Accidental Death of a Farce
To Hackney tonight to see Dario Fo’s play Accidental Death of an Anarchist at the Acorn Theatre in the Hackney Empire. I saw this farce once before, from the gods in the Wyndham Theatre, where it was played by the Belt & Braces Theatre Company in 1971. I laughed my socks off and have seen everything of Fo’s that has come my way since.
» Continue reading “Accidental death of a farce”
Ladies who munch
To the West End last night to meet Anne Tupker, Jill Mervin, Stephen Brady & Susanne Capano for dinner at the Café Bohème and then hear Kit & The Widow’s cabaret at the Arts Theatre. Wonderfully fast, funny, lewd, literate, waspish and witty. Some of the material clearly only days old. A cross between Julian Clary and Flanders & Swann, as an earlier reviewer noted. Emerged clutching their CD Les Enfants Du Parody; close inspection reveals this notice:
Unauthorised copying of this material is frankly absurd. Don’t be so mean.
They had a weekly spot on Radio 3 a while back, which is where I found them when Barb Jungr appeared as their guest, and we heard they’ll shortly appear, as Barb does, at Joe’s Pub in New York. I’m looking forward to more chances to see them now they’re employing the normal celebrity wheeze of publicising their sexual preferences. They’ve come out as lesbians, the “ladies who munch”, as they so delicately put it.
Technical support
New technology is always a challenge, and Technical Support is there to help you get the best out of it. In this video clip from Norway we see effective, on-the-spot support provided to a mediæval scholar confronted by the change from scrolls to books. You don't need to snakke norsk to follow it.
Take-home ballet
To Sadler’s Wells last night to see the opening of Sylvie Guillem’s new ballet Sacred Monsters. She shares the stage with her colleague Amrit Khan and the musicians. Everything is arranged very informally: the musicians sit onstage and play as if busking on the street; Guillem retreats after a solo to the back of the stage to mop herself with a towel and braid her hair. Each of the principals offers a solo roughly from their respective traditions (Khan is trained in Kathak) then combine for duets of playful combat.(Have they been studying capoeira?)
When others dance well I’m touched, inspired, moved. When Guillem dances my reaction goes further: I’m going to move like that! Take-home ballet.
Soda, lime & bitters Another Candace-led session at the Lincoln Lounge in Kings Cross reminds me to post the recipe for Soda, Lime & Bitters as modified by bartender Johnnie. In Australia, Soda, Lime & Bitters is the classic grown-up non-alcoholic drink, especially good when you’re running a beer thirst. Pour a finger of lime cordial over ice in a long glass, fill with soda water and add two dashes of Angostura bitters. Johnnie’s version: replace the lime cordial with fresh lime juice. It replaces the sweetness with a freshness that bursts in the mouth.
Gallivanting in Galloway
Miki & I have been up here in Kirkcudbright all week visiting friends and walking and cycling before yesterday’s wedding. Miki’s recently-acquired pink bike was fine for town, but became laborious on long country roads. We switched her to a brand new Claud Butler Urban 100 from Ken & Margaret King, in whose shop we also saw Kathryn King and her new daughter Ruby. The Gordon House Hotel and the Smugglers Inn at Auchencairn both have new owners and good cooks. Much other change in the town. The ironmonger and the grocer Willm Ross have both closed and Cranberries’ window announces a closing-down sale. Good to see David & Mary Marsden looking so well.
We’ve been scampering about: cycling down to Ross and Brighouse Bays, then across to the Carrick and almost up to Cream O’Galloway before being waylaid by a picnic emergency and then home. Over the back roads to Castle Douglas, lunch at Designs Café and a nap and a stroll in Threave Gardens before returning on the Tongland road to a swim and sauna at the town pool my mother did so much to found.
The next day over to Gatehouse of Fleet for a struggle up over the moor road almost to Creetown before returning on the old military road with its 5-mile descent into Gatehouse through the exquisite valley of the lower Fleet.
Our Thursday plans for a picnic and a swim in the tarns on the Rigg of the Jarkness were foiled by persistent soaking rain north of the A75; we returned to Kirkcudbright and spent a lazy afternoon enjoying Peggy Smith’s garden at Greengate Close, and getting a tour of Colin’s Magic Shed.
And a different kind of busy Friday with Miki photographing the wedding of Iain Maxwell & Christine Wong at Monigaff church and afterwards in the Urr Valley Hotel at Castle Douglas, where I was able to give my small talk plenty of exercise. Birmingham tonight for dinner with my mother.
Midsummer punting
Madness, but we did it. Twelve hours after landing at Luton airport, I was in Cambridge where we took a party of twenty or so punting from Newnham Mill Pond, over the rollers onto the upper river, then for a picnic and a swim in Grantchester meadows. Enrico distinguished himself on his first punting trip. He may come from Milan, but the gondolier blood showed. Two punts returned downstream, while the rest of us continued to Grantchester and tea in the orchard before the long, lazy evening trip back to Cambridge. Truly a perfect day, and perhaps the best punting expedition ever.
» Candace had a different experience
» Clara has posted her pictures
» Francisco punted without us
Having spotted the folly of finishing the day by driving to Birmingham, I’d got us a room in nearby Saffron Walden, at the Saffron Hotel, my very favourite kind of English country hotel: a 2-star hotel in a building spruced up but too old to spoil. Creaking floorboards, odd-shaped rooms and twisting corridors.
Fantastic French French theatrical troupe Royal DeLuxe brought their show The Sultan’s Elephant to London for four days in May. Beside the giant puppets we became as children; Miki caught the awe and the wonder in her pictures.
More fireworks from Groupe F at the Brighton Festival.
Hats off also to the imagination of Charlie Chaplin’s daughter Victoria Thierrée Chaplin and her daughter Aurélia, whose evening of theatrical fantasy at the Lyric Theatre is like Jean Genet staged by MC Escher to music by Michael Nyman. Again, awe and wonder.
Badly Guarded Girl The advantages of living in London — easy access to the arts — but how much advantage do we take? All too often, like living beside Hampstead Heath, the advantage remains untaken.
Happily, last autumn’s Copenhagen-inspired bicycling has survived the winter and is now taking me through Kings Cross several days a week, and rebuilding the fitness lost to motoring. Arriving in town yesterday evening after a day spent fiddling with tiny software changes I felt in need of a lift. Miki was finishing at her paper and jscampered down to Covent Garden, where I got bar-stool seats under the roof of the Royal Opera House to see La Fille mal gardée, a sort of Disney ballet. A sfizioso and a little fizzy as well.
Universal product warnings Sent in by Graham Hodges, who enjoys privileged access to the Supreme Being, product warnings about everything you ever bought.
» Continue reading “Universal product warnings”The Edinburgh Line Susan Ormrod sends these one-liners from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this year.
» Continue reading “The Edinburgh Line”A highly sculptured people The Greeks were a highly sculptured people, who left us many myths, to which we keep adding. The following excerpts are answers given on history tests and in Sunday school quizzes by children between 5th and 6th grade ages. They were collected over a period of three years by two teachers and sent to me by Susan Ormrod. Read carefully for grammar, misplaced modifiers, and, of course, spelling…
» Continue reading “A highly sculptured people”Picnic in the Park On the shortest night of the year I picnic in the dusk with friends. (See a search of this site.) This year the solstice is at 06:45 GMT 21 June and the picnic will be on Mon 20 June in New York’s Central Park. If you didn’t receive an invitation, email me for details.
Picnic pics New pictures from the Midsummer Night Punting and last Sunday on Hampstead Heath.
» Midsummer Night Punting by Sue Ormrod
» Hampstead Heath 8 Aug by Brooke Allen
Midsummer punting madness Despite threatening weather we made our way to Cambridge for this year's Midsummer Night Picnic. There we rented punts from Granta Punt Hire, manhandled them onto the upper river and tacked towards Grantchester. Sadly, our three punts could field only 2½ punters at any given time, so progress was slow if not actually leisurely. We moored and feasted before reaching fabled Grantchester Meadows, and scraped back in to Newnham Millpond for the 10pm curfew. Although we drove through heavy rain both coming and going the only water that fell on the boats dripped from punt poles. Fortune favours the boat.
Italy 2005 Some of us gathered last night in Hampstead to drink prosecco and compare venues. Anne Tupker brought photos from the Bisol vineyard in the Veneto, whose prosecco she imports at Bouquet Wines; Miki and I told stories from Peralta. The dream continues.
Next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn’t just how you like it, think about how things used to be. Here are some facts about the 1500s.
» Continue reading “Life in the 1500s”My daily quotation in yesterday’s inbox: Life must be lived as play. Plato
Bodysurfing is almost unknown in the UK. Here’s Peter Sperling bodysurfing at Shark Island, and some links to show and tell you what it looks like. (About as useful as a description of what it’s like to ride a bicycle.)
» Jon Davey on Bodysurfing in the UK
» Bodysurfing links
Been whingeing for years that everywhere I go to dance the music is so loud it kills speech and isolates everyone. (Hubble Bubble is a notable exception.) I heard tonight on Late Junction about the Barefoot Boogie. Unbelievably, it takes place every Saturday within walking distance of my home. This Saturday I'll be out of town; then the event breaks for the summer. Expect more about this in the autumn.