Rain rain go away

It's still wet. It's still cold. And I'm still sick. Hopefully Spain will be more pleasant than this and the sun will make me well again.

Museums

So as it's wet and miserable again (deep sighs of remorse), I went to a Museum yesterday instead of taking a walk through the Heath, which is what I really wanted to do. However, the museums in this town are fantastic. And the public ones are all free. Thank you Mayor of London. My two favorites are the British Museum (mummies and Greek pottery) and the Tate Britain (old oil paintings mostly). Yesterday I went to the Tate Modern, which is where they put all the art work post 1900, when they had to split the collection because it was too large to house only at the Tate Britain.

The Tate Modern building is artwork in itself. It's a renovated power station and you can tell. I had a good time, despite my general lack of interest in modern paintings. However, they had one really lovely Monet and some nice Picasso's. And a Rodin statue, so it was a worthwhile trip.

It's still quite damp today, so I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with myself. Something I suppose. After all, I leave for Paris in less than a week now. (Though I sort of don't want to.)

Pirates!

So what does one do on a quiet Thursday night, a week before leaving London? One sees Pirates of the Caribbean of course. And thoroughly enjoys each stupid joke, excessive fight scene, and pretty shot of Orlando Bloom. Who is starring in his first West End show this summer, which I'll be able to see in August. Excellent. I'm interested to see if the kid's as wooden onstage as he is onscreen. Luckily he's usually cleverly cast in movie roles where he says little and looks nice.

Sunshine and Shakespeare!

So the sun is finally out, it's like last week never happened. Last night I went to Stratford-Upon-Avon to see Ian McKellen play King Lear. It was a very good show, which I appreciate since to see it I had to not only buy the ticket, but take a two-hour train there and back and spend the night at a B&B. Quite a bit of effort for a play, but then... I had thought it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I little thought when I bought this ticket 10 weeks ago that it would be touring to the Guthrie this fall.

Oh well... it makes a better story this way.

achoo

I meant yesterday to write a charming, well-worded piece about the riders and horses I saw traipsing down the road as I left for work. However, I was distracted from my purpose by an almost debilitating attack of hay fever allergies. Which is bizarre because I have never had a problem with hay fever, or indeed spring allergies at all. I'm feeling better today, but still not shipshape even after the antihistamines.

But enough about illness, the sun is FINALLY out and the sky is gorgeously blue.

Musicals

I'm bookending my week with Musicals. I haven't seen that many while I've been here. Mostly I suppose because I think of musicals the way I do movies: they'll always be there. So I tend to see more time-limited things. After all, why see Wicked (which will run for years) when I can see a new play that will only run a couple months and I might never have the chance see it again?

But this week is different. On Monday I saw "The Drowsy Chaperone" and was delighted. I always am, even when the musical's not very good (though this one wasn't bad at all), they are always delightful. However, Saturday's even more exciting- because I'm seeing "Lord of the Rings". Now, try not to think of it as a traditional musical. There won't be tap-dancing elves or high-kicking orcs. It's more a epic play with a lot of music I think. There's a lot of buzz already about it and it's only been playing a week. It's still in previews and will be for several more weeks to make sure the set works. (The set, with over 20 moving components is said to be the best part of the show) Greg wanted to take me to Opening Night, but since I'll be in Spain that night, we decided I should go to a preview. Whether it's any good or not, I'm really intrigued.

Weather

So the weather, which has been so lovely, so much of the time, has finally caught up with me. The whole last week has been chilly, grey, and rainy. It's raining right now in fact. It complicated my plans to go to Hampstead Court this weekend. I don't want to bother with a day trip when it's damp and miserable. Day trips are stressful enough, what with train schedules and so forth. So instead I did a bit of shopping (it's so nice to shop in pounds and not a dollar conversion) and discovered the British Film Institute. The BFI is really fun, it has a film archive where you can explore British film for free, and all sorts of weird things. I watched a bunch of silent shorts, Jude Law's film debut, and random other things. But they also have three movie theatres in the building, art pictures mostly. I saw "McCabe and Mrs Miller" last night, a Robert Altman (of MASH fame) film. What a crazy director, but he makes beautiful work.

Then I went to a coffeeshop to finish the play I was reading. An old man saw me reading it and came over to start a conversation about it. Which quickly turned into one the weirdest conversations I've had in quite some time. I find myself having quite a few in-depth conversations with strangers over here. It's a lot of fun actually. Like the one several weeks ago, with a Turkish man who was telling me about the torture practices used by the police.

This weekend I also bought my train ticket to Paris, so I now have physical proof that I am indeed leaving London. Which is both wonderful and sad. It's been a remarkable few months, living and working in London. Life-changing.

Chichester

It's a mad word, and a mad world come to that. I went down to this town, called Chichester (accent on the "i" oddly enough) with my boss to see "The Last Confession" a new play by a New York Lawyer, who's never written a play before. It's about the Roman Catholic church, the power play among the bishops, and the suspicious death of John Paul the first, who was found dead only 33 days after he became pope.

It could very easily have been awful, but it was actually quite good. Not brilliant, but I enjoyed it. I had a good time. And as I become more and more critical, as my understanding of theatre deepens and my expectations simultanously rise and lower... it's quite nice to simply see a show I just enjoy.

Plus there was a party afterwards. I chatted with several people, it went all right. I had a nice time, but I feel that to truly enjoy these events, I need to be a little more established, or simply know people. That would be good. Knowing people.

Cambridge

On Sunday I went down to Cambridge with the whole family. It was really nice getting a tour from someone who went there. I got wonderful anecdotes and stories, architectual lectures, and bits of history. I say the corridor where Newton calculated the speed of sound. I stood on the Bridge over the river Cam. Give it a second, it took me about thirty.

I watched people punting (or more often, trying to punt) down the Cam river, wandered through many-styled buildings, with all the styles older than my country. It is a very weird feeling walking through old cities here. London is pretty comfortable, because most of it burnt down and so the majority of buildings are less than 200 years old. Cambridge didn't have that. There were newer buildings of course, but there were also buildings, or parts of them, that dated back to Henry the 8th, or even older.

I felt quite envious to be honest, I would have loved to spend three years at a school like that, not only one that's aestically pleasing, but where you only go to lectures for fun and your real education is done either one-on-one or in very small groups. But before I get too regretful, I must remember that I didn't even have the grades and test scores to get into Macalester, so it's silly to think I would've gotten into Cambridge.

It was a lovely day however, Spring is here with a vengence. Everything's blooming, it smells amazing, and the colors are majestic.

Offers

It's a terribly exciting time here in the office. Well... for nerds like me anyway. What's happening is that there are four shows being cast. It's a real delight hearing the pitches made to agents, the genial good humour, the side-stepping, the half-promises- fascinating. We've made an offer to a major (if slightly ten years ago) hollywood star. Of course, it may not happen, but it's all quite exciting. This job is so interesting.