Whirlwind
This last week or so really has been a whirlwind.
Last Wednesday I ventured into the wilds of Peckham for dinner with my friend Sarah. We went to a vietnamese restaurant which was incredible value and very tasty indeed. Neither of us could get near finishing our food, and for 16 quid each including 2 beers, was a bargain. I have just, slightly worryingly though, found this article about it!
HD and I had planned to go out on Thursday night but he had to work late, and a colleague invited me to go to his private members’ club in soho for some “proper” drinks, which obviously I could not decline. The place is so lovely and I am now desparate to become a member, but unfortunately it’s a bit pricey and I’m not sure I’d use it enough to justify the joining fee. We drank a lot of cocktails and foolishly visited a pub on the way back to the tube station for a couple of pints (which my colleague told me next day was his drunken idea of rehydration!).
I felt somewhat rough on Friday, so the day dragged horribly and I just wanted to go to bed. But, Alex and I had tickets to a show at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, so I had to try and get myself to wake up, which miraculously seemed to happen as soon as I walked out the office! We joined The Shark, over from New York, and friends in the foyer for some drinks before the performance.
It was an interesting performance. I mean interesting in the “awful but I don’t want to be rude” sense of the word. I can’t really describe it but here are a couple of reviews which give you an idea!
Observer
More dark angels and auto-asphyxiations feature in Revelations by Stan Won’t Dance. This young company was built around the talents of ex-DV8 dancers Rob Tannion and Liam Steel, and enjoyed a striking success last year with Sinner, which examined the motivations and fantasies of the Soho pub-bomber. Revelations takes as its point of departure a couple (Tannion and Raquel Meseguer) whose relationship is imploding. He wants out, she wants to Try One Last Time. This going-nowhere romance is overseen by a squad of demonic angels who, unseen by the humans, slip and slide in and out of the dream-kitchen set which encloses the action, and goad them to violent excess.
This notion of the permeability of the material world owes a clear debt to Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire and its many Hollywood imitators but is nevertheless well handled, with the supernaturals writhing lubriciously around the unseeing couple, and in one memorable tableau hanging like bats over their heads. Eventually Tannion persuades himself that the way ahead is to slap Meseguer, call her a slut, stick a tangerine in her mouth and a belt round her neck, cut off the blood supply to her brain and rape her. This is probably not what Relate would have counselled but it does bring to an end a production from which the dramatic juice has long been squeezed. Its defining weakness, beside which the choreography doesn’t stand a chance, is Nigel Charnock’s text – 95 unbroken minutes of foul-mouthed pseudo-sophistry. This is mostly delivered by Liam Steel’s Master of Ceremonies, a tiresome fetish-queen who hectors us with cliches like ‘Love? It’s a transaction!’ Well, so is theatre, and on this occasion you may want to hang on to your money.
Brutal face of love
Evening Standard
Why is Stan Won’t Dance so down on love? Rob Tannion and Liam Steel take a sledgehammer to romance, and I don’t just mean the Barbara Cartland variety that is obviously only fit for the tip. The former DV8 dancers portray affection as fleeting, and then see just emotional weakness and sexual angst at its complex core.
They’ll say that’s how love is – lonely, scary and brutal – and they may be right, but 90 uninterrupted minutes of it makes for staggeringly dull theatre. It’s our old friend diminishing returns.
Watch a show of unremitting angst and you mentally rearrange your sock draw.
Watch a show of suggestion with an unexpected sting, and you’re reeling for days.
Tannion and Steel have ignored this golden rule and instead give us a Biblicallyloaded performance that depicts a “secret world of lust, lies and loss”.
Not secret enough, I say. The new-ish show depicts an angsty couple who leave no crotch unturned. They are accompanied, or haunted, by four dark-hearted putti, conscience or guilt, perhaps, who hang around the rafters, crouching like incubi then swooping like crows.
There are some fearsomely physical dance sequences, some excellent, as is the idea that a self-destruct impulse means we crush what we love. Also clever is the sentinel-like figure who describes emotions that dare not speak their name.
Another high is the set, an open-built yet claustrophobic kitchen, with the sleek cupboards and appliances as a way in for emotional and sexual demons.
However, Tannion and Steel have worked a reverse synergy on these positives, added to which the Sentinel’s singing is feeble, and his comments more spite than insight.
And while some will find the erotic asphyxiation in poor taste, it’s the cliches that annoy my cotton pants off.
There’s a man in a dress, a hooker in suspenders, leather trousers, and a stainless steel kitchen (think Cabaret meets Closer).
The conflated Adam and Eve/Snow White myth (that is, sex and death) is clumsily handled, while the woman bleating: “Don’t leave me, I’ ll do anything” is risible.
For all their supposed radicalism, Tannion and Steel look dated.”
I met my mum in the hell which is Oxford Street in December Saturday lunchtime. They had a day of pedestrianisation which you would have thought would would have eased the pavement traffic but of course more people visited because of traffic ban. We retreated into a basement restaurant off St Christopher’s Place for lunch, very soon after meeting up, and had a long lunch there before walking along to John Lewis where my bro and his brass quintet were playing christmas carols to the shoppers. It was very festive and immediately got me into the spirit of the season. We then braved Selfridges, which was maybe slightly foolish as they had a 20% off everything promotion for the weekend. It was so busy, and had the feeling of a tube station at rush hour – not entirely pleasant. We didn’t spend long there but managed to purchase some lovely cashmere lined leather gloves for my mum, and some t-shirts for my dad.
By then I had just about had enough of the crowds but we went back to John Lewis to watch the end of my brother’s carols, where my dad had been waiting for us for a while. We went and had a quick drink but everyone had places to be so I headed home, for a quiet night in.
Yesterday HD and I decided to go “up town” for some brunch. By the time we got there is was a bit late for brunch so we ended up having a proper sunday roast in Endurance on Berwick Street, which is possibly one of the best roasts I’ve ever had. On the pricey side, once it arrived I was quite willing to pay. We then went to watch Starter for Ten at the Empire Cinema on Leicester Sq, on the smallest screen I’ve ever been in. It was tiny, as were the seats. So it wasn’t the most comfortable of 90 mins but the film was excellent – laugh out loud funny on quite a few occasions.
After a short detour into work to pick up a box of christmas presents which were delivered at my office last week, HD and I finished off the day in the pub at Denmark Hill station, called The Pheonix, which once we got in there realised was a very close cousin of the Commercial, an oft frequented favourite in Herne of the Hill. Sensibly HD called it quits after 2 drinks, so i was tucked up in bed at home not much after 9pm.
Lots of things
It’s been ages and ages again since I’ve updated this…
Time is flying by recently, I honestly cannot believe I am coming up to my second christmas at my job. The remaining memory I have of last year is getting sick of smoked salmon and champagne, which I would have thought would be impossible, but oh no, not with the amounts here…
So, maybe I should go back a couple of weeks and start from where I left off with my last post.
Reaching out into the deep depths of my memory… ah yes….The Flaming Lips. Was taken along with the Catster + colleagues to see the Flaming Lips at Hammersmith. Absolutely brilliant gig which made my “dark days” of impending winter cheer up immensely. It involved many a (very large) balloon, lasers, beautiful music and great camaraderie amongts the audience (mainly brought about by the very large balloons, around which there are very few people who can continue acting like adults). The evening was rather drunken, and much fun.
I managed to get hold of a horrible nasty cold the next day, which meant the next few days were fairly uneventful, apart from having rubbish and not cheap asian food on Wardour Street (which to be honest I didn’t think existed…) on Friday night with Alex.
I spent pretty much the rest of the weekend in the house, trying to not cough and splutter too much. Apart from Sunday night when the Catster and I went along to the showing of Radiohead’s videos from the last 10 years at the National Film Theatre, which was very interesting. Quite a lot to handle in one go though – they are very full on.
The local bar at work has recently introduced a happy hour, in which bottles of house champagne are half price between 5 and 7pm, so a group of us from work went along there and drank and inordinate amount of bubbles, and talked to a local in the bar whom some of my colleagues know quite well but I had hardly ever spoke to before. I am not ashamed to admit that we spent the best part of an hour ranting about our favourite bands (New Model Army on his part, and DM on mine, of course).
Last Thursday (how is that almost a week ago?!), the company paid for about 30 people to go ice skating at Somerset House. I was reluctant to go as I haven’t skated for years and years, and my ankle is slightly dodgy, but I was persuaded to and I am so glad I did! It’s so much fun. Once I was on the ice and had found my feet, I didn’t want to stop and the hour actually felt very short. We all bundled to the local Walkabout (classy place that), for (free) food and booze a-plenty. As with work do’s, it took a couple of hours to warm up, but by about 10pm we had all had enough alcohol to start dancing crazily to the very, very cheesy music. A colleague and I decided at around that time, seeing as both of us had the following day off, to get drunk. And we did. It was fun. (Apart from her chundering in the gutter when we arrived back at my house…).
Friday started off slowly, with brunch in local cafe and the afternoon back in bed, but finished with a much anticipated Rodrigo y Gabriela gig at Shepherd’s Bush Empire. It was packed but I much enjoyed it. They are very talented indeed! Quite scary how quickly they can move their hands and fingers…
Spent much of Saturday doing not a lot, after my hairdressers appointment was cancelled. Not good at all as hair is looking fairly terrible…
For some reason I woke up at silly o’clock on Sunday so I took the opportunity to go to B&Q and buy paint – I arrived there as the store opened at 10am. Quite loony for a Sunday morning. But it meant that by mid-afternoon I had a very pink wall indeed. I had a date on Sunday evening which was nice, but I don’t think I’ll see him again. We went to see Pan’s Labyrinth at Cineworld Haymarket. It is an awesome film and I would urge everyone to go and see it. But don’t expect any cheeriness!
On Monday I ventured to Bluewater for xmas shopping. After an initial blip of every train from London Bridge being delayed due to signal failures, I made it there. We looked round a shop or two before going for a 2 hour lunch, after which we looked round another shop or two whilst buying more for ourselves than other people (which of course is the way it should be). I bought a fantastic yellow and grey scarf and long fingerless gloves set. I love it.
Went back to work yesterday after my 4 day weekend in a very bad mood indeed. People could tell that I was not to be talked to and were avoiding me for most of the day which was good. I was taken out at lunch by a colleague for beers over the river, which did cheer me up. The evening brought a reunion of my old work colleagues in a pub we used to frequent, which to my horror had recently gone non-smoking so I was not a happy bunny! Unfortunately due to the lunchtime beverages it only took me a minimal number of pints until I was drunk enough to not be fit for public consumption so I headed home at the rather sensible time of 10pm, bumping into (lunchtime beers) colleague on the tube on the way home which was odd seeing he had been in the city and I in the west end…
Today has been particularly uneventful apart from me finding (and buying) possibly the coolest dress in the world at lunchtime. I cannot wait for the xmas party season to kick in so I get a chance to wear it. (I would link to a picture but for some reason it’s not on the store’s website. Maybe it’s only meant for me).
Ps – the alarm clock light isn’t working any more – I might have to literally put it next to my head at night. Pah very annoying.
Dark days
Look out the window. 5.15pm on a November evening and it is completely dark.
Every year it shocks me how the days draw in so quickly, and every year without fail the winter blues hit me like a sledgehammer.
I have to admit, the sun alarm clock is helping the mornings marginally, although I fear I am already getting used to the light as this morning I didn’t even stir before the alarm went off. I may have to move it closer to my bed.
I got out of the office at lunchtime today, and went for a nice long walk to get some vitamin D. I got about a mile away from work before the insistant drizzle began. It was that horrible rain that doesn’t feel heavy but makes you very very wet. Not nice at all, especially with a wool coat.
Anyway on a lighter note, a couple of situations with friends that have been getting me down a bit seems to be on the way to resolving themselves, which is positive. Hopefully once completely sorted the winter being on the way won’t seem quite so totally devastating.
Consequence of tropical flowers
A couple of weeks ago, my boss’s family went to Singapore for half term. A few months ago I helped his son out with a few labels and things for the new school term, and he felt, obviously being a complete sweetheart, that he wanted to buy me something from his holiday to say thank you. The brought me back a huge box of beautiful Orchids in white and purple.
So merrily I distributed them between my bedroom and the kitchen.
On Tuesday night of this week, I was happily sitting at the kitchen table, smoking my cigarettes and drinking my wine, waiting for The Catster to get off the phone, when I happening to glance up to the ceiling, and see something wriggling along…
A quick scan around the kitchen confirmed, to my horror, that there were indeed more than one of the wriggly things, probably about 30!
So I dashed downstairs to get HD to come and have a look. Thankfully we came to the conclusion that they weren’t maggots, but caterpillars. Which we thought must have come from a moth. Quite cute if you’d seen them on a flower in the garden but not in your kitchen.
Sorry to all the animal lovers out there, but I have to say I promptly collected the hoover and proceeded, with some glee I am slightly ashamed to say, to hoover the whole lot up!
Luckily, yesterday, although there were some more, it was no where near as many as the day before.
Cat, though, very sensibly suggested that they had probably come from the Orchids which makes a whole lot of sense as have you ever seen moth caterpillars in your kitchen?!
Anthony and the Johnsons
Alex, Tess and I went to see Anthony and the Johnsons, in collaboration with Charles Atlas doing visuals, last Saturday at the Barbican.
I’ve been trying to write a post about it all week but am finding it impossible to evoke anywhere near the amount of emotion or the intensity that we felt, so I am going to leave it at saying it was amazing, amazing, amazing, and I would go and see the show again in a second.
Revelation
As mentioned (ie moaned about) in post before last, I have had trouble waking up in the mornings. HD got fed up with me complaining/being grumpy about it, so suggested I bought one of these.
I decided, spontaneously, to go ahead and buy one then and there.
Unfortunately, due to the spontaneity (and therefore haste) of the act, I managed to confuse matters intensely by entering the first line of my work address and my home postcode as the delivery address. Oops. So it took rather longer than the promised “free next day delivery”, but only though fault of my own.
So I finally received it. It has revolutionised mornings. It makes a significant difference to how I feel in the mornings, and I can imagine as it gets darker earlier, it will have a greater effect. If I had the money I would buy one for everyone I know but unfortunately they cost slightly more than a penny so I can’t. But I would strongly recommend everyone who has trouble getting up in the mornings splashes out and gets one (or xmas present as the day is coming up?).
Dance, nuptials and outrage
On Friday night Alex and I went to our third dance show in as many weeks. It was very different from the first two, mainly by the fact it wasn’t Flamenco.
It was the Stephen Petronius Company performing at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. The Company are a contemporary ballet company, who commission modern song writers to compose pieces for them to dance to, and this one was mainly Rufus Wainwright, which is why we went.
The first piece was a solo guy dancing to No More Heroes by The Stranglers, which I was initially wary of, but actually was very good.
The second piece was electro, with the whole company (maybe 4 guys and 4 girls). It was incredibly engaging and I don’t know about Alex, but I couldn’t stop grinning it was so good! The set was very plain, with lighting used to create different moods.
After the interval they danced to 4 Rufus songs, then the piece which they had commissioned him to write especially. Lovely lovely lovely. They had a couple of choirs from schools in south London who began by filing in and up to the back of the auditorium. It was very effective.
Saturday was a quiet day, did a bit of housework then went to parentals for dinner. I did very little on Sunday during the day in preparation for a colleagues wedding reception on Sunday evening. I took HD, so we had a lot of fun involving everything you would expect from a wedding reception, lots of booze, cheesy music and silly dancing. It was a fairly short evening as it was out in the middle of nowhere and my wonderful dad was coming to pick us up, so there, luckily, weren’t too many hours to take advantage of the free bar.
The outrage consists of me being offered a seat on the tube this morning by some man who thought I was pregnant! I know I am not exactly slim, but I am pretty sure I don’t look preggers. He didn’t even say “Would you like my seat”, he just looked me straight in the eye and said “Are you pregnant?”! He did look absolutely mortified when I said no, but still. A lesson to all men, don’t say “Are you pregnant”, just say “Would you like my seat”, because then at least the girl could think you were just being polite and gentlemanly.
Sleep is over-rated
Ok, I concede, when you haven’t had a lot of sleep for an extended period of time, it is the one and only think you can think about, and bed seems like the most enticing place in the world. But, when you manage to have a few early nights in a row, and still feel knackered and grumpy, the love affair with the slumbering state starts to sour.
Today all I can think is that if I had gone out on the lash for the last couple of nights I would at least have had some fun and be tired, rather than having being sensible, going home straight from work and having an early night and still be tired. (disclaimer – not that playing cards with Catster isn’t fun!).
So why is this? Is it that my body is so unused to getting the requisite 8 hours of sleep that I have been getting a surplus? I could understand that if was sleeping, say 12 hours a night, which is excessive (unless it is the end of a full-on party mode week eg birthday, Christmas etc). But I’m not, I’m getting what is widely understood as a sensible and desirable amount.
Maybe it’s not to do with amounts of sleep at all. Maybe its to do with the horrible dark drizzly chilly mornings. Maybe it’s that I can’t wake up properly with no sunshine so I feel drowsy because I’m still actually half asleep. Coffee doesn’t seem to make any difference, and I’m drinking loads of water so it’s not that I’ve got dehydration cotton wool brain. And it’s only going to get worse as we trip head-first into winter.
Sigh.
Sorry, sticklebec isn’t very cheery today.
Flamenco le parte dos
As mentioned in my last post, Alex won tickets to go and see another Flamenco show on Sunday.
I had a bit of a drinky weekend (surprise surprise), starting on Friday night in the City with the girls from work, then back to HH for a bar crawl finishing at 4am, followed by all day drinking with my mum in Covent Garden on Saturday, ending in a movie and wine marathon with HD on Saturday night. Sunday I was feeling somewhat less than jolly, but I think, thankfully, that the intense queasiness I was experiencing after a drinking session over the summer was only a temporary sufferance as I have not had to endure one of those dreadful days for over a month.
Still though, motivating myself to get up and out of the house was difficult, especially considering the show was in Hackney, not the easiest place to get to from HH (or anywhere for that matter). In the end it wasn’t too bad a journey, only one train and one bus, although it was a long bus. I was quite early, even for me, so I hung around in the bar, looking around the theatre, which incidentally is very elaborate and unexpected gem. Still though, it’s not going to be a regular haunt of mine as there are plenty of other places to visit which don’t involve travelling to the wilds of east London.
In the first half, the show didn’t grab me as much as previous ones have. Technically the dancers were superb, but I just wasn’t getting into it. There wasn’t that extra something that makes it really exciting.
The second half was better, one of the guitarists did a solo which was pretty spectacular, and then towards the end of the show, La Tati came on stage, which is what everyone was obviously waiting for. She is tiny, and completely batty! Fruit loop to the extreme, but had so much energy and seemed to be enjoying herself so much that the audience responded and suddenly the atmosphere sparkled. They all performed an encore together as is usual with Flamenco shows, which ended with people throwing roses on stage.
So after the first half not igniting my interest, the second half did better and I came out having really enjoyed myself. Slightly marred by the 90 minute journey home…
Flamenco
Alex and I have had a super bumper week full of jolliness, all birthday related. (I love it that my birthday has lasted a week and a half.)
On Wednesday we visited a restaurant called The Terrace, which is situated right in the middle of Lincoln’s Inn Fields. It is a haven of peace, exaggerated by the complete chaos at Holborn, caused by extreme delays on the Central Line resulting in the hold up of would-be commuters at the station entrance.
It’s all Scandinavian, with bleached wood, aluminium and glass. And being in the middle of trees you can almost forget that you’re in central London.
The food was so good. It’s billed as “modern eclectic with a Caribbean twist”, which is actually exactly what it is. We stuffed ourselves silly and courtesy of toptable, the food bill (unfortunately not booze), was half price, which made it a very affordable meal for the quality.
Yesterday was my official birthday day with Alex. She turned up at my house with a very large parcel, which turned out to be a guitar, along with flamenco book and cds! So now I have no excuse whatsoever to not take up music again. I am indeed very excited about learning, and can’t wait to start.
I got bundled out of the house at around 6.30 by Alex and the Catster, having no idea where I was going. We travelled up to Euston, stumbling into a pub briefly along the way. I was led along Eversholt Street, down a very quiet road and into the St Aloysius Social Club, which, I very quickly realised, was holding a flamenco evening. A very flamenco related day indeed. The social club was exactly what you’d expect from a social club, with old men drinking pints and cheap drinks. The show was fantastic, and in the interval Alex won the raffle (hee hee a raffle at a social club), and tickets to go and see a flamenco show at the Hackney Empire next week! Very good stuff.
So after the show, we decided (without a very sniffly catster who headed home), to go and have some cocktails in Camden. Good idea on paper, not in practice. 4 margueritas later and I am a very drunk sticklebec tackling a 3 nightbus journey home. I was actually incredibly lucky as I didn’t wait more than a minute for either of the first 2, and then I found an empty black cab in Brixton (a very rare occurrence) which I ended up getting for free as both of the cash machines in HH weren’t working…result!
