Blood And Revenge Are Hammering

I went to see Titus Andronicus.  It was brutal. It was proper B-Movie ultraviolence - a nice tale of rape, mutilation and mum jokes - but cultural because it was Shakespeare. One of the most fun things I've seen at the Globe - and with a lot of the action happening in the crowd, one of the most memorable too.

The lights here go off at midnight. Fairly sure I've cycled in the dark before, but this time it seemed really dark - I guess there was limited mooniness. Kinda weird, knowing that you can be seen from a fair way away but that you can't see anyone else around. Kinda sinister.

Urine For A Treat

I saw that there Urinetown.  I'm not going to lie to you, I saw it on the basis of its name alone. Urinetown? They actually called it that. Still it was strangely fun. And very much not like any other musicals I've seen. It had a tremendous body count.  You don't get that in Cats.

I saw Phil Wang's Edinburgh Warm Up show last night.  The crowd didn't seem to get him, which was a bit of a shame.  Not least because on more than one occasion I was the only person laughing, which always makes you feel a bit like a simpleton.

And I'd like to think I'm not.  Even if I did go to see a show because it had urine in the title.

Hip London Stuff

I did one of those hip London things the other day, but I had to sign the Citizens of Beaumont Official Secrets Act, so can't tell you anything about it. Which doesn't make for that interesting a blog post.

Hip London stuff like that, though, does make me pretty grateful that I live close enough to a city where stuff like that happens.  There really can't be many places in the world where everything (by which I mean people with the inclination and resources to put something on and people with the disposable wealth to participate) aligns so that something like that can exist.

Ultimate Warrior died this week. When I was ten he was pretty much my hero.

Quiche, Quinoa and Quail Eggs

Why is it only middle-class foods that begin with Q?

That wasn't really what I meant to start this post with, but it was bugging me today. I'm not sure if I'd be less bothered if they used the Qs properly, rather than had them as la-di-da Ks: keesh and keen-wa just doesn't sound as hoity toity.

Anyway, what I actually meant to do was add to my increasing mountain of Kate Tempest flattery. It seems like there's nothing she can't do. I saw her latest play this weekend, it was ace.  Fun and funny and powerful and emotional and all round better than it had any right to be. And it had Michelle Gayle in it.  And she's not aged since my sweetness was her weakness twenty years ago. Only one slight criticism: the title. Hopelessly Devoted - I can't hear it without hearing Stockard Channing wailing.

I saw that I Can't Sing thing too. Not certain that I need to write too much about it, as a whole heap seems to have been written. It was a mighty silly slice of lowest common denominator fun and trying to read any more than that into it seems to be missing the point somewhat.

_____________________

Here's a conversation:
- "Have you read the Cappuccino Years?"
- "No, I never read Adrian Mole as a kid and I feel that it's a bit late to read it now.  It seems a bit time dependent."
- "What are you reading now?"
- "..."
- "Sorry I didn't hear that."
- "Angus, Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging."

Writes of Passage

World Book Day came and went without any real impact (I thought that going to work dressed as Pressia Belze may lose me some respect in the eyes of my colleagues) other than leaving a reading list trailing in its wake.

And what a peculiar little list it is. It's fifty books to read before you're sixteen, roughly split between classics and teen fiction with a handful of books that don't really fit into either camp (Jodie Picoult and James Herbert).  On the whole the list was pretty spot on - Hunger Games; The Fault in Our Stars; The Book Thief; The Night-time Incident of the Curious Dog are all heaps of fun.  Now I'm not certain about the inclusion of some of the classics - Although I can sort of see Jane Eyre (if you don't read it as a thirteen year old girl you're never going to read it) - Catch-22 is a fair contender for my favourite book but I'm fairly sure it would have just left me bewildered if I'd tried to read it at 14.

Some of the modern teen choices (and omissions) were curious.  By which I really mean; I will fight anyone who tells me that they enjoyed Skullduggery Pleasant more than The Dead.

There's a couple of books that I keep seeing around and thinking I should read, like Wonder, which are now in my head a bit more validated because of their inclusion in a list (which is weird of me). And ashamed to say that there were a couple of books that I'd not even heard of, which is pretty terrible of me.

I've done stuff other than look at lists about teen fiction, honest. I saw The Weir.  That's a thing that a grown up would do, right? I also saw Russell Brand, I'm not certain that I can say the same about that...

Munchen Glad Rags

Happy Fasching, people.

I've had another one of those happy accidents where I've ended up somewhere foreign for one of the big party things. We're in Munich, it's Rose Monday and everyone is in fancy dress and drunk on schapps. The streets are lined with trampled confetti and the beerhalls are full of lecherous drunks dressed as predatory clowns.

Still, Munich good. It's a properly pretty city which seems designed purely as a purveyor of pig and beer - you're going to think I'm exaggerating but the main market actually sells nothing else. It's like it's been designed for my optimum weekend break.

Went to that Black Forest yesterday, to see chateaux and eat gateaux. Saw Neuschwanstein (the castle from the Country House single, britpoppers), that's one of the most picturesque things to see in Germany, right? Unfortunately it was really misty, so could see almost nothing. Rubbish.

Still, beer and pork good.

Australia Greatest Hits

Back in England and my body doesn't really know which way is up. I'd say that it's confused as to why it's getting dinner food at breakfast time, but it expects that. It's probably far more confused about why it's been up for such a very long time - consequently there's a mid-level chance that my fingers and brain won't work together all that well and I'll type something even more non-sensical than normal.

Anyway, that was Australia.  The aim was to see the best bits, the greatest hits and I think I made a fair crack at it. Five pretty diverse bits of a massive, massive country in a fortnight.

But what about the other corners? Why didn't I get down to Tasmania to try and see those slobbery bonecruncher things? Or get to the Sweaty North to see the properly big crocodiles?  Or Ningaloo, because everyone knows that that's the better of the two, right?

Guess I might not be done with Oz yet...