Things have been busy...

So I’ve been working long hours and trying to fit life in around it. I’m just mildly concerned that I’m forgetting everything that has happened because I haven’t had time to reflect. A wander though my work diary reminds me of all sorts of wonderful things that we have done. 

In March I had almost a week of work in the south, delivering two Waste Awareness courses to a construction company (Vinci plc) in London, doing a legal audit for Canon UK in Reigate and fitting in a sales meeting in Harrow. As these things spanned a weekend we took the opportunity to visit the wonderful Reeds. Ian, who is a very generous chap, introduced me to his friend Jilly Reed a long time ago. We’d love to see more of her but as she no longer comes to conventions and as Moat’s Tye is a long way for us the meetings are rare, and treasured all the more for that. Jilly puts me in mind of a splendid head girl from any of the books I read as a young teen; the terrifically enthusiastic and effortlessly ethical girl that we all tried to emulate and had tremendously passionate crushes on. Sigh. Chris, Ian points out, would have been an ideal District Commissioner from the days of empire, sitting on the veranda dispensing justice and gin. I adore them both. Through the haze of days passed I remember being mercilessly pampered, wined and dined, and long periods relaxing on the sofa in front of the fire chatting late into the evening. I’d like to live like this more often.

The next journey away from home was much less relaxing, the trip to Eastercon. Ian had found us a deal with the Sheraton, two hotels away from the Radisson, where we were on the club floor. Sally had a sofa bed and so the cost was lower than I feared especially as it was possible to get by on the food from the Club Lounge and the two hours worth of free drinks in the evening. The wine was surprisingly palatable for the price. 

As Christina Lake and Doug Bell were running the fan programme all three of us were on prog. I enjoyed this part of the con immensely. We were also performing in one of Ian’s fannish musicals, ‘Oliver with a Twist’. As always with these things, the month leading up to the show was saturated with oliver. We wandered over to Julia and Doug’s to read through and pick up suggestions, Ian iterated and reiterated songs and jokes, rewriting feverishly, we prowled the aisles of Poundland looking for props and costumes, Ian dealt with Tech and marshalled cast, averting disaster and, at the con itself, publicised the thing relentlessly. 

Much of the rewriting was caused by the change of venue. We were expecting to put on a little show in the fanroom and found we were actually scheduled for the main hall on the Sunday evening. Horrors! Ian’s little fannish production would have meant nothing to the wider con attendees and so a whole new show had to be constructed with minimal in-jokes but the same number of bad puns. 

Something like this certainly gives a focus to a weekend, looming terrifyingly, rushing towards one like a juggernaut, performed in a complete funk and then gone, leaving us slightly deflated and relieved that things had not been worse. The usual post show examination of reviews and tweets was rather overshadowed by John Meaney’s performance at the BSFA awards and the gender parity row (of which more in the next Journey Planet). I hadn’t realised that the whole thing was going out live on UStream. I’d have gone on a diet. Well, no, I wouldn’t, but I’d have held my belly in more.

The very next weekend we had Julia’s hen party. She refused to wear the L-plates and silly veil and none of us were allowed to wear ‘Hen Party on Tour’ tshirts. What we did was go to Brown’s for cocktails and then to the Showroom where Julia had hired a cinema to show Ladyhawk. Oh the wonder! Whilst we were doing this in a very civilised manner Doug was crawling around the many pubs of Sheffield, tweeting his progress. Ian, not a beer drinker, became on honourary hen for the film. Of course he’s as lovely as Rutger Hauer. Ian and I abandoned the party as they trooped off for a curry and then for late night drinks at Julia’s.

We had a prior appointment with the Everly Pregnant Brothers at the City Hall.

I’m fairly new to the Everlys. My introduction was at last year’s street party where a bit of them performed for us. Richard lived on our road at the time and had his arm twisted mercilessly until he agreed to perform. There are lots of examples of their fine work on YouTube. You should look at it. They are a very localised phenomenon, selling out in Sheffield almost as soon as tickets go on sale. We had failed to get tickets to a concert earlier in the year and had arranged to go with my sister Sue and her chap, Robin, to see them in Leeds but the gig was cancelled due to lack of sales. This evening, in Sheffield, they had sold out the Irwin Mitchell Hall, a 2000 seat venue. The show was amazing, electric and at the end we wandered away dazed, singing ‘No Oven No Pie!’ 

Lots of work followed, nights away in Travelodges and Premier Inns, so unlike my stay in Harrow at the Grim’s Dyke Hotel, former home of WS Gilbert, but other than a picture of the satyr holding up the marble fireplace in the main hall I’m not going to mention this fine place again (though if you are in the area you should definitely stay there). 

The next big event was, of course, the wedding of Julia Daly to Douglas Spencer at the Hilton Hotel, Sheffield. What can I say? Unlike one of Ian’s plays this day had been powering towards us for years, it seems. Julia looked fabulous in her lovely red dress, the setting was good and the cakes were amazing. It was very like a one day SF convention with a single programme stream, a number of normal people wondering what was going on and the same old fans in the bar. A huge thank you to Julia, Doug and, of course, Julia’s Dad, for a day to remember. Many photos were taken. Ian's are here (see parrot). Fran Dowd's are here (see cake). I’ve since asked the happy couple what they are going to do now the event is in the past and they haven’t given me a totally believable answer. Doug says he’s cleaning the house.

My last big event was our holiday in France. A Pete Atkin concert was organised in St Germain En Laye and, of course, we had to attend. As I say, Ian is very generous and one of the things he has shared with me is his musical enthusiasms. I’m not sure whether I am most grateful for Pete Atkin or Justin Currie. Justin has a sublime voice, good tunes and excellent lyrics, Pete has a fairly average voice, amazing tunes and Clive James lyrics. 

The concert was performed in a room in the lovely chateau but before that we had to get there (East Midlands Trains, Eurostar & RER), book into our very pleasant hotel and go to a garden party at Oliver’s jolly nice house. It was sunny and hot and quite delightful because of the surrounding greenery and fresh breeze. And the rather nice wine. There was a quiz which I utterly failed at. I have no idea what songs are on what albums and the singles were way before my time. Everything is on iTunes and plays randomly. I couldn’t tell you what the B side of Beware of the Beautiful Stranger is. Never mind. There were enough people sitting in the shade under the trees who could so embarrassment was avoided, not that Pete could answer all the questions when asked to give a final judgement. 

The concert was, as always, great, worth the distance travelled and in a delightful setting. The room was rather hot and Pete struggled to keep the guitar in tune but the songs never fail to inspire and there were some new ones to make us hope for a further CD release in the not too far distant future. Ian put a set list up but it will mean little to most people reading this. You should just go listen to at least one song. He’s on YouTube. And then buy all his CDs.

The day after the gig we packed up and headed for Le Bourg Dun and the Harveys. These fine people picked us up from Dieppe station, fed us and put me to bed. I’d developed a sore throat and lost my voice for a few days the week before the holiday so we also spent some time tracking down French pharmacies over the week. Again, a lot of the holiday was spent with me sleeping. I’m hoping that sooner or later I will have enough time and energy to do justice to a holiday with John and Eve. Eve cooked wonderful meals, we drank beer sitting in the garden in the afternoons in the shade of the peach tree (I was allowed to hang up washing - a nice little job that kept me from feeling completely useless) and wine in the evenings over dinner and later in the sitting room as we chatted until I headed for an early bed. John and Ian talked computers and played with Garageband. Poor Eve! 

Having recently sold their house in England they are finally able to look for another house in Normandy, maybe off the main road, and most mornings Eve spent some time looking at what was available. Both John and Eve had work to do so we had plenty of time to laze around, something for which I was very grateful.

They packed us up in the car on Friday and we all headed back for the ferry to Dover so that John could play a Jubilee gig and we could have the bank holiday weekend at my house, see Ruddigore at the Lyceum (not one of the standout operettas - and we were probably the youngest couple there) and Prometheus (goodish), Moonrise Kingdom (excellent) and Men in Black III (surprisingly good).

Ian went home on Wednesday morning and I managed to break a bone in my foot the same morning. I’ve got crutches!

And this weekend I, and my crutches, came up to visit Ian, mainly because we had tickets to see the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Radio Show in Glasgow. This was a delight with most of the original radio cast, a splendid band and Billy Boyd as The Book. This latter did not work so well. We wondered if he had ever heard the show and whether he had done a read though of the script. This was particularly jarring for Ian who knows the show by heart and, like a religious experience gone wrong, was jerked out of his blissful state with each mispronounced word. For me it was less problematic. I’ve listened to the show a fair number of times, watched it on TV and read the books but I don’t remember things. The guy playing Slartibartfast was excellent, an aging Arthur Dent was actually better, Trillian and Ford were the proper radio characters and Phil Pope was simply wonderful. However the star of the show, as always, was Marvin and his diodes. Oh Marvin! This is still such a wonderful show, undulled by time and repetition and at the end, when Douglas Adam’s picture was projected on the screen above the actors I felt tears in my eyes. Oh Douglas!  

Disappointment pending...

2012. I’m living in the future and it’s not at all what I had hoped for. Despite the lack of rocket pants, however, and the fairly constant low level anxiety, I remain relatively content. 

We’ve had a lovely holiday. Christmas was a family day (without my kids but with Mum, my sister Sue, Robin and Callum and, of course, Ian & the Queen). On the 29th we drove up to Scotland for Ian’s niece, Kirsty’s, wedding. This was jolly fun although I wasn’t convinced by the symbolism. They each lit a candle and once the words had been said, together lit a big central candle. How lovely! And then they, together, snuffed their individual candles. I’m beginning to think I’m spending far too much time worrying about symbolism. At a talk some time ago I suggested that the speaker stopped ‘arming’ their audience with information and began sharing information. These ideas do not endear me. I should shut up. 

Fran, John, Laura & Lady Godiva

New year’s eve was with Julia and Doug and a host of lovely fans. To describe it as a feast rather undersells the whole thing. The food was amazing (who would have thought that beetroot mousse would be so yummy) and the presentation was fabulous, both the food and the lovely handpainted 'tapestries' courtesy of Julia and Sally. The only problem now is that of finding anyone brave enough to try to host next year’s celebration. We can comfortably seat eight but there is no way I could find the money, time and kitchen space to produce such a banquet. Wow! Sheffield fandom will be subsisting on the leftovers for some time to come. Of course there will be a follow-on extravaganza in May when the wedding of the century takes place in the Daly-Spencer household.

Over the holidays I spent two mornings on the allotment disinterring large quantities of junk, watched three TV progs (the Big Fat Quiz of the Year (tick good), Dr Who (tick vg) and Sherlock Holmes (tick excellent)) and listened to a number of radio programmes. I failed to finish a book (any book) and bemoaned the dearth of blogs and cartoons although  I did spend an inordinate amount of time reading postings on ‘Do the Math’. More on this sometime soon. I ate too much of too rich food and drank far too much. And all the time that vague low level anxiety hovered. Maybe more on this sometime soonish too.

So, it is the evening of new year’s day. Despite my best intentions I did not clear and clean the house - we entertained instead. I did, however, put my resolutions into play. I didn’t, despite the temptations still hanging round the house, ingest any refined sugar and I only had a share of one bottle of really quite splendid Amarone whilst eating my frugal dinner. There have been rather more photos taken of me than usual, given the additional festivities, and it was difficult to ignore the somewhat ample girth displayed. So, sigh, the following resolutions:

I will not drink alcohol on my own and I’ll limit myself to a share of one bottle of wine

I will not eat or drink refined sugar (goodbye hot chocolate with cointreau)

I will live within my means (because I so haven’t this month)

Yeah, I know. Every new year I intend to do the same old things. Get thin, get rich, get organised. I’m still ample, poorish and messy. It’s a tradition. I’ll see if I can get to February before I give up this year.

  

Two weeks ago

Augh! It’s all fading away into the stiff mix of tapioca that is my brain.

The surprise in the Robin Ince free show at the Canon’s Gait was Jimeoin. Robin was manic as always, Helen Keen was charmingly enthusiastic about space (probably shouldn’t point out the Archdruid’s latest post) and Helen Arney sang her amazing songs but we’d seen them all before and expected nothing less than a good show from them. I’ve never see Jimeoin live before and I enjoyed his shtick. Being of an age where memory is (obviously) gradually fraying, listening to him talk about thinking and memory was wonderful but perhaps the thing that will stay with me longest is that universal constant for slow movement, the Speed of Cheese. Next year in Edinburgh…

The thing that stood out about Mitch Benn’s performance is how much less there is of him. It was amazingly distracting. I’d thought him rather cute when he was large and I didn’t quite get my head around him being suddenly much more conventionally attractive. To some extent I found the songs less mesmerising because of it. The balance has changed but that is not Mitch’s problem, it’s mine, and I’m sure I will readjust over the years. He is always on my must see list just because of his outstanding musical/satirical talent.

Andy Zaltzman. What can I say? He is embedded in my world, sometimes second hand, through the Bugle to the extent that I’m not sure what was in this show and what I’ve heard over the last year’s podcasts. I think the highlight of the show was that bad boy, Julian, heckling him with a business card. Sigh.

On another note, I am very much enjoying Ian’s downstairs bathroom book, Andy’s credit crunch book that was purchased last year. Andy is excellent.

We finished the day with Milton Jones who was, as always, wonderful and wonderfully weird. The first time I saw him was in the horribly hot and damp Caves. He’s playing the Assembly on the Mound now and deservedly so.

We added in two shows just because Julian wasn’t completely broken by all the stairs, uncomfortable seats and other horrors of the fringe. Both were at the Pleasance Courtyard and so a simple stagger from the convenient (after 6) parking.

I’ve liked David O’Doherty since the first time we saw him and his toy keyboard. Ian thought him a little too whimsical I think but agreed that this year was the best we’d seen him. I guess he’d grown a beard for his other (Arctic Explorer) show but it suited him. It made him look faintly grown up. Whimsicality and charm don’t usually do great things for Ian who prefers quick-fire jokes and wordplay, so I go to see Tim Vine with him and he comes to see David O’Doherty with me. Still, this year Ian seemed to have been mildly converted, perhaps by tales of awful illness. Scatological humour brings us all together.  

Rich Hall was fab. But crikey, I can’t remember the show other than it was great. How sad that an hour of brilliant performance can be reduced to a memory of hilarity with no detail at all. And the shows I saw yesterday are fading already as I try to recall two weeks ago. Sigh…  

(Links provided so that anyone who is interested can get a flavour of the comedians not provided by the rather poor 'reviews'.) Sorry.

What I did on my hols...

This post started in July and just never got any further and I’m starting to forget what I was writing about so I’m just going to do a very brief round-up whilst I still have some memory. The things that got in the way? Work, books, gardening; nothing exciting or worrying, just life.

So, in July we went on holiday, before the Fringe. I took the train down to Falmouth (a substantial journey) and Ian flew down to Exeter and joined me for the last leg of the train journey.

The holiday started with a visit to Christina Lake and Doug Bell in Falmouth. We’ve been meaning to visit them again for ages but it’s not a place to just drop in, it requires a bit of planning and time to travel. It’s always lovely to see them, such good fannish fans, and we seemed to spend the whole weekend gossiping and planning (and eating ice-cream, and drinking cocktails & nice wine and eating) and occasionally talking about books. They have a lovely house with a view of the harbour if you are high enough up. From the attic where we slept you can see a gorgeous panorama but it’s a ladder and a flight of stairs down to the bathroom, which certainly precludes drinking too much or the temptation to make it the main bedroom. I enjoy spending time with Chris and Doug enormously and then never stay in touch in the interim. I guess it’s because it is the gestalt that is so marvellous. Perhaps we ought to set up conference calls with all four of us from our three different locations calling in.

(Splendidly we also saw them in the first week at the Fringe as they were up visiting Doug’s parents in Penicuik. We met for a lovely and memorable lunch at the Missoni Hotel in Edinburgh, adding Lilian and Julian to the mix. Fab!)

We left, somewhat reluctantly, on Monday morning and headed for Bristol to stay at the Mercure, which is very nice and only quite expensive (Laterooms). We’d looked at cheaper options but Trip Advisor advised against. Most of my lovely (if hazy through time, not drink – really) memories from here revolve around meals. Who would have thought? We met Sue Hobson for dinner in the Glass Boat, a floating restaurant of Welsh Back, in view (and Wifi contact) from our room in the hotel. I can’t remember what we ate (although I remember it was lovely), just that we had a fine time chatting. It’s always good to see Sue.

We also met Clarrie and Tim (the celebrated first Harry Potter) Maguire for the splendid Mexican meal and an evening at their flat complete with a life size Lara Croft (of course). Clarrie, like me, is a Daniel Kitson fan. Ian took agin him when, after winning the Perrier, he forsook stand up for whimsical storytelling the next year. I’m just going to have to go see him on my own.

We did things other than eat. We went to Bath and visited the Roman Baths, and stayed a long time to justify the steep admission price. We went from there to the house of the celebrated astronomers, William and Caroline Herschel. The most interesting thing for me was the house itself, kept as far as possible as it would have been when the Herschels lived there.

We also explored Bristol’s St Nicholas Market, a hundred yards or so away from the hotel but that takes us back again to eating. The Source. Eggy bread. Mmm.

I guess other than the food and the chatting, what stood out in this Bristol visit was the plethora of gorillas. If we had had more time we would have sought them all out and captured them. There was a map with all their locations available. I have a vague impression they were to support Gary the Gorilla at the zoo. Personally I’m not keen on keeping gorillas in zoos but I really like having illustrated gorillas infesting a city, providing simian surprises in unexpected places.

From Bristol we caught a train up to Worcester to stay with Chris Donaldson and Paul Oldroyd. Annoyingly they have gafiated so we don’t get to see them automatically twice a year. Even more annoyingly they have retired and spend much of the year gallivanting around France and Spain with their overbred but delightful dog, Guinevere. I miss them.

Chris cooked all our meals and they were wonderful. If Ian hadn’t picked up a few sausages in Source it would have been a vegetarian couple of days for him, poor soul. Chris is one of the best vegetarian cooks I know, and not even veggie herself. Julian Headlong came over for the day on the Thursday so we left the boys at home and Chris and I took a bus into Worcester to go shopping. Window shopping for the most part. I bought a book and a soap from Lush. And a coffee at Costa.

I really enjoyed this final part of the holiday, again more for the sitting around chatting than for anything we actually did.

Compared to the Fringe this was a very low cost holiday, despite a fair amount of eating out and quite some distance travelled. We managed to find cheap deals on the trains and we only stayed in a hotel for two nights. And so much fun!

Fringe 2011

And so we come to Edinburgh again for the fringe. This year, though, we are taking it really easy. Apart from the EICC all venues have horrid uncomfortable seats and Julian can no longer take more than three shows a day. We’ve gone from a programme of five, sometimes six, shows a day because the pathetic sight of Julian in pain is not really fun.

So, Monday (2 for one day) we saw three shows. We took the train as a return is less than £4 at the moment, started with the wonderful Instant Sunshine, moved on to Ed Reardon; A writers burden (fab!) and finally saw Josh Widdicombe in a tiny stiflingly hot hut at the Pleasance. Josh is a young comedian who is both very personable and funny. He made the mistake in fixing on Julian following the inevitable question, ‘Where has everyone come from?’ I guess he thought Swindon was the potentially funniest place. Oops. It wasn’t quite as derailing as when Ian and I got into a question and answer session with John Bishop some years ago but there was always the potential. As Ian points out, a comedian isn’t really interested in hearing a participant’s life story, they want sound bites to be amusing with. I’ve seen much more seasoned performers than Josh flounder when faced with Julian’s answers (Otis Lee Crenshaw found it very difficult to adjust his song ‘Big [Julian]’ to a job maintaining analysers). I was very impressed with the way Josh dealt with Julian’s too much information. He was friendly, professional and managed to wring laughs out of Julian’s contribution without any nastiness emerging. Josh is a thoroughly bright and charming young comedian. I’ve got a bit of a crush.

Tuesday (2 for one) we drove over as we wouldn’t be out of our last show to make the last train. We had intended to go to see Robin Ince’s free show at Canon’s Gait. This free show is non-ticketed. Obviously, though, there needs to be some way of managing the audience so there are queue places allocated. We were too late to obtain a queue place (not a ticket) so we planned to try again on Thursday whilst we trudged up the horribly crowded Royal Mile, gruffly refusing leaflets and avoiding catching the eyes of the bright young things breathlessly inviting us to their shows.

We plunged, with relief, out of leaflet central and headed off to find Transreal, recently relocated. There are so few SF bookshops left these days. I’m sure I’ve said this before but since Andromeda died there is only Transreal where I can go to browse, to discuss books with a knowledgeable owner, to find new authors and books that I would never discover from Amazon. I’ve always had great suggestions from here and, again, I walked away with far more books than I intended to. I think of it as supporting a sanctuary because I could almost certainly get the books cheaper on Amazon but money is not the only consideration here. As Bob Waldrop and others point out, every time you make a buying decision you are changing the world.

Julian and I were only lured out of Transreal by Ian texting us from Under the Stairs to tell us that he had warm pitta bread and dips. Reluctantly we paid and entered the cool haven in the basement of one of the looming grey buildings on Merchant’s Street. We drank our Citrus Punch whilst we waited for our lunch and for June to join us. June is an Edinburgh resident and an accomplished Fringe goer. Although joining us for a few shows she experiences a very different Fringe from us, going to many free events as well. She had come from a Japanese tea ceremony and planned on looking for other shows after she left us.

The first show we saw was Cul-de-sac, a very strange play. It was very well acted and started out as mildly amusing. A new person, Tim, has moved into the cul-de-sac and meets his neighbour, Neville. As Tim is told about what is expected of him we hear of Tony for the first time, the man who, it slowly emerges, controls the neighbourhood. During the hour we see the slow breaking down of Tim by the social controls exerted by Tony, with able assistance in abuse by the doctor. As each episode became more sinister and disturbing fewer and fewer people laughed. Towards the end the absurdity was completely overwhelmed by the horror. It was a very strong piece, professionally performed and I didn’t like it at all. We wondered if it was an allegory for Britain under Blair, with all of us becoming creepily acquiescent and accepting of things that were patently wrong. June suggested that there should have been some sort of warning as there were definite triggers for people who have been abused. Julian says, ‘A cross between 1984 and The Stepford Wives’.

We retired to the Corvoisier Bar for a pint of tap water and some beer for the boys before heading for another sweaty venue, Above at the Pleasance. This was to see Isy Suttee’s show, ‘Pearl & Dave’. This was a lovely tale of unrequited love with songs. Images of loveliness include two girls letting off a penpal request attached to an ordinary balloon from the top of their climbing frame, an accountant with rows of friendship bracelets up his arms, a papier mache penguin called Roy, and a skype romantic dinner for two. At the end there were tears in my eyes. Most of the women leaving were sniffling slightly. Reviews have likened her to a young Victoria Wood but I tend to think this is because if a woman is funny and sings songs that are both funny and poignant there is no one else to compare her too. Isy is, I suggest, incomparable. You really wouldn’t hear her and think she was anyone else. And I completely agree with another reviewer, someone who doesn’t greet the gift of a five foot papier mache penguin, lovingly made for them by their lover over weeks, doesn’t deserve such devotion. I’ve got a bit of a crush.

We trooped down into the blessed coolness and headed for dinner at the Home Bistro. I love this place and the delightful Roland who was devastated yesterday when he didn’t have a place for us, and warmly welcoming today. The salad I had was lovely; pear, beetroot, feta and leaves with a great dressing. I had, of course, had no starter and a light main in order to keep a bit of space for the fabulous ice cream. The toffee was nice, the ginger was splendid and the marmalade was luscious.

Half way through the meal I got a call from Sally. Salford Uni had emailed her to say there would be an induction day on 25^th August. 25^th is the day the kids and I are travelling up to Scotland on Megabus for our traditional bank holiday weekend fringe binge. Transport tickets booked, show tickets booked, all arrangements made. Of course. I know it’s two weeks away still but most people I know have fairly busy diaries and are booked up at least a month in advance. It would have been useful had they asked us the pencil in the dates several months ago. Oh well. We agree to look at options on Wednesday morning.

At the point I thought we had already reached the highspot of the fringe with Isy. We looked around at the rest of the audience for the next show and worried that they looked quite a serious lot. I guessed that the show would be informative and worthy but probably a little light on laughs. I’ve read Mark Thomas and I’ve been impressed by his politics but I’d never seen him perform before. If I had I wouldn’t have been concerned. His two-hour show about extreme rambling, walking the Israeli wall, was astonishing. A serious subject with potential for bigotry, potential for dull preaching. This is not, of course, what we got. Mark is a consummate performer, a storyteller, a comedian able to wring helpless laughter out of an audience, whilst laying out the enormity of a wrong done to two nations, both Palestine and Israel. He took us on the walk, introduced us to some marvellous characters, crossed the wall backwards and forwards many times, led us to sympathy, anger and understanding. I really had not realised how good he was. I’ve got a bit of a crush.

So here we are, Wednesday morning, having a lazy day off and catching up on gazing at laptop screens. I’ve filled in my Biobank diet questionnaire (the second and both times I have been eating abnormally), caught up on the cartoons (XKCD, Freefall, Bug and Questionable Content) and gazed out at the unrelenting rain while fending off invitations to supermarket shopping. I’m hoping the boys will wander off soon and leave me to browse through my books. Or maybe just finish off ‘One Good Turn’.

Roach Road Carnival

The MetOffice lies. Damn them. The last time I had looked Saturday dsiplayed cheerful little suns all through the day. That’s not how it turned out. To be fair, on the day the MetOff did fess up that there was going to be some fairly heavy rain approximately when we were scheduled to set up.

The lead up to this, our third street party, had involved a few desultory beer soaked chats at the Psalter over the last six months, organised by Laura and Aine. As ever little actually appeared to be happening until quite recently, other than Lydia producing yet another glorious poster. Laura is the centre of the organisation for two reasons, other than her relentless drive and enthusiasm. One is that she has access to four capacious if fragile gazebos, the other is that she has the patience to deal with the council; getting the road closure notice, the requisite insurance and the performing rights licence. This year Aine has abandoned the road to move into her very own house but happily she came back for the meetings, the set up and to bring her own quite terrifying enthusiasm to the event.

Saturday morning dawned, sunny but breezy. It looked good. I’d bought my ingredients at Waitrose on Friday so didn’t feel I had to dash around in my usual disorganised manner, until I measured my cake tins. Augh! I own two seven inch and one 9 inch but no eight inch. I looked at the nearest potential shop, the Aga Shop on Ecclesall Road. Luckily given the huge cost, they didn’t have the size I needed. I called Waitrose but no-one from that department was available. Before setting out on my bike on the off chance of finding a suitable tin somewhere I asked Lydia. Hurrah! She kindly lent me one of her many cake tins to avert the first potential disaster of the day.

I reverted to relaxed cooking, Ian continued reading the internet and Sally gathered her strength for the gazebo raising. She and I had discussed bake-off tactics. The options I was prepared to bake were cherry cake (my choice) or chocolate cake. Sally asked if I wanted to win or just make something for us to eat. She suggested that cherry cake would never win; chocolate was the way to go in competitive baking. We settled on cherry cake.

I made chilled tomato and orange soup then made a start on the cake. I’m a lazy baker. I like to minimise the amount of washing up as I go along so first I weighed out the caster sugar then carefully placed the butter on top of that. I creamed them together, added the beaten eggs, sifted in the flour and then added the quartered glace cherries, which I’d coated in ground almonds. As I put the completed cake into the oven, the top sprinkled with Demerara, I could hear a commotion around the front of the house.

Aine and Laura had listened to my stupid suggestion of the day before and were stringing bunting across the street from their upstairs window to ours and then over to the top of a streetlight higher up the road. The commotion seemed the be generated by a H&S disaster waiting to happen. Ian and Sally were reaching out of the window, over a heavily overloaded desk, trying to catch the end of the bunting that the girls were throwing up to them, somewhat ineffectually. Once that was finally done without anyone falling headfirst into the street we geared up for the great set-up. The last cars were ushered out and the road closed signs erected.

Inevitably the first drops of rain began to fall as we opened the gazebo bags. Last year, very sensibly, the poles had been separated so that each gazebo had its own set. Less sensibly, the instructions had disintegrated and been thrown away. We divided the first lot into different types of poles (1, 1a, 1b, 2, 2a, 2b, 3, 4) and then stood for a comically long time trying to work out what went where. Sally has a fairly good spatial awareness and seemed to grasp the layout quicker than the rest of us. It took ages to get the first one up, almost as long with the second but then the third and fourth went up much quicker. The rain abated just as the last one was put in place. Whilst we struggled with the first one Richard and his friend had strolled along and put their sound-tent up in about five minutes. They filled it with PA stuff and were just hanging the walls on the back when the whole interlinked tent structure tried to take of sending us scurrying for buckets and bricks to weigh the legs down whilst a few doughty chaps served as anchors, stopping the thing kiting off into the stormy sky.

As always after this massive effort there was a quiet time whilst we slowly furnished the place with folding chairs and tables, populated them with plates of food, bottles of drink, & tat and treasures for the free tombola as people started trickling down to see what was going on. The Morris Side had arrived and colonised Laura’s house as they got ready and then suddenly, without any real organisation, it was Party On! Dancing, music, eating, drinking, talking, the usual stuff happened. Julia and Doug turned up with more chairs. Catherine drove up on her motorbike and watched the Morris. The cakes were judged. Mine had burnt slightly whilst we put up the gazabos, it was the only one not iced and, predictably, it didn’t win anything (Lydia’s fabulous carrot cake won) though half of it had already been devoured before I’d got it out of the kitchen to the judging table. Catherine went away. We drank tea/coffee to warm ourselves up. Amanda arrived. A very, very wonderful subset of the Everly Pregnant Brothers played a short but perfect set and had us belting out ‘No Oven, No Pie’ and clamouring for more. And then all the food was gone, it was an hour until we had to reopen the road and the welly whanging competition waited in the wings. We quickly and carefully tore down our lovely structure, packed it away for next year then drew a chalk line on the road.

What can I say about welly whanging? Surely it is the quintessential community game. All it needs is a welly and some enthusiasm. The candidates face away from their throw, bend over and chuck the welly up the road between their legs. Some wellies slithered a few feet, some achieved tremendous trajectories. It was a long a tense hour and at the end somebody had won the coveted rosette. The rosettes were presented, and then we, grudgingly, reopened the road. The festivities didn’t stop for quite some time. Anna and Paul had prepared a lovely game where Paul dropped a ‘rat’ (old sock stuffed with sand with a tail and ears sewn on) down a piece of drain pipe and the player had to hit the rat as it emerged. This turned out to be fairly difficult although a few people did finally manage to squash the rat.

It was getting really quite chilly. Ian, Sally and I went in and watched the young people continue to party for another hour or so, stepping onto the pavement as cars wanted to go past.

Today, sadly, the cars have re-colonised the road. It’s rained so persistently all day that most of the chalk marks from the welly whanging have washed away. Sally and Laura have just reclaimed the bunting. All the remains are some very full recycling bins, a red mug and a bowl of strawberries on the wall next door and the beautiful posters still decorating most of our windows.

The trailer, masterfully produced by Ian Sorensen, is here. 

More bike stuff

Ian is getting quite grumpy with me for no good reason at all. Earlier on today, when I was searching for the article about the shockingly high level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from the Guardian, I came across the bike blog. As I couldn’t find the John Vidal article at the time (last week’s (environment) news and of no importance to the real world) I idly clicked on this article and then spent rather too much time looking at the videos (amusing), the article (sensible) and the comments (hugely diverting). Almost at the bottom of the second page of comments was a link to the Warrington Cycle Campaign’s Cycle Facility of the Month. Finally a reward for working my way through all the trolls. I so excited! There, right in the middle of 2007 is my route home (along Pomona Street). Of course it is nothing compared to some of the others. It made me LOL but not ROFL as some of the others did. I think I’d better stop now. After all, how many bollards, lampposts, bus stops and fences in the middle of cycle paths can you laugh at before you become jaded and just plain grumpy? As grumpy as Ian.

The History of Science Fiction

Ian sent me the link to this wonderful map/graphic/monster. It is zoomable and well worth mousing through for a few hours. Enjoy!

A jolly nice weekend

Ian was back from America this weekend and drove down to see me. Hurrah! We’d had tickets booked for this weekend away for months. It was Eve’s 60^th birthday and she was having a party. I like parties. However, a drive from Motherwell to Sheffield then Sheffield to Ware seemed like too much driving for Ian so we decided to let the train take the strain.

Which was all well and good, but having missed lunch at FFW (Food & Fine Wine) for weeks we went there first, Ian dragging our little red trundley bag on wheels and me carrying my knitting and Dune in my new Ecorotic (because sex should be sustainable) bag, a gift from Good Vibrations in San Francisco. Sally came with us and we arrived in good time, a little damp from the grey Sheffield drizzle. The food was excellent, as always, and the Shiraz/Grenache red wine was lovely. And, of course, there was lots to talk about; winery visits and French versus Californian wines and etc. So much so, that we forgot the time a little.

We tumbled out of the door with half an hour to catch our train. On any ordinary day we’d have made it in time but when it’s wet in Sheffield the people who normally walk huddle under bus shelters and catch buses. At every stop it seemed to take forever to load the passengers aboard, the traffic was reluctant to let us out, the lights were against us. To cut a long story to its sad conclusion, despite running we missed the train, bought as an advanced (non-transferrable) ticket. Damn! Two new singles to London would have cost over £120. Oh. I suggested we just ditched the party and went home. Ian was coming round to that way of thinking when he had a thought. How much would it cost on a coach?

We trundled to the bus station where it turned out we could get to London for under £40. We climbed on board and sat in the front seats. As the coach meandered through Sheffield I started to worry about travel sickness but once we got onto the M1 I was fine. It was a revelation. Comfortable, speedy and so cheap! Our fellow passengers were from a very different demographic from those on the train. Other than one small family and the driver we were the only white faces on the bus. Wonderfully, the constant irritating iPhone tones were not heard during the journey, not even ours. I shall be looking at this travel option in the future. We got off at Golders Green and dived Underground heading for Tottenham Hale to pick up the rest of our train journey. We arrived an hour and a half later than planned but otherwise in good order.

Julia and Dougs were already at the hotel so we met to stroll to the Drill Hall together. As we walked other fans emerged from the dark and we converged on the party en masse. The Drill Hall is an interesting place. A huge cavernous space with scattered tables and vast quantities of food laid out on one side, drink on the other. The consensus was to camp out by the wine and so we did, a rowdy fannish table. Luckily the other friends and family members were up for dancing and having a good time. Most of us remained determinedly rooted at our tables, gossiping delightfully.  Despite this I didn’t catch up with Joe and Judith or Rob and Avedon. We need more parties! John’s band was enjoyable, as always and if I hadn’t been so busy chatting I might have danced. Another time. We need more parties! Again, the food was wonderful and I ate more than I should so that at midnight I was ready for my bed. Luckily there were fun activities to keep me going for a little longer. The clearing up, performed as a group activity, didn’t take very long and then Claire and I ganged up on Nolly to get a lift back to the hotel, there to keep the bar open in the traditional fannish manner. Julia arrived a little later, thoughtfully carrying wet wipes so I could divest myself of the makeup I’d put on without thinking how to get it off. A good sized group gradually gathered in the debris of someone else’s party but we gave up by 2am due to a decided lack of stamina. We’re getting old. However, I still maintain, we need more parties.

At breakfast the next morning we heard about the top-of-the-voice argument that had kept Julia awake for much of the night and had disturbed Eve and John as well. What a joy. Nothing could have kept me awake by bedtime but I counted myself lucky that we had been on the floor above. Eve was continuing the celebrations at her local pub but Ian and I thought that one missed train in a weekend was enough and decided to give lunch a miss, heading back to London after checking out.

The problem with this decision, of course, was that we had originally planned to go to the pub so we arrived back in London at 12.30 and our train back to Sheffield wasn’t due until 16.25. That left us with a dilemma. What do you do in London for almost four hours when you don’t want to spend lots of money and you’re dragging a suitcase? Ian found a website on his iPhone that said we could leave the bag at Left Luggage at St Pancras for £6.50. This seemed a bit steep but better than being encumbered. We balked at the £8 it turned out to be when we finally found the place though but, turning away despondent, Ian noticed a sign for the British Library. What a marvellous idea! And so convenient. And open on a Sunday. We scurried over the road and entered paradise.

I know there is a lot to choose from but the very nicest thing about the place is that you can leave your luggage locked up for nothing. The bags were dumped with relief and we headed for the exhibition, Evolving English. This was a fascinating interactive display. My favourite bits were the wall displaying phrases from speeches (‘the Lady’s not for turning’ turned my stomach briefly) and lists of word origins (we’ve borrowed a lot of words over the years) and the dialect machine. Only one of the two machines were working and lots of people gravitated towards it so I didn’t have long to explore it but it was fascinating to listen to recordings of dialect from all over the country. I was disappointed that they didn’t have the Stoke on Trent dialect of my beloved grandparents. My dad commented once that it was strange in Knutton how an ash tray grew leaves and an ash tree was for putting cigarettes out in.

I could have spent hours in the exhibition but my feet were hurting and I get weary of queuing quickly so we ascended into the Sir John Ritblat Gallery to see the ‘Treasures of the British Library’; displays of the most beautiful books, maps and illuminated manuscripts. When we tired of the subdued lighting, presumably needed to protect the displayed material, we went to the café for yummy cake and coffee. My lemon curd swiss roll was nice but Ian’s coffee & walnut was better. We shared. As with all such places there was a gift shop. I was fairly restrained. Or at least I walked round picking up everything that I wanted and then walked round again and put most of it back again.

I feel we’ve only just begun to explore this marvellous place and envisage many more train-related visits. I have, in fact, planned an ideal visit for our friend Spike. She should arrive in the UK, maybe spend a day tidying Ian’s kitchen then come to Sheffield to go to FFW and sort out cataloguing and ordering my books before we take her to Sheffield station, gateway to St Pancras, the loveliest station in London. On arrival she could stay in the soon to be completed station hotel at night and live in the library during the day. What could be better? I’m guessing the hotel won’t be cheap though.

So, exhausted, we retrieved our bags and adjourned to the John Betjeman pub at St Pancras for an early lunch before sprinting for our train and heading back for Sheffield. We bickered gently about what to listen to on our shared earbuds, beginning with an ELO genius playlist, sliding off into depression with Justin Currie and ending up with jolly songs and Eliza Doolittle.

It just remains for me to thank Eve for a great party, Claire for some useful advice, Nolly for the lift, Julia for the wet wipes, Dave Hicks for the promise of a fanzine cover, the British Library for being wonderful and Ian for coming back despite the lure of Californian wineries. We need more parties!

PS Have a look at the British Library podcasts

Be my downfall...

The music of Justin Currie and Del Amitri has permeated my life for the last ten years, so when Ian found that he was playing in Holmfirth (Last of the Summer Wine country) I could only say, 'Buy the tickets, now, quickly, right away!' There were a fair number of people waiting outside the Picturedrome who obviously hadn't done that. Poor them. It was a fab gig.


Ian complains regularly that my iPod is full of Del Amitri. It's not exclusively DA based but whenever I change the music on my iPhone I always include all Del Amitri (and Pete Atkin). It's lovely, if somewhat depressing, music, the lyrics are intelligent and Justin has a gorgeous voice. At some times in my life I have felt very much like I was 'Driving With My Boots On' and when I first heard 'Just Getting By' it made me cry and reassess my life. If I ever had a Desert Island Discs Justin would provide half the songs. In 2002 the (stupid) record company dropped Del Amitri and since then the Uncle Devil Show and Justin's solo music have fulfilled my DA oriented needs.


As is often the case, once we'd bundled Sally into Ian's car and headed for whimsical Holmfirth (it was dark, no whimsy was apparent) she asked, 'Who are we going to see?' Ian sort of explained. He mentioned that cynical love songs were a feature of what we were likely to hear and set his iPod to give her a small amount of familiarity. He also noted that at least half the women there would be thinking, 'I could make you happy Justin, if you'd just notice me.' Then we slavishly followed the satnav as it wound us around some of the nastiest, most poorly lit, randomly speed limited roads in the area. Sadly the satnav's conception of where Mezze was seemed extremely inaccurate so we drove up and down the town and then, having parked at the Co-op, wandered around looking for it. It's a nice little restaurant, probably worth visiting Holmfirth for in its own right, but if you do, get there early. It opened at 6pm. We arrived at 6.10. By 6.20 it was packed and people were having to wait for tables. The food was yum.


So, sated and sleepy, we headed back down to the Picturedrome to queue for the limited number of seats. I'm too old to stand at a gig. I think the venue has a 500 capacity and it was clear that Justin could have filled a somewhat bigger building by the number of people piteously begging to buy tickets. The twenty minutes in the queue didn't wake us up nearly as much as the chill in the venue. Never mind though. I had my jacket on and they were selling Timothy Taylor's Landlord at the bar. Splendid! We settled in to watch the support act who was quite good but not very varied and whose name I didn't catch. Sadly, by the time we were waiting for Justin the standing area immediately behind our seats was packed. The disadvantage to a licensed venue is that there will then be people who are less balanced and have forgotten that they can't sing, should never sing, no really, certainly not at the top of their voices. 


Justin arrived on stage at 9pm on the dot. He'd abandoned the slicked back hair of recent videos and looked much better in a casual sort of way. He started with Del Amitri songs, doing very well playing the guitar, keyboards and iPod to accompany himself given that he is a bass player. The loud tuneless woman behind us, in between hitting Sally and me on the head with her handbag, started shouting for 'Be My Downfall'. Sigh. The first request he took was, 'Nothing Ever Happens' which in many ways is dated, we don't play music from records using needles anymore, but ln other ways is still spot on. We'll all be lonely tonight and lonely tomorrow. He sang all the way through the Del Amitri songbook and started on his solo work. I've listened to it all in that odd way that you listen to shuffled iPod music, unconnected to its context and whilst doing other things; walking, working, talking. I realised now as I listened to many of the songs that I'd never really given them the attention they deserve. This was less true of the Del Amitri songs that I've had, in the past, on CD but Justin's solo work, whilst familiar, was a revelation to me. In particular, 'No Surrender' summarises our society in a quintessential Justin song, perceptive, thoughtful, depressing, defiant and beautiful. Here it is, for those who've missed it:

Justin finished his set and left the stage briefly. He didn't bother climbing the two flights of stairs to the dressing room as we all knew he wouldn't be allowed to go. The encore gave us a further five or six songs (I didn't take a note book and have no memory) and finished with 'Be My Downfall', beautiful and perfectly performed. This time he departed to rapturous applause but didn't return. If I had thought there was the least chance I'd have stood there clapping for hours. I've been to many plays and concerts where, even though I've enjoyed them, I've been bored in places and I've sort of looked forward to the end. That really wasn't the case here. It was the best gig I've been to in years. On the way in I had mentioned that I thought the recent Jackson Browne concert had been good and Ian contended that the Proclaimers had been better; sparky and exciting. I admitted that going to see Justin was far more exciting than anything we'd seen. Not only was I not disappointed, he far exceeded my expectations.


On the way home Ian observed that he hadn't realised before how exceptional Justin's voice was. It was a long show, some of the songs are complex, he accompanied himself with a guitar or a very sparse keyboard. The whole show was carried on the strength of his singing. Giving who he is and what he is singing, beautiful doesn't seem an appropriate word. I'll borrow from my young colleagues and characterise is voice and performance as awesome. 

We usher in another new year

I'm feeling a little doomy this morning but that may be a combination of the tenacious hangover and having spent an hour washing up and not even got half way through the party detritus. The perceptive may have noticed that it is the 2nd today and traditionally the New Year's Eve party is held on the 31st. Yes, well, we sat in among the debris all yesterday, browsing on the leftovers and very slowly moving the empties out into the recycling bin. It was a jolly fine party.


So, to backtrack slightly, Christmas caught me all unawares. Yes, I know it turns up every year but this year a combination of heavy work load, heavy snow and my traditional shopping weekend spent in London meant that I was shocked to arrive at Christmas day almost totally unprepared. I'd knitted a rather nice sweater for Jack that he accepted with good grace and provided him and Sally with a set of silk long johns and a vest. Sally, used to living in the cold, was pleased. Jack, Tucked up in overheated university accommodation, tactfully hid his conjectures about my madness. I got some rather splendid work clothes, four excellent books and some stickers to pimp my wheelie bins; fine gifts.


We drove to Leeds where my sister had cooked a wonderful meal and a chocolate birthday cake for Jack's 21st. I am very sorry to have lumbered the poor guy with a Christmas Day birthday which means he always ends up sharing his celebrations. He seems fairly resigned to it now and realises it could have been worse; I could have named him Noel. And at least he gets to have a special Doctor Who every birthday. This year's special was silly but rather lovely. What a very robust meme the Christmas Carol has turned out to be. And I loved the little fishes of the atmosphere.


So anyway, we've had over a week of holiday now and I've achieved very little. I'd thought that having a small party on New Year's Eve would encourage me to clean and tidy the house but we made the mistake of going to FFW (Food & Fine Wine) for lunch on Friday instead to cleaning the kitchen floor. I did spend the rest of the afternoon in the kitchen making soup (spiced butternut squash without onions), a range of dips (pesto, hummus, fresh herb dip - all very garlicky- and pink grapefruit and cream cheese which was both easy and yummy), a a big tray of cheesejacks. Julia and Dougs arrived with five baking trays of filo pastry delicacies and a huge bowl of chocolate mousse and Fran brought  a plate of spiced beef and marmalade ham together with flavoured vodkas and a rather nice jar of chutney. And then there was the wine. We ate and drank, drank and ate and still there was loads left. The most important thing though, was that we had a lovely fannish new year with Julia & Dougs, and Fran & John from Sheffield and Laura & Paul imported from Birmingham to provide the proper party embellishment (Laura only goes to the best parties). 


So now I think I've indulged myself enough and I'd better think about the next shift in the kitchen of doom.   

Catching up...

It has been a tradition, over the last half dozen years, to write introductions to my fanzines which presented various perfectly reasonable excuses for the lateness of publication and, indeed, I have a fair number of archived introductions that were superseded long before the final publication dates. I'd sort of expected not to do this on a blog because there's always time to write a couple of lines. Well yes. However, as a 2nd Dan Procrastinator, I can still find myself way behind with my exciting life, as demonstrated by my finally posting the last day of the Fringe report a good fortnight after the event. One of the reasons is pressure of work, the other is that I've been reading a book that seems to require some comment but I'm not clever enough to write anything cogent. The book I've been struggling with is 'Prosperity Without Growth' by Tim Leggett of the Sustainable Development Commission. I have vaguely wondered whether this book is one of the reasons that the Commission, against all good sense, is being disbanded. Certainly working within the business community I find that the idea that we should reconsider our desire for growth and replace it with some type of steady state economics is heresy that must never be uttered. I've finished reading the book and intend to re-read it and make notes. There may be some cogent comments in the future. Don't hold your breath.


In the meantime, life has been full of excitement! I finally met Catherine's new chap, Martin, who seems to justify Sally's contention that he's a really nice guy. Which is, of course, a Very Good Thing.


(I should just note that as I write this Ian has gone from playing jolly Cliff Richard teenpop of the fifties and sixties to Del Amitri's angstrock of the naughties. I Del Amitri.)


So work has moved into the heavy training timetable of Autumn. This is good in many ways. I like training very much as long as I know what I'm talking about. Unlike Ian I can't hold forth about subjects I'm totally ignorant of. Preparation is essential. But what I find I like is the pleasure of connecting with lovely people (not had a real grump for at least a year now) and the true joy of not having to write a report the day after. Last week I had a day in North Wales with a Welsh speaking civil engineering company (it's a long way from the middle of Anglesey by train), an extremely interesting day at the Building Research Establishment in Watford listening to how we should deal with refurbishing our decaying building stock, and a morning in Kettering. The week before was Bradford. Next week three days within easy travelling distance of Sheffield; Derby, Leeds and Bradford. I'm not bored.


(Dolly Parton now. 9 to 5 has given way to Stairway to Heaven...Um.)


More importantly, I've had a couple of fun weekends. Last weekend we saw the Moody Blues and Toy Story 3. Both of them gave a rather melancholy insight to the passage of time. Toy Story was rather more uplifting than the Moodies. This is what I scribbled immediately afterwards:

'Oh waily, waily, waily. We went to see the Moody Blues Sunday night and, as usual, it was pretty fab. Question was the first LP I bought and, though I’m not a musical afficianado, and have no real musical appreciation, I still like the Moodys lots. I had one of those evenings, though, when I felt strangely sad. One reason was because they stupidly projected photographs and videos from when whichever song they were playing was first produced. Also, some of the songs are terribly idealistic; eco-warriorish in many ways. It made me feel very old indeed and, unlike Graham Edge, I’m not 69. The average age of the audience was possibly not below 40 and we were all jolly comfortable. Possibly due to the padding we all carried with us.'

(Now we are listening to David Mitchell's Soap Box followed by Old Jews Telling Jokes.)

This weekend we went to see Barenaked Ladies and Scott Pilgrim versus the World. And we called in to see Margaret, Ian's ex-wife. All I can say, with jewish humour echoing in my ears, is that all these activities were hugely fun. Perhaps the best part of the gig was that Boothby Graffoe was the first support act. I'm particularly fond of Boothby and his animal friends and have missed seeing him at the Fringe. It was a joy to find him so unexpectedly accompanying, and accompanied by on the later songs, the Ladies. I bought one of his CDs. The BNLs were also jolly good but by that time the Manchester Apollo's seats were making me uncomfortable and my feet were twitchy. It is a tribute to their showmanship that I enjoyed them as much as I did. Fab!


I'm sort of thinking that our globetrotting friends will be back from Australia, getting over the jetlag and putting their photoalbums in order. I hope so. Is there anyone out there?