Waiting Around
Posted: Mon 26 December, 2016 Filed under: Day Trips, Domestic, Getting Organised, Introspective, Personality, Punctuality, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »I wrote a while back about how bad I am at doing nothing – something I hadn’t properly realised before this year.
In a related way, I’ve also found I’m not great at days when the only thing I’ve got planned is in the evening. It’s not too bad during the week, because I’ve done stuff during the day, and then just adding bits in the evenings.
But on weekends, it’s not the same. There’ve been a few days this year where I’ve had afternoon or evening stuff planned, and it’s left me feeling like I’m at a bit of a loss in the mornings, like it’s kind of freeweheeling a bit, not knowing quite what I want to do, or where I want to be.
Honestly, it’s not a feeling I’m overly comfortable with – I like having a plan, and getting on with it. Being in a holding pattern ’til later in the day isn’t something I do well.
I’m more aware of this now, and come 2017, I’ll be making better plans, knowing this about myself. If I’ve got something in the evening, I’ll also do something in a similar area earlier in the day – or just get better at having a half-day.
The Last Bits, and The Next Bits
Posted: Sun 18 December, 2016 Filed under: 2016/17, Day Trips, Domestic, Festering Season, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Food, Getting Organised, Solo Dining, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »
It’s hard to believe that it’s only a week to Christmas Day, and two to the end of 2016.
This week we’ve had temperatures up around 10-13° C – which is ridiculous for mid-December – and I’ve been wandering around in shirt-sleeves. (While also wondering just how people are walking about fully clad in coat, gloves, and even furry hats. What the bollocks are they going to do when it gets cold, for fuck’s sake?)
Yesterday was my penultimate Michelin-starred restaurant visit of the year, so it’s all coasting down to the end of year. Which is no bad thing, to be honest.
I’ve got some plans and ideas for 2017, but really I think the theme is “do less”. I’ll still be doing all the stuff I’ve been doing in 2016, just less of it. That’s the idea, anyway. Whether it’ll work out that way, well, only time will tell.
Theatrical – Thoughts
Posted: Thu 8 December, 2016 Filed under: Do More, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Theatre, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »This year, as I’ve said before, I’ve seen a lot of plays – well, by my standards, at least. Up until two years ago, I hadn’t been to the theatre in a long time, but for some reason it’s clicked into place over the last eighteen months or so, and I’ve been really enjoying it.
There’s been a lot of Shakespeare this year – partly because of 2016 being the 400th anniversary of his death, which has lead to a lot more stuff being staged, but also because it’s interesting, I know very little about it, and wanted to advance my knowledge of the plays to a greater or lesser degree.
At the same time, I’ve also seen other stuff along the way, and it’s pretty much all been interesting.
The full list for 2016 has been pretty impressive…
- Faustus (adapted from the Christopher Marlowe original)
- Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Globe
- King Lear, with Don Warrington as Lear
- The Spoils (written by, and starring, Jesse Eisenberg)
- Macbeth
- Romeo and Juliet
- Threepenny Opera
- The Alchemist
- Faustus (original script, by the RSC)
- King Lear, with Glenda Jackson as Lear
- Tempest at Stratford-upon-Avon
There’s stuff already booked in for next year, too – including
- Amadeus at the National Theatre
- Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
- Hamlet
- Don Juan in Soho, a play by Patrick Marber
- Obsession, with Jude Law
That’s it for now, but I’m sure there’ll be more to come as well.
Theatrical – The Tempest
Posted: Mon 5 December, 2016 Filed under: Day Trips, Do More, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Theatre, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »This weekend, I went down to Stratford-upon-Avon to see The Tempest at the RSC Theatre.
As I wrote back in April, it’s been a busy year for me of going to the theatre, and this was the last visit of this year. I’ve already got a number of things next year, starting in mid-January, but for this year, I’m done.
I’d not seen Tempest before, and knew very little about it, but thoroughly enjoyed it. The staging is pretty epic, making use of the carcass of a ship for the stage surrounds, and a very cleverly designed floor with mirrored parts underneath. The lighting reflects off the mirrors and produces a number of different effects depending on the colour – it’s theoretically simple, but massively effective.
Additionally, they’ve done some really innovative stuff using technology and motion-capture, allowing them to project Ariel onto large mesh screens that also move, conveying the freedom of the spirit in a very effective and impressive way that would’ve kept me happy even if the rest of the play had been bobbins.
In particular, the man playing Ariel (Mark Quartly) does a fantastic job – beautifully conveying that he’s a spirit that most people can’t see, concealing himself among the stage timbers, with an outfit that shows him but also camouflages him very effectively. You forget he’s there, watching all, and then he moves and you remember and realise – it’s really quite creepy, but done in a really good way.
Mark Quartley as Ariel
I found it interesting to also see the parallels between Tempest and Midsummer Night’s Dream, the similarity of some of the themes and so on. Indeed, a lot of the stuff for the spirits in Tempest could work really well for the fairies of Midsummer Night’s Dream – and I’d like to see it done.
It’s a fabulous production. I don’t honestly know that I’d be overly bothered about seeing the play itself again (although I probably will at some point) but if you’re going to see one version of it, this one’s bloody good.
King Lear, Old Vic, London
Posted: Fri 2 December, 2016 Filed under: Day Trips, Domestic, London, Theatre, Travel Leave a comment »Last weekend, I went down to London to see King Lear at the Old Vic – my second Lear this year, never having seen it before – this time starring Glenda Jackson as Lear. She’s just the start of a pretty mega cast, including Celia Imrie, Jane Horrocks and Rhys Ifans as well as a number of actors whose faces and/or voices were certainly familiar.
There’s been a lot of guff spoken about having a woman play Lear, but in the end I found it didn’t really matter. Jackson is pretty androgynous, and the play really is more about age, families, children and betrayal than whether Lear is a King or a Queen. Personally I found it a bit jarring to hear the male pronouns (“Sir”, “Lord”, “He” etc.) while knowing the role was played by a woman, but that was more about my brain than anything else.
I really liked the production – it’s very modern, which was interesting in comparison to the much more traditional one I saw in Manchester. It’s also quite minimalist for a lot of the time, with some moving scenery and not much else. However, the storm scene is performed through projections onto billowing black plastic sheeting, which was surprisingly effective.
All told, I liked the production a lot, and still feel that I was fortunate to see it.
I felt even more fortunate to also see the “Voices Off” conversation afterwards, with Jackson, Imrie, and Horrocks all on stage talking with a presenter and Lear’s other ‘daughter’, played by Morfydd Clark. That was another forty minutes or so after the main three-and-a-half-hour production, which made for a long evening, but one that I really enjoyed.
Final Weeks
Posted: Fri 25 November, 2016 Filed under: 2016/17, BurgerCrawl, Day Trips, Do More, Domestic, Festering Season, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Food, Getting Organised, London, Milton Keynes, People, Solo Dining, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »We’re coming to the end of 2016, and things are (kind of) calming down a bit here.
Mind you, in the next month the main events are
- Seeing Glenda Jackson in King Lear at the Old Vic in London
- Seeing The Tempest in Stratford-upon-Avon
- A Festive BurgerCrawl in London – only Christmas Special burgers allowed. (That’s pretty much planned already)
- Meals at five Michelin-starred restaurants, including one for New Year’s Eve
and alongside that there’s also
- at least one techie meetup/socialisation night
- two social things with other friends and contacts
- a minimum of three films (that’re already booked) including Rogue One and Passengers, plus any others I choose to see
That’s about it – except for the standard stuff around the Festering Season as well.
And yet still, that’s a lot quieter and calmer than a lot of the year has been. Which just goes to show, sometimes I can be a spectacularly busy idiot…
Restorative
Posted: Tue 22 November, 2016 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Old(er), Health, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »Looking back over the weekend, and the twatted ankle, I do find it interesting that whatever I’m doing (or have done) to myself, I still appear to be lucky enough and healthy enough to repair and heal pretty quickly.
Considering that I fit with no-one’s image of a fit person, and that I’m also capable of doing 13-15 mile walks in a day with no further ill effects, that all makes me a lot happier than it maybe should.
Of course, if I were less of an idiot, and more open to allowing small injuries/damage to put a stop to plans, I’d probably heal up even quicker, but that’s not likely to happen any time soon.
Maybe it’ll change as I get older, but for now, I’m pretty content with how things stand.