posted by sooyup
on
Daily trivia
To avoid disappointment - as we were this year - forward planning is necessary. Yesterday - thinking ahead to April 2011 - I booked a week’s stay at our favourite Llandudno hotel. This brought back the following memory from previous visits. One of the last remaining Punch and Judy men has his pitch outside the hotel in question, performing every hour, on the hour. In the UK, Punch and Judy is a traditional and somewhat macabre puppet show featuring the hook-nosed, hunch-backed Punch, his wife Judy, their unnamed baby, Toby the dog, a crocodile, a policeman and a hangman. The show is traditionally performed by a single puppeteer, known since Victorian times as a “professor”. The device in the inset picture is called a swazzle. The swazzle is a sine qua non, the indispensable tool-of-the-trade of the Punch and Judy man, and it’s what gives Punch his distinctive, strident voice. Several times in the past, while screwing Emma into the mattress during the afternoon, we have heard Punch’s piercing voice screeching his familiar catch-phrase, “That’s the way to do it!” Indeed it is.
To avoid disappointment - as we were this year - forward planning is necessary. Yesterday - thinking ahead to April 2011 - I booked a week’s stay at our favourite Llandudno hotel. This brought back the following memory from previous visits. One of the last remaining Punch and Judy men has his pitch outside the hotel in question, performing every hour, on the hour. In the UK, Punch and Judy is a traditional and somewhat macabre puppet show featuring the hook-nosed, hunch-backed Punch, his wife Judy, their unnamed baby, Toby the dog, a crocodile, a policeman and a hangman. The show is traditionally performed by a single puppeteer, known since Victorian times as a “professor”. The device in the inset picture is called a swazzle. The swazzle is a sine qua non, the indispensable tool-of-the-trade of the Punch and Judy man, and it’s what gives Punch his distinctive, strident voice. Several times in the past, while screwing Emma into the mattress during the afternoon, we have heard Punch’s piercing voice screeching his familiar catch-phrase, “That’s the way to do it!” Indeed it is.
