November 10, 2024 – Hello Curns

Weeknotes #94: fireworks and music

A lively week full of events, media, and minor challenges.

Week commencing Monday, 4 November 2024

The stage lit up with the words 'Come On and Take Me, Come On and Shake Me' as part of the Eurovision On Tour performance in London. — Eurovision On Tour – London

Quantified Self

This week: Stand 7/7; Exercise 7/7 and Move 77. (100%). Morning walks: 0/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 1/5. Total steps: 60,073

Life

I coughed a lot. And it gave me a headache. Not the greatest week for feeling good.
Later in the week, Boots cancelled my pre-booked flu jab for the second time. I walked into another local pharmacy, and they did it there and then. And they were really lovely about it.
I didn’t watch any of the on-the-night coverage of the US elections after I’d watched the opening 5 minutes of Channel Four’s coverage, and it was already shouty and argumentative. I found out the result when I woke on Wednesday. People were visibly down at my morning stand-up.
It was a last-minute decision to see the fireworks in Wimbledon Park, and I am very glad that I did. The queues for food were very slow.
Thursday, I stayed a bit too long at work drinks before getting to Eurovision on Tour. Then we had to leave early for dinner reservations. In between, the music was fun, but I didn’t know many of the songs. The meal was lovely at the Old Compton Brasserie, mainly because the service was fab. It was my second ‘smash burger’ in a week. I didn’t know what they were this time last week.
The 007 at Burlington Arcade, celebrating 60 Years of Goldfinger, has removed the golden cars shown on the site (replaced by festiveness). Inside was less of an exhibition than expected. The cocktails, while expensive, were lovely. If you worked there, you’d have to like the Bond themes.
New Writers showcase previewed a lot of great new musical songs. I hope they get picked up.

Media

I saw my first Christmas ad. It was for Waitrose and is a pudding mystery. Will there be a second part? Nice idea.
I really enjoyed watching the first four episodes of Ludwig this week. David Mitchell’s accidental detective was exactly what I expected. PY noticed the similarities, especially in music, to Disney’s Only Murders.

More Producing

I suspect I may be a lone voice in expressing a little (and just a little) disappointment.

Following up on my previous review of The Producers, I’ve had a little more time to think about it and earlier I posted this to Gay Boy Musicals Fans UK at Yahoo!

Having read the positive reader comments on the BBC’s story about The Producers I suspect I may be a lone voice in expressing a little (and just a little) disappointment. I hadn’t read many reviews but I did know about the reception it had received in the US and the praise heaped on Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick.
I haven’t seen the film which, judging by the number of people sitting around me who had, means I was possibly one of only a small number of people in the audience who hadn’t. I wonder if that made a difference?
I saw it a week or so ago and it was good but not as good as all the raving would imply. While Nathan Lane’s talent, comic timing and performance cannot be faulted I did find weaknesses in the show. I thought some of the musical numbers in the middle were slow and the Ulla character was not engaging at all – in fact she was positively irritating. James Dreyfuss was camp (which, I guess, is the intention) but in that 1970s OTT cringeworthy way. Humour is, of course, personal and subjective, but I found it only amusing and not
laugh-out-loud funny as many of the reviews suggest.
Still, I would take issue with the review of Lee Evans’ performance which says ‘he just about holds his own’. I would argue that he did far more than that. He too was excellent, believable & humorous and while I’ve never been a big fan of his stage antics he worked well in the role. In fact, for me, he worked so well I can’t imagine Broderick in the role.
I will, however, recommend the show because it stands out from much of the rest of the West End right now – it is good. It has some wonderful comedy and delightful musical moments. But the sum of those individual moments does not, in my opinion, add up to a great whole. I even bought the soundtrack in the hope that familiarity with the songs will make me warm to more of them.
Maybe it’s just me.

The Point Of Art?

Paintings and installations don’t come high up on my list of things to do

Can it really be a whole year – yesterday – since I lay on the floor at The Tate Modern on the South Bank and looked up at that bizarre, yet compelling, installation that was Olafur Eliasson’s Weather Project? The very fact that I loved it, and wrote about it, made me realise that, generally, art doesn’t feature a great deal in my life. I mean paintings and installations don’t come high up on my list of things to do. I have spent time in most of the major London galleries since I have been here but nothing ever ‘clicks’ with me and, to be honest, apart from an Annie Leibovitz exhibition a few years ago I can’t recall much that I have seen. I wonder why paintings, sculpture etc. don’t resonate with me? I went to the Dali museum/gallery on the South Bank months ago as I thought the surrealism might be more appealing – but it was only marginally more so. In 2001 I went to see Martin Creed’s Turner Prize winning lights (going on and off in a room) and just didn’t get it (at all). It’s very strange really as I would like to appreciate art more and I would love to be able to take good photographs. It’s not that I don’t see that it’s good (or bad) art but more that most of the art I have seen simply washes over me. It doesn’t grab me. Maybe I should just keep looking! As for other things that I did last year, I really won’t mind being on a plane back to Helsinki but my boss went instead.

Flight Time Thinking

I have written before of my business travels to Helsinki but this is the first time I am going in the winter. I am writing this on board the Finair flight. I expect darkness and a cold air but it’s going to be interesting to me. I imagine that any photographs will be of limited use (given that I will be in offices during daylight hours).

The Finair flight is usually very good except for their inability to give me any kind of e-ticket on the London/Helsinki route and, in one easy move, reduce my stress about losing tickets. The flight is about three hours long and gives me the chance to stop and think. I generally travel alone and fellow passengers are not always the greatest conversationalists so I am able to enjoy the relative silence. I tend not to listen to music on flights and so I read. I read work papers and things I printed from the web; I read books and newspapers but, above all, I read them and think for a while.

Today, however, is the first time that I think I have been able to appreciate that time. I’m not sure why I have not noticed this feeling before. My brain suddenly seems uncluttered: there is none of the normal chaos to distract me. No television, no radio and no web-access to stimulate my thoughts in a hundred million directions. No commuters or people to annoy, frustrate or distract me. No, for this brief period, my brain has wandered in the directions it has wanted to and it is a strangely liberating experience.

Earlier this year I also mentioned that I find flying a strange experience. I have done it so much for work (and much, much less for pleasure) that it should be like taking a bus. I do not lie awake at night worrying about a journey and have discovered that the art to staying relaxed in airports is to give yourself time. I don’t really mind where they sit me – as long as I can stow my bag – and I am used to many of the strange noises a plane makes. Yet this exterior of calm hides an absolute fear every time we hit the tiniest pocket of turbulence. Regardless of how many stray air-pockets I have flown through I know my blood pressure must rise alarmingly when the plane shakes.

And so, despite the relative freedom my mind has to wander and wonder on today’s flight, it is regularly brought back to reality at every minor shake of a plane.