6 Rabi al-Awwal - Year 1432
Mid-February...how have you all been? What's happening in teh blogosphere? I've been up to my usual - wage-slavery, listening to music, reading, occasionally going to the gym (very occasionally at the moment).
I did go to that London at the end of January to see Twelfth Night (the Shakespeare play, not the 1980s neo-prog band). The National Theatre has a production on in the Cottesloe Auditorium until 3rd March. The entire run sold out before public tickets went on sale, due to Sir Peter Hall directing his fourth version of the play and Simon Callow being in the cast. I was able to get tickets through Amanda Drew, who plays 'Olivia' in this production. I headed to the Big Smoke in early afternoon--after stopping by the open market in Oxford. A bloke had a table full of LPs and I couldn't resist. I ended up buying an upgrade of my copy of The Moody Blues' In Search Of The Lost Chord album. Once I was in London, I headed to Soho to check out a couple of record shops, Reckless Records and Sister Ray. Both had so much great stuff, that it was really tough to make a decision. The time passed and I really had to get heading to the theatre (with a bite to eat on the way). I bought a battered original pressing of Cream's Disraeli Gears LP (it plays alright, actually!), a near-mint copy of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells (3rd pressing), a decent copy of Kate Bush's Never For Ever, Alan Parsons Project's I Robot and Steve Hillage's Motivation Radio at Reckless. I bought a re-issue LP of Van Der Graaf Generator's debut, The Aerosol Grey Machine and the Carlos Santana/John McLaughlin early 70s collab., Love Devotion Surrender, at Sister Ray.
A short tube journey later, I wolfed down a margharita pizza at the Azzuro restaurant near to the National. By the time I'd finished - there was about an hour to the start of the play. Finty Williams, Judi Dench's daughter and part of the cast, met a couple of her friends in the lobby, near where I was sitting, and they all jumped around excitedly for a few moments. That was entertaining. The play started at around 7:30 p.m. and I quite enjoyed it. Some of the crits have panned the pacing of the play and a few of the performances, but I had no such problem. I thought it was quite good, though not having a previous viewing to compare it with maybe leaves me ignorant. No matter, I enjoyed it and my first time at The National. A while later and I was back on the coach to Oxford. Good times!
It looks as if things are afoot in the Middle East and North Africa! The Egyptian people, after 30 years of living under a tyrant's rule, booted out Hosni Mubarak after days and days of activism and protest. It seems amazing to me, and I'm not sure why that kind of thing doesn't happen in the UK and why it didn't happen in the U.S. during eight years of George W. Idiot! The military have taken over in Egypt and I hope the people don't allow a junta of generals to go for permanent rule - keep the pressure on 'em, please! Now it looks like Algeria may be following suit and there have been rumblings about Syria, too. Hmmm...what's going on? There have been reports about C.I.A. involvement in these pro-democracy movements. I'd like to hope that the U.S. secret goons don't have their hands in the protests, but they've been known to stage all sorts of things in the past. Still, it beats The Smirking Chimp's and Tony 'Bliar's strategy of invasion and occupy for 90 billion years. These certainly are interesting days to be on this backward, superstitious planet. A co-worker leant me his copy of Joe Sacco's Palestine. If you haven't read it - it's 'comics-journalism' - the stories are very real, but presented in graphic-novel form. It certainly educated me on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. I highly recommend it, if you can get a copy.
I've finshed the February edition of The Kaleidophonic Stroboscope. I'll add a link in a new post. It's the usual round-up of tunes and the "Vinyl Vault" LP selection is Kate Bush's The Kick Inside. Intrigued? Of course you are!
Other than that....hmmm, well, I've decided to sell off some of my music collection. I'm not sure what to sell yet - but we're running out of space and I've gotta clear room for new tunage. I've also decided to start putting my CDs into those "CD wallet" cases, which will make them more portable and free up space in the spare room. Not sure why I hadn't prior to this.......must've just wanted to keep the jewel cases intact.
That's about all for this post - I shall be back soon with more! Adios!
2 comments:
'Twelfth Night' sounds good. Cool that you know Mad May from East Enders. Nice one.
It was really good. I'd only ever seen the film, with Helena Bonham-Carter and Imogen Stubbs in. I read it twice in December and Jan., in preparation for seeing it (though I still didn't know I would be at that point).
Hee hee - yeah, "Mad May" is a lovely person. She was really sweet in getting the tickets arranged. I had to pay for them, but she put them aside in her name for me.
Post a Comment