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A wild and wicked night out with Mrs Brown
A MIX-UP in starting times meant that I had arrived late at Liverpool's Royal Court Theatre, and I could not believe what I found when I entered the auditorium. The place was in uproar with some of the loudest and longest laughter I had heard for years. Women in the audience were choking, brushing tears from their eyes and almost falling off their seats. On stage was Brendan O'Carroll in one of his own plays, one in which he played a brassy Irish woman named Mrs Brown, a woman who used colourful language, dominated every scene in which she appeared, and went through the jokes at full blast. Mrs Brown has become a comedy legend, so much so that after a three-year break she is heading back to Liverpool to star at the city's largest theatre, the Liverpool Empire. .
Outdoors events
HORSE-AND-CARRIAGE RIDES: Tour downtown or have a relaxed, romantic carriage ride, 6-10 p.m. Fridays, Saturdays in the Vista, or by request. Columbia Carriage Works, (803) 227-3833 HORSE TRAIL RIDES: All skill levels. One-hour ride through Saluda Shoals Park twice a month. $30, district residents; $38, non-residents. Minimum age 6. Reservations, (803)731-5208 TRAIL RIDES: Long Creek Equestrian Center, 2000 Longtown Road, Blythewood. $30 per person; two-rider minimum. Reservations, (803) 786-8400 HORSEBACK RIDING: Weekends by reservation, YMCA Family Center. $15 per hour, non-members; $12, members. Group rates for eight, more. (803)359-3376 Recreation ELITE CO-ED VOLLEYBALL: 7-8:30 p.m. Thursdays, Greenview Park. (803) 545-3100 ADVENTURE CAROLINA: 1107 State St., Cayce.
Workers Reveal Off-The-Wall Holiday Gifts
Have you ever received a really bad holiday gift from a co-worker? And no, in this case bad isn't fruitcake or an ugly picture frame. Discussion: Worst Gift You've Gotten? How about a stuffed rattlesnake or frozen potatoes? The Creative Group, a specialized staffing service, surveyed 250 advertising and marketing executives about their most off-the-wall office gifts. It seems that when coworkers exchange holiday gifts, some are in for more of a surprise than others. .
Not available in any store
Myrtle Stevens of Nicholasville doesn't shop for the holidays: She bakes. Her children and grandchildren provide her with lists of those they would like to give gifts to, and Myrtle fires up the oven to make homemade sourdough rolls, cinnamon rolls and other delicacies. Stevens also volunteers for causes such as the Winter Wonderland bazaar at the family resource center at Nicholasville Elementary School, where students can buy inexpensive gifts for their families. To do this, she dons her "Christmas tree" costume to talk to students. Says Stevens: "Christmas is an all-the-time thing, anything we can do to make somebody happy." A meal and stories Lois Leake of Lebanon got off the Christmas treadmill after watching her grandchildren display the beginnings of consumer regret over not getting exactly what they wanted for the holiday.
Employee takes health message to heart
Suzanne Levan sat in a meeting with other benefits managers brainstorming ways to reduce health care costs for their companies and school districts. Inevitably, the conversation turned to obesity as the leading cause for ballooning insurance costs. If they could get their employees to exercise and eat healthy, the managers reasoned, they could cut those costs. But there was one problem with Levan taking that message of health and fitness back to the Northside Independent School District, where she is the director of employee benefits. Levan was 65 pounds overweight. "How do we sit there and tell our population that we have to take control of our health if you yourself are not serving as an example of trying to take care of your health?" she remembered thinking.
Running up that hill
Australia's undisputed queen of girly chic, Alannah Hill, has been forced to turn her attention to corporate wear and exclusive couture evening gowns in a bid to stave off competition from a new breed of designers offering uber-girly designs. For 10 years, Hill has thrived on a niche for fashioning feminine fabrics (floral georgettes, glossy satins and sugary satins) and melodramatic morsels of frippery (decadent beading, oversized floral corsages) into sugary sweet confections that have spawned a cult following here and overseas. But a recent influx of young Australian designers offering "new girly" designs - including Arabella Ramsay, Alice McCall, Kate Sylvester and Caravana - has seen Hill expand her fashion repertoire. A fortnight ago, the flamboyant designer launched a collection of corporate suiting and she has also branched into couture evening wear, with her debut couture collection hitting stores just weeks ago.
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