Monday 14-12-29 A Day at the Panto

So today, for the first time in years, I went to the panto with the family. Normally TW goes with the kids and Mama, but as my sister is visiting from Singapore, we went en masse, 11 of us.
It was absolutely brilliant. Two and a half hours of entertainment, right there. Aladdin and Jasmine were young and beautiful, as expected. Well, actually, Aladdin was Jon from S Club 7, tattooed to the hilt and 32, according to Wikipedia, and Jasmine was played by Jade Chaston, whom I'd never seen before. Anyway, they were both good, and could sing. They were having fun during the performance, making each other laugh.
When did women stop playing the leading man, though? Or is it too confusing for kids these days, if Aladdin were played by a woman? I dunno...
It's normally the supporting cast that normally make a panto, and the Dame Widow Twankey was brilliant. She was played by "Lola Lasagne", I expect he's a drag act for the rest of the year, he certainly had the audience in the palm of his hand.
The two DJ PCs were amazing, I don't listen to Heart FM myself, but apparently Tom and Jack are well-known in the area. They did a couple of numbers and were pretty good at being the light relief.
My claim to fame is that I knew the actor playing the Emperor of China, kind of... He used to live on our road and is a friend of a friend - Darren Clewlow. He was brilliant, and knowing that we knew him added to the fun of the panto.
There was one scene where they wanted to depict Aladdin flying on a magic carpet, which had us in stitches. Basically, they had Jon in a luminous outfit and turned the lights down, then they had him slip his feet into a luminous cardboard flying carpet, almost like a surfboard. He was in a harness and they lifted him up and swung (swang?) him from side to side across the stage, as he was singing a number. It was very effective, and certainly achieved the intended impression, but it was beyond cheesy. It was a moment of inspired theatre, and probably worth the entry fee by itself.
I was very proud of the Middle Child, as when they were trying to open the cave to get to the Lamp, Aladdin and Abernazer ("Half a Lager"?) asked the children if they knew the password, and she shouted out "Open Sesame!". They acknowledged her, and thanked her... I think they said something like it would be a bloody long play if no-one knew the password... :)

The whole cast could sing, and it was really enjoyable. I shall probably go again next year.

UKIP / UKIK?

I read this story in The Guardian yesterday and found it gently amusing:

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/dec/22/nigel-farage-sixth-fomers-ukip-parody-app-nicholas-fromage

I even went so far as to download the app and play it, but it's not that good. Anything that puts the wind up UKIP has to be a good thing, although at the moment they're have a pretty awful run of bad luck.
They're losing councillors and prospective Parliamentary candidates at a rate of knots. Some "rough diamond" with views from the Stone Age, and now some woman councillor who expressed some "jaw-dropping" ideas - I'd like to know what those were :).
But, if they carry on as they are, they might not be around at the May elections, or they might have been reduced to the rump of MEPs that they started with.
It'll be interesting to watch, that's do sure...

Eye Tests and The March of Time

I am not King Canute, nor would I like to try to be. But it's still a kick in the nuts when Time marches on without your approval. And so I find myself one eye test down, one prescription stronger, and one sign of old age more prominent.
With my previous prescription (+1.00) there was not much difference between wearing glasses and not wearing glasses - this meant I could more or less wear my glasses at will.
Now that my prescription has changed to +1.50, it is a whole different story. There is no way I can wonder round the office wearing those babies, I would be a danger not only to my disabled self but to my colleagues as well, and that is a burden I'm not prepared to bear.

Monday December 1st - A Birthday Treat

So as a birthday treat, TW bought a pair of tickets to see Beardyman at Concorde II, which was nice. I'd only just recovered from the trip up to Brixton to see Carter, so I was almost feeling like I had my finger on the pulse...
We did things a bit differently though, compared to my Brixton visit. No guilty Maccy Dees for us; instead we went to Sawadee, which is a lovely Thai place at the bottom of Kemptown. We shared a bottle of wine and ordered their delicious fishcakes, which we still talk about, even more than nine years after leaving Brighton.
We finished up and walked to the Concorde. The warm-up guy was a mixologist, JFB, who has apparently been the DMC UK champion twice, in 2007 and again in 2011. And as expected, he rocked. They had some cameras close up on his hands as he was working, and those shots were showing on the backdrop behind him. He was brilliant. I would pay to see him again, and apparently he is working on an album, which I shall be watching out for. The way he rebuilt DJ Shadow's "Midnight" was amazing.
Then it was the interval, and we were all waiting for Beardyman to enter the arena. A man came onto the stage and started talking Swedish or some other Scandinavian language, and TW and I didn't know whether it was Beardyman or not... Turned out, of course, it was him, and he started sampling his own words as he was talking to us. All of a sudden, he was playing some pretty cool stuff, looping his own words, and adding in some beats and basslines. It was really good; I started movin' and groovin' a bit - I wasn't throwing shapes but it was funky stuff.
Then it got a bit harder. There was a camera under his chin, so pointing up at him, and the images captured there were then refracted and disjointed and displayed on the backdrop. The room was pitch dark and the beats and tunes were getting heavier, and actually it was getting quite oppressive. I think we left about five minutes before the end. It was a great gig, and a brilliant way to spend my birthday and a cold Monday night. The amazing thing was that he was improvising the whole event. Of course he had a couple of hooks and ideas on which he based the whole show, so I'm sure that some elements would sound familiar to people who have seen him before. I would go and see him again, although I was expecting a lighter, more humorous feel, but there were touches of that. If I had been on drugs I don't think I would've enjoyed the end of the show...
Well worth going to see though - there was lots of techno, lots of mixing and lots of funk. Well done fella and thanks TW for buying tickets to see him. The night was topped off with a beer on the train home, and then we relieved M & P from babysitting duties...

22nd Nov 2014 - The Final Ever (?) Carter USM Show, Brixton Academy

So, last Saturday I went to see Carter perform their final ever (?) gig at the Brixton Academy up in London. I met up with my old mucker from Uni, who still maintains we saw Carter at Brixton in 1991, but I have absolutely no recollection.
We didn't get up to much in the morning, and so I set off at about 3pm feeling a bit "meh". I settled into my seat on the train and listened to a couple of podcasts and read a few bits of old newspaper from September. I had settled on wearing my red Poppies top, since I think the Stuffies top won't survive a stiff breeze.
I got to Victoria in plenty of time and immediately hit McDonald's - my guilty pleasure. Once I was sated, I headed to Brixton, admittedly earlier than planned, and hit the mean streets.
Brixton was full of "30 Something" long-sleeved tee-shirts, and I was worried I wasn't going to get into a pub. In fact, to tell the truth, I headed left out of the tube station to try and get off the beaten track, and find a quiet watering-hole. I really am a miserable misanthrope. What the hell was I thinking, agreeing to go and stand in a hall with 4,900 other sweaty 40 and 50 year olds? I could just go home and listen to the CDs, surely?
As it was, I found Plan B was mostly empty, so I texted E to let him know where to find me. We met up and had a few pints, and then headed along to the Academy. We were in time to see the end of Sultans of Ping FC play a few of their hits, including, of course, "Where's Me Jumper?". And then it was time for the main event - Carter USM...
They were ace. They hit the stage hard and played hit after hit, after hit. The most memorable points for me were "Midnight On The Murder Mile", with the mostly male crowd singing along with the "Oh Oh Oh Oh Ohs". I'd forgotten they even wrote and recorded "Rubbish", and "After the Watershed" with its "Goodbye Ruby Tuesday" chorus.
The whole crowd seemed to be singing along to every song, and everyone was very emotional. It was a great evening, and it finished early enough for me to easily catch the last train home. I very nearly caught the penultimate train home, but missed it by a couple of minutes. Ho Hum... I waited in the pub and had a lovely pint of American Pale Ale.

It was well worth it, and I'm glad I made the effort to get my hands on tickets. On the Sunday morning I played "Midnight on the Murder Mile" to TW, and I found an old appearance by the boys on TOTP from 1992 singing "Rubbish", which made me feel old. Well, it was either that or the hangover...

Here's to the next Farewell gig, I'll be there with bells on... :)