Meme (No, not Mame!, Meme)

Meme. Apparently a meme is a thing which is a bit like one of those vicious chain-emails which if you pass on to five other people will bring you good luck and which – if you don’t – will cause you to die.

Well, the West End Whingers thank Sharkey who got it from Woodman who got it from Ellis who got it from Croggan who got it from Butler who got it from Freeman who got it from Szymkowicz who got it from well, actually we don’t recognise anyone past Croggan.

Andrew calls it the chlamydia of the Internet. Phil says he thinks he remembers having chlamydia once but all the petals fell off after about two days so he never bothered again.

Still hazy? We are. Anyway, according to Croggan: “It’s a kind of Richard Dawkins-inspired virus, a pyramidal scheme that entails blogging details about oneself and then spreading the word assiduously, just as a rampant buck rabbit perpetuates his genes.”

Who knew that the esteemed Prof. Dawkins invented a new form of spam? Is there no end to the man’s talents?

Anyway, the meme says:

List 5 things that certain people (who are not deserving of being your friend anyway) may consider to be “totally lame” but you are, despite the possible stigma, totally proud of.

Now this is where it all begins to fall apart for us as the Whingers

1. don’t have any friends
2. are totally lame
3. have absolutely nothing to be proud of.

But on the plus side, we were thrilled to be able to read the guilty secrets of others in the theatrical blogosphere. Here are some of our favourites:

• Ellis: “When I want to be a bit weepy, I read a picture book called, “The Lion Who Wanted to Love”, about a brave vegetarian lion cub who is thrown out of the pride for not wanting to chomp his other species animal friends.” Awww. Phil actually retched.
  
• Woodman: “I generally prefer white wine to red. And three glasses seems to be my limit.” Pathetic.
• Sharkey: “The evening of the day we got married, B and me and our families went to my soppy Georgian rom-com version of Cinderella at Southwark Playhouse and it was very memorable.” Your wedding night? Your own play? Fantastic!
• Croggan: “I own (and wear) a dalmatian dressing gown with black spots and red piping.” Real dalmation? Cruella De Vil or what? Next time the Whingers hit Australia, Melbourne is going to be the first stop and we’re going to wangle a rummage through Croggan’s wardrobe to find the the things she won’t own up to.

Anyway, here are five things that certain people (who are not deserving of being our friends anyway) may consider to be “totally lame” but we are, despite the possible stigma, totally proud of.

I’m afraid we had to delve into our childhoods to find things which fitted the bill.

Phil’s five:

• Phil’s childhood dream was to be one of the children in The Sound of Music and he would spend hours trying to decide which one.
• Phil also dreamed of being Robin (from Batman, right) as he liked the idea of being the ward of a millionaire philanthropist.
• Phil also wanted to be in The Man from Uncle
• Phil has a Blue Peter badge (runner up, naturally)
• Phil once wrote to Biddy Baxter asking for a job as a Blue Peter presenter

Andrew’s five:

• As a child, Andrew desperately wanted to be called Barney (the name of the chauffeur of The Snoop Sisters, a 1970s series starring Helen Hayes and Mildred Natwick, right)
• Andrew spent some of his teenage years touring old people’s homes “entertaining” them with his Jake The Peg act, mining to the Rolf Harris song.
• Andrew once met Jason, the Blue Peter cat
• At the age of 14, Andrew applied for a job as managing director of the Blackpool Pleasure Beach
• Andrew desperately dreamed of being Marine Boy

Both:

• Andrew and Phil both remember being deeply affected by seeing Thoroughly Modern Millie for the first time, encountering Carol Channing for the first time and being utterly mesmerised: “Who is this woman?”

Anyway, we can not pass along this meme without remonstrating with the various so-called “writers” who have failed to re-position the rather offensive trailing preposition. So we hereby tag Smith, Tripney, Slicker, Shenton and Gardner with:

List 5 things that certain people (who are not deserving of being your friend anyway) may consider to be “totally lame” but of which you are, despite the possible stigma, totally proud.