christmas.

So here for you - being as I'm Pope and all - is...

The Fifteenth Book of

CHRISTMAS

Chapter twelve, verses 1-24

¹And it came to pass that Joseph of Nazareth did speak unto his wife a third time, saying, O most holy Mother, the cock hath crew thrice already and His Lordship hath not yet arisen from his pit. ²And Mary did consider and reply, Do not forget, Husband, that the Lord is a growing boy and He needeth His sleep. ³And mind thy grammar.  

⁴That may be so, Wife, said Joseph unto Mary, but it changeth not the fact that thou art suffering Him to lie about in bed today of all days. ⁵Whereupon Mary did flick Joseph about the tunic with a teatowel, saying, Thou wert no doubt the same when thou wert that age. Unto this Joseph could make no reply, for he saw that the most Holy Virgin Mother did verily speak the truth.  

⁶When he could no more endure the waiting, Joseph did again go to Mary and implore of her, Canst thou do nothing to wake Him? ⁷The hour at which we break our fast approacheth, and my stomach doth begin to believe that, like the sacrificial lamb, my throat hath been cut. ⁸At this Mary did roll of her eyes unto Heaven and say, ⁹Sooth, thou shalt not die of hunger, thou great wet blanket, why dost thou not make thyself useful and bring forth the Hoover?  

¹⁰The Hoover? quoth Joseph. ¹¹Yea, the Hoover, quoth Mary, and verily at that moment did a brilliant light  shine upon the head of Joseph, and the angels did sing in holy harmony. Ah, uttered he, ¹²I get thy drift.  

¹³And thus it came to pass that Joseph did extract the Hoover from where it lay in a small utility cave, the existence of which was unto him hitherto unknown. And in his joy, Joseph was moved to exclaim, ¹⁴Righteously with this Hoover shall I cause the Lord to stir even from his pit, that we may at last gladly and with thanks feast upon our festive victuals and open our presents. ¹⁵Well done, Husband, Mary did reply unto him in such a virtuous whisper that he might not hear, ¹⁶Art thou not clever.
¹⁷And at that moment by the pressing of the button which beareth the Mighty Word, ‘ON’, did Joseph cause the air to be rent by a fearful noise. ¹⁸And the fearful noise did continue until the door unto the Lord’s chamber did open, whereupon the Lord Himself did appear in His pants. At this Joseph did rejoice in his small victory, and enquired of the Lord, ¹⁹Jesus, what time dost thou call this? ²⁰And the Lord was most displeased, and He did gnash of His teeth and speak in tongues about it being well unfair, it’s like My birthday and everything.  

²¹And with that did He shuffle into the bathroom, from whence did issue sounds which, though alarming, did fill of His parents’ hearts with hope that the Lord may yet appear a second time before noon.  ²²And Mary did turn unto Joseph, saying, there you are Husband, ²³the Lord doth move in mysterious ways. And Joseph did reply, ²⁴Yea, dear Wife, that He doth.

Here endeth the lesson.

© Muriel Lavender

November 2011

Poetry for Beginners

On Wednesday I popped along to the Garden Cafe, here in Frome, for another fabulous Crysse Morrison-hosted open-mic poetry evening.  Mr L was out motorcycling so I had to take Little Sprig and Tiny Sprig along too - but I like them to come: they know Mummy writes poetry; they know she performs it in her frilly knickers; rather sweetly they tell their teachers they like Mummy's poems the best.  Lovely, but clearly very important to expose them to the works of lots of other poets too.  

The theme for the evening was 'On the Road Again', and so we listened to the headlining guest poets Mo Robinson and Paul Tobin (please follow the links to find out more about them, they were each an absolute joy in very different ways).  Crysse will blog far more eloquently than I can so I will limit my remarks on the evening; partly because I retired with the Sprigs to the back room in order that the listeners should not be disturbed by small people, so I had to strain to hear the wonderful contributions from Liv Torc; Rosie Eliot; Rose Flint and Dawn Gorman amongst others.  By arriving prepared with dot-to-dot books and crayons, I didn't realise I would only be making it worse - who knew colouring in was such a noisy affair?  

At interval time, we made our excuses and left. The Sprigs were pooped. They'd had an exhausting day being really nice to each other (delightful; almost unprecedented).  I was prepared to agree to anything by then, so we had pyjamas, milk and cookies at ten-thirty p.m. 

The point is this: we sat with our milk and cookies, feeling very naughty because all 5-7 year olds should have been in bed hours ago, and I asked them if hearing all those poems had inspired them.

The responses say it all. The first is by Little, aged 7, and he says 'Mucky Puppy' represents his little sister, and 'Tidy Teddy' represents himself.  The second is by Tiny, aged 5, and I am grateful for both the frog and the plum.

Poem 

The mucky puppy eats ice cream

The tidy teddy eats vegetables

They mesh together

To make vegetably ice cream

And they both share

© Little Sprig, April 2012

Poem

A princess had a princess toy

She said to her King

She will get married in her castle

She will play with her dolly

And she will have her Prince and her King and Queen

This was her King and Queen and her toy frog

Her frog was in a pond and it had a plum

And it was a smiley face frog

The End

© Tiny Sprig, April 2012

Well, I've enjoyed my week... how was yours, Rebekah?

Enjoy these fabulous pics from Frome.tv - this is what happens when Frome works its magic on a crazy idea.

I'm at home relaxing after quite a busy week.  The Frome Festival is a world-renowned Arts and Culture celebration in the heart of the West Country. Unfortunately this year I have missed pretty much all of it, by making appearances in eight events in ten days. If you haven't heard about the Frome Festival, click here to find out more, or go here to read lovely Crysse Morrison's blog reviews of various Festival events.  I'm going to tell you all about my week, because a) my blog is called, after all, 'Everyone Listen To Muriel', and b) because I've had a simply super time. Thank you.

On Thursday 7 July, I performed a poetry set at the FROME FESTIVAL LAUNCH PARTY. You can read a review of the evening on fellow Fromie Richard Greenhalgh's blog. This was a very exciting evening, sharing the billing with Dizzi Dulcimer, Barbara J Hunt, Benji Kirkpatrick, Morales/Watts and Luke Concannon, as well as films from the talented Media Arts students of Frome College.  Compered by the delightful Dave Clark in a fetching top hat, the audience was treated to a multi-talented kick-off event for the 2011 Frome Festival. Dizzi and Barbara's sound was one of tender beauty, and Leander Morales' stage presence was superb. Luke's set entertained everyone late into the night with his infectious rhythm and vocals, and his energetic connection with his audience. What a night! Photo: Crysse Morrison

On Monday night, I hosted the 2011 Frome Festival Laureate Poetry Slam at the Garden Cafe. Sadly Joel Stickley, the advertised guest poet, couldn't make it - but his place was filled by local star poet Gordon Graft, whose hilarious, captivating verse thrills me every time I hear it. We also heard from Dianne Penny, the delightful Laureate of 2010, and once agin some marvellous contributors in the open-mic slot. A big welcome to Jack Jones, who shared a piece written, in part, right there on the spot: a fresh new talent from whom I hope we'll hear more.  The newly-declared Laureate is David Davies (pictured right): David's words can be seen elsewhere in the frome Festival, alongside the work at Inside Out Artists' Open Studio event, where he created poems inspired by the art. Photos: Crysse Morrison

On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I stayed up far too late reading Bedtime Stories. For Adults. Why does that have to sound filthy? As a matter of fact, it was all thoroughly genteel: I may be a poet, rather than a scholar, and a poet who rather likes dressing up and poncing about at that, but when it comes to Literature I favour the classics.  In our adult lives we don't get to hear stories read aloud to us all that often... so this week I snuggled up in the Barn at The Bell, Buckland Dinham, with a wonderful audience, just to share and enjoy some of my favourites.  On Tuesday we heard an extract from Persuasion, in which Capt. Wentworth was tempted to visit Bath; on Wednesday I lined up some choice snippets from Cold Comfort Farm - a lifelong favourite. Finally on Thursday evening we indulged ourselves with a modern classic: The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency.  What a pleasure to read aloud and discuss some great books! I feel as though I made some new friends.  Photo: Muriel Lavender

Friday: Bells and Whistles! Before I head for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival on 5/6 August, I tried out my one-woman show at The Bell@Rode. This warm and friendly country pub-restaurant has recently welcomed David and Sally Smith as the new owners, and it was such a pleasure to perform there that I simply had to bring the whole family to dine the next night. Once again the audience was fantastic, we found plenty to laugh at, and at the end of the evening I treated the adorable chefs to an encore! Goodness, that sounds positively outrageous.  I am sure some lovely pics from this performance will follow, but in the meantime here's one from a previous show featuring my knitted knockers - and a fine pair they are... Photo:Linda Carroll

By Saturday morning I was beginning to wonder what I had let myself in for... but once again the wonderful people of Frome showed what makes them the very best of folk by miles.  The Great Frome Festival World Record Attempt (pictured above) took place at the Cheese and Grain on Saturday 16 July. We may not have made it into the record books, but I think we did something even better: we set a Frome Festival First by gathering together no fewer than 145 people of all ages dressed as their favourite storybook characters. This wasn't just a unique way to spend a wet Saturday morning - this was history in the making! From my vantage point on the stage at the C&G, I could see how children and mums and dads, grandparents, teenagers and high-spirited book-lovers from all over the region had gone to all kinds of effort to make marvellous costumes, in celebration of books they love. Here's the Mayor of Frome, Nick White, reading us all a story about Pants. Continuing the theme, the smaller participants then cried out for a story about Knickers. Still, I was reassured to see the classics represented, from the Pied Piper to Alice and the Cheshire Cat. There was even a tiny participant in an Enid Blyton-inspired outfit, as well as Miss Marple, Mary Poppins, a magnificent Rapunzel and an adorable little visitor from Kazakhstan - whose mamma rushed home to dress her in a traditional folk-tale costume! Well done Frome, you've done it again. Photos:Fleur Rush

Once all the fun and games of the morning were over, and I'd finished my interviews with Whitespace and Frome.tv, I headed for Frome Library, where once again I was indulging my passion for storytelling. This time I was reading to youngsters - introducing them, maybe, to Shakespeare. They were fantastic - we chatted about our favourite books, then I read a superb child-friendly version of Macbeth. Child-friendly, in that the language was rich yet accessible: all the gory bits were left in.  Yay!  A great success, and I have enjoyed some delightful and touching emails and messages from some of those who came along. Thank you to all - I really enjoyed reading to you. This picture of the gorgeous Mark Rylance as Hamlet has almost nothing to do with this bit at all, but I just like it.

 That's it from me for now - I look forward to seeing you at my final Festival appearance on Monday night, in 'Later... with FCC'.  Frome: thanks for the inspiration; Edinburgh: here I come!