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18 March 2019
Author: Jarm69
Movie Nights The Life Of Brian
28 February 2019
The second film to come out of our 101 movies poster, was the Monty Python film, Life Of Brian.
Seriously controversial on its release, the film deals with Brian, a regular guy in Judah around the time of Jesus. Due to a serious of misunderstandings, Brian is mistaken for the Messiah. Quickly gaining a massive following wanting to hear his teachings.
Unfortunately after being arrested, he is sentenced to crucifixion. The film ends with him on the cross, and one of his fellow sufferers singing “Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life”! Famously the sailors on HMS Sheffield sang this during the Falklands War whilst awaiting rescue.
The film has the usual farcical Python jokes, such as a crack suicide squad turning up as Brian is suffering on the cross. Just as Brian thinks they have come to rescue him, they all commit suicide.
Controversy
The film on its release was quickly banned in various places. This included Norway (leading to the sales pitch in Sweden of come and see the film Norway banned). Additionally some councils banned it being shown in the cinema, even though they didn’t have a cinema! I remember the BBC’s Friday Night, Saturday Morning debate. John Cleese and Michael Palin appeared to debate the film with the Bishop Of Southwark. What stood out was the farcical argument put up by the Church side. Especially seeing as they hadn’t even seen the entire film.
Truth be told, this isn’t going to go down as one of our most popular movies. I don’t think the younger generation get the humour of Pythons satire, in fact I think many struggle with the subtlety of satire. To be honest, the older generation find it a bit tired too. It does however have 2 of my favourite comedy lines. Brian’s mother exclaiming to the assembled multitude, that “Brian is not the Messiah, he’s just a very naughty boy”. The other when Brian is on the cross, and Pontius Pilot has agreed to pardon someone called Brian. When the centurions turn up and ask who is Brian, everyone starts shouting I am Brian. This includes one well spoken man who shouts “I am Brian and so is my wife!”
So overall “Life of Brian” probably more of a miss than a hit.
Anyway the next panel has been rubbed off, and the next movie night will see us watching Everest. The true story of 2 groups of climbers caught in a massive storm whilst ascending Everest.
The Last Flight Of Mi Amigo
22 February 2019
For those who haven’t seen it on the news, or social media, Mi Amigo was a
USAAF B-17 Flying Fortress that was returning heavily damaged from a raid. It crashed into trees in Sheffield’s Endcliffe park. At the time a group of kids were in the park, having met up for a prearranged fight!
One of them, a gentleman called Tony Foulds, witnessed the pilot turning the aircraft to avoid the kids and sacrificing himself and his crew to save them.
Memorial To The Fallen
As he grew up, Tony started to tend to the memorial that had been placed in the park. A labour he has undertaken for 6 decades. This was unnoticed by all except a few locals. Until a chance meeting with Dan Walker. Host of a radio programme for the BBC he was jogging through the park. Noticing Tony sweeping the monument they got to talking. Tony explained what he was doing and why. He told Dan his ambition was for a memorial flypast to commemorate the anniversary of the crash. Dan told him to “Leave it to me” and decided to help. He tweeted about the meeting, asking if anyone knew how much the red arrows would cost. Dan found the story going viral, with both U.K. and U.S. military chiefs contacting him regarding the request.
A Memorial Flypast
The upshot was that on 22nd February, a number of both countries military craft flew over the park in tribute. The final flyover was 4 Mcdonnell Douglas F15 Fighting Eagles, which flew the “Missing Man” formation. This is a poignant tribute, where the flight approaches with 4 craft in close formation. One of the middle aircraft suddenly breaks away and climbs vertically, leaving the rest of the formation to fly on with an obviously missing place. This is to honour a pilot, who can no longer fly the formation due to his death, and was a fitting tribute to the heroism of a long ago pilot.
Now you might well ask, what has any of this got to do with a company specialising in Corporate Entertainment. Well, to be honest, nothing really, other than since I obtained my Private Pilots Licence I have had an increasing interest in aviation. Oh, and if it wasn’t for men like the crew of that B17, this blog might well be called Zuckerwatte Verrückt (That’s German for Candy Floss Crazy).
Movie Nights 101
18 February 2019
To lighten up things in the office, we have occasional movie nights using our in house AV kit. The way it goes is this, someone suggests a film, everyone else refuses to watch that. Everyone else suggests alternative films. First suggester refuses to watch any of them on principle. After much arguing a film is finally agreed upon for us to watch. Usually one that half of the office have already seen.
Well now, we have a new system. We have purchased from the mighty Amazon, a poster, entitled 101 movies to see before you die. This contains 101 (that’s a surprise) scratch off panels, with a movie hidden behind each one. We use a random number generator to choose a panel, and everyone has agreed that we watch whatever comes up.
A Beautiful Mind Movie 27
Well, the first number came out as 27. Cue the excitement as we scratched the panel off. Cue the groans as the title “A Beautiful Mind” appeared. Evidently a film about a mathematician with mental health problems!
John Forbes Nash was a mathematician at Princeton University in the 1940’s. Besides being a genius, it gradually becomes apparent during the film, that he suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. Despite his condition, he not only won a Nobel prize, but also the Abel prize, the only person ever to have done so. Tragically, both Mr Nash and his wife were killed when the taxi they were travelling in crashed whilst returning from receiving the Abel prize.
Truth be told, everyone enjoyed the film, and would recommend it. The beauty of doing it with this random method, is that we are going to watch movies that in normal circumstances, we would never have bothered with.
Next up is number 72, Monty Python’s Life Of Brian, a review of that and our other movie nights will appear as we watch them, popcorn in hand!
Valentine Surprise For Cheating Girlfriend
14 February 2019
14th February is, as I should imagine you know already, St Valentines day. The day reserved for lovers. The day when you give your loved one a Valentine Surprise. However one boyfriend decided to use the day to express his displeasure after discovering his girlfriend had cheated on him.
Handing over a beautifully wrapped gift box, you could see the excitement in her eyes. As she sat back to open the box, he exited the car, deadlocking the doors behind him so that they couldn’t be opened from the inside.
In the video you can see her reaction, when she opens the box and releases hundreds of cockroaches. She tries to climb through the roof screaming for her boyfriend to let her out, as the little critters spread everywhere.
Check out our desserts, ideal for Valentines day events.
Churros Cart
9 February 2019
Over the years we have built up quite a large range of catering offerings. From sweet to savoury foods, and hot to cold drinks. For some reason things seem to go in circles with our regular corporate clients. We will have a December, when every other job is chestnuts and mulled wine. The next year that combination is our worst seller.
Churros Cart, One Of Our New Lines
We are always on the look out for new lines to add. Firstly to keep up with trends, but also because our corporate clients like to keep things fresh.
One such line has been churros. For those who have never sampled the delights of churros and hot chocolate, they are a Spanish doughnut. Instead of the traditional ring like we are used to, the churro is a long thin finger doughnut, traditionally served with hot chocolate.
Like many things taken for granted, the history of the snack is unclear, Huffington Post have a nice article on the possible origins, but wherever they come from, they make a great alternative to traditional doughnuts.
Traditionally they are deep fried, we can do this, but we also offer a churros baking system, this is ideal to keep the Health and Safety happy as it doesnt use a large amount of super hot oil.
We supply them on a vintage churros cart, with a range of sauces and dips, including everybody’s favourite, Nutella. Oh, and in line with our environmental policy, we serve them on biodegradable bamboo boats.
We even managed to find a churros recipe for the vegans amongst you.
Cops & Doughnuts
3 February 2019
Its been a longstanding joke, especially if you watch Hollywood movies, that cops & doughnuts are intricately linked.
More evidence of this has emerged with a story about a Krispy Kreme truck catching fire. The lexington Police department in Kentucky posted images on social media, of officers in mourning for the loss of the doughnuts.
Police departments across the nation were quick to offer their condolences, with the University of Kentucky Police Department writing “We feel your loss,” . “We donut what else to say.”
Krispy Kreme Respond
The company joined in the spirit of things with their reply;
Although the police in any country have a difficult job to do, its nice to remember that they are still, human, and a little humour is never a bad thing, so lets all spare a thought for cops & doughnuts.
Hello Again, Hello
27 January 2019
Words to a Neil Diamond song, if your old enough to remember that, then you can probably remember Buzby, Accrington Stanley. And the days when a telephone was connected to your house by a wire!
We recently switched our site to a secure server, leading to all sorts of unforeseen issues. Mainly with securing the Crazy & Co. blog side of things. So to sort this out we have decided it was easier to just start again. This is meant to be a mixture of informative articles. Tongue in cheek comments on the wider world, and the occasional story about the misadventures of our staff.
We will also be allocating an occasional slot to a guest poster. So if you think you can write something that our readers would enjoy perusing, then get in touch and we can talk about it. As long as it is related to either the events industry of the fairground community we will consider it.
So here we are, all shiny and new. We will be re posting some of our most popular content over the next few weeks. In addition to pruning some of the , erm, less desirable stuff. We have also widened our scope of writers, and now have some of the junior staff being allowed to post items. (God help us), so hopefully you will keep coming back to see what we have on the Crazy & Co. blog.
In the meantime you could check out our main site Crazy & Co.
