Monday night, to see Heathers The Musical. Really well done, but I am glad I watched the movie a few weeks ago. Doing the second Act only wearing your pants is a feat for the performers concerned.
Starlight Express is a wonderful musical if you’re prepared to just accept people on roller skates are trains. I loved it at the Apollo Victoria. I liked the new 2024 version in Wembley.
Drinks in central London on Thursday night were good. Nice to catch-up with former colleagues. I bought one big round which included a subset of people and it was £37. When did drinking in a pub get so expensive?
Started watching Lost Boys and Fairies billed as, “The tender, glittering story of gay couple Gabriel and Andy’s journey to adoption”. There’s a bit at the end of the second episode that makes me not want to start the third because I am not sure I want to know.
Small disclaimer: I bought tickets to a preview show. Shows can change while previewing, so what officially ‘opens’ could be different.
Last year, when they released tickets for the new Starlight Express (London, 2024), I bought a couple without realising they were for the first preview night. Effectively, we were part of one of the first paying audiences to see the show. However, quite how many people had paid would be interesting to know as we were surrounded by people who had something to do with the production (lanyards, notebooks and “see you at the drinks”). Lord Lloyd Webber was at the back. I’m curious to see if the presence of insiders impacted how the audience responded. More on that below. The Producer and Director introduced the performance. I wanted to get my thoughts down quickly so that, when the real reviews come out, I can see if they agree or disagree with what I initially thought.
Before diving into the review, it’s important to provide some context. I was a fan of Starlight’s 1992 reworking at the Apollo Victoria, having seen it multiple times and even catching the touring production. The soundtrack was a regular on my playlist. This fondness for the earlier version undoubtedly influenced my expectations and, I suspect, will colour many of the reviews.
Nonetheless, it was time for the show to be updated. That is neither good nor bad; it’s inevitable. And, if you want to stage a big comeback production, you’ll need to sell a lot of tickets and appeal to more than the nostalgia crowd. Starlight Express is a family show, and today’s kids are not as enthralled by trains as previous generations. This version is updated with new and revised characters and songs (both new and rewritten). You won’t see the Starlight of 1995. This is, however, still Starlight Express. It has not changed beyond recognition. There weren’t many kids in tonight’s auditorium, but there were some, so it’s a small sample to comment on below.
There’s good and disappointing (maybe, bad).
The new Starlight Autotrium is stunning. It’s a wonderful place to see the show. Like the Apollo Victoria, the skaters are out amidst a portion of the audience. We sat in a central-ish area they called Platforms, and the races happened all around us. The video screens are still there, and adding race position scoreboards (new to me) is a nice touch. The introductions peddled the line that the original was one of the first immersive shows. Maybe, but by today’s immersive experiences, this is still a theatre show: you must stay in your seats, and there’s no interaction. That may be nitpicking, but it felt like bandwagon jumping to me. But, I can reassure anybody that, in the right seats, you are up close to the action, and that’s part of the Starlight experience that’s been maintained.
In the intro, somebody said there were twelve professional debuts among the performers. They were all incredible. I have no idea how you could skate, dance, and sing for two hours while maintaining the needed control. And our seats were up close. I’d like to think I’d notice the pain if they were suffering. To a player, they looked like they were loving it. And that remains as infectious as it was the first time I saw it.
The inclusion of new songs is relatively seamless. The score has been reworked to fit: at times, I sat trying to work out if I was hearing something new or revised. And the new songs are good: they’re not as familiar but they’re good (although at least one has played in the German production for years). The sound system remains as epic and theatre-filling as I remember from other productions. It makes it feel like an experience.
The reworked songs are more complex to comment on because, in my head, you sing along to words that are not there anymore and that must influence my thoughts. I’m delighted they still work, even rewritten. Somewhere along the way, they sing “going faster than the limits allow,” which (and I had to look it up) is lifted from Tire Tracks and Broken Hearts from Whistle Down The Wind, but immediately made me think of Meatloaf. I’m curious if Jim Steinman gets credit (assuming it’s his lyric).
It’s more than just the songs that have been updated. Engines are no longer named after countries: the German, Russian, French and Italian trains have generic ‘Golden Eagle’ or ‘Orange Flash’ style names. The British train, which never appeared due to leaves on the line, is still referenced. I trust that’s a nod to earlier productions rather than somebody thinking it’s still an original joke. Ashley, the smoking car, is replaced with a ‘quiet car’. The freight ‘Rustys’ are now named after their loads: Lumber for wood, Slick for oil, etc. There’s an additional freight wagon, Hydra, named after the hydrogen it transports. It’s an important introduction to the story. Greaseball is a female character, Electra a non-binary, “they”. Poppa is Momma. None of this matters, although it’s harder to distinguish between the engines. But the stereotypes of the older versions would jar. The trains have always been about the characters they represent, which works, just as it has always done. One of the criticisms of the 90s reworking was that the villain of the original, the Caboose, was removed, and the bad guy’s deeds spread across other characters. In this version, the baddie is restored.
The child controller plays a much more significant part in the reworked show and is a central character. It’s probably one of the better changes.
I wish I could end there because, to this point, I can wholeheartedly recommend that people go and see the show. Fantastic staging, performances, and additive, non-destructive updates would be an excellent place to stop.
But, there is a change, and that’s with how the story gels. The tale has changed over other incarnations, and so there’s no reason why the story should not evolve again. At its heart, it was, and is, the story of the underdog steam engine you’re rooting for to win the race and couple with his love, Pearl. It’s all still there. But, in this production, the subplots drown out the core story.
If something like Starlight were written today, Electra would be the hero engine, and Steam would be relegated to the evil characters. That would be too big a rewrite for Starlight. So we have Hydra, the hydrogen truck that propels Rusty to the win. But there’s now a new storyline of the good fuel that weaved amongst the others. ‘He Whistled At Me’ has Rusty questioning if whistling at a carriage was appropriate, which takes some of the meaning away from the ‘whistling’ references: it can’t be seen in the same context as before. These don’t sound like significant issues; perhaps they are not. But they blurred the central premise that the audience cheers on Rusty because why wouldn’t you cheer on Hydra or the carriages?
I headed to the interval bar, commenting that the show didn’t feel like it had the pace it should have. It’s about something other than speed skating: who knows if the track is faster or slower? This should be an energy-filled extravaganza. It has the setting, the music, and the cast, but somehow, it’s not. What felt modern, fast, and upbeat 40 years ago needs a turbo-boost to feel the same today. And Starlight 2024 doesn’t have it.
You want the audience to cheer when the races start, but they’re not. Applause is played as sound effects. When the cast tried to get the audience to clap along, they succeeded with a portion of the audience, but I observed a lot who didn’t join in, most notably to my eyes, the Producer sitting at the other end of the row where I was seated. Maybe it’s all those insiders I mentioned earlier, but if they can’t be upbeat at the first public performance, why should anybody else?
And to my aforementioned sample of children. Just three in my eye line, so, probably, unrepresentative. But they didn’t seem involved, one even resting their head on a parent’s shoulder as if to sleep. I don’t know what was missing for them, but the show needs to win kids to succeed. Truthfully, as we were leaving, another child was wide-eyed and singing Starlight. An auditorium with more children might have more energy: it’s not pantomime, but it needs that level of engagement. I hope my experience was an exception, not a crystal-ball view of the future.
I wanted to love it. That could be part of my problem. I didn’t. But I didn’t hate it either: far from it. I enjoyed it. There’s much to be in awe of, notably staging and casting. But I want a new generation to love Starlight as I do, and I fear this production lacks the pace, excitement, and clarity of who to root for to make it a winner with people unfamiliar. The nostalgia crowd will go, and it might be a profitable undertaking on that alone. Abba Voyage proves there’s a market, but I wonder if it’s enough.
I have my fingers crossed. Maybe I’ll even go again to see if I revise my thinking. I will, no doubt, think about it for days to come. We’ll see.
Childhood fears and “Two Tribes” song defined a memorable summer
Two Tribes 12″
When I was a child, and once I understood what an atomic bomb was, the nuclear attack public information films were some of the scariest things I saw. Fortunately, we didn’t have any way to see them often unless they were shown on television, and I don’t think anybody scheduled them in children’s programming.
Add the ‘Don’t Die of Ignorance’ films from the middle of the 80s, and you have the perfect recipe for a frightening decade. I was only just a teenager. They were scary to watch in the moment, and then I played Wham! and forgot about taking a door off its hinges and hiding under it with the curtains closed.
I’m nearing completion of Trevor Horn’s book, Adventures in Modern Recording, an insight into the life of a music producer who created some of the biggest hits of the 1980s. In particular, I just finished the chapter on Frankie Goes to Hollywood: Relax and Two Tribes. In the book, Trevor discusses the Annihilation twelve-inch mix of Two Tribes. I looked it up and played it on the train on the way home yesterday, and it brought back many memories.
Back in the early summer of 1984, my family was preparing to move from Lancashire to Shropshire. Those were my last weeks at school with a group of friends, some of whom I wouldn’t hear from again until Friends Reunited connected us twenty years later. Two Tribes was the UK’s number-one single for what seemed like most of the summer.
I am trying to remember who in my friendship group had a radio cassette player, but I can’t recall it now. The machine they brought into school may have been called a ‘boom box’ at the time, or that name might have come later. My memory tells me it was a big machine. It was the kind you’d imagine New Yorkers had on their shoulders while they strutted around The Bronx or wherever. We didn’t strut, we were 13. Somebody had a cassette version that featured both the single mix and, what I think was, the Annihilation Mix of Frankie’s Two Tribes. It was being played—on the radio and by others with their cassette machines—everywhere, especially on the school grounds at Standish High School.
A group of us sat in the sunshine on the grassy bank behind one of the school buildings, listening to Two Tribes repeatedly. We might have taken our lunches out there. As I write, I can’t recall lunch at that school for some reason, but I remember sitting on the grass with music blaring quite clearly. We played Two Tribes loud so the air raid siren was audible across the school grounds. We liked the song, but we also thought playing it again and again was rebellious. Of course, nobody would believe it was an actual air-raid warning, would they?
When you hear the air attack warning You and your family must take cover
Looking back, what’s most surprising is that nobody ever asked us to turn it down or off. They let us do it every break time for days. We even did it when most of the school had bunked off to the Radio One roadshow. It was my last week at the school. I thought I should be there to say goodbye. Looking back, I wonder why I didn’t go and watch Simon Bates & Janice Long. Who would have noticed I was absent? I wasn’t coming back next term.
At the time, I was also presenting a top 30 music show on the local hospital radio station. It’s only now that I wonder what patients must have thought about a child playing a song—albeit an anti-war song—with an air-raid siren as its introduction. Many patients would have lived through the real thing. What was I doing reminding them of the horrors of war while they were in a hospital bed? I thought it was a good song and played it more than I should have.
But when I played it yesterday, I kept my headphones on and didn’t subject the other passengers to that sound.
Enjoyable week filled with activities and discoveries.
Week commencing Monday, 27 May 2024
Bembridge Lifeboat Station, Isle of Wight
Quantified Self
This week: Stand 6/7; Exercise 6/7 and Move 6/7. (86%). Morning walks: 0/3 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 1/4. Total steps: 74,977
Life
A general election was called last week. Apparently, the man in charge of everything didn’t check the weather forecast before announcing it in the rain. Several hours after the event, I was told, and I still haven’t seen a picture of him in the rain. I didn’t mention it in last week’s notes because the only thing that will change between now and ‘the date’ is that I’ll despair more about the people in power. As a result, I resolved to spend more time in my garden.
Related, we walked out towards the pier and lifeboat station. Lovely scone with a peaceful view of the water.
I discovered, by scrolling to some obscure part of the NHS app, that my physiotherapy referral for my shoulder had been cancelled because I didn’t have an appointment. I called to ask why I’d not been asked to make one. After much computer clicking, I finally have an appointment (albeit for a telephone consultation). It’s a start. Yay.
Are you here for the washing machine content? This week, a different engineer was sympathetic to the saga. New drum. The machine is not working—parts are out of stock. I can’t face the call queue.
Difficult meeting on Wednesday. It will not be resolved quickly. Work to put in, so I went for a walk on Cannon Hill Common. It’s looking very lush and green.
Friday night to buy paint to patch up some walls.
On Saturday, we tried to picnic on the beach, but the wind was against us.
On Sunday, I sat in the marina-side bar and drank wine before the train home. The sun shone. A lovely way to end the week.
Beers were cancelled on Tuesday night, but this video of Carol Voderman was shared, “the most dangerous people in this country are women post menopause. Because they don’t give a shit”.
Week includes blood donation, media highlights, and weekend trip.
Week commencing Monday, 20 May 2024
Tranquil sunset on the Solent
Quantified Self
This week: Stand 7/7; Exercise 4/7 and Move 6/7. (81%). Morning walks: 0/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 1/5. Total steps: 60,984
Life
Interesting new project on the agenda at work this week, but it feels like a tight timeframe. Let’s see.
The washing machine saga continues. This week’s engineer didn’t even open the machine before declaring a different part was needed. Booked for next week. By the weekend, my complaint had resulted in some compensation, but the machine remains unusable.
Related, the call centre I spoke to told me, no, I could not speak with a supervisor because the person I was talking to was “perfectly trained to help me”. I believe she had heard my, “but you’re not” response before.
I gave blood again on Wednesday. I hadn’t thought the pain in my shoulder would stop me, but the staff were wonderful, checking that the “giving” position wouldn’t hurt me.
Related, the nurse and I both agreed that a shoehorn was an amazing invention.
Relatedly, related. Can you get orange-flavoured Club biscuits anywhere other than blood donation centres?
Friday night train not as busy as expected. The ferry, on the other hand, was much busier. A sunny weekend on the Isle of Wight.
The drinks and snacks at the place with the award-winning chef were nice, but not stocking Island produce because it’s ”everywhere” was, in my book, poor form.
Media
We’re going to see Heathers, The Musical in a few weeks. I hadn’t watched the movie before, so we did. It’s dark and very 80s. You wouldn’t get away with some of that today.
The week involved events, AI, and weekend challenges.
Week commencing Monday, 13 May 2024
Garden Party, May 2024
Quantified Self
This week: Stand 6/7; Exercise 3/7 and Move 4/7. (62%). Morning walks: 1/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 1/5. Total steps: 43,881
Life
The highlight of the week was The King’s Garden Party. And it was in the bright sunshine – glad I took sunglasses. I didn’t know what to expect. I dressed in full-on mourning suit and didn’t feel out of place even though I was in a minority. I feel honoured to have been there. A bunch of famous faces seen and on the correct side of the line for the King to talk to the people I went with.
Related, the top hat was new to me and I probably shouldn’t have bothered, but it was an experience and I don’t know if I’ll ever get a chance again. In the evening, my back hurt from the upright posture required to keep the hat on. Jealous of the people who make it look effortless.
Relatedly related, I might have been the only person to transport my top hat to and from The Palace in a Sainsbury’s foldable shopping bag.
Obviously, I had to have cucumber sandwiches when eating at The Palace. Excellent.
Otherwise, a very normal week.
Related, trains on the way back were so disrupted they removed Clapham Junction from the stops. Thank Uber for the ride home.
The washing machine saga continues. On Monday, an engineer discovered a fault with the machine that required a new part. An hour later, the insurance company rang. I thought they wanted to talk to me about the repair, but it was an excuse to upsell me more insurance. I declined several times for the recording.
Monday night was quiz night. After our disappointing performance last time, we did good. Pulling Terry Jacks, Seasons In The Sun, out of the hat helped make us joint ninth. Ninth is a specific goal of this quiz. We lost it on a tiebreak.
Fun with ChatGPT. I asked what’s good AI. It said ethical AI should properly attribute but couldn’t provide attribution for its responses. I asked if OpenAI was, therefore, unethical. “Not necessarily” was the answer. It amused me.
I watched the Google IO event and was impressed by the Gemini capabilities. Then I asked ChatGPT and Gemini to describe an image. Only one AI came close and it wasn’t Google’s.
Weekend, to the Isle of Wight. The fridge has stopped opening while we have been elsewhere. The resulting stink from off food was unpleasant. One nudge of the temperature button and all was functioning. Less said about the weekend the better.
Media
Doctor Who: We watched Space Babies and The Devil’s Chord. These feel very different to anything that’s been before. In particular, The Devil’s Chord had no sense of jeopardy and the Hairspray finale was more High School Musical than time travelling Doctor. Thankfully, Ncuti saved the episode by being brilliant.
Trying to get through Trigger Point. Will persevere.
A vibrant week filled with diverse experiences and enjoyable moments.
Week commencing Monday, 6 May 2024
KOYN Japanese
Quantified Self
This week: Stand 6/7; Exercise 5/7 and Move 7/7. (86%). Morning walks: 2/3 (happy to have restarted the trend). Office days 1/5. Total steps: 67,658
Life
Bank holiday Monday. It rained, quite a lot. I stayed inside, quite a lot (but not entirely).
As it turns out, the washing machine was not fixed by fluke as I thought last week. Awaiting another engineer.
Tuesday was sunny. I did a morning walk again and it felt good. It felt even better to do it again on Wednesday.
Even if you don’t like Eurovision, you should have watched it for the amazing sets & Petra Mede. Sweden knows how to do it. The final was fun and, for once, the winner was in my top 3.
Related. For the first time in many years we watched it away from our house at the home of friends. As we were not entertaining, and as they provided a helpful scorecard, we watched every song. Some of them felt much longer than three minutes. The accompanying food was lovely.
Dinner with Greg on Wednesday night was Japanese (Koyn) and wonderful (both in company and food). Also, expensive. But as it’s our once-every-two-years meet-up, I’m OK with that.
By the end of Thursday I was tired so skipped the work karaoke session. Probably for the best.
Went to hire a mourning suit in Wimbledon on Friday evening. They were closed. Met PY and sat in the – very small – beer patio at All Bar One. Spontaneous and fun.
Managed to do the hiring on Saturday. But it will be delivered the day before it is needed. Nervous.
Shardlake on Disney+. Although it was the monks being investigated, I couldn’t get Cadfael out of my head. This is probably more gruesome. Good characters, interesting plot. Set-up for a second series?
On returning from our evening watching Eurovision with friends in North London, we stopped off at God’s Own Junkyard: a warehouse tribute to neon. I’ve always wanted to visit and, despite the bright daylight outside, the multi-coloured lights were fantastic. The contrast between the signs for wedding chapels and those gentlemen’s establishments of old Soho was beautiful.
Are You Getting EnoughLove RocksTop Of The PopsYour Favourite SinsTogether in Electric DreamsTop Of The Pops
This week: Stand 6/7; Exercise 3/7 and Move 4/7. (62%). Morning walks: 0/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 1/5. Total steps: 46,663
Life
Finally, a scan on my shoulder. I am reminded how big, complex and unnerving hospitals can be. Now, the wait for the results.
It’s always amusing when a train service blames congestion on a line where passengers have sat for 20 minutes without a train passing. I understand the blockage might be elsewhere, but that doesn’t stop me laughing.
The washing machine was fixed by fluke. The blocked drain crew that arrived on Monday did not understand what they were called out for, but they inadvertently poked something in the pipes, and it worked.
Related, we spent a week figuring out how to put the units back together. By Saturday, I let PY do it.
On Friday, I went to a crypt with a silent disco. It was silent only in so much as you needed headphones to hear one of the three DJs. It was loud because there was no music to drown out everybody’s awful singing. Fun.
Dinner on Saturday night in Wimbledon Village. I was too tired to participate properly, so I was home before the end.
Sunday, with more energy, we bought some plants and put them in the pots for the summer. We managed to eat breakfast outside until the clouds came.
Oh, and ticked, hopefully, the right boxes on the three voting papers we were given. By Saturday, Sadiq was selected.
This week: Stand 7/7; Exercise 6/7 and Move 6/7. (90%). Morning walks: 0/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 1/5. Total steps: 65,257
Life
Tuesday was St George’s Day and also BBC Radio Shropshire’s birthday. I found some tuning guides produced in the 80s by BBC Engineering Information which got posted around. They seem quaint now.
The washing machine engineer did not fix the washing machine. Saturday spent, partly, in a launderette. £1 a minute seems to be the going rate for everything.
Thursday, farewell drinks with a colleague. Started earlier than usual Thursday drinks and ended later. There were no trains home from Clapham Junction by the time I got there, so a taxi was needed.
Related, Friday was my most productive day for weeks. I am not sure how that could be but I powered through quite a lot of writing.
Stand, for 2 hours, at The Bridge Theatre to watch Guys and Dolls, they said. It’s immersive theatre par excellence, they said. Get out of the way of the rising and falling platforms (aka stage), said people dressed as NYC cops. Be right up close to the action that the cast talk to you, in full character, as they pass. Join the cast dancing at the end of the show. It’s was a wonderful way to spend a Friday evening and wholeheartedly recommended.
Sunday, boat trip cancelled but we went out east anyway. Westfield Stratford was busy, the sun came out for coffee on The Milk Float and The Great British Garden a hidden gem that proved London 2012 keeps on giving.
Media
Rory, Alastair and the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan spoke for The Rest is Poltics: Leading. Interesting to hear just how much – or little – power the Mayor has?
30 years after Jurassic Park, you’d hope mankind was smart enough to know that, (1) if you work with dinosaurs your facility will be destroyed, and (2) the largest dinosaur will have a its eye right next to you but not see you. Jurassic World Dominion did not understand this. The reprise of every set piece was annoying but, somehow, in a bad movie the cast were terrific. Campbell Scott’s Dr. Lewis Dodgson, played as Tim Cook, genius.
For the first fifteen minutes, I thought Dead Boy Detectives was going to annoy me too much to stay with it. And then it didn’t and turned out to be fun.
Enjoying quiz night, office mishap, pizza, chats, and art gallery.
Week commencing Monday, 15 April 2024
The Ryde Art Trail: a tribute to HoverTravel
Quantified Self
This week: Stand 6/7; Exercise 5/7 and Move /57. (76%). Morning walks: 0/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 1/5. Total steps: 59,328
Life
I won’t beat myself up about the last few weeknotes being late. At the start of the year, I told myself completion was better than meeting the self-imposed weekly deadline. But I’m sorry, me.
Monday was Quiz night again. This time, we struggled. We lost count of where we were placed. Last time, we started strong with the ‘name the celebrity from their eyes’ round. This time, scoring 7 out of 10 on that round put us on the back foot.
Thursday was the first time I’d forgotten my pass when going into the office. It was easy enough to get a temporary replacement, but it was hard to return when reception wasn’t staffed.
Friday night was pizza night in Ryde. It was lovely after a few drinks in a pub and sausage crisps. Saturday night was Chicken burger, delicious but not home-cooked.
Related, Colin Hall and Bob Harris were in conversation on Saturday night about the songs The Beatles Gave Away—several fascinating stories. However, if you are booked for further tour nights, be warned: these two can keep talking.
Relatedly, related. The bar flooded before the break, so interval drinks were in the gallery, where there was exciting art: walking around with a glass of wine made me feel like I was at a preview event.
Completed eight out of the nine murals painted for the Ryde Art Trail. The missing one was in a venue that wasn’t open on Sundays. Impressive art.
Media
Saturday Night Live sketches have been amusing PY for weeks. I must admit Beavis and Butt-Head is funny.
Christian Wolmar, writing for the Irish Independent, on congestion charging, how the argument against the charge was lost in 2003 and why the 21st Century “must be the century of sustainable transport”
I could not listen to the related Radio 2 documentary, The Songs The Beatles Gave Away, because it doesn’t appear to be available anymore.
Home comfort, financial review, office camaraderie, tasty meals, fun events.
Week commencing Monday, 8 April 2024
Alex Lodge and Jessica Cervi performing Up Where We Belong
Quantified Self
This week: Stand 6/7; Exercise 3/7 and Move 3/7. (57%). Morning walks: 0/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 1/5. Total steps: 39,179
Life
A week where my shoulder continued to give discomfort, I stayed at home for much of it. Friday brought news of the scan in a few weeks.
I had the first of what will become a series of financial pension reviews. Would my pensions work better for me if they were consolidated? This question remains to be answered.
Avanti West Coast has queried my Delay Repay request, stating they want more information. They keep asking for a copy of the ticket even though the machine at Shrewsbury ate it, and the website says a Collection Receipt is sufficient. Grumble.
I wish I had said I was going to Shrewsbury rather than asking. In the end, all was well, but for 24 hours, I was annoyed with myself.
Seeing people in the office is always lovely, but I had quite a gap in the afternoon where I had no meetings. I used the time to walk around and chat with people. It felt simultaneously productive and unproductive.
Lots of bowls of Vietnamese pho made from the chicken stock we got from last weekend’s roast. Endless nighttime loo visits.
Related, Boys on the Verge of Tears at The Soho Theatre: a one-act, almost two-hour performance with five actors playing all the parts, entirely set in a men’s toilet. Lots to think about.
Post-show French onion soup with gruyere cheese croutons was everything I wanted: very thick and rich.
Three Sundays in a row: tonight, an 80s party night at The Crazy Coqs with a bunch of great songs.
Media
All Of Us Strangers: After watching it last week it’s been on my mind all week. Friday, I watched the excellent “Behind-The-Scenes Broadcast Special” on YouTube. It’s such an interesting film to think about. And it was filmed in the director’s childhood home, which makes it even more fascinating. The YouTube algorithm served up an interesting collection of clips featuring the film’s stars appearing on The Graham Norton Show.
Sunday night was the Olivier Awards on ITV. Lots of exciting musicals won, but Sunset Boulevard won the most awards. Tom Francis reprised Sunset Boulevard, starting outside the Royal Albert Hall and walking into the main auditorium (a version of how it was staged at The Savoy, even down to the cardboard Andrew Lloyd Webber. It’s very impressive).
Apple Music has a new personalised play list: Heavy Rotation and I am loving it.
Airport time change, events, food quest, rail chaos, family celebration, musical, Bananarama.
Week commencing Monday, 1 April 2024
Bananarama at The Palladium
Quantified Self
This week: Stand 6/7; Exercise 3/7 and Move 3/7. (57%). Total steps: 64,405
Life
Last week’s notes were written in a departure lounge. This week’s in my lounge. Mine does not operate a one-out, one-in policy.
Never arrive at an airport at the precise moment the clocks go forward. The loss of an hour on the way home was unnerving.
I was a day out of sequence. Last Sunday was Esther’s birthday lunch and a Beatles night at The Crazy Coqs.
The quest for a ‘hot cross Bunettone’ (Panettone meets a hot cross bun in a spiced Italian cake) took us to Wimbledon. We are still looking for one.
There was nothing but rail chaos on Tuesday at Euston. We ended up taking the longer route from Marylebone, but it wasn’t much fun arriving over two hours late. The return train on Thursday was swift and efficient.
Mum and Dad’s Diamond Wedding lunch was great, and I made a short speech that got laughs in the right places. I’m glad I prepared something; nobody was expecting it. The card from the King and Queen had pride of place. I’m so happy that it worked out.
Related, I didn’t need the loaded fries in the bar in the evening. They were delicious.
Back at work on Friday. I don’t think people realised I’d be back before Monday. It gave me some time to go through everything that happened while we were away. The project I’m working on deployed our software, and everything ran smoothly.
Frank has a collection of dresses from divas across the years—think Judy, Dusty, Julie, and Agnetha (with a dash of Ethel Merman and Karen Carpenter thrown in)—which he is forced to give to a museum so that he can marry Alan. That’s the plot of Frank’s Closet, a musical we saw on Friday night. It was fun.
Saturday at The Palladium: Bananarama. The show ran continually for the allotted time, so Karen and Sarah did not chat. That’s sad, as they can be funny, and some stories from their 40 years in the business would have been interesting.
Related, there’s never enough time for all the hits, but the show was built around their greatest hits album, and I am not sure why they skipped some big numbers to play covers that are not part of their catalogue: Atomic, Lost in Music, and You Spin Me Round.
For the second week running, we went to The Crazy Coqs presents. Tonight, the songs of Disney and Pixar were performed. Eleanor Hudson also performed a medley of the big tunes from Frozen dressed as Elsa. I don’t think I have seen a costume at one of these nights previously.
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All of Us Strangers: It takes some time to work out the timeline of the characters and that they are being presented at different points along that line. And I am still trying to figure out what to make of the ending. I’ve been thinking about it since Thursday.
Radio Geek Out with three episodes of Crunch and roll: Dirk Anthony, Dave Kelly and Ben Jones. All wonderful but Ben’s story about leaving Absolute Radio and the subsequent dark times is really interesting to hear. People on the radio are not always upbeat.
Holidays, hot tubs, paella hunt, airport observations
Week commencing Monday, 25 March 2024
Beach
Quantified Self
This week: Stand 7/7; Exercise 7/7 and Move 6/7. (95%). Total steps: 102,234
Life
Holidays are relaxing, but the presence of a hot tub vastly improves relaxation.
Finding, what seems like, authentic paella is harder in Lanzarote than I imagined. Maybe it’s not a thing here.
Related, it’s definitely not at a waterfront restaurant in Arrecife.
The Arrecife branch of Zara is not permanently closed as some apps said. It’s moved to the mall.
Related, I did not indulge in the McDonald’s food. But my resolve may have been weaker if they’d had milkshakes on the menu.
Walking with toes in the sea is remarkably calming. The foot rinsing showers are super handy.
A museum told me that the first aircraft to pass over Lanzarote were Zeppelin airships, and they used to drop mail by parachute as they passed overhead.
Related, the bus should stop at Museo Aeronáutico del Aeropuerto de Lanzarote. I felt like I would be stopped by the police on the walk from the terminal.
Relatedly, related: Buses run to a different schedule on Maundy Thursday. Even the bus drivers didn’t know when they should go.
A couple of walks to Playa Honda and beyond took us past the modern airport. I still enjoy watching the planes coming and going while trying to work out where they may be flying to or from (there’s an app for that).
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I was increasingly absorbed by Robert Elms’ London Made Us. “A cab diver stuck in a morass of road works and construction jams once said exasperatedly to me, ‘London is great, but it will be better when it’s finished.’ But of course the opposite is true, London will be finished when it’s finished.” (p291)
Beyoncé released Cowboy Carter while we were away. Wow, that’s a long album. Apparently, she recorded 100 songs for it. Thank god she could edit some out. I need to listen it more.
Doctor visit, deployment uncertainty, social activities, travel joy, Lanzarote relaxation.
Week commencing Monday, 18 March 2024
Lanzarote
Quantified Self
This week: Stand 7/7; Exercise 3/7 and Move 5/7. (71%). Morning walks: 0/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 1/5. Total steps: 50,437
Life
Finally to see a doctor about my shoulder. Initial diagnosis is a rotator cuff injury. Scans and physio called for. No immediate relief but stronger pain killers prescribed.
Lots of planning work this week in preparation for my week off: mainly about connecting systems together. Really good engagement across teams.
“Will we, won’t we?” for the deployment of our new automations went on all week, when I left the office on Friday the team was planning on Tuesday but we had all our sign-offs by Friday evening so I feel less guilty about being away.
Monday’s pub quiz in Wimbledon was fun and so the four of us have booked again for an April Monday. How Mark identified the celebrities from the poor photocopy of the pictures of their eyes is a great mystery of our times.
Thursday catch-up with Linda, who is taking a short break from globetrotting on her boat, was lovely. It felt like St John’s Wood was going to be a bit ‘out of the way’ for a Thursday. But not.
Friday was full of last minute things: holiday Euro cash, foot appointment, Easter egg ordering and then, at the very end, packing. Happy we’d ordered extra on Thursday’s Indian takeaway so that dinner was a fast re-heat.
Saturday involved leisurely travel to Gatwick as the flight was early afternoon. The airport was pre-Easter packed, BA carrying double the number of Saturday passengers. The lounge was not the screaming-child free oasis I might have hoped for but the wine compensated.
Airport security at Lanzarote was a breeze, with electronic gates that accepted British passports.
First evening dinner: duck and chips. The honey rum came with the bill. I paid for it with indigestion.
Sunday, first full day in Lanzarote, started hot, rained, hot again, slight rain, then too hot. But I was immediately relaxed, had slept well and – as I write – delighted I came.
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Plane tunes were albums from Breland, Kane Brown and Macklemore. Also, last week’s musical discovery, Ada Morghe. An unexpected musical change from what I would have been listening to five years ago.
