London Still Rocks!

Tonight's show - second night in a row with CT at Riverside Studios for their Bitesize Festival - was  Namastae Bae  - a satirical guru. And wouldn't you know it, it's the same   actor ! After booking, I realised that  London Baroque Music Lovers  had an event this evening - they were going to  Prom 7 , at the  Royal Albert Hall . Durnit, forgot about that when I was booking for today! but I was booking a lot, and it was late at night, so I was tired. Never mind, that was quite a late event anyway. Shame though, I hardly ever meet this group these days - their events aren't very frequent. Anyway, a sometime companion of mine was looking at that event, asked me about mine, and expressed an interest in both - I thought it'd be too much of a rush to get from one to the other.. and after last night , I thought I'd probably prefer the comedy. In the end, she just went to a second prom . Got a seat on the Tube the whole way this time, and remembered to pi...

These two days, back with CT for the  Bitesize Festival  at  Riverside Studios  - they have a few offerings, but today, I went to see  Dangled . Sounded interesting - described as a "psychosexual horror comedy", it's based on   Diary of a Madman , by   Gogol . It was on late enough that I could eat beforehand - and going on my useful   last visit   to Riverside, I tried   Wasabi   for food! Yum.. Tube , of course, and a kind fellow gave me his seat for most of it. Took me a minute to find Wasabi - it has been a while - and I see they've revamped their furniture! The tables now have partitions down the middle, and they mostly have stools - I took the table at the top, the only one with chairs. With backs. They have stools at the rest - can't say I'm sorry to see the back of the transparent, plastic green seats they used to have here. Portions seem to have gotten smaller, from what I remember - well, hasn't everything? The boxes are p...

I'm just back from a weekend in Ireland, and the highest rated film was something called  Thelma . This is about a 93-year-old lady who's scammed, thinking she's giving money to her grandson. Ah, how many times have we come across that?! Anyway, she takes an unusual step - she seeks revenge - and to get her money back. Malcolm McDowell  plays the scammer - I don't recognise anyone else on the cast list. Anyway, seemed like a fun revenge fantasy.. and with a mother who's a year off this lady in age, I can relate to any of the age-related stuff! Only showing in  Ennis . Ages when I was not going there, and now two fortnights in a row.. the town was bedecked in blue and saffron for yesterday's All-Ireland Senior Hurling Final , Clare v Cork . 11 years since Clare won it, 19 since Cork did - as commentators said, both were "hungry". All the talk in the shops I visited on Saturday was along the lines of "are you headed to Dublin "? Indeed, the su...

The plan for today was film again! Utterly delighted that this was still showing, and I could make it - I went to see  Kinds of Kindness , the latest offering from the esoteric mind of  Yorgos Lanthimos , who again has reunited  Emma Stone  and  Willem Dafoe , with  Jesse Plemons  and  Hong Chau , in what promised to be a wonderfully odd offering. Showing in the  BFI  this time (twice this evening), but not selling out, so I didn't book . I decided to go to the later showing-  it'd allow me to spend more time at work (and I had plenty to do), and I could eat beforehand. For eating, I went for The Archduke again - it's not cheap, but they have lovely wine , and London's best roast chicken, hands down. I walked from the office - it had proved a very warm day, but had cooled a little, and wasn't too warm to do that. I tell you though, by the time I rocked up there, I'd had enough of carrying that laptop bag.. and I was so jealous of a...

Tonight, back with  London Literary Walks  (LLW) for a walk entitled  Fleet Street Newspapers . We met at  The Blackfriar pub , where I could eat, conveniently. Now, I didn't book - I know they have a separate dining area, and it tends not to be full. So I schlepped along, in time to have something before the walk.  Sure enough, the pub was jammed, the dining area empty. A sign at the entrance to the dining area asked patrons to "wait to be seated" - HAH! You could grow old and die waiting for that to happen. I queued - for about five minutes - at the bar, until I could get someone's attention, then asked whether I could get a table in there. He asked me to head over to the sign, he'd send someone over. Practically on my heels, she came, and after that, everything was really easy. I ordered quickly, and was served quickly. Interestingly, a flood of people arrived in the dining area shortly after - I swear I caused it! You really do have to catch their attention,...