Tuesday Treasures #1: Kermit the Frog

Dear Loyal and possibly (by now) disturbed reader,

It has been a taxing week. In fact I would go so far as to describe it as being one of those weeks you wish you could forget about. I would go in further by saying that I wish I had a time machine and could travel back in time by fourteen days, find myself and quietly whisper into my younger self’s ear ‘My God Man, if you only take one piece of advice from me please, for both of us, skip over the next fourteen days. Here, take my time machine.’

Of course the problem here would be that I would be stranded fourteen days in the past without a time machine and my lucky past self would have travelled forwards in time, skipping over this miserable time. I, however, would then have to live through the god awful mess all over again.

Anyway, it’s hypothetical anyway.

———————————————————- note to editor: possibly delete the above copy before posting. Remind me to remind you later.

I came home from work to find my gorgeous wife taking photos outside and beginning what looked like another inspiring blog post over at her fabulous ‘Green_Ink’ website. Check it out, it’s fabulous.

The idea behind it is ‘Tuesday Treasures’ in which you pick something in your home and tell the story behind it. The idea of this project is to simply ground yourself with possessions you already have instead of constantly searching for new ones that you simply don’t need.

I have chosen my oldest and most favouritest teddy bear, Kermit The Frog. He is an official cuddly toy from the year 1976 during the time of the original Muppet Show and produced by Fisher Price. He is to this day the only accurate cuddly toy version of Kermit I have ever seen. The colouring, even now that he is in his thirty-fifth year, is like the Kermit you see on the telly! I loved him as a child and still love him now and go through sudden panic-attack moments of ‘Where’s Kermit?’.

He wasn’t always my Kermit. I was born in 1980, when this Kermit was 4! I have no idea of his history before we met but what I do know is that he ended up in Hughenden Valley’s Playgroup that resided in the town hall. My memory of this period is very clear but also vague. I have no idea how old I was, but I can only assume I was three years old.

Mum would drop me off and I would disappear into a world of chases, puppets, cartoons and other such magical creations all summoned inside my head. I loved going to Playgroup  because that’s where I played (and possibly hogged all day long) a Kermit the Frog teddy and a giant life-size puppet of the original Emu. The three of us were inseparable and Kermit was my most favourite toy EVER!

Then something tragic happened. I left playgroup.
Years went by and I always searched for my own Kermit but they all looked like ‘fake’ Kermits. The green of these imposter’s skin was lighter and their eyes were all wrong and his hands and feet were just too big. I searched hopelessly for years to no avail and I resigned myself to being Kermit-free for the rest of my life.

Then Mum and Dad were going to a party one night in 1985. As it happened it was at the town hall where my old playgroup used to be. As I remember I pestered Mum to at least ask if Kermit could be released from the bondage of the playgroup and into my loving care. I knew it would be fruitless to ask, but felt there was no harm in asking anyway. I remember going to bed sad, but annoyingly optimistic, a trait I stupidly haven’t grown out of (possibly because of this experience).

I woke up in the morning to find THE Kermit from playgroup sitting next to my bed smiling at me. Mum had asked and the lady who ran the playgroup and she actually told her that the kids didn’t play with Kermit so she was glad to give him away! I was the happiest kid in the world right there and then I’m sure.

Since then Kermit and I have been inseparable. We have moved house countless times and once in the late eighties, having read that he was wash-proof, even had a bath together! I still have him and even though he is not on display he comes out occasionally to comfort me. It seems highly appropriate that he should come out and be with me now.
It may sound a bit soppy to say this, but Kermit reminds me that it is important always to hope and look forward to things you want to do. If you want something badly enough and you are patient enough, then ultimately you will get it. That is certainly how my life has been and Kermit reminds of that part of me that I do forget about sometimes.

Myself & Kermit in 1986

Myself & Kermit in 2011

Possibly Interesting Fact: this blog post was written whilst listening to George Harrison’s ‘All Things Must Pass’.

Cloudy with a chance for Tesla

My better half and I recently had the pleasure of seeing the animated film ‘Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs’ (2009) a few weeks ago. Aside from being fantastic fun and a film that doesn’t take itself too seriously (a growing problem with Disney/Pixar), it is noted as the first film aimed at children that I have seen that features the great Nikola Tesla as a ‘hero’.

In the film, Tesla is one of the famous inventors depicted in posters on the young Flint Lockwood’s wall. In fact, out of all of the inventors (Edison and Einstein being among them) Tesla’s poster is the one on which Flint draws the most inspiration.

Tesla's depiction in 'Meatballs'

Now, I know what you’re probably thinking – this is going to be one of those preachy blogs where someone goes on and on about their heroes! Maybe, but I’m hoping it won’t be. Please read on…

In my opinion, Tesla is a tragic example of genuine and compassionate innovation taken down by corporate greed and the matter of money over progress. I strongly believe that if we had taken on more of his ideas and inventions the world would not be in such a mess right now and we certainly would not have had that giant oil spill recently that BP are desperately trying to brush under the rug.

Tesla’s inventions and theories behind wireless electricity into our homes is in evidence today with rechargeable toothbrushes that require no physical connection and recently I noticed in The Carphone Warehouse that a new form of phone-charger has been developed whereby you simply place the phone on the ‘pad’ and it charges the phone without having to plug anything in. Purely wireless.

So, with technology like this in existence and Tesla himself having run tests to prove their safety and reliability a hundred years ago – why are we still using cable to transmit everything? This is also briefly touched upon in another film that I was impressed with, ‘The Prestige’ (2006), in which David Bowie plays Tesla with understated dignity.

With Edison doing his best to put his rival out of business, it was just a matter of time before the government and the banks realised that Tesla’s inventions had no money making potential. How could you charge people for using electricity that came freely from the air?

And this brings me back to the subtle brilliance behind ‘Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs’. Our protagonist Flint Lockwood invents a way of producing any ready-made food to order using a machine that turns water from the air into food particles.

The machine is a huge success as hamburgers, fried eggs and bacon fall like rain from the sky. There is never at any time a mention from the powers-that-be about making money from selling the food. This is dealt with by using the mountains of free food as a tourist attraction which, of course, goes disastrously wrong.

The food falling from the sky is still free. This is exactly the sort of invention that Nikola Tesla was working on a hundred years ago and the reason why this film gets me very excited. With oil being spilled into our oceans and our governments invading other countries simply to obtain more of the precious liquid – is it time we gave Tesla a posthumous second chance? Is it time we moved everything over to wireless? We can do it with mobile phones, the internet, battery powered toothbrushes and the like…so why not electricity?

If we started taking electricity from the air – as Flint takes water from the air to make his food – we could power our homes, cars, computers, hospitals. The list would be endless and the Earth has enough power for everyone.

Now, I know that this post isn’t technically about art – but at the same time it may be thanks to recent films such as ‘The Prestige’ and ‘Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs’ (both based on books, by the way) that our future gets the saviour it so desperately needs – from the past.