We headed over to Leicester about 1.30pm and arrived just after 2.30pm by the time we had driven to East Midlands Parkway train station and got a train. As we walked out the station we passed an 'October Highlghts' poster with a super picture of an August Sander picture from the 1920s.
(I meant to take a photo of the full length poster but forgot and only a cropped version seems to be online)
The full-length image of an unnamed secretary at the German Radio Station is a stunner - and I wish I could find the woman's name.
This exhibition from Art Fund Touring Rooms, is BRILLIANT - and really worth seeing if you haven't already caught it. It's on in Leicester until January 2013 so plenty of time to make a journey up the motorway/trainline.
We ended up spending quite some time in the gallery - they also have a great permanent collection of German art from the early 20th century anyway: Kollwitz, Grosz, Dix and earlier expressionist artists such as Marc, Kandinsky, Münter, Heckel, Kirchner, Jawlensky and Schmidt-Rottluff. We got into a couple of conversations with staff: one of the gallery assistants (pointing out a couple of images in the Sander exhibition were wrongly hung/labelled) and talking about the exhibition more generally with a woman who was doing a questionnaire on behalf of the Art Fund who were funding the tour. I think I bluffed my way reasonably well, though almost certainly was wrong on some things. But it was nice to stretch my cultural historian muscles.
(This was one of the pictures concerned: easy to pick up as there was another of Dora further along the same wall)
Sander's work tried to categorise and capture archetypes and inevitably gained criticism during the 20th century. Was his work for or against Nazism? It is useful to consider that his son was arrested - and indeed died - due to his Communist sympathies and actions. Was August as active in his politics? No. But he clearly had sympathy for the intellectuals as well as 'those of the soil' and his work captures the diversity of Germany in a way that could have hardly been comfortable for the Nazi regime. His work has been criticised over the years - misunderstood for what he was trying to achieve. He didn't make it easy for Germany to look at itself, but he did provide a unique record of itself for future generations.
Diary of a Football Nobody is a remarkably touching - if VERY sweary* - play about Notts County Football Club and much more.
The play is adapted by William Ivory from David McVay's memoir Steak...Diana Ross: Diary of a Football Nobody (and Ivory was in the Cast bar at the Playhouse ahead of the play - no, we didn't bother him).
It's a very parochial play - for all the life-affirming stuff and context which speaks to community, family life, education and employment - the play is shot through with a vein of Nott'um nostalgia and reference points that would probably be lost on anyone lacking experience/awareness of Nottingham either past and/or present. The play - for all it's brilliance - is unlikely to travel far (heck, getting beyond the boundaries of Nottingham would be difficult and as the likes of Bingham and Mansfield come in for flack, alongside the inevitable loathing for Derby and Nottingham Forest, I can barely see it travelling into Nottinghamshire).
But it IS brilliant. I mentioned before the life-affirming stuff, and that is something that moves this play beyond JUST being about football, to highlighting that "Football isn't a matter of life and death - it is much LESS important than that". This play shows that human beings play football: people with lives and families, lusts and foibles. Too much Shippo beer, too many women, too much distraction from the people around us. But in representing an age when a football player could achieve the giddy heights of earning so much as to have had to be a 'Foreman at Raleigh' to match their financial power, it's a wonderful reminder of how football has changed.
The music in the play is deftly chosen - from the obvious pop chart stuff to the delicacy of Nick Drake. It's a beautiful evocation of period, place and people (anyone with memories - first or second-hand acquired - of those days of County 'stars' will chuckle at the representations. The staging is like Roy of Rovers come to life in graphic tone, and the comic-book realism suits the recollections it presents. There's little in the way of fancy, the imagery of Nottingham is lightly used, and the most technical most involves a short use of wires which draws spontaneous applause from a delighted audience.
And all this is topped by the generous and heartfelt performances: Eric Richard is especially good as Jimmy Sirrel and our lead, Perry Fitzpatrick as Dave McVay is by turns baffled, distressed and desperately trying to have a good time being a footballer with A-levels.
LeftLion like it - of course they do. It's only on for another week. Get there if you're in the locality.
*It would be ridiculous if it was non-sweary (does anyone alive think football and its milieu was NOT sweary in the 1970s?) But nice that the sexism, racism and homophobia is largely dropped. You can be too honest...
Okay, I don't actually have this cake, but I can imagine it right?!
Thank you to everyone who has already been so kind to me: Neil and I got a magnetic photo frame and an owl cover cover from the New Zealand gang; and I need to bank the little cheque from Neil's ma. Chrissie sent me the most adorable donkey to sit on my bookshelves (rather like my pukeko that I got in NZ), a little fridge magnet with a polarbear on 'pacing myself' (definitely me this morning), and fab glitzy brooch of a crown (for being queen of the mix-tape/CD). Awesome!
The lovely George and Sonia, Xavi and Max (our friends in the north) sent a brilliant looking CD Lisboa Mulato by Dead Combo. Looking forward to hearing that in full:
I've also had a great pair of red heart earrings from Caroline at work (wearing them today!) and more besides!
Mostly though I'm very lucky to have so many good friends and nice people around me. Their friendship and kindness are the things that keep me going. Everything about what they say and do makes it all worthwhile!
I've had cards with the following on:
cute wet kitty wrapped in a towel (from Neil - cat as Yoda)
shoes
flip-flips
teddy bear
shopping
headphones with an incredible list of music genres identified (guess who sent that? Yup, the Guiness Dude himself, G-man!)
a Tardis (from my fellow sci-fi geek colleague, along with what he guarantees me will be "a winning lottery tickey" - will definitely share if it is!)
Now, what does that little collection tell you about me?
BTW, if tonight we don't end up watching through to the season 1 finale of Fringe, I will be very surprised. if I am very lucky I may sneak in the s1 finale of Angel before we 'Fringe-it' but am loving it all so much!
Dear lordy Moff, you really do like to put us through the wringer don't you?
There's gonna be spoilers here folks.
Don't say you haven't been warned.
There'll be tears before the end.
There'll be chuckles along the way.
And there WILL
BE
SPOILERS....
Okay, so firstly you pull of that surprise with Oswin: companion to be, arriving early with a heartbreaking souffle.
We didn't see that coming.
The Pond-subplot for that one built nicely from a pre-series mini episode 'Pond Life' written by Chris Chibnall. We've criticised CC in the past - and actually currently as well, sadly all to often with good reasons. Here, in Asylum, his prequel was useful but not central to requirements. What Moff did was make it proper emotional.
Yes, I said it: Moff can do emotional. He doesn't do it like Rusty did, but he does pull the strings of heart.
"I didn't throw you out - I gave you up"
Sorry: I'm sobbing again.
We then went all Primeaval in Dinosaurs on a Spaceship with a dodgy sexist adventurer (what is it about Rupert Graves that gets him such roles?!) and Queen Nefertiti. It was fun - mostly for the brilliant Mark Williams as Brian Pond (oh if ONLY Chibs had insisted on that character much earlier in the Pond life cycle...) who despite all insistence to the contrary was never going to be 'Brian Williams'.
However, it was also getting to be clear even if you hadn't been spoilered that the Ponds weren't going to be travellers forever.
The episode also had a great villainous turn from David Bradley who must have really lapped up this hyper-nonsense! I could have done without the Silurian sub-plot (really Chibbers, we get that you like them!) but Bradley was monster enough to make up for the rather slight dinosaur threat --- the creatures were gorgeously realised on screen though!
The next move was into the West: with a vengeful cyborg being the 'good guy' as compared to his maker. It was a small tale of morality and moral dilemmas and all the more enjoyable for that.
But most importantly, what had been spotted by then?
I'd squeed anyway when I saw on 'Asylum of the Daleks' that the sequence had been tweaked. Oooh it suddenly looked PROPER Doctor Who-ish with a retro/modern tone, dark and beautiful, ridding us of the Gavascon colouration of the earlier Moff series.
But then Frank Collins - one of my favourite reviewers - confirmed my suspicions.
Oh it was getting darker for sure.
Chibbers came back and amazingly didn't wreck the joint. He bought back the brilliant Brian Pond and although it was an oddly balanced episode (lots of threads got left hanging), it had a typically Rusty momentum ---- moreover, how could I hate an episode that made Kate Stewart TV cannon?
And Jemma Redgrave was lovely as the daughter of our beloved and late Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart.
And so we got to Manhattan.
It was hard to avoid that we would be losing the Ponds in an episode promised to be scary and heartbreaking.
Damn, damn, DAMN you Moff. You are cruel in the beauty of your story-telling.
So when that wasn't the end of Rory and Amy, when that final Angel appeared and took him as he read the gravestone, and we realised Amy would join him and leave the Doctor - her raggedy-man - to be with her husband....
... well, it all tears, all the time.
It wasn't as if this was an episode that didn't tug at you all the way through: I particularly liked this passage from the TV.com review which included an exchange of lines I really choked at.
After River freed herself from an Angel by breaking her own wrist and then lying to the Doctor in an attempt to convince him that they'd changed the future foretold in the book, she clued us in to what marriage means in one of the most moving scenes of this series. Why did she lie about her wrist? "When one's in love with an ageless god who insists on the face of a 12-year-old, one does one's best to hide the damage." "It must hurt." "Yes, the wrist is pretty bad too."
And quite by chance, I went back in my mind to last Sunday, listening to 6Music when they had a Ben Folds focus to the Playlist show. I requested "The Luckiest", and although the age is 'wrong' in the lyrics (but heck even that gravestone doesn't seem right!) the final verse strikes me as very much suited to the end of Rory and Amy.
Next door there's an old man
Who lived to his 90s
And one day passed away in his sleep
And his wife, she stayed for a couple of days
And passed away.
I'm sorry, I know that's a strange way
To tell you that I know we belong
That I know
That I am
I am
I am
The Luckiest
I've been hopping up and down each week about the title sequence being better this season and darker. And then Frank goes and nails it. (SPOILERS AHOY OBVIOUSLY!)
Each episode's title sequence is getting darker. Compare Asylum's opening titles with this episode's and you'll see the vortex is closing down, becoming sickly green and darker by the week.
Of course Sunday for me was all about the Choir (see other post), but there were still some musical highlights to accompany live performing by a collection of people who had 4 hours to rehearse 6 songs (as opposed to 12 weeks to rehearse 10/11 songs as with BeVox! Though obviously the BeVox standard is able to be MUCH higher).
Anyway: Sunday at Summer Sundae started with breakfast at the Lansdowne before we wandered in for a cuppa tea. Sadly this meant we missed having spotted in the programme small print that there was a Barbershop a cappella band called the Simpletones singing in the tent. Boo - would have liked to have seen them properly, especially as I later found them serenading Neil with a rendition of the 'Ghostbusters' song as Neil was wearing his 'Last Exit to Nowhere' t-shirt!
We saw The Staves - three sisters who sweltered under the hot lights of the tent. They were fantastic and wonderfully harmonious, but there were some hilarious moments as whistling was revealed as a substitute for guitar-playing, and another confessed she had sweat running down her back. "We usually laugh when we get offered towels for being on stage - not today" they said.
It was also possible to catch Team Me, another Scandi highlight of the weekend. Great tunes and harmonies and quirky sounds and titles. Liked it a lot.
One of the benefits of getting backstage to go onto the main stage for the choir performance was seeing John Lydon wheeling his suitcase from the tour-bus...
After the choir, Neil and I caught the end of Billy Bragg's tribute to Woody Guthrie (hurrah). Always good, and the infinite flexibility of "Waiting for the great leap forward" came through again. Always able to be updated: "Some people say that girls should be quiet; I wanna say 'Free Pussy Riot'!"
Anyway, apologies for anything missed: I'll aim to finish this post asap. Apologies for the delay so far!
When I was a child, we lived walking distance away from the Nottingham Arboretum (although for my little legs it was a bit too far to walk - hence daddy drove us there). I used to love running about the flower displays, watching the action on the Band Stand and enjoying the birds and other creatures in the cages.
Yes: the cages.
They are still there and some birds are still kept there, but the 'mini-zoo' like qualities of the site deteriorated like the general ambiance of the place. Until recently, the site was a less than pleasant place to visit - a bit too close to the haunts of drug dealers and sex workers and certainly not a place to visit on a dull day.
Some planting and judicious improvements have at least made it a more enjoyable place to re-visit on a sunny day and it was lovely to trace my steps again past the beautiful birds.
Now take the next snack you plan to have and swap it for something healthier. - I hardly do snacks at all. I'm known for not snacking that much!
Try to swap drinks that are high in calories for drinks that are lower in fat and sugars. - I don't drink sugary drinks. I have alcohol - we share a bottle or two over the weekends, but not every weekend. And I definitely don't drink regularly like some people I know.
Next, find a way to fit just one extra walk into your day. Fast walking is a way to burn calories, and you can often fit it into your daily routine. You might walk to the shops during your lunch break, or get off the bus one stop early on the way home and walk the rest of the way. Commit to this and you’ve adopted your second long-term habit. Ideally, you should aim to walk 10,000 steps a day: it’s not as many as it sounds. - I'm not known as a dawdler, but I SHOULD walk more and exercise more. But I live on a hill, my osteo says I should avoid running on concrete/tarmac due to the back and muscle problems I have had, and my work schedule does not easily allow for either showering or exercise during the day. Hmmm. One to ponder.
Last, think about your breakfast tomorrow morning. Can you make it healthier, using the foods you already have at home?
Could I have a healthier breakfast? Possibly. But I don't overeat until... yes... evening. That's the problem area. Too little exercise (probably) and eating too late (can't really avoid that with work schedule etc) and eating too much when I do (I like my food! I get hungry at the end of the day!)
So here's the thing. I'm now weighing just over 9 stone. I've never weighed that much in my life. And I don't like it. Not least because I can't fit into some of my clothes.
NHS advice (because I won't touch any generic "lose weight by living on water" rubbish), suggests the following:
Breakfast
Swap from whole milk to semi-skimmed, 1% fat or even skimmed milk. - I drink only skimmed milk
Swap a sugar-coated breakfast cereal for a wholegrain breakfast cereal such as porridge or shredded wholegrain wheat cereal, with no added sugar. - um, I guess honey-nut cornflakes aren't the best right?
Swap a sprinkle of sugar on your breakfast cereal for a topping of fresh or dried fruit, which counts towards one of your five a day. - I don't sprinkle anything on my cereal, sugar or otherwise
Swap full-fat Greek yoghurt for fat-free Greek-style yoghurt or natural low-fat yoghurt. - yoghurt. Yuk. Tried to like it several years ago. Realised it's vile stuff. Full fat or not.
Lunch
Swap white breads, bagels and muffins for wholegrain varieties. - most bread products we eat are wholegrain, granary etc
Swap butter and cheese in your jacket potato for reduced fat spread and reduced salt and sugar baked beans. - I hardly ever eat a jacket potato
Swap a tuna melt panini for a tuna salad sandwich on wholemeal bread, without mayo. - don't like tuna paninis
Swap a cheddar cheese filling in your sandwich for reduced-fat hard cheese. - sorry, I do like Cheddar, and Double Gloucester. Though I don't eat as much cheese as Neil. And I don't do Stilton.
Dinner
Swap creamy or cheesy sauces for tomato- or vegetable-based sauces on your pasta, meat or fish dishes. - hardly ever have cream sauces. Mostly tomato and veg anyway
Swap mashed potato made with butter and whole milk for mash with low-fat spread and a lower-fat milk such as semi-skimmed, 1% fat or skimmed. - Don't do mash potatoes much. If I do, it's marg and our milk. Skimmed.
Choose leaner cuts of meat, for example, swap streaky bacon for back bacon. - if we have bacon it is always back bacon,
Swap the frying pan for the grill when cooking meat. - hardly ever cook meat. If I do, it's grilled. Never fried.
Drinks
Swap your usual coffee made with whole milk to a ’skinny’ coffee made with skimmed milk. - skinny coffee. Fine by me. Hardly drink coffee anyway.
Swap your cordial for a cordial with no added sugars. - only drink fruit juices if I do
Swap a few of your sugary drinks for a glass of water. - try to drink water but I'm a camel when it comes to drinking!
Swap hot chocolate made with whole milk and served with whipped cream for a hot chocolate made with skimmed milk and no cream. - never drink hot chocolate.
Snacks
Swap a blueberry muffin for a currant bun on its own or with some reduced fat spread. - don't eat muffins more than once a year if that.
Swap yoghurt-coated raisins for plain raisins. - would sooner eat sultanas. Definitely no yoghurt covering!
Swap salted nuts for unsalted nuts. - no nuts
Swap cheese straws for rice cakes with lower-fat cream cheese - cheese straws?! Are you kidding me?! Yuk!
So what is it that we're doing 'wrong'? I know what it is. I just plain old eat TOO MUCH. I have hollow legs and slow signals. I take ages before I know I'm hungry (hence the "I get cranky when I'm hungry" jokes) and take ages before I know I am full.
I guess I just need to cut down. Huh. Dieting eh? Let's face it, every time it ALL boils down to that.
So - here's the thing. My internet connection has been poop lately. So I've been wanting to write about how much I totally loved the first ep of the new Doctor Who series. But the net is up down up down.
Spoilers ahoy and hope this loads.
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SO.....OSWIN! wasn't she great?! Totally wasn't expecting to be there yet - she's the next companion to come post-Ponds. The whole thing with the souffles was... so "oh... why didn't we think that?" It was great how despite everything I didn't see how "eggs..." would extend. And the brilliant mind of Oswin was glorious.
As evidence of how it connected with us Neil and I have spent the week debating what timey-wimey magic Moff will throw at the story to retrieve Oswin from being a Dalek. (And no I didn't see that coming).
We sat transfixed throughout the ep. To my mind it was a cracking opener. I'd watched Pond Life ahead of the ep - Neil didn't unless he wasn't telling me something - and despite Chibnall characteristics I thought they'd set up the ep really well. You didn't NEED the Pond Life mini-ep but it added to the poignancy. And you would hace to have been hard of heart indeed to not find your eye wet at the line "I didn't throw you out - I gave you up".
*SNIFF*
Ooh... I got proper weepy at that and again with the revelation of Oswin. Great too about the Daleks forgetting. Its all blank slate (until Oswin turns up?!)
And this week ...?
Oh.
Chibs. Doing Primeval.
Oh well. It was goid while it lasted. Am sure I'll still love it.
Well, yes, so having joined BeVox earlier in the year, I thought I should keep my hand in with singing over the summer by volunteering for the 'scratch choir' at Summer Sundae.
Summer Sundae started having a choir - put together from scratch with people attending the festival - a couple of years ago: I'd seen them in rehearsal and/or caught part of their performances and had a urge then but not the nerve. This year I bit the bullet and joined!
So we first met at with the wonderful Hannah who leads the choir at 7pm on the Friday - spent the best part of 20 mins warming up and stuff and approx 40 mins actually singing. Eek! We had a two hour rehearsal on the Saturday morning from 10am-12noon in the indoor stage (De Montfort Hall - on the floor level, with no allowance for seats (very grumpy security refused to let us move chairs), limited lighting (til one of the guys stood on a chair to adjust how the spot lights lit things a little better) and ultimately the crew on the stage setting up for the next act (not due on until 12.35 - one of the choir eventually asked 'politely' if they could wait til we'd finished rehearsing as we couldn't hear ourselves!).
We finally met on the Sunday evening at 5pm for a rehearsal til approx. 6.30pm when we were allowed to head to the backstage area of the MAIN OPEN AIR STAGE! We trooped on at 6.40pm as planned to an awaiting crowd (far larger than I think any of us anticipated .... and then had to wait another 10 mins for the sound people to finish setting everything up. Grr!
Whee! It was a blast. And you can inflict the sound on yourselves as well if you so want!
Summer Sundae Choir 2012: song 1: A-le
Summer Sundae Choir 2012: song 2: Somewhere only we know
Summer Sundae Choir 2012: song 3: Down to the river to pray
Summer Sundae Choir 2012: song 4: Somebody that I used to know
Summer Sundae Choir 2012: song 5: Ain't no mountain high enough
Summer Sundae Choir 2012: song 6: King of the Swingers
Norm has done two lists of books - which really intrigued me. Could I do similar? A list of influential books that shaped me/that I loved from before 25, and books read 'as an adult'...? Flaw one would be not yet really being very good at this 'adult' lark. Flaw two would be this 'shaping' thing. Important to me may have to be the definition instead.
And... well one of my downsides is that up til my mid-twenties (the cut-off for the first list) I really had pretty awful taste in reading. I read what my mum read - tons of crappy romantic fiction a la Danielle Steel et al, the occasional 'risky' "Flowers in the Attic" type of things, and tons of pretty forgettable fantasy/science fiction. Remember that I didn't go to University as a full-time student until I was nearly 26, and I was already 23 when I met Neil (nearly 24 in fact).
So there aren't a lot of books before 25 years old that I remember much about, let alone feel they shaped me. So why try to do the list?
Well, I love lists, so I'm going to stretch things back a little to take in anything read before 25 years old that feels significant. So nah, nah, nah, as these are all titles I returned to in my teenage years and after.
List one
Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
The Dark is Rising - Susan Cooper
The Collected Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
A Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine L'Engle
The Women's Room - Marilyn French
The Phantom Tollbooth - Norman Juster
1984 - George Orwell
The Collected Dorothy Parker
Gaudy Night - Dorothy L. Sayers
Frost in May - Antonia White
I'm quite pleased to see how many women authors there are here.
List two
The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony - Roberto Calasso
The Bloody Chamber - Angela Carter
House of Leaves - Mark Z Danielewski
The Sandman - Neil Gaiman
South Riding - Winifred Holtby
The Cheese Monkeys - Chip Kidd
Les Liaisons Dangereuses - Choderlos de Laclos
Company of Liars - Karen Maitland
Beloved - Toni Morrison
His Dark Materials - Phillip Pullman
Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
Hmm. that's an odd pair of lists. They're all books that I have read and read again or can recall vividly. So am going with these even if my lists probably go against the grain of the original list sentiment.
