BRING ON THE OLD RAZZLE DAZZLE

I think I need what has become the word of the week, an Amanuensis or slave secretary. Having been entombed in a giant white pyramid that can probably be seen from space with 40 amateur actors and all the dress rehearsals that go with it I don't seem to have the chance to write or have a life even. Well, today all the histrionics and attempts to copy Laurel and Hardy were thrown aside and the pupils put their hearts and souls into putting on a lovely show which seemed to delight their parents and leave me thinking if I can do this I can do anything. This is after being snubbed by some parents of a surly pupil who left me feeling like the stage villain and being asked to get the kids to perform the Macarena with speaking parts when all I thought I would be doing is teaching and getting thm to perform the Hungry Caterpillar. I hate performing in front of people and got that awful stage fright mixed with the feeling that the floor was moving about two minutes before reading out the story. The only reassuring thing for me during moments like this is the fact we will all be dead in a hundred years time. It all reminds me of those heady days working in the West End theatres and having a theatre manager who would often be short staffed and that was just his state of mind. Like the summer camp I worked with many who were unable to string a sentence together in English but the show would still go on.

With all the drama I forgot to mention the recently christened and now very recently deceased Midge. A couple of weeks ago I found myself sitting up in the wee small, unable to, but with a cup of tea sitting on the sofa with the morning light and first blush of and all that creeping in when I suddenly saw a small object race across the floor. My initial thought was I had developed the DTs and shot off the sofa to check the small orb and my heart rate. We have a resident spider so I thought it must be him. A few nights later I thought I saw it again and put it down to campus fatigue. It wasn't till a few evenings later when Henderson screamed out that we had a mouse in the house, in the same way he did when a lizard entered and I was made to feel as though I had invited it in for tea, that I knew it wasn't my usual paranoia. It has taken a while and a lot of cheek and cheese, but sadly, last night he got it. Despite the mouse droppings and knowing we absolutely can't have him I felt a pang of sadness and loss that only an English person or Bhuddist would feel towards such a small thing.

There is a woman called Arlene Phillips who has been a judge on some dancing programme and she has been dumped for someone younger to represent the show. She is the sort of person that probably went to the Lionel Blair School of Thought. You know, Tap Dance Your Way Through Life or something like that. She was on the TV during my breakfast and was heard to say something like 'if only people would dance at least 30 minutes every morning they would have such a better day and all that'. Well I can and I do and then I feel exhausted so don't listen to her. I hope I never hear Heads and Shoulders Knees and Toes ever again.