London Still Rocks!

Tonight, back with  Up in the Cheap Seats  (UITCS) for  Mrs. Warren's Profession , by  George Bernard Shaw , starring  Imelda Staunton   in the title role , at the  Garrick  - with plenty of ticket deals available, I got mine from  Seatplan , which will give me bonus points with them - fulfilled by Encore Tickets . Eating beforehand at  Bella Italia Irving Street  - oh, I was looking forward to that. I was delayed upon leaving - ran into my chatty flatmate, who insisted on chatting. So I missed my bus .. and now, the only chance I had of getting there on time for the booking was to grab some bus or other, then the Tube . The first to come took forever to get to Elephant & Castle , where I got the (very clanky) Bakerloo Line , then walked the last bit in brilliant sunshine. It wasn't actually busy in the restaurant - I waited.. and waited.. until the waiter found time to get to me, then he showed me to a table in the back. I'd ha...

Tonight, headed to   Shake It Up - the Improvised Shakespeare Show   (always good) at the   Hen & Chickens . Ticket from CT. Started off in good time to eat beforehand - saw I could get there in just under an hour by bus. Now, what happened next is slightly complicated.. I was waiting for the first bus when I noticed I had no internet on my phone. Blast it.. I spent the whole first part of the journey trying to figure it out - more particularly since I hadn't memorised the route! I knew I had to change, and remembered it had recommended the #21 - but where, and where to get off, I had no idea.  Well, I wasn't sure, but figured I could catch that at London Bridge - so I got off, and while I waited there, I pondered my phone. Fiddled around with the settings.. and discovered the internet was disabled for it, apart from WiFi! FFS.. I didn't do that.. what must have happened was it disabled itself automatically, after our WiFi went down last night and I used the ...

Ah, the end of the blog backlog is nigh.. So! After the film list coming in late - and me spending an inordinate amount of time on it, in case I wanted to use it as a reference for this week's films - I didn't use it at all! despite spending the entire weekend actually going to films. With Movie Roadhouse London , who picked rather well for me. Last night, the choice was the British Documentary Film Festival , at the Close-Up Cinema  - tickets with Eventbrite . Now, the last time I was there was for last year's American Horror Film Festival .. this year's was on Friday , but of course I was otherwise occupied. And last time I was here, I ate in Cinnamon - booked there again this time, and remembered to bring a bottle, as they don't have wine in-house. ..Except, when I got there, it was closed. Now, I remember this from before, and that they have joined with an adjoining restaurant - I just couldn't remember which! Well, wouldn't you know it, I picked the w...

Rumours of my death are much exaggerated.. no, I'm still here, I just literally have been too busy! Apologies for the delay, please do read on.. Last Wednesday night, back with the much-neglected  London Literary Walks  - this one was The Modernist Walk , and we were meeting in  The Garden Gate, Hampstead . You can eat there, but I couldn't book for just one person, so had to take pot luck. Mercifully, it rained that morning - stopped later, but it really cooled the city down.. he picked a good day for a walk! Unfortunately, that far out, bus would take too long - so I got the Northern Line all the way to Belsize Park and walked from there. I was a bit late leaving, so would have liked a bus to the station - but the traffic problems persisted, so I assumed my buses would never reach me, and I ended up walking. Sure enough, not a bus passed me on the way. And so I was a little later than intended, arriving at Belsize Park, where I set out on the last leg.. with the sun ...

Last  night, decided on film again - and what looked good at the top of the  list was  Sudan, Remember Us , a documentary about the popular uprising in  Sudan  following the overthrow of a dictatorship, and the subsequent violent military crackdown . It'd be great to get a view of a country I don't know much about, and am unlikely to visit.. showing, of course, in the  Curzon Bloomsbury , the home of documentaries. Took buses, as usual - oh though, it was a disaster. I don't know what on earth happened to the traffic, I've never seen it as bad.. I stood (because the seats were in the sun, and it was boiling hot) waiting for the first bus for 25 minutes, watching traffic crawl past - I was on the verge of leaving when the bus finally rounded the corner. A relief to get on and sit, and there were intermittent cool breezes through the open windows.. Then the driver started to curtail the journey more and more, announcing we were stopping earlier and earlier; ...

Last night, back with  London Classical Music and Theatre Group  ( London Baroque Music Lovers  were also going, but I had to pick one - mind you, the same guy was organising) for the opening night of  Handel 's opera  Semele , in the  Royal Opera House . And of course, I would start seeing discount codes  after  I booked.. Eating at  Cote Covent Garden  beforehand. I left in time, arrived in Cote about five minutes late. Not a problem, I was eating early for an early opera start, and the place was almost empty. And oh, such delicious air conditioning! Had my usual two courses, headed straight to the opera house. Where I arrived at about exactly the time arranged on the Meetup page - and chatted with one of the others, there being no-one else there. Headed up, met my sometime companion, who was in the row behind, up in the Gods : It's a long enough opera - about three hours, plus a 25-minute interval after the first 90 minutes or so. Wel...