......Two for Joy!

…….Two for joy.

One of the hitherto unspoken joys of living here in Denham Court is the view, even on a rainy morning such as today, from our kitchen window. There, through the mist you can catch a glimpse of La Tour Eiffel, placing us firmly in the 47th arrondissement known as Upper Sydenham.  To those with a keen eye it may just be possible to work out that this architectural highlight of our kitchen vista  is actually one of the two Crystal Palace transmitter towers. It looks fabulous on a winter's day, brilliant at night when it is lit up and overall, a positive benefit for whoevers turn it is to stand at the kitchen sink and do the washing up - mainly Richard.

 Cast your eyes down  from this wonder, and the likelihood is that you'll see magpies. The roof of the garages behind the flats seem to be a popular place for them to congregate, and it's rare that on looking out of the window in the morning I fail to see at least one bird, white breast glinting in the South London light.

Of course, as others bound by superstition will know, just how many birds I see in the morning can have a serious effect on my day. As the rhyme goes, "One for sorrow, two for joy….." and so on. I can actually sing the whole song, having familiarised myself with it when it was the theme tune to the children's television magazine programme "Magpie" during the early 70s. The theme song used the rhyme as a basis for the badges that the show gave out to keen viewers. The Olympic gold of Magpie badges was not as you might expect " six for gold", which was  awarded for achieving a gold in an award scheme or test, but "10 for a bird you must not miss", a mangling of the original rhyme to allow the badge to be awarded for an appearance on the programme itself.

Living in darkest Rotherham, one didn't aspire to ever having a "10 for a bird" badge. How wrong I was! After submitting three questions that I would  like to ask a hero - in my case, the actress Diana Rigg, of whom I was an ardent fan  in "The Avengers" and in the Bond film "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" - I received a phone call one Tuesday afternoon at home just after returning from school.

I was absolutely convinced that the person on the end of the phone was a friend who was winding me up. So much so that my mother eventually snatched the phone out of my hand and told whoever was on the other end of the line to stop messing about. The person on the other end of the line was Helen Best (yes, I can still remember her name!) who at that time worked as a researcher on the television program. She was calling to invite me to the studio to take part in an interview with Diana Rigg and to ask my questions. It was probably one of the greatest things that had happened to me, and I can remember it still in considerable detail. Clad in new purple flares, with toning purple shirt and purple tie, ("that will look really good in colour" I remember somebody telling me on set - though having now watched designers tell actresses in horrific costumes how "that will light really well", I question the veracity of the comment) Mum and I set off from Rotherham to the studios at Teddington.

Diana Rigg was a dream. Coming herself from Doncaster, just 5 miles away from where we lived was an added bonus. The whole day was full of excitement, and even though time dictated I only got to ask two of my three questions (Magpie went out live!) the day was a huge success.

The question I didn't get to ask was "How was it appearing nude on the London stage in the recent production "Abelard and Heloise?"   I have no idea where that question came from, and probably wouldn't have even asked it if I'd known that one of the reviews Diana Rigg received for that production was  "built like a brick basilica with insufficient flying buttresses" from the critic John Simon. The joy of not being able to ask the question however was that my failure became a headline in the Sheffield Star. "Time runs out on schoolboy's nude question" further extended my run of local celebrity. Plus the article came with a picture alongside it. Sadly the picture was of Diana Rigg and not me, but it was a start.

So I have always taken notice of magpies. If you do see one single magpie you should respond with a sharp salute and "Good morning General, where's your wife?" which for maximum effect and embarrassment has to be spoken aloud. There are those who believe in the less militaristic approach of "Good morning Mr magpie, where's Mrs Magpie?".  Executing either of these rituals correctly will evidently counteract the unlucky effect of "One for sorrow"

Wednesday of this week must've been a single magpie day. But when you're leaving the house at 6:45 AM you little time or inclination for saluting the higher military echelons of the bird world. Beware.

Having done a days role-play job, with the added bonus of a 3 PM finish instead of the scheduled 5 PM, my colleague, the actor Ben Nathan, and myself got into a taxi to head back to Leicester station. We were sat in the back of the cab chatting away, when I suddenly noticed a car getting very close to us as we left roundabout. I was about to remark on this, when the car hit us.  Our taxi tipped up onto the two drivers side wheels, and both of us could see the crash barrier on the central reservation looming very close to the window where Ben sat. Thanks to the skill of our taxi driver, we didn't hit the kerb, and the taxi landed back down on  all four wheels with a heavy smash. We were shaken. Quite severely shaken actually, and I managed to bang the side of my face on the side window.

There's a whole other blog to be written regarding the follow-up to this, but suffice it to say that we were safe.

So I'm just going to be that little more careful on doing my morning magpie check in future. 

One for sorrow

Two for joy

Three for a girl

Four for a boy

Five for silver

Six for gold

Seven for a secret, never to be told

Eight for a wish

Nine for a kiss

Ten for a bird you must not miss

(The Magpie Theme Tune version of the rhyme)