London Still Rocks!

Tonight, second film in a row, I headed to  Dragonfly , on my own.. it's the story of an elderly woman ( Brenda Blethyn ) needing care, and the next-door neighbour ( Andrea Riseborough ) who steps in to save the day - but things take a dark turn.. Closest showing to me was in the  Garden Cinema . I missed the bus I should have got - by the skin of my teeth, it seems like. It was a quarter of an hour to the next - and then we had to stop for a change of driver. And then the bus stopped early - typical. Cue me racing up the road - in the non-forecast rain - sure enough, I was 15 minutes late for showtime. Mercifully, the opening credits were just rolling. Well, the content, I'm familiar with from my own mother - community nurses coming in to cook for the old lady, bathe her, tick off what's been done in a notebook. All very anonymous, filling up their allotted time, and you can't blame her when she explodes at one of them. So when the young, unemployed lady next door off...

Yesterday, second Meetup in a row, and first of two films in a row - I went with  Movie Roadhouse London  (MRL) to  Nuremberg , a representation of the famous  post-World War II Nazi trials , starring  Russell Crowe  as  Hermann Goring ,   Rami Malek  as the psychiatrist brought in to assess the mental state of the prisoners, Michael Shannon as Robert H. Jackson , the American judge who led the prosecution, and Richard E. Grant as Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe , the British prosecuting counsel. They were seeing it in the  Gate Picturehouse  - and our resourceful organiser booked   Gold   restaurant for after, for those interested! Crikey, it's  11.5 years  since I was last at this cinema.. I did leave in decent time - but for whatever reason, the Jubilee Line was operating at half frequency or less, only departing every five or six minutes! Naturally, this meant there was a horrendous crush of passengers for any t...

This evening was the second Spanish night ,  the first of two  Meetups ,  in a row - although this first one is obviously one of those commercial groups, formed to promote an event -  La Isla Flamenco Club  advertised an evening of  flamenco, folk, & copla  in  Bistrot Walluc  (tickets from  Eventbrite ). Now, this turns out to be a fondue restaurant - it doesn't appeal to me massively as a proper meal, so I discovered it's not far from the   Blues Kitchen Shoreditch , and booked there again for beforehand! The bistrot, however, offered a cheap first drink if pre-booked, so I did. And lo, with a free afternoon - I finally fitted in a haircut! Rush , I always go to, and they're excellent. I had the usual musical buses game, where my bus decided it was finishing at London Bridge , so I meandered up the road to wait for the next option to take me the rest of the way, only to discover it was the same number.. I then had a 7-minute...

This is the start of two days of  Spanish  music, olé! on my own. Tonight, I lucked out getting cheap tickets with TAC to a  concert of Spanish classical guitar music  at  Pixaudio ! Regular tickets with  Eventbrite . Ah, I adore this music.. booked to eat in  The North Pole  beforehand. Appropriately for this frigid weather. There really was no way there except bus - so I took the first to come. It was slightly delayed - but oh! the worst was yet to come. Right after Canada Water - traffic slowed practically to a stop. We took 15 minutes just to go around one corner. As I watched the minutes tick by, I realised there was no way I'd make my pub booking - I amended it from 6pm to 6.30. Apart from the rush hour, and the roadworks en route, we finally came across the source of the jam - a broken-down bus, whose passengers flooded onto ours, one remarking that she just hoped this one WOULD actually go to Greenwich , they having been thrown off the l...

Last night , back with  Mandy  and her new  Meetup  group (ahem)  Rat-Arsed Tours ! This was her  Knightsbridge & Belgravia Crimbo Walk  - and gee, she puts so much effort into  these! Also advertised with  London Herstory Walks . We were originally to meet in  The Plumbers Arms , but the location then changed to  Tattersalls Tavern . And just like last time, I got a workout with my laptop on my back, it being my one day a week in the office.. Well, I was closer than coming from home - it didn't take too long by bus, although the second bus was a bit delayed. Funnily enough, as I waited for it, two people asked me for directions, separately - I must have that sort of face. The first was waiting for a bus that happened along as she was speaking - the second was looking for the Ritz . Which, as I explained, was right behind her - you could see the sign! Ah, I love being asked easy questions.. I arrived at my destination a little...

Tonight, back with storytelling in  Folklore ! This time it was  Nell Phoenix  for the  Crick Crack Club  (CCC), performing  The Girl Who Married a Dog , tickets with  Dice  as usual. Eating at  The Blues Kitchen Shoreditch  beforehand - and wow, it's a couple of months since I was  last  up that way! It's a bitter, bitter cold snap in London right now - good timing for me to order thermal, fleece-lined gloves! I picked them up today - unfortunately, I didn't have gloves to wear en-route - and by the time I got home again, I had pins and needles in my frozen fingers. But hey, I got to wear them as I headed out again - and yes, I can testify they are wonderfully cosy! Not magnificent when using the phone though - I find I can swipe, but I can't pinch, and of course fingerprint recognition is a dead loss.. still, they'll come in very useful. For preventing my hands from seizing up in the cold. I wondered why Google Maps suggeste...