On to episode eleven! This was good, and I wasn't at all surprised that Gemma got hurt. Over here we used to have an annual two hour special on TV called "Circus of the Stars". Actors would put on a circus for charity. It was always fun to see which actors volunteered that year, and to see which talents they decided to show off. About every other year, though, someone would get hurt, and a couple of times badly hurt. I figured it would be one of the trapeze artists that took the fall in this story, and Gemma seemed the more likely.
Joe was good with the juggling. I’m a one-ball juggler, myself.
“I fancy lion taming!” he quips.
“I don’t think they do that anymore!” she tells him. — They do over here! They’re phasing out the elephants, though. The big circus (Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey) got rid of them last year, Media Shrine did this year, and another one announced it would be dropping their’s next year. Media Shrine had a tiger act last year, which was pretty good, though two of the tigers almost got into it when they were running them offstage to their pens.
“I’ve never been to a circus,” Gemma reveals, “so, I’m not sure exactly what they all do! But, I really enjoyed the cheerleading the other week, so if there’s something similar, I’m up for that!” — Media Shrine had something like that last year, with several girls and a few boys doing dancing whilst suspended from and swinging from ropes that hung from the tops of poles. Very nice. (later edit) It sounds something similar to the aerial silks. They also did mass-choreography acrobatics on solid ground.
“Next, he tries his hand at plate-spinning…” — That’s the one thing you’ve mentioned so far that I might actually be able to do. I’d probably end up a roustabout. In all seriousness, though, there is the dog-and-pony show, although Media Shrine broke it into a dog show and a miniature horse show; I have seen the two combined.
The biggest thing with Matt and providing a stable platform is that it requires much more development of the ancillary muscles, to keep your arms and legs from drifting or trembling. I could lift weights with my legs when I was a teenager — about 325 kilos — but I’d have much more difficulty keeping them steady.
I agree with Gemma’s decision to volunteer for the dare-off, though I expected the show to force her into it, as she scored zero.
“…poor Lissie is having kittens!” — Over here we use that phrase to mean ‘extremely irritated’, which I suppose could qualify here, though you seem to be using more as a synonym for ‘fit to be tied’… which now that I think on it also means ‘extremely irritated’. Hmm.
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I just finished reading "National Velvet", which is much more involved than the Elizabeth Taylor movie was. It was good, and it ends obviously set up for a sequel ("Velvet was able to get on quietly to her next adventures. For obviously she was a person to whom things happened…", which was probably the third time that allusion was made to her further adventures), but although Enid Bagnold continued to write for 46 more years, the story never was continued. I find that a little sad.
Anyway, as good as that story was, I prefer yours.
And I'm off for another week or ten days. Good luck!
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