23 Comments
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Wendy Varley's avatar

‘You have to be your own vigour’ is my new mantra, thanks for that.

Last karaoke attempt, I was best suited to Mary Hopkin circa 1968 (Those Were The Days) or Yvonne Elliman in Jesus Christ Superstar, duetting with my other half doing the Tim Neeley angsty Jesus bits, which cleared the room.

Stevie Martin's avatar

You know you’ve stayed true to yourself when you pick a room clearer

Stephen D Forman's avatar

Do Things

/ NIKE first alternate

Graham and Sarah Samuel-Gibbon's avatar

Why is the otter with its wet pelt sucking on a dummy? Is it a baby otter? Does it have separation issues? As a soon-to-be-mother you need to know these things!

Stevie Martin's avatar

It’s his nose look I admit I’m not an otter specialist

Sara's avatar

I used to work with some girls who did (sober) karaoke in their lunch break sometimes and I was horrified. But honestly, they came back looking so ALIVE. I think you’re into something.

Stevie Martin's avatar

There’s something quite primal about all getting together and singing! It feels so CORRECT

Murdo McGhie's avatar

I've only done karaoke once, it was with a lot of other pals and we did Hey Jude - I was tired and emotional so I did the 'JUDY JUDY JUDY!!!!' bit on my own near the end and it actually went surprisingly well I feel

Stevie Martin's avatar

the best and most satisfying element of that song to sing for sure!

Olwynne's avatar

Ghosthunters sounds awesome! Did you also ride around the playground using a skipping rope as reins?

Patrick Orum's avatar

This bought to mind playground games I used to play, before I suddenly went teenage and all self conscious. Like SM, I did really like the over-thinking aspect of the games (to an extent that I now realise is weird).

That, and the fact that you could just be ‘friends’ with girls without it being awkward. Sadly, that’s all I really remember.

Watch The Guitar's avatar

Are you talking about Pappy’s song for the q—u—i—c—k—f—i—r—e r—o—u—n—d ?

Stevie Martin's avatar

That’s SO funny but no they did a round where we had to improvise songs and it was very very fun

Fiona Whittaker's avatar

When and why did "friction" become a way to talk about - what, the effort we put into something? Social effort? It's a bit like when everybody started saying "going forward" instead of "in future". "Friction" was mentioned all over the place in the Ruby Tandoh food book I've just read and to start with I didn't know what she was going on about. I still don't properly.

We are all born's avatar

Or, you know, just being alive before Internet / mobile phones / streaming!

At work we used to have management buzz word bingo ... before all the many rounds of redundancy. Now we're all just too knackered.

Stevie Martin's avatar

Yessss i think it sometimes takes a bit of conscious thinking not to just take the easy option for some of us chronically online people. Which is v embarrassing. I’m even having to re remember to use recipe books rather than bloody IG reel recipes - it’s got so absurd

Patrick Orum's avatar

Thanks. I didn’t understand the ‘friction’ bit at all :-)

Emily Biloski's avatar

As someone who has been writing a lot of "I am motivated to create!" and "I have follow through on my ideas!" on the morning pages I've been doing all week since you influenced me to start The Artists Way, I think Friction-Maxxing is the mindset I need to actually accomplish these impossible feats.

Emily's avatar

This line really resonates with me- I want to keep this in mind next time I find myself couch rotting for too long. Thank you for sharing!

“I don’t know why I keep thinking I’ll suddenly leap from my sofa filled with vigour after two days of staring at a wall.”

Patrick Orum's avatar

Re: vigour.

Apparently, an archaic word for vigour was ‘feck’. Hence ‘feckless’ meaning without vigour. Not sure how this is connected to the Irish, ‘less bad’ version of the ‘more bad’ word.

This from the Substack I read previous to this one.

Brent Daniel Schei/Hagen's avatar

I can only imagine I'd be thrilled to do karaoke in the UK, having grown up on the Beatles just for starters. Here in Taiwan, the 卡拉OK (ka-la-OK) places naturally have a tremendous selection of Asian pop music and a lot of contemporary western pop music, but you're out of luck if you want to sing any deep cuts by Queen or anything at all by Radiohead or Crowded House (sorry!). My son has taken to singing 'The Family Madrigal' of late, so he'd be thrilled with anything from Encanto. I'm not sure if my wife ever did karaoke in her time living in France, but I always enjoy hearing her speak it, so getting to hear her sing it? Oui, merci!

Good luck with the baby! (Baby kangaroo? Baby otter? Baby carrot? Could be talking about anything ... :^)

Rachel R's avatar

I love how someone could stumble in this and not know all those friends are comedians hehe

(I have done a lot of birthday socialising so tomorrow I am r&r not leaving my house)