Testing the new photo uploading

[Miraiker]

A couple of years ago I made this:


It proved very popular with children and adults alike so last summer I made an alternative insert for teddy bear's picnics:


I enjoyed the change so for my Halloween bookings I made this:


It's been fun.

Yes Chris, uploading images is easier, thanks.

[James]

My Year 9 Latin is getting a rather rusty these days, what does it mean?

[Chris Richard]

What a great idea! I love them, Miraiker.

[Chris]

Great Pictures Miraiker -
But I posted The New Photo uploading NINE years ago!! October 2008
Nice to see Peter at the weekend. It was a good "do!"

[Richard Coombs]

They look really good fun Miraiker ...and a great twist on the seaside picture postcard photo wall.
Bravo
Richard

[Chris]

In the 1950s Humanettes, as they were called, had a brief period of renewed popularity. I think they were originally a Victorian invention, but a booklet describing their construction and use was written by a magician (I think it was Will Blythe?) suggesting they be used as a novelty to be included along with the conjuring tricks, much as some magicians now use a vent doll, Punch & Judy or balloon models.

(The Heron Humanettes with "Jake the Peg")
In those days work was plentiful and many magicians would do a full evening family show in a church or village hall and so need plenty of material. Many were versatile and had added skills such as chapeaugraphy, paper tearing, rag pictures, or juggling. Older magicians will probably remember Al Roberts and Dorothy who provided entertainment for Magic Club Annual Dinners throughout Britain. Their's was a wonderfully varied performance of old fashioned Parlour Magic, comedy, paper tearing, tap dancing, rag pictures (they made a splendid Laughing Cavalier Painting from bits of coloured felts stuck on a black velvet board, and then finished it off with an ornate golden frame), they sang, recited, performed a dramatic monologue,and Al did a Vent routine and they both worked marionettes and were altogether thoroughly entertaining. I remember once enquiring about booking them for an event. They were booked solid for the next three years!. I never saw them perform with Humanettes or Punch & Judy but am pretty certain they had done both.
When I was about 8 years old I remember being taken to see a puppet show which turned out to be a Humanette Show. It was pretty boring for a child. The puppets were well made and costumed. The usual practice was for most of them to have stuffed arms and bodies with articulated legs animated by short rods from the heels through a slit in the backcloth. The head was a human head poking through a slit, with the body hanging from the collar which clipped round the performer's neck.
So you might have a Scotsman, the performer wearing a tam o' shanta and the doll wearing a kilt. He would sing a Will Fyfe song and finish with a tap dance. The curtain would drop while they changed the body of the puppet and the headgear of the performer. The puppets were nicely dressed, but the show was a series of character songs all ending with a tap dance. Sometimes (as in Miraiker's set up) there were two characters, or I did see one show with a line up of four. These puppets are a great novelty and can be very effective for a short act. But for a full show they were very boring even to a puppet enthused eight year old - and I'm pretty sure to anyone else.
You could buy a fit-up and full set of Humanette puppets ready to show from Gamages or Ellisdons in those days. I have a feeling that Michael Dixon (British Puppet Guild Archivist) has a set in his wonderful collection in Bridgnorth.

[Chris]

Have just found an entertaining clip on Youtube where the advantages of video have been married with the Humanette idea to make up for some of their limitations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPLj1_qsq8s

and here's a very interesting page on Ian Denny's website.
http://www.iandenny.co.uk/page45n.htm
I think it may have been Elliott's Humanettes that I watched as a young boy.

[Miraiker]

Ah Chris, I really should wear my glasses more often.
Thanks for that information. Clown Bertram used them on clacton pier in the past and Dick and Dom brought them to children's television a few years ago. I agree that a long show would get boring very quickly. I find that children like to play in them for a few minutes while adults are mostly only looking for a photograph. I thought it was a great advertising board because parents tend to keep the photos of their children in there and thus have my website on their phones when party time comes around.

Here is mine in action at a beer festival. Short and sweet.
https://youtu.be/EKvb0_iXUmI

James, the Latin is the closest I can get to "That's the way to do it!"

[Chris]

I like your humanettes better than your latin which doesn't actually seem to translate to anything relevant.
That's the way to do it is usually abbreviated in latin to Q.E.D.
We used to write it at the bottom of geometric problems when they were successfully solved:
Quod est demonstrandum
Literally that which has been demonstrated, or that's the way I did it. I don't think you'll get closer than that - it even has the same triumphant ring.
Actually a friend has just pointed out that Q.E.D. is actually Quod erat, not Quod est - erat means "It was" whereas est is "It is".
I think est is best for our purposes.

[Miraiker]

I'm sure you're right, Chris. But like you I always associated QED with mathematical proofs and therefore better translated as shown or demonstrated. I thought the verb facere, to do, suited Mr Punch's phrase better. I've been wrong in the past (a very, very long time ago) and I expect I'll be wrong again one day. Whether I'll admit it ... that's another question!

[Chris]

My not being able to understand yours was probably because I learned chuch Latin, not classical. Sorry.