Morris and mumming

Fingers crossed, I think Anonymous Morris have our youngest dancer yet.

C is age 12.  We picked him up after we did a workshop for a local scout troupe.  He's keen, well-behaved, is already developing a good standard of dance after only two sessions and we're very pleased that we decided to break our minimum age of 16 to take him.

We're also working on a mumming play.  We tried to do one last year, but half the cast went down with flu, which rather put the kibosh on that.

So far, this year, it's looking promising.  We're well into rehearsals - or at least, as much rehearsals as mumming plays require.

We've had two run-throughs now and 2/3 of the cast have their words memorised.  Young C is playing the Valiant Solder and has got his part learnt (ran through it with his parents) and is acting with gusto.

Graham, our St George, makes me crease up with laughing every time he comes on (he has to tell me not to giggle) .  He's a gently camp St George with a slightly wistful look - reminds me of Sgt Wilson in Dad's Army.  Graham has done mumming before (a long time ago), and was keen to do it again.  He created his own approach to the part.

At practice we have plenty of sticks lying around and a broom that we use for Henry's broom dance.

When it comes to the lines:

"In comes I, St George!  A valiant man,
With naked sword and spear in hand,
I fought the mighty dragon"

- he promptly picked up a stick for a sword and brandished the broom as a menacing spear...

So that got a laugh and we've stuck with it.  The sword fight scenes are very entertaining!

The costumes are all very simple, as is traditional with mumming.  The Turkish Solder is Pam with a towelling turban.  As Beelzebub, I get a stick, a frying pan and a little party pair of devil's horns.  The doctor gets to wear a black hat.  Father Christmas gets a santa hat.  We'll all wear our normal purple tatter jackets and I may possibly put on some red face paint.

All I have to do now is to find a date when the entire cast are able to perform... And pubs that are keen to have us.  (Tried the Foundry Arms yesterday and they're fine, so that's one already.)

More thoughts on ebook readers

 A lot of very helpful comments are helping me to focus in on what I want.

1.  Touch screen - a definite for me now -  I hadn't realised that you can turn page with a gentle stroke - and that's ideal for me, less difficulty than a button.

2.  Easy way to prop it up - would be very handy - I'm told the case for at least one of the Kindle models folds back like a notebook and means it props itself up.  That could be very handy for me as I can't hold things in my hand for long.  What other models have this?

3.  Font size.  I like being able to adjust font size, mainly in case I have the wrong pair of glasses with me.  (Is it true that you can't adjust the font if  a book has DRM?)

4.  I can see Calibre  as potentially being a very useful tool both for storing ebooks in the cloud and for converting formats.  They also make it easy to find ebooks for sale without DRM

5.  Fictionwise and Baen Books are good places to purchase DRM free books.  Baen have an interesting selection of free books put up by the authors to allow you to try their work.  Project Gutenburg is probably the best place for books that are out of copyright.

6.  MOBI is the format for downloading fan fic.

7.  The big problem.  I currently buy most of my books from Amazon.  It seems to be that you have to pretty much decide to either go the Kindle route and buy DRM-locked from Amazon or go DRM free and be unable to buy from Amazon.  Have I got that correct?  (Or a similar issue with Barnes and Noble)  If I go DRM free, will I be able to get the books I want?  (format conversion seems to be a bit messy where DRM is involved and I'm not geek enough to enjoy the process)  How have people found availability of books they want?

(I think I'd still get my non-fiction in paper form - I like to be able to flick back and forth between sections)

8.  I like multiple bookmarks, to be able to record where I am in each book I'm reading and also to have easy access to the books I'm currently reading (the Kobo has a nice feature of moving whatever book you last opened to the top of the list).  How do different ebooks compare on this front?

How do touch screen ebooks that you own compare with the thoughts above?