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The Boy Wonder is inordinately fond of Flanders' and Swann's song The Sloth, so I went looking for it on YouTube. What I found was a bunch of versions of Have Some Madeira M'Dear (which always reminds me of an old chorister who used to love singing it at Revues, never realising that the rest of us were quietly advising all the underage fresher girlies that it should be considered more of a warning than an entertainment) and also this: The Gasman Cometh, in Lego:

thelancrewitch's recent discovery of the Helsinki Complaints Choir is only the tip of the icecube, apparently. There are many, many more.



(Reposted from her LJ, just in case you missed it, and because the Helsinki one really is quite catchy, although St Petersburg and Hamburg are good too.)

We decided (and I agreed) that something needs to be done about this in our hemisphere too. The only trouble is that I think the attitude toward complaining is different here compared to the places where Complaints Choirs already exist. In Britain you can expect a certain amount of <sybil-fawlty>Oooh, I know</sybil-fawlty> in response, and in Russia complaining is just what you do between swigs, whereas here you're more likely to get amateur-psychoanalysed for your "negative outlook".

Fortunately, we have a plan.

So: who feels like helping to form the first Canberra Complaints Choir? Start by commenting with your complaints about life, the universe and everything. And then we'll stick 'em together, add a suitably earwormish tune, and sing it at the world...

Many years ago, I went to the largely tolerable Adelaide Intervarsity Choral Festival. While I was there, I wrote a three-scene Gilbert and Sullivan opera for the Revue (you have no idea how dull Adelaide can be...) but owing to criminal incompetence on the part of the compere, who should have been nasally raped to death by nuns, we didn't get to perform it. It's been sitting in my Palm Pilot ever since, and today I noticed it in my backups. So here it is. I have no idea of the tunes, but I think it has its own charm regardless.

( The curtain rises, the orchestra swells... )

Off to brunch bright and ugly this morning with thelancrewitch, seagoon, naturalredhead, madradish, icansinghigher, monnsqueak, Monsieur la boîte des chiens, Petra and Dave. Many free-range eggs were sacrificed to our brunching lusts. Behold the Radish of Madness in her guise as a woollen Martian! Marvel at the image of a Seagoon, photographed at brunch on a Sunday morning without his customary hung-over look! Stare in amazement at the first bass to set foot on the alien planet Soprano ("I wandered through the weird and lurid landscape of another planet; for the vegetation which gives Mars its red appearance had taken root on Earth"). See, people? In Canberra, we know how to brunch.

Many stories were shared of choral goings-on. It's vaguely pleasant to hear the news -- I'm particularly impressed that SUMS has finally divested itself of El Directore, Conductor-For-Life Dame Bennett Anton McPherson OBE QED RSVP, who I gather has now retired to his dust farm in deepest Mudgee. I thought they'd never let him escape; he's been a painted-on and immoveable fixture in the job since the choir started in 1836, except for one semester when he took time off to fight in the Boer War, and another short period of about a fortnight during the Depression when he went on the road as John Steinbeck's batman. But the new lad is apparently fitting in; icansinghigher told me stories of him bitching out the tenors, so He'll Do Quite Nicely, thank you very much.

And now that I've met the Woman of the Box of the Dogs, I can see why he's given up his James Bondian -- nay! James Brownian! -- lifestyle and settled down to unmarried bliss: she looks good for him. A bit of a worry with the whole knitting fetish, but that's OK and at least she doesn't do Muttaburrasaurus impressions at small children, so that's a relief.

Went home to collapse. I seem to have developed a sore throat, so I'm off to the Medical Centre to be ignored by undereducated subcontinental immigrants and told it's all in my head, after which I shall while away a happy afternoon tidying an EDoD's bedroom and debugging software. Oh joy.

EDIT: Sorry - yasutani, had to delete your comment. The brunch venue was indeed the place you recognised, but I want to make it more difficult for random loonies and e-stalkers to find us at a whim. Given that we often go there for Sunday brunch, it's better if it's not possible to plot our whereabouts with just a Google search...