BCSA Garden Party 2025

Somehow it has been ten years since I lasted posted about te BCSA Garden Party and while Covid carries some of the blame the main fault has been my laziness.

The intervening years also brought changes to the Czech and Slovak embassies which meant that when the Garden Party could be held it had to be held elsewhere. It was nice to be back in the Czech Embassy and in the shared gardens (that is the Slovak Embassy on the left).

The format was much the same as it ever was with food, drink, music, dancing and a raffle. Also the same as ever were the conversations that filled the afternoon and gave the party its purpose.

Towards the end this group photograph was taken. I think a few shy people hid and some may have left by then but I think that it includes around a dozen people that I spoke to at some point during the convivial four hours that the party lasted.

Not even the determined efforts of TfL (no District Lines, mainline trains severely delayed) could dent the simple pleasures of the afternoon.

Parsifal at Glyndebourne Festival 2025

I am a late convertor to Wagner, and not a fully committed one at that, and it was more a sense of exploration that drew me to Parsifal at Glyndebourne, having seen it just once before in 2016.

I was keen enough to fork out £185 for Blue Upper Circle B6. I had gone for cheap seats (£95) last year and while that sort of worked I fancied something better this year.

We were a small familial party (parents and elder son) which made the logistics of the day simpler, e.g. we could all travel down by train and we did not need to try to impress guests with fancy food. A picnic of sorts in the Veg Patch Stretch Tent worked well, though the recently acquired bottle of champagne had not yet settled and opened with gusto.

Parsifal is a long opera and were were seated ready for the performance at 3pm with it due to finish at 9pm (with intervals).

It was stunning. There were several main characters and they all sang beautifully, and acted well to. The music was sumptuous and was played superbly, it was music to wallow in. The staging was interesting and active with things happening away from the main action. The only problem was the story that made almost no sense, despite the copious sur-titles.

Luckily the lack of story had no impact on my enjoyment, much is it does not with other foreign language music that I like (and also Yes songs that, despite being in English, often make no sense either). The music and singing carried the day gorgeously.

Little Women at Richmond Theatre

I never read Little Women (no great surprise there) but I had learned about it from radio drama adaptations and also an In Our Time episode and that was enough to tempt me to seeing it on stage. The usual process secured me seat Dress Circle A 22 for £39.

 

Just in case you did not know, Little Women tells the stories of a family of four sisters as they grow to become women, a coming of age story with four variations.

These stories have their ups and downs, as life does, but it is all very gentle and there is nothing puzzling or overly emotional to get engrossed in. It is all very English, except technically it isn't.

The lack of depth to the drama gave the cast little to work with but they did what they had to do with wit and charm. They were all good if not stretched.

The staging was lovely too, able to present many different scenes with just a few minor prop moves, which the cast did themselves.

The one thing that confused me was in the story, possibly the most significant event was moved from the first half (where it would have been a natural consequence of events) to the second (where it came out of the blue). That may have been to hold a key moment back for dramatic effect but it confused me, and probably everyone else there who, I presume, all knew the plot.

Little Women did what good tour shows do. It entertained simply and professionally without taking any risks. I prefer challenging and contentious plays but there is also a place for simpler things, provided they are done well, as this was.

Hawkwind at Barbican Hall (26 May 25)

I use the "hawkwind" tag on this blog to cover any band that plays Hawkwind songs, either exclusively (e.g. Hoaxwind) or mixed in with their own songs (e.g. Space Ritual), and it is always nice to hear the original band.

Once upon a time, Hawkwind's last gig on a tour would be at Astoria, long gone to make way for Lizzy Line, and since then they have played places like Shepherds Bush Empire and Royal Albert Hall. This was (I believe) their first time at Barbican Hall.

Having paid £55 for a seat at the very top of RAH to see them in 2023 I was a little surprised to pay just £43.5 for seat Circle A24. The view from there was very good as the photo below shows.

 

We were due to have a support band, and they sounded interesting too, only to have that cancelled due to them breaking down on the motorway on the way there. The fill-in was probably better. Hawkwind had been playing with a musical (!) and they had some of the music on a PC with them. That music sounded, to me, like 1960's cocktail  bar music, the sort of thing that they played in shows like The Saint, only the lyrics were very much Hawkwind. If that sounds strange, well it was. Strange, interesting and lovely. If it ever makes the light of the commercial day then I will buy it.

Hawkwind hit the stage around 8:20pm and rocked solidly for two hours. Unusually, nobody led the band visually and for most of the time all the band members were hidden in darkness behind a continuous light show. They are all on stage in the photo above.

Musically they played a wide selection of songs covering their entire lengthy career in a consistent heavy rock style enriched with keyboards. The emphasis was on "rock" but this was very much "spacerock".

A lot of the songs I knew and several were new to me, presumably from their more recent albums, Familiar or not they all sounded good and they all sounded like Hawkwind. There were some classics (e.g. Psi Power, Assault and Battery, The Golden Void, Spirit of the Age) some unexpected favourites (e.g. Paradox, Steppenwolf) and even some spoken word (e.g. The Awakening).

Of course with so many songs to choose from they had to leave some things out and it is a testament to how strong the setlist was that there was no space for songs like Silver Machine or Brainstorm. It would have been nice to hear them but they were not really missed.

Hawkwind have been going since 1969 and I first saw them live in 1976. It has been a long and happy relationship which I cherish.

Memento at The Cavern (24 May 25)

Memento remain one of the best things to do on a Saturday night so I was back at The Cavern to see them again.

As usual I walked there and took longer than I expected (I always get distracted along the way) so I missed some of their set but I did manage to catch a good chunk of the first half and all of the second.

Arriving late I ended up towards the back of the pub, not that that mattered.

The pub served Wainwright's Gold and I had a few of those which helped to refresh and relax me. A good choice.

Memento did what Memento do, they played a wide variety of rock songs, some of which I knew, with well rehearsed skill and obvious love for the music.

A highlight for me was Heaven and Hell from the Dio Black Sabbath period, a song I have loved since buying the album in 1980 (only 45 years ago!).

I went expecting good music, beer and atmosphere and, once again, Memento at The Cavern delivered in full.

I have walked every street in Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames

It has been over a year since I completed every street in London Borough of Richmond upon Thames and now, finally, I have completed every street in Kingston upon Thames (bounded by the thick light blue line).

The picture above, a section of my CityStrides LifeMap, helps to explain why it took so long, there are very few routes that I have walked beyond the southern boundaries, and that is because there is little of interest to me there.

I live at the north edge of Kingston (the other side of the road is Richmond) and while I regularly walk south to Kingston town centre and make occasional forays to New Malden, it takes something unusual to take me to Surbiton or anywhere south of that. There are areas of the Borough that I knew little about until I made the effort to walk every street. To be honest, I have no intention of ever going back to most of them.

I had not intended to get this competitive on completing streets but CityStrides makes it fun and easy to do and, generally, I find interesting things when taken into new areas. so I will put a bit more effort into completing Kensington and Chelsea (70%), City of Westminster (69%) and Hammersmith and Fulham (64%).

And just to put that all into some perspective, I have now walked 18% of Greater London and the leader in that competition has done 62%!!!. I will never get anywhere near that.

Il barbiere di Siviglia at Glyndebourne Festival 2025

Organising trips to Glyndebourne with different groups of friends takes some doing and then the food, drink and equipment for each trip has to be planned so it was good that on our first trip to Festival 2025 our guests offered to do all the food leaving us just to find a couple of bottles. They also offered to drive us there so that was sorted to. An easy start to the season.

I always have a sense of anticipation on the first visit of the year as there is always something that has changed. This year the main change was the enlarged and improved Veg Patch Stretch Tent which already was our first choice picnic area.

There were also some minor changes in the garden, including a work of art in the sunken garden where, years ago, the Henry Moore lay.

The big sculptures in the garden were there from the year before which was fine because I love them.

There had been some changes to how the seats were classified in the booking process but we were in our usual area where seat Blue Upper Circle B5 was a modest £110 (I am paying more to see Neil Young play in a field).

I seen the opera twice before, in 2016 and 2019, but had few memories of it and was ready to appreciate it afresh. The plot was simple and quickly understood, Dr Bartolo want to marry Rosina but she wants to marry Count Almaviva and is helped by Figaro (the titular barber). Their plans are playful and the story gentle fun.

The opera may be named after Figaro, and he takes the final curtain call, but it is the heroine Rosina, played by Cecilia Molinari, who carries the day with delightful singing and impish acting. She was a joy to watch and hear.

Old shoes, new shoes

I once heard on a podcast the suggestion that we try everything when we are young but as we get older we stick to just the few things that we really like. That makes sense from a risk perspective, why try something you might not like when something you know you love is on offer?, and also from a time perspective, why dwell over other options you've found something you love? I've been there with shoes for a while. 

I buy all my shoes from Ecco (size 42) and have a mix of smart home shoes, everyday walking shoes and extreme weather walking shoes. 

It's the everyday walking shoes that take the most damage, remember I average something over 20km a day, and my current pair have just collapsed after ten months. So I've bought a replacement pair.

There is always a fair degree of guess work when buying shoes on line, e.g. you cannot get a feel for the materials used, and Ecco keep changing their designs in their extensive range. This was meant to be a like for like replacement and I am very happy with the result.