50 not out, Callow and a Chorus of Disapproval

Last weekend I had my 50th birthday party. There is something particularly pleasurable about being congratulated on merely staying alive for half a century. Anyway, it all went ever so well. The weather held up fine, which was my main concern, most expected guests turned up, even if not all at once, and it was great having so many friends over so many generations all around me, friends from work and university, some around the 50 mark too, some of my younger colleagues and mates under 30 and the kids of my friends, from babies to over 20 themselves. My only regret was that I couldn't get to spend as much time chatting to the as I had wanted to. And given some had come in from as far afield as Edinburgh, Newcastle, Manchester, Exeter and Bath, I did feel I wanted to spend time with them all. It went passed in a blur really, albeit a pleasant blur.

I managed to acquire a pretty impressive cake. More grey icing than you will ever see in your life. Only managed to consume one "turntable" on the day, but the rest went into the office for later consumption.

Luckily I had friends down who kindly helped with the catering, and one who stayed on for a bit longer, enabling me to spend my actual birthday, on the Monday with her.

Most of the day we spent at the British Museum. We went to the Shakespeare exhibition, and indeed I caught all the exhibitions going. I am a member of the British Museum so not only can I take a guest to any exhibition for free, but I can also use the Members' room. Which is rather nice. Big comfy sofas, coffee and cakes (which according to A were very good although I didn't partake myself) and one can look down across the Great Court at the riff raff below!

The Shakespeare exhibition was a little disappointing really. A lot of it you felt was eked out. As an example, and I paraphrase only a little, one exhibit's tag ran "Shakespeare liked gardening. Here is an old spade." A lot of it was rather like that. Objects not necessarily connected with Shakespeare but of his time. But then that should be an Elizabethan exhibition.

The courtyard display of North American plants from the Prairies woodlands and Everglades was, shall we just say, a trifle over ambitious in a space little bigger than my back garden.

But overall you can never really be disappointed by a visit to one of the greatest collections in the world. Especially nice on this visit was seeing this statue of a charioteer. It normally resides in some obscure museum in Western Sicily (which is fair enough given that was where it was found), but it really is a terrific piece of sculpture. Eventually I dragged A away from admiring the muscular buttocks under his cloak, and saw some other stuff too.

We were going to the Simon Callow one-man Dickens play in the evening. So I took A for a leisurely Chinese in Chinatown, contemplating a 15 minute stroll to the theatre with enough time for a gin and tonic beforehand. So as I was waiting for her to come out of the ladies room I happened to glance at my tickets to see that - AAARGH! - it was a 7pm start, and not 7:30pm like every other production I have ever been to. And it was now 7:02pm. And A, who had torn knee ligaments, was beginning to limp. Well we missed the first quarter of an hour (along with quite a few other folk), and we were all shuffled into the back row of the circle. Ah well. But then at the interval we went down to the front of the circle, to find our real seats, only to find they were taken, and then realised we were supposed to be in the upper circle. So off we went in search of the Upper Circle, poor A really struggling now, only to fail, because they had closed the Upper Circle and put everyone in the Dress Circle, where we were. So, many stairs later, we ended up just where we started! And then found that the reason it had started at 7 rather than 7:30 was that it was the press night, so it was to give the hacks an early start to get their copy in. Bloody journalists.

Not a bad evening's entertainment. It helped if you don't know Dickens TOO well. Simon Callow was very much the man for the part.

My second theatre experience of the week was to see A Chorus of Disapproval, with Rob Brydon making his stage debut. My companion and I loved it - very funny, although perhaps not quite funny enough. My only criticism, and this is really of Ayckbourn altogether, is that there is no poignancy in the play, so the story line that isn't funny is really just wasted. But Rob is superb in his role as the cuckolded obsessive amateur dramatics director, and Nigel Harmon surprisingly good as the the leading man in the production. I think I might have seen it on a previous run 25 years ago, but luckily I have the memory of a goldfish with Alzheimer's.

Sports Day and Lee Hurst

I say sports day, but it was the pensions department equivalent. For our annual social we headed to a bar in Shoreditch which in its bowels contained a pool table, two ping pong tables and a further room set up for throwing games. Split into 5 teams (allowing one team each round to have a time-out at the bar) we played each other at these miscellaneous "sports" (well as they are as much sports as golf) in a light-hearted sociable manner. But my team won. YES!! Don't want you to think I took it at all seriously, but I brought my own bat for the table tennis. At last, my playing for school and college came in handy. We even had a tie between the two best teams so had to play off - a table-tennis double match. Yes, in my comfort zone.

(You will appreciate this is the sad culmination at being rubbish at everything through life - you enjoy beating your colleagues at ping pong when 50 (almost). Even have the medal made in China of finest alloy to prove it. Must find room in my display cabinet....)




Receiving our instructions



 The pool hall


The pool sharks





The serious hustlers

  The throwing room. Its harder than it looks.

Go Maria. And stop playing with your balls Ewan

 And the serious action at the table tennis tables


Do I look like I am taking this too seriously?





Not everyone taking it as seriously as me




Don't try this wrist action at home. Leave it to us real athletes

  The play-off for the winning teams - table tennis doubles



Just like a gold medal battle at the Olympics, the crowd in rapt attention





What it was all about





Or maybe it was more about this




The lengths some folk will go to just to get out of games. (No one thought about this one at school, but then it was a boys' school)




The glorious winning team. Mo Farah eat your heart out.


Then on to a trendy bar in Hoxton (ie very ordinary bar, but has the word "Hoxton" in it) and drunk far too much for a Thursday night.

Luckily recovered to have a second wind Friday night in going to see Lee Hurst at the Fox, my local comedy club, with a mate of mine. The Fox being a pub did mean a few more beers, but not as much as the night before. And conversation didn't have to take place in a way which required me to holler at the top of my voice for hours just to speak to the person opposite me. Lovely to see Stuart again too as work had thwarted most of our recent attempts to meet up.

Lee Hurst will only be known to "lads" of a certain age. He was the big thing in comedy in the late nineties as a regular on the sports panel game called They Think its All Over - a real lads version of the very tame middle class Question of Sport. It was the sports equivalent of Never Mind the Buzzcocks. Actually it ran for years (indeed, for years too long) but at the time worked very well and Lee was one of the two regular comics, with Gary Lineker and David Gower the two captains. But he gave it up to run comedy clubs (and disappeared rather from doing comedy, I think mostly due to ill-health. ) Anyway, it was interesting seeing him again after all these years (as a tall, bald bloke, he did of course look exactly the same as he ever did.)

Clearly he still has a big following as the place was sold out (ok, the Fox is not exactly Wembley Arena, but it doesn't usually sell out). He was very good - good material, good delivery. He went in stark contrast to the bloke before him on the bill who was truly awful in every way and died on his feet. So an easy act to follow. But Lee was terrific. Did like his observations on the Paralympics too. (Keep it topical.) "Don't know about you, but sometimes I just watch a race and then think, yeah, what's wrong with him? Counted all the limbs and he has a full set. So what's that all about?" I too have found myself watching highlights and that's all I am left thinking. And being PC the the TV coverage wants to concentrate on the "athletes" not the disability, but then these folk would only be here if disabled. Somehow. So we want to know. (The swimming is clearer. Watched the 4x100m men's medley relay yesterday, and being swimming you do get to see all the deformities - missing limbs etc when they strip down. The one that impressed me most was the Chinese guy doing butterfly with one arm. I could never do it with two. Not a stroke. Why doesn't he go round in circles, like rowing with one oar?)

"Was watching this race and the commentator said lane 7 was empty because the competitor was injured. How injured do you have to be to miss a disabled race?"

I should add Lee is delightfully non PC. "Was disappointed at the Olympics that Sharapova had dropped out of the tennis due to a shoulder injury. After all, I would have made the effort to watch her despite my wrist injury."

Secret Circus

One of the events of the summer took place on Sunday. But you probably don't know about it. Because it was a secret.

The idea was perfection, to have a circus in Piccadilly Circus. Not of the Billy Smart's big top variety, but all those trapeze, acrobatic and balancing acts one sees. Grown up circus, albeit accessible to kids too. The area surrounding Piccadilly Circus and Regent Street was cordoned off to traffic for a day, and 11 stages moved in, taking advantage of the built environment to attach high-wires to, or in the case of the balcony on the bridge over Air Street, to use it as a high stage.

It was all a secret because if this much free entertainment was known about the crowds would almost certainly have overwhelmed the place. So it was left to pass on to people by word of mouth (or forwarding of e-mails in this modern age) on a day's notice. And the result was just about right - more people would probably have spoilt it, but there were certainly big enough crowds for the acts to have felt it worth coming from all over the world (Morocco, Canada, Spain, Finland, but overwhelmingly, France). It did feel like a circus version of the festivals I attend. There was the same nice feeling of just wandering between the stages and not knowing quite what to see next. And the buzz of a big happy crowd, all pleased just to be there.

Of course it wasn't a secret from the Mayor's office. Boris Johnson duly appeared to give a quick interview to the media.

Anywhere here are a patchwork of photos I took of some acts, only a slice as one couldn't have seen all the 30 odd in the time. But they will just give you a flavour of the endeavour (which was, by the way, the close of the Cultural Olympiad). Regrettably a very grey day (although the rain we have become so accustomed to never got above a little gentle spitting.) I should add there is a bias towards the more photogenic acts. Great speed doesn't work well in low light, nor great distance, so slower moving acts closer to the ground rather dominate!

First up a low high wire act, Les Colporteurs (yes French)

A combined high wire and trapeze couple Cie La Couple (you guessed it French)

A romantic kiss in mid-air. Aaah

Cirk Vost and their spectacular rigging on Waterloo Place. Actually the one catch with this act is there is so much in the way of rigging that it detracts from the performance. But like the Mad Max costumery. And yes, they are French.

Transe Express. Probably the most inspired part of the whole day - street opera - three sopranos on floats/ball gowns wheeled through the streets, a path made for them by drum marchers in equally fantastic uniforms. One of the delights was this was just in amongst us, not on a stage. Sounded terrific too. Just a delight. And yes you guessed it, French. See a theme here?



Rachel Clare, who conceived of the whole shebang, wandering rather pensively in front of one of the opera floats. "What have I done?" She asked me, almost bemused by the event she had created. I reassured her how wonderful it was. But I think she knew that.



The Circus Space. British, and they looked damned good in hula hoops

Not sure who this acrobatic act were, possibly Cie Mauvais Esprits (in which case French!) but I particularly liked the use of a long bendy tube as a sort of boat. Inventive.

This was a neat act, and am sure French too. The guy appears just to be setting up for the act, and even has a fag, and proceeds to do his trapeze act as if he is just having a go, cigarette in mouth throughout.

Possibly my favourite act of all, and I am not sure who they are. (But strong guess they were French.) Starts off with this cheeky chappy  balancing on a board on top of a cylinder, and performing a striptease. The tough bit, as you might imagine, is getting rid of the trousers.

Then an exotic looking couple performing on a trapeze (in the middle of Regent Street)

Then what must be the most languid trapeze artist ever. Just a great image.

Some Chinese pole work. Not easy to make this look exciting, however difficult it may be. (And I guess its pretty difficult.)

Collectif AOC appearing to run up the walls on Regent Street (the trampoline below the picture level helps). Great image though.

Not sure of this act - a combination or trapeze and a hoop. Didn't really impress me.



Some guys will go to any length to look up a girl's skirt.

 Acrojou Circus Theatre. A UK act - a couple in a wheel. You needed to see it.

Can't identify this act, but in  a great setting on the bridge over Air Street

Easily identifiable, Groupe Acrobatic de Tangers from Morocco. A combination of music and a series of feats of strength. Some frantic mopping up from some very light rain before hand. You don't want a slippery surface if you are building a three storey human pyramid.

 Another act I can't identify, but essentially four incredibly fit and strong individuals performing a balancing act, although they do look like an underwear commercial here

 Back to CirkVost (the various acts played more than once). Difficult to capture this act on camera as the real trapeze work just comes out as a blur at this distance and in low light.

And then the finale by Les Studios de Cirque (would you be surprised if I said from France?) This was all about spectacle. A truly wonderful experience to cap the whole event. A series of "angels" flew around on zip wires, opening various containers to release ever more feathers. Then a a huge inflatable cherub began to float around Piccadilly Circus, as more and more feathers appear from every direction. If you ever wanted to know what a ton of feathers looks like, well it looks like this. Piccadilly Circus is usually such a dull place - essentially a traffic island with a statue of Eros. But tonight it was transformed into something quite magical. I also liked the juxtaposition, or rather harmony, of mythologies, Greek and Christian, with Eros and the angels. Glad I didn't miss this event. Just sorry that almost everyone else did. Hard luck folks.