‘And Another Thing...’ Scaffolding not Scaffold
byVince Nolan
“Send in the clowns.” Cabinet meeting. “There’s a bright golden haze on the meadow.” Crop spraying. “Somewhere over the rainbow weigh a pie.” The Little Pie Shop of Horrors. “The hills are alive with the sound of music.” That’s a rave mate. “Consider yourself at home, consider yourself one of the family.” We’ve had this conversation before Dad. “A spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down.” Unless it’s a suppository. “Bright eyes, burning like fire.” Conjunctivitis, probably. I was ensconced in our local pub recently sheltering from the sun and noticed these disembodied feet swinging in the breeze. Slightly alarming at first sight. On closer inspection, they belonged to a painter who was sitting on scaffolding outside. Top tip: When given a choice between scaffolding and a ladder I always choose the latter. I was at the last Olympics, and I saw a guy carrying what looked like fibreglass scaffolding. I said to him “Are you a Pole Vaulter?” He said, “Nein, I am German and how did you know my name?” Many moons ago I trod the boards in school productions. Ah, the smell of the crowd and the roar of the greasepaint. Hard to believe now perhaps but I played the Judge in Toad of Toad Hall to one Michael Powell’s Toad. This particular Michael Powell (after an Equity Card name change to James
Powell) went on to be the go-to Director of Les Mis in both the West End and on Broadway. We bumped into him recently and he hasn’t changed a bit (still dressed as a toad). This was quickly followed up by my role as The Kralahome (Prime Minister) in The King and I to my mate Clare’s Anna. In hindsight, I was probably a more popular Prime Minister than the current incumbent but not so many illegal parties. This got me thinking about some of the lyrics from musicals and what they might mean today:
12 CARDIFF TIMES
“Bewitched, bothered and bewildered am I.” Stop drinking. I found myself in another local watering hole, The Tall Storey (see what I did there), whilst The Boss was at her Assassination for Beginners class. There were few people in the pub, so it made eavesdropping easy whether I wanted to or not. I have severely cleaned up what was said Dear Reader as the storyteller punctuated everything he said with the F word. If you insert this word into the following tale at random intervals, you will have the general idea. It went like this: “My mate from school got his pilot’s licence at 17 and crashed his plane into my Dad’s house. My Dad was running a pub at the time and banned him from coming in. Later my mate became an airline pilot and during a holiday flight to Spain stopped to chat with my Dad. Well, my Dad needed a change of underwear after that and wasn’t looking forward to the journey home neither.” Really!
I designed a crash-proof aeroplane made out of rubber. It’s called the Boing 747. Pier Pressure at Clevedon, Weston-Super-Mare and Penarth. My friend Matt has an aversion to piers. If ever he gets too close to one, we have to shout the following warning:
