Ham Life

Prezence at the Fox and Duck

2012-01-30T21:25:00.001Z

Prezence describe themselves as a 5 piece classic rock covers band and that is easily a good enough reason to go and see them when they play at local pub on an otherwise free evening.

The line-up is classic too with drums, bass, lead guitar, keyboards and vocals.

Between them they had just a little too much equipment to fit comfortably in to the Fox and Duck's cosy alcove, so the keyboards were thrust forward in to the main part of the bar.

The band clearly know what they are doing and they love their music. And that's a powerful combination.

What then determines the the quality of the evening is the quality of the set-list, and that's a personal choice.

For me, there was plenty of good stuff especially the seventies bluesy numbers like Stairway to Heaven, Wishing Well and Child in Time (boom. boom. boom).

And it was good to hear some seriously underplayed classics like Deep Purple's Burn.

My highlight was the end of the first session when they played Stargazer and Highway Star.

Of course I sang along with them.

Prezence try to be faithful to the originals rather than reinterpreting them so you get to expect the original and it was slightly disappointing when you did not get "Does anybody remember laughter?" or the vocal fade out on Stargazer with the "I see a Rainbow Rising" line which, after all, gave the album it's name.

But that is just me being picky and it did nothing to lessen my enjoyment of the evening. Nor did the slide at the end towards the lesser rock of the American 80's with songs like Living on a Prayer by Bon Jovi. I have zero Bon Jovi albums.

A few weak songs and a few missing lines hardly mattered in two hours wallowing in the music of my youth and re-experiencing the classic albums that I've bought several times over the years.

Prezence know what their fans want and they deliver it in style.

Count Oederland at the Arcola

2012-01-29T19:24:00.002Z

There was something about the description of Count Oederland that attracted me when I first saw it advertised by the dates were problematic so I left it. Then a weekend became free and I managed to get to the penultimate performance. Lucky me.

The Arcola has changed a little since I was last there. The front of house has been cleared of clutter with the box office and kitchen now in their proper places.

It's good to see a theatre that was already good getting better. The cosy and welcoming feel that it has is one of the reasons that I trek across to the other side of London to go there.

I also love the theatre space itself and the way that each director manages to find something imaginative to do with the unusual staging.

For Count Oederland we had a minimalist white dais on which a few pieces of furniture were added to turn the space in to a study, a prison cell, a hotel reception, a villagers' hut, a grand residency, a sewer, and other places besides.

There were many people to fill these many places with some of the large cast of ten playing several roles.

Several of these are cameo roles that appear for one scene, make their point and then are never seen again. One of my favourites is the clairvoyant who is asked by the prosecutor's wife to try and find her missing husband. He prances about the family house with extravagant gestures and mannerisms that bring the likes of Gok Wan to mind.

And there were many themes and ideas in play too to make it a rich and absorbing experience. This is a play that warrants study and watching again.

Put simply, a public prosecutor is driven by stress and his current case to adopt the persona of the axe wielding Count Oederland of legend.

In doing so he gathers a following of troubled minds that becomes an uprising.

Despite being written in 1951, it is hard not to make comparisons with the Arab Spring countries but that is because of the timelessness of the themes.

Ten years ago we would have thought that is was about Russia.

There are lots of connections in the play. The main one is between the public prosecutor and the Count and this is complemented by the two maids with similar names (and played by the same actress), the axe which is first used by the prisoner, and a model ship that threatens to become real.

The scenes flash past as the story covers a lot of ground. Those that stuck with me the most as they did so were when the prosecutor adopts the legend of the count and a flash of red light indicates his first use of the symbolic axe, the deposed minister realising that her world has been turned up side down when nobody comes to take her empty plate, and the baron's callous treatment of his supporters as the face drowning in the city sewers.

The pace of the play varied nicely too with the brisk rebellious action interspersed with a few Shakespearean soliloquies gave us insights in to some of the characters and their motives.

This is especially true of the prisoner who's story parallels that of the Count. He is in prison for a motive-less axe murder of a colleague, gets pardoned and sleeps with his victim's wife.

The feeling when the end comes is a confusion of thoughts, a release of emotion and sheer admiration for what we have just witnessed. This was a faultless production of a challenging yet approachable play that inspires, questions and shocks. This is exactly what I go to the theatre for.

Space Ritual back at The Borderline

2012-01-25T00:08:00.000Z

Space Ritual concerts are like your best friend's wedding. There is the long anticipation, the familiar faces, the noisy children and embarrassing uncles, a pay your own way bar and good music.

Mix these together for a few hours and the results are unpredictable but will always look like a riot from a distance.

When I last saw Space Ritual in March 2011 I moaned that I had only seen them twice in 2010 but 2011 turned out even worse and I only managed to see them once! This is a friend who need to get married more often.

Not surprisingly this absence meant that I was almost desperate for their brand of space/jazz rock and booked early for their return to The Borderline. Somehow I still managed to forget to buy a present but I'm hopeful that they did not notice.

The first surprise was the set-up on the empty stage. Getting all of Space Ritual, plus their usual guests, on to any stage is problematic so it seemed odd that they would make this even harder by having two full drum kits.The surprise was deepened when the kits were occupied and a stranger occupied the space where I expected to see Sam Ollis, son of Terry who did take his rightful place behind the other kit.

I had much the same feeling as I do at weddings when a distant relative turns up with an unfamiliar partner and you try and remember what his/her marital status is and whether there is some dark mystery that you are not party to that explains the change.

I stood on the customary front-left that put me right in front of Mick Slattery's lead guitar with Chris Purdon's sonics to the left and main-man Nik Turner centre stage to my right. Thomas Crimble's keyboards were on the far right and that meant, that once again, he was invisible to me except for when I made a trip to the bar. And that was a shame as he is sporting a fine head of hair these days that veers towards the mad professor look.

That left Gary Smart on bass to take up the rather narrow holding position between Nik and Terry.

Clearly arranging Space Ritual on the stage is a problematic as getting the seating right at the reception.

The other fans took their preferred positions too and, just like a wedding, there was some jostling for drinks, the best place to take photos and to dance with the chief bridesmaid.

This movement reintroduced friends who had not met since the last bash, or was it another one? Memories are exchanged, gaps filled and plans made.

The changed line-up suggested a heavier sound but that quickly proved not to be the case and we were treated to the usual Space Ritual fusion of jazzy spacey funky rock that makes them sound like nobody else, least of all any of the other bands that build on the Hawkwind legend, including Hawkwind themselves. The song remains the same but it sounds very different.

This free-form and confident style was reflected in the set list. There was one, and I took a photo of it to prove it, but it was hastily written in faint pencil and got abandoned after a few songs anyway.

We had a few surprises along the way, like Urban Guerrilla, which I never really liked that much, and even a Space Ritual version did not do much to excite me. It sounds like a single to me when I prefer long album tracks.

Long album tracks like Orgone Accumulator which they did an absolutely blinding version of. It was easily worth the price of the tickets just for that.

And being Space Ritual the music comes with some dancing from Ms Angel who had some new costumes to play with and also had a chance to play with Chris' electronics.

So cramped was the stage that when I returned from my foray to the bar I found Ms Angel dancing in the space I had vacated!

All too soon it was time for the bride and groom to leave for their new life together and the rest of us were left to wonder when we would be doing it all again. Soon I hope.

Finding some nice things in Dalston

2012-01-24T00:31:00.000Z

Arriving unexpectedly early gave me a bit of time to explore Dalston before the theatre and I love exploring London so that is what I did.

Immediately out of the station is the lively Ridley Road marked stuffed with unusual food stuffs including fish arranged by colour, enormous yams and chillies that look as pretty as I am sure they are tasty.

There are a few other stalls too, such as kitchenware, clothes and music but it is mostly food and it is all attractive and very cheap.

Following Ridley Road to the end (not a short walk) and then circling round Matalan to the right takes you to Hackney Archives which seems to be a posh name and a posh building for a public library. I approve in principle but it is not that welcoming for people trying to get introduced to books for the first time.

Opposite the library is an amazing mural.

This is the Hackney Peace Carnival Mural painted in 1985 to commemorate the 1983 Hackney Peace Carnival.

This is just a part of it but you can feel the excitement and the music.

London has a fine tradition of murals, it has more than any other city that I am aware of (there were around a dozen in Brixton when I worked there), and finding a new one is a highlight of any urban exploration.

There are some seats there too so you can sit there for a while and appreciate all of the detail in the picture.

Who could not love this?

The mural also acts as the reception area for one of London's forgotten spaces, the Dalston Eastern Curve Garden.

The to the garden entrance, unlike the library opposite, draws you in expectantly. It's like being a child again following Rupert in to a Cornish cave.

As its name suggests, the garden is an attempt to reclaim a disused railway line for community use.

So many of these areas lie forgotten behind high walls and I welcome their return to life.

This project is in early days but already the vision of the project is clear and the foundations have been laid to make those dreams come true.

The community use is served by the covered area at one end.

Here children of all ages can gather to learn, play or just sit and enjoy the rest of the garden.

This space feels different from those around it and that feeling seeps in to you and the Victorian city outside recedes from sight and memory.

The planting has only just begun so you have to rely a little on your imagination, and the free leaflet, to anticipate what it will look like once everything is in place. This Summer looks like a good time to go back and see how the work is progressing. It should be warmer too.

The garden has a fun side too.

The industrial walls that enclose and define the shape have not been hidden, instead they have been celebrated as part of the garden.

The painting on the wall is fun and so are the heads hanging on the wall.

By then it was almost time for curtain up (metaphorically speaking, the Arcola theatre does not have a curtain) and time to let this little bit of magic slip away.

This was only a little detour on the way from the station to the theatre but it did enough to convince me to take a longer detour and to linker a little longer in Dalston next time I go to the theatre there.

Copyright's conceits

2012-01-20T14:08:00.000Z

SOPA and PIPA may have caught the headlines recently but there has been a lively debate on copyright for several years now and there have been other subtle changes, such as the harmonisation (i.e. lengthening) of some copyright periods.

I am firmly against copyright restrictions for several reasons, for example I am swayed by the argument that openness leads to greater wealth/value creation, but my main argument is the sheer conceit of the whole concept of copyright.

It's all my own work

Giving copyright to a work to a single individual makes the preposterous claim that all the intellectual effort that went in to producing it is theirs and theirs alone. This ignores the necessary contributions from teachers who built the skills, peers and friends who guided the work, and other vast army of artists who created the cultural environment in which the new work sits.

In music this is often recognised with Band A being honest and saying that they were influenced by Bands B and C. But Band A gets all the money.

Only I could have done it

This assertion claims that the work is so unique that only the author could have created and, by implication, anybody who produces any similar work must have copied the "original".

The obvious counter argument to this is the story of the young boy and an owl who learns he is a wizard and goes off to school to learn about magic. That, of course, is the story of Neil Gaiman's The Books of Magic.

Not only is it true that somebody else could have produce the work it is also very likely that somebody else could have done something similar but better.

Copyright is a lie

These two lies make copyright a falsehood and it should be abolished.

January's KSoc Committee Meeting

2012-01-16T23:25:00.004Z

Having agreed to join the committee of the Kingston upon Thames Society I then found myself working in Cardiff when I should have been attending their monthly meetings and it took me until January to arrange a work at home day so that I could attend.

We meet in one of the committee members' houses and the location rotates. This month I had a pleasant walk of 3.15 Km that took me 29 minutes according to my phone and the useful iMapMyWalk app.

The Society concerns itself with development matters and there were a few significant topics to get our teeth in to. Tolworth Broadway might be about to lose its hideous and divisive barriers, Seething Wells might finally get a sympathetic development and Primark might get an awful lot bigger.

On societal matters we discussed our application for a grant to the Heritage Lottery Fund (somehow I got volunteered to do that), our AGM on 18 January (when I'll be in Cardiff again), possible speakers for future events, holding a garden party or other such social event, publicity, membership and the website.

We also drifted on to some of our favourite topics like Huf Haus (we love them, some residents hate them) and buses (we love them too).

I found it an interesting and productive meeting and I look forward to get more involved in things like publicity where I can exploit my talents and my interests.

A few months in to the new role and I'm still glad that I agreed to join.

The Winter Palace reimagined by Simon Fraser

2012-01-14T14:53:00.001Z

The saga of Nikolai Dante in 2000AD is drawing to a close and is doing so in style. The story is propelled by intra-familial rivalries that out-do Eastenders with their violence (torture is a family habit) and inspire bloody revolutions that engulf a large empire.

Capturing the dynamism of the action and the grandeur of the setting is the stunning art work of Simon Fraser.

This is his view of the Winter Palace in St Petersburg rebuilt in the twenty-seventh century by Dmitri Romanov, Patriarch of the Romanov dynasty (and Nikolai's father), as the symbol of the new empire.

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

2012-01-12T00:40:00.004Z

Films escape on to DVD so quickly these days that it takes something pretty unusual to entice me in to the cinema.

Previously that has been things like Avatar in 3D and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest, the final instalment of the Millennium series by Stieg Larsson (the original version in Swedish, of course).

This time it was just the happy circumstance of being near a cinema, on a free afternoon, when I film I quite fancied watching was just about to start.

Having the Odeon iPhone app to hand helped make this happen.

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (a.k.a. MI4) arrived five years after MI3 which is a long time to wait for another chapter.

MI4 acknowledges its place in the canon. Some characters from previous stories appear, including one of the core team with Ethan, and we also hear what happened to Ethan's wife who played a large part in the previous film.

The Ghost Protocol is a simple but clever device to simplify the technology deployed which (mostly) takes us away from the high-tech stunts that have characterised some of the previous films.

This helps to make the film less episodic and more continuous with the stunts supporting the plot rather than the other way round. Overall the feel is more like the old TV series where there is more drama from the possibility of their schemes being detected than from them going wrong.

Of course there are stunts and the main one is the climb of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the worlds tallest building.

This was a little overpowering for someone with my vertiginous tendencies and I found myself sliding back in my seat so that I would not fall of it.

And that was typical of the film; tense, dramatic and exciting. The plot twisted nicely a couple of times too, sometimes to twist again in another direction.

I went in to the cinema expecting something classy and clever but essentially superficial. What I got was a lot more. This is a really good film and leaves you panting for MI5.

The only thing that let it down was the end. The very end. As Ethan walks towards the camera for the last time he has clearly got his iPhone earphones on the wrong way round. Somebody should tell him the microphone goes on the right.

Richmond galleries

2012-01-10T23:34:00.000Z

Once upon a time the councillors of Richmond upon Thames had a high opinion of themselves and built an impressive Town Hall on the riverside. Then they grew out of that and moved to a bigger newer building in Twickenham, also on the river.

That left the Town Hall in Richmond looking for a purpose. So it became a library. And a museum. And a gallery.

The library is in the middle of the sandwich occupying the first floor. It's just a library. There's nothing wrong with that but there are other places to get books or to access the internet so I have no reason for going there.

The Riverside Gallery occupies a couple of modest rooms on the ground floor.

The current exhibition has the enticing title Jem Panufnik: Riverside Robo-Attack!

For those of us old enough to remember, these pictures sweep you back to the days of underground comics when the likes of Robert Crumb and Gilbert Shelton exploded our minds with psychedelics legally.

As if to make the point, one of the pictures was a clear homage to Keep on Truckin'.

It's only a little gallery but it packs a reasonable punch and it's town centre location makes it an easy place to pop-in to.

Sneaking past the library to climb to the top floor takes you in to Richmond Museum.

This is about the same size and has the same cluttered feel as an attic. And it's in the attic.

The reason that I was charmed up the stairs was to see "a Georgian panorama of the Riverside between Richmond and Barn Elms".

This is a collection of 46 watercolour drawings covering 15 miles of the river in a single line that stretches 10m showing the Surrey bank on the top and the Middlesex bank at the bottom.

This section shows Syon House at the bottom facing Kew Gardens at the top. Neither has changed that much since Georgian times.

It's a fascinating display and the museum helpfully provides both magnifying glasses and mirrors so that you can get a close look at both banks.

This sort of local history appeals to me and the effort of the climb was amply rewarded.

First visit to Kew Gardens in 2012

2012-01-08T19:07:00.001Z

With the office closed between Christmas and the New Year there was plenty of free time to see the family and also to pay a visit to Kew Gardens with friends.

I am not very good with heights (to say the least) but the Rhizotron and Xstrata Treetop Walkway was an obvious place to start. Walking among the trees at this height gives you great views of and through the trees as the seasons change.

This is as bare as it gets and the circular walkway is clearly visible from the ground.

I've been up there quite a few times now but it's still challenging. Luckily it was not that busy and I could walk round carefully and leisurely while trying to ignore the swaying, creaking and bending. It was good to hear at one of the rest points a mother explain to her two young girls that Dad had stayed below because he does not like it up there. It's not just me then.

The walkway is simple but clever.

It winds between the trees so that you really do get up close and personal.

The construction is reassuringly solid with high side yet is made from mesh so that the wind ignores it and you still get good views even when cowering with fear on the floor.

The downside is that the floor is equally transparent and that is somewhat less reassuring.

I tend to play safe and walk on the supporting girders whenever possible and I only stop to take in the view in the frequent observation bays above the supporting pillars.

And the views are definitely worth stopping for.

The Temperate House vies with the walkway for construction plaudits, and wins easily. The Victorians really knew how to build large greenhouses.

The walkway reveals more of the structure of the Temperate House than is obvious from the ground or inside. The uniform straight lines of the roof fall down like heavy rain then disappear to be replaced by gentle curves and the extravagant decoration of the fanlight.

Returning safe to the ground I headed for the Waterlily Pond to swap mechanical beauty for natural wonder.

And how better to demonstrate natural wonder than a peacock or four.

I had seen peacocks at Kew before but never this number and never this close. This one almost brushed me as he walked past.

Annoyingly peacocks walk with little jerks and refuse to pause for the many cameras that quickly appear from coat pockets as they approach.

I tried a few times to get a close-up of the Liberty fabric inspiring tail feathers and got badly composed and blurred photos for my efforts.

Luckily most of the things in Kew Gardens are pretty static and you only have to worry about the breeze moving them.

Just up from the pond is the lake. This is the view from the north end looking south-east. If you look carefully you can see the Sackler Crossing that is just over half way down the lake. More impressively if you look even closer you can see through the crossing to the trees beyond. Like the walkway earlier, the crossing is designed to stop people falling over/in also to also let light and wind pass through.

From there is was a gentle stroll toward White Peaks where I discovered a latte, some cake and a mince pie.

Rested, the final leg was past Kew Palace, through the Queen's Gardens, past the lake by the strange Nash Conservatory and then out of the main gate on to Kew Green.

Kew Gardens has a clever knack of filling a couple of weekend hours effortlessly and pleasantly. That's why I keep going.

The Charity That Began At Home at the Orange Tree

2012-01-04T23:19:00.000Z

The Charity That Began At Home is this year's seasonal offering from the Orange Tree, but I'm not sure why.

It's billed as a comedy and while it certainly has quite a few comic moments it also has some long slow sections where other emotions are more at play.

The premise is simple and quite clever.

A country lady, Lady Denison, is persuaded by the preaching of a Mr Hylton (pictured) that charity does indeed begin at home and that she should invite to her house an assortment of people who nobody else will invite, for reasons that soon become clear.

There include a very prim and proper teacher of German, a woman who feels she is entitled to much respect because of her distant connections to a minor aristocrat, a businessman who is down on his luck and pushes business opportunities at every chance, a young man who had to leave the army in disgrace and the general who has an infinite supply of stories of his times abroad, none of which he ever finishes and all of which are tedious in the extreme.

Having contrived to bring this mixed and dysfunctional bunch in to the same place the comedy flows easily as each character exaggerates their faults (the German teacher is wonderfully angular) and these rub off on each other.

The play could go on like that and simply milk the humour from the characters, much like Dad's Army or Benidorm, but then two things go wrong.

Firstly the guests find out why they have been invited and this makes them angry and most of them leave.

Secondly the wayward army man and the Lady's daughter fall in love.

The play changes direction at this point. Or, to be a little harsh, it loses direction at this point. The comedy disappears with the comic characters and is replaced by an examination of motives and forgiveness as those left try to come to terms with the new situation.

The question that is asked, but left to us to answer, is whether Lady Denison was acting in her own interests or that of her guests in inviting them to her house.

The young couple get engaged to be married in the open knowledge that he wants a comfortable life with a pretty (and rich) woman, who he does love to be fair to him, and she sees changing his ways as her mission in life.

This is not a marriage made to last but you'll have to see the play yourself to see whether it does or not. That's if you care.

I must admit that the end ending of the play left me cold despite the tender moment pictured here happening right next to me.

I think that I would have been happier if the play ended after the third act (of four) and left us with a comedy, albeit one that ends on a sour note.

Walking to Teddington

2012-01-03T01:19:00.001Z

The best bit about living in Ham is the easy access to nice places to go for a walk. Nice places like Teddington Lock.

A wide path built for for pedestrians and cyclists passes my house and winds gently down to the river where it joins the tow-path that links Kingston to Richmond far more scenically than the main road does.

Turning right at the river leads to Richmond and the first stop along the way is Teddington.

The first thing that you notice is the weir.

You hear the water tumbling down the man-made steps and see the devices that attempt to control the river by creating a smooth passage to the lock that skirts past the violent route taken by most of the water.

The barriers and machinery have been built with only functional thoughts in mind and absolutely no attempt has been made to disguise or beautify them. This industry in the water mirrors that of the ramshackle boats moored at the edge of it.

Just beyond the weir is the lock.

Teddington Lock is big, as it needs to be to cater for the large pleasure boats that fill this stretch of the river in warmer times.

Walking to the far end of the lock you can appreciate its size. For a start you can hardly see the brick office where the lock-keepers do their work and you certainly cannot see beyond that to the other end of the lock.

You can see the two houses at the side of the lock that give further evidence of its size and the number of staff that were once required to work it.

The main lock is on the left here ad there are three other passageways to the right. This lock caters for boats of all sizes right down to the canoeists who have rollers to ease their path.

The footbridge that takes you across to Teddington also provides excellent views both upstream and downstream and this causes most people to pause as they cross.

These are views that I never tire of.

Looking upstream gives another view of the weir complex where sturdy barriers keep foolhardy boats away from the turbulent waters.

Oblivious of this, two ducks skip lightly away from the artificial island that supports the bridge over the broad river.

There may be danger here but their is calm and beauty too.

The second span of the bridge takes you from the island to Teddington where the Anglers awaits.

If you can resist that temptation then the Tide End is almost next door.

I went to the Anglers. This is a nice enough pub but the locals and dart board have been usurped by children and gastro food.

The bridge has not changed, however, except for the occasional lick of new paint.

Somehow its construction seems far more solid than necessary to support just a few pedestrians and (dismounted) cyclists.

Looking downstream this time gives another view of the lock, this time trying to hide beyond the island, and also of a few small boats moored in the shelter of the island.

This is a river of two halves.

On this side (Middlesex) the weir has been tamed to create a space that is quiet and residential and on the other side (Surrey) there is the bustle of commerce through the lock.

The other side also has trees and fields so having dallied briefly in Teddington it is with pleasure that I return back over the bridge to Ham and the footpath home.

Lady S. by Van Hamme and Aymond

2012-01-01T19:28:00.000Z

I have the Forbidden Planet International Blog to thank for introducing me to Lady S.

Their positive review for the latest volume to be published in English persuaded me to buy all three volumes as a Christmas treat for myself (I like to buy my own Christmas presents then I know that I'll get things that I like).

Lady S. tells the story of a young woman with an interesting history that includes being a refugee, petty criminal, diplomat's aide and agent for a shadowy anti-terrorist organisation.

The first English volume covers the first two Belgian volumes which first introduce Lady S. and then tell the story of her first mission.

Lady S.'s history reveals itself to be more complex and interwoven than we expected at first and this is nicely done through a succession of time-slips that show us that history in a series of self-contained episodes.

Here, early on in the story, Lady S. is at a reception with her diplomat father when an unexpected voice takes her back to her escape from Russian controlled Estonia.

This is also a typical example of the fluid artwork.

The layout is standard comic book with the page divided in to rectangles with gutters between the panels.

The panels are standard too with the scene almost always drawn from eye-level at medium distance. Occasionally the viewpoint is raised or lowered but not enough to change the feel of the story-telling.

The simplicity of the layouts and the panels makes the story flow quickly, which is just what you want from a thriller, but while the art takes second place to the words it still plays a big part in the fun and I love the feel of the snowscape and the way that it contrasts with the earlier scene.

In her first adventure Lady S. gets embroiled with a plot to expose Turkey's support for Georgian rebels. Of course it proves to be more complicated than that and the plot twists beautifully around double-agents and fake documents.

This is sophisticated and intelligent story-telling.

Volume 1 concludes with Lady S. gaining her moniker and accepting that she has no choice other than to join the secret organisation that has recruited her.

Volume 2 takes us to Stockholm and a audacious plan to kidnap the Nobel laureates. Again the plot twists and turns and people are not always who you think they are.

Lady S. gets fooled and falls for one of the false trails and only manages to recover the situation by recalling a chance remark from earlier.

It's another cracking story that runs so quickly that the plot curves blur as they sweep past you.

The final English volume (there are more in French) has Lady S. on the run when her past as a thief, a "hotel mouse", on the Cote d'Azur catches up with her.

As she runs from the CIA and the local police she is aided by the organisation that she is working for, the Centre for Anti-Terrorism Research and Intelligence Gathering (CATRIG), and in doing so we learn more about them and their purpose.

I read all three volumes in a single sitting and was totally captivated by the pace, flow and twists of the story.

Lady S. is quickly developed as a believable character who has a reason for being where and what she is with skills honed as a refugee on the run and living on her wits as a thief.

There are no special gadgets (e.g. James Bond or Mission Impossible) and no exceptional talents (e.g. Bourne or the Saint). She is just a bright girl who knows how to play tricks.

I am sure that Cinebook will be doing English versions of the other volumes before too long and I'll be buying them.

A quick trip to the London Wetland Centre

2011-12-28T21:24:00.002Z

It is a fair point to argue that not visiting the London Wetland Centre in Barnes for almost two years is making poor use of my membership but at least my recent quick trip there helped to reduce the cost per visit ratio.

The main purpose of this visit was to try out some binoculars, they have an excellent shop in the upper level of the shop, but I was not going to miss the opportunity to stretch my legs in the wild.

The Wetlands are, broadly, laid out in a U shop with the entrance, shops and cafe at the base of the U.

Heading up the left side first took me along a series of curved paths through tall reeds and past ponds and canals.

Here you can get quite close to ducks, geese and swans, though there are not that many still around in December.

This area is zoned with large gates to keep the birds in their proper places.

For some reason flying over the fence does not occur to them.

The paths divide and reconvene at intervals extending a short walk in to a reasonable one. The end is marked with a hide that peers over the still water and on to Barnes.

The other side of the U has a different character with straighter paths and no fences. The end is the same though except that the hide at the end, the impressive Peacock Tower, is three stories high to provide more commanding views of the area.

All of the hides are more-or-less the same, and there are several across the centre. They are basic sheds with little attention to the comfort of the human inhabitants who probably would not notice them if they were there anyway as they are all well prepared with all you need to survive a day in a shed looking at birds.

At least the hides are well-equipped for bird watching with an abundance of shallow windows that can be opened in sections to remove the unwanted obscurity of the glass.

This is the view from the Peacock Tower across the grazing marshes and with the incongruous Barnes behind.

The restrained animation from the hide's inhabitants indicated that there were several birds worth looking at from here but you needed rather moor zoom than I was carrying at the time to see them.

Not that the birds particularly interested me, I was happy enough with the marshes and the walk required to get there.

The London Wetland Centre is a unique and valuable habitat that successfully holds at bay the city that surrounds it. I am lucky to have it on my doorstep and a bus to take me there. Must do that more often, perhaps in Spring when there are more birds around.

La Traviata at the Royal Opera House

2011-12-27T16:39:00.000Z

Once upon a time I had season tickets for the ballet at the Royal Opera House but that was about twenty five years ago and the Royal Opera House has rarely featured in my plans since then.

The last time I was tempted out to Covent Garden was to see The Bartered Bride (because of it's Czech/Slovak origins) and that was before this blog started, which makes it more than six years ago.

It is not that I have been especially avoiding the place, more that it has not done quite enough to attract me, whereas the likes of Glyndebourne and the English National Opera have.

What finally overcame my reluctance was an offer, through work, to see that most quintessential of operas, La Traviata.

As with other work offers, the tickets were on the cheap side, a mere £32, and that meant being several levels up and back in row K.

The seat was in the central section so the height was not much of an issue, like it's not at Glyndebourne either, and I could see the whole stage.

That said, row K is probably about as far as I would want to push my luck and those further back in the even cheaper seats, it climbs up as far as row W somehow, must have struggled to see parts of the stage even if they had the excellent eyesight required to cope with the extra distance.

La Traviata has a simple poignant story and who would not be swayed by the tale of boy meets girl, they live happily together, they split up for noble reasons, they are eventually reconciled and confirm their undying love for each other. Then she dies.

The split is manufactured by the boy's father, a mistake that he too regrets at the end.

The opera rotates around the three lead roles of the girl (La Traviata), boy's father and boy, in that order, with at least one of them on stage at all times and usually carrying the main singing duties.

There are some other notable roles, such as the boy's rival for the girl's attention, but these are much lesser parts and were delivered with less bravado. To be honest, the story and the opera would have worked without them.

The chorus too played its part in the two party scenes but it seemed a little timid at the first time of asking and only rose to the occasion at the second. Indeed the support singing was so weak at the start that I had to strain to hear it, something that I have never had to do at Glydebourne.

The opera improved quickly when the main soloists were given a chance to show off and either the support got better or I got more forgiving of it.

Hell is other people, as they say, and the other people in the cheap seats tried to live up to this with their whispering, drinking, rustling, unrestrained coughing and incessant clapping whenever the music paused for breath.

At times it felt more like being at a musical, or even a circus, than at a major opera in what would like to think of itself as the country's premier opera house.

But the best efforts of the inexperienced audience did little to diminish the beautiful music radiating from the orchestra pit and stage and their distractions were easily ignored.

La Traviata was delivered considerately and professionally leaving the music to tell the story and to convey the considerable emotion that defines the opera. There may have been nothing specific to mark the performance out as exceptional but neither was there anything specifically wrong with it and that left us with a good opera well presented.

Back to the Willoughby Pub Quiz

2011-12-24T17:48:00.002Z

I had been avoiding the Willoughby Pub Quiz because they finish late on Sunday night and I'm often up at 6am to catch a train to Cardiff but a Monday working at home meant that I could afford to be a little late.

Even so I was not that keen on the quiz and decided not to go out until after ten in the hope that it would be well under-way by the time that I got there. It wasn't.

I got roped in to play with Rick, the landlord, and the questions were kind to us and we won quite comfortably, despite getting 2/10 in the last round and 4/10 in another one.

It is always nice to win something, even if the prize is a some freebie from a brewery (which is much better than the usual something-from-the-pound-shop), but after the win comes the pressure to run a quiz yourself. I weakened and agreed to do one the following week.

The proposed round on opera failed to work but eventually I managed to craft something challenging from cities north and south of London, shipwrecks, museums and galleries in London, film sequels, elections in 2011 and sitcom couples.

I even did two picture rounds instead of the customary one. The first was on recent UK stamps (very easy) and then this one on cats in cartoons and comics.

This proved to be a fairly high-scoring round, as expected, but there are a few hard ones in there and none of the teams got full marks.

I had a lot of fun compiling and running the quiz and may be tempted to do another one. If asked.

Christmas with Big Ideas

2011-12-22T19:31:00.000Z

The Big Ideas Christmas social was a blast despite, or because of, its simplicity.

The venue was the same as for the monthly meetings, the upstairs function room at The Wheatsheaf in Fitzrovia with its fake but cute Tudor windows, the people were the same and the eagerness to talk was the same.

The only difference was that we did not have a theme for the evening or somebody to guide us but we did have a good finger buffet that I visited more often than I probably should have.

Seasoned conversationalists need no encouragement to mix and that's what we did but this time I did not take any notes.

Without a set theme the talk veered in several disparate directions, most of which I've forgotten.

The ones that I do recall were the crisis of capitalism (always a good choice at Big Ideas), our relentless animalistic pursuit for sex (always difficult discussing that one with women) and the architecture in Minsk.

In the middle of all this we had time for a quiz on philosophy and mathematics. We formed ourselves in to small teams and attacked the questions with vigour.

Round One was on logic and that meant using lots of algebra to work out the agree of five brothers and their cats. This should have been my strong point but the forceful Alicia insisted in taking control. Luckily she is good at this stuff.

Round Two was anagrams of philosophers names with helpful pictures of them all as clues, if you had any idea of what they looked like. Somebody on our table, Sam maybe, did and we got most of them. Examples included bent gift idolizer, exam brew, impale glacial, magicians or not, much facile lout, and, sweet indulging twit.

Round Three was DitLoIDs, a combination of letters and symbols that represented a philosophical saying. For example, G = D meant God is dead. Simples. Other clues included H = OP, M = by N a PA, M = the M of all T, and, B that S which 1Tl. I was pretty useless on these due to a weakness in all areas philosophical but as a team we were OK.

Round Four required us to draw lies that did not cross on a torus (ring-doughnut). This should have been a cinch for somebody who studied Topology at university, like I did, but I failed miserably. Luckily none of the other teams could do it either.

And so we won. The prize was a large tin of Celebrations chocolates which we promptly shared with everybody. It seemed appropriate.

The quiz over we returned to our conversations and drinks until the pub quietly told us that we had to go home as they were closing.

I love Big Ideas for its thought-provoking discussions and the Christmas social was just a bolder brasher and slightly less structured evening of what they do well. A great event.

Hoaxwind, Hawkwind and Hoaxwind

2011-12-21T22:36:00.000Z

One set of songs, two bands and three concerts proved to be the recipe for a great evening. As expected.

The catalyst was the annual Hawkwind Christmas Concert which still feels a little homeless after the untimely demise of the Astoria.

Having tried the Shepherd's Bush Empire two years ago and then the HMV Forum last year it was back to the sprawling mess of West London.

At least it is easier to get back from there late at night.

Hoaxwind took advantage of the date and the location to play in O'Neill's next door.

This is the nearest pub to the Empire and so was full of receptive Hawkwind fans when the fun kicked off around 7:15.

I had not long arrived by then but the quick service had already provided the first Guinness of the evening.

The pub is laid out for food and drink but there is a raised area that makes a reasonable stage and it's wide enough to accommodate the many members of Hoaxwind with some comfort.

Hoaxwind did what Hoaxwind do and that's a brisk Calvert-era Hawkwind songs like Kerb Crawler and Ejection. There is slightly more emphasis on the "rock" rather than the "space" but the air is still thick with weird electronics to show that they've not strayed too far from the Mother Ship.

They kept us well entertained until 8:30 and then it was time to head next door.

Hawkwind fans obviously do not like walking very far and the area just inside the entrance of the Empire was packed but after some forceful squeezing spaces appeared and it was possible to get pretty close to the front on the left.

Judging by the photos, I was in almost exactly the same spot two years ago.

And Hawkwind did what Hawkwind do too.

They've mellowed with age and in a nice way. The song selection favours the long ballad over the quick thrash and these are extended with riffs, warbles and subtle references to other songs.

That's not to say that they do not rock, because they do, and loudly, as you would expect with a band featuring three guitarists.

It's just that their sound changes as the band changes and the current line-up makes a lot of Tim Blake's keyboards with the guitars playing complementary roles rather than all pounding out the same beat at the same time.

A slight change this year is that Mr Dibs has assumed the mantle of lead vocalist for most songs rather than just those that he wrote.

The ability of Team Hawkwind and their confidence in it means that they can throw in new songs and leave out established crowd favourites and still make it an excellent concert.

New this time was Seasons and notably absentees included Master of the Universe and Brainstorm. Yes, we really had a Hawkwind concert without Brainstorm.

What we did get was around fifteen songs smoothly stretched over two hours.

It was all good but the ending was magic. Closing the main set was Silver Machine, complete with heavy audience participation (even from me) and then came the encore of The Psychedelic Warlords and Spirit of the Age. Two of my favours songs from one of my favourite bands. Nice!

That would have been a great end to a great night but the pub next door was still open and Hoaxwind were playing again.

This time the lights were low and the audience warmed up, musically and drinkingly, and ready for more of both.

Hoaxwind delivered more Hawkwind songs in their own manner that differed from both their original incarnations and the way that Hawkwind play them now.

And that's how it should be. There has to be more to a tribute band than straight copies otherwise you might as well stay at home and play the originals.

The fun went on to Midnight when the curfew came in to play and it was time to catch a tube or two back to Richmond.

Hawkwind were polished, professional and pulsating but Hoaxwind held their own in comparison and helped to make a great evening even better.

Christmas with LIKE

2011-12-18T10:57:00.001Z

For various reasons, I do not have a works Christmas Do this year but that is OK as the people I work with are (mostly) just people that I work with and there are other Christmas Dos to go to. Such as the one with LIKE.

The LIKE Christmas Party shows just what can be achieved if you get a few well-motivated and well-organised people together to do the planning and the on-the-day running around. It was a team effort but Nova Dobb led the way.

Much of the event was fairly standard, but still needed to sorted. We held the party in the function room of the Rugby Tavern who did an excellent job in preparing the room and providing the food and drink.

A couple of little things made it a LIKE party.

Once we had all arrived and settled in with our glasses of bubbly we had a networking game to play.

Each person going had revealed something unusual about themselves, such as having a GCSE in Welsh, and everybody had a card with nine of these on and the aim was to mix and find the nine people on your card.

To add a little twist, I was given the scoring to do and was told I could award prizes on any basis that I liked, there was one main and five lesser prizes to distribute.

I was fair and reasonable in my approach and awarded the main prize to the first completed card that I received that did not have as one of the answers the person with the card. Other prizes went to people who got found more than one correct answer to some of the questions, getting them all right despite one of the answers not being in the room and for taking the networking more seriously than the game and so getting the lowest score.

We also had a Secret Santa with a difference - it had to cost no more that £1. That took several of us into pound shops for the first time. I went to Poundland in Cardiff and felt horribly out of place in a suit.

The presents were distributed simply by putting your present at a place setting on any table other than your own.

There were other traditional trappings of Christmas parties, such as hot mince pies and short speeches, that made it Christmassy but this was a LIKE Christmas and was all the more fun because of that.

Kew Gardens (December 2011)

2011-12-17T19:40:00.000Z

After a spell of disappointing weekends the sun finally came out and dragged me back to Kew Gardens.

It was cold too, which is good for me too as it kept the less hardy away and made it easier to get around and to take photographs without bright red or yellow coats in them.

Sitting on the top deck of the 65 I decided to go in via Victoria Gate prompted by the desire to keep away from the woodland areas that were keeping the sunlight and sunwarmth at bay.

Heading east (away from the trees) took me past the large (and strangely unnamed) water that separates the Palm House from the exhibition centre. Here the people are very obvious by their absence as it is normally impossible to take a picture here without inappropriate clothing featuring in it somewhere.

I may have been braver than some in facing the cold but the thought of being indoors was still tempting so I made the short walk to the Princess of Wales Conservatory.

It is my least favourite of the Kew greenhouses because it is not Victorian and does not have an upper walkway but it does have an elegant geometric roof that hints at the different areas and levels underneath it.

I still find it confusing inside which is how I found myself next to some small water features in a corner on a lower level that I am certain that I had not see before.

The large water feature I see every time, though this is a place where it is especially hard to avoid people. And children. The water can be appreciate from several angles and I took this picture from the ramp that bisects the water as it takes you between the two levels.

The waterlillies are always impressive in their roundness and I like the way that the straight lines from the reflections of the roof challenge that orthodoxy.

A similar contrast can be found in one of the small rooms that cluster in the north-east corner.

There is no roundness here but the bold straight lines of these plants burst from points whereas the construction has parallel lines and squares.

I was pleasantly surprised at how many of the orchids in the greenhouse were in flower providing unusual colours for the season.

A reminder that this greenhouse comes into its own early in the year when the orchids are in full strength.

Elsewhere bananas were thriving and other large leafed plants had take advantage of the reduced number of visitors to try and reclaim some of the walkways by shooting across them.

Venturing outside again via the east exit I headed to the grass garden nearby and I hope that this picture shows why.

The variety and profusion of grasses here is a joy. They look like a crowd at a concert or in a night club having a marvellous time swinging to the music borne by the wind.

Dark London

2011-12-13T20:59:00.001Z

Night crawls in to London.

The black seeps relentlessly along the streets, through the towns and across the Boroughs uniting them in their gloom.

But London is the city that never sleeps and it shrugs nightfall off as it would a breeze, a frisky shower or the unexpected arrival of a confused whale.

The sole concession made is to switch a few lights on and even this casual act goes beyond the mere functional provision of illumination and London grabs the opportunity to show another side of its character, to change it shape and to slow things down just a little.

Taking the familiar walk along the South Bank reveals the truth of this. Even with the assistance of turbulent clouds and a tar-black river it is the lights of London that win the futile contest.

The lights on the far bank bounce across the water from grand buildings while on the south side the lights are more frivolous playing among the trees and resting on the footpath as they guide you safely towards Waterloo and home.

The Thin White Duke in Petersham (Dec 2011)

2011-12-11T14:30:00.001Z

After a heavy run of theatres and exhibitions it was good to go to a concert again with The Thin White Duke returning to the Fox and Duck. This was the fourth time that I had seen them there and, as always, it was a total blast.

The Fox and Duck likes The Thin White Duke as much as I do and turns out in force to sing and dance to the music of David Bowie.

I'll admit to joining in on the singing bit, how can you not shout out "Hot Tramp, I love you so" during Rebel Rebel, but I draw the line at dancing, to the relief of those having a good time.

The Thin White Duke have a wide repertoire of Bowie songs to call upon and they like to mix the selection and the order a bit.

This time the first half was a bit ChangesOneBowie featuring some of the older classics like John, I'm Only Dancing, Oh You Pretty Things, Life on Mars and Space Oddity. All classics, all delivered superbly and all enthusiastically received.

After a short break to allow band and audience to refresh we moved forward a few years with songs like Fashion, Fame, China Girl and Boys Keep Swinging. If anything these were even better received which is probably more a reflection on the relative youth of the audience than anything else.

The thing that I like most about The Thin White Duke is that they are happy to stray boldly away from the hit singles on to territory like Moonage Daydream (the opener), Diamond Dogs, Breaking Glass and Hang on to Yourself. A little something for the purists there to enjoy.

The two hours or so that The Thin White Duke played just whizzed past in a whirl of good tunes, good humour and good times.

Afterwards I managed to collect a set list (which they more or less followed) and snatch a few words with some of the band. The best news there is that they are looking to improve their technology so that they can extend their repertoire to include songs like Station to Station. I hope to witness this soon, even if I have to trek to Berrylands to do so.

William Morris at Two Temple Place

2011-12-10T15:21:00.001Z

The temptation to go to the William Morris Gallery has been there for some years but it is in a part of London, Walthamstow, which my version of the A-Z leaves blank apart from the warning "here are dragons".

Actually, if I believed the dragons story I would have gone but I take it as a metaphorical warning rather than a literal one and that is still good enough to keep me away.

Deprived of the primary source of matters William Morris I have had to settle for the Arts and Crafts section at the V&A and the fabrics department at Liberty.

Then a stroke of luck.

The William Morris Gallery is closed for a while for refurbishment and some of the exhibits have been moved to Two Temple Place. As the name suggests, this is next to Temple station (District Line) in central London on the north bank of the Thames and so is easy to get to. And so I got to it.

Two Temple Place is a late Victorian mansion built by William Waldorf Astor and while its ownership and role has changed a few times over the years the original grand designs are still very apparent.

The Gothic revival is clearly at play on the outside. Inside the theme continues with lashings of wood lining the walls and decorating the rooms.

This is also redolent of Liberty which has its own beautiful staircases.

The house has two large rooms along the riverside of the house and these make ideal galleries. Also helpful is the way that the other rooms link so that you can walk from one to the other without having to repeatedly return to the hall or landing.

The inaugural exhibition at the recently revived building is William Morris: Story, Memory, Myth and is on until 29 January 2012.

This showed several sides of William Morris' work that were completely unknown to me having previously associated him almost exclusively with fabrics and wallpapers.

What we see spread through the house are tapestries, ceramics and books as well as the expected designs for furnishings.

The other surprise for me was that a lot of this work was done in collaboration with Edward Burne-Jones who I also love and who also has a notable presence at the V&A.

The title of the exhibition, Story, Memory, Myth, gives a good clue of what is on display. All the images presented to us are from stories and these are usually based on myths.

A stunning example hit you in the first room with the depiction of Love Leading the Pilgrim through the Briars which is taken from the Morris/Burne-Jones tale The Romance of the Rose. Like many of the exhibits, this is large and rich in detail and so a photograph does it little justice. You need to be in the room with it, stand back to comprehend the full scope of the picture (there are more figures in the scene) and stand close to appreciate the detail of the craftsmanship.

The smaller rooms shows us some ceramics and the familiar floral designs. What is nice that many of these are shown as work in progress with, for example, only some of the patterns coloured.

The Great Hall upstairs has some more large tapestries including my absolute favourite, Pomona, the goddess of fruits and harvests.

A google search reveals that this is a figure that Morris/Burne-Jones interpreted more than once. The figure (Burne-Jones) is the same but the background (Morris) varies significantly.

Also in the Great Hall were some illistrated books. Not only was Morris responsible for the typography and illustrations but he did the words too.

One of the books of poetry was in its fifth edition so they must have been popular at the time.

Another, The Volsunga Saga, a translation by Morris of a 13th century Icelandic epic poem could yet find its way on to my Christmas list (I'd like the copy on display but an ebook is more practicable).

William Morris: Story, Memory, Myth is a sumptuous exhibition that surprises and delights in equal measure.

Next Time I'll Sing To You at the Orange Tree

2011-12-09T17:43:00.001Z

After a run of fairly safe plays the Orange Tree did the decent thing and offered us something more challenging with Next Time Ill Sing To You by James Saunders (1963).

Sadly Richmond does not react well to challenging and the Friday evening performance that I went to was poorly attended. That may have been the competing attraction of the Victorian Evening but, as a rule, the Orange Tree audience is on the old side balanced (I'm in my mid-fifties and I usually feel young there) and like safe.

I always feel more comfortable when a theatre audience has a healthy mix of ages, nationalities and genders. The central London theatres generally do well in this respect being able to call upon large numbers of residents, visitors and students and Richmond is a lot more provincial in comparison.

Even more reason to be grateful to the Orange Tree for trying to push the conservative people of Richmond beyond their comfort zones.

Next Time I'll Sing To You makes it's intentions clear from the start when the first two actors on stage make it clear that they know that they are actors in a play following a script.

So we get lines like, "You said that last night" followed by "And you said that."

Lizzie is the exception claiming that she was not there the previous night, that was her twin sister.

This is a humorist view rather than an existentialist one so while themes of existence are explored it is done so with a big smile on its face.

As the play develops so the cast grows and we end up with five characters trying to make sense of the situation they find themselves in.

Or rather most do, one, Meff, treats the whole thing as a joke refusing to participate in the main theme (if there is one). For example, at one point he sits in the corner of the stage and swats pretend flies making exaggerated fly noises as he does so.

Gradually a main theme does emerge and we join one actor's quest to learn more about the character he is playing, the hermit of Great Canfield.

He is helped in this by Rudge, the director, who may not be what he seems. There are suspicions that he may have written the play but he denies this when asked.

Spoiling the party is Dust (a great Gormenghastian name), the cynic, who is, well, very cynical about the quest and the play itself. It may be because I liked his disinterested dead-pan demeanour that I found Brendan Patricks to be the stand-out actor but that is a little unfair as the five roles were very different and all five played their part very well.

Richmond may not have delivered the crowds for this performance but those of thus who chose drama over late night shopping and mulled wine were warmly appreciative of the treat we were served.

Next Time I'll Sing To You is very good theatre aimed at people who love theatre. People like me.

Jerusalem at the Apollo

2011-12-07T20:48:00.001Z

The long list of 5-star reviews made seeing Jerusalem an obvious choice. Having done so I am not sure what the other reviewers saw.

Yes it is good but I am not convinced that it is that good but let's start by saying what it is.

Jerusalem is Shameless set in Dale Farm.

Johnny Byron is lives in a caravan where he holds wild parties, sells drugs and holds court over a mixed group of other people living on the edge of society. "No hopers" may be a cruel but accurate description.

All the action, such as it is, takes place in and around the caravan in the woods. Having just one scene to play with means that the set designers can go to town, and they did. The caravan is surrounded by thick trees, the yard is appropriately cluttered, a large water tank keeps the beers cool and chickens scratch around under the caravan.

The large cast of secondary characters (they are all secondary to Johnny Byron, despite being strong characters in the own right portrayed by good actors) comes and goes and through their banter we learn more about them and a lot more about Johnny's past, present and future.

There are some plot lines but these hardly matter, what engages us is the dialogue. And a word of warning here, the language is very strong throughout.

The mood changes as we discover more about the situation. At first the impression is of a lovable Gypsy living the hippie dream (free love and drugs) who draws kindred spirits to him but there are some dark moments too with, just to name a few, a missing child, a broken marriage and a few acts of cruelty. We also have a heady mix of humour and hope to add to the concoction.

The mood-swings keep us guessing whether we are heading towards a happy or a sad ending until we realise that does not matter either, just as we do not need Godot to arrive to make that play work.

The ending that we are led to reminded me of The Lady or The Tiger except here it's bulldozers or giants. My money is on the bulldozers, but that's just a guess.

The play is all about Johnny Byron and it's abiding strength is Mark Rylance's magnificent performance in that role. We care for him, are jealous of him and are shocked by him.

Jerusalem grips and enthrals you and showers you with a mix of strong emotions. It's both a draining and rewarding experience, which is entirely appropriate.

The Lady Killers at the Gielgud

2011-12-06T20:55:00.001Z

If you know Father Ted, The IT Crowd and the film of The Lady Killers (and most people do) then you will have some idea of what to expect from the stage play. And you'll not be disappointed.

The play is well crafted in every respect and knows how to draw the comedy out of every situation, character, plot twist, object, scene and speech.

I'll try to explain some of that, starting with the easy ones.

The story is not quite the film but it's close enough for you to know what is going to happen. Sort of. It's the familiar story of an old woman up against a group of hardened criminals with only one possible outcome.

There are some nice scenes along the way, starting with the very opening with the old lady in conversation with her local Police Constable regarding her suspicions about her newsagent.

The set is bit of a star. For most of the time it is like looking in to a damaged doll's house with the rooms leaning at odd angles. Of course the main reason for this is to make the main parts of the house visible to us the audience and if the result is quirky and distinctive then that's a nice bonus.

The set twists and rotates occasionally to reveal the outside and the roof when the action moves that way. The depiction of the robbery is pure genius and was one of the very many points that compelled us to laugh out loud.

The heart of the play is the characterisation and the way that this is portrayed in the dialogue and acting.

Peter Capaldi leads the way as the maniacal Professor Marcus, the gang leader. He stalks the stage like a discordant stork with a touch of Dr Who (it's the scarf). He has to think on his feet to keep the truth from the old lady and you can see his brain whirl as he does so. It's all his fault basically.

Ben Miller is fantastic as the Eastern European tough guy who likes to talk with his knife that he brandishes frequently. A favourite moment of mine was his dead-pan delivery when trying to explain what he wants his share of the money for - no spoilers though, you'll have to see it yourself.

We also have James Fleet as the Major with an unnatural interest in dresses, Clive Rowe who has little clue as to what is going on and Stephen Wight as the young career criminal who has more enthusiasm than ability, he's also the butt of a stream of slapstick jokes (like the old waiter in One Man Two Guvnors).

The dialogue is crisp and purposeful delivering its humour with subtlety rather than taking the easy route with obvious punchlines or swearing (other plays take note).

The story and players change pace cutely building tension and humour and then gently releasing them, like in a good song. This is class writing.

The sum of all this craft and cleverness is a play that is seriously funny and with plenty of depth to warrant repeat visits.

BCSA Annual Dinner 2011

2011-12-06T11:29:00.001Z

The British Czech and Slovak Association's Annual Dinner is one of the two social highlights in its calendar. The other is the Summer Garden Party.

Bad planning on my part has meant that I have missed two out of the last three but this year I was organised enough to get the date in my diary early and to keep it free from encroaching concerts, theatre trips and other nefarious nights out.

The format of the Annual Dinner is simple and effective.

Around 150 people with an interest in things Czech/Slovak (not all of whom are BCSA members) meet at the Radisson Edwardian Bloomsbury Street Hotel at 7pm for a drinks reception.

We are then ushered in to the dining room where around twenty tables are laid out formally.

Seating is prearranged so it helps to know the organiser. There we have a set three-course meal with wine.

There is an after dinner speaker, as you would expect.

Usually it is one of the four ambassadors but this year, for reasons that I do not quite understand, we had Greg Hands MP for Hammersmith and Fulham who did something Czechoslovakish when at university but who has had no significant contact in the region since then.

It was a functional rather than a stirring speech but it was generally well-received. Not by me obviously as he is a Tory MP. And unbelievably smug too.

The one thing I will say in Greg's favour (just to show how fair, balanced and reasonable I am at all times) is that when I tweeted that I was on the table next to the "ultra-obnoxious Greg Hands" he retweeted the comment to his followers. Perhaps he thought it was a joke.

We also had the annual award for the BCSA's writing competition, a raffle and some time to mingle. And suddenly it was well past 11pm and time to head home happy.

The Annual Dinner is very much a British part of the BCSA and the traditional format is appreciated by everybody, including me.

TFPL Connect: Achieving Prosperity

2011-12-05T20:16:00.001Z

The last TFPL Connect event of the year was a little different from the usual and was the better for it.

It was billed as "Achieving Prosperity, how to grow with what you have" and promised an entertaining but insightful look at best practice for making a difference through utilising the soft skills of negotiation, and that is a pretty fair description of what we got.

We got it in the Crowne Plaza City hotel, a familiar haunt for TFPL events as it is close to their former offices in Blackfriars (TFPL are on their third office since I came across them).

The familiar venue was balanced by the unfamiliar format. Gone was the usual panel of speakers and instead we had just one.

Nick Davies of The Really Great Training Company was our guide for the evening and he delivered a lucid, flowing, insightful and entertaining talk on the 4 - 6 - 2 of persuasion.

And as you can see from the photo, he did this without the overused crutch of a PowerPoint presentation.

First we had the 4 mistakes that people make: being too tough, being too logical, treating it as a once-off (rather than part of a relationship) and trying to satisfy (stated) wants rather than (unspoken) needs.

These fail because buying is an emotional decision made by people. The success of the John Lewis Christmas ad is a case in point and an example that most of us are familiar with are making a major purchase like a house or car on emotion (it has character) and then trying to justify it on logic afterwards (it's close to a good school).

The 6 things you can do to influence the decision are to provide social proof (other people are doing it), show authority, sell scarcity (this offer is only available to you, exploit their consistency (once they have bought a little of something it is easier to sell them some more, e.g. increasing a standing order to a charity), be likeable (a hard one to fake but people only but from people they like) and offer them something first so that they offer something back in reciprocity.

And finally, the 2 things you need to build above all else are creditability and trust.

We had a short Q&A session at the end and I asked one about the Dark Side of faking interest in the buyer's interests and the steps some companies go to to find out what those interests are.

Then it was an extended session of wine, nibbles and networking. I managed to spend some time talking to various people I know from these and similar events and had some really good conversations. KM people know the value of conversations and allow plenty of time and space for them.

This was an excellent evening and I am now eagerly awaiting details of the TFPL Connect programme for 2012.

Edits by The Featherstonehaughs

2011-12-04T19:24:00.001Z

An opportune visit to the South Bank Centre around eight years ago introduced me to the dancing delights of The Cholmondeleys and The Featherstonehaughs and left a lasting impression of what modern dance can do.

And I do not mean the sort of dancing that you see on Strictly or X-Factor. I mean dance that stretches the mind in unusual directions.

Sadly Featherstonehaughs have called it a day and I was there for their very last performance at the Riverside Studios in Hammersmith, a venue I find myself returning to with some regularity.

The show they presented was Edits, based on the drawings of Egon Schiele.

Though, to be honest, I know little about how dance is constructed and I am sure that much of the meaning and intention passes me by. I have to content myself with the movement and the music. That's usually enough, and so it proved here.

The artist's theme was clear from the dark stage with the only props being three hanging frames that were reflected on the floor.

This created six separate areas of dance with the dancers moving almost invisibly between them.

The music was equally Spartan. It was reassuringly repetitive throughout and varied between three different moods.

The most musical sections featured a guitar and saxophone but for most of the time we were left to harsh electronics. Some of this sounded like an old vinyl album jumping at the end of the side and at other times it sounded like Concert Industriel Pour Metronome (title stolen from Vladimír Hirsch).

I love minimalist industrial music but I appreciate that some do not. Their loss.

The dance matched the mood of the music. It was a succession of short pieces where just a few of the dancers were in one of the dance frames and your attention moved from one to the other.

The movements were bold, exaggerated and unnatural (as you can see from the poses in the pictures). The scene was painted across the whole stage and carried through to the smallest detail such as the movement of fingers.

The tableaus and costumes changed (the male dancers wore dresses all the time as they had the last time that I saw them) while the mood remained the same.

It had the flavour of mechanical but was always beautiful too.

Without an obvious simile to call on or a working knowledge of dance vocabulary I'm struggling a little to describe the experience and all I can do is describe how it impacted me.

I was entranced, mesmerised, immersed, captivated and enthralled. This was a very rich experience with so much to watch and to try and understand.

It was also hugely enjoyable and the best part of an hour and a half skipped by.

The show ended with a short piece by, presumably the founding members of The Cholmondeleys. This was slow and lyrical, rather like eating an ice cream after eating a curry. Not a bad end to the evening but the memory is of the main course.

It is good to see that dance can be difficult and challenging in the same way that theatre can be. This was an exceptionally good show. It is just a shame that it is all over.

Fear Itself 7.1: Captain America

2011-12-04T14:39:00.001Z

Fear Itself is the latest "epic" from Marvel following in the manner of Civil War and Secret Invasion.

It is somewhat the lesser cousin of those stories that both ripped the Marvel Universe apart, setting hero against hero, with ramifications that are still felt today.

Instead Fear Itself introduces seven mystical weapons to up the power of seven established characters, e.g. Juggernaut and Grey Gargoyle. You know that the goodies are going to win and so the story becomes little more than a seven issue slug-fest.

Anticipating this I avoided all the spin-offs apart from those in the comics that I read regularly already, e.g. Iron Man and Avengers.

In contrast I bought just about every Secret Invasion story going and while some were weak (e.g. Thor) some were excellent (e.g. Black Panther).

The good news about Fear Itself is the epilogue. Issues 7.1, 7.2 and 7.3 show the impact on Captain America, Thor and Iron Man respectively. This both ties the story up and hints at where future stories may lead. The not-very-subtle aim is to encourage you to read the individual characters' books.

It could work because Fear Itself 7.1: Captain America is excellent.

I loved the story but I loved the Butch Guice art work more.

I have seen many examples of his work over the years, starting with his first work for Marvel on Micronauts (great book) in 1982, but this is a bit special because there are strong hints of Jim Steranko in the movement,bold lines and page construction.

Building the Revolution at the RA

2011-12-03T18:32:00.001Z

First a clarification, this is not about a revolution at the Royal Academy (that is not going to happen).

Rather it is an exhibition there on, to give it its full name, Building the Revolution: Soviet Art and Architecture 1915-1935.

The main exhibition at the RA is on Degas and there was a long queue for this but my interest is architecture so I headed to the top floor of the Sackler Wing where the exhibition is being held in one reasonable size room that is divided up to make more walls to hang things on.

Those things are mostly photographs of buildings though there are a few sketches too. The geometric drawings did interest me a little and they helped to set the scene for the time that the buildings were designed but it was the buildings that drew me around the room.

The buildings were grouped by type, e.g. housing, industry and leisure, and were accompanied by just enough text to inform and cause a reasonable pause.

The buildings were chosen for their architectural merit and were mostly modest unassuming buildings that you could easily walk past without noticing that was anything special about them.

Unless, like me, you do not walk past buildings without noticing their style and features.

The leisure section revealed a sumptuous retreat on the Black Sea. It's a little worn now but I'd still like to go there.

Perhaps it will be restored when the Winter Olympics go to Sochi in 2014.

I have a weakness for industrial buildings and there were lots of them in the exhibition.

One was a large power station, another was a bakery and others were a mix of light and heavy industries.

A particular favourite was a garage with a large circular section to represent a wheel.

Sadly I was unable to get a picture of this as photography is not allowed in the exhibition and there were always two or three red shirted guards patrolling and the opportunity to bend the rules never arose.

So here's the Central Institute of Aerodynamics and Hydrodynamics instead. This building also helps to prove the point about the subtlety of architecture as a casual glance would miss the curved walls, the tall window with the round window above, the roof balcony, and all that's just in one corner.

Building the Revolution is a near-perfect.

The subject matter is a nice mix of mainstream (architecture) and unusual (Soviet) that makes it approachable yet stimulating.

The photos (all by Richard Pare) are bold and tease out the point of the building.

The words tell you what the building is, where it is, who designed it and a little about the concept, and that's it. No poetic twaddle here.

These elements produce an exhibition that turns a room in to a captivating experience that swallows an hour or so of your time with practised ease.

Pippin at the Menier Chocolate Factory

2011-12-02T16:41:00.001Z

After the disappointment of Les Miserables my attempt to find a decent musical took me to an unknown theatre to see an unknown show.

It is something of a mystery how the Menier Chocolate Factory had managed to escape my attention for so long; not only did I use to work literally around the corner in Southwark Bridge Road but shows there have appealed to me before.

The advance blurb for Pippin suggested something special and unusual, and I like special and unusual.

To clinch the deal was the offer of (slight) reductions during the preview period. The still meant shelling out the best part of £40 which is about twice my usual limit.

The theatre is staged in a glorious Victorian building that, surprisingly, used to be a chocolate factory.

Now it is home to a bustling attractive restaurant, a gallery and a theatre with its own bar.

For some reason the entrance as at the side and the route to it involves a clamber over an uneven and narrow path.

Once inside the path to the theatre winds through the restaurant and then down a short corridor that looks as though it might be leading to the toilets.

The bar area, which also hosts the box office, opens up like a Christmas Aunt's arms. There's plenty of space, reasonable seating and warm spicy cider.

The bell goes shortly before the performance starts and it's an orderly rush to the theatre as, unusually for somewhere this size, the seats are numbered.

The route to the theatre is down another corridor that bends slightly. Along the way the walls are strewn with posters for computer games and the like so you think that you are walking through a student's bedroom.

I was delighted to see included a reproduction of a cover of the Marvel comic Tomb of Dracula. This was drawn by Gene Colan who died earlier this year.

Convincing you that this is a student's room there is a student in one corner doing something with a PC that involves making noise.

The first impression of the theatre is one of confusion. The stage is across one corner, almost triangular, and the seating is defined by rows of foot-wells with the seats the same height as the stage. I had a seat in row B which is, of course, the front row.

The stage was brutally bare with little more than a concrete pillar on it. Computer directed lights drew lines along the edges of the stage and the steps as if to emphasise the strangeness of the shape of the stage.

Then the magic started.

The walls proved to be porous and the players suddenly appeared from all directions. This set the tone for the evening with the performance built on a foundation of intricate, clever and spellbinding theatre technology.

But let's get to the story.

Pippin is the eldest son of heir to the throne of Charlemagne. He is not war-minded like his father and is unsure what direction his life should take. He tries many things, including war, over throwing his father, the priesthood, family life and art before reaching his journey's end.

When Pippin arrives on stage we realise that he was the student that we squeezed past outside. A nice touch.

The music is very musically and there's enough repetition of the main songs for you to remember them afterwards. The only low-point comes when the audience is encouraged to join in singing a chorus when displaying the words does little to encourage participation. This is England and this was too much of a middle-class audience for that to work.

The computer generated effects make several appearances as if to remind you that the direction is the point of the show. One highlight, among several, is when Pippin fences against a shadow figure.

There's quite a bit of dancing and acrobatic movement too and the cast make good use of the small and unusual space. Ladders are climbed and swung from, holes are leaped in to and steps are ascended.

The combination of the story, the movement, the music, the singing and the set cleverness was captivating, thrilling, amazing and, above all else, entertaining. Pippin is a great show.

Forgotten Spaces at Somerset House

2011-11-30T21:14:00.001Z

Forgotten Spaces is just my sort of exhibition, and I came across it by chance.

I was planning a visit to RIBA recently and found out about Forgotten Spaces on their website. I could not see it when I went to the RIBA buildings because this is being held some distance away at Somerset House, which is worth a visit by itself.

And, even better than it, the exhibition is in disused tunnels and coals holes under the cobbles courtyard that now plays host to one of London's many ice-rinks.

I would have enjoyed exploring those spaces even if there had not been an exhibition on.

To add to the amusement and sense of exploration Somerset House does not exactly go out of its way to show how to get to the exhibition, or even that it is on.

For future reference you go to the entrance nearest the river and head downstairs. There you find a world of brick and dark corridors. Think Gormenghast.

In the Stygian depths there are spots of soft light to draw attention to posters and models.

These illustrate some of the forgotten spaces of London, the theme of the exhibition.

Each forgotten desolate and derelict space has the prospect of a bright useful and sustainable future and the posters and models show how this could be achieved.

One of the nice things about the proposals is their variety. There are spaces for bees, vegetables, games, walking, resting, sleeping and working.

One of my favourite ideas, and one I really want to see built, is for an Urban Climbing Tunnel in Clapham where you climb, or abseil, down a shaft then crawl your way back to the surface.

There is something especially delightful about seeing this idea when underground. It kind of makes the point of how attractive that space could be.

One of the ideas is to rebuild the former BR station at Highgate that sits above the underground station there.

This came as some surprise to me as on my few visits to Highgate this year I've used the tube without realising that a forgotten space was there.

But that's what being a forgotten space means.

The exhibition starts in former coal holes that sit on the edge of the courtyard but then it gets braver and heads into a broad tunnel that goes right under the courtyard.

In the tunnel there are further recesses that could have been coal holes but it is more exciting to think of them as former prison cells.

Large pipes, sturdy pillars and weak lighting hark back to the tunnel's industrial past. These spaces once had a real purpose much like warehouses did before loft living was invented.

The sunken passageway around the courtyard does its best to join the exhibition by showing you how a forgotten space like this can be brought to life.

Perhaps the most positive thing about the exhibition was the number of people who were clever enough and interested enough to find it.

The place was really busy, mostly with twenty-somethings, and that bodes well for the future of all forgotten spaces, not just those on display here.

Forgotten Spaces is an exciting exhibition housed in an exciting place and it tells a positive story of regeneration and reuse. This may be the best exhibition on in London at the moment.

Discovering the Cartoon Museum

2011-11-28T09:14:00.001Z

It is to my eternal shame that I had not been to the Cartoon Museum before.

I love comics and cartoons, I have books on their history, I go to talks about them and I have been notified of special exhibitions there. Yet somehow I never quite got there.

And it was by accident that I got there this time.

After a visit to the British Museum I was in The Plough and was using Foursquare to let Twitter know that I was there when it helpfully pointed out that the Cartoon Museum was nearby.

Very nearby. It's next door. And it's free if you have an Art Fund card.

Inside is a small but busy gallery spread over two floors charting the history of cartoons with the occasional foray in to comics.

You are more likely to find Andy Capp here than Superman. And I like that as characters like Andy Capp are part of our culture and my history.

Rupert Bear was a much larger part of my history so it was good to see him here too and his anthropomorphic rival Teddy Tail.

Punch also featured in my formative years and I was reminded of this by a Honeysett cartoon.
I still recall vividly some of the things that he did for Punch such as the old bloke passed out on the floor in a pub during a drinking competition with one of his equally old friends saying that was odd as he had been all right during the lunchtime practise session.

The Cloggies are in there too.

If you like cartoons and comics as much as I do then this is not a museum that you can browse quickly, every drawing demands and deserves attention. That means reading the helpful note that goes with each one too.

A minor detour from the pub turned in to a forty five minute quick browse that left me keen to return soon to wallow at a more leisurely pace.

I regret not having been to the Cartoon Museum before, and missing the Dr Who exhibition was a serious fault, but I have learned my lesson and I left the museum older and wiser. And happier.

Japanese collection at the British Museum

2011-11-27T20:17:00.001Z

I have worked near to the British Museum at times for a total of some years yet it has never managed to pull me in to its clutches in any meaningful way.

Most of the times that I have been there have been to use it as an attractive route when walking north/south in that area.

These walks take me through the central courtyard that always gives pause to the journey and compels an upward glance or two at the geometric beauty of the new roof that crafts a gorgeous room below.

I wanted to pay a serious visit to the museum as I have been visiting several museums and galleries recently and the final spur was an informal guided tour arranged by the Arts Link Meetup Group.

One of things that kept me away from the British Museum was the daunting task of where to start and what to see. Going with an arranged tour solved that.

Twenty or so of us headed up to the fourth floor and the Japanese collection which is spread over three rooms.

Welcoming you in to the first room is a life-size standing Buddha.

Luckily there is also a large diagram and notice that give a summary of Japanese history that I knew little about apart from the Samurai stories and the invasions of China that I heard so much about when in China.

The defining feature of Japanese history is that they have deliberately kept the rest of the world at arms length and so their culture developed almost completely independently, the ingress of Buddhism and the excursions in to China being two notable exceptions.

Japan is also the place where the earthenware pot was first invented.

A year or so ago that would have been a complete surprise for me, I would have guessed the Middle East, but the secret was let out in the landmark Radio 4 series A History of the World in 100 Objects.

The oldest pots are 7,000 years old.

Most of the pottery on display is functional rather than decorative with a notable exception being a pair of white elephants. These were enhanced by our guide explaining that white elephants were considered sacred and so were not worked, hence the phrase a white elephant meaning something that has no worth.

There were decorative arts on display in the form of drawings and prints.

The summoning of a skeletal ghost may not have been typical of the drawings on display but it was the most eye-catching. Actually it was the second most eye-catching but while I lived the Astro Boy poster I felt it more appropriate to feature something a little older.

The three rooms are a little Spartan and lacking in the expected samurai relics, there is only one suit and that is an amalgam of several suits from different ages and styles, and the display verges on disappointment. It was rescued from this by our guide and somehow the scant relics kept us entertained for forty minutes or so.

An unexpected treat was to be found in the floor below.

Manga at the British Museum, drawings by Hoshino Yukinobu is a display of some of the original drawings from the manga series Professor Munakata’s British Museum Adventure.

The story includes famous exhibits from the museum, such as the Rosetta Stone, and I am hoping that the book may give me suggestions for other parts of the museum to visit on future occasions.

All I need to do know is to persuade somebody to buy me the book.

The slight detour over I rejoined the rest of the group that had moved on from the museum and taken up residence in the upstairs room at The Plough.

I am still not completely convinced by the British Museum and it may take another guided tour to get me there, however, this visit did all that I hoped that it would and it has made it more likely that I'll return.

The Unrest Cure at Pentameters

2011-11-25T09:58:00.001Z

I came to this by a circuitous route.

A Space Rock contact told me about a Robert Calvert play that was being performed at Pentameters, a small theatre in Hampstead unknown to me at the time.

Sadly I was unable to go but being very interested in small theatres that are unknown to me I kept an eye on what else they were doing.

When I saw The Unrest Cure announced the clincher was that it was set in Chickerell, West Dorset. This is where I went to secondary school and having lived in Weymouth for around 25 years it's a part of the country that I know very well.

I later discovered that one of the plays co-authors, Rob Groves, went to the same school and while we never met there he does remember my Dad who taught him Geography at some point.

The scene set, I headed for Hampstead for the very first time. It's quaint and hilly but I fail to see what all the fuss is about. Give me loft living by a dock any day.

The theatre is above The Horseshoe, an absolutely typical gastro pub with high-end prices. A nice enough place to savour some cauliflower soup and a beer before the show.

The entrance to the theatre is from the side of the pub and is through an impressive doorway with Pentameters above it. Things take a turn towards student accommodation after that as you climb a narrow wooden staircase up to a cluttered landing and enter the small room via the ticket booth.

There before you is a period reception room assembled on a slightly raised stage. It is free seating and I was early enough to get the usual front-row seat.

The play is a light whimsical tale of an middle-aged brother and sister who have settled too early in to their ways running a hotel.

A chance overheard conversation on a train suggests to an younger upper-class brother and sister that they should provide the hotel owners with an unrest cure to add some excitement to their lives.

The unrest comes from acting the part of royal aides and claiming the the Prince of Wales (who is the area opening a new power station) will be staying at the hotel for the night. The PoW also has some unusual demands such as no meat on the premises, no cats and no Cornish people.

The young couple's plans to scarper before the anticipated arrival of the PoW are thrown in to disarray by the unexpected arrival of somebody else, pandemonium follows and is followed by a happy ending.

The Unrest Cure is a delightful comedy of characters and circumstances. The plot is believable, simple and twists nicely. The characters are bold and bright, from the overwhelmed hotel proprietor to the lordly Lord Abbotsbury, and all the cast play their parts well in bring the diverse characters to life.

The story is a treat with gems like the disposal of the cat and rose-petal dance to greet the PoW's arrival.The dialogue delivers a steady stream of gentle mirth punctured with plenty of laugh out loud moments, such as the announcement by Lord Abbotsbury that he much prefers the works of Wodehouse to (local hero) Thomas Hardy because Wodehouse writes about real people, "people like us".

The Unrest Cure is marvellously entertaining and is a heartening example of what smaller theatres can do with unfamiliar writers and actors. A joy to watch.

Exploring the Wellcome Collection

2011-11-23T22:16:00.001Z

The Wellcome Collection describes itself as A Free Destination for the Incurable Curious. And that sounds like me.

I had been there before. I used to work more-or-less across the road from it and did pop-in on a couple of lunchtimes but then the collection had to compete with the need to buy some food and the desire to stretch the legs in pastures new.

So, perversely, my first proper delve in to the collection was on a day's holiday rather than on one of the many days that I worked nearby.

The visit started well. The entrance is open and bright like it really wants you to come in. There's a nice posh cafe at the top of the stairs where I had a reasonable latte and a stunning carrot cake.

From there you get an excellent view of the Antony Gormley stuck to the ceiling above the entrance.

There are two temporary exhibitions on currently. One, Felicity Powell - Charmed Life:

The objects, are, as the name suggests, a collection of medical charms. These are interesting but are hard to photograph because they are small, under glass and the no photography rule is enforced by cctv cameras and strolling staff.

The rule was much easier to forget/avoid in the other exhibition, Infinitas Gracias: Mexican miracle paintings.

I had absolutely no interest in this before I went because of the religious aspect but the incurably curious got the better of me and I found it compelling.

The collection is of painting, and other tributes, posted on churches in Mexico to give thanks to some miracle.

These miracles include getting better in hospital and only being hacked half to death rather than killed.

But if you forget the cynicism over the messages on the pictures and see them just as cultural and artistic objects then there is much to appreciate.

The two things that I found most interesting in the pictures were the range of things that thanks were given for and the artistic merit of the pictures.

At the top-end there were pictures commissioned from professional artists giving thanks for children surviving serious illness and at the other there were stick-men giving thanks for a nice cup of tea. OK, not quite that but you get the point.

Moving upstairs is the Medicine Man exhibition that shows some of the many objects collected by Henry Wellcome.

This is weird.

I quite liked the models that show how the body is constructed but was less impressed by the metal instruments used to cut that body apart.

There are jars, charms, paintings, prosthetics and then it gets stranger with things like very small models of people having sex.

Probably not for the prudish or the squeamish but ideal for the incurably curious.

The Wellcome Collection is unusual, quirky and unpretentious, which makes it my sort of place.

Art Deco and more at RIBA

2011-11-22T23:28:00.001Z

RIBA is a place that I go to far too infrequently given that I love architecture and exhibitions about architecture.

I visit the small architecture display at the V&A regularly but I believe that this was only my third visit to RIBA. And one of those was for a Knowledge Management event.

The excuse this time was an exhibition on Art Deco and the enabler was a day off work.

RIBA has a relaxed friendly atmosphere and it feels a little odd to walk in to the building unchallenged by any of the uniformed staff on the front desk.

From there a wide staircases leads you up to the first floor where you'll find the cafe and dining room. The later was reserved for a graduation event which explained the large number of young people in gowns surrounded by their smarty dressed and proud parents.

A narrow elegant staircase takes you up to the second floor where the Art Deco exhibition began.

The gallery is a horse-shoe shape wrapped around the atrium and the outer walls were thick with black and white photographs of gorgeous Art Deco buildings, rooms and features.

Helpful notes explain when and where the photos were taken and often lead to thought along the line of "I must go there one day".

Of course a lot of the nice stuff has gone but the photos are there to remind us of what we've let go and what we have managed to keep.

The exhibition continued in the library on the floor above. The sign outside said that photo-id was required but smiling nicely, and not looking like a thief, vandal or terrorist, I was waived in.

Down the middle of the room old postcards and extracts from old books and magazines were presented under protective glass. That and the stern warnings and the CCTV cameras dissuaded me from taking any photos. You'll just have to trust me that it was worth the climb to see the pictures.

Heading back down and out I paused at Gallery 1 on the first floor.

This is across the front of the building and has large windows on to Regent Street.

There I found a simple exhibition on the RIBA Manser Medal 2011, a competition to find the best new house in the UK.

The large displays gave a great deal of information about the houses, their sites and the ideas behind their construction.

The gallery looks almost empty but there was a surprising among to see and read.

The houses were all very different, due to the uniqueness of each site, yet each had managed to take a sympathetic approach to their surroundings.

There were some models too.

This house is clearly barmy but if you want a floor with a window then this is the sort of thing that you have to go for.

Another house was similarly cantilevered which enabled it to get close to a river.

Normally when I look at pictures of houses there is a price tag on them somewhere and I would have loved to know how much some of these are worth just to see how far out of my price range they are.

RIBA manages to pack a lot of interesting things in to small exhibition spaces and is a wonderful place to wallow for an hour or two.

V&A: Inspiring, Beautiful, Free

2011-11-20T19:30:00.001Z

The posters for the V&A that call to you as you jostle with the hordes through the tunnel from South Kensington station proclaim that it is inspiring, beautiful and free. That is so true.

Having finished at the Postmodernism exhibition it was time for a rest and refreshments. Which meant a short stroll past the stained glass to the cafe.

I remember the days, surely not that long ago, when the cafe was confined to two small rooms off a corridor now it has grown in to the corridor and claimed a whole wing of the museum.

And judging by how busy the cafe always is, that was a good decision.

Another good decision is to fight for a table in one of the side rooms rather than one in the corridor as the corridor looks like, well, a corridor and the side rooms look like this.

The coffee and fruit cake were excellent too.

Rested and refreshed I headed up to the top floor, for no particular reason.

There I found the paintings collection. These are squeezed in to one corner of the museum and in one of the rooms the point seems to have been to get as many pictures on to the walls as possible.

This is a small display that gives you a taste of Constable, Turner, Blake, Burne-Jones, etc. all of whom have more space elsewhere in London but the V&A is happy with that as giving small tastes of lots of things is all that it is trying to do.

There are portraits and landscape but, perhaps surprisingly, nothing abstract, strange or starling.

The galleries are presented like the rooms in a grand house, there is even a piano in one (by Burne-Jones), and the choice of pictures goes with this mood.

You can imagine that the portraits are of the family. One set of three young women catches the eye because of their beauty and vitality.

Most of the pictures are neutral or happy but two of my favourites are very dark.

Here a young woman grieves over the end of a relationship and has torn his letters up and thrown them in to the water at her feet.

This is just part of the picture (Disappointed Love by Francis Danby); the rest of it is basically black.

The other dark picture that I loved (The Upas also by Francis Danby) shows a man, a condemned criminal who has been sent to collect poison from a tree. That is very black too.

The corridor leading to the picture gallery houses the silver collection. Here large elaborate old pieces compete for attention with small simple new ones.

The green decorative roof adds to the sense of unreality while the windows contest this and suggest that this might once have been a normal room with a different purpose.

Around the corner there is a surprise and a collection of small boxes that I am sure were not there last time that I walked that way.

They are pretty, delicate and placed behind glass which defeated my camera.

Moving on to a former library (still replete with books and ladders) I discovered the modern English collection which always delights in its normality.

Alongside the old children's toys and an early iMac is a stack of three bog-standard plastic chairs. This makes us look again at the things that surround us and to see the design in them.

Outside the library was a display from the V&A Illustration Awards 2011 where the winning entry, Olivier Kugler's A Tea In Tehran, got added to my Xmas list.

Then it was time to find a staircase and to call it a day. A long and tiring day but very enjoyable, instructive and rewarding. And soon to be repeated.

Postmodernism at the V&A

2011-11-19T18:19:00.001Z

It had been far too long since I had been to the V&A so I took a day off work to make amends.

The V&A is a sufficient draw by itself but the temporary exhibitions are always excellent so I went to see the current one on Postmodernism.

My knowledge of the subject was (very) limited to architecture, and that would have done me, but the breadth of material in the exhibition was staggering. Much as it is in the rest of the museum.

Sadly (but understandably) photography is prohibited so I have to rely on my memory. Perhaps I should have taken notes like all the students did.

Going to a V&A exhibition is like shopping in Ikea. You are made to walk the long way round, you have no idea how far you still have to go and there are unexpected things around every corner.

Unlike Ikea those unexpected things are also interesting and you want them madly. Especially the teapots. And there were lots of tea pots along the way.

The highlights were as eclectic as you would hope them to be.

A section on performance had short videos (and costumes) by, amongst others, Devo, Grace Jones, Visage, Klaus Nomi, Kraftwerk and Laurie Anderson.

The later was a loop from O Superman with a large close up of her face and the hypnotic huh huh huh pulling your attention away from the lyrics. I spent several minutes in the small display area for this and could have spent quite a while longer. Simply wonderful.

Blade Runner got several mentions, as did the word "bricolage". I suspect that the curator was playing games with those of us who read most of the notices. I like games.

One of the rooms had a collection of gorgeous album and magazine covers from the late 70's and early 80's.

Elsewhere there was a coffin in the shape of a car, models and photographs of exotic buildings and complexes (the Italian piazza in America was mental), tables and chairs, jewellery, more costumes, etc. etc.

The final visit to dystopic Blade Runner was a clip from the opening section put to the comforting repetitive strains of The Grid by Philip Glass.

The exhibition took me an hour and a half to walk round, and that's probably the best way to show just how enthralling it was.

One Man, Two Guvnors at the Adelphi

2011-11-18T10:22:00.001Z

When I first heard about One Man, Two Guvnors I was rather dismissive seeing it as simply a comedy vehicle for James Corden (who I am not a fan of) and so I refused all the offers thrown my way to see it at the National Theatre.

But the excellent reviews kept pouring in to my Twitter stream and so when the chance for cheap tickets at the Adelphi came through I finally acquiesced.

And everybody was right; it is really very funny.

Missing it at the National was a mistake because that is a much better theatre than the Aledphi where the cheap seats in the Upper Circle have scant room for any superfluous extras, like legs.

Getting everybody in and out of their seats was such a palava that I even missed the usual half-time ice cream to save the bother of getting out of my seat.

The show is a riot because it teases humour out of every facet of the play.

The story is a true farce, one where identities are mistaken, doors are opened and closed regularly and nobody has control of the situation.

The dialogue is excellent. There is a stream of one-liners (e.g. "love goes through marriage like shit through a dog"), several catch-phrases (e.g. "In Parkhurst") and some staged word play that the Two Ronnies would have been proud of (e.g. the alliteration around diagnosed with diarrhoea but died of a damaged diaphragm in Didcot).

There's some slapstick too, such as the accidental waiter who gets repeatedly banged on the head and who also falls down the stairs a lot. And he's 87 years old. The slapstickiest moment comes courtesy of a member of the audience but I won't spoil that one for you.

The large cast of characters each plays their comic part.

To pick just a few of them; there's the young man who wants to be an actor and who hams it up continuously, his dim girlfriend who does not understand anything that is going on, the ex-public school boy who goes beyond any other exaggeration of the stereotype, and there's more ...

It goes without saying that these roles are funny not just because of the characters, all the actors are excellent in their roles.

Amongst the panoply of talent James Corden is still very much the front man. In some ways his is the simplest characters and he is witness to most of the story rather than part of it (his main motive most of the time is simply to get food) but that gives him the freedom to be the comedian and to play with the audience.

James Corden is very good and very funny but the rest of the cast are excellent too and the dialogue is the real star of the show.

Lysistrata at the Rose

2011-11-17T19:10:00.001Z

The theatre's blurb for this mentioned "Aristophanes’ no-holds barred comedy" and "absurdist masterpiece" which has got to be good enough for any theatre goer looking for something that is both fun and unusual.

It didn't exactly work out like that.

It is based on the original Lysistrata, where the women of Greece try to stop the war by denying their men sex, but any claims that this is anything substantial, subtle or innovative are unfounded.

A better description would be Carry On Greece with a big dollop of Viz.

The humour, and there is a lot of humour that draws genuine laughter, comes from the many crude references to sex. It's a one trick pony and that pony gets flogged near to death.

If I had gone expecting a romp I probably would have enjoyed it more (or, more probably, not gone) but I was lead by the references to Aristophanes' original to expect more.

To over promise and under deliver always guarantees disappointment.

Blind Date and 27 Wagons Full of Cotton

2011-11-13T16:20:00.001Z

Everything that I've seen at The Riverside in Hammersmith has been rewarding and that encouraged me to take bit of a punt and go and see the double-bill of short plays Blind Date and 27 Wagons Full of Cotton.

It also helped that 27 Wagons carried Tennessee Williams' stamp of authority.

Working away during the week meant opting for a weekend performance and so I found myself in the unusual position for going to the theatre at 5pm on a Sunday. The strange timing meant that my pre-theatre drink was a cup of tea.

In Blind Date (Horton Foote 1985) a teenage girl, who is staying with her aunt and uncle, is the subject of her aunt's attempts to find a date for her.

The aunt is not helped by the girl's attitude to boys. She has been rude to previous dates and it is getting harder to find somebody prepared to call.

Enter Felix. Felix is floppy but earnest. Their encounter reaches fever pitch and before long he is reciting all the books of the Bible while Sarah Nancy sneaks away.

We then explore behaviours, manners and that society's expectations as the aunt firmly but kindly rebukes her niece for her behaviour and tries to rescue the situation while Felix's mother also interferes for similar reasons.

The end is indecisive but happy and the play oozes goodness all the way there.

After the break (and a beer) we have a complete contrast with 27 Wagons Full of Cotton.

we are transported to the struggling cotton fields of Mississippi where desperate times call for desperate measures.

To be precise, a farmer burns down the cotton processing plant of his neighbour so that he gets the work of processing his neighbour's cotton.

The farmer's wife gives the scheme away and while the farmer gets the extra work to do his wife has to pay the price.

The end is cruel and nasty as is much of what leads to it. Only the wife is good and she suffers horribly at the hands of both men.

The plays are both set in the time and country of John Steinbeck and their similarities are reinforced by using the same actors to deliver both.

But the point of the plays, and of pitting them against each other, is their contrasts. The first is about love and goodness in the town and the second is hate and cruelty in the country.

Both plays are strong enough to stand up on their own but combined like this produces something that has more of an impact.

A Walk in the Woods

2011-11-11T21:48:00.001Z

An annoying bought of something flu-like kept me indoors for a few days and in that time I managed to miss two ghostly tours, a play at the National and, most depressingly, a John Watts / Fischer-z concert. My cultural duck was finally broken with A Walk in the Woods.

This was both a first and a second. It was my first time at the Tricycle Theatre in the lesser known Brondesbury (conveniently, for me, located on the North London Line from Richmond)but my second time at this play. I first saw A Walk in the Woods in 1988 in what proved to be Sir Alec Guinness' last part in the West End. Clearly a hard act to follow.

The Tricycle is another neat small theatre that has its idiosyncrasies.

The reception area, shared with a cinema, is excellent. It's lighting, colours, decor, menu and selection of drinks are distinctly modern, comfortable and welcoming. I like that in a theatre as I usually arrive in good time for a drink and so its nice to have something drinkable behind the bar and somewhere to sit and drink it.

The theatre is very different. It looks recently and hastily constructed (much as the Arcloa does) and has a quirky seating arrangement imposed by the narrow space that it has been squeezed in to.

The first few rows are free seating but they are below stage level, then there are a few rows that can be booked and then a few more rows of free seating.

There is one row of seats on the right side and three on the left but these look straight ahead at the stalls, rather than towards the stage, and these filled last. There is an upstairs too but I did not climb up the scaffolding steps to see what this looks like.

The stalls were OK but the pitch is not that great and I was grateful when a small couple sat in front of me.

The play consists entirely of the conversations of two arms reduction negotiators as they take breaks from the formal talks to walk in the woods and sit on a bench.

The set changes little during the play, doing just enough to suggest the passing of seasons. This is good, the play is not about the set and could be delivered without one.

There are only two actors, an older man representing Russia and a younger woman batting for the USA. He wears a thick coat of cynicism gained from years of fruitless negotiation and she is fresh and enthusiastic, new to the role she is keen to be successful.

It's enthralling to watch the debate and relationship between them develop as they try to reconcile their differences in style and position. It's a battle between East and West, young and old, fatalism and hope, familiarity and professionalism, hare and tortoise, and so it goes.

What they share is the unfair spotlight on their performance and the personal consequences for their careers if they fail.

External politics intrude and at times they both have to explain why their governments are taking unreasonable positions in the negotiations.

Neither actor would claim to be Sir Alec Guinness but Myriam Cyr and Steven Crossley are more than competent. They are completely believable and lovable. We come to care as much about their futures as the safety of the world.

As is the modern trend, we watch the story unfold without a break but a good play easily keeps your attention and to stop for an ice cream while a nuclear holocaust is threatened would somehow seem immoral.

A Walk in the Woods attacks a difficult subject with intelligence and charm while managing to entertain as it does so. A real delight.

A Halloween Banquet at Petersham House

2011-11-10T18:21:00.000Z

I had several excellent reasons for wanting to go to A Halloween Banquet at Petersham House, it promised seasonal entertainments, I fancied the opportunity to look around one of the grander local mansions (though there are quite a lot of these) and then there was the decadent feast by Petersham Nurseries` Michelin Star Chef Skye Gyngell.

The promotion said little more than that but it was enough to convince me to fork out £80 for a ticket. Ideas started to develop on what the evening might include, almost all of which proved to be completely wrong.

Far more people were there than I expected, something like a hundred (it was rather hard to count in the dark). We entered the garden by a small gate and congregated around a shallow pool with a glass of something bubbly while waiting for the official start.

I've been in the gardens at Petersham House a few times and was not surprised that we approached it from the long border and large iron gate than once released riders and horses on there way to the hunt.

The house itself was ready for us too with coloured lights and strange balconies on the balcony. More lights and roaring braziers guided us around the garden and kept us warm too.

Strange things were stirring inside the house.

Peering through the main door to the garden revealed a woman in white gently rocking in her chair all alone in the near dark.

Entering the house through one of the large conservatories that flank it started a trail of horror and shock.

Some of this was a simple as a man dressed in black suddenly jumping up and saying "Boo".

This worked remarkably well as the frequent screams confirmed.

Winding through the house we found several strange and disturbed people. And a lot of blood.

The bloody trail led to a bedroom in a side-house where the white bed was empty and the room strewn with decorative and childish objects.

The effect reminded me immediately of the set of the Dolls House at the Arcola Theatre but I am sure that was co-incidental.

The memories of terror from the play only helped to heap on the tension of the night.

Just off the bedroom was a small bathroom where, it is safe to assume, the foul deed took place.

Just to confirm this, the duck in the bath looked rather distressed.

The trail continued outside where there were strange men doing strange things and graves being dug in the garden.

Elsewhere a bride was hanging over the bridal feast.

The strangeness continued for while, eased by more drinks, and then culminated with some form of exorcism.

And then the band began to play.

We were treated to half an hour or so of passable easy rock but I would have liked Monster Mash. The wind decided to become annoyingly brisk and cold at that time but the braziers were up to the task and were kept well fuelled with chopped wood.

The last act was the banquet and for that we moved on to the restaurant in the Nurseries.

It was clearly not geared up for such numbers and ten of us were squeezed on to a table that I suspect is normally asked to cater for no more than six.

The food was different from what I am used to in that there were unusual vegetables, unusual flavours and even more unusual combinations of the two.

However the unusualness had to battle against the cold and the crowding and lost. Not that there was anything at all wrong with the food but it was not up to my expectation of a £80 banquet.

The evening ended weakly with people drifting away once they had finished their meal, a coffee would have been nice, and we made our way the long way round back through the garden and along the torch-lit lane to the bus stop.

It was definitely a mixed evening overall and I'm generous enough to appreciate the best bit and to allow these to offset some of the disappointment. In the end, the uniqueness of evening won through and just about lived up to its promise.

How to be Happy

2011-11-05T20:28:00.001Z

The Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond has its ups and downs but there are far more ups than downs and the few downs are not that severe anyway so I continue to go to every play that they put on. This remains a good plan.

The latest show, How to be Happy, was a real gem and a great advertisement for what the Orange Tree can do.

Encouragingly this seemed to be recognised by the punters at large at the night that I went was very busy and there was a good mix of people there. It does worry me when I go to the theatre and I'm about the youngest person there, which can happen at the Orange Tree.

How to be Happy is about Paul who wrote the successful book of the same name but who has left fame, fortune and happiness behind him.

He is split from his former wife and both have remarried, her to a successful marketing executive and him to a (unusually sexy) nursery teacher. His first wife has a new baby which we do not see but we do hear quite a lot of via the baby alarm.

They have a teenage daughter who lives with Mum but visits Dad frequent, often playing one off against the other as teenagers are meant to.

He has also been diagnosed with lung cancer which is one reason why he watches late-night TV while drinking neat whiskey.

The first wife's second husband's latest idea is to use brain imaging to discover what is really going on when people, say, eat chocolate or have sex. The later example is one that his wife refuses to participate in.

We follow the two linked families from the vantage point of their front rooms which, conveniently, have the same suite.

To keep the pace of the play going we sometimes see both rooms at the same time and have to follow two parallel but related conversations.

It's a fairly simple trick, and one used at the Orange Tree before, but it works very well.

Once the domestic scene is set (to the confusion of the people behind me) the action unfolds in a myriad of directions none of which Paul is able to actively engage in, to his growing frustration. He is not happy, does not know how to become happy but can see that everybody else is (more or less, there is some teenage angst and matrimonial wobbling but no real unhappiness).

While Paul is the centre of the story all that goes on around him is important and these are five strong roles all played very well and very differently. Paul bumbles along lost, his daughter struts and storms, his first wife plays the good wife and mother, his second wife oozes sex appeal, and his first wife's new husband is like a child with a new toy.

The five characters fizz and sparkle off each other through perky dialogue and deft plotting. The end result is swell and I'd recommend it to anybody.

And to make the evening even better, Paul Kemp (who confusingly plays Paul) is married to Natalie Casey, who was Donna Henshaw in the much watched Two Pints ..., and she was there to see him. I managed to grab a few words with her during the break and then she came across to say goodbye at the end. I was very chuffed.

Why I don't believe in capitalism

2011-11-03T00:06:00.000Z

Politics has been a great interest of mine for as long as I can remember and so it is no surprise that I tweet about it regularly. Which makes it even more of a surprise that I do not blog about it that often. That's about to change.

There are a few themes that I have evolved positions on over the years that tweets can only expose part of but which a longer blog can give them the space to grow to their full size. I'll start with economics.

We've been in an economic mess for several years, at least from 2008, and every day since then we have been bamboozled by armies of economists and their suggestions for what we need to do to get out of this mess. Broadly speaking, the right wants to cut taxes and spending while the left wants governments to inject cash in to the system. There are as many different point of view between the two extremes as there are economists.

And that's the point. We simple do not know how to make capitalism work. We have invented a monster that we cannot control.

There are thinks like the weather and earthquakes that we cannot understand either but they are natural systems and have an excuse for being chaotic but capitalism is a man-made phenomenon and so its chaos is of our making.

That chaos leaves government with just a few week economic levers that they can pull, e.g. tax rates, and they pull them with little certainty of whether they will work or not.

Even the impact of a simple measure like the 50% tax rate on those earning above £150,000 in the UK is disputed with some claiming that it brings in more taxation because the rate is higher and others claiming that it brings in less taxation because it has scared top-rate tax payers oversee.

I have my view on which argument is right but that does not matter, what matters is that even on a very simple like measure like that we simply do not know what the effect will be.

I don't think it makes any sense for us to live in a system that we cannot control. Seriously, why would we do that? Capitalism controls everything that happens to money and that has a major impact on everybody's lives. So we need to rein it in. I don't mean rein in the fat-cats etc. but rein in the system that allowed them to be created.

I'm not sure how to do that but we have to do it and I'm sure that we will one day. Places we could start, and that would only be a start include banning all automated trading, setting maximum wages, abolishing tax havens, abolishing casino banking, mandatory transparent cost-plus pricing, etc. etc.

The only purpose of these changes would be to introduce levers in to the system so that it can then be controlled. Who then controls them and to what end is a separate conversation in the world of real politics. Until then any debate on the economy is false as we really do not know what we are talking about.

LIKE 30: Making it stick

2011-11-02T22:15:00.000Z

A slight change of plan for LIKE in October as some works at the usual pub forced us to relocate to the sister pub, the nearby Castle conveniently located next to Farringdon Station.

And a very slight change of plan it proved to be with similar décor and an identical menu.

Even the headlong rush back from Cardiff went to schedule and I arrived nicely just before the business session started.

Our guide for the evening was Gary Colet, of Warwick University Business School, who lead us through some of the complexities of his chosen subject of Knowledge transfer: making it stick.

Gary opened by considering the currency and value of different sorts of information and drew my respect by doing this in a 2 x 2 matrix (that's THE tool for proper consultants).

Low value/immediate information includes most emails; low value/long term information is things like user guides; high value/immediate includes market information and high value long term includes things like contracts and patents.

Most effort is in the high-value long term quadrant. This is where libraries live. Gary's interest is in the high value immediate stuff that does not fit standard KM solutions (like libraries).

We were then given a little demonstration of the problems caused by intermediation.

A prepared short story was read twice to a volunteer (selected by Gary) who then had to repeat it to another, who repeated it to somebody else, who repeated it to somebody else, who repeated it to us.

We kept score as the story was passed on.

Not too surprisingly we got something along the lines of "send three and fourpence, we're going to a dance" but the punchline of the story did make it through to the last retelling.

And that's the point. We each decide what part of a story matters most to us and that's what we remember and pass on.

For example, the fact that this story came from the New Scientist was not relevant to this audience and so was quickly forgotten.

Hence Rule 1: Knowledge should be passed directly from the owner to the receiver; the role of the knowledge consultant is to facilitate not to mediate.

One way that the consultant can do this is to use OPEC, i.e. ask questions that Open the discussion, Probe for detail, Examine the subject and the Close the conversation.

Gary talked us through some examples then gave us some time to explore the technique in pairs. And thanks to Rachel I now know a lot more about wedding planning than any man should. Not sure that she learnt that much about working in Cardiff from me though. I never was a good patient.

The real value is in the dialogue but this can be supplemented by taking notes (much as most of us were during the session) but these are aide memoires that helps us get to the knowledge that we already have and are not a substitute for the knowledge itself..

All too soon Gary's excellent session was over and we had to divert our attention to the food, drink and conversations. I stayed for another beer and lots more conversations and the customary mingling after that too.

I got some genuinely useful insights and techniques from the session as well as having a lot of fun with great people. This is what LIKE is all about.

Driving Miss Daisy

2011-10-31T22:13:00.000Z

When a play can be called a "Pulitzer Prize-winning classic" and stars Vanessa Redgrave then I am going to be interested.

So just a couple of hours after leaving a theatre in Piccadilly I found myself in another one, this time by Leicester Square.

As before I had gone for the cheap seats and they do not come much cheaper than the very back row of the theatre. That's Row D in the Balcony that hangs high above the Stalls, Royal Circle and Grand Circle.

From here the view is almost straight down but that's OK. I'm used to high seats and I like the way that you can see the whole stage and the movement across it. This is why sports coverage is always from a raised viewpoint rather than the touchline. One day theatres will realise this and change their pricing but until then I'll continue going up saving money.

The play has a simple construct. A Southern matriarch has a driving accident and so her concerned son arranges a chauffeur for her. We then follow their relationship develop over the weeks, months and years.

This starts in the post-war austerity of 1948 and well before the Civil Rights movement started.

The matriarch and chauffeur are both very clear on their position in society but the chauffeur also has self-assurance and happily shows this.

It takes a while for the ice to break but it does and the conversations between the two widen and deepen. Through this we learn a lot more about the society they live in and how it starts to change.

The story leaps forward and helpful signs tell us what year we have moved to. The changing cars are no clue here as they are all represented by the same bench and chair.

The other clue that we got were the occasional references to national news, particularly when the matriarch went to a speech by Martin Luther King Jr. But that was given to us almost as a passing moment and it was up to us to recognised the historical importance of that.

The other conversations were appropriately ephemeral with stories of other local families and events. And that's as it should be; what else would you talk to your chauffeur about?

The relationship between the two develops too and they become closer while remaining well within the accepted bounds employer and employee.

It could be easy to think that lacking any significant plot or any stand-out moments that Driving Miss Daisy is a weak play but that would be to misunderstand it.

The dialogue is the play and this swings along like a good Glen Miller tune, rich in melody and fun. There is a little pathos too but that comes at the end and closes the play with a gentle contrast the earlier banter.

Death and the Maiden

2011-10-29T16:05:00.000+01:00

Death and the Maiden was another joy brought to me via an email offer.

These come think and fast. Some I accept, most I refuse. And the ones that I do accept are usually spur of the moment decisions, "I fancy that" moments.

So when the time comes to go to the show the spur is long gone and forgotten. Part of the joy of the show then comes from trying to remember why I chose to go there in the first place.

The "there" this time was the Harold Pinter Theatre, which I been to twice previously this year when it was called the Comedy Theatre, and I suspect that the reason that I went was the "Olivier Award winning" tag.

On my previous visits I sat in the stalls but this time I was up in the circle. Even cheaper than that I went for a seat at the end of a row which had slightly obscured view. Giving up the right to see part of the stage where nothing happened saved me £10 on the seat next to me. Result!

Death and the Maiden is set in an unnamed Latin American country (the author is Chilean) that has recently emerged from military rule and is now stumbling towards democracy.

Part of this is a truth and reconciliation committee established by the new president. A leading human rights lawyer is appointed to the committee and this is a major career break for him. Immediately after the announcement he returns to his beach house and his wife.

He is delayed by a puncture but is rescued by a good Samaritan, a doctor, who has a spare and a jack (the lawyer's wife gave his away to her mother). The doctor turns up at the beach house to return something to the lawyer and is persuaded to stay for the night.

Things take a sinister turn in the morning when the wife confronts the doctor accusing him of being part of a group that had detained and raped her under the old regime. She then tries to extract a confession from him, tying him up and brandishing a gun to do so, while her shocked husband argues that proper justice, of which he is now a significant part, should be allowed to take its course.

The three then discuss, debate and dispute the past and how to deal with it.

The doctor proclaims his innocence throughout but give a couple of hints that he may be guilty even though the evidence against him is little more than consequential, such as his having a tape of Schubert's Death and the Maiden in his car which the wife remembers from her captivity.

As the words fly between them we learn more about the past, how it has changed them all, and we confront the difficulties of reconciliation for a nation through this specific example with its representatives of the wronged, the accused and justice.

The play takes place in one scene, the beach house, and has just the three actors. Thandie Newton (MI: 2), Tom Goodman-Hill and Anthony Calf (New Tricks) are all superb.

Death and the Maiden skilfully combines a plot that grows and surprises with a close examination of the political and personal realities of oppression. It may have been written about 70's Latin America but it translates easily to today and to the recent conflicts in countries like Libya and the Ivory Coast.

Ham Amenities Group and Cows

2011-10-25T21:28:00.000+01:00

October brings the Ham Amenities Group (HAG) AGM and once again I went to hear the local talk given after the usual business matters, like the reports from the committee, were all put safely to bed.

This year was a real treat. We were given a first-hand account of the cows on Petersham Meadow from a volunteer cow warden.

But let's begin somewhere near the beginning.

The view from Richmond Hill south across the river has been revered, painted and photographed over the centuries and is now protected by law. For most of this time the water meadows at the bottom of the hill have been home to cows.

A few years ago it all fell to pieces until a local campaign, headed by Chris Brasher, successfully established a charitable trust to take control of the meadows. Then, a year ago, management of the site was handed to the National Trust.

The National Trust recruited several volunteers to work with them as wardens and one of them (I must find out her name) gave us a very informative and entertaining talk that far outshone most talks I've seen from people who talk for a living.

Her first lesson was, Never go in to a field of cows without a stick. She had brought hers with her and showed us how to wield it to make the cows move around you.

When the cows arrive in the meadow in spring this is their first experience of outdoors for the calves and they frolic around for a couple of hours exploring every corner of the field. They are always testing the (physical) boundaries and sometimes have to be prised out of hedges.

The north-west corner is there favourite spot, but you'll have to ask them why that is.

The cows act as a group, moving across the field, coming if for the evening and choosing a corner of the barn to settle in. They obviously communicate but it is not clear how.

They learn about the routine of the helpers and anticipate the arrival of apples and the opening up of parts of the field.

People also use the field and they are a bigger problem. They bring litter, noise, children, dogs and food, none of which are appropriate in a field of cows. People have no understanding of how cows behave or of the damage they can do.

There is a battle going on in Petersham Meadows between people and cows. I'm cheering for the cows.

The Passenger at the ENO

2011-10-23T22:22:00.000+01:00

The English National Opera (ENO) features rarely in my cultural calendar because I find most of its repertoire dull and I'd rather hear the words sung in their natural language. A new and unusual opera got me back there.

The Coliseum is a nice quaint venue too. I do prefer modern theatres (Glyndebourne is the obvious example here) but I am getting used to London's Victorian theatres with their rich decoration, waves of boxes and soft red velvet seats.

The lounge areas are reasonable to and I was able to get a Czech Budvar and a chair to sit in while drinking it before the show.

But the beer and the theatre were not what had pulled me there, it was the prospect of an opera tackling the difficult theme of the holocaust. This is not light opera but then I don't really do light opera. What attracts me to opera, and also plays, are words like dark, disturbing and difficult.

The simple premise of the story is that a woman sailing with her husband to start a new life in Brazil things she recognises a former prisoner from Auschwitz from her time as a guard there some fifteen years earlier. This leads her to think back to those days,

This set does this cleverly with the upper layers, in white, representing the cruise ship and the dark lower level representing the camp.

The story starts with the possible encounter on the ship but once the scene is set most of the story happens below and in the past. Not surprisingly some of this is quite harrowing. There is little direct cruelty on show but we do see some of the inmates being taken away and ashes being shovelled out of the furnaces.

Amidst this horror we get a little love story and also some camaraderie amongst the captives that leads to some singing of traditional folk songs and even a birthday celebration.

The story returns to the cruise ship and we get an uncomfortable chorus about never forgiving the Germans for what they have done. That might have been reasonable in 1959 when the original story was written but now it's an uncomfortable message that jars against the progress we have made in Europe over the last sixty six years.

Musically the opera is a little thin. It's only in sections of the second half that we get some memorable singing. Most of the time the music is slight and the singing little more than recitative.

Without the music to focus on our full attention is on the story and while I did not agree with some of the sentiments it is a powerful story that draws you in with awe and horror.

Somehow that is not enough though.

The Passenger is different and it is challenging and it does make for a rewarding night out but it lacks the spark that makes you want to repeat the experience.

When Did You Last See My Mother?

2011-10-22T12:39:00.000+01:00

When Did You Last See My Mother? is, apparently, Christopher Hampton's first play and recently returned to the West End after forty years.

The West End in this case being the Trafalgar Studios in Whitehall. Or, to be more precise, the diminutive Studio 2 there.

This was my third visit to Trafalgar Studios but the first to Studio 2. It is, not surprisingly, much like other small theatres, it has just 100 seats, in its layout with rows of benches around the three sides of the stage but, unlike the others, it has numbered seating.

The usual rule of going for the front row in small theatres was followed and I booked a seat next to one of the aisles on the grounds that would guarantee legroom and might also mean being close to some theatrical exists and entrances. I was wrong.

The aisle was blocked by a chair on the stage which meant that some of the audience had to squeeze between me and the chair to get to their seats and I had to be careful to avoid interfering with one of the actors who spent a lot of time sitting in that chair.

I like being close to the action and this was really close. I was not watching people living in a bedsit, I was with them in the bedsit.

Some care and attention had been spent getting that bedsit right and it was realistically frugal and period. The furniture and furnishing were a joy to behold.

In this bedsit are Ian and Jimmy. Two young men, fresh out of school, desperate for sex and short of money. They are "living together" in the biblical sense but Jimmy also has lots of sex with other boys and girls.

Ian is left with his pain and confusion and it is this that drives the play forward with vigour, humour and pathos.

Ian talks incessantly and honestly. Rather like House, he says what he feels and care not one whit who this offends. There is no malice or snideness in his remarks, he is just saying what he things. He comes across as a nice enough fellow but the frustrations and jealousies cloud his thinking.

Jiimmy, in contrast, is smart, confident and is not worried by money or sex. Life flows around him and he takes what he can along the way. He's shallow and carefree while Ian is deep and in pain. They are also in love, of a sorts, though they never directly admit to that.

There dialogue sparkles and spikes in equal measure. Again one is reminded of House talking to Wilson, and that is a good thing.

Into this emotional pot descends Jimmy's mother for whom the phrase MILF could have been invented. She is mature, assured and smartly dressed. She also feels for Ian. This is, or becomes, more than maternal and they have sex.

Later Ian excuses himself for this by saying that he only did so because she reminded him of Jimmy. She does not understand what he means by this and you have to remember that the play was written well before gay became an accepted and public lifestyle.

But the play is not about the plot. It's about Ian's emotions and the way that he reveals them in his dialogue. And now it has the added attraction of being a glimpse in to the past.

The acting is excellent too. Harry Melling (who was in Harry Potter, apparently) plays Ian and dominates the play simply because that is the way that it is written and he does all that is asked of him in that role. I especially liked his Young Fogey look with Tweed jacket and thick black glasses.

As a result it's a fantastic performance that was genuinely appreciated and warmly received by the audience who were a reassuring mix of ages, genders and races. Theatre needs to attract a wide range of people to survive and it's good to see plays that can do this.

When Did You Last See My Mother? is an enthralling and exhilarating swim in young emotions. Excellent stuff.

Frank Miller's Holy Terror

2011-10-17T23:05:00.000+01:00

Frank Miller and I share a birthday and a we have a deal on comics; he writes and draws them and I read them.

I first came across Frank Miller by accident in 1979 when he started drawing Daredevil for Marvel Comics, which I was reading at the time.

Since then he has produced some iconic masterpieces, notably Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (1986) and Sin City (1991).

Now we have Holy Terror but its not very good.

A lot of what you expect from Frank Miller is there. The landscape book is rich with black pictures with driving rain, spots of colour, a Batmanesque character, water towers on rooftops and a few terse sentences. What is lacking is a story to bind all this together.

This is odd as the spark for the story was the terrorist attacks on 9/11 so he has had ten years to think of one. Instead of a story we have rage.

Frank writes on his web site "I wish all those responsible for the Atrocity of 9/11 to burn in hell. I’m too old to serve my country in any other way. Otherwise, I’d gladly be pulling the trigger myself." I can understand the sentiment (though I do not share it) but it does not make a story.

We have no characterisation either. The man who gave Daredevil the passion to bring Elektra back to life serves up simplistic terrorists and even more simplistic vigilantes to fight them.

These are not heroes that we can cheer for. We have no love for the terrorists but it is hard to think that the cruel and violent response is any better. Frank rages about the 3,000 of his neighbours killed on 9/11 but cares naught for the many more killed, and still being killed, by his countrymen in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Even his Robocop scripts had more subtlety and this.

The one redeeming factor of the book is the artwork and that is such a big factor that it makes it readable despite the story.

Conveniently the landscape format makes this a coffee table book rich in striking artwork that you can skim through without worrying about the script.

Here we see a barely disguised Batman and Catwoman swinging through Empire City.

It's a dramatic and vibrant picture and one I could look at for ages.

But comics are about words as well as pictures and it's impossible to forget Holy Terror's flaws. Much better to read Dark Night or Sin City.

LIKE 29: Connecting Information with Innovation

2011-10-16T19:10:00.000+01:00

My current project in Cardiff is hitting my events schedule in London but I am trying to keep my commitment to the vibrant London and Information and Knowledge Exchange (LIKE) going.

I was helped in this in that September's event was so popular that they ran it twice (the second time in October) giving me an opportunity to make it after all. A second chance was all I needed.

Our guide for the evening was John Davies, Head of Consulting at TFPL.

John took us through TFPL's recent report Connecting information with innovation that outlines the findings and conclusions from a survey they undertook to map knowledge and information management (KIM) responsibilities within organisations.

The session was run as a series of table discussions with John introducing each topic for us and then pulling together our responses.

First up we considered what comes within the KIM remit in our organisations. There are still quite a few traditional librarians and researchers out there but these have been joined by a pot pourri of new roles including content editors, intranet managers, and communications officers.

My thoughts on this were that there are two categories of people to consider; those that manage internal information and knowledge assets (e.g. librarians) and those that use these skills to interpret external assets (e.g. marketing intelligence).

In the summation of this section John gave us the startling statistic that there are approximately 25 million knowledge workers but only 25 thousand people with any directly relevant qualification.

Next we looked at the characteristics that employers look for. when recruiting KIM staff. Again the trend is away from specific skills or qualifications and growing emphasis is being placed on the so called "soft skills" of team working, collaboration, flexibility, logical thinking and pragmatism.

Within this environment the role of professional bodies is changing too. Less importance is given to the formal qualifications that they offer and more to things like the networking opportunities. Members see the value of membership but it can be hard to convince employers that this is something that they should pay for.

And, of course, there are groups like LIKE to consider too. These provide some (but by no means all) of the benefits of a professional organisation but without the costs or the barriers to entry.

The final topic we considered was the KIM diaspora. Once librarians and there like were stuck in corporate centres but now they are found across organisations. This is good in that they are closer to the business front-line but it also means that they can lack the professional development opportunities that working in a larger group can bring.

John led us through the evening with knowledge, passion and energy. This made it a very effective session, one of LIKE's best.

The rest of the evening was up to the usual LIKE standard with a cherubic mix of drink, food and conversations. And that's worth coming back from Wales for.

A short walk in Kew

2011-10-12T23:40:00.001+01:00

Sunday afternoon I fancied a walk to clear out some cobwebs accumulated over a week of work and early mornings watching rugby. Rather than just go around the block where I live I decided to go to Kew Gardens.

That's what the convenience of an annual membership card does.

A decision had to be made on the 65 bus and I chose Victoria Gate more or less by default. The original aim was to head to the main gate on Kew Green but plans change. Often..

Just inside the gate are the Palm House with the lake and parterre in front.

The temptation is always to head that way but I was looking for open spaces and exercise rather than busy areas and flowers so I headed behind the Palm House instead.

But I am not that immune to temptation to not turn back to see the magnificent building peering imperiously through a wide gap in the hedge that arcs around it and the rose garden.

That gap is the start of a long boulevard that heads almost due west and directly to the river.

And with no people in the way. This is the kind of place that I like to walk.

It's Autumn but most of the trees here are still desperately clinging on to their leaves, no doubt encouraged by the recent (if short) spell of warm weather than had us all reaching for our t-shirts again.

This was the first change of plan. A quick check of the map on the Kew Gardens iPhone app confirmed that there was little of interest between here and the main gate that I had not seen recently so I decided to head for the Lion Gate instead.

Hidden just behind the trees on the right is the large lake with the curvaceous Sackler Crossing bisecting it and that's where I headed.

The lake, like the rest of the garden, was refreshingly peaceful despite the efforts of some of the birds who refused to keep still.

There were even some youngsters, possibly the offspring of confused parents mistaking a late Summer for an early Spring.

The Lion Gate plan did not last long and as I crossed the bridge I decided to head back to Victoria Gate.

The Palm House that I dismissed so callously earlier would not be denied. And rightly so, it is a magnificent building.

From the outside it's the jelly mould shape that appeals but once inside the detail of the iron work is more apparent as are the smaller shapes within the larger whole.

Empty, this would be a wonderful building but stuffed full of impossibly tall and green plants it becomes ridiculously astounding. How did I ever think that I could walk past it without going in?

The Playboy of the Western World at the Old Vic

2011-10-11T22:40:00.000+01:00

My current deep immersion in London's theatre scene, in all its guises, brought me back to the Old Vic to see The Playboy of the Western World.

But first I had to get there and as I am working in Cardiff at the moment that meant a well-timed train to Paddington, a rumble along the Bakerloo Line and a quick beer and a bowl of nuts at the Waterloo Theatre Bar.

Then it was time for Theatre Plan B. Theatre Plan A applies to small theatres with free seating and involves securing a seat in the front row. Plan B applies to larger (and more expensive) theatres and means going for a seat high-up. If you cannot sit right next to the action then you might as well save money and go for the Upper Circle. I also like the view from up there, something I've learned from Glyndebourne.

The Playboy (using a shortened title through laziness) is set in a small pub in a small village in Ireland about a century ago where we meet the landlord's lively daughter, Margaret, and her dull fiancée Shawn. They are Irish peasants and do the actors do their best to sound like Irish peasants which made following the dialogue a little difficult at times. I was grateful for my Irish mother and Irish colleagues for giving me lessons in understanding their accents.

The play is supported, carried and enriched by its dialogue (which is another way of saying that not much happens) so being able to follow (most of) it was very useful.

We meet a few more villagers, including Margaret's father, who are mostly as jolly as you would expect peasant in a pub with no obvious opening hours to be.

In to this genteel setting a young stranger, Christy, arrives in a whirl of chaos. He's agitated, voluble and bustling. The reason for this is that he killed his father "when last Tuesday was a week" and has been on the run and hiding in ditches every since.

Murder obviously had not quite the same sense of seriousness in 19th century Ireland that it does today and the upshot of this revelation is that everybody is captivated by Christy.

This is especially true of Margaret and a gaggle of village girls who find a pretence to come to the pub to see him. The old women are interested in him too and a widow flirts outrageously.

And there we have it. A young man with an exciting history and a small group of villagers reacting to it. The dialogue that comes from the encounter is fast and funny. It's a comedy of attitudes.

The story develops nicely too. Christy's becomes even more popular by winning a donkey race and Margaret resolves to marry him. Then his murdered father appears alive after all only to be murdered again. Now the villagers turn on Christy, a murder in another village brings notoriety but a murder in their own village brings the risk of them being implicated in the foul deed.

A couple of twists later and the story reaches its unexpected but very satisfactory conclusion.

I am sure that there are complexities and subtleties to this play that I missed (that's probably always true) and I consumed it gleefully as a work of entertainment rather than a work of deep meaning. And theatre that entertains as well as this is always worth seeing.

Graham Leigh Pfeffer (GLP) Solicitors

2011-10-08T09:30:00.000+01:00

Solicitors from Hell's mission is to let people who have a grievance against their solicitor to fight back by publicising their complaint.

This is freedom of speech pure and simple.

So, obviously, the solicitors are trying to close it down. I hope they fail and I have donated a little towards the cause.

Have a look at their website, it's good.

Just in case it does get taken down I am retelling my story here.

I used GLP & Co for an unfair dismissal case. I was very unhappy with their performance and wrote this letter of complaint (redacted).

"The GLP website claims, “GLP are confident that in a competitive market we can offer the very best of quality and service. We set our standards to the highest level and strive to offer added value to all our clients”, but my recent experience is that GLP fall far short of this.

In my claim for unfair dismissal against xxxxxx I was misled and my clear instructions were not followed.

I was fully prepared to appear before the Employment Tribunal to put my case and I made it clear several times that I was more interested in winning the case than any financial reward.

Yet it appears that GLP never intended to go to the tribunal and was always planning to settle out of court.

There is much evidence to support this view. In particular, GLP made little attempt to collect the information needed to support my case.

Despite having several months to prepare my statement, GLP only sent the first draft of this to me for checking a few days before the date set for the hearing - I sent my corrections on Monday 6 October when the hearing was set for that Wednesday.

No attempt was apparently made to contact the witnesses that I proposed in my email of 19 August.

No attempt was apparently made to get disclosure of the documents mentioned in that same email and in various telephone conversations.

As the date for the tribunal drew closer I asked, more than once, for confirmation of the location and time of the hearing (such as my email of 6 October) but got no reply.

The only conclusions that I can derive from this evidence is that either GLP had no intention of appearing before the tribunal or were doing a very poor job in preparing for it.

I was called by GLP the day before the planned hearing and was strongly encouraged to settle out of court. While this was not my wish it was clear to me that I could not proceed without the full support of my solicitor and that I did not have this. I was then told of weaknesses in my case which would not have existed if GLP had asked for disclosure of the documents that I suggested or had got statements from the witnesses that I suggested.

There then followed a series of conversations on the amount of compensation that I would be prepared to accept and we finally agreed on the amount of £xxxx payable to myself.

We discussed this in detail and there can be no doubt that my instructions were clear.

We discussed GLP’s VAT and fees etc. and we agreed that we would settle for £xxxx for myself; I was not interested in the total amount of the settlement. Against my clear instruction, GLP settled for just under £xxxx payable to myself.

To add insult to injury, GLP then claimed that the cheque would take ten days to clear when the clearing cycle is three days. And I have not received any breakdown of GLP’s fees and costs.

Following the settlement, I wrote to GLP asking for the return of the original documents that I had sent earlier. This has not been done.

In summary, GLP has consistently failed to follow my clear instructions in this case and, as a result, I have not had the settlement that I agreed to and my documents have not been returned."

Needless to say this complaint got no reply either.

Big Ideas on Money

2011-10-05T22:32:00.000+01:00

Being detached from academia (amongst other things) I had no idea who the Big Ideas speaker on How Much Money Do We Need To Lead A Good Life? was but I was assured when sitting in an almost empty room beforehand that he was a big draw.

And so he proved to be. The room was as full as I have ever seen it and comfortably exceeded any reasonable fire limit that might apply to it.

The speaker was introduced to us as Robert Skidelsky, Emeritus Professor of Political Economy at the University of Warwick, which enlightened me not a whit.

I deliberately sat at a table I'd not sat at before (the antithesis of Kermit's nephew) more or less in the middle of the room which was great for the talk and the subsequent debate but not so good for photography so you are spared the traditional picture of the bay window at The Wheatshef.

Robert Skidelsky started the evenings' discussion by outlining the arguments in a new book that he had just finished writing with his son.

The main point seemed to be that the love of money differs from other wants in needs in that it is finite whereas there are limits to, for example, how much you can eat. As a consequence we have Avarice and measures need to be taken to address this.

I felt that the argument fell at the first fence, and said so in the debate. Biological needs (food, drink, warmth, sex, etc.) are finite because they are immediate but the wish for money addresses future needs to food, drink, etc. and so has no limit.

Other people also questioned Avarice as more and more groups, e.g. the people in the room, were excluded from those considered avaricious.

In the debate we spent some time exploring whether Fear was more of a factor that Avarice, i.e. do some people work longer and harder because they want more money or are they just scared that they will lose their jobs if they don't. My vote goes for Fear.

I had problems with some of the proposed solutions too, such as unimposable rules on restricting advertising and unworkable nudges.

My mood on the evening can be gauged by my tweets:

Ten minutes in brings the first reference to Marx. #bigideas
Biological needs are now and finite (even sex) but money is future and insatiable. #bigideas
Poor analysis names Avarice as the guilty party and the subsequent arguments fail on this false premis. #bigideas
And now a plug for Nudge. This is an ill structured and inaccurate argument. Glad the Hobgoblin is on form. #bigideas
Claims that an insatiable desire for money is the problem then excludes many groups from having this. #fail #bigideas
Getting a bit heavy now with constant references to Aristotle, Plato, Hume, etc. #bigideas
The ghost of Stalin stalks the room. And not in a good way. #bigideas

The debate was lively and my assessment was that there were more debaters against the argument presented than for it but the speaker got a long and sincere round of applause when the more formal part of the evening and we were left to carry on the conversations by ourselves with just some more Hobgoblin to help.

I may not have been remotely convinced by the speaker's argument but it did trigger a good debate that I enjoyed being part of. That's why Big Ideas works.

Phaedra's Love at the Arcola Theatre

2011-10-04T22:25:00.003+01:00

It was a sudden decision suggested by an email then allowed by a free evening to go to the opening night of Phaedra's Love at the Arcola Theatre in Dalston.

My usual lack of preparation in reading nothing about the play beforehand was enhanced this time by knowing nothing of the myth either.

So when the story began with a bloke, surrounded by the sort of mess you associate with teenagers' bedrooms, wanking in to a sock I was a little surprised and also a little shocked.

It soon turned out that this was Hippolytus and that he is the step-son of Phaedra, putting us firmly in Greek mythology despite the modern setting and the rolling news of recent wars playing on the wall above the stage at the start.

We soon learn that Hippolytus is a nasty piece of work, extremely selfish and callous in his relationships and yet, despite this, he has an awful lot of relationships. And Phaedra loves him too, and not in a motherly way.

Having met Hippo and Phae separately we have the first big scene on Hippo's birthday when Phae comes to give him his present. A blow-job. Hippo is not the least bit surprised by this not is he grateful, asking for his promised birthday present afterwards.

The consequences of that act unfold and we have a suicide, a couple of killings, more sexual acts of various kinds and another suicide. It's really obvious when the play has got to the end.

Sitting in the front-row of the small (but cute) theatre made this uncomfortable watching at times but if I'd wanted comfort I'd have stayed at home and watched Downton Abbey.

The overall effect is a tumult and turmoil of emotion, the violent sort of emotion that leads to suicides and killings. Amongst this sits Hippo, the calm in the eye of the storm, almost devoid of emotion as the tragedies mount up around him.

Phaedra's Love is a short play, which is probably just as well given the battering you get from watching it, and it is performed without an interval so there is no respite in ice cream either.

The effect is rather like a Belgian fruit beer, a pleasant assault on the senses that can only be taken in small doses.

The Importance of Being Earnest at The Rose

2011-10-01T18:11:00.000+01:00

The Rose Theatre in Kingston is probably my closest, though the two in Richmond are not far away either, and there was quite a fight to bring a theatre to the town so as a regular theatre goer I do try to patronise it.

The Rose does not help me here by keeping to a fairly safe repertoire of well known classics where my taste is for more edgy new drama.

But the old classics are classics for a reason so it makes sense to fill some cultural gaps when the opportunity arises.

That is why my last three visits to The Rose were to see plays by Ayckbourn, Coward and Bennett, and why I returned this time to see a play by Wilde.

I have nothing at all against Jane Asher (I saw here in another Ayckbourn with Ian McKellen in 1988's Henceforward... at Richmond Theatre) but, despite the poster, hers was not the name that mattered to me, it was Wilde's.

This was my first time upstairs at the Rose in the Circle. This is much as the stalls but higher up. The view is fine and you are no great distance from the stage.

As befits a comedy of words, the set was pretty basic. The fashionable London reception room of the first scene requires just a couple of pieces of furniture to define it.

There is no curtain to rise as its a proscenium stage but the lights dim and we are introduced to the two young men whose words and deeds drive the play.

Not that the plot is that important either. It does give a flow, structure and purpose to the play but its main purpose is to be the hook on which to hang as many familiar Wilde bon mots on as possible.

These witticisms come thick and fast; these are just a few to give a taste.

"I don't play accurately - any one can play accurately - but I play with wonderful expression."
"When one is in town one amuses oneself. When one is in the country one amuses other people."
"Oh, I don't think I would care to catch a sensible man. I shouldn't know what to talk to him about."
"London society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years."

The words do what they are meant to and the theatre is full of giggles, smirks, chortles and laughter. This is a funny play.

The cast also do what they are meant to do, and that is not a lot. That's not to say that they are irreverent, far from it, it is just that they are there to deliver the words and not to detract attention from them.

In this context I do not see the point of having a star name like Jane Asher on the bill. Are people really that gullible when choosing whether to go to the theatre?

Being upstairs brought a pleasant surprise, the waiting areas on the first floor are so much better than the unfinished looking ground floor. There is also a nice view of the Guildhall to entertain you.

Good news, there is a bar there too; bad news, it was shut. But there were ice creams.

The Importance of Being Earnest is a nice play stuffed with the amusing dialogue you expect from Wilde, which makes it a satisfying performance but it remains safe and unchallenging and so satisfying is all that it can aspire to.

Heart of Empire by Bryan Talbot

2011-09-30T00:14:00.000+01:00

It has been a little while since I've said anything about comics and even longer since I said something nice about Bryan Talbot so it is time to make amends.

My comic reading is progressing less well that I hoped, mostly because I have been working away, but I suspect that I am just about reading more comics than I buy. Tomorrow's trip to Ace Comics in Richmond may prove me wrong!

I was able to take advantage of one of the long train journeys from Cardiff to Richmond to read my signed copy of Heart of Empire by Bryan Talbot, the follow-up to The Adventures of Luther Arkwright.

I bought this back in February at SFX Weekender so, by my standard, it got to the top of my read pile quite quickly.

At first glance it is a very different animal from Luther Arkwright. For a start it is in colour. And that brings other artistic changes with it as the fine detail of the black and white line drawings is replaced with the bolder coloured block.

The story follows on from the original but can be ready without it. It's a few years later and Great Britain is at a crossroads with several parties vying to push things their way.

Central to all this is the Princess Royal who is approaching her twenty third birthday.

Some of the previous themes are reprised, such as the machinations of foreign powers and the real lives of the poor but that is almost stretching the point as the story is a different beast with a different cast in a different society, but in the same country and the same multi-verse.

The story reads a little easier than its predecessor that, in-line with its underground heritage, had some pages and panels that were thick with text that took some effort to get through.

If anything, Heart of Empire rebounds a little too far the other way and the size of the text in the speech balloons sometimes looked a little large for the panel but that really is being picky.

The story itself sweeps along, throws quite a few surprises, gives us some strange characters and situations, says (or implies) a lot about injustices under the British Empire, and pleases in all the ways that stories should please.

Good though the story is, the art work is even better.

I picked page 22 as an example simply because it is fantastic.

There are obvious hints of Grandville here but it's the richness of the image that makes it so special.

And if you think you've understood all the references, you haven't.

To prove it, you can read what Bryan himself says about this page.

I get the impression with pages like this that Bryan simply cannot stop drawing things - there is much much more in this picture than the story needs.

My favourite unnecessary flourish is the sign for the tram stop that is based on the Art Nouveau ones of the Paris Metro stations.

But whether you understand all the thinking behind the pages or not does not matter as it's easy to see that this is the work of a master.

The version of Heart of Empire that I have has a bloody awful cover (it's not the nice one shown above) which is a real shame as it hides a work of genuine class. I just hope that I've done a little to prove that.

Celebrating Huf

2011-09-26T21:37:00.000+01:00

Wild horses could not have kept me away from a talk by Peter Huf from the German company of the same name that makes the legendary HUF Haus.

The talk was the first in the new season from the Kingston upon Thames Society and is exactly the sort of thing that the Society should be doing.

Peter Huf is part of the third generation that now runs the business started by their grandfather.

While other brothers run the main company back in Germany Peter lives and works in the UK as their architect.

This means that he designs every Huf Haus in Britain.

We began with a brief history that started with the first wooden post and beam house in 1912. A hundred years late the basic principles and materials are the same but the technology and construction techniques have changed beyond all recognition.

Driving a Huf Haus are the individual design and off site production (in Germany).

Peter's passion really came through as he described how he approaches each project trying to make the very most of the site he has to work with. And that's another key point, every house is a commission.

The off-site construction allows Huf to control the quality, something that they are very determined on. That is also why they do every part of the construction.

The main material is still wood for the frame with more modern materials used for the walls. These continue to evolve to improve energy efficiency but Huf Haus are already exceptional in this respect.

Huf likes to include a basement in the house to maximise the use of the plot without having to build up high, which is not always possible in the UK anyway.

The key point to the design is understanding how the house is lived in so, for example, it may be best to put bedrooms in the basement and living rooms on the top floor.

This seems to obvious that you start to wonder why we continue to build carbon-copy small houses when we have better examples to learn from. This theme developed during the talk with Peter several times expressing surprise, and even exasperation, at the way that we do some things here. I agreed with him on every point.

The talk was very well received and there was a good Q&A session at the end. Most interest seemed to be on the question of the price, which is typically around £800k. And you need to get a plot first. I think that's a bargain.

We also spent some time discussing the stupidity of measuring houses by the number of bedrooms rather than their floor space.

I sat there smugly as I had used floor space to compare houses and flats when I first moved up to Kingston around twenty five years ago. For the record, the 1930s flats in Surbiton are enormous that the Tudor style houses in North Kingston are tiny. They all have three bedrooms.

The only disappointment was that we had to move on to another item and Peter left before I could speak to him directly to thank him for the talk and the inspiration. At least I've got the Huf Haus iPad app to play with.

Hoaxwind at The Fighting Cocks

2011-09-24T23:48:00.001+01:00

Hoaxwind's long overdue return to The Fighting Cocks was a triumph.

The venue seems to have improved, since I was last there, or perhaps Hoaxwind just use it better.

This was demonstrated by the richness of the sound and the intelligent use of lighting.

The downside, and let's get that out of the way now, is that the space is an odd shape making it difficult to find a good spot to view the band, particularly when a couple of lively men dominate much of the centre with their boisterous dancing.

I was feeling a little meh anyway so rather than fight for my usual spot front and centre I retired quietly to one side and concentrated on the music and my Guinness.

The Guinness was so-so but the music was excellent.

There are no surprises from Hoaxwind, I'm fairly certain that there were no new songs, but I was not there for surprises.

What I wanted, and got, was solid versions of some of my favourite Hawkwind songs, such as Spirit of the Age and Hassan I Sahba.

Hoaxwind are increasingly putting their mark on these classics with arrangements that are very much their own and make best use of their large and mixed line-up.

I was not clock watching but it seemed a very short set, possibly just over an hour, before the venue curfew dictated that all good things must end. The fleeting time is as much a testament to the quality of the performance as it is to the time allowed for it.

The next time I am due to see Hoaxwind is in December when they play either side of Hawkwind but in a neighbouring venue. Then I am hoping that the venue and my mood will be a little better but the music remains the same.

Halcyon Days at the Riverside

2011-09-22T21:20:00.000+01:00

Whatever I was expecting from Halcyon Days what I got was rather different. And much better.

What was an impromptu decision to go to a weird sounding play proved to be inspired.

It's exceptional.

Let me explain why.

The blurb says, "Halcyon Days is a dark comedy that follows the story of three people and one ghost who meet on a suicide website."

Intriguing though that sampler is the situation quickly become more complex and surreal than that.

We discover that the person who called them together, Massa, has no recollection of doing so and he flits between moods and fantasies. The one genuine suicider, Hello Kitty, is seen by the world as a happy family man but in reality he is gay (think Julian Clary) and has large debts.

Kazumi (the women) does not really want to kill herself (she pretends to the others that she does) but wants to study people who do. She brings with her Akio, the ghost (or vision) of a young man that she was counselling who killed himself.

The plot develops unexpectedly from there and we end up living Massa's fantasy that they are human shields in some global conflict and are rehearsing a classic story, The Red Ogre and the Blue Ogre, to present to the nursery school across the road.

OK, so this sounds a little mad, and it is, but we get there step by believable step so it all makes sense at the time; much like a JG Ballard disaster novel.

And we have a lot of fun getting there and being there. I especially loved Kazumi's West Country accent when she plays the part of a peasant.

Then it all comes together magnificently.

The story of the Red and the Blue Ogres (a fantasy within a fantasy) becomes the means to understand the real world.

It's a very satisfactory ending to a wonderful journey.

Making it all possible are the cast who wallow playfully in the possibilities of each role as their characters change with each fantasy or realisation.

The play itself is solid with good dialogue, movement and progression. That's all down to Shoji Kokami who wrote and directed it. He's big in Japan apparently.

It's a minimal set too (my favourite kind) and that allows the play to flow quickly between scenes. Which is just as well as there are thirteen of them altogether.

The scenes have evocative names like "How do you spell conscientious?" and "Maybe he was a social worker". These are projected on the stage as sur titles and their meanings become clear at some point.

This play has everything. Truly exceptional and truly fun.

Then things got even better. Loitering with intent I was able to speak to the cast (Dan Ford, Mark Rawlings, Abigail Boyd and Joe Morrow) afterwards and tell them how good they were and how much I enjoyed the play.

Speaking to Dan was a double treat as he had also been in Beachy Head that I saw and loved earlier in the year. That play was all about his suicide too.

The only mistake I made was not seeing the play earlier in its run. Leaving it to the penultimate day, to tie-in with an anniversary, meant that I could only go and see it once. Big mistake.

An echo of a distant time

2011-09-21T23:30:00.000+01:00

Echoes are a band that I am happy to see at any time and so its was that I found myself back at the Fox and Duck for another evening of excellent music.

It may be almost forty years since Dark Side of the Moon started its World Domination in album sales but the memories are long and pleasant and so the pub was packed to relive the music of Pink Floyd.

I've said before that the pub is not really the right shape for them, the stage area is too narrow and is in the main bar, but they manage to overcome these obstacles.

The narrow stage means that the saxophonist, Guy Smith, is banished to the corridor that leads to the toilets and then outside but this works fine. Guy even manages to wander in to the centre towards the end as the climax approaches.

Being in the bar means contending with bar chatter but that's an easy problem to solve. Just play loudly.

The mark is set at the very beginning with a raucous, "So ya, Thought ya, Might like to go to the show" that demands attention the same way that a two year old child does.

From there things progress much as expected with large dollops of Dark Side and The Wall mixed in with a smattering of other songs from See Emily Play through to Sorrow, the closing track from A Momentary Lapse of Reason.

In that blend a particular favourite of mine was the track that we were informed that Pink Floyd named after the band.

That may not be true.

Great Gig in the Sky was another highlight mainly thanks to the clever use of the sax to do the female vocal line. It was magic.

Somehow the pieces came in to place from my vantage point behind a bench and I managed to get all the band members in one photo. I don't think that I've managed that before.

They are (L-R): Guy Smith (Saxophone), Peter Bamford (Keyboards), John Vassar (Lead Vocals), Simon Melvin (Drums), Oran Halberthal (Bass) and Lee Deal (Lead Guitar).

And it's good to be able to name-check them all as the whole point of Echoes is that they play as one unit.

There were no surprises in the evening but I went expecting to thoroughly enjoy myself and so no surprises was a good result.

It really was a very good evening. Again.

Cycling to Kew

2011-09-19T23:48:00.001+01:00

What started out as just a cycle for the exercise turned into yet another excuse for going to Kew.

This Summer's weather had hardly been encouraging for cycling and, for whatever reason, the local Open Garden events did not fall on convenient days so I had to reason to go out before.

In the end it was the realisation that Summer was slipping quickly past without waiting for me to get on my bike that made me get on my bike.

I live between the river and Richmond Park which means that the obvious routes are to follow the river or to cross the park. I followed the river.

Heading North takes you quickly to Richmond and then the river swings slowly round Kew before taking you to the Kew Gradens' Brentford Gate.

This is not a gate I use often, I think I've only gone in that way once before, so it seemed sensible to break the journey for a while and explore that part of the garden.

The iPhone app proved its use again here as it pointed me towards Minka House and the Bamboo Garden around it.

And I like really bamboo.

This is a quiet corner of Kew, away from the main entrances and the main attractions, which is an attraction itself for those of us who value tranquility and space. Here the garden looks more natural and only the glimpse of the occasional bench reminds you that this is a tightly managed environment.

This is wild Kew at its majestic best with cleverly planted trees revealing how evolution has shaped the natural world around us while also creating paths through them where the light can play gleefully.

A circular route took me back towards the gate and the White Peaks cafe for a coffee and a cake.

I'd cycled and walked a reasonable distance so I deserved that cake.

Before heading back home the way that I came I made a quick visit to the Queen’s Garden behind Kew Palace.

The well-ordered hedges and borders are in stark contrast to the earlier woodlands but are no less pretty or interesting.

Finally it was time to remember the real point of the day and get back on the bike and fight with the walkers on the tow-path home.

It's hard to think of a better way of spending a Sunday morning.

The Conspirators at the Orange Tree

2011-09-18T23:07:00.002+01:00

The new season at the Orange Tree starts in familiar territory with a play by Vaclav Havel.

Somehow it is three years since the Orange Tree had a Havel season.

Then they introduced his latest play, Leaving, to us with its humour and ridicule and combined that with two double-bills steeped in dissent and rebellion.

This time the Orange Tree has dug up another unknown play for us.

The Conspirators dates from 1971 but this is the first time that an English Language version has been performed.

Despite being written not long after the arrival of the Russians in 1968 the play is set in an entirely different context and one that has contemporary echoes.

A colonial power, unnamed but with hints of Africa, was overthrown and replaced by a dictator who has, in turn, been replaced in a revolution.

In the early days after the revolution it is not clear whether the new government will be any better than the old and there are already demonstrations and political prisoners.

The conspirators are five powerful figures representing the police, army, law, intelligence services and the rich.

Their stated aim is to protect the recently won democracy but their main motivation is self interest.

Libya is the modern reference point for this drama while we wait to see what emerges from the wreckage of the civil war that has deposed Colonel Gaddafi.

The play is not very hopeful in this regard as we get to learn more about the conspirators.

Going clockwise around the table from 9pm; the police commander is cruel and delights in torturing his prisoners, the chief prosecutor cannot cope with his domineering wife, the security chief is dimwitted and the army major is vain.

The only one with any intelligence is Helga, the rich socialite. She uses her sexuality to manipulate the men around her, all of whom have, or have had, a relationship with her.

As such, hers is the pivotal role in the play and Lucy Tregear rises to the challenge with consummate ease.

The conspiracy evolves as we hear more about the deposed dictator and see more of the people's reaction to revolution as revealed to us through the actions of the large supporting cast.

The political scheming and current resonances carry the story forward but the heart of the play is the conspirators, not the conspiracy. And there is a lot in those characters for the strong cast to play with and for us to enjoy.

Les Miserables at the Queens Theatre

2011-09-16T20:06:00.001+01:00

The run of excellent shows that I've been to recently had to end sometime and it ended with a thump with Les Miserables.

I had three creditable reasons for going, the show has been running a long time with many good reviews, Matt Lucas was appearing in it for a while and I got an offer through work.

So I went with reasonable but modest expectations of a good show delivered professionally.

Some of that happened but a lot did not and the show at times disappointed and amused because of its awfulness with very few highlights to compensate for the weak points.

A music needs a good score to carry it and I found nothing in Les Miserables to grab hold of and love.

The music was simply bland. I was not expecting Rodgers but I was hoping for at least one memorable tune and a few pleasant ditties along the way but the music is so bland it is almost invisible for most of the show.

Sadly the same cannot be said of the lyrics. The librettist seemed determined to find the most obvious rhyme every time which gave it a childish predictability.

Neither the music nor the lyrics were helped by the singing which varied from average to poor.

This aspect of the show was particularly difficult to bear coming so soon after The Turn of the Screw at Glyndebourne where the singing was sensational.

There were a couple of parts that were all right, such as the leader of the rebellion, but when Fantine died early on that was a relief.

A decent plot could have kept the evening together and covered over the cracks elsewhere but the story creaks too.

The problem with the story is that it wanders aimlessly and it is never clear what it is meant to be about. The main themes are Cosette's love story (she is the girl in the iconic poster), the long-running battle between Cosette's guardian (an ex-con) and his jailer, and the gap between the rich and the poor that leads to the Paris Uprising.

These themes fight for attention and it is not clear what the main story is until the end (even then it's something of a guess). They add nothing to each other and so one theme only detracts from the others. It's a bit like watching the ads rather than the main programme.

Add to that mix an unnecessary and unexpected comedy line, which is where Matt Lucas comes in.

At this point you suspend all belief in whatever part of the story you are trying to follow at the time.

The compensation is that Matt Lucas is actually funny and he provides the one touch of class in the show.

That a story featuring death, poverty and civil war is rescued by a touch of comedy speaks volumes for the rest of the show.

To be fair, this is a minority view. When the show ended the Saga coach tours stood and cheered wildly while I sat there head in hands trying to understand what had just happened to me.

I guess that if you have never seen great theatre or great opera then Les Miserables could appear to be a good show but I have and it isn't.

The Thin White Duke (Sept 2011)

2011-09-12T21:58:00.000+01:00

The Thin White Duke's third visit to the Fox and Duck in a year was just as good and just as well received as the others.

I managed to get there promptly this time (despite working in Cardiff that day) and grabbed a seat on the bench by the wall on the right-hand side of the pub. This had the advantages of being more comfortable than standing for three hours and of reducing the temptation to dance but the down-side is that all the pictures that I took were from the same angle.

So there are lots of shots of the lead singer and bass guitarists but none of the lead guitar, keyboards or drummer. There time will come another day.

The Fox and Duck filled quickly with a surprisingly wide age range of Bowie fans.

The age gaps became apparent as the set progressed with us oldies most eager to mouth the word to the songs from Hunky Dory and Ziggy Stardust while the youngsters were keener on the Let's Dance era.

One of the reasons that The Thin White Duke are so popular is that they trawl large swathes of the extensive Bowie back-catalogue and carefully extract a mix of songs that sound quite varied but which are united in their quality.

They also play the songs with a lot of love and skill. They bill themselves as, "The tribute band made by Bowie fans, for Bowie fans", and it shows.

The full set kicks in with Rebel Rebel from Diamond Dogs. A rocking song and a single too. The singing-along starts immediately and legs start to twitch expectantly.

As the evening progresses we get large chunks of Ziggy Stardust, fair smatterings of Hunk Dory and snippets from most of the other albums from Space Oddity (1969) to Let's Dance (1983).

The Berlin period was previously represented by the lone Heroes but was joined this time by Breaking Glass and Be My Wife from the musical medley that is the first side of Low.

You can always argue about the songs left out of the set but with some thirteen original albums in this period to choose from there is always going to be more left out than included in.

And while I'd love to hear all 9 minutes and 33 seconds of Cygnet Committee, I suspect that would not be a popular choice with everybody else. One day.

The Thin White Duke return to the Fox and Duck on 3 December and you know that I'll be there too.

Richard III at the Old Vic

2011-09-10T11:39:00.002+01:00

Richard III has got a lot of attention thanks to the combination of Kevin Spacey and Sam Mendes so I jumped at the opportunity to go provided by the theatre club at work.

The impact is immediate.

Kevin Spacey stands in the middle of an almost bare set and thunders in to "Now is the winter of our discontent ". And the next three hours continues in a similar vein.

Kevin Spacey is simply magnificent and dominates the large stage with his diction, movement and small gestures.

The leg brace and badly angled foot confirm his deformity while the raised eyebrows and little smirks to the audience confirm his malevolence. We can see his evil clearly while those around him are often blinded to it by his clever words.

The staging is appropriately brutal too (an awful lot of people die in this story). The main set remains the stark row of doors on either side with just a few props added when necessary.

The dress is modern in the style of South American Dictator. Brutal clothes for brutal times.

The story unfolds unrelentingly as the foul deeds and resultant bodies pile up. Each death is marked with a red cross on one of the doors. More doors have to be added during the interval.

The heralded combination of Kevin Spacey and Sam Mendes delivered exhilarating and exceptional theatre.

The sweat on Spacey's faceat the end is a testament to the effort put in to the role and the long standing ovation was the much deserved reward. This was stunning theatre at its very best.

Anna Christie at Donmar Warehouse

2011-09-07T00:07:00.001+01:00

I'll start with an overdue credit.

One of the reasons that I have gone to so many more plays this year is thanks to the efforts of Elaine Bodenitz of the Logica Sports and Social Club.

She arranges the group bookings that take me to see things that I would otherwise have missed or overlooked. Thanks Elaine :-)

And it was thanks to her that I found myself at the Donmar Warehouse (my first time there) to see Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie which won the 1922 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

It was the play's heritage that attracted me and the presence of Jude Law that clinched it.

I'm not quite sure where Theatreland is meant to be as you never seem to be that far away from a theatre in London but the Donmar Warehouse feels a little bit off the beaten track for theatregoers sitting as it does among the high-style and high-cost shops just to the North of Covent Garden underground station.

The theatre is in a warehouse, as its name promises, and that is good. Inside it reminded me of places like the Young Vic, Arcola and Orange Tree.

It is bare, functional, industrial and charming because of all that.

And, as you might have deduced from the photo of the stage, it has a gallery and I was sitting in it. Downstairs the stage is surrounded by the audience on three sides making it intimate in just the way that I like.

The picture also shows the simplicity of the staging with the wooden floor and walls providing the framework for a bar, the deck of a boat and the inside of a boat moored in a harbour.

All that is required to complete the transformation from one to the other is the placement of a few props such as a few bar stools or a bed.

All looked set well at that point; an award-wining play, a good theatre and a simple stage, all things that I like. Good omens.

The first of the main characters that we meet is Chris Christopherson who captains a small coal barge plying its trade on the East Coast of America.

Chris, we soon learn, is Swedish but gave his life to the sea many years ago. He had a wife back in Sweden but she had died. He was left with a five year old daughter who he palmed off with relatives in the farming communities of Minnesota.

Chris fatalistically blames the sea for everything that happens to him. The sea has killed many people that he knew, including members of his close family, but he cannot escape from its lure and nor does he want to.

He lives from day to day but generally happy with his lot. He has a loose relationship with a woman when we meet him but they are just ships passing in the night and she moves on. Their is no rancour or regret, this is just how things are.

David Hayman plays Chris brilliantly carrying the Swedish heritage and the fatalism with absolute conviction.

Then we meet Anna.

She has come looking for her father who she has not seen since she was abandoned as a five year-old. The bar is the only address she has for him and she writes to him there and arrives soon after Chris reads the letter. He's not in the bar when she arrives so we get to see a little of her before he does.

Anna is smartly dressed but sits comfortably in the sailors' bar drinking whiskey. That seems a little surprising at the time but becomes less so as we learn more about her.

She had had a very rough time growing up being treated as a slave by the family and being raped by one of the sons.

Ruth Wilson plays Anna with quiet emotion and grace.

Anna joins her father on the coal barge and during a storm they pick up some shipwrecked sailors, including the proud Irish stoker Mat Burke.

Mat is a simple (but not stupid) worker. He is proud of his strength developed from hard years of shovelling coal and has a girl in every port. Like Chris he is captivated by life at sea but does not share Chris' fatalism about it.

Mat (understandably) makes an earnest play for Anna as he recovers from his ordeal and after a few weeks he decides that he is going to marry her (she is not expected to have any choice in that). The rest of the play resolves around that decision.

Jude Law is sensational and is only prevented from dominating the show by the equally good performances from David Hayman and Ruth Wilson.

He could have been born for the part with his stoker's physique, curly ginger hair and thick Irish accept.

I could go on heaping praise on the play, production and acting but it's sufficient to say that it is faultless in every respect.

Glyndebourne gardens

2011-09-05T23:13:00.000+01:00

It is the quality of the opera that makes Glyndebourne so special but the glorious gardens add greatly to the day through their beauty and diversity.

The further you go from the main building the more that the purpose of the garden changes from simple pleasure to the production of food and flowers for the house.

This is soon apparent if you enter the garden via the path next to the marquee where you are greeted on the left by a wild field, a disordered gaggle of trees, a functioning greenhouse and, if you look closely, some beehives.

The long lake lies quietly behind the trees with a lawn packed with picnickers beyond that but you do not know that yet and can only assume that you have taken a wrong turn and entered a farm by mistake.

Turning to the right reinforces the farmyard view with a busy kitchen garden delivering vegetables and flowers.

This is the only ordered part of the garden. Nowhere else will you find plants neatly arranged in lines or groups.

Moving slowly towards the main house soon brings you to one of the characteristic features of the garden, a high hedge with a jumbled border in front.

I am sure that these borders are planted with great care and attention, it takes great knowledge and skill to grow a garden that looks as though it has grown all by itself.

Behind this hedge is the croquet lawn which boats one of my favourite signs ever that politely asks visitors not to picnic there. Glyndebourne is not the place for a simple "keep of the grass" notice.

On the other side of the main lawn is another hedge and another border, both of which have come under the gardeners' spell in recent year as part of the continual change in the garden.

I like the way that the tops of the hedges are cut in sections to slightly different heights and angles. I suspect that this is done for artistic effect but I like to think that there is a touch of laziness in there too as it would be a lot more work to keep them all level with each other.

Finally we turn our gaze to the right away from the border and towards the house to reassure ourselves that we are indeed in Glyndebourne.

The house has its own charm, thanks to its fluid shape and subtle colour, and the modern roof of the opera house somehow adds to it.

This is also one the garden's finest moments.

A terrace runs along the house with thickly planted borders on either side.

Here the plants are encouraged to grow as tall and wide as they like as if trying to hide the house completely but all that does is make the visage even more attractive.

There is even more to the Glyndebourne garden than I have shown here with even more diversity which is why any visit has to allow plenty of time for a leisurely stroll through it.

Kew Gardens in late August

2011-09-04T16:49:00.001+01:00

Going to Kew Gardens regularly gives me the chance to explore different parts of the gardens, the same parts in different seasons and also different ways of keeping a record of what I see and do.

My usual routine is: 1) check-in to Kew Gardens on FourSquare, 2) take about a hundred photos with my Canon Ixus 80IS, 3) put about forty of these on Facebook, 4) put about eight of these on Flickr, 5) add five to the Kew Gardens group there, 6) select my four to six for a blog post (like this one), 7) tweet that I've written a new blog post, and finally, 8) add a link to the blog post to the Kew Gardens page on facebook.

This time I did all that and also experimented with Instagram. This takes photos on your iPhone, applies a choice of filters to them and lets you post it quickly and easily to a range of sites including Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. The two main differences from what I usually do are the choice of filters and the ability to post at the time rather than, which is often the case, a week or so later.

This visit, on the last weekend in August, started at Lion Gate, ending a run of visits that had started at the more popular Victoria Gate.

The first thing to greet you there is the Pagoda but, regrettably, that is closed so I carried on towards the little Japanese Garden with its small decorative plants and swirls of neatly raked grey gravel.

At the top of a short gentle ride sits a small squat building looking over it all and confirming the Oriental nature of the garden with its distinctive architecture.

The garden is tranquil and restful both through deliberate design and also the relative lack of visitors to this corner of Kew.

From there it is a short walk to the Redwood Grove and then on to then Waterlilly Pond.

The redwoods do what you expect redwoods to do, stand tall and silent. It's hard to gauge their height and their even greater potential when standing amongst them but one of the educational displays that Kew provides helps to put everything in context.

The Waterlilly Pond is just pretty. This is the ideal spot to linger for a few minutes of rest before heading further in to the garden.

The good people of Kew have thought about this and have provided plenty of benches for that purpose. There is also lots of vibrant planting around the pond in case you ever get tired of looking at just the pond itself.

I came across the Woodland Glade by accident (it's not on the iPhone app) and that added a little more interest to the walk around the compost heap towards the Xstrata Treetop Walkway.

This is an impressive and effective structure that I am now getting used to despite my (sensible) fear of heights and the obvious fact that the floor of the walkway is full of holes.
Luckily the design means the the holes point away from you as you take the prescribed route round clockwise but if you look behind you at any point then the holes reveal the ground far below and remind you why you are uncomfortable about being so far up.

The vertigo is worth it though as the walkway takes you up close to the trees and also offers unparalleled views across the garden. The Temperate House is clearly visible through the trees and looks large even from a reasonable distance.

Having seen it from above the next thing to do was to see it from inside.

The Temperate House is probably my favourite place in Kew Gardens.

It has that special combination of being a large decorative and unusual building stuffed full with large decorative and unusual plants, several of which threaten to bust through the flimsy roof.

A tight spiral staircase takes you up a level to a narrow walkway that circles the large central greenhouse (there are five green houses linked together). From here you can appreciate the size and variety of the plants and also the Victorian splendour of the roof.

To be honest, I prefer the roof more than the plants which is why it features more in the picture than they do.

Having traversed the length of the Temperate House I found myself closest to Victoria Gate so headed out that way.

That is a jolly route taking in the formal Cherry Walk and the Mediterranean Garden that mirrors the earlier Japanese Garden by having a slight slope and a building on the top.

Just before Victoria Gate the Times Eureka Chelsea Garden waits for you.

Having spent the morning amongst the trees at the southern end of the garden the colourful flowers here give a jolt that can only be relieved by walking and sitting among them for a while.

I still have no idea what the wooden construction is meant to be for but, as a piece of abstract design, it has grown on me and it looks at home here.

Another Sunday morning, another few hours in Kew and another set of pictures and words to remember them by.

Turn of the Screw at Glyndebourne

2011-09-03T18:20:00.001+01:00

When I first saw the programme for the Glyndebourne Festival 2011 I was disappointed at the number of revivals of recent operas that I had already seen. Far from disappointing was the return of The Turn of Screw that I last saw, and loved, in 2007.

The opera tells the story of a governess and the two children she is hired to look after by a mysterious guardian who we never see and whom the governess is instructed not to contact.

She approaches the grand house in the country with some nervousness but this is soon dispelled when she meets the children, Miles and Flora, and the housekeeper.

This happy mood does not last long.

A letter arrives from Miles' school saying that he has been expelled for doing something very bad. The governess and housekeeper find this hard to believe it.

Then the governess sees a figure in the tower and later outside. When she describes the man to the housekeeper we are told that this is Peter Quint, a former valet at the house. Quint had had asexual relationship with Miss Jessel, the previous governess. Miss Jessel; went away and then died. Quint dies too soon later.

The housekeeper also suggests that Quint and Jessel had an unusual and unnatural relationship with the two children.

And so the mystery and the tragedy start to unfold.

The opera thrives on the menace in the story that is conveyed passionately by the typically quirky Benjamin Britten music delivered expertly by the London Philharmonic Orchestra slimed down to chamber orchestra size.

The singing was sublime throughout and could be heard loudly and clearly even in the cheap seats (£75) in the Upper Circle. All four of the main roles were superb though if forced to pick one it would be Susan Bickley as Mrs Grose the housekeeper.

I loved the staging as much for what it did not do as much as for what it did. There were a couple of nice touches, like the moving train effect at the beginning, but mostly the set did very little and let the actors and musicians tell the story with their actions, words and music.

Glyndebourne seems to favour the fancier productions these days, e.g. the elaborate and complex sets used in Fairy Queen, Hansel and Gretel, Don Giovanni and Rusalka (possibly driven by the increasing use of ex-theatre directors), but I much prefer the simpler sets that do not distract attention away from the music.

The Turn of the Screw was dramatic, melodic and immensely satisfying. This is exactly the sort of thing that I go to Glyndebourne to see.

A Woman Killed with Kindness at the NT

2011-09-01T22:38:00.000+01:00

Some good reviews and an offer on the tickets persuaded me to go and see A Woman Killed with Kindness at the National Theatre.

I had done my usual pre-theatre research, i.e. I had just seen it mentioned in some tweets, so it was something of a shock when the Upstairs Downstairs characters starting speaking in a Shakespearean manner with the prose containing old words and phrases as well as having a steady rhythm to it.

Another surprise was soon to come to me,
As the dialogue rhymed occasionally.

The play opens with a high-society wedding.

We meet some of the groom's friends and in their friendly banter a high-stakes bet is arranged concerning fine country pursuits involving horses and dogs.

The scene shifts to the other half of the stage where we see the house of the friend with whom the bet was made.

He arrives back from the wedding very drunk and is put to bed by his sister and staff. This is clearly something that they are used to doing.

The story starts with wedding bliss
But soon things start to go amiss.

The happy couple start off happily enough (though the wedding night itself was graphically grim) and soon the bride becomes a mother.

The trouble starts when a friend of the husband is invited to stay in their house for a while.

He fancies his chances with the bride,
And his advances are not denied.

Disturbingly this relationship starts when she is heavily pregnant.

Nearby things are not going much better.

The alcoholic brother has money troubles and the house is only kept going thanks to the careful management of his sister.

This includes selling some paintings.

A rich friend offers to clear the debt,
But only if wedding demands are met.

And so the tragedy unfolds. In one house a woman is cursed by her illicit relationship and in the other a woman is cursed by the need for money.

Seeing the two stories unfold side by side is very effective and the two hours slides past easily and the now out of date custom of having an interval is not noticed.

The twin tragedies (and the larger one in the title) may come as little surprise but its a good yarn carried along at a decent pace, delivered superbly by the cast and staged intelligently but not fussily.

There may be nothing exceptional about the play but there is nothing at all wrong with it either and what you get is a good solid show. And that's good enough any day.

Working in Cardiff

2011-08-29T14:36:00.000+01:00

One of the aspects of working as a consultant is that you usually have to work where the client is.

Being based in London that is not usually an issue as working in one London office is much like working any other regarding commuting and lunching. But sometimes you have no choice but to work from home.

Two years ago I did a couple of months in Sheffield and now it looks as though I will be doing a few months in Cardiff.

The logistics are not too bad.

If all goes well I can leave home at 7am on Monday morning and be in the office in St Mellons (approximately half-way between Cardiff and Newport) at 10:30.

The big proviso here is that I manage to catch the 08:41 train from Reading to Cardiff. The Richmond to Reading train gets in at 08:40.

In Cardiff I stay at the Radisson Blu hotel, that's the tall white building on the left, and eat in Wagamama, which you can see in the bottom-right.

I'm still experimenting with the buses but there's an odd one that leaves opposite the hotel at 08:06 that goes close to the office arriving around 08:45. Other buses get within a mile or so which leaves me with a bit of walking to do.

And that's just as well as I'm not doing much walking otherwise.

I've been there three weeks so far and managed to go for some sort of walk just once. Things like bad weather, having other things to do and being dead tired keep getting in the way.

I did get out once and managed to find the castle. The front of the castle faces on to the nondescript shopping district but it also sits in the corner of a large park that follows the river Taff through the city.

So far I've only managed to explore the section of the park nearest the castle but have seen enough to tempt me back as soon as the time and the weather allow.

Following the river South past the main road, the appropriately named Castle Street, brings you immediately to the Millennium Stadium.

Access to the stadium from here is via a wooden walkway that weaves gently in and out providing enticing vistas of the river, the bank opposite and of itself.

The only flaw is that the walkway stops at the stadium and is not possible to follow the river all the way down to the bay, the spiritual heart of the new Cardiff, and of Torchwood, with its opera house, modern flats and trendy restaurants and bars.

I've made one fleeting visit to the Bay but that was late in the day and too dusky to take many interesting photos. I hope to rectify that soon.

Savouring South Bank

2011-08-28T23:55:00.000+01:00

Arriving early for a show at the National Theatre gave me some time to explore the South Bank Centre which is now part of the vibrant riverside from Waterloo to London Bridge.

This is an impressive change from the South Bank of old that, twenty years or so ago, pretended that the river was not there and refused to provide much for visitors outside of the concert halls.

Now the back of the centre opens to the riverside and the area is packed with cafes, restaurants and bars.

And all that brings the people in.

One of the other things bringing them in is a celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Festival of Britain with a festival of British culture and creativity.

The beach features heavily with a row of individually decorated traditional beach huts and a long beach to go with them.

Each beach hut is a mini gallery or museum with something to explore inside and the beach has, well, lots of sand and lots of children.

More children can be found getting very wet at the Appearing Rooms Fountain where walls of water rise and fall and the trick is to try and move between the rooms without getting (too) wet.

One of the problems of the old South Bank remains.

It was not designed to be fluid and it can be difficult to move between the levels; I had to use the stairs inside the Royal Festival Hall at one point.

There are a few concrete stairwells but they have all the charm of fire escapes and are hard to find as they merge in to the rest of the concrete.

Now somebody has had the bright idea of using bold primary colours to both identify and soften the stairwells. The splashes of colour also act as useful landmarks connecting the levels.

Taking the yellow stairs takes you up to the newly opened roof garden above the Queen Elizabeth Hall.

This reminds me a lot of the Dalston Roof Garden but that is hardly remarkable as both are fiercely industrial landscapes transformed through the addition of a few tubs of plants to look at and a bar to let you have a drink while you do so.

The QEH roof garden scores over its competitor in that it is larger, relies more on real grass than the artificial stuff and offers views of the Thames.

Following the Emergency Exits signs away from the garden takes you further in to the concrete maze that is the roof space.

One almost expects to encounter Steerpike on his epic journey.

Instead it is a more surprising collection of photographs on the there of war that awaits.

There are also unusual views into the heart of the centre that exposes a bustling food market, a dry stone wall, more colourful stairwells and more paths that you would like to explore but have no idea how to get to.

So, instead I take the easy route down towards Waterloo Bridge and my real destination, the National Theatre just beyond it.

The South Bank Centre's parting shot is the Urban Fox, created out of straw bales and aims to bring the rural and urban together in a playful way.

Judging how many photos I've seen of it from friends on Facebook and Twitter it has been noticed and that is what art wants to do.

The fox has also been colonised by birds attracted by the straw which makes it a stranger image still. The coloniser of our cities has itself been colonised.

The journey from beach hut to fox just just a couple of hundred metres but was packed with things to see and do and with people seeing them and doing them.

The South Bank Centre is now an attraction to rival Trafalgar Square and Covent Garden and it has more to offer than both of them.

Kew Gardens in early August

2011-08-27T23:00:00.003+01:00

There are lots of good reasons for visiting Kew Gardens regularly and one of them is the variety that is always on show.

A new attraction is the Times Eureka Garden built originally for Chelsea and now sitting comfortably just inside Victoria Gate.

I liked the garden when I saw it at Chelsea back in May but then I could only walk around the outside of it. Now that it is home in Kew you can walk through it and so appreciate it a lot more.

The strangely shaped wood and plastic structure defines the garden but not so much that you miss the exceptional planting.

It's a short step from there to the magnificent Palm House with its pretty parterre.

This is the formal heart of Kew Gardens and it is clear that a lot of care and attention is taken to ensure that it looks its very best all year round. I've walked through the part of the garden many times and it still has the capacity to surprise and delight.

From there Kew gets less formal, though no less planned. The long straight path that heads towards the Orangery Restaurant benefits from the flower beds that have been added to encourage the pollinators.

I always feel that the South-East corner is somewhat overlooked by visitors scared to wander too far away from the main attractions. It's one of my favourite parts.

There you will find the Duke's Garden.

A horse-shoe path follows a lawn round from one gate to the other with substantial flower borders on either side.

But the real gem is beyond that in a second garden next to the house that is enclosed by sumptuous high brick walls that create a discrete environment and also provide a warm backdrop to the colourful flowers.

The nearby Grass Garden is another favourite of mine showing that you do not need flowers and colour to make plants attractive.

The grasses are planted in small groups that let you compare and contrast them easily.

There are clear differences in their shapes, for example some are fluffy while others are spiky, and there are subtler variations within these, such as their height.

Grasses may not be everybody's cup of tea but, like the woodlands, they are very much part of the rich variety of Kew Gardens that makes it so wonderful.

Walls feature again as we head back towards Victoria Gate.

They hide the Order Beds and Rose Pergola from the casual visitor who mistakes them for the outer walls along Kew Road.

This is easy to do as the small delicate flowers and tumbling water in the Rock Garden conspire to grab your attention and to keep you away from southern boundary.

Along the wall more flowers take advantage of the protection offered to show off their colours.

Passing through the gate is like entering a new world as a new garden, unlike anything else in Kew, is revealed.

The Rose Pergola tries to dominate the garden with its solid construction but the plants in the beds are just too demanding for that to happen. No one plot wins their beauty contest, it's the eclectic mix of flowers, vegetables and trees that makes this area so interesting.

And so ends another trip to Kew Gardens. A relatively short trip and one confined to just one part of the gardens and still it was one packed with variety and interest. Kew is special.

Three short operas

2011-08-26T22:18:00.001+01:00

The Tête à Tête Opera Festival 2011 had a lot going for it.

It had operas in it, they were on the quirky side of interesting and it was held at the Riverside Theatre in nearby Hammersmith. So I went.

The downside was that there were a lot of shows that I wanted to go to and most of them only had one or two performances. The Riverside is close, but not that close, and I have other calls on my time, like work, so in the end I only managed to get there for one Sunday afternoon but I did manage to see two shows in that time.

First up was the Glyndebourne Youth Opera with a double bill of On Off and When I Am Old.

On Off was a light-hearted look at the impact of the lights going out and the impact this has on a society reliant on electricity to power fridges, microwaves, phone networks, hair-dryers, hoovers and PCs etc.

We follow a group of around twenty people as they try to cope with their new situation.

It's a very busy opera, the story moves on quickly with one episode following quickly after another, there is lots of singing and the whole stage is a frenzy of activity as the cast keep on the move.

Some of this is almost intimidating to anybody sitting in the front row, as I was, as they sang directly to the audience several times. The flip-side of intimidation is the involvement that you felt.

There are some catchy tunes a long the way and a pleasant half and hour is soon over.

In stark contrast When I Am Old is framed by a video showing the human impact of a brutal invasion of Gazza by Israel. This is uncompromising stuff and is very pro-Palestine, which is fine with me but I can see some people objecting to that.

When I Am Old is less urgent, as befits the subject matter, and also uses the full cast to good effect.

I found it less convincing as a story, if it was even meant to be a story, and while it had a few reasonable moments it never quite lived up to the promise of the video that was far more memorable and moving than the opera.

The Sleeper by Welsh National Youth Opera was something else again.

It is set in a future where people can no longer sleep and they suffer the obvious problems because of this. One person can sleep, The Sleeper, and they are on the run from the police and other people. A small group travellers with The Sleeper and tries to protect him/her (the identity of The Sleeper is part of the plot).

The apocalyptic scenario and the pursuit make this a very tense drama that is emphasised by the music, the singing and the acting. This is real drama.

The opera suffers from being an extract from a greater whole and while the addition of a narrator helps to fill in some of the gaps the story is still incomplete and a little incomprehensible. But that's opera for you.

And, actually, none of that really matters as the tension is gripping and the performance spell-binding. The Welsh prove that they can sing and that they can act too. It was powerful stuff and a real treat.

With operas as good as these I will be paying more attention to the Tête à Tête Opera Festival next year, and I won't get work get in the way next time.

Back to Isabella Plantation

2011-08-24T22:20:00.000+01:00

Having skilfully voided Isabella Plantation in Richmond Park for a few years I then get tricked in to going there twice in a few months.

In May it was the bluebells that caught the eye but as Summer starts to fade it is the heathers that have their turn to shine.

The sun chose not to shine though and they greyness did me a favour by keeping the usual hordes away.

The gravel path here should be guiding them through the gardens but it stands empty and lonely.

And that's just how I like it.

The thick flower beds cling tightly to the central path as it slips gently down from the top of the garden to the duck pond at the bottom.

And in those beds large clumps of flowers jockey for position, each eager for light, water and space to grow, like any family.

Each family has its own distinctive shape, style and colour but when they all come together the effect is a surprisingly harmonious blend rather than the discord that might have been expected.

It's as warm and welcoming as a patchwork quilt.

But the heathers do not get it all their own way.

The smallest of rivers trickles through the garden and the lush broad-leafed plants in triumphant British Racing Green guard it jealously.

Their strength overpowers the thin wispy plants who wisely keep their distance. Millennia of competing for survival has taught them when to fight and when to leave be.

Lifting you eyes slowly from the watery domain you first see the tall bushy flowers and then, looking higher still, the trees that give the plantation its name.

The variety and harmony of Isabella Plantation combined with its tranquillity are what call people to it and what makes them keep coming back.