Manners from Heaven?

The View from the Hill on Sunday 24th January

Jake decided he needed to have an early morning pee, 6.30am...well better out than in I suppose.

Between then and now I have blatted through the SAG Awards which I Sky+ed and the Bullock woman won again! Inglorious Basterds is picking up momentum heading towards the Oscars and it was nice that Glee won.

Now the best thing about the SAG Awards is it is just actors voting for actors, so when they gave the nod to Jeff Bridges he was rightly pleased and he got a standing ovation as did the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award, Betty White. She's 88 and has been in showbiz for 77 years and still twinkles.

She made a very funny speech hinting at who she may have slept with over the course of her career - George Clooney was relieved that his name didn't come up.

They also had an 'In Memorium' section and although Michael Jackson got a good response, the loudest applause was for Bea Arthur, Karl Malden and James Whitmore - you see actors recognise true class.

Talking of class, let me change tack, and tell you about Mrs B and I taking a little trip to town yesterday.

We were amazed at the talent that is to be found right here in Mansfield, such a quiet little town but hiding such amazing quality and class. We met several people yesterday, people of all sexes and ages, and the multi tasking skills we unprecedented....all of them were able to be ignorant as hell and smoke at the same time! I mean we should have an awards ceremony for that, Mansfield would win hands down.

We even met one young woman who could walk, be pig ignorant, smoke AND listen to her ipod! We just thought she must be visiting from Sheffield or Doncaster because who would believe such talent could be found in our own little town?

Just when we thought how lucky are we to live in such a talented town we were bought down to earth with a real bang! I will tell you what happened but I doubt you will believe it.

We were walking along a narrow path, both of us laden down with many bags from Wilko's and by now we had been quite used to being pushed into the road by the multi tasking stars I have mentioned when all of a sudden we spotted coming towards us a very severe looking youth with an equally severe looking girl at his side. As we neared him I automatically stepped into the road thinking he would just be another superstar, but no!

"Stay on the path mate, you've got all those bags" he said with a polite smile.

Well, what a let down - I think if he wants to make a life for himself in Mansfield he needs a total reappraisal of his attitude!

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On this day in 1895 Lord Randolph Churchill, the father of Winston Churchill died. On this day in 1965, Winston Churchill, the son of Lord Randolph Churchill died.

On this day in 1986, L Ron Hubbard died - or did he?

The founder of Scientology, that very strangest of strange religions, may not be dead at all but living in a volcano somewhere, counting his money and texting Tom Cruise.

The concept of Scientology and Thetans and the like is not easy to get your head round, and I must be careful what I say because of the litigious nature of the beast so rather than talk about scientology let me talk about something that is not connected to it in any way whatsoever at all and no inferences should be drawn in any way that I might be having a laugh at that fine august body of men and women.

"You are all a bunch of raving lunatics!" (1)
"You should be locked up and the key thrown away" (2)
"You are stupid, stupid stupid" (3)
"You pray on the weak minded and should be ashamed of yourself!" (4)
"I curse you - may your socks always slip down inside your shoes! (5)

So there we go, some comments taken at random and in no way meant to offend those fine upstanding members of the Church of Scientology who I have absolute respect and admiration for


And that's NOT a fact!



(1)The above sentence was one used to describe the cast of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's nest
(2) Used during the trial of Harold Shipman who was actually too mad to be allowed membership of the Church of Scientology
(3) from The Client by John Grisham
(4) an attack on McDonalds.
(5) The Golden Girls - The Mangacavallo Curse