the mediocrity

I have just had a taste of what the london winter has in store for me. Walking to the train station this morning I was not a happy camper with rain coming in at me sideways, my umbrella being turned inside out and my shoes filling up with water. I was so drenched that on the train I had a water dripping from the inside of my pants into my shoes.

It is now sunny, by the way. Grrr.

Anyone would think that we were in the depths of Melbourne.

Despite all that I did have a good weekend. My flatmate's mum is in town for the week, so on Saturday we toddled off to a matinee West End show. There were few remaining cheap tickets left, so out of the remaining good ones we elected to see "Chicago". In one word. Disappointing. Let me elaborate. Having not seen the movie, the plot line was somewhat ill-conceived, the singing/dancing/hoo-ha was a bit flat. One international superstar whose only claim to fame was that her dad was famous was the new attraction in the show - and when she merely appeared on stage she got claps and cheers.

She was flat, couldn't sing in tune to save herself, and was just plain boring. She got applauded and applauded and applauded again. Whatever happened to applauding real talent, and not just pumping the ego of a mediocre starlet?

What was worse was that the band was actually on stage - and given half the show was all for dancing around the stage, the performers were somewhat forced to twirl around in a shoebox. The conductor's baton was irritatingly distracting during the performance. At the end of the show I was grudging in my respect for the two main actors who I am sure are less than happy at being overlooked by a little showy starlet who is unfairly stealing the limelight from them.

Enough of my rant. I will make it up to myself and go see another show sometime. I am considering seeing an opera. There is a drive to promote the opera to the under-30s and students with half-price tickets. In my quest to really take advantage of London's heavy patronage of arts and culture, I am thinking of paying a tenner to sit in the bloodnose section and watch a famous Opera. Aida maybe? The Magic Flute? We'll see.

I did manage to see David, my cousin on Saturday night. He has finally moved into his flat in Camden and I got to check it out. His flat, consisting of 4 PhD students definitely had the feel of a student flat. I can imagine all 4 of them sitting in their living room drinking red wine discussing the theorems of quantum physics while at my own flat, you would find me drowning in cheap white wine while checking up on my facebook page.

Camden however, is a buzzing area with lots of students. And goths. Though somewhat freakish in the number of goths and other oddballs wandering around, there are a good number of nice restaurants around. I was relieved to enjoy a decent pasta and bottle of Chianti, as my repertoire of dishes at home was beginning to fray in desperation for change. I mentioned that my next planned trip was to Portugal, and David is keen to tag along, so I'm looking forward to planning that.

Sunday was a bit of a write-off where incorrect information on the web, coupled with a moronic security guard at the National Theatre turned a nice sunny afternoon in South Bank into a whole waste of time. I was attempting to check out the Landscape Photographer of the Year exhibition but was thwarted when I arrived too early before opening time (making me amble up and down the Thames for an hour), then finding out later that the gallery wasn't open at all. I went home in annoyance and ironed my shirts.