Margo's Musings

Sex with a Stranger

2012-02-11T22:43:00.001Z

OK, I bet that got your attention!

I've been following Russell Tovey on twitter for a while (he plays George the Werewolf in 'Being Human, was Alonso in the Doctor Who / Titanic Christmas episode, and Henry Knight in 'Sherlock') and he has been tweeting about the play he is currently starring in, 'Sex with a Stranger', by Stefan Golaszewski.

It sounded interesting, so I booked myself a ticket, and set off to London early this morning. It was cold. Very cold. The journey took a little longer than expected, as my first train got delayed, so we went rather a long way round, but fortunately there are plenty of trains from Swindon (where I was changing), and I'd left myself lots of time. I enjoyed sitting in a nice, warm train as it travelled though wintry landscape, especially as it was a beautiful bright, sunny, clear day.

London was freezing cold - literally. There was ice on the fountains in Trafalgar Square, and snow still lying under some of the trees in St James' Park. The mounted sentries at Horseguards looked rather cold (although not as cold as the poor un-mounted chap. I suppose that the fact you are sitting on a horse, even if you have to keep completely still, must give you a little warmth.

There were a lot of people in Trafalgar Square, as part of Amnesty International's day day of solidarity with Syria - and massive numbers of police, although there seemed not to be any problems, so far as I could tell.

After fortifying myself with some good beer, and mediocre fish and chips in a pub just off Whitehall, I popped into the National Gallery for an hour or so. I like it there.

Today, I looked in on a couple of my favourites: Rousseau's 'Surprised!' and Stubbs' 'Whistlejacket', for instance, and checked that the Van Gogh 'Sunflowers' doesn't say 'for Amy' on it, then wandered (via 'The Ambassadors' and a completely unexpected (to me) Da Vinci cartoon ) into the Sainsbury Wing, where they keep the medieval paintings. It's amazing to see paintings which are over 500 years old but still so bright and clear.

Richard II's diptych, painted in around 1395, is stunning, for instance.

I then headed over to Trafalgar Studios for the play itself.

It's short, and has just three cast members.

Adam    Russell Tovey
Grace    Jaime Winstone
Ruth      Naomi Sheldon

We start with Adam and Ruth, making their way back to Ruth's flat, via night buses and cabs and a kebab, making awkward conversation to fill that all-to-long gap between picking one another up in a night club, and getting back to Grace's home so they can have sex. There are a lot of awkward silences, and both actors are very convincing. It's funny, but in a slightly unsettling, too close for comfort kind of way. Ruth originally comes across as brash and confident, but as time passes exposes her own insecurity.

As the play continues, there are flashbacks to Adam preparing to go out, from which we learn that he has a partner, Ruth, and see the build up to his night out, including Ruth's half-formed suspicions, and Adam's angry response to them. There is a scene where we see Grace compliment Adam on his shirt, and then jump back, to see Ruth, alone on stage and in total silence, carefully ironing it for him, ready for his evening out.

The play doesn't resolve these issues - we don't see any of the aftermath of Adam and Grace's one night stand.

I was very impressed by all three actors. The studio is tiny, seating fewer than 100 people (in 3 rows) so it's very intimate, and there was very little in the way props (and no physical scenery at all - just light and sound) which must make it harder to capture and keep an audience's suspension of disbelief.

I'm glad I went. (and for what it's worth, Tovey takes his shirt off - twice - allowing one to admire more than just his acting skills...!)
(There are some amazing pictures taken by photographer Elliott Franks, of the cast, here)

Ice and snow

2012-02-04T16:18:00.001Z

Winter has arrived properly, now - we have had several nights with temps of -5 or -6 (Celsius, but this is Southern England, it counts as really cold) and thick frosts.

This morning I walked into town to go to the library - it's National Libraries Day, although the Library didn't appear to have any special events on.

The decorative pond in the park had icy teeth around its perimeter, and an isolated few icicles above where the fountain plays.

The pond was full of ice-bubbles.

I hadn't planned it, but as I went past the butchers it occurred to me that in this kind of weather, one should be eating hearty, warming stews, so I popped in for some steak, which is now in the slow but glorious process of being transformed into Boeuf Bourguinon.

Walking home, it occurred to me that when it is this cold, almost every bird one sees is a robin.. I must have seen 6 or 7 of them altogether.

Admittedly, I did also see some swans, regal and monochrome on the stream.

And shortly after I returned home, it started to snow. It seems to be settling, and I am determined to stay safe and snug inside. Fortunately I did grocery shopping yesterday, so I have food, and beer, and toilet roll, and cat food, so we should be fine even if the snow is still here tomorrow.

And of course, having been to the library, I also have a good supply of as-yet-unread books.

it could be worse. . .

Life, and Stuff like that

2012-02-02T20:52:00.000Z

Last week was a very long, stressful one.

The weekend mainly involved my heaving a huge sigh of relief that I'd got as far as Friday without total disaster. I was looking forward to a nice, long, lazy lie-in, so of course I woke at 5.30 and couldn't get back to sleep! On the plus side, this did mean getting a lot done - housework, mainly, but also a little baking, writing a few letters, and a trip to the Post Office (as you can tell, it was a fascinating weekend!)

So, nothing very exciting or unusual, but it allowed me to decompress and unwind a little, ready to face the new week.

It's been very cold (for UK values of cold!) - there was even a little snow, on Monday, but it didn't settle, so we didn't have to contend with people trying (and often failing) to drive in unfamiliar. Still bloody cold, however.

Meanwhile, I'm de-stressing by re-reading old, comforting favourites - Elizabeth Goudge, for instance. So it goes.

Neverwhere

2012-01-22T18:01:00.001Z

Late last year, Neil Gaiman tweeted about a production of ‘Neverwhere’, due to be staged at Reading’s Progress Theatre, and as soon as I could, I booked a ticket for myself.

The production runs from 19^th-28^th January , and my ticket was for last night’s performance. Reading is about 75 miles from here, so it was quite a trek. I had an uneventful drive down except for the bit in Reading where Tim, the disembodied voice who lives in my SatNav, got very upset with me for refusing to go down a bus-lane, and then refused to speak to me for a bit after that, (“lost satellite signal” indeed!), but happily he relented in time to tell me how to find the side-street which the theatre is in.

Having done so, I had about an hour to spare, so I wandered down to the nearest pub where I was delighted to find not only the expected beer, but also a remarkably good burger (although either I mis-read the menu, or one lettuce leaf, wilted to a sad remnant of its real self, constitutes a salad these days). But the beer was good, and the pub was warm, and there was no piped music, no TV, and a shelf of books available.

The Progress Theatre is very small – it seats just under 100 people, and it appeared to be very nearly sold out. (I've no idea whether there are any tickets left for other performances - the theatre's own website is down for maintenace at present but the box office number is 0118 960 6060.

The production was, I thought, excellent. It was very faithful to the novel. (I think also to the TV show, especially with some of the visuals, but I have not watched that for a long time, so I may have missed some) There were some places where scenes were cut – (the Marquis de Carabas’s meeting with Lear, the ‘Angels over London’ exhibition and, to my regret, the Nice Cup of Tea element of the Black Friar’s Ordeal)

I enjoyed the various visual grace notes – in the Floating Market scenes the set included various coats of arms, relating to different characters or fiefdoms, some of which were immediately obvious (Hammersmith, Serpentine/Seven Sisters) others (Shepherds Bush, Earl’s Court) took me a little longer to work out. There was also very imaginative use of lighting and projections to help augment the sets – very effective, especially regarding Door’s ability to open doors, and the moves from London Above to London Below.

Mr Croup and Mr Vandemar. (Photo from progresstheatre.co.uk)

I was particularly impressed with Mr Croup (Alex McCubbin) and Mr Vandemar (Craig Daniels), although I was a little thrown when they first appeared, as Mr Vandemar looked very much how I’d always imagined Mr Croup looking, and Mr Croup looked more how I’d seen Mr Vandemar in my head, (there was a definite nod to Cain and Abel in 'Sandman', too, in their appearance) but both of them projected a real sense of menace.

I also greatly enjoyed the way that the black humour of the original were retained. Well worth seeing, both for fans of Neil’s work, and for newcomers. I’m very glad I went.

Marmalade Season

2012-01-15T19:00:00.000Z

It's that time of year again: there are Seville oranges in the greengrocers' shops, it's cold outside, and I am (literally) scraping the bottom of my last jar of 2011 marmalade. So it must be time to make the entire house small of oranges by making marmalade.

Saturday was very cold - it's been a very mild winter so far, and I've only had about 2 days when I've needed to scrape ice off the car before heading into work. There was a very heavy frost, coupled with that very bright, cold sunshine you sometimes get in winter, and a perfectly clear, perfectly blue sky. I walked into town and found that the marmalade oranges were in stock at the greengrocer's (they weren't, last weekend) so I bought lots, popped into the corner shop on the way home for shedloads of sugar, and spent much of Saturday afternoon making my first batch, and much of Sunday afternoon making the second.

1st Batch of 2012 Marmalade!

So far, the first batch is looking good - it's got a nice set, and the peel is well distributed through the jars. Today's batch is not looking quite so good - it looks as though the peel is rising a bit, especially in the fist couple of jars I filled, which means that I didn't leave it quite long enough before putting it into jars, but the taste seems fine, so it's many aesthetic! I am always a little bit worried that I'll leave it too long and end up with a saucepan full of solid marmalade, instead of neat jars full.

I've probably made around 12lbs of marmalade, and have another 4lbs of oranges, (which will make around the same quantity) so will probably do some more next weekend, provided I can source a few more empty jars by then.

Having spent most of the last week eating very dull, not-very-good-for-me meals because I felt too tired to cook properly when I got in from work, I also took the opportunity yesterday to make a big batch of chili / spaghetti sauce, most of which I have frozen, so I have enough for 7 or 8 meals, so the next few times I'm too tired to cook I can have real, home cooked food without having to do any real cooking.

I also renewed my car insurance, which was, as it so often is, a frustrating exercise. My renewal from my existing provider was just under £100 more than last year, for the annual premium. Shopping around, I managed to get it to £45 less than last year (and with a slightly lower excess than the renewal quote, but otherwise an identical policy) - the really irritating part being that this is actually with the same insurer - but even knowing this, they wouldn't price match so it is treated as a new application, not a renewal, and I have to faff around sending copies of my licence and renewal notice. It seems such a waste, and just goes to show how much insurers rely on inertia to take advantage of their customers. I'd love to see an insurer genuinely reward loyal customers, with lower prices for sticking with them, but I doubt it will happen.

I didn't get around to spring cleaning the spare bedroom, which is next on my 'to-do' list, but all in all I feel the weekend has not been wasted, and I shall be able to settle down to enjoy watching 'Sherlock' with a clear conscience, this evening!

Ooops. Slight lack of blogging

2012-01-13T19:22:00.000Z

Oh dear, I've not really got on with the blogging this year, have I? Since going back to work I seem to have had no time or energy for anything else. But it's almost the weekend, so: quick update time.
Tybalt is doing much better. He had a further check up today, as he's now been on the meds for a month, so he has to have blood tests so they can check that he's having the right dosage. He'd put on another 300g, which means he has gained nearly 2lbs since he started treatment. He is, of course, not at all happy with me for taking him to the vet - and 3 times in a month is, he makes clear, wholly unacceptable. I have given him a spare sardine, however, and I think he is considering forgiving me...

In other news, I've been very busy at work - I seem to have spent vast amounts of time in court this week, mostly with good outcomes from a professional perspective, although sad in other ways. (A child being removed from parents is never good, even when it is the least-worst option for the child concerned..)

There have been a few other things going on causing me a lot of stress, which always causes me to sleep badly, so I get stuck into a cycle of sleeping badly, so having no energy to do much except work, which in turn means little time or energy to do anything fun, which adds to the stress... All of which means that life becomes a little dull, and there is nothing to blog about.

I shall try to do better this weekend.

New Year Celebrations

2012-01-02T14:44:00.000Z

I spent New year's Eve with both my sisters, and my soon-to-be brother-in-law, and one of C's friends from Uni, at K and C's flat. K and C spent Christmas with his parents, so we hadn't seen them, which meant that the first order of business, (after hugs and tea, of course) was a degree of gift exchangage)
K, E and I went out during the afternoon for a very brief and bracing walk along the beach at Southsea. It was rather chilly, so we didn't go far.

We stayed in for the evening - K and C cooked - canapes, spicy butternut squash soup, and duck breast with plum sauce. I think its possible that there was a cheese course planned, but what with mojito fizz, and red wine, and nuts and nibbles we didn't get that far!

As New Years go, it was fairly quiet, with chat, and card games, and eating and drinking. I think I ended up going to bed at around 1 a.m., before the Quality Street fight started (it turns out that a carelessly aimed toffee finger can cause a nasty bruise...)

On New Year's Day we were, surprisingly, feeling a little languid. Some of us got up, at the crack of noon, and started the year with bacon butties and copious quantities of tea and coffee. We didn't go out for a bracing walk, or an even more bracing sail, as it was pouring with rain, and the idea was wholly unappealing.

C cooked a roast chicken for supper, and I then came home, for an early-ish night. Today is a bank holiday, which is nice, as I've been able to catch up on some sleep, and do a few chores, and it also means that this will be a short week at work, so we should be able to ease back to the daily grind.

2011 wasn't the best of years, I really hope that 2012 will be better.

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T00:48:00.001Z

May 2012 bring all you hope for.

Update on Tybalt

2011-12-30T20:01:00.001Z

As those who follow me on Twitter will have seen, Tybalt had a further vet appointment this afternoon.

It was very encouraging. He's put on 600g ( over 1lb 4 oz) in the 10 days since he started on the thyroid medication, which is a pretty good sign that it is working.

Also his glucose levels are in the 'normal' range, which suggests that either he doesn't have diabetes, or that he does, but when he is eating normally and in better health generally it's stable.

We're going back in 2 weeks, when they will do further blood tests to check on his thyroid (by which time he will have been on the meds for a month) and see whether the dosage needs adjusting, but so far, things are looking much better than I feared, 2 weeks ago.

Thank gods for sardines!

Holidays & Family

2011-12-30T17:38:00.000Z

I've been away, at my parents' house over Christmas, and didn't take my laptop, hence no blogging (Blogging by phone leads to SHORT posts!)

It was a lovely, relaxing time. My younger sister, and my brother were both there, too (My elder sister was with her out-laws) On Christmas Eve we decorated the tree (we also decorated my brother, in order to allow him to prove to sceptical friends that he can do Festive if he wishes, but I promised not to post that particular photo on the internet, so you will have to imagine it!)

The tree was decorated to within an inch of its life. We have 40 years worth of decorations, and E declared that the aim was to make it "As gaudy as possible". I think it's fair to say we met those specifications!

On Christmas Day, my parents and I went to the church, to ring the bells. Ringing is a long term hobby of theirs, and all four of us were taught, as a matter of course, as children, but none of us currently rings regularly.

When my mum and dad moved down to Devon, after retiring, there was no regular band in the village, but a little over a year ago, they agreed to teach a local band.

The learners have now reached the point where they can ring rounds (i.e. all 6 bells ringing together) and this is the first Christmas they have been able to ring for Christmas Morning.

I went along to help out, and I recorded a snatch of the ringing when I wasn't joining in. It isn't great ringing (The aim is for the bells to ring evenly, with the same gap between each 'strike', but this is very good considering how short a time they have been learning, and the fact that they've all been learning together - it is much easier if you are the one learner and everyone else can just ring in the right place regardless of whether or not you do!)

The village church had been decorated for Christmas - there were around 30 different trees - I think all of the different groups, such as the pre-school, the school etc. had all decorated trees, and others were themed. Guess which of the three below was the bell-ringers' tree?

My mum and I stayed for the service (partly to support one of the ringers, who was leading it, as a lay-reader) which I enjoyed, even though I prefer the Prayer Book and King James' Bible to 'Mission Praise' and and 'Good News'. We got 3 proper carols, which is pretty much all I ask of a Christmas day service!

Then home, to open stockings (with no children in the house, not everyone was keen to wake up early to open them before we went to church!) traditional Christmas Dinner (with wonderful free-range, slow reared turkey) then lots of presents.

My siblings had clubbed together and got me a shiny new Kindle, which was a very nice surprise. I have been thinking for a while I'd like to have one, as, much as I love real paper books, there are times, especially when travelling, that it would be nice NOT to have to carry quite so many books..

Mind you, I did only get 2 actual books for Christmas this year, which is something of a record for me. And one as a belated birthday present (The Heston Blumenthal / Dave McKean '|Fat Duck Cookbook' - beautiful, if impractical)

Then on Boxing Day we played host to my Uncle and Aunt, and to my cousin, her husband and their 14 month old son, who I haven't seen since he was 3 months old. |He's much bigger now, and crawling very fast. He was fascinated by the Christmas Tree, but as there were 9 adults around he was thwarted in all his attempts to clamber up it or take things off it! I particularly enjoyed watching him with my brother and my dad (both of whom are very good with small children, despite their best efforts to pretend otherwise!)

then on Thursday we went over to my Aunt and Uncle's house to see them again, with my *other* cousin, her husband and their 2 boys. Much fun was had.

All in all, a very quiet, but enjoyable Christmas. I hope eveyone else enjouyed their holidays.

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T08:04:00.000Z

It's Christmas again. I'm down at my parent's home, as are one on my sisters, and my brother.

We have decorated the tree (as you can see, we considered restraint and subtlety, and decided neither has any role to play in tree-decoration)

Shortly, some of us will be going to ring the bells at church, and to a service.

Later, there will be gifts, and food, and chocolate, and jollity of all kinds.

Here's wishing you all a very Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and all manner of good things and great company!

Tybalt

2011-12-19T19:17:00.000Z

As some of you know from twitter, I've been very worried about Tybalt. Last week, he suddenly got very sick, was peeing indoors (which clearly upset him; he's generally very good about going where he ought to - and I wasn't overjoyed, either) and generally very obviously not a happy kitty.

We went to the vet on Friday. She gave him an antibiotic shot in case the peeing was down to a water infection, but after examining him said she thought he has thyroid problems, and probably that he'd been under par for a bit, but not showing it, the way carts do (or don't).

She took blood to test, which, like the rest of the exam, Tybalt let her do without even trying to get away from her, which is VERY out of character - usually visits to the vet involve hissing, (which I've never seen him do anywhere else) and strenuous efforts to get away, including that thing cats do where they temporarily grow about 7 extra legs all covered in knives, and show their ability to levitate and to double in size. So the fact that he was simply sitting there apathetically letting her stick needles into him was a very bad sign.

We also had a conversation about what the next steps would be if the blood tests showed he does have thyroid problems. The answer is that this needs regular meds, which worried me a lot, as Tybalt has NEVER been a cat who it's easy to get tablets into, and I would have to think very carefully about whether it would be fair to subject him to the stress of forcing tablets into him on a daily basis, as I know from experience that he does get very stressed, and remains stressed for a long time.

On the plus side, he seemed to perk up a lot over the weekend, and the peeing issue stopped, so I think maybe he did have a water infection as well.

This afternoon I got a call from the vet - his blood tests show that he does have hyperthyroidism. They also showed low glucose level so he may also be diabetic (apparently they often go together) They have suggested starting him on the thyroid tablets - basically, IF he can/will take the tablets without too much stress, they can then do urine tests for diabetes to see whether he does have this, and then monitor to see whether he needs insulin or if it can be controlled by diet. They also said that if he cannot take the tablets without stress, it would be unfair to him to let him go on. Which is rather what I suspected, from the conversation I had when I took him in on Friday, but not at all what I wanted to hear.

So there's a lot of bad news.

So they have given me 2 weeks supply of the thyroid tablets to see whether he can/will take them (2 weeks due to Christmas. If he doesn't take them, we will have to go back sooner)

The good news is that while he spurned with barely-disguised scorn my attempts to get the 1st tablet into him cunningly disguised in cat-food, or in marmite (vets suggestion), or cheese (end result, one slightly damp and sticky tablet, and one smug cat with a mouth full of marmite and cheese) I then tried a two-pronged approach, involving a sardine, and my sitting at table with a plate (because people-food is always more attractive than cat-food)

So, three lumps of sardine, (tablet tucked into the 2nd and left to sit for a few minutes so the sardine oil soaked in a bit) this actually seems to have worked. He did look a bit suspicious afterwards, but he ate the third chunk of sardine, so that may simply be because he thought he'd got away with more people-food than normal.

Clearly he's not out of the woods yet - I don't know whether sardines will work long-term, and there's still the issue of whether he has diabetes and if so whether this can be controlled by diet, but things are looking much more hopeful than they were 3 days ago.

So, fingers crossed.

And thank you to those of you who've been sending encouragement and sympathy.

The Holidays Are Coming

2011-12-12T18:44:00.000Z

It feels as though it's been a long week - I've been busy at work, and this past week has involved a lot of time out of the office, driving to court and meetings, which is tiring.

Friday night was our office Christmas Party - I wasn't feeling terribly festive but I think it went reasonably well. The Christmas trees are up in our receptions, at work, and the lights are up in the town centres, and I am beginning to look forward to seeing my family, and have done most of my shopping. Having lots of cards to send to friends in America spurred me on to organise myself, in order to catch the last posting date, so my inland cards went pretty promptly, too (am now sitting back, to wait for the first card to show up from someone I've forgotten to send one to, or for whom I don't have an address.....

Next task is to pack up the gifts for people I won't be seeing, in order to post them. This is bound to involve a lot of queueing, I fear..

Today, my (2nd) cousin came over for lunch, and to drop of gifts for my family and my (1st) cousins, who I shall be seeing and she won't. it was a nice lunch, though I do say so myself. I made Beouf Bourgignon, served with jacket potatoes, broccoli and cauliflower. And as a bonus, I find there are enough lefftovers for me to have it again, another day, which I was not expecting!

I have been having some issues with my central heating, which I only realised when it got very cold earlier this week - I found that one (the biggest - it would be) of my 3 radiators wasn't getting hot. I thought that |step one would be to bleed it, and this caused me to realise that, to my shame, I've never done this and had no idea how it was done. Fortunately, Twitter knows everything, so I got answers within minutes, and then had to go out and buy a radiator key ( and picked up a spare heater at the same time, to tide me over) Unfortunately, bleeding it does not seem to have worked as far as acheiving actual warmth is concerned (although it worked quite well as far as getting dirty water around the living room was concerned!)

I belive that the next step is flushing it and add inhibitor, but I think I shall need a plumber for that step. *sigh* Still, at least I have plug-in heater I just bought, to prevent me getting hypothermia in the mean time. (and over Christmas I shall be staying with my parents, and they have lots and lots of loverly central heating, even upstairs!)

I think next weekend I shall perhaps get further into the festive spirit by making some mince pies.

In Which There is a Moving Castle (WARNING - SPOILERS)

2011-12-04T21:22:00.097Z

I love Diana Wynne Jones' books. I have done for years and years, since I first met Christopher Chant in Wells library. I hunted down all of her books which I could find, (many 2nd hand) and later, buying then new, as they were published. I had the pleasure of meeting her once, at the Bath Festival of Children's Literature, and she sent me a lovely, personal reply when I wrote her a fan letter.

So I was excited and nervous in equal measure when I found out that there was to be a stage adaptation of 'Howl's Moving Castle', one of DWJ's YA books.

(Picture from theatre website - southwarkplayhouse.co.uk )

I have a very soft spot for Howl, and for Sophie, and so while I was excited to see how the story would work on stage, I was also afraid that it would be spoiled, or that whoever played Howl might be un-Howl-like...

But I decided that I would have to see it for myself, and judge, so I got in contact with my theatre-going, retired librarian cousin, and booked tickets for the production, at the Southwark Playhouse. And that is where I went, yesterday.

The play was in the Vault, at the playhouse, which is a very small space, under the railway arch near London Bridge station.

Good start: The set consisted of a couple of burning torches, and then, in the stage area, a large castle, like a paper cut out. There was very little in the way of props - all of the rest of the set and scenery was done by way of lighting and projections, so when the Castle was moving, we had a panorama of mountains, at other times, the streets of Market Chipping, fantastical bare trees with living branches for the Witch's domain, and moving light for Calcifer. When Howl went to fight the Witch, the castle had (projected) propellers, and Howl's silhouette was projected - All the 'son et lumiere' parts of the production were excellent.

The play itself is but a shadow of the novel. There are only 3 actors (plus a recorded narration from Stephen Fry, and the voice of Calcifer) - Howl (Daniel Ings), Old Sophie (Susan Sheridan) and Young Sophie/Witch of the Waste (Kristen McGuire) and play lasts for less than 90 minutes, so the story has, inevitably and of necessity, been hugely cut and simplified.

I rather enjoyed Howl. He had more or less the right combination of cleverness and vanity, although I didn't feel his underlying goodness came through. I felt (old) Sophie came across well - determined, and more than a match for Howl, but the Witch of the Waste was simply a pantomime villain - you expected her to start sending for her flying monkeys at any moment, which was a bit disappointing.

Over all, I felt that the play had tried for the feel of DWJs work, and had succeeded, up to a point, but only up to a point.For me, too much of the plot, and as a result, too many of the things which make the book so good, had gone.

I enjoyed it, but I felt that it had lost a lot in the adaptation. I still love the book best. So, if you have the opportunity, do see it. It's fun, and much more interesting than your average chirstmas pantomime, but it's not DWJ's story.

In Which I Go To London

2011-12-04T11:08:00.000Z

I went to London yesterday. The purpose was to go to the theatre (which I'll blog separately) and to meet up with my cousin and his partner.

We were due to meet up at 1p.m., I got an earlier train, to allow time for delays, so of course both trains were on time, and the tubes round from Paddington to London Bridge were also all delay-free. So, having a little time on my hands, I took the time to wander around Southwark a little.

I visited Southwark cathedral, because I like cathedrals, and this one of course makes me think of Doctor Who (The Lazarus Experiment) although of course the interior scenes of that episode were not filmed at Southwark Cathedral, but in my old home town of Wells!

The cathedral has a rather nice memorial to Shakespeare (the Globe theatre was, and the new Globe is, in Southwark)

You can't tell from the photo, but behind the effigy is a relief of Southwark, with the Globe.

I then wandered along the Thames path, past the replica of Drake's 'Golden Hinde' and further along, towards tower Bridge, HMS Belfast and the Tower of London.

I confess, it's a while since I've been on this part of the river, and I'd totally forgotten that the Tower of London was so close to Tower Bridge (I am somewhat geographically challenged at the best of times, and when you add in the fact that most of my London travel is done by underground, it's perhaps understandable!)

I enjoyed the contrasts between old and new buildings; this area has been through a lot of regeneration and is clearly doing well.

We had arranged to meet for lunch at the Butler's Wharf Chop House, where we dined very well, and I had some delicious black sheep ale, then had a chilly walk back along the Thames to the Southwark Playhouse.

(More photos in my flickr set here )

Quiet Pleasures

2011-11-29T21:31:00.000Z

This week has mostly involved little, calm but nice things. Many of them food-related.
On Monday, on of my colleagues who is a member of a local shoot, gave me 2 brace of pheasant. He explained that he'd brought 4 birds as some of them were quite small, which was kind of him, but rather overlooked the fact that there is only one of me, so even a small pheasant goes quite a long way!

Anyway, I decided that I lacked the patience to pluck that many birds, so I skinned them (well, 3 of them) instead, which is much quicker, and two of them were casseroled with cider and apples (which worked very well - and which leaves me with at least 3 more servings in the freezer, for high-quality dining the next few times I don't want to cook properly!) One went to a friend, and the last one is in the freezer (jointed and de-feathered. Putting a feathery one in the freezer would be weird) awaiting further inspiration.

Tuesday evening was spent with relatives - my Dad's cousin M (a very young 80 year-old) invited me over for dinner, and to see our mutual cousin, J (who is the one I visit in London, and go to the theatre with, and who is the same age as my dad) I enjoyed the evening - it's nice to have a meal which I haven't had to cook for myself, and it was also very pleasant to simply sit and chat.

Then I managed to do some early Christmas shopping, as I found myself in Bath at lunch time, after going to court, which meant I DIDN'T need to go in on Saturday, which was a bonus! It meant I got to go to the library on Saturday, instead. And to catch up with chores at home, which is good, as things are now tidier with fewer heaps-of-stuff. And I got to read two Amelia Peabody novels over the weekend.

The Bath Christmas Market has opened this week - lots of nice things, although as I get older and crankier I find I'm less and less willing to buy the kind of things which will be amusing for 10 minutes, and then will gather dust for the rest of their existence. In fact, what with that trip, and the wonders of online shopping, I've done a lot of my shopping - just have Awkward Men, a 5 year-old boy and a few stocking fillers still to do. Which is good. It means I don't have to get too stressed about shopping. although I will have the wonderful queueing-in-the-post-office with parcels event to do.

And I just realised that the stamps I have for sticking on cards for the USA all have George III's portrait on them. They beat him in the end, so no ones going to be offended, right?

This weekend I have a day-trip to London coming up - I'm meeting up with my cousin J and his partner, and we're having lunch and then seeing the Southwark Playhouse's production of Diana Wynne Jones' 'Howl's Moving Castle' - should be interesting.

A Relaxing Weekend

2011-11-20T19:09:00.000Z

This weekend, I'd arranged to go down to Devon to visit my parents. I saw them last weekend, while they were staying with me while they went to a dinner locally. This weekend however was a visit just to spend some time together. And the weather was nice, too.
One of the nice things about visiting my parents is that as long as I don't get up too early, I usually get a cup of tea in bed ;-) I love that little touch of luxury.

We decided that a nice walk by the sea would be an appropriate thing to do with a bright November morning, so we went to Westward Ho!, which is an uninspiring town, but where you can start a walk along the top of the cliff, and then down to a pebbly beach.

There was an offshore breeze, and very big waves, so there were a lot of surfers out, and despite being the middle of November, it has been so mild that there were still quite a few butterflies and dragonflies around.

And a really big mushroom, right on the cliff edge!

We didn't have a long walk, as my mum and dad wanted to get back in time to go to a local history talk in Bideford, but it was very pleasant.

While the talk was going on, I wandered around Bideford, and admired the bridge, and looking into a few shops, and a little later, we all went back home for a delicious meal of roast beef, Yorkshire pudding and then lemon meringue pie. All very good.

Sunday, we had a lazy morning, them they went out to Exeter for some ringing, and I came home, to be greeted by a very snuggly cat. Over all, a very relaxing weekend!

Ooops, it's been weeks!

2011-11-18T08:27:00.001Z

Dear me! It's been weeks, hasn't it?

I haven't had a lot to blog about. My car got its annual service, and I got my flu jab, but neither of those is very exciting!

Last weekend my parents came to visit, as they had a dinner to go to near here. I always enjoy seeing them, and I had had a really shitty week at work and was feeling very stressed, so it was lovely to have company to distract me from brooding too much over things I couldn't do anything about until Monday morning...

On Saturday we did a little early christmas shopping, distracted only by the police doing a fingertip search of the High Street, and then on Sunday, which came a gorgeous sunny day, we went to Stourhead for a walk.

The colours were even better than when I was there a couple of weeks ago - mainly because the sun was out this time.

In addition, we saw a heron. I don't think there is much risk it will go hungry - we aslo saw lots of leaping fish, in the lake.

There may have been a cream-tea before we went home, too.

In Which I am Fascinated

2011-11-01T19:10:00.001Z

Back in August, Nail Gaiman tweeted about the shows he was enjoying at the Edinburgh festival. One of them was 'Fascinating Aida' - and he exhorted all his readers to go to see them. I hadn't heard of them before, but when looked I them up, I saw they were due to play in Bath on 30th October, so I bought a ticket, and so, on Sunday night, I found myself in the Theatre Royal, not entirely sure what to expect, but hopeful I would have a good time.

The current line-up consists of Dillie Keane, Adele Anderson and Sarah-Louise Young (the newest member). The show was great -modern, topical cabaret.

The opening song "Companies Using Nifty Tax Systems" (enjoy those initials..) was followed by the wonderful Dogging (very much NSFW) which included Ms Keane's warning "For those of a sensitive disposition.... what the fuck are you doing here" I loved the show, and also got a good deal of pleasure watching the older ladies sitting next to be going gradually from incredulity to hysterical laughter!
A little later in the evening we were treated to the song 'Cheap Flights' (after which the current tour is named) at which point I realised I had seen them before. Very funny.

All too soon, the evening came to an end. The final song was dedicated to Bath itself, "your Roman ruins are extensive, but your pumproom teas are too expensive"...

Watch the videos, they give you a far better idea of what these women are all about that I can. and in the event they play anywhere near you, go to see them, You won't regret it. (unless, of course, you are of a sensitive disposition!)

Autumn

2011-10-30T19:16:00.001Z

This morning was rather grey and damp, but it wasn't actually raining (at least when I got up) So I decided that I would go to Stourhead, to see the autumn leaves.

I was a little startled that when I arrived, about 15 minutes after opening time, I found that the main car park was full and the overflow was getting pretty busy. I suppose that's what happens when the National Trust goes onto BBC Radio 4 and says that this weekend will be the best one to see the colours...!

Just as I got tho the entrance of the grounds it started to drizzle, and although this did stop when I was about half way around the lake, it continued to be pretty grey, so the colours didn't look as dramatic as they do when you manage to catch them on a day of glorious autumn sunshine!

There were swans swanning around on the lake, as well as the ducks, gulls and coots, and I saw a heron, too, fishing near the Pantheon, although it very uncooperatively had it's head down making it hard to photograph successfully.

I enjoyed the walk, and the views - I didn't even mind the rain, as it wasn't cold.

After leaving the main grounds, I drove along towards 'King Alfred's Tower', which is on the edge of Stourhead's park. On the way, I found a little space to park from which I could walk along to 'St Peters Pump', which is a little monument marking the source of the River Stour.

I then moved on to King Alfred's Tower itself. The tower is a folly, built in 1772 to mark the spot where it was believed Alfred the Great rallied his troops before defeating the Danes in 878AD. It's an interesting building - a triangular brick tower with a staircase in a little turret running up one corner, and is totally empty, (and very damp) It is claimed that when it was built, it marked the point where the counties of Somerset, Dorset and Wiltshire met, with one corner in each county, but I am a little sceptical.

You can climb up the tower (160', around 250 steps) and it is well worth doing so - the views from the top are stunning. By the time I got to the top, the sun had come out.

Although I visit Stourhead fairly frequently, this is the first time I've been to the tower. I'm glad I did.

More photos in my flickr set, if you're interested

In Which Mr Bill Bailey entertains Ilfracombe

2011-10-29T19:47:00.000+01:00

I am signed up to Bill Bailey's mailing list, and as a result, I heard that he was doing two shows at Ilfracombe's Landmark Theatre as warm up for his new 'Dandelion Mind (gently modified)' tour, and, as Ilfracombe is only about 20 minutes from my parents' home, it seemed like a good opportunity to see Bill Bailey and my parents, in one fell swoop.

Pretty picture of the Landmark Theatre (photo from theatre website)

It was not 100% successful, as it turned out that my Mum and Dad were actually away all day on Saturday, but we did meet briefly as I popped in for coffee on my way past, en route to the theatre, and again on my return, for about 10 minutes before we went to bed.

The show was great.

I saw the 'Dandelion Mind' show last September (Blogged it here ) and this version of the show has some of the same material, with some new - including bots about 'Broken Britain' - I particularly enjoyed Bill's comments about the Coalition "It's like being governed by a bowl of pot pourri and a sea-cucumber" (which is one of the few descriptions I can remember, most of the others were more insulting. I kept expecting 'Cream-faced loon' to come up!

Other highlights included some art appreciation, a rendition of 'Scarborough Fair', in German, not to mention a song after the style of 'Chas'n'Dave', (during their Devil Worshipping phase).

Oh, and California Dreaming' at different speeds, which is much funnier than you might think.

I had a great evening, and I'm really glad I went, as although the tour has dates all through November, none of them is near me.

This morning, my parents were leaving at ~~some ungodly hour~~ 7a.m. but did stick their heads round the bedroom door to say good morning and goodbye, and to bring me a cup of tea, before the left. I then went back to sleep, pottered around a bit, and then went on a long, meandering drive on my way home. (I'd planned to visit a couple of picturesque bits of Exmoor, and go for a couple of short walks and take pretty pictures, but unfortunately it started to rain very heavily at just the wrong moment, so in the end I ended up driving around some very narrow Devon lanes (albeit some of them with nice views) without any walks.

On arriving home I found my next door neighbours have moved out, and some new ones have moved in. I hope they are nice and quiet! The old ones were nice people, but had a very yappy little dog which got hysterical every time I went into my garden...

Tomorrow, I am going to see Fascinating Aida, and if it is a nice day I may go to Stourhead, as it's supposed to be at it's best, for the autumn colours, this weekend. (So it will probably pour with rain all day!) I went around this time last year, and got some gorgeous pics..

In Which I Go to Bristol

2011-10-26T21:04:00.000+01:00

A long time ago, I signed up to attend BristolCon, having enjoyed it last year, and then I mostly forgot about it, and suddenly it was time to go.. The con was on Saturday, in (unsurprisingly) Bristol, which is of course practically on my doorstep.

The day didn't start well. I got distracted, so was still eating toast when the train I had originally thought of left. Then having, as I thought, left enough time to get to the station, I found that Every Single Traffic Light between my house and the station (5 sets) turned red as I approached it, and just for good measure there was the driver going Very Very Slowly and then randomly changing lanes in front of me without indicating. All of which, combined with the unheard-of event of the local train arriving (and leaving) on time, resulted in my missing the next train by a whisker. I saw it at the platform as I turned in to the station car-park, and it pulled out as I parked. So I ended up on the next train, arriving in Bristol shortly after 11. On the plus side, this meant I didn't have to queue to pick up my name badge, but it did mean I missed the Welcome, the first panel, Alex Keller's reading (which I'd wanted to catch) and the start of the second panel.

However, I was able to sneak into the 'Battle of the Books' panel, which featured Bob Neilson, Steve Westcott, Dolly Garland, John Meaney and Paul Cornell, arguing for their best books (and against those picked by the other panellists), and which was moderated with Extreme Prejudice by Cheryl Morgan armed with her zap-gun. It was highly entertaining, despite some doubts as to the existence of one of the books, and made an excellent (if late) start to my day.

Alex Keller, Harriet Castor, Philip Reeve, MD Lachlan & Alastair Reynolds

I stayed on for the next panel, 'The Genesis Panel', which started out discussing how and why novels become epics, and which featured Alastair Reynolds, Philip Reeve, MD Lachlan, Harriet Castor and Alex Keller, and included commentary about books getting split in two by publishers, and the temptation to become epic-y. Interesting stuff.

It was followed by a short reading from Philip Reeve, which I enjoyed even though it was the second time I'd heard him read the same extract. (and I still want a Samovar Hat)

I then popped out of the Con to go down to Waterstones to meet Angie Sage, who was signing there - I enjoyed meeting her, but couldn't chat for long as she had too many others wanting to buy books and yet them, signed.

When I got back I was fortunate enough to bump into Philip Reeve and Thomas Martin (and others, whose names, I am ashamed to admit, I did not note) over coffee, and chatted for a while.

Later, I went to the 'Life Cycle of the Author' (AKA 'George RR Martin is not your bitch') panel I enjoyed Wayne Simmons' moderating, which started by asking the audience what questions they would like to hear about, and which included comments about dealing with criticism and rejection, writing avoidance techniques, and reader entitlement. (Also the revelation from Paul Cornell that he knows people who assume that comics come to a writer with all the pictures done, and the writer simply has to fill in the speech-bubbles... !)

I would have loved to go to Mike Shevdon's panel on Archery, but it clashed with Paul Cornell's Kaffeeklatsch, so I wasn't able to. |The kaffeeklatsch was small, and I think all the better for it, as were were able to have a casual chat, rather than a mini panel. Much fun. this was followed by the "Dude, where's my jetpack?" panel, and what was and wasn't predicted, and what we all still want..

The final panel was another difficult choice as I would have liked to go to both of the streams! I actually picked the 'storytelling or literature' one, which was included topical conversation about the Booker prize, and when is genre not genre.

After which it was time to wind up the day and go home. It would have been fun to stay and chat in the bar, and try my luck in the quiz, but it was dark, and cold..

The day ended, as it had begun, with transport issues - half the roads in Trowbridge were closed, for the carnival, but very few of them had signs anywhere useful (such as at the start of the road) to tell you - I think we had to do 2 u-turns and 2 detours before finally making it home!

all together, though, a good day. Next year, BristolCon is on 20th October. Put it in your diary.

In Which I Have a Simply Wonderful Day

2011-10-16T14:49:00.000+01:00

Yesterday was my birthday. I was feeling a bit ambivalent about it, what with the getting older and older, and the inevitable musings on life, however, I then remembered that I had good friends coming to visit, and fun things planned, and felt a lot more cheerful about it!
My friends arrived from Manchester on Friday evening, in time for us to enjoy a leisurely meal (with cake!) and several glasses of wine, as we caught up, and just relaxed together.

Then yesterday, which turned out to be a beautiful, sunny day, we had a long lunch in Bradford on Avon, then spent the afternoon in Bath (1 pub, 1 independent bookshop) followed by a delicious Nepalese meal, and then Simon Callow's one-man show "Dr Marigold and Mr Chops", which was great!

Picture from BTR website

The show is Simon Callow performing two of Charles Dickens' monologues:

The first, about Mr Chops, was a short story published for Christmas 1858 entitled "Going into society", narrated by Mr Magsman, a showman, about a Dwarf known as Mr Chops who wins the lottery and goes into society. Although having its moments of pathos, it's very funny, and Mr Callow is excellent at doing all the voices!

The second, about Dr. Marigold (He was named "Doctor" after the Doctor who delivered him!) is longer, and although it has a lot of humour in it it, is a real tear-jerker. Narrated by Mr Callow in the character of Dr. Marigold, a cheap-jack, describing his marriage to an increasingly bad tempered woman, her cruelty towards their daughter, the child's death from illness and his subsequent adoption of a 'deaf-and-dumb' child, who had herself been neglected and abused. Being dickens, it's not surprising that there is a deal of sentimentality, but before the happy ending there is a lot of (still relevant) content about poverty, grief, politics, discrimination and domestic abuse, and Callow's Dr. Marigold is a well-rounded, complete character, whose loneliness and grief comes across between the comedy moments.

It was a superb performance, and made for a thoroughly enjoyable evening. And all in all, the combination of good friends, good entertainment, and delicious food, wine and beer made for a great way to celebrate my birthday, and left me feeling set up for the year to come.

Bleugh!

2011-09-26T17:35:00.000+01:00

So, I got home from Italy on Tuesday, and did bits of laundry and so on. On Wednesday I woke up with a sore throat, which I put down to having been cooped up in an aeroplane and a lot of trains. However, it quickly became obvious that that wasn't it.
I've spent most of the intervening time either curled up in bed, or on the sofa.

Now would be a good time to buy shares in tissues and lemsip.

(Picture borrowed from
@PhilipReeve1's twitter)

I think I'm starting to get better. I ventured out yesterday to go to Bath - the Bath Kids Lit Fest started on Friday, and I had a ticket to see Philip Reeve and Moira Young.

I enjoyed the panel, and it was but it did make lovely to be able to say hello to Philip Reeve in person, after having spoken to him once or twice on twitter, but I think I may have made a mistake in venturing out.

I was back at work today, but I only made it until about 1.30 before having to give up and go home.

I was due to go to a Kids Lit event this evening with David Almond, Melvin Burgess and Meg Rosoff but that's not going to happen, sadly. And the event on Sunday with Judith Kerr has had to be cancelled as she is not well, so my Kids Lit Fest this year will be a bit of a damp squib.

Oh well. C'est la vie.

What I did On My Holidays - Part the Fifth - Naples Fiend-meet

2011-09-25T18:14:00.001+01:00

After booking my holiday, it occurred to me that Sorrento and Naples are not too far from Rome, where my friend Nathalie lives, and when I got in touch with her it turned out that she was free on Monday, so we were able to arrange to meet up. Nathalie generously agreed to come to Naples, and as Monday was my last full day, and I had a very early flight home on Tuesday morning, I'd booked a hotel in Naples for Monday night, so I travelled from Sorrento and checked in there, and Nathalie travelled from Rome, and we met in the lobby.

The weather had broken overnight - I was woken at 2 a.m. by a tremendous thunder storm - I thought for a moment the hotel was falling down around me! the rain lowered the temperature, which was nice, and it also meant it was a little clearer, although not by as much as I would have expected.

We set out to explore Naples - we started with the cathedral of San Gennero, as it turned out it was the day for the annual miracle, when some vials of St. Gennero's blood are brought out of the bank-vault in which they are normally kept, and the dried blood inside 'miraculously' liquefies. As a result, the church was very full, overflowing with nuns, and men in cassocks, and local dignitaries; we saw the tail-end of the procession going to the Church, but didn't wait for the miracle itself (although I gather this took place as advertised!)

'Dissillusion' (Pic from museum website)

We also visited the Cappella Sansevero, which houses a very famous sculpture of the 'Veiled Christ'. Unfortunately they have a very strongly enforced 'no photography' rule - however, the sculpture is incredible - really gives the impression of a body covered with a veil, through which details such as the wounds on the hands and feet can clearly be seen. The veil itself has delicate carved lace along the edges.

The sculpture is in the centre of the chapel, which also contains a number of other statues all having allegorical meanings, and with many references to freemasonry. To me, the most impressive is the statue depicting disillusion, which has intricately carved stone netting!

Below the main chapel, is a smaller chamber which contains two 'Anatomical Machines' which consist of two human skeletons, male and female, showing all the veins and arteries, and at least some of the internal organs. These were made in the 1760s, and no-one is entirely sure how they managed to do it. One theory is that it was done by injecting something, but according to the reading I've done since, it's now believed that the circulatory systems were made using wire, and plaster and beeswax, but it is still an incredible achievement - not least as it displays a much more accurate depiction of the circulatory system than was thought to be current at that time! The two bodies are looking somewhat the worse for wear, but very interesting, in a slightly gruesome way.

We went to the church and cloister of San Chiara, which features a cloister with majolica tiled pillars and seats. Most of the tiles features either daily scenes of trading or hunting, or of imaginative scenes of coaches drawn by lions, or peacocks, or sea monsters. Inexplicably, the scene in which the lions turn on their grooms and devour them, illustrating why cats are not suitable for this kind of work, is omitted.

We could only find one scene which related to the life of the convent, showing a nun feeding cats - two of which we identified as Bengals...

The church also has a small museum, in which none of the exhibits are labelled, so you find yourself looking at a mummified leg in a gilded case wondering who it (is supposed to have) belonged to.

We also visited a number of other churches, and we tried quite hard to visit Castel Nuovo, but unfortunately it was closed. It has a pretty impressive gateway, though!

We did, however, manage to find a nice restaurant where we ate pizza and drank beer, and later, we had coffee at Gambrinus, which is the oldest coffee shop in Naples, and still serves excellent coffee!

We were also unable to return to the archaeological museum, as that, too, is closed on Mondays. We did however, pass through the Galleria Umberto I, which is a huge shopping area, built in the 1880s, and featuring lots of angels, and glass ceilings and plasterwork. As shopping centres go, its pretty impressive.

There were a few more churches, and admired some .. interesting.. pieces of sculpture. I personally have no problems with Artemis of Ephesus or with one-legged Sphinxes as part of a tomb in a christian church, but I'm curious to know how they came to be approved, and what they were deemed to symbolise to make them acceptable for such a place!

We also spent a sensible amount of time sitting drinking granita and chatting, and simply wandering around, looking at streets and graffiti and stalls selling crib-figures, (and some figures *not* suitable for cribs, such as statues of Berlusconi and of various other celebrities and politicians.)

I really enjoyed the day - spending it with a friend made a wonderful finale to my holiday! (Although I did realise, when i got back to my hotel, that I had forgotten to give Nathalie the jar of home-made bramble jelly I brought all the way to Italy for her...

And then on Tuesday, I got up very early in the morning, and caught my flight home.

What I Did On My Holidays - Part the Fourth - Villa Poppeae

2011-09-24T16:19:00.002+01:00

After visiting the museum, I was on the circumvesuviana train back to Sorrento and decided, on impulse, to get off at Torre Annunziata, where I had seen that there is another Roman Villa, which was engulfed by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79AD.

I am so glad that I did. The Villa Poppaea Oplontis is amazing, and it was virtually empty - there were only 4 or 5 other visitors there so I was able to have most of the rooms to myself a lot of the time.

The villa is very complete, and the wall-paintings are incredibly well preserved. It's thought that the villa belonged to the family of Poppea (murdered wife of the Emperor Nero), and that it was empty and undergoing renovations after damage caused in the 62AD earthquake, at the time of the eruption.

The villa was large, with gardens and a swimming pool outside, and this, together with some of the decoration of the gardens and courtyard walls has survived.

You can also still see the plainer decoration on the pillars, and the walls of the corridors and the courtyards.

And wooden shutters have survived in places. The archaeologists have also been able to identify some of the trees and plants which were growing in and around the villa, and so the appropriate fruit-trees have been replanted.

But I have to admit that it is the paintings which I like best, and found most intriguing and memorable. seeing how bright the colours are, it's hard to realise that they were painted over 1,900 years ago.

I'm so very glad I did decide to get off the train, and go to look at the Villa.

(More pictures in my Flickr set here)

What I Did On My Holidays - Part the Third - more Roman Remains

2011-09-21T18:36:00.000+01:00

Visiting Pompeii and Herculaneum was fascinating, but many of the paintings and mosaics, as well as other artifacts such as glass, silver, and household items have been removed, and are now in the Museo Archeologico Natzionale in Naples, so I decided to take a day-trip into the city to visit the museum.

It's housed in an imposing building, (originally built as a university) and includes a vast 'Great Hall of The Sundial' which holds an ancient statue of Atlas, carrying the globe which is itself carved with depictions of the zodiac. (The sundial in question is set into the floor, and lit by a hole in one corner of the hall, and is, as far as I could make out, designed to show mid day at different seasons, rather than to measure the hours each day.

Alexander the Great - Mosaic from the 'House of the Faun', Pompeii (detail)

Quite a few sections of the museum are closed, including, to my regret, the section holding the 'Farnese gems' (mainly cameos) and some of the Pompeii paintings, but I was able to see the mosaics from Pompeii, which are extraordinary. I think that the mosaic showing the battle between Alexander the Great, and King Darius is probably the most famous, and it is utterly amazing, but the others are pretty impressive, too.

Octopus vs. Lobster (detail of mosaic from the House of The Faun, Pompeii)

I liked the seafood mosaic, and little details of several of the others - this spiky-toothed hippo, for example, and the cat, lurking below a birdbath.

There are also mosaic-decorated pillars, more cats, another guard-dog mosaic.
Another room worth visiting is the 'Gabinetto segreto' (secret room). This is not so much secret as segregated - it contains lots of erotic art - originally, in the early 19th Century, the room was closed, and only those who were "of mature age and well known morality" were granted permits to view the "infamous monuments of heathen licentiousness".

It was then open during the Garibaldi period, and closed under the fascist regime, until 1967! Now it is open again, although there is a sign outside in four or five languages warning it may not be suitable for younger visitors..
Some of the artworks, such as the 'Venus in a golden bikini' are quite unexceptional.
Others, however, such as the statue of Pan with a she-goat, are more startling, to modern eyes! There are also paintings taken from one of the lupanares (brothels) in Pompeii, with paintings showing different acts and positions, and various Herms, votive offerings (how often do you see a cupboard entirely full of penises?) and paintings, mosaics and statues leaving nothing to the imagination!

After which it was quite soothing to go and look at charming, if at times confusing, paintings from Pompeii - a cupid with a pair of shoes, for instance.

Portrait of the baker, Terentius Neo, and his wife

They also have selections of decorative silver, found at Pompeii (it survived intact having been stored in a chest, padded with blankets, possibly because the house was in the process of being reconstructed following the earthquake of 62AD. More amazingly, there are also glass items, and even papyrii which, despite the fact that they are seriously burned, archaeologists have succeeded in reading!

As well as the Pompeian art, there are also lots of sculptures, some of which were also found in Pompeii or Herculaneum
This lady -> is one of five statues found at Herculaneum, and still pristine.

One of the most famous sculptures in the museum is the 'Farnese Bull', which used to stand in Rome.

It is colossal.

And while I can't approve of celebrating the habit of tying ladies to enraged bulls, (even if they have been misbehaving) you have to admire the craftsmanship involved!

As you do with the other sculptures.

(the dog, incidentally, is part of a table leg. He is one of the 3-heads of a dog emerging from the stomach of the sea-monster, Scylla, attacking Ulysses' sailors. But you probably knew that.)

all in all, it's a fascinating museum, and I'm very glad that I had the time and opportunity to go.

What I Did on My Holidays - Part the Second - Sunshine and Water

2011-09-21T15:38:00.000+01:00

Sorrento itself is perched on top of a cliff - it's only when you get down to the bottom, to sea-level, and look back up that you realise quite how much work must have gone in to to building those cliff-top hotels and homes so they won't tumble down..

In order to get from the main part of the town, you can either walk down a steep staircase, and then a short, hair-pinned cobbled road, or down a longer, smoother path which zig-zags its way down (and at one point through) the cliff, or if you feeling lazy, you can pay your E1 and take the lift! I don't think I've ever come upon a beach serviced by a lift, before..

Most of the beaches are private - you pay your 8-12 Euros, depending on whether you want a sun-lounger and/or a parasol, but I decided to stick to the little public beach (on the right of the photo) when I ventured down for a swim. The beach is black, presumably the sand started life as volcanic ash and stone - and the water is disconcertingly clear, blue and warm.

As I was growing up, most of my seaside visits, and therefore most of the swimming in the sea I did, were in England, so I expect the sea to be grey, and cold, and full of sand and therefore stirred up by the waves. Additionally, swimming in the sea normally involves being regularly slapped in the face by icy waves, so the concept of being able to paddle around in clear, placid water is unnerving. And I am used to having to get out of the sea after a relatively short swim, as all my extremities turn blue and I start to lose feeling in them, so the concept that it is possible to stay in the water long enough to start worrying about sun-burn and prune-y skin instead is very strange (I mean, I could get used to it, if forced, but it does feel a little unnatural!)

I also took the opportunity to make a day-trip to Capri, which is of course only a little way off the coast, from Sorrento. Capri seems to be entirely made up of precipitous cliffs and you get around in little tiny buses, which have to go onto the wrong side of the road in order get around the hairpin bends, which makes bus travel exciting.

I went up to Anacapri, from where you can ride a chair-lift up to Monte Solaro. I love chair-lifts - they're a bit like hot air balloons, in that you get to float, almost silently, above the world.

In this instance, the views from the lift, and from the top of the mountain were not as good as they could have been , as the air quality wasn't the best - lots of dust and haze in the air, but even so, the views were pretty darn good!

When I went down again, I visited S. Michele's church, which has a majolica tiled floor with a picture of the garden of Eden, which includes a charming elephant with paws, as well as lions and bears and horses and a slightly random unicorn.

I also got a bus round to the Grotta Azzurra, which is one of the most famous attractions on the island. The water is, indeed, very blue, and very beautiful. Getting in, however, is . .. interesting.

After rather a lot of queueing, you have to scramble into a small rowing boat, and then, as the entrance to the cave is very low, it's necessary to lie flat on your back in the bottom of the boat while the boatman performs a kind of limbo while pulling the boat into the cave using a chain!

If you are not acquainted with your travelling companions before you get into the boat you certainly will be after lying next to (or on top of ) them to get in and out of the cave!

After that, I took my slightly soggy and dishevelled self back to Capri town, where I founbd that a 50/50 mixture of lemon granita and freshly squeezed orange juice is even better than either one alone.. An important discovery, I'm sure you'll agree.

And a little later, my evening included spaghetti con vongole, and wine made by the restaurant itself, and an odd but tasty fennel liqueur.

What I Did On My Holidays (Part the First - Pompeii & Herculaneum

2011-09-20T21:25:00.000+01:00

I got home this afternoon after spending 8 days in Italy - based in Sorrento.It was lovely. The sun shone (most of the time) and there are lots of Very Old Things to visit.

Herculaneum

I went to Herculaneum first - which, like Pompeii, had a bad case of Volcano in 79AD. It's incredible, and awe-inspiring. It's hard to believe until you see it, and even then, it's hard, emotionally, to grasp the fact that these homes, these paintings, have survived for 2000 years.

'College of the Augustals', Herculaneum

The frescoes are perhaps the most stunning survivals, but even more extraordinary in some ways is the fact that there are wooden survivals, too - doors, window shutters, a wine rack, and parts of a staircase and of ceiling timbers.

The wood is charred and blackened, and the window-shutters show the encrusted mud and ash, and somehow these serve to remind you that this was a vast human tragedy, as well as creating an archeological treasure trove.

A couple of days after visiting Herculaneum, I visited Pompeii, which is the same, only bigger. Parts of the town are closed off, for conservation, or for safety reasons, (there are a lot of walls propped up with scaffolding poles, and there are no maps to tell you which parts will be closed, so you can find yourself going round in circles to try to reach a specific house, only to find yourself foiled at every turn! However, I did manage to get in to see the Terme Suburbane - these are currently undergoing conservation, and are not generally open, but if you pre-book you can still go in (it looked to me as though they let a maximum of 15 people in every 30 minutes, but it doesn't seem to be publicised, so I was able to book a place, even though I didn't try to book until the day before I went)

The Baths (im)famously have explicit pictures - whether to illustrate what was on offer to patrons, or simply to give them ideas, is unknown. Allegedly, the Vatican got quite upset about them...

There are also some wonderful (if very faded) scenes with fishes and other water animals, including a lovely Hippo, and a gloriously sinuous octopus!

Another highlight was seeing the Villa dei Misteri, which has some amazingly complete wall paintings, as well as decorative pillars, mosaic floors, and a number of stray dogs keeping cool by lying on the 2000 year old floors.. (I don't think the dogs are original, though. Perhaps they are decended from the original canem of which one must cave in Pompeii...?)

They are extraordinary places. And it seems somehow fitting that there is rosemary gowing amoung so many of the ruined villas, for rememberance...

and bouganvillia and pomegranites, too, and the occasional olive tree. And little lizards run across the walls, as they must always have done.

Further pictures in my flickr set here

Traveller's return

2011-09-20T11:18:00.001+01:00

I'm back in England, after a lovely week in Italy, including meeting up with @Spacedlaw.
I'm currently trundling home on a variety of trains.
No doubt when I arrive, Tybalt will tell me Cheryl has been starving him, and I will look at the heap of empty cat-food tins and sympathise with him.

And a little later, once i've unpacked and done some laundry and maybe watched Doctor Who, I shall start uploading photos and writing a blog wntry or two about What I Did On My Holidays.

Hiatus

2011-09-12T11:45:00.001+01:00

I shall be mostly off-line for the next week.

Try not to break the Internet while I'm gone, please !

Packing..

2011-09-11T13:11:00.000+01:00

I shall be on holiday for the next week or so, so blogging is likely to be light to non-existent. It looks as though the weather in Sorrento is set to be fine and sunny for the next week, I am going to meet up with a friend, and am staying over with my sister tonight, which should be fun :-) Life is looking good. Of course, there are a few trains and planes to navigate in the meanwhile, but with nay luck that will go smoothly.

I'm sure there will be lots of photos when I get back, however, and meanwhile the house will be guarded by a Very Fine Cat and his human minion.

I think I am over my inevitable packing panic. My main concern is lest I have packed too few books, but I do have quite a number downloaded onto my ipod, so while that screen is rather small for reading from, I shall at least not be left book-less (my biggest fear) if I run out of dead-tree books before the end of the holiday...

In Which There Is Theatre and Ian McKellen

2011-09-11T12:10:00.000+01:00

A couple of months ago, when I first got my season programme from Bath Theatre Royal, I saw that in September, Sir Ian McKellen would be here, playing in The Syndicate. So I bought a ticket. I didn't, at the time, know anything about the play, nor did I know it would be just before I was due to go on holiday to Italy...

The play is by Eduardo de Fillipo whose work I'm not familiar with, although I gather that to any Italian this would be unthinkable. The play, The Syndicate is set in Naples, in 1960, and follows Don Antonio, (Sir Ian McKellen) his family and associates.

It is an interesting play - Don Antonio doesn't appear at the start - we see the rest of his household, and it becomes clear that he is a very powerful, much feared and respected man; the young man who has arrived in order to have a bullet removed from his leg is not able to stop shouting or crying out by appeals to his courage, but the warning that he might wake Don Antonio does the trick!

(Photo by Manuel Harlan, from Bath Theatre Royal website)

And it quickly becomes apparent that Don Antonio, although he is obviously a ruthless man, does have a conscience of sorts. He seeks to prevent vendettas, ("Next time you want to shoot somebody, you speak to me first") and steps in to prevent a loan-shark from pursuing his victim, but at the same time he makes clear to his friend and doctor Dottore Fabio Della Ragione (Michael Pennington) that should he leave, to go to America as he wishes, he will be killed. He also clearly has had a very murky past, among the mafia of New York "it involved bloodshed, of course. But nothing dishonourable"

The play revolves around Don Antonio's attempts to reconcile a father and son, in order to prevent the son from killing his father. There were excellent performances from Gavin Fowler as Rafiluccio Santaniello as the son, and Annie Hemingway as Rita, his (very pregnant) girlfriend and Ian McKellen was superb, managing to be very funny at times, but also to create a very real air of menace, and despite everything, to be a sympathetic character.

I felt Cherie Lunghi (Donna Armida Barracano, Don Antonio's wife) was a little wasted, as she had very little to do, and somehow the strong feeling of a close family which came across from the actors playing Don Antonio's daughter, sons and housekeeper didn't seem to extend to her, but over all there was a very strong cast, and while the play perhaps paints a somewhat rosy and optimistic view of mafia life it was very well done.

I'm glad I went. And I hope I don't meet anyone like Don Antonio and his associates when I'm in the Naples area this week!

Autumn

2011-09-09T13:40:00.001+01:00

It feels as though autumn has truly arrived, in the past few days. We've been rained on, and rained on some more, and my tomato plants seem to have gone, overnight, from green and vigorous to yellow and fading (although still with a fair number of tomatoes)

The rainy weather has suited my mood, as after the fun and excitement of the long weekend, full of treats, I have been back at work, and very busy.

Now, however, it's Friday again, and my last day at work for two weeks! The disadvantage of having upheavals at work requiring my presence, and lots of colleagues who want to book time off is school holidays is that you get very tired waiting for the point where you can have a holiday.

The advantage is that suddenly it's mid-September, autumn is coming, and you get to go off and play!
I have a theatre ticket for Saturday night, then on Monday I am off to Italy for a week, then I shall have a few days either at home, or in Devon, depending on the weather.

Hopefully I shall be able to relax, unwind, and return to work invigorated!

Plus, the Bath Kids' Lit. Fest starts at the end of the month so there is something to look forward to on my return. Guests this year include Judith Kerr, Eoin Colfer and Philip Reeve, to name but a few.

And not long after that my birthday will come round again, with friends here for the weekend, and another theatre trip.
So, despite rain and wind, life has its charms!

An Exciting Weekend - Part 4 - In Which Are Writers

2011-09-04T23:06:00.004+01:00

I booked for Neil Gaiman's 'Worlds of Wonder' event at the British Library as soon as I became aware it was happening (thank you, Maggie!) and was very much looking forward to it.

However, it wasn't due to start until 2.30, so I needed to find something to do to entertain myself on Sunday morning.

I decided to visit The Wellcome Collection - it's small, but interesting.They have one of Antony Gormley's casts (from 'Another Place') hanging from the ceiling in the lobby, which is always good.

The part of the museum which I enjoyed the most was the 'Medicine Man' exhibition, about Henry Wellcome himself. He appears to have been an avid, if somewhat indiscriminate, collector - amongst other things, he had Napoleon's toothbrush, Lord Nelson's razor, a lock of George III's hair and two of Charles Darwin's walking sticks.

He also had shrunken heads, a peruvian mummy, some Japanese sex toys, and some very gruesome momentos mori...

There are also other, (slightly) more medical displays - one large glass case, filled on one side with amupation saws of all shapes and sizes, and on the other with gynocological forceps, and another case full of artificial limbs, including one dating to 1580! (and another, which appeared to be made of wrought iron, with decorative little twiddles, from the 1850s)

Very interesting stuff!

After visiting the museum, I fortified myself with a sandwich before heading across to the British library. I was fortunate enough tio reach the shelter of the Library just before the heavens opened and it poured with rain!

At the Library, I met up with my friend Cheryl, and a girl called Lucy, who was drawing a gorgeous picture of Neil, and Robin (@Raliel), and Mike (who bought my spare ticket from me), and Maggie, who I know from twitter but haven't met in person before, so I was more than happy to be wiating around for the doors to open.
Then we got to wait around inside, which was warmer, and less rainy.

And there were books for sale. Neil arrived looking rather windswept and rained upon. Cheryl lent him a hairbrush, and he brushed his hair, which instantly reverted to looking wild and windswept. I always suspected that Crazy Hair was, in truth, a factual record, and now I know it for sure.

Farah Mendelsohn, Neil Gaiman, Rachel Armstrong, Peter F Hamilton, Kari Sperring

I was lucky enough to get seat in the front row of the auditorium, and settled down to enjoy the discussion.

As well as Neil, the panel consisted of Farah Mendelsohn (moderating), Rachel Armstrong (TED fellow), Peter F. Hamilton and Kari Sperring. Farah did a sterling job of moderating, and the discussions ranged far and wide - from the fact that Science Fiction is (almost) always about now, not the future, how Chinese and Indian Science Fiction is optimistic, and how you don't really need to write science fiction specifically for children because they read what's written for adults..

There was also the discussion about whether things are getting better or worse (and WHO they are getting better or worse for .

I don't, now, recall exactly what it was which led to Neil describing to us the "Shit Machine" he had seen in the Museum of Old and New Art, in Tasmania.. I think super villains came into it somewhere.

Rachel Armstrong provided an interesting perspective, and argued passionately that science needs writers to fire the imagination about science, and Neil and Peter both talked about being inspired by science as much as by fiction.

The discussion also ranged over politics and gender, (and how far we still have to go) - Neil talked about how 'Coraline' was initially considered to be unpublishable, because the protagonist was a girl. Which is pretty depressing..

There was comment about the effect on spam-mail of 3D printers (xkcd have, of course, already given it some thought)

The discussion ended with a short Q&A, then Neil and Peter signed - I've never seen a shorter signing line for Neil!

I allowed sense to overcome ambition and, on the basis I had to carry all my baggage for the weekend had brought my copy of Shoggath's Old Peculiar (now adorned with R'ylehian inscription) rather than my Absolute Sandman - I think it was a wise decision, even if it means I do not qualify as a True Fan!

I did give him some autumn flavoured elderberry jelly, though!

More conversation, and introductions to interesting people, and then, once the signing was over, and Cheryl and I had had a chance to chat briefly to Neil, we left the library. Cheryl and I joined what appeared to be about 1/2 the audience from the library in the pub over the road, for a quick drink, then we had a rather nice curry.

I don't know about anyone else, but I had an early night, after a truly enjoyable day.

A weekend well spent, I think :-)

Part 3 - Unplanned Fun, and Theatre

2011-09-03T23:36:00.198+01:00

When I booked my tickets for Amanda's gig on Friday and Neil's on Sunday I hadn't yet decided whether it would be best to stay in London throughout, or to go home on Saturday morning, so I hadn't made any plans for Saturday. Which was rather nice, as it left me free to just wait and see how things went.As it turned out, despite having got to bed late (and to sleep even later) I woke up early.

I'd seen a lot of ads in the tube stations for a production of Shakespeare's 'The Tempest' at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, with Ralph Fiennes and Nicholas Lyndhurst, and directed by Trevor Nunn, so I decided to see whether there were any day-tickets available. As a result, 9.20 found me waiting outside the theatre, in company with about 10 other people, waiting for the box office to open.

Forty minutes, and several chapters of 'Anansi Boys' later I had my ticket, and wandered off to see what I could do with the rest of the day.

I ended up going to the Victoria and Albert, which I always enjoy. I started by going to look at the wonderful glass sculpture (by Dale Chihuly) which hangs in the dome.

In the unlikely event I ever find myself living anywhere with space for a 27' long chandelier, I'll ask Mr Chihuly to design one for me..

Then I went through the Mediaeval section of the museum, and spent some time inspecting the Great Bed Of Ware (which is mentioned in 'Twelfth Night', and which appeares to have beem built as a tourist attraction back in the 1590s), and Queen Elizabeth I's virginals, and some lovely little miniatures, and some lovely textiles - astonishing that delicate lace and embroidery should have lasted so long.

I came across this embroidered casket - it was made by a little girl named Martha Edlin, in 1671. She was 11 years old at the time.

There were a number of other samples of her work, which her family had kept for years, but from what I could tell, what was unusual was that the pieces of work had been kept, and kept together, not that her work was unusual for her age!

I also admired this Court Dress from 1740, although I am deeply grateful that I neither have to wear anything of this nature myself, or spend my life stiching away at something similar. (although had I been born in the 18th Century I should almost certianly have died in infancy anyway, so it wouldn't have arisen. Another reason to be glad I wasn't!)

I wandered around a little more, visiting Beatrix Potter's botanical watercolours, and the Raphael cartoons (which you are not permitted to photograph) and was looking for the gold and silver when I found myself wandering though some modern designs, where I found the Bayko, which amused me because it's so familiar -

My grandparents used to have some (left over from my mother's childhood) - in fact I think an identical set - and I spent lots of time as a child happily threading bakelite bricks on little metal rods to build a house...!

Hours of fun! Every time I go to the museum I find new things, sometimes entirely new rooms. This time I found a giant artwork made out of squashed tubas, for instance. Where else do you get squashed tubas, gold cups in the shape of parrots, and Rodin sculpture, all under one roof?

But it can be a little tiring, so I went back to the Hall for a nap, before heading out to the the theatre in the evening.

The day-tickets they sell are for the very front row of the stalls - so you get a very good view, if from a somewhat unusual angle. My ticket was actually for the end seat, but the guy in the centre asked me if I would swap, so I did, and found myself sitting nose to nose with Prospero's Book, which was laid out on the stage...

I enjoyed the play, although in some respects I liked it despite, rather than because of, how it was staged - it felt, to me, a very traditional production, old fashioned, even.

The costumes were all period, with a believable variety of styles, and both Prospero (Ralph Fiennes) and Miranda (Elisabeth Hopper) had additional 'jewellery' made from sea-shells, as nbefitting people who've been shipwrecked for 12 years.

(Photo by Alistair Muir)

Some of the special effects, such as the initial storm, were excellent - others, like Ariel's flying (by wires) less so - to me, it felt rather clunky and distracting, acting as a reminder that this was all artificial. For me, it broke into, rather than aiding, my suspension of disbelief!

There were some excellent performances - Ralph Fiennes was very good, particularly in the soliloquies. The double act between Trinculo (Nicholas Lyndhurst) and Stephano (Clive Wood) were very well done - and the by-play between the cynical, worldly Antonio (Julian Wadham) and Sebastian (Chris Andrew Mellon) in the earlier parts of the play was very well done, although I found their later contrition at the end of the play far less convincing!

Ferdinand (Michael Benz) was also very good - both he and Miranda were played as very young, very naive.

Over all, it was interesting, and I loved hearing Shakespeare well-spoken, but I didn't find it as engaging as the last Tempest I saw, (blogged here) which felt much more adventurous and exciting, to me) I've seen several interviews where Ralph Fienne's is quoted as saying he hopes that people who know him from his role as Lord Voldemort in the Harry Potter films will be inspired to come and see the play, and love Shakespeare as a result. I rather hope they don't. I suspect that if you don't know, or love Shakespeare, and have just 'done' it at school, you'd find this production would confirm most of your prejudices. I think seeing someone like Filter Theatre, or the Tennant / Tate 'Much Ado' would be far more likely to spark a love of Shakespeare, or of live theatre generally.

Despite all of this, I am still very glad I saw it (although also glad I hadn't spent £60 on a 'proper' ticket) And Fiennes in particular gave a very memorable performance, especially in the closing scenes.

It was officially still preview week, and so I haven't seen any 'proper' reviews yet - I'll be interested to see what they critics think, and whether any of them agree with me.

An Exciting Weekend - Part 2. In Which There Is ROCK

2011-09-02T23:50:00.025+01:00

Amanda Fucking Palmer’s gig was at ‘Heaven’, a club in Charing Cross – doors opened at 6, and I got there at about ¼ to 7, which was handy, as it turned out that that was more-or-less when the music was due to start.

Amanda came on, in her underwear, to announce the first of the two supporting bands, The Jane Austen Argument, and to acquire various shiny things for her crowd-sourced costume.

I haven’t seen the JAA before, and only knew of them from hearing ‘Bad Wine and Lemon Cake’ on Amanda’s ‘Down Under’ album, but I would be very happy to see them again…

Sadly they only had time for a few songs, then Amanda was back to introduce the second supporting band, Bitter Ruin, who of course I have seen before, several times. They performed ‘Trust’, and ‘Chewing Gum’ and ‘The Vice’ , and it was all good.

And did I mention that I bumped into Roz Kaveney, and @Raliel (both of whom I’m met before, but neither of whom I’d arranged to meet up with).

I loved both the opening bands, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t more excited about seeing AFP herself…

It would be fair to say I was not, in any way, disappointed (well, except maybe in that I was quite a long way back, and a lot of much taller people suddenly appeared on front of me, so I did not have as good a view as I’d have liked, but that’s life J)

Amanda started her set dressed in a slinky sparkly blue frock, a feather boa, elbow gloves and a hat, none of which lasted long! Soon she was in corset and pink lame shorts

She opened with ‘Astronaut’ and continued with songs both old and new – Missed Me, for instance, Guitar Hero, and several new songs, which she asked people not to upload just yet. There was a great rendition of Delilah, with Georgia of Bitter Ruin, and Neil Gaiman was lured up onto the stage to sing ‘The Problem with Saints.

Tonight’s (or maybe this tour’s) band is called ‘Grand Theft Orchestra’ and included the awesome Una Palliser on violin, (she normally, it seems, plays with Shakira) Super Kate, (who belly danced) a 3–man horn section (stolen from Eric Clapton) and of course a number of other special guests..

Another of the guests was Tim Minchin, who I have seen on TV, but never live – he played a delightful love song; ‘You Grew On Me (like a Tumour)’ And then the final guest was Tom Robinson who quickly had the entire singing along with huge enthusiasm to Glad to be Gay.

The encores included ‘Map of Tasmania’ and ‘Oasis’ and the gig ended with a mass rendition of ‘Leeds United’ – it would be hard to say who was enjoying it more – the gang on stage (including all the guests) or the paying customers, certainly everyone was singing, dancing, and generally having a fantastic time.

This gig has to have been the biggest high you can imagine – bottle the atmosphere and you’d make a fortune!

After coming out of the venue, I was happy to see the wonderful cycling piano moving away, having earlier entertained the queues, no doubt (it was parked, by the time I arrived)

I am so very glad I was at this gig. And even on the tube going back to my hotel I kept getting little bouncy feelings of happiness, as I saw other gig-goers, with beautiful tattoos, or butterflies in their hair, or multi-coloured hair, wending their happy ways home.

And did I mention that there were at least 3 people dressed as the 11^th Doctor at the gig, and nary a raised eyebrow?

I didn’t get to sleep for hours, as I was still buzzing; I’m not sure I’ve ever been with so many people having all such a great time at once, before.

An Exciting Weekend - Part 1, In Which There Is a Bottle of Skulls (and Moles)

2011-09-02T18:01:00.000+01:00

I have had a VERY full, and very fun weekend, so will try to break it down into managable chunks.
I got a train to London on Friday, having enjoyed a lazy morning at home. After booking into my accommodation (very cheap; I stayed in one of the LSE's halls of residence - they rent out rooms on a B&B basis, during the university holidays) I headed down the road to the Grant Museum, which is part of UCL and which I've wanted to visit for ages, but have not been able to because it doesn't open at weekends.

It's wonderful. It lives in an old library, and gives the impression of not-quite fitting, so that everything has been squeezed in. I've got cupboards like that, except they don't (mostly) contain the skeletons of extinct animals or jars of skulls. The collection was originally used for teaching (we are talking about 1828, or thereabouts) and those who benefited included one Charles Darwin.

The museum has a lot of bones. And a lot of Things in jars. Such as moles, and foetal pigs, and skulls, and snakes. There are skeletons, including those of a Quagga (albeit one with slightly fewer legs then it ought to have) and of a Tylacine, and a Dodo.

There is a Sabre-Tooth tiger's skull, rather endearingly displayed between a small plastic model of a sabre-tooth, and a plastic box containing a big-cat hairball. Around the galleries of the library are more skeletons - including several primates of different kinds leaning companionably on the bannisters and looking down into the displays.

I was slightly disappointed that there was (as far as I could see) no jar of eyeballs, but one can't have everything. There were some beautiful glass models of squid, and corals and sea-urchins.

There's a pickled pangolin. (at least I think it was a pangolin) And you can adopt specimens if you want. I rather fancied adopting a ~~bug-eyed monster~~ loris, or maybe the walrus penis bone, but they seemed to have been adopted already.
It's a fascinating place. I'm glad I went.

After looking round the museum, I wandered down to the British Library, to pick up my tickets for Sunday, and to have another quick look around the 'Out of This world' exhibition - (the TARDIS is still there) before heading down to Charing Cross, to Amanda Fucking Palmer's gig . . .

Which I think shoudl ahve a post of it's own, don't you?

Bank Holiday Fun

2011-08-29T18:55:00.000+01:00

This weekend was a bank holiday, and I had pondered whether I might be able to meet, and perhaps go sailing with, my sister and soon-to-be-brother-in-law, but it turned out thet they weren't going to be home, so instead I arranged to go to Devon and spend the weekend with my parents.

And it then turned out that both of my sisters were planning to do the same, so it ended up with all 3 of us (plus K's fiance, C) being there for the weekend, which was lovely.

It traditionally pours with rain over the august bank holiday, and this one was no exception - I drove down after I finished work on Friday evening, and the drive was NOT fun - lots of very heavy rain, standing water, and, of course, the kind of drivers who don't realise that rain makes a difference to driving....

However, once I arrived, there was food, and wine, and company, and lots of catching up to do.

On Saturday there was more rain, and then during the afternoon all of us other than my dad went in to Barnstaple to look at possible dresses for E&I to wear in out role as bridesmaids, and for my mum to wear in her capacity of mother of the bride. We didn't buy anything, but we did quite a lot of trying on. (actually, most of it was getting my mum to try stuff on.)

On Sunday, K&C went to church (On the basis that it seems only polite to go occasionally, to the church where you wish to get married) while the rest of us had a nice long lie-in, then we headed out in order to meet up with my uncle and aunt, who live just down the road from my parents.

We all met up at the Hunters Inn,where we had a pub lunch (and some rather nice beer) followed by a short walk down the valley to Heddons Mouth.

The walk takes one along near the little river, down to a tiny, pebbled beach, framed by steep cliffs.

It's beautiful - and after a wet morning, the sun came out, and the sea and sky were both blue and white and windswept and beautiful.

Walking abck up the valley, the youunger half of the party crossed the river using stepping-stones, and the older half stayed on the same side of the river they started on, and walked back that way - until we met up at a small, Billy-Goats-Gruff style bridge, and walked the last stretch back in company.

It was a very nice afternoon.

In fact, it was a very nice weekend, despite the rain.

Which Involves Churchill, and Jason Webley

2011-08-27T11:49:00.092+01:00

I could get to like staying in expensive hotels (especially when I don't have to pay). The Hilton Waldorf's breakfast would set anyone up for the day - possibly for several days.

After breakfast, E suggested that we go and visit the Cabinet War Rooms, which were the underground shelters from which Churchill and his government operated during the London Blitz, in WWII. At the end of the war, they were closed up (although it appears that they got some further use during the Suez crisis in the 50s) and then were opened to the public during the 1980s. They are currently run by the Imperial War Museum.

I'd been once before, when K and I were taken as part of a trip to London when we were children, but that was over 20 years ago, so I wasn't averse to making a second visit!

The museum includes some of the rooms used during the war, which in some cases were left untouched at the end of the war, and in others were re-furnished (using old photographs as guides) when the rooms were opened as a museum. I found looking at things such as the cutting-edge technology (an entire bank of switches and wires, to allow for transatlantic phonecalls, for instance) fascinating - a reminder of just how quickly technology has advanced over the past 70 years). It also left me feeling a little claustrophobic, and very glad that, unlike the various clerks and secretaries I don't have to send the best part of 6 years huddled in a basement barely seeing daylight!

The museum also includes a big museum about Churchill, including not only the war years, but also informtion about his childhood and youth (including one of his cavalry uniforms, demonstrating that he was quite slender as a young man!)

All very interesting. I left a bit sooner than E, on account of needing to get back to the hotel to collect my blongings and then get to the station to return home. I was rather startled to come upon Boris Johnson wandering through Churchill's bedroom. Due to my poor facial recognitian skills, he's probably about the only politician I would recognise on sight, as he is so distinctive-looking, but it is rather disconcerting to bump into any politician without warning!
Anyway, after getting over that unpleasant surprise, it was a relief to have a straighforward journey home, and to then have time to relax and make a meal before heading back out to Bristol to go to Jason Webley 's gig.
The pub where the gig took place was in Stokes Croft, which is not the best part of Bristol - I was a little nervous about leaving my car, but the pub itself seemed fine, although when I went into the room the gig was in I was somewhat surprised to find that the room consisted of no seating, and also no windows or aircon, so the room resembled a large, somewhat BASIC sauna....

There were two other performers - a band called, I think 'Big Hello' which featured a lead singer who sang with his back to the audience, and a drummer & guitarist who rather drowned out their singer. Then there was a solo artist 'Cat Green Bike' who sanfg and accompanied herself on the ukulele, and who had a small but dedicated cadre of her own fans.

Both fine, bu I admit I was waiting for Jason Webley, and that neither of the support acts were so good as to make me forget thet!

Once Jason started, however, his gig was great!

I particularly enjoyed hearing 'Eleven Saints' and 'Dance while the world crashes down', and loved having the chance to go to a small, intimate gig (even one with no ventilation!).

We had about 2 hours of music, ending rather abruptly as the pub had to close (So no 'Drinking Song') - but such fun. I was absolutely knackered, afterwards, but so glad I went. Especailly as it seems that Jason is unlikely to be back in the UK for some time. I was able to say Hi to Jason, and give him a hug, which was nice :-)

In Which There is Much Squeeeeee-ing. (Also Culture & Literature)

2011-08-27T10:59:00.060+01:00

I left you, at the end of the last post, as we were walking down Charing Cross Road to Wyndhams Theatre, to see 'Much Ado About Nothing'. We've been waiting and looking forward to it since we booked the tickets at the end of January, and so as you can imagine we were in a fine, happy mood! We splashed out on good seats, so were in the stalls, and Wyndhams is a relatively small theatre, so no-one is all that far from the stage.

And so to the play.

(Picture from davidtennant.com)

The setting was 1980s, and, judging from the sunshine and heat depicted, not in the UK - Gibralter, maybe - just after the Faulklands War, to give Don Pedro, and Claudio, and Benedick a war from which to be returning.

We saw Hero (denim shorts, blonde bubble perm) sunbathing in the company of her cousin Beatrice (Catherine Tate), and then Don Pedro and his men arrived, all in crisp, white naval uniforms, and followed by Benedick (David Tennant) driving a mini golf-cart, festooned with union flags (and a single Saltire), clearly establishing himself as a joker, and there was then immediate drinking and smoking and joking and high spirits.

(Picture from davidtennant.com)

The play was very, very funny. I don't think that one usually assosciates Shakespearian comedy with being genuinely, laugh out loud funny, but this production managed it. The cast (especially David Tennant) gave the impression that they were enjoying themselves, and the audience undoubtably were.

The masked dance scene was done as a fancy dress party, which of course made it rather more believable that Hero should not recognise Don Pedro, or Beatrice recognise Benedick. (It also provided an excuse for Mr Tennant to be dressed up in a very short denin skirt, and lacy tights, and wig, and for Claudio (Tom Bateman) to appear in leather trousers, pirate shirt and a single diamante earring, (think Adam Ant)

It was also very physical - during the scenes where Benedick overhears his friends discussing Beatrice's alleged love for him, for instance, there was a lot of by-play involving paint, and as Beatrice overhears her friends discussing Benedick's alleged love for her, she is actually hoisted up on a pulley (and managed to continue to act under the circumstances - very impressive!)

(picture:davidtennant.com)

The wedding scene was another opportunity to revisit the 80s, with Hero's wedding dress being the image of Princess Diana's (albeit with a rather shorter train), worn with fingerless lace gloves, no less! And of course all the men in dress uniforms.

I was particularly impressed that both David Tennant and Catherine Tate were able to dial down the comedy so that their reaction to Cladio's accusations against Hero, and Benedick's subsequent challenge to him, came across as (quite literally) deadly serious.

So, all in all, a fabulous, hugely enjoyable performance. I think inevitably, the focus was on Tate and Tennant, but the rest of the cast were also very good - special mention is deserved for the boy, who has only 2 lines, but whose appearances (trying to do a Rubiks cube, fetching a book for Benedick and so on) added very entertaining background.

Although we hadn't realised in advance, it turned out that this was the 100th performance of the show. That being the case, I found it was still very fresh. And, in case you haven't worked it out yet, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I'd been looking forward to it hugely, and I think it's fair to say that it exceeded my expectations!

In Which There Are Friends, Art and Food

2011-08-25T21:50:00.000+01:00

(Photo from Cathedrals Express website)

I'm home now, having had a great couple of days in London.

I travelled up by train, which was a a smooth journey, through mainly rain-washed ladscape, and which included a somewhat surreal encounter as, on pulling in to Basingstoke staition, I saw a rather beautiful Steam-Engine - 'Tangmere', complete with vintage carriages., and diners sitting a little lamp-lit tables.

A little research tells me that this is a locomotive operated by a company called 'The Cathedrals Express', and that it is a post-war, Battle-of-britain class loco. It looked very sleek and glossy, and all of the people on board looked as though they were enjoying themselves.

I got to Waterloo just in time for the really heavy rainstorm, and rushed up the Strand to our hotel, where I met up with my sister, who was not only providing me with accommodation (dur to haveing enough reward points for a free night's stay) but also brought lunch enough for two with her, so we were able to eat before venturing out for the afternoon.

We went to the National Portrait Gallery first, where we inspected a lot of Tudor and Stuart monarchs, and sir Francis Drake's choice of (pink) doublet and hose, besides speculating on who it was who first thought that huge ruffs were a good fashion choiuce, before meeting up with my friend E, and her friend A, at which point we adjourned to the cafe for tea and conversation, before popping round the corner to The National Gallery where we dicussed our qualifications to write an art guide (Sample entry "Rubens - good at bums, a bit weak on boobs.".) Doctor Who (we checked Van Gogh's 'Sunflowers', just in case it mentioned Amy) and admired lots of pictures. I found time to check on Henri Rousseau's Surprised, which is one of my favourites, and then we exited via the gift shop, and had a look at the giant ship-in-a-bottle they've currently got opn the 4th plinth in Trafalgar Square, then went back to the hotel for a quick cuppa, before heading out for supper.

We'd booked at a restaurant called Arbutus, which my sister (the other one) recommended. It's nice. It has a Michelin star, but they do a fixed price pre-theatre meal which made it do-able for us.

And it was yummy.I picked the Salt cod brandade, then what the menu described as a 'pork and spinach meat ball' but was really a faggot - I liked it, it was very meaty, with a real punch to it,and just a touch of offal, although I suspect it wouldn't be to everyone's taste. We had some rather nice white rioja to go with it.In fact, the only disappointment was the cheese - it was very nice, but being given two small slices when you are expecting a choice of cheeses from the tantalising cheese-board you've passed on your way in is - well, a bit of a let down.

but apart from that, it was great. And it carried us nicely through til it was time to head down Charing Cross Road to Whyndhams Theatre, ready to see Mr Tennant and Ms Tate...

(in the next post...)

Things to Look Forward To

2011-08-19T22:18:00.000+01:00

It's been another very long week, but hopefully things will be more fun, and much less hard work for the next few weeks, as I have lots of things to look forward to, and several short weeks:
Way back in January, we saw that the wonderful Mr David Tennant was going to be appearing in 'Much Ado About Nothing' with the equally wonderful Catherine Tate, this year, so a group of us (Me, my sister, 2 friends, and 2 friends-of-friends) agreed to go - we booked tickets, way back then (Stalls, baby!) and on Tuesday evening, we are going! I'm so excited. I love going to the theatre, and I love David Tennant as an actor - I saw his 'Hamlet' in Stratford on Avon in 2008 (about 2 weeks before I started this blog, as it happens!), which was an amazing experience, so I am SO looking forward to seeing him in Shakespeare again, and also to see him with Catherine Tate, who I have never seen live beofre.

I'm also really looking forward to spending time with my sister & friends - we haven't yet decided what to do with the afternoon before the show - we may all be splitting up to check out different exhibitions & such, but we've then booked what should be a very nice restaurant for a pre-theatre meal, and as my sister apparently has zillions of points due to hotel stays (for her job) she and I get a nice hotel room for no money at all, too. It should be alovely couple of days, and of course having Tuesday & Wednesday off work makes for a nice, short, working week, too :-)

On Wednesday evening I am going to see Jason Webley play, in Bristol, which should be fantastic - I gather this may be hos last European tour for a while, so I'm glad I can see one of the shows.

After that, we have a bank holiday weekend, and I'm planning to go down to Devon to spend the weekend with my parents, and I belive that my other sister and her fiance will be there.

Then the weekend after that, I am back in London once again, to see Amanda Palmer, and then to see Neil Gaiman at the British Library, which also gives me a free day in london, so I shall have the opportunity to go see another exhibition or two, and maybe even a show, if I can get a last minute ticket for something on the Saturday night.

So all in all, I have a lot to look forward to. And that's before I even have my summer holiday! (This year, I am actually leaving home!)

More Shakespeare!

2011-08-15T21:25:00.000+01:00

It's been a long & tiring week - lots of rushing around at work, and on Friday I found,on going to move my car for a colleague, that my rear number plate was missing, so I had to rush off as soon as I finished work, to get a replacement made. I am hoping that the old one simply fell off, and that it wasn't stolen. The young man in Halfords who made the new one said that he would normally expect them to steal both, if that were the case, so I am hoping that he is correct.

So it was good, once I was able to get back home, to be able to relax and start the weekend.

My friend Cheryl came round on Friday evening, bearing interesting jams and honey and chocolate from her recent trip to Finland, (and left with a jar of my bramble jelly). Lovely to have an evening just to relax and chat a little!

To my irritation, I then ended up sleeping very badly, so didn't feel terribly energetic on Saturday, so I didn't get a lot done, other than picking a few blackberries and elderberries - and saw a kingfisher, which is always lovely!

Then, in the evening I went into Bath, to see 'Henry IV, Pt. II', at the Theatre Royal. It was the same cast as last week's 'Henry IV, Pt I', so King Henry, Lord Scroop, Falstaff and Prince Hal were all played by the same actors, while others took on new roles - Hotspur (being dead) reinventerd himself as Pistol, for instance. Perspanally, I have very poor facial recognition so it didn't faze me (I had to look them up in the programme to see who was who) but I can't help but wonder whether it might be a little distracting to those who do recognise people, especially if they don't leave a week between Parts 1&2, as I did!

I'm still not a Falstaff fan, but that is Shakespeare's fault, not that of the actors or this production.

I did have one gripe, however - the guy sitting in front of me, who fidgeted constantly (and I mean, CONSTANTLY,) through the entire performance. And not only fidgeting, but scratching his armpits, scratching his back. I came *this* close to giving him my best Joyce Grenfell "George, Don't do that". But I didn't. Sometimes I think I must be turning into an adult.

In Which Shakespeare Happens

2011-08-07T22:08:00.000+01:00

The Peter Hall Company is in Bath for the summer, and the plays they are giving include Henry IV, Parts 1 & 2. I'd thought, when I first saw the season programme, that I would like to see them, but didn't get around to booking until yesterday, when I booked to see Part 1 this afternoon, and part 2 next Saturday.( I could have seen them both, back to back, today, but I decided that 6 hours of Shakespeare might be a little too much of a good thing!, plus it's a long time to be sitting in a possible very hot theatre!)
The costuming was early Victorian - dark, dress uniforms with lots of gold braid for the nobility, big shirts and waistcoats for the tavern scenes. The tavern scenes worked pretty well on that basis - gave the impression of the seedier side of Victorian society, where the rougues and whores and vagabonds wouldn't be out of place. It didn't work quite so well for the more formal court scenes, I think perhaps as there was little in the way of props and set-dressing. The King (David Yelland) was definitely of the 'elder stateman / George V style, which made him seem a little old to be fighting hand-to-hand at Shrewsbury (I believe in reality he would have been around 35 at that period)

Prince Hal and Hotspur (photo from outside theatre,
so presumably (c) The Peter Hall Company)

Over all, I enjoyed the play. I'm not sure I'd have given it 5 stars (which some of the papers have done) but I will reserve jugment until I've seen Part 2. I felt that both Hotspur and Prince Hal (Ben Mansfield and Tom Mison) were excellent - although I felt Prince Hal was more convincing in the second half of the play, with the battles, than in the tavern scenes - he didn't come across as convincingly dissolute.

I wasn't taken with Sir John Falstaff (Desmond Barit) - not because the acting was poor but because I struggled to see what Prince Hal would see in him - they seemed not to have anything in common, so the scene foreshadowing Hal's rejection and banishment was very convincing, but the scenes of Falstaff and Hal together at the tavern, and the Prince's distress at believing Falstaff dead at the battle of Shrewsbury were less so.

I am looking forward to seeing Part 2, next weekend.

I got very wet walking back to the car, as what had been a lovely sunny day when I went in to Bath had turned into torrential rain by the time I came out, so I abandoned my half-formed plan to harvest some more blackberries and/or elderberries on my way home! Still, at least I need not worry about watering the tomatoes today.

In Which There Are Books, A Boat, and More Blackberries

2011-08-06T18:05:00.000+01:00

A little while ago I saw this article in the Guardian about The Book Barge, and saw that it would be visitng Bradford on Avon (this weekend) and Bath (next week).

as it happened , I had to go over to Bradford on Avon so I had the perfect opportunity to go to see the Barge.

I saw on Twitter that owner/skipper Sarah needed milk, so picked up a pint on my way in, then strolled along through the park. On my way, I passed a wedding party, a posh picnic featuring champagne and strawberries, a group of children paddling in the river with a large dog of indeterminate breed, and a cricket match - in fact, practically everything (other than a sudden rain-storm) which you might expect of a British summer!

The barge is wonderful - there's an excellent selection of new and used books, plus mugs, cards, postcards and (at least if you turn up bearing milk!) the offer of a nice cup of tea and some banana bread!

I left with three new-to-me books, and felt I had an excellent bargain, as Sarah insisted on my having one of the books in barter for the milk (I feel sure I got the best out of that deal!) If the Book Barge goes anywhere near you, go visit it!

Oh, and the blackberries? I made another small batch last night/this morning - I ended up with a smaller volume of jelly this time - only one and a half jars, but then picked another couple of pounds of berries this morning, which have now reached the 'hang up to strain for at least 12 hours' stage of the recipe so I should be able to pot this batch 1st thing tomorrow morning.

At this rate I may have to bake some scones, soon, in order to have something to eat bramble jelly off!

In Which There Are Blackberries

2011-08-01T19:12:00.000+01:00

It was very hot over the weekend, and I ended up sleeping badly (not helped by the delightful neighbours who decided to re-ent their favourite rugby passes at top volume in the street until 2 a.m.)

I walked into town on Saturday morning (where I ended up accidentally spending £40 in the bookshop, which I ought not to have done..) and noticed on the way that there were a lot of ripe blackberries in the hedges, although it's pretty early for them to be ripe, so |I decided to get picking.

I managed to get about 3lbs on Saturday (and then a further 2lbs on Sunday) and spent Saturday evening and Sunday morning making some of them into Bramble Jelly - I ended up with 5 jars of jelly (made using 2lbs of blackberries and about 1lb of bramley apples) and I have frozen the other 3lbs of berries, so I should be able to make some more next weekend, when I have time. I'm also considering getting some local honey, and trying a batch using honey instead of sugar (or perhaps part and part). From what I've read, it looks do-able, but may have an effect on how well the jam sets, so a bit of trial-and-error may be needed...

The nice part is that there are a lot of blackberries which are still green, and other brambles still flowering, so there should be berries ripening for several weeks more, and the opportunity to make rather more jelly than I managed last year (when I only made one lot, at the start of September)

I'm also pondering whether to try making some rosehip jam or jelly. I am reasonably confident I can accurately identify rosehips.... In fact there seem to be some ripening alongside the blackberries.

The downside of jam-making is that all these fruits will insist on ripening just when it is really hot, and standing over pans of boiling fruit and sugar is least appealing (at least marmalade season comes in January, when boiling stuff for hours at a time has its own appeal!

In Which Nothing Much Happens

2011-07-29T19:19:00.000+01:00

Ten days with no posting. I'm slacking. Unfortunately it's because I haven't been doing much which is worth blogging about.
I've been very busy at work, spent a fair amount of time in court (and even more time hanging around in court waiting rooms, (because we all know that 'listed for 10.30' really means 'in at 1.14')

I've also been not enjoying the hot, muggy weather. Particularly as my tomatoes seem to have been stubbornly soaking up the sun (and demanding that I water them lots) but conspicuously failing to turn ripe and red. I'm sure that they are doing it on purpose...

I'm toying with the idea of going to the theatre this weekend - the Bath Theatre Royal has the Peter Hall company playing Henry IV parts 1 and 2 playing at present . .it's pretty tempting to go see one or both, either this weekend or next - they are both getting excellent reviews.I just have to work out whether I can afford it!

In Which There Is Science Fiction, Religion and Theatre (Part 2)

2011-07-18T21:57:00.000+01:00

Following on from the exhibitions we had a very nice Japanese meal at a restuarant called Abeno, where we had Okonomi-yaki (Which I've never heard of before) which was cooked in front of us, and very tasty it was too!
Then we went back to Waterloo, to The Old Vic, to see Kevin Spacey's Richard III.

It's a modern-dress production: Richard gave the opening 'Now is the winter of our discontent' speech seated under a big TV screen showing King Edward, and the later scene in which King Edward urges the disunited peers to make friends was played as a photo-opportunity, which worked surprisingly well.

I was slightly surprised as how much emphasis was put on Richard's disabilities - not only did he have a very obvious hump-back, but also wore a leather glove to cover his 'withered' arm, and a calliper on his leg, which was twisted right round (must be terribly hard work, and uncomfortable for Mr Spacey, I would imagine!) I am not sure why, but I'd expected the whole 'crookback' thing to be very subtle, but it wasn't.

The other unexpected thing, for me, was the number of lines which turned out to be laugh-out-loud funny. Not what you expect in seeing one of the bloodier history plays, but very effective. In particular during Act III, when the citizens wish to see Gloucester and he claims to be at prayer.
The set was very plain - each side lined with doors, which heightened the sense of intrigue.
Honourable mentions go to Chuk Iwuji, who played Buckingham as a very political, untrustworthy, smarmy, spin-doctor, and to Annabel Scholey as Lady Anne, both repulsed by and attracted to Richard.

And at the end, as Richard's corpse was strung upside down from a wire, you could come to feel sorry for him...

I do have a few minor critisisms: there is a lot of drumming, which at times dorwned out the actors voices, and I personally found it slightly distracting to have half of the actors using American pronunciations of place names/ titles (more so, I think, than if it had been consistent, even if it had been consistently wrong) - Salisbury and Buckingham, in particular, but these are minor quibbles. All in all, it's a VERY good production, well worth seeeing.

Although I was left wanting to re-read Josephine Tey's 'The Daughter of Time' to redress the balance in relation to Richard's reputation.

In Which There Is Science Fiction, Religion And Theatre (Part 1)

2011-07-17T20:48:00.000+01:00

The reason I was rushing around like a mad thing to catch a train on Friday was in order to travel up to London to visit my cousin J & his partner and to go to the theatre. The origianl plan also involved meeting up with more family mambers for a meal, but due to their ill-health that fell through, but the silver lining was that it left more time for visiting museums.

First port of call was the Bristish Library, to see their Out of this World exhibition about Science Fiction. When we got to the library we realised that there was also a mini exhibition about Mervyn Peake, which was a bonus!

The Science Fiction exhibition was very good, starting with the ancient Greeks, and moving on to Sir Thomas More, Bishop Godwin and Voltaire, and of course many more modern writers, and ones more likely to be thought of as SciFi writers.

I like seeing books I know and love and own being displayed and taken seriously in the British Library.

I particularly liked finding the Discworld Mappe displayed alongside the Bronte sisters' maps of "Gondal", and coming upon Diana Wynne Jones' Deep Secret (although not the edition with the Charles Vess cover|), and finding The Absolute Sandman (open to the start of 'Season of Mists') rubbing shoulders with Lord Dunsany and George MacDonald Fraser and H.P. Lovecraft. Then of course there was Frankenstein, The Handmaiden's Tale, 1984, Children of Men, The City and The City, FlatLand .....

The majority of the exhibition was, inevitably, of books, but there were also some sculptures - a wonderful (War of the Worlds) Martian Tripod, the TARDIS, and an awesome miniture steampunk K9, plus various film and audio snippets, computers set up for chat (to see whether they could pass the Turing test) and selections of music to listen to. Sadly you aren't allowed to take pictures in the exhibition.

I was expecting to enjoy the exhibition. My cousin J, who I think was mostly there in his capacity as a Good Host (he's not into SciFi) came out saying how interesting it was, which I think counts as a win on both counts. Well worth a visit!

Then, (after a brief pause for tea) we went on to the British Museum, to see the Treasures of Heaven exhibition, which is all about saints, and relics, and reliquaries. I found it interesting that the exhibit starts with a little background, with an Etruscan (and so of course very much pre-Christian)sarcophagus showing an 'angel', to illustrate that the images we associate with angels go back well before chritianity, and also some Roman glass - one showing a couple with a figure of Mercury being asked to prtect them, and a second, almost identical one, with a figure of Christ, but otherwise indistinguishable.

The majority of the exhibits however were reliquaries from the medieval period, most of them showing amazing craftsmanship (if also considerable credulity!). I particularly liked the Franks Casket (which is an amazingly detailed box made from carved whalebone, with runes and images of pagan myths., as well as saints) and also a reliquary for the arm of St George (who would appear to have had fairly short arms, if it is to be believed), which was topped with a delightful little silver-gilt dragon.

I have decided that I thoroughly approve of St. Hedwig of Silesia, who not only had a very cool name, but also had the enviable gift of turning the water in any beaker from which she drank into wine. She must have been a popular party guest.

I learned some things I didn't previously know. In particular, did you know that after the 2nd Nicean Council (in the 8th Century) you weren't allowed to consecrate a church & alter unless you had a relic to go with it? (and that relics used to be kept under the alter, with a hole to allow pilgrims to dangle bits of cloth down to soak up the holiness).

And did you know that King Charles II was made into a saint (the only one ever created by the church of England) after the Restoration? A more unlikely candidate for sainthood it would be difficult to imagine, and either Queen Victoria or her ministers apparently thought the same, as she rescinded his Sainthood.

The exhibition finishes with a short film showing images of devotion - including not only events such as Mother Teresa's funeral, and worshippers venerating St Theresa of Liseux when her coffin went on tour a few years ago, but also images of the queues to visit Lenin's tomb, Mikhail Gorbachev visiting the British Museum Reading Room to see the desk used by Karl Marx, The flowers left outside Buckingham Palace after Princess Diana's death, and Elvis's grave at Graceland.

Both exhibitions are well worth visiting, should you find yourself in London.

In Which I Am Somewhat Stressed

2011-07-16T20:19:00.001+01:00

Friday did not go well.

I had a full day at the office planned, but on Wednesday I learned of an unexpected hearing, for Friday, in DistantTown, which is about 2 hours from me. This meant having to apply to amend my client's legal aid. You wouldn't think that would be too difficult, as the criteria were clearly met, but due to cutbacks and backlogs most applicartions take weeks to process. Which is not good when you need a reply within 2 days.

So, the process is something like this:

Phone Legal Aid. Spend 45 minutes on hold listening to cheesy elevator music, interrupted evey 30 seconds or so by mesages saying that your call will be answered shortly (even long after it has become obvious that this is, in fact, a LIE) and that it is important to them (which, frankly, is also a LIE, as they are a monopoly)
Eventually reach an actual person, who confirms what you already know, namely that they can't actually grant the necessary amendment over the phone, only give you a code to allow you to fax it in to be dealt with urgently, which will "probably" be done within 48 hours.
Fax application, making sure to get a delivery confirmation
the following morning, telephone to follow up & see whether the application has been dealt with. Spend 70 minutes on hold waiting for your call to be answered "shortly".
Just as you lose the will to live (or at least to live as a person who has to deal with the Legal services Commission) you get to a person, who claims that they have not recieved the fax. After some discussion, they admit that it would be possible to scan and e-mail a further copy of the form, which we duly do...
Ring for a third time. (because they won't actually phone of fax to tell you. that would be too easy) Weep softly forthe 30 minutes spent on hold while listening to cheesy elevator music and insincere messages.
get amendment.

And that was just what I had to do before I could get started.

The hearing on Friday was listed for one hour, at 11 a.m. So I was fairly tired and a little stressed when it finished at 3.35. And was not best pleased when I then discovered that due to an accident on the Motorway, traffic was backed up into town, so my journey back, which would normally take about 90 minutes (to the office) or 2 hours (to home) was considerably extended.

The back log from the motorway being closed probably only delayed me for about 20 minutes, but as it turned out, after that I was also destined to be further delayed by The Old Man in a Flat Cap, driving at 30 mph or 10 mph below the spped limit, whichever was slower, the Van Towing Trailer (apprently driven by someone who had never towed anything, and possibly never driven anything before, the Funeral Cortege (and who holds a funeral at 5 in the afternoon?) and, of course, the Extra-Long, Extra-Wide Articulated Lorry Carrying Portakabins sent to meet me just as the narrowest, sharpest corner in Glastonbury.

All of which meant it took me nearly 2 1/2 hours to get back, so I literally only had time to lock ny files into the house before rushing back to the station to catch a train to London at 6.15. and then that train was delayed so I had to sprint to change platforms at Bath, making the connection by the skin of my teeth.

Mercifully there was a bar on the train.

Of

In Which There is Music and Much Driving, But No Keys

2011-07-10T16:14:00.002+01:00

This weekend, I had one of the few (total:20) tickets to see Bitter Ruin play some of the songs from their work in progress, in their home in Brighton.

I've seen them several times before, most recently last June, in in Bath, and earlier last year when they opened for Amanda Palmer and Jason Webley's EvelynEvelyn show in London, and it seemed as though it would be a fun thing to do.

My trip didn't start well. Brighton is a long way away, so I planned to drive to my sister's place in Portsmouth, then get a train to Brighton. She & C were willing for me to stay there in their absence, and so the plan was to get the train back after the gig, sleep there, and have a leisurely drive home on Sunday morning.

Unfortunately Royal Mail let us down, and the keys to the flat which were posted to me on Wednesday (1st class, which is supposed to mean they arrive the following day) failed to turn up. Having stayed in until the post arrived (well after mid-day), I was not best pleased that the keys didn't arrive.

Having no option, I then drove to Brighton (which takes about 3 hours) where I inadvertently parked in the Worlds Most Expensive Car Park before heading out to look at Brighton.

The Royal Pavillion is one of the sights of Brighton. It was built for the Prince Regent (later George IV) between 1787 and 1822, and as it currently stands was designed by Nash, in the Indian style - the interiors are (mad) Chinoiserie, but I didn't go in on this occasion, as it's not cheap, and I didn't have time to do it justice.

I think perhaps we should be grateful that The Prince Regent did not allow his enormous debts get in the way of building such a lavish palace, as it gives us something most impressive to look at now! The pavillion was used as a hospital during WW1 - it must have been somewhat disconcerting, espcially for any poor soul suffering from fever...

After looking around the town a little I found a very nice restuarant and gorged myself on fresh whitebait, and wild mushroom risotto, then I walked along the promenade watching the gulls riding the wind, and the people on the beach.

I met up with 5 or 6 of the other people going to the show, outside Ben and Georgia's flat, and we all headed in.

We all settled down on the living room floor, with glasses of wine (and little bowls of dolly mixture, supplied by our hosts)

Ben & Georgia played us a selection of the new songs which they are currently working on for their next album - I particularly liked 'Child in a Sea Cave'. In between songs we talked, and they answered questions, then played more songs from the back catalogue, with more conversation and discussions in between. It was a lot of fun!

When the show ended, Georgia took a picture of the bunch of us, before we left.

(Picture taken by Georiga )

Then there was just time for a little more conversation before heading back to my car for the long drive home. It was twilight as we left the flat, and the amusements on the pier were all lit up.

It was well past midnight before I got home, and my dodgy shoulder is complaining about all the driving, and I still have the problem of how to get my sister's keys back to her (once they finally arrive here!) but despite all that, it was fun, and I'm glad I went.

I would also like to go back to Brighton at some point, and spend a bit more time looking around the pavillion, gardens and so forth..

Work, and other things

2011-07-03T20:00:00.000+01:00

I'm finding things at work pretty stressful at present, and in consequnce I've been sleeping badly and am tired all the time. Coupled with the unfortunate short-break failure this has meant I haven't been anywhere, or done anything terribly exciting in the past week, leading to a paucity of blogging material.

I have been taking some pretty pictures of flowers

Saturday last week was, apparently, Armed Forces Appreciation Day, which I guess is why there were tents and tanks all over the park, not to mention a Spitfire (replica, rather than original, but impressive none the less)

There was also a rather random silver band (they were lurking in some bushes a little way from the park, but it's hard to lurk inconspicuously if you are a large silver band wearing red uniforms and playing show tunes with more enthusiasm than accuracy)

Things to look forward too - Jason Webley is visiting Britain as part of his last-for-ages tour, and is playing in Bristol, and I have a ticket for that, and I'm seeing Bitter Ruin next weekend, and the following weekend I'm seeing Kevin Spacey's Richard III in London, so there are things to look forward to, little oases of pleasure like beacons in the dark.

And with luck, the stress will reduce, and the weeks will become more interesting and enjoyable, too.

In Which I am Disappointed (But Bounce Back)

2011-06-21T22:04:00.000+01:00

I wasn't supposed to be here over the weekend. This weekend, I was supposed to be in a rented cottage in Wales, with no electricity, no phone signal, no inernet access - just time to relax with my Aunt, Uncle, Cousin H, plus Cousin's husband and adorable 8 month old baby.

I was due to leave yesterday morning, but as I was finishing my coffee yesterday morning, I got a phone call from my uncle, to say that unfortunately both my aunt, and my cousin had come down with a nasty bug. So, initially we decided to leave it till noon to see whether perhaps they'd just eaten something which disagreed, to see if they felt any better, but they didn't. So I didn't go.

Which was a disappointment. Worse for them, of course. Being poorly while on holiday, but a little sad for me.

I ended up doing very little on Thursday- in the morning I was hanging around to see whether there was any chance of salvaging the trip, and doing bits of housework. Then it rained, and thundered, and lightened, so I stayed in and watched Doctor Who.

Today, however, started out a little brighter, so I decided, after a certain amount of faffing about, to go out. I went to Bath. I recently aquired an Artfund card, and on their website, it told me it would get me into the Roman Baths for free, so I decided I'd go there, because I have not been for simply YEARS.

However, when I got there, they told me it was not a bit true, but by that time I was all hyped up to see Regency/Roman architechtural mashups, so I went in even though I had to pay.

It's still a fascinating place.

Of course, most of the buildings are not Roman, but the water is the same as it always was, and there are the various finds, such as the head of Medusa, and the little folded lead sheets with the prayers and curses which people threw into the water.

There are also holographic Romans around one of the pools, and a couple of ladies dressed as a Roman matron & slave-girl answering questions by the Great Bath. When i waas there, there was a slo a wedding party, which struck an odd note - I can see the appeal of the Baths & Pump Room as a wedding venue, but I'm not sure I'd want my wedding venue to be filled with coachloads of tourists.!

Having visited the Baths, I did make use of the ticket to procure a glass of the Waters, in the pump room. I cannot recommend it for internal use. It doesn't taste good. it is possible, I suppose, that it may have done me good - I belive it was used to be considered particularly effective against gout, and I certianly don't have gout, so maybe it does work :-)

After leaving the baths, I went to the William Herschel Museum, (where once again my ArtFund Card was spurned) - I knew of Herschel as an astronomer and for discovering Uranus - I wasn't aware that he had originally come to Bath not as an astronomer, but as a musician (and a very successful one)

Other than that insight, owever, I found the museum a little disappointing; there isn't a lot there, and a lot of the more interesting exhibits, such as letters, are not well displayed. Still, there were some nice astrolabes and an orrerry, and a scale model of Herschel's telescope, and photographs of his decendents, so not all bad.

I'd thought about ending the day with a trip to the cinema, but by this stage I was rather cold, and a little damp from being rained on, and getting tired, so I went home and spent the evening watching Grosse Pointe Blank with the cat, instead.

It was not a bad day.

In which There is Family

2011-06-15T22:06:00.000+01:00

I spent the weekend down in Portsmouth, to visit my sister and her fiance. When we arranged it, the plan was that we would maybe do some sailing. However, when I got there, it became clear that that wasn't going to be practical. In the first place, the forecast was for heavy rain and very strong winds, (force 8 or so) and secondly, we were all pretty tired (C has just finished exams) and the tides meant we would have had to get up rather early if we wanted to go sailing. So we didn't.

Instead, we sat up late over food and wine and conversation, then we got up late and had a gargantuan breakfast, and then, at the crack of 3p.m ventured out into the day. It was VERY windy, even ashore, although the rain didn't turn up til Sunday.

On Saturday we went to Gosport, where C took his dinghy out to the boat to check it out, while K and I went for a walk around the harbour front.

We looked at all the pretty little boats in the marina, and the big grey boats which belong to the Royal Navy, and the submarine in the submarine Museum, and HMS Warrior, which belonged to the Navy when it was built in 1860, (and for all I know, still does).

And we saw an egret,and looked at the Spinnaker Tower on the Portsmouth side of the river, then we met C, went home, and changed (and in C's case washed several lbs of fine river mud off) and dressed up and went to a rather splendid french restaurant in Portsmouth, where we had a delicious, leisurely meal.

On Sunday, the promised rain arrived, and it poured, solidly all day. However, this wasn't a problem - K&C had (sailing) friends ciming, so we made a sunday roast, and the friends brought cheese and fruit, and there was much conversation, then in the evening our cousin S, her husband T and 3 year-old son arrived - they have had a week's holiday in France and were staying over night before driving home, so we had a socialable evening. I hvane't seen my little cousin for 18 months, which is forever when you're 3, so it was lovely to see him - he is a gorgeous, chatty, outgoing little boy, who was only shy for the first 5 minutes.

We alos got to hang out with his parents.

So, despite the lack of sailing, it was a highly enjoyable weekend, and I'm glad I went. I am very fortunate in my family, I think.

Oh, and K & I might have looked at lots of pictures of her wedding dress, and talked quite a lot about her plans for the wedding next August, becasue, after all, that's what sisters are for, isn't it?

In Which The Geeks Gather

2011-06-12T10:59:00.000+01:00

Thursday night was the night that Paul and Storm and Jonathan Coulton were playing at Bristol's Colston Hall, for the first date of their European tour. (it's a pretty short tour - only 4 dates, I think)

Last time they played in Bristol was in November 2009, (I blogged it here ), and I ended up selling mercahndise, so this time when I heard that they were coming back, I sent off an email volunteering as a Merch Girl again. And then I inveigled my friend Cheryl into coming along with me to help out.

We got there a little early, and the guys were running a little late, so we hung out for a bit first, then Paul arrived to talk us through pricing and how to use the credit-card-machine-with-the-carbon-paper. One of the things on sale was the Paul and Storm's " ________ IS THE NAME OF MY ___________ COVER BAND" shirt (which comes with a washable marker pen so you can fill in the gaps as often as you wish). I made some comment about their channelling John Scalzi, and was immediately corrected, and told thatg it is, of course, Scalzi channelling them... which led, inevitabley, to the creation of the "John Scalzi IS THE NAME OF MY Paul and Storm COVER BAND" modelled here, and on twitter, by Cheryl!

The show was great - first half featuring Paul & Storm, with the 'Nun Fight', 'Frogger the Musical' and 'The Captain's Wife's Lament' songs being particularly well-recieved.

There was also the presentation by a member of the audience of the the World's Largest Jaffa-Cake....

Then, after the interval in which we sold many many shorts and CDs, came JoCo's portion of the show, which featured many old favoutrites such as 'Code Monkey' and 'Skullcrusher Mountain', plus new ones including 'Blue Sunny Day' (about a sad vampire) the new Portal II song (and, of course, 'Still Alive', sung with full choral audience participation), not to mention the ever-popular 'Re: Your Brains' (also featuring much enthusiastic audince participation)

Jonathan also spoke a little about the Crushing Burden of fame, enocuraged us all to sell all of us stuff in order to buy tickets for the JoCo Cruise

It was a lot of fun!

After the show (including the not-at-all-planned-or-choreographed,-honest encore) we sold a lot more merchandise, and had the chance to chat a little with Paul and Storm and Jonathan, before helping to pack up the unsold shirts, and heading home. I normally aim to be home well beofre midnoght on days when i have to work in the morning. I failed completely on this occasion, but I have absolutely no regrets whatsoever. it was a great show, and I am so glad I went. Looking forward to next time.

If I can ever remember my YouTube password, I will try to upload some video I took, but I know there was someone filming pretty much everything, and with a better camera than mine, so she may well have posted a ll the good stuff already..

MoT and other tribulations

2011-06-08T20:59:00.002+01:00

After last week's sad MoT failure, I took my car back to the garage on monday to have it's cracked thingummy replaced. Which meant having a courtesy car.

The piano-owning-mechanic led me out to the car park and stopped in a rather puizzled way, in front of a parking space which was conspicuously empty. it should, apparently, have contained a Ford Fiesta. It didn't. Which is why I ended up with the keys to a souped up Golf GTi.

It's been a while since I drove a car with a manual gearbox, so when I couldn't get it into reverse I throught it must be me. Until the piano-owning-mechanic came running back to say "Oh, I forgot to mention. Reverse isn't where the gear lever says it is..." Which made it an interesting drive. Most of the other stuff seemed to be where it claimed to be. Although I never did find how to make the seat sit up, or whether it was even possible.

When my car wasn't fixed by teatime I was quite pleased to swap the GTi for the (elderly, diesel) Fiesta, as I could at least sit up to drive it, plus I'm used to Fiestas. My mother used to have one, which she let me drive to Bristol every day for a year when I was living at home and attending university.

And tonight I got to pick my car up, all newly MoT'd and legal again. It has some new springs in it's suspension, and some new shock absorbers. And they did the thing where they saved the old oily bits to show me, presumably to satisfy me that they had actually put new bits in my car, rather than leaving it parked round the corner for 3 days while they played poker or piano or whatever. Of course, as a fraud-detection method, this does rather suppose that I can recognise my own cars oily bits. And that I can identify that the specific oily bits I'm being shown bear any relation to the part of the car which was in need of fixing, which,e xcept for things such as punctures, I mostly can't. I can identify the wheels. If I evr i have wheel issue Ishall confidently be able to recignise that they are wheels, and probably even that they are the wheels of my car (or wone of its close relatives) but that's about it.

Anyway, I have my own car back, with some new springs and shock-absorbers, and a certificate to say it has passed it's exams and I am legal to drive it for another year.

I have to wait for the bill. It's going to be posted to me. Which has the minor advantages that (a) I can arragne to be sitting down when I read it and (b) I shall be able to have it on next month's credit card statement, not this one.

Small mercies...

In Which There Is Much Family Pride

2011-06-05T18:23:00.001+01:00

On Friday evening I drove down to Cambridge, in order to visit my brother, and to attend his graduation ceremony on Saturday.

He has spent the past four years studying through the OU (and working full time as well) and this is the end result! He now has a Bachelor's Degree in Computing and Mathmatical Sciences, with 1st Class Honours. And yes, we're all VERY proud of his achievement. (it also means he's now got 2 degrees, and I've only got one.
Maybe I need to start studying something new!)

The degree ceremony was held at Ely Cathedral, which I don't recall having been to before. it's quite impressive, and has an unusual central tower topped with a wooden 'lantern' (apparently the original tower collapsed during building in the 14th Century, and it was replaced with the current tower)

Inside, the cathedral has some pretty wonderful painted ceilings, and angels painted inside the lantern. The paintings aren't original, they were all added when the cathedral was renovated in the 19th Century, but they are rather impressive!

It was a beautiful day; we drove over to Ely, stopping for a pub lunch on the way, then after getting R all robed up we had a couple of hours before the ceremony itself, so lots of opportunities for photographs in the sunshine.

After the ceremony (which included the award of an honourary doctorate to Rose Tremain ) we went back to R's house to help him drink the champagne I brought him.

It was lovely to have the chance to spend time with R (and with my mum and dad) although I do now need a weekend to relax and catch up on some sleep...

This and That

2011-06-01T21:32:00.000+01:00

I've been a bit remiss with this blogging, haven't I?
I haven't been doing much this last week - just working, and trying to keep on top of housework and so forth.

Housekeeping has included trying to gert the car through it's MOT - sadly it failed this afternoon - It seems I have a cracked spring in the ?suspension - I have a strong suspicion that this is probably the rattle I asked a (different) garage about a month or so back, which I suppose at least helps with the choosing which garage to use next time..

I'm taking it back on Monday, by which time they should have got the new spring in (plus a matching one for the other side) and should be able to fix it. I'm waiting for the quote. On a happily surreal note, however, the garage I went to has a piano in thier waiting room! It's a tiny little garage - a modern, prefab unit on an industrial estate, not at all the kind of place one expects to find a random piano.

I didn't try to play it. It's the wrong time of year for my piece de resistance, 'Silent Night' played with one finger and many pauses. But I like to imagine that they have occasional clients who do sit down and play..

New Hair and Housekeeping

2011-05-21T17:37:00.000+01:00

So, I finally got around to getting my hair cut this morning.

I've been meaning to for ages, but with work, and being busy at weekends, and being generally disorganised has meant it hasn't happened. But today I didn't have any specific commitments, and when I went into town to do various errands and go to the library and such, I popped into the hairdresser to see if they could fit me in, and they could.

New Hair

An hour later, I had shorter hair. I didn't have quite the hair I asked for - it was supposed to be about an inch shorter at the front, and shorter again at the back, but despite having confirmed this with the stylist at the start, and half way through, and having shown her a picture (of me) before she started, she didn't seem to grasp the idea. I don't dislike what she's done.

It's not massively different to what I actually wanted, but it's annoying, and as I had a photo, of me, showing the front and side views of what I wanted I don't really think there was any excuse. But it became obvious that she couldn't, or wouldn't, sort it out, so I decided that (a) I was not going to argue with a woman waving sharp pointy things round my head and (b) I'm mostly annoyed because it's different to what I wanted, not because it's a bad cut per se, so I can live with it. But I think I'll go somewhere else next time.

Apart from the hair cut, I have mostly been doing bits and pieces of housekeeping - literal and otherwise, today.

My TV licence had to be renewed this month. You can renew online now, (which I did) and they strongly encourage you to keep the whole thing paperless, but I prefer to still get them to post me a paper copy of the licence, so I have hard proof that I have paid them good money. I don't begrudge paying it.. Mitch Benn is right, we should all be Proud of the BBC (and if you haven't, you should buy the song, and the shirts), and at less than £3 a week it's hardly overpriced, but I do want a receipt. . .

In fact, it's my week for renewing licences - my drivers licence is due for renewal at the end of this month, too. This is actually the first time I've had to do it, as the 'new' photocards last 10 years, and before that I had the old paper kind, which didn't need renewing.

It turns out that the DVLA sends a reminder, with a form to fill in, which explains that if you want to renew by post, you must send them a photo of yourself which must have been taken within the last month. However, if you want, you can renew online, tell them your passport number, and they will use the picture from your passport, provided that the passport was renewed within the last 5 years. Soooo, my (potentially) 5 year old passport photo would be OK, but a photo taken 6 weeks ago would, at least officially, not be.

As it happens, my passport was renewed only last autumn, so the photo is pretty much up to date, but it strikes me as peculiar, and just ever so slightly a bit illogical. (which I suppose is only to be expected when dealing with a government agency...)

The rest of my exciting Saturday has involved getting all my finacial records up together to send to the accountant to do my tax return, doing laundry, and general cleaning and tidying. So I now have a clean, and organised (well, mostly) house.

Oh, and I might have bought some more books. Just in case I run out, or something..

Not an exciting day, but not a bad one either.

China Miéville in Bath

2011-05-19T21:48:00.000+01:00

Yesterday evening was the China Miéville event at Mr. B's Emporium of Reading Delights - I do love Mr. B's; and it seems I'm not alone - they won the Independent Bookseller of the Year Award on Monday (the BBC has a story featuring them) .

It's a lovely shop, the staff are all both friendly, knowledgable and passionate about books. And upstaiurs there are comfy chairs and free coffee, if you need a break. And they have theirn own loyalty card to get money off books. And the walls of the toilets are papered with reviews and poems. Did I mention that I like this place?
And I've been looking forward a lot to this event. I booked as soon as the event details went up. In fact, I bought the tickets first, and asked Cheryl if she wanted to come afterwards (she did, obviously. I mean, who wouldn't?)
It turns out that when Mr. B's do an event, you don't just get a writer and the chance to buy books. You also get live music with originals songs by The Bookshop Band, and delicious nibbly finger food, and wine, and mingling with interesting people, AND a writer and the chance to buy books.

I approve of this. A lot.

I especially approved of it yesterday, as I had, up until I got to Mr. B's, not been having a very good day. I had a new case, so I had to go to court at short notice. I was expecting it to be a relatively short hearing, but we ended up in being in court from 1.30 til 6, with things such as lunch, and indeed any kind of break, or access to coffee, being but a distant hope. So getting to Mr. B's and being offered wine and nibbly things and interesting people to make conversation with was even more welcome than normal!
Having arrived at the shop, and met with Cheryl and her friend Pat and (briefly, China himself) we went upstairs and the evening started with music from The Bookshop Band (Ben and Poppy) who performed two original songs inspired by EmbassyTown.

Then China spoke a little about Embassytown, (carefully avoiding spoilers, for those of us who haven't yet read it) and about the thedme of the evening, which was 'Corruption'

One of the very nice things about this event was that it was small. I'm not sure how many people attendted, but I would guess around 30 - few enough that it was genuinely possible for there to be a conversation, rather than a 'talk' - the conversation ranged from method of writing/planning so as not to get lost in one's own plot (China uses flowcharts), the invention of language, with particular reference to the word 'Immer', and what headaches this may present for whoever tranaslates Embassytown into german, and mention of the fact that when King Rat, which contains lots of 19th Century ryhming slang, was translated into Japanese, the translator didn't ask for any clarification, leaving chian wondering whether the either (a) The translator happened to be an expert in 19th Century slang or (b) Japanese readers have some very odd literal translations in their version of the book..

after the first part of the evening, we stopped for food and wine and chat. (Someone (NOT me) asked China about letting us see the whole of his tattoo - he declined to take his short off, but you can see the whole thing here, Nathalie!) then back upstirs again for part two of the evening, in which members of staff, members of the audience, and China all suggested books on the theme of corruption - one of which was Documents Concerning Rubashov the Gambler , another (recommended by China, for those who like their vampires Mod and dangerous, was 'The Shiny Narrow Grin' by Jane Gaskell (which is out of print, and hard to find...) Patrick Ness's ''Chaos Walking' also got a shout out..

We then had just enough time to buy books (did I mention the 10% discount on everything, for the evening?) and get them signed, and to speak briefly to China, and then to pick up the free copy of The City and The City (signed) which was available for each of us, before hesding back home.

As you may have gathered, I really enjoyed the evening. This is the first time I've been to one of the Mr. B's events, but I think I shall be going to more. Sadly I shall miss the evening with Patrick Ness on 16th June, as I shall be in a cottage in Wales with no electricity, but I am sure there will be other events when I'm NOT in Wales..

Oh, and for those of you who haven't seen it, there is a short story by China here in the Guardian. Enjoy!

Upcoming Events

2011-05-17T22:04:00.000+01:00

Well, after the weekend, going back to work lacks a certain amount of appeal, but I am fortunate in having several other good things to look forward to.

Tomorrow we get to see and hear China Miéville at Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delights, as part of his Embassytown tour. I'm looking forward to that a lot!

Then in 3 weeks time, I shall be heading to Ely and Cambridge - my clever brother (Well, my only brother, but he *is* clever) completed his Open University degree just before Christmas. He got a 1st, and his graduation ceremony is at Ely Cathedral, and I shall be going along. I imagine that the ceremony itself, like most such things, will involve a lot of waiting around, but it will be good to see him and my parents, and I feel I should show to mark his achievement!

On 9th June Jonathan Coulton and Paul and Storm are playing in Bristol, and I'm going to see them. It's been 2 years since I saw them play live, and I so looking forward to it.

Then the following weekend I am going to go to visit my sister and her fiance, and we shall, weather permitting, do some sailing.

And the weekend after that I've been invited to join my aunt and uncle and cousin for a couple of days in Wales, by the sea (they have rented a cottage for a week, and have a spare bed for a day or two) - it is right by the Coast Path, and should be lovely (plus I get to see Cousin's gorgeous baby again:-)

It's good to have things to look forward to.

Bristol Comic & Small Press Expo

2011-05-15T21:29:00.002+01:00

So, after my mini-blog this morning, I thought, as one does, that I had plenty of time to run an errand or two, and so of course I almost missed the train I'd planned to catch.

However, I did catch it, and managed to do a couple of other errands in Bristol before heading to the Ramada to register and then to look around..

The Con is spread over two hotels - the Comics Expo in the Ramada, and the Small Press Expo at the Mercure, which is just around the corner; they have a symbiotic relationship but are not, I believe run by the same people. The first things I saw in Reception at the Ramada were a pair of Imperial Stormtroopers, and guy dressed as Batman, and three slightly bewildered hotel guests checking out.

always a reassuring sight!

After looking around, and managing to not buy any comics, I headed over to the Mercure. They keep all their conference rooms on the 5th floor, but there was a familiar looking blue box in the reception area, which gave me confidence that I was in the right place!

There were lots of comics (unsurprising, at a ComicCon, really, I suppose), lots of writers and artists, and a small number of panels.

I only went to one panel - 'Women, Politics and cartooning' - this was moderated by Jasper Bark, and featured Blue Lou, Kate Evans and a third artist (unfortunately I didn't make a note of her name, and it's not written in the programme). It was very interesting, with discussions about activism, motherhood, guilt, politics and politicians, viciousness, and breastfeeding. Later in the day, in the bar, I had the opportunity to chat further with Lou and Jasper, and to look at more of her artwork. I recommend it. Go look at her site.

I then met up with Cheryl and we went out for lunch in a dodgy pub, where we had some not-very-good beer, and some decent fish & chips, and where we were accosted by a random drunk enquiring as to whether we were east German Stasi. (No, we couldn't quite work that one out either...)

I had thought I might go to one of the 2 o'clock panels but ~~Cheryl led me astray~~ we wandered into the bar, first, where Cheryl introduced me to Paul Cornell and later we wandered around the Expo, and I bought a copy of Alice In Sunderland, in which Bryan Talbot drew me a beautiful Mad Hatter.

Later again I found myself back in the bar, (perfectly sober, but in need of a comfy chair and a cup of coffee) and had lots of interesting conversations - this was when I had the opportunity to chat with BlueLou and Jasper, and with a writer/reviewer named Mark, and Paul Cornell again, and various others whose names I failed to note.

Conversations wandered from subject to subject - some SciFi / Comics related - Which Doctor Who Episodes deserve to win Hugos, whether Superman and Clark Kent were either or both ever American Cctizens in the first place, how quickly trade paperbacks of comics should become available, and what the chances are of fielding a cricket team entirely made of Doctor Who writers are; Some not - babycare and breastfeeding, government cuts, the tendencies of large organisations to become reactionary, and the excessive cost of coffee in the hotel bar.

I enjoyed the afternoon.

Photo stolen from @MrTonyLee http://yfrog.com/gydxhmvmj

I stayed on in order to watch Neil Gaiman's episode of Doctor Who - The Doctor's Wife. It wasn't the optimum viewing experience - the TV was in ne corner of the hotel bar, but there were a lot of people in the bar who were not watching Doctor Who, and so there was a lot of noise - it took a while before we were able to get subtitles up, and of course subtitles are not as good as being able actually to hear the dialogue, but even with those disadvantages it was a great episode (and good company!)

Once Who was over, I headed back home (where I watched the episode again, with sound, this time, and also watched the 'Confidential' - both very good. A nice end, to an interesting day.

I had bought a ticket for the full weekend but having a lie-in on Sunday morning meant I left it too late to get to Bristol in time to see the 'Just a Minute' game, which was the main attraction, to my mind, so I didn't go back. Maybe next year.

(EDITED TO ADD: the 3rd cartoonist was Vicky Stonebridge. Thanks to Aldous Russell for pointing that out, over at lj)

What I'm Doing Today

2011-05-14T08:36:00.000+01:00

Today should be interesting. I will shortly be heading off to Bristol, to the Bristol Comics Expo - I had vaguely thought of going last year, but left it too late, and all the tickets were sold out, so this year I booked early, and then (as no updates are sent) forgot all about it until people in my timeline started tweeting about it...

I know that a few people I have heard of / seen before such as Paul Cornell , Tony Lee and Bryan Talbot are all going to be there, as is my friend Cheryl, but other than that I am not sure what to expect.

I suspect that around 6.30 this evening there might be a sudden exodus to the bar, or wherever else a large TV can be found... I don't suppose that the BBC deliberately scheduled Neil Gaiman's episode of Doctor Who to coincide with the Con, but you have to admit, it's good timing...

In Which There Are Many Little Things....

2011-05-07T21:07:00.000+01:00

I've had something of a stressful week, despite it having been so short (there was a bank holiday on Monday) and stress did the stuff it always does, and left me not sleeping well, and feeling nauseous, which is no fun whatsoever. And the knowledge that things are (almost) never as bad as you expect really doesn't help.

Anyway, for various reasons I was very much looking forward to the week being over. On Friday I was in court all day. It was a not-too-difficult day for me, as I had counsel, but a long day in a stuffy court room is rarely much fun, especially when timing leads to a certain emptiness, at the point in the day where one usually finds lunch...

However, after we had finished, it was suggested that we go for a drink, as one of our number was celebrating a birthday, and besides, I was told, "it's fizzy Friday" (one per week!) so i found myself, at around 5.30, sitting out under a large parasol, sipping chilled prosecco and fraternising with my erstwhile opponents. I’m not in the habit of drinking champagne or prosecco at 5.30 in the afternoon, even on a Friday, but I have to say it is the kind of thing one could become accustomed to, fairly easily…!

Of course, one of the disadvantages of slurping fizz at 5.30 is that you then have to find something else to do afterwards, while you wait for the fizz to wear off in order to drive home. Happily, another local lawyer was holding a party to celebrate 20 years in practice, so we went to congratulate her, and socialise for a while. Not at all what I had planned for my Friday evening, but definitely a pleasant end to the week. And when I got home, it was to find an unexpected free box of chocolates on the doorstep, which I think we can all agree is the type of thing which improves any day no end! (The chocolates are a somewhat belated apology from the chocolate company, for having inserted a big chunk of plastic sheeting into a chocolate I had at Christmas)

So not a bad day, all in all.

And then, it started to rain. It hasn’t rained for several weeks, and everything smelled of freshness and wet earth and spring, and a new start.

Today has been a quiet day – I woke up to the news that the referendum, on AV has resulted in a ‘No’ vote, which does not surprise me, but which does disappoint me. Other than that, I have done dull things, such as laundry and hoovering the floors, and topping up the oil in the car, and taking cardboard and plastic to the recycling place. I have also been to the garden centre to buy various seedlings – tomatoes, beans and so on, as, as usual, I have either been too late to plant seeds or have planted them and seen them develop into healthy slug-food. I am hoping that the plants I have now bought will prove too large to be easily eaten by slugs, even the Super-Slugs which seem to inhabit my garden. I haven’t planted them yet, as I got side-tracked by weeding, and it then started to rain, but hopefully tomorrow will be fine for long enough to do so.

The day ended, happily, with Doctor Who and Pirates, and a little sneak preview of Mr Gaiman’s episode, which airs next week. I have to say that this week’s episode, while it had its moments, will not, I think, go down as one of the great episodes. It was fun, but not deep.

That Wedding

2011-04-30T18:50:00.000+01:00

One or two of you may have noticed that there was a wedding yesterday.

I have no particularly strong feelings about it; I don't think that the £5m or so costs of the added police etc. should have been paid by the taxpayers, but beyond that, I'm about as interested as I would be in the wedding of any other couple I don't know.. i.e. I'll glance at the dress if I'm passing (and lets face it, this one was hard to miss) but that's about it.

I have, however, been interested in some of the ways people have reacted. In particular, I was driving through one of the neighbouring towns and noticed that several of the shops had decorated their windows with flags. . . and in every single case they were still showing the creases from where they'd been folded up. Is it me? I mean, if you are feeling sufficiently patriotic / in the mood for a party that you go to the trouble of buying and putting up flags, why would you not iron the wretched things, or otherwise make sure they looked reasonable?

It just seems odd, to me. (And several of the shops concerned are ones which usually have well presented windw dressings, so I don't think it is that they were put up by the kind of person who wouldn't notice)

Oh, and the best bits of the whole circus, (the runaway horse, and the cartwheeling verger) can both be seen here.

I have to admit, I'm also just a little bit proud that my street has shown no flags, no bunting, and no street party. ..

In Which We Go For A Walk

2011-04-25T22:08:00.003+01:00

Easter Sunday was a quiet day - my parents had agreed to ring for a couple of church services, but I had no such committments, so had the kind of day which starts with tea in bed, and moves on to eating breakfast in pyjamas while watching Doctor Who, and then drifts onward to involve sitting around in the sunshine with a Golden Age detetive novel and a cat.

Later, we had a deicious Sunday roast: Roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes and runner beans, with gin and tonic before hand, and red wine to accompany it, and lemon merienge pie and fresh coffee to follow. It was all delicious, and very relaxed and civilized..

looking West towards Combe Martin

So on Monday we decided to be a little more energetic, and to go for a walk.

We started near Trentishoe which is on the edge of the Exmoor National Park, and walked along the top of the cliffs.

It was another gloriously sunny day, and amazingly still, too, so that even on the top of the cliff there was virtually no wind, and no sound, either, other than the distant sound of the sea, the bird-song and the calls of the sheep and their lambs, grazing along the cliff top.

Heddon Valley to Heddon's Bay

It's a fairly harsh environment - the grass is short and sheep-cropped, and the other plant-life mainly consists of bracken, heather and gorse.

The gorse is all in flower at present, profligate with it's bright gold flowers. The bracken is bright green with new growth, and the heather still has faded white flowers. There are a few foxgloves growing against the drystone walls, a few of them starting to show pinkish buds but the majority with nothing, yet, but large, furry leaves. (I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had managed to correctly identify them as foxgloves, even without the flowers - unlike my mother, I don't know much about plants)

Looking up Heddon Valley to Hunter's Inn

The soil is too poor, and there is too much wind and salt to allow many larger trees to flourish, but that does mean you can see forever, along the headlands.

After a little while, we parted company; my mum turning back the way we'd come (which was relatively flat, andfairly easy going) while my dad and I continued along the path, which got much steeper as it continued around the headland, with some more stunning views, this time eastward toward Lynmouth. The path then turns inland, at the Heddon Valley.

The valley is very steep and narrow, and the path runs along one side of it, working it's way back downhill from the top of the cliffs, down towards the river which runs along the valley into the sea. F|rom above, you can see the tiny, rocky inlet where the river reaches the sea. there is a tiny, shingled beach, and lots of rocks.

Bluebells

We didn't go down to the sea, but instead continued down the side of the valley. As the path decended, we gradually left behind the heather and gorse, and started to see many wild violets, primroses and, as we came among the trees, bluebells, vast drifts of them.

Most of the trees were birch, beech nd young oaks, all of them bright with new growth.

As we reached the bottom of the valley, we found ourselves walking by the side of the river, which is cold, and clear, and surrounded by beech trees, with primroses and white campion and ragged robin all growing along the banks.

We arrived at the Hunter's Inn about 10 minutes after my mum (who had returned to the car and driven it round to meet us) did.

Coming down from the cliffs and woods it's a little startling to come upon a beautifully manicured lawn and a set of peacocks..

However, when we went indoors we discovered that the place has a fine grasp of the essentials.

One of the nice things about going for a vigourous walk is that when you reach the pub at the end you do tend to feel that you have earned your beer!

Axe, coming intoWoody Bay Station

After enjoying our beer, and some very late lunch, we hedd home, via Woody Bay Station - this is a station on what was once (and hopes one day to be again) the Lynton to Barnstaple narrow-guage railway. The railway opened in about 1898, originlly built and run by a private company, over a distance of bout 19 miles. It was tasken over by Southern Railways in the 1920s and closed in 1935.

A small part of the railway has been restored and reopened, and it is now possible to go for a short train-ride (about 1 mile each way, I believe)

The railway was running, so we went and had a look at their displays, and watched the train leaving and returning, making little 'pish-te-cuff' noises just like Ivor the Engine, nd mking that distinctive, Steam-engine smell of hot metal and cinders.

In it's hey-day, the railway ran through the village my parents now live in, and the current Trust hope one day to restore the entire 19 miles of track.

A very pleasant day.

More pictures on my flickr stream here.

In Which Is Sunshine and Seaside

2011-04-24T12:02:00.000+01:00

It's Easter weekend, which means two Bank Holidays and thus a long weekend, and having been unable to join my sisters for a weekends sailing (as I left it too late, and so the boat is full) I decided to spend the weekend with my mum and dad, down in Devon.
I am fortunate in that I get on very well with my parents, so visiting them is restful, and they now live in a lovely part of the country.

View from the house

I had a smooth trip down on Thursday evening (except for the part where Tybalt got a little travel sick..).

On Friday my parents had various committments, so we didn't go out anywhere, but instead I spent the day between cooking (flapjacks, and lemon meriengue pie, and a casserole) and wandering around the garden in the sun.

We have been enjoying wonderful, unseasonably warm weather for the time of year - yesterday was in the 70s, so being outside is a pleasure.

Ilfracombe

On Saturday, they asked me whether there was anywhere I'd like to go, and I said the seaside.

Ilfracombe Harbour (Low Tide)

There are lots of bits of seaside near here, and on this occasion we went to Ilfracombe, which started life as a fishing village, and became a holiday destination in the Victorian period, and is now a little run-down. However, in the sun, and with lots of visitors for the Easter weekend, it was looking it's best.

Beach

We walked down to the harbour, full mainly now with pleasure yachts, not fishing boats, and then to a little beach, where I paddled, because sometimes you have to, don't you? The water was very cold, but bracing...

Juvenile Herring Gull

There were lots of Herring Gulls, and a few Black Backed gulls and a Kittiwake or two, and we saw a cormorant, too, later.

Harbour wall, and St Nicholas's chapel

After my paddle we walked up to the top of the cliff (to the right of the beach) then along the path back toward the harbour,and up to St Nocholas's chapel, which is tiny (you can see it perched on the hill on the left of the picture above) It was also the home of the harbour-master at one time - he and his wife lived there in the 1860s, with 8 or 9 of their 14 children...

By the time we came down, the tide had gone out, leaving all the yachts high and dry, although further out to sea were several, sailing, and also 3 or four retired lifeboats. (The current lifeboat was at the top of the slipway, flying lots of flags, and having a fund-raiser)

Retired lifeboats

We must have spebt 3 or 4 hours wandering around, enjoying the views and the weather, and sustained only by large ice-creams made with local cream...

It was a lovely day, and then we returned to the house, in time for me to watch Doctor Who while my parents cooked supper.

A most enjoyable day.

In Which I Spend a Cultural Morning

2011-04-17T18:03:00.027+01:00

When I arranged to Zombie I booked a hotel for Friday night as well as Thursday, as I knew there was the possibility we might not finish filming until late, and I didn't want to be rushing to catch a train. It also left me with the option of spending Saturday in London.

Thame & Skyline from Canary Wharf

I was able to take some pretty pictures of the skyline before turning in for the night. The hotel I was staying in was right on the river, and had a ferry across to Canary Wharf, which I took in order to get a meal on Friday night.

Thames & Canary Wharf

On Saturday morning, I decided to visit the British Museum, and to see the Afghanistan exhibition which is running until July.

The Great Court, British Museum

It really was very impressive. And not only the exhibits but also the fact that they have survived at all - many of them were preserved by museum curators in Afghanistan who hid them to save them from looting or from destruction by the taliban.

The exhibits span millenia - there are gold vessels from around 2000 BC, through to painted glass, carved ivories and gold ornaments (including the crown) which date to the 1st Century AD. Afghanistan was on the Silk Road, and traded across the world, so the artefacts show influence (and sometimes imports) from Mespotomania, China, Indian, and the Greek & Roman Empires.

The crown was part of a set of grave-goods discovered with the body of a 1st century nomadic woman - it's actually made to come to pieces and fold flat, which displays a nice mix of practicality and adornment. it's also incredibly delicate - all of he individual flowers are made from very thin gold, and even inside the safety of a display case it moved - presumably due to visitors footfalls - you can see how impressive it would be when worn, moving with evey breeze, and every movement of the wearer.

She and her companions also had numerous gold beads which originally decorated their clothing, also big, chunky necklaces, bangles and anklets. They were all very young - in their early 20s when they died. (the exhibition offeredd no explanation as to how they died, but I guess that life expectancy wasn't high for 1st century nomads)

When I had seen the exhibition, I look a quick look into one or two other rooms, to see some 20th Omani wedding jewellery, and to visit one of my favourite of the museum's exhibits, this Ice Age sculpture of swimming reindeer, which is around 13,000 years old. It gets me every time.

It's such a lovely thing, and the thought that it has survived, and still speaks to us, after so long, is, at least to me, astonishing.

I do love the British Museum. I love that (apart from the special exhibitions) it's free, so that one can pop in and out, and spend just a little time, without feeling you haven't got your money's worth.

I love that it has such a huge range of exhibits, covering so many cultures, across so many centuries. I wish I lived s little closer, but as it is, I manage to visit most times I'm in London, and perhaps, by the time I am old and decrepit, I shall have managed to see it all...

On this occasion, I didn't stay for long, as my day as a zombie had worn me out, so I eneded up heeading back to Paddington to head home for an early night. Maybe next time I shall stay a little longer.

In Which There Are Zombies

2011-04-16T19:45:00.003+01:00

Isn't Twitter interesting? One of the people I follow is James Moran, and a little while back he tweeted about his film, Cockneys vs. Zombies and specifically, the fact that the director was looking for extra zombies, and that people were invited to apply.

I thought at the time, 'that might be fun' but I didn't get around to sending the necessary e-mails, then a bout 10 days back I sent hm a tweet meantioning that I'd failed to apply, he tweeted back to tell me they still needed Zombies, I applied, and so it came to pass that I found travelling up to London on Thursday evening, ready for a VERY early start on Friday morning.

The call was for 6 a.m., which meant leaving the hotel at around 5 a.m. It was too early for the buses, so I had a walk down to the tube station, which took me about 25 minutes. Turns out that there are lots of birds in London, and if you are walking just before dawn, when there's no traffic, you can hear them all singing their little hearts out. Also, the tube trains are lovely and empty at around 5.30, making for a very civilised journey!

With only a little bit of getting confused (which I am chosing to blame on the early hour and my under-caffienated state) I found the right spot..

Next came make up, getting checked over by the costume department (mostly checking that we were wearng clothes which we didn't mind getting blood on..

There was a fine selection of zombies, in various stages of decomposition.

Me, just before filming

One we were made up, we got to watch a short training video showing how a zombie behaves in the wild, and then, in small groups, we had Zombie school, to learn the finer points of Shambling, reacting to stimuli, and getting shot. Oh, and they added more blood.

There was coffee and sausage sandwiches around this point, too.

We were then taken to the location to start shooting. This was only just down the road, so we walked, getting one or two funny looks. Anyone would think that seeing a crocodile of blood-soaked zombies walking down the street is unusual in some way.

Once we got there, it was clear to see we were in the right place - several cars with smashed windows, random body parts strewn around the place (and they were very realistic. I just hope they remembered to pick them all up again afterwards)

We were mostly doing repeated takes of one scene (I won't say to much for fear of spoilers) I think I may reveal that it involved a fair few zombies, and some cockneys, and thet they weren't getting along.

Even Zombies chill out sometimes

Between takes, the make-up people were rushing about to freshen up our blood, including giving us fresh blood to put on our teeth and gums.

New thing learned : blood has a minty-fresh taste. Maybe this is why the zombies like it?

Actors including Honor Blackman , Alan Ford, Michelle Ryan were all there - although of course mostly (except when we were trying to kill them) they were at a distance.

There are more pictures here (I wouldn't normally link to a Mail story, but needs must... this is the same place we were filiming, although a different day so none of the zombies in those pics are me, although I do recoognise several of them!)

We spent a long time on the same scene, which was (as far as I could tell) being shot from lots of different angles. It was very interesting to watch, and to appreciate just how much time, hard work and painstaking attention to detail is involved in making a film. Also, from the little I heard of the dialogue it sounds as though it'll be entertaining. should be worth seeing for reasons other than to try to spot myself!

Hungry Zombie

Part way through we had to stop and wait as a tourist boat came through, and had to wait for the lock/bridge to open so it could go through. watching the looks on the faces of the passengers was entertaining, and I like to hink that they enjoyed being waved on their way by a bunch of living corpses..

We worked all morning, then back to base for lunch, then back to the same location for another, much shorter scene (I think this was mostly a long distance, panning shot in which I and the other extras will feature a distant blobs, but I may be wrong)

A small cohort were then driven away to be in a further scene, but I wasn't among them, so after getting most of the blood off my face, I was free to go, at about 3 p.m. (It was tempting to leave it all on, and see what reaction I got on the tube and at the hotel, if I remained covered in blood, but in thhe end I felt it might give people the wrong idea, so I didn't!)

Zombie Me

I had a lot of fun - I'm very glad I did it - I enjoyed chatting to the other Zombies, and I'm really glad I've had the chance to be in a film, and to be a Zombie, and I have a newfound respect for those who do this all the time - I was exhausted after just one day!

So, after getting back to the hotel and showering to get the dried blood and grit out of my hair, I took myself out for an early supper, and went to bed, to dream of those juicy, tasty braaainssss.

If you want to know more, the film has it's own twitter account and James Moran has listed various other twitterers associated with the film on his blog here.