I worked out the chords for the sixth and half of the seventh verse of “Ophélie” (Ophelia) by Serge Gainsbourg. The melody for the seventh verse is basically the same as for the second but the chords are slightly different. I should have the song finished on Tuesday.
During song practice I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio electric guitar and it was going out of tune a lot. The action has also dropped again.
After song practice I didn’t have time to put my cables or equipment away or to even have breakfast. I was scheduled to meet Brian Haddon at The Crown and Dragon at 13:00 after getting a haircut at Top Cuts. I left my place at 11:18 and got to Top Cuts at noon so I thought I would have plenty of time. But my stylist Amy just got back from a two week holiday and she’s very popular. There was already one customer in her chair and two more ahead of me. At first I sent an email to Brian that I would be fifteen minutes late but then I sent another one that I would meet him closer to 13:30. It was already after 13:35 when I left Top Cuts.
I rode down Yonge as fast as I could and saw Brian standing a couple of blocks north of the Crown and Dragon. He’d discovered that the pub doesn’t open until 15:00 on Mondays and Tuesdays. There was no point waiting and so we had to decide whether to walk north to The Quail or south to mystery. We remembered that although The Quail has pretty good fare we didn’t like the music they played and so we headed south. We stopped to peruse the menu outside of Jack Astor’s but it didn’t grab us so we continued south. I remembered that The Spotted Dick used to be across from what used to be the Hudson’s Bay Centre and so we went to look, but the Dick has departed. I said The Fortunate Fox is a little further west on Bloor but then Brian suggested The Artful Dodger. I hadn’t been there in thirty years and Brian hadn’t been there in a long time either. We didn’t even know if it was still there but we walked down to Isabella to find out. It turns out that it’s still there. The last time I was there it was for drinks after a movie and it was quite crowded. This time we had a rustic, atmospheric, well decorated lounge all to ourselves. I liked the place immediately. I had the Banger’s Breakfast and Brian had the steak and mushroom pie. We shared a pitcher of Creemore and it was all on me. I gifted Brian with a copy of my book and took his picture while he held it.
It was a pleasant lunch and I think The Artful Dodger is my new favourite pub. We might have dinner next at The Supermarket on December 1 after my book launch.
I took a siesta from 17:00 to 18:30.
I weighed 86.85 kilos at 19:00.
I had a potato with gravy and a slice of roast beef while watching videos 5 and 6 of The Beatles cartoon series.
In story 1 of video 5 The Beatles are back in Transylvania. They say Ringo booked the holiday but he says he thought that it was Pennsylvania. They are outside a castle and the door opens so they go in. Paul finds a sarcophagus and goes inside for fun but it has a secret trap door and he slides into the lab of a mad scientist named Professor Psycho, inventor of Instant Wolfbane and Dietary Witch’s Brew. He shows her his latest creation, Vampiress, half girl and half bat. He pulls a switch and she comes to life. Psycho tells her Paul is her future husband. Paul starts running and Vampiress flies after him while the song “Baby’s in Black” is playing. She finally catches him and Psycho is about to pronounce them man and wife when the other Beatles fall into the lab. Psycho and Vampiress then reveal that he is her manager and she’s a singer. They engineered this stunt to try to promote her act. She says she flew with the help of strings. Then Paul kisses her and she falls in love and starts flying without strings.
The first song in the singalong segment is “I’ll Get You”, which was a 50-50 collaboration between John and Paul and they also sang it together. It has lots of “Yeah”s in it. Apparently nobody from Liverpool says “yes”.
The second singalong is the Gerry Goffin and Carole King song “Chains” that was recorded by The Cookies in 1962 and became a very popular song for Liverpool bands to cover. The video shows the Beatles in chains on a slave ship.
In story 2 of video 5 The Beatles walk through a fog to a Picadilly wax museum that is featuring wax figures of The Beatles. As they walk a newsboy calls out about the vampire murders in Picadilly. Inside the Chambre of Horrors they find what they think is a wax statue of Dracula but the viewer sees it’s real. They find their own exhibit and replace the wax statues with themselves. A patron observes that Paul and John don’t look very realistic. Later they find that the museum has closed and they are locked inside. Then Dracula comes to life and starts chasing them to the tune of the song “Misery”. But this Dracula is quite clumsy and so his pursuit is somewhat slapstick. They melt down their statues in a cauldron and then spill the wax on the floor, which traps Dracula. The manager of the museum says it will cost him $5000 to replace the Beatles statues. The Beatles say that for $5000 they’ll stand there instead of the statues.
In story 1 of video 6 The Beatles are on safari in Africa to find and photograph an albino rhino but they can’t find one even though they pass one that’s holding a sign that reads “Take photos of me for forty cents”. They get two flat tires and Ringo says the travel agency provided them with a jack but it turns out to be a witch doctor named Jack. Jack turns a worm into a python that immediately falls in love with the Beatles and it keeps trying wrap itself around them while the Smokey Robinson song “You Really Got a Hold On Me” is playing. It was a big hit for The Miracles in 1962. On the Beatles version John and George do lead vocals with Paul singing harmony.
The first singalong song is “Slow Down”. Paul is about to introduce the second song when Ringo mispronounces something. Paul asks “Don’t you know the king’s English?” Ringo says, “I know the queen is”. The second song is the 1956 hit “Honey Don’t” by Carl Perkins. The Beatles version features Ringo on lead vocals and before the instrumental he calls out, “Rock on George, one time for me!”
In story 2 of video 6 The Beatles are on a cruise ship and go to see Mutiny on the Bounty in the boat’s cinema. Later Ringo hits his head and dreams he’s Captain Ringo Bly and that he’s put the other Beatles in irons for trying to mutiny. They sing “Chains”. He makes them walk the plank into a pool full of beautiful girls and then he jumps in too.
Lance Percival did the voices of Paul and Ringo (and really only Ringo’s cartoon voice sounded like him). He moved to Canada after serving with the Seaforth Highlanders in Egypt and first worked writing jingles for TV commercials. At the same time he had a band called Lord Lance and His Calypsons. In his concerts he would improvise comic calypsos about current events. His film debut was in The Devil’s Daffodil. He was a regular on the skit comedy show That Was the Week That Was. He played Wilfred Haines in the movie Carry On Cruising. He co-starred in the comedy musical It’s All Over Town. He was featured in the comedy review One Over Eight. He did the voice of Old Fred in Yellow Submarine. He was a regular panelist on Many A Slip. He wrote two books of verse: “Well Versed Cat” and “Well Versed Dog”. He moved from acting to writing and after-dinner speaking.
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