Swim the channel time!!

J

Musical - 42nd Street

This year between Christmas and new year we went to see 42nd Street at the Leicester Curve, after last year seeing the King and I.  I was very lucky to be taken and enjoyed the theatre outing again.  It was not a musical I knew at all though thought I maybe knew one of the songs from a compilation show I had been too, but turned out not!!!  (am not sure how I am ever going to find out what the song was that I was thinking of... something about 15th floor, or street or avenue???  just going to google songs from avenue q just in case...  hmmm not happening).  I hoped I would like it as it was a big dance number, large cast and good choreography.  But I am sad to say I just didn't feel it so much.  It was set in the early 30s, and the music had quite a jazz slant to it which I am deciding I am not the biggest fan of.  The dancing was was often tap dancing which reminded me of Anything Goes, but most of the time I spent thinking that I preferred Anything Goes.  I did quite like Lullaby of New York song.  The storyline was a little odd and didn't particularly do the show any favours.  I was also confused about the order of bowing - my opinion of the name person didn't get the final bow...hmmm!

Dance Tonight - Paul McCartney in Liverpool! TO FINISH

This week we certainly had an adventure: two nights in Liverpool with the purpose of seeing Paul McCartney in concert - and what a time we had :-)

So much to write about and not sure where to start!  I want to get it all down but I only have 8 minutes till I need to start making cheesy red pepper muffins for some Christmas eve lunch visitors and I still need to finish the Mark post and write the Fighting Talk one and this ramble is surely not helpful!!  I might try bullet point it as a way of getting it down quicker...

• John has said the two people he has always wanted to see are Paul McCartney and Bob Dylan and back in about October he got emailed priority ticket application for Paul's On the Run tour.  I said he should go for it and in the process we invited Mum and Lizzie along who were very keen.  We weren't able to get the tickets for some reason.  But we set Mum up to get them when they went on general sale on Thursday morning at 9am.  She had two computers on the go and managed it by 9.30 am!  Woop woop, way to go Mooms!  They were in two sets of two on opposite sides of the Echo arena in Liverpool - the final date on this latest world tour.  We then booked in to the Premier Inn for the night of and night before the concert.  Excellent!  Time for excitement to start mounting!!
• (post 8 minutes and muffin making and eating and some other things like getting a yule log, dropping off yule log and then hoovering) So, I never considered myself a Beatles fan.  A few years ago we went on a cruise where there was a Beatles tribute night and I decided yes, I didn't like them, except for one song that I think might have been peppermint twist - though is that even Beatles?! Then my first two years teaching year two involved the Swining 60s topic and I found a growing affection for them.  Then John has been playing me some Paul music to get me acclimatised.  I have definitely found that I prefer it the more songs I know at a concert.
• We met at Liverpool station on Monday afternoon and made our way on foot down to our hotel which was on the dock area - Albert Dock.  Liverpool had a big regeneration for or resulting in it being European Capital of Culture in 2008.  The docks was definitely one area of that. 
• duckmarine tour
• premier Inn
• Beatles Story
• seats
• songs
• dance tonight with choreography
• christmas and bagpipes

Fighting Talk

 How exciting that I can now blog about Fighting Talk take two!  I have just read about take one in the Snow Again post.  It has entertained me greatly - I am so pleased I wrote so detailedly about it and I am surprised how humourous I seemed to be!

So a few weeks ago I heard on 5Live that they were going to be filming a Fighting Talk Christmas special joint with 6Music and I just knew that this was like a dream team for John!  So he applied for tickets for it on three different accounts and on Friday 2nd December John got a txt to say he had two tickets for the filming on Monday 5th December 2011.  We were very excited!  It was being recorded in 'the legendary Maida Vale Studios' (as everyone kept referring to it as).  So we mega excitedly hot footed it from school to the train station and got on our way to London with tupperware tea in tow.  We walked from Paddington along the canal to the studios which was both exciting and scary!  Glad no one jumped out of the dark to push us in!

So we came across the studios and they were nothing like I was expecting (photo on left is one I got from internet).  It was a really long low white building along one side of a gorgeous residential street.  I think most of the studios were below ground level.  And there was a queue outside... dun dun dun!!  We hadn't thought about not being able to get in.  We joined the queue, hoping it was the right thing.  While we were queueing up it turned out there was some carol singing going on in there too so they kept going past us.  They divided us into a 6music and a 5live line at one point and then gave us stickers and we thought we were in there!  Eventually we got inside the building and thought we were following a man leading us to the right place but then we ended up in a cafeteria.  After hanging out there for a bit we emerged and went downstairs and found our way to the right studio!  Horray!

We had realised on the way by looking at the tickets that it was a standing only venue... not my favourite!! There were quite a few people in there when we arrived but by no means full.  John squirmed our way right to the front which I wouldn't have done on my own but was really grateful for!  We even put our bags down on the staging that the 5Live desks were on!

After a little while we spotted Colin!  He looked to be walking around so nonchalantly that I wasn't sure it was him!  Then Simon, the producer guy that John recognised from before did a similar non-comedic introduction and they did the defend the indefensible with audience members as they had done before 'to check the sound levels'.  They got people up on stage and Colin said I think we need a woman and looked straight at me and said how about it and I just shook my head petrified at the thought!!!  And when they were doing it one of the microphones didn't work so perhaps it was a real check!!

Then they introduced the panelists and they came to take their seats.  For 5Live it was Pat Nevin, who I had never heard of who turns out to be a semi-regular on Fighting Talk and a Scottish footballer from the 80s.  And also on the 5Live team was Tony Livedsey, who does the weekday 10pm-1am show that I listen to every night as I go to sleep - so I was very excited it was him and he sat literally about 2m away from us.  We were so close it was so fun that we were able to see their notes!!  I loved the contrast: Tony had 1 A4 page handwriting with a sentence or 2 of notes for each questions.  Pat had several pages making quite a thick wad and he had a blue highlighter that he went through with during the show!


On the 6Music team on the other side of Colin, was Sean Keeveney who does the breakfast show and is John's absolute favourite!  He didn't know anything about sport so it was pretty funny!  And the other person was Steve Lemacq who I had heard John mention and who it appeared had been on Fighting Talk a couple of times before.  He seemed to have a huge amount of music knowledge from over the years and I was put in mind of one of the DJs from the Boat That Rocked.

We were intrigued to see how this recorded version would differ from the Live on we had seen before. I was surprised how often Colin stopped in the middle of what he was saying and then would say it again.  And sometimes he paused to remember the punchline for a joke and then would say play this straight after that answer and then would say it.  He seemed to be listening and talking to Simon in his headphones quite a bit.  And it was funny as they had to keep adding things in like: breaking for the travel now.   About half way through the scorer lady sitting next to Colin, made a comment about Colin saying 'this evening' when the programme would be on during the morning!

Pic on right (or somewhere depending on formatting) taken during a break - normally Simon in his booth.
  I thought the questions were generally very clever in that they could refer to both sport and music: 'would you rather your child grew up to be a rock star or a sports star?' and 'what is wembley's greatest moment?'  There were a lot of references I didn't get - especially Music ones and I had to keep referring to John to find out what they were on about! It was funny in that because it was going to be broadcast live on 6Music too, and they normally have lots of music, they had to keep finding excuses to play tracks.  We didn't normally here the whole thing - they just faded out and said they would play the whole thing in the real thing! And I think when they said 5Live is breaking for the news, they said 6Music would hear another song!

The other way they got around it was by having the Kaiser Chiefs as their house band!!  They were all set up on a stage at the far side and played the intro to Fighting Talk (Sabotage by Beastie Boys) and the intros to each competitor and some other pieces.  They also took a break from recording the radio and the Kaiser Cheifs played a set for us audience.  I wasn't a particular fan before, but did recognise some of the songs.  My favourite Kaiser Chiefs bit, which they had hyped up slightly, was the Christmas song that they played at the end.  Apparently FT people had suggested a few but they came up with their own and played 'Wish I was at home for Christmas'.  Not sure if that's the name but I like the trumpety bit and the dub-ba dub-ba dub-ba dub-ba that goes on  and 'hey mr churchill' kind of bits.

Nearly there on the post I think.  (it's currently 16th January and it's been written in several parts so far.  Feel we will be here for a bit!)  Still to go: half time Simon discussions and after FT meetings and mentions.   Just to mention... love this photo of John.  He looks so happy and in to it!  Think it is during Kaiser Chief set.

11th February Let's see how far I get this time... finishing line?

Half time was great.  Can't really remember why it was half time now!!  think maybe just before the Kaiser Chiefs did their bit!  We tried to get a photo with Collin but in the end didn't and ended up chatting to Simon, for what felt like a long time - 5+ minutes.   We talked about the last live one we had been to which he remembered well for the snow epicness!  He told us there were only 80 tickets available in the ballot for tonight's show which made us well chuffed we had got in!  Then he also told us behind the scenes info of fighting talk.  There are only 4 of them that work on it; the four that are in the picture a bit further up.  When FT started 8 years ago there were something like 13 people who worked on it.  He said they think of questions during the week and send them to guests on Thursday afternoon.  Sometimes it might just say, a question about the Grand National, but it wouldn't have been finalised yet.  He said sport stars aren't great guests because they are not that funny, but journalists tend to be quicker.  I asked if it was just FT he did but he sort of scorned at that because FT takes so little time to do now as it sort of runs itself.  One of the other things he produces is the 5Live Formula One which I was of course really interested to hear about and there was lots of discussion about the TV coverage going to Sky.  He told us that he had lost his whole radio commentary team to sky which we looked up when we got home and seemed that the news had only broken in the last few days.  It was all very interesting. 

After the show was finished recording, we hung around trying to get the photos we hadn't got earlier.  We had quite a chat with Pat Nevin who seemed keen to talk and show us photos on his iPhone of Collin Murray and Perry Groves in bed together!  I felt bad that we weren't asking for a photo with him!  We got ushered out of the studios outside before we had managed to get any photos.  Outside the doors were Steve LeMacq and another man, who seemed to have gone with him.  They were smoking and talking and we listened for a bit and then John bravely said something and we talked a bit!  So we had had conversations with all the people we weren't as particular about!!

We were wondering how long to wait for before giving up.  And then up came Tony!  with Pat Nevin again.  We launched in there and managed to get a photo!!! Very excited by the fact!!  He was so kind and friendly.  We said where we were from and that I went to sleep listening every night.  He then got out his phone and made a note of our names and said he would say hello tomorrow!!!  I said I'm normally asleep by 11!  They set off together and we were just so excited by our encounter!

We then had to decide if we would hold out for Shawn or Colin.  We did for a bit and were paid off by a large group coming out and we were brave enough to call out Shawn and get a photo with him.  Again, extremely generous.  See how much we are laughing!!  We then walked with them a bit as we were going in that direction too - they were off to pub.  We asked how he ended up doing FT and he blamed it all on a lady he was with who I imagine was maybe a manager or PA or something and very nice and friendly.  As we parted he asked for our names and said he would say hello, but he didn't write them down this time!

We made it back to Paddington and got home, tired but excited.  We both put on Shawn Keeveney from 7am the next morning and heard mention of a blue jumper and he had been wearing a blue jumper the night before.  But we had to leave before we heard any mention of us :-(  so we eagerly iplayered his show in the evening and lo and behold...

the joy of trying to remember how to do voice memos has started!!!  First see this post.  Then find files not on itunes.  Via some websites find that need to tick include voicememos box.  Find still not there!  Emailed in the end. Then took me a while to drag the mp3 file to dropbox - just do in finder, then was a bit flummexed but the key is to go straight to boom bit which explains how to do it all!



Well I feel that was less than an hour from start to finish so i consider that a success!



Shawn 1
The same sort of thing happened with Tony.  Didn't hear any mention of us before I fell asleep - though admittedly fell asleep very quickly after the late night!  But with iplayer...

Tony

wow - think that was less than 4 minutes - its all about the practise!

So nothing more to say now, but thank you John for a super special night!!!!! 

Sausage and Mash at Abu Dhabi

Abu Dhabi.

It's been quite some time since an F1 post. I don't even know whether I have posted this year.  And oddly I have just realised I was looking at the blog a couple of days ago and thinking I hadn't yet done a post in December... it's only now November 13th!

Anyway, think it's been a while since I have watched a GP live, which tends to increase blogging desire, and this is a nice lunchtime start.  And Vettel (double world champion as of a few races ago) pulled away from pole but then was off at second corner with a right rear puncture, leaving a McLaren one-two.  Vettel crawled back to the pits losing the tyre and the mechanic motioned slitting his throat and the world champion thumped his steering wheel and his the only retiree so far.  Sadly Button seems to be going backwards and is now just third, but Hamilton is holding the lead on lap 8/55.

Just checked and found German Grand Prix, Thank You, Pirelli and Last of the Late Breakers.  Think will read now.

Lap 16 Button has a KERS failure and apparently he has to shut down a lot of systems in order to reboot it - all while driving round this circuit and keeping Weber at bay??  Weber got him at one corner and there was real close stuff on the next few corners, but Button kept the lead.  And then all on the same lap Ham and Alo pitted from 1st and 2nd, a couple of seconds apart on the track.  Great stop for Mclaren which it had to be as Button pitted on same lap from 3rd.  Kinda shows how far behind Button has pitted but it was still only a 6 second regroup for the mechanics!

Lap 17 Weber pits this lap and it was a slow one for him which lets Button off and also lets Massa through ahead.  So its Ham, Alo, But, Mas, Web.

Well it was a Lewis win and Button in 3rd - woop woop!  Although I did close my eyes a little in the final laps.

I was super spoiled in that John arrived just before the start with the ingredients for some delicious sausage and mash and prepared and served it for me all while I got to enjoy watching the race - what a lucky girl!!

Anne of Green Gables TO FINISH

Well, this is an epic post and I am just going to start it today.  Hopefully it will continue getting longer for many a year to come :-)   I have just had a little search for Anne on the blog and there appears to be just one mention of her on the Little About Me post.  No explanation so it is high time to come on here and record about her as she is a major part of my life!

Early Encounters With Anne
I had quite a lot of story books on tape as young person including Anne of Green Gables.  In fact I got a second copy of it as the first one got broken on one of the two cassettes.  The funny thing is I don't remember loving it all that much.  But there are many lines in the book that I can remember the exact intonation of of the person reading it so I must have listened a fair few times to.  At some point, I imagine when I was still under 10, I was given the first 4 books for my birthday. They were relatively think and had very small writing so they just sat on my shelf.  I was never that interested in reading the first one as I felt I already knew it.  Somehow, about age 14 I started reading them them all.  I feel as soon as I was on to book three there was no looking back.  I managed to then buy Anne's House of Dreams and Anne of Ingleside from Northwood bookshop and loved them too.  I wept bitterly when I finished Anne of Ingleside as I didn't want the series to be over.  And then somehow I found out there were two more!!!!  Oh my, what a feeling!  I can't remember how it came about, I think there was a lot of searching, but the Chickbeans tracked them down at their library in Alderley Edge and I read those - boy what a time.  I have an image and a feeling of reading in the little front bedroom at the Chapmans on a sunny spring day.  But I think that was Anne of Ingleside as I remember the frustration of having read the back and it saying that Anne had six children and then in the book Rilla is born and that lead me to give up reading the backs of books!  I leant these books to two friends at school and used to love discussing how far they had got with them in the classroom.  Rilla of Ingleside had a huge impact on me - the tears that night and it is still my go to thought on Remembrance Day. I think it was also one of the first books I ever re-read.  They then became standard rereads over the years and I am really not sure how many times I have read Anne now - I would hazard around 5.
Interesting to me moment... I have just googled 'Anne of Green Gables cassette tape' to see if I could find a pic of our copy to include here.  No luck, but ever so bizarrely a pic of Mum's copy of Frenchman's Creek came up on page 9! And I had been thinking so of Frenchman's Creek while writing this as being one of my other favourite books and the other contender for first book I ever re-read!  So I had to go read the blog to find out why!

Visiting PEI

27th Birthday Present
For my birthday this year, John bought me a Puffins Classic version of Anne of Green Gables.   I am about to start reading it, but before I do I want to try and record some things here.  One of the most exciting bits of the book is in the end section of behind the scenes bit is 'Some Things to Think About'.  I want to try list them here and put some of my thoughts in now, then add to them when I have read.

1. Can you compare Anne Shirley to any modern-day characters?  Instict, no!  will get thinking. 
2. Marilla and Matthew wanted to adopt a boy to help them out with the farm work.  What do you think it was that made them keep Anne instead?  Matthew was capitvated by her spell of talking and seeing the world differently than anyone else he had come across and he found himself feeling comfortable with her.  And he felt her desire to belong.  Marilla was touched by Anne's lonely life story and wanted her to have a good life, that she wouldn't get with Mrs Peter Blewitt.  She thought it her duty to bring up Anne.
3. Who do you think changes most during the novel?  How and why? Marilla and Anne.
4. Why do you think Anne holds a grudge against Gilbert for so long?  She is of fiery temper and felt the shame that was inflicted on her by Gilbert's actions.
5. Aunt Josephine is immediately amused and interested in Anne.  What do you think it is that akes Anne so different from her classmates?  She talks so readily and from the heart.
6. Marilla considers herself to be Anne's main guardian, but what do you make of Matthew's role in her upbringing?  He openly shows an interest in Anne and her thoughts and shows her unconditional love. He is a very important guardian.
7. What qualities do you think Anne looks for in a 'kindred spirit'?  That's a really good one and I am not sure what to put now.  A caring person, who has romantic ideals.  hmmm, think this may have to be one I build on as I read.  It's funny as I have long thought that I would love to be a kindred spirit but have never quite thought what it would exactly include.  I just thought Anne would kinda feel it when she is with someone.  And I fear it is not something that can be learnt, you either have it or you don''t.  And as I want it so much, I fear I might not have it!

Musical - Our House

John took me to Harrogate in half term to eat at Jenson Button's new restaurant which was fab.  We were having a nice wander around Harrogate in the afternoon and caught a glimpse through the window of the stairs in the amazing looking theatre.  We wandered round to the front to see what was on and it was a local production of Our House, the Madness musical.  It was one I had heard of in London and was vaguely interested in seeing but didn't feel desperate.  We had some other options of things to do in the evening but I did feel a pull towards it as the evening went on and John kindly said we could go.  And I was so pleased then that it was as good as it was and I enjoyed so!  Thank you John! 

I didn't know if it was the Buddy-style of band musical or the Mamma Mia-style (see Jersey Boys post) and it turned out to be Mamma Mia.  It was a big cast number, reminding me of Jesus Christ Superstar, though maybe not quite as big, but equally good.  I am having to rethink my thoughts of amateur theatre - my first experience of South Pacific in Malvern is now seeming more like the anomaly! Just initially I thought there were a few cringey members of cast singing and acting their hearts out in the chorus, but I got over that and many of the cast impressed me - especially the 2 boy side kicks and the 2 girl side kicks.  The only other thing that was a bit of a let down (to the show as much as to us) was the sound, it wasn't always possible to hear what people were saying!

Just before the interval, it occurred to me that the show was doing a Sliding Doors style thing showing 2 storylines.  I was worried that it had taken me so long to realise and was wondering whether to blame myself or their staging.  John and I talked about it in the interval and began to realise especially during the second half all the things going on to explain it to us!  I'm glad we realised! 

I knew the song 'Our House' beforehand, and there were a couple of others that I then recognised during the performance.  It was quite moving in the end and I was teary and overall thought it was a good show! Time now to wikipedia Out House and Madness.


I have included these two photos taken on the day to show my haircut!