Is it wrong to write about the decorator whilst he's in the house?

I'd forgotten how odd it is having someone else in the house! I've lived on my for fifteen years and rarely have people to stay so having someone wandering around upstairs singing along to the radio is extremely strange. He seems to be listening to Radio 2 and was just singing "Avenues & Alleyways", which I didn't realise was by Tony Christie. He's still got that twinkle in his eye - the decorator, not Tony - so the sooner I go out the sooner I'll stop thinking about snogging him. Bad Garry.

Last night I was in London, although this week has been so exhausting I very nearly didn't go. All the way to the station I found myself thinking, "I could go home", then as I sat on the train listening to two of the most boring architects boring each other with their boring building stories I wish I had! Even as we pulled into King's Cross I was still tempted to turn straight round again.

But I didn't and instead I jumped on a Tube and headed to the South Bank, walking across a bridge over the Thames and enjoying gorgeous views of London at night. I was back in the National Theatre for the second time in a week to see a dance piece called To be Straight with You.

The dance company, DV8, are well respected although I've never seen them. The show was well reviewed when it toured earlier in the year so I was quite excited. It was a about homophobia, more specifically religious homophobia, and was based on real life experiences.

It started off almost like a lecture with dancers reciting stories and statistics. There were clever graphics flying round a gauze screen in front of the stage but not much dancing. And then about half way through they started dancing more which was kind of a relief and also very thrilling as the dancing was stunning! There was one dancer who skipped as he told a story of being beaten up by his father; two male dancers who danced to Shakira's My Hips Don't Lie as a duet; a clever piece involving a blackboard and another bit involving chairs. The images and stories built up into a really powerful piece of work and by the end people were screaming for more. My only reservation was that 80 minutes of stories of homophobic abuse is not a very cheery experience and it would have been nice to have ended with some positive images.

By the time I got home I was exhausted, and the replacement bus service for the last part of the journey didn't help! But it was a good thing to see.

At lunchtime today I phoned the decorator just to check if he was still coming to decorate the bedroom on Monday. "Actually I'd like to come tomorrow if that's okay". Bugger. So I've spent the evening emptying the bedroom, and amazingly it went very smoothly! As dragged yet more stuff down the stairs it suddenly occur ed to me that I'd be really good at moving, although I doubt that will ever happen. Tonight I will be sleeping on the sofa. Last Friday night I spent the night in a hotel - how quickly the glamour fades!

I went to see the new James Bond film last night with Trish and Janet, the stupidly named Quantum of Solace. I've never really been much of a Bond fan but it has to be said that Daniel Craig has reinvigorated them somewhat and the last one was great!

This one is less great. There's no point explaining the plot as Bond films don't really stand up to that kind of scrutiny! Suffice to say he covers a fair amount of the globe, using practically every form of transport (although I don't remember a train, so perhaps next time they ought to sort that out), but shockingly there are no sex scenes! So nearly all our favourite Bond ingredients are there, it whizzes along at quite a pace, and yet somehow it manages to seem dull. That takes quite a bit of skill.

It wasn't all bad: Daniel Craig is great and early on wears some light trousers with narrow legs that have a real 60s feel to them and looks simply gorgeous! Judi Dench is of course a National Treasure! There's some great gadgets - a touch-screen desk that would make my day in the office a joy, and mobile phones that work the way we hope phones will one day work but probably never will!

There's also more cars than you know what to do with, to the point of stupidity: at one point he's in the Bolivian desert, which has been portrayed as ridiculously poor, and he's driving a hydrogen powered car, and I just thought, "how did that get there?" At the risk of sounding like a dull man there's nice nippy little gold car early on, which looks like an electric car to me, which I loved and wanted! And the Aston Martin? No thanks!

Of course the worst bit - apart from the title - is the theme tune. If you've not heard it don't go racing to find it, it's shit! Jack White and Alicia Keys doing their very worst. Dear God no! Which made me think of my favourite Bond theme tunes, so here's my hastily assembled Top Five:

1. Goldfinger (Dame Shirley, dramatic strings, Sean Connery - does life get any better than that?)
2. Goldeneye (I'd forgotten this was written by U2 during there mad phase, Tina Turner gets to impersonate Dame Shirley)
3. Diamonds are forever (more Dame Shirley!)
4. Nobody does it better (I really must explore the work of Carly Simon!)
5. Live and let die (Yes I know it's the awful Paul McCartney, but it's a great song!)

No Madge? No Duran Duran? No, I think it would kinder to forget the James Bond moments in both their careers don't you?

Before the film I went to the Indian restaurant with Trish, for a bit of a catch up and way too much food! We ordered what we'd normally have, then rather rashly ordered extras - okra anyone? - and ended up wasting too much, which was very bad, but our greed got the better of us!

It was lovely to see you both! XX

Last night at tap we found ourselves dancing to Westlife, which is apparently not illegal although it should be. I'm using ignorance as a defence - it was their Rat Pack album and it sounded like everyone else doing Swing. "Is it Robbie? Micheal Buble?" At least the teacher was sheepish about it.

It's looking increasingly likely that the class will end forever at the end of this term as she hasn't managed to recruit any new pupils to join us. It will be sad as we've been having some fun lessons lately, although I wonder if they've been fun as she knows it's coming to an end so there's no point in making us do difficult stuff?

Other dance related news: the Pet Shop Boys are writing a ballet! And why not, they've done a film, a musical, a soundtrack to Battleship Potemkin, a song for the new Girls Aloud album - they're running out of new things to do! I'm already excited!

Probably the best book I've read all year is The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, although as it's a children's book and is set in Auschwitz I could so easily have missed it. But Ema, who has both children and a fascination with the Holocaust, kept telling me how good it was and so I read it.

It's about an 8 year old German boy whose family move from Berlin to a strange house in the country. Although he doesn't realise it his father has been sent there to run Auschwitz. The boy misses his friends then one day when he's out exploring he meets another boy, sitting inside the fence of what he thinks is a farm. They become friends, but of course it all ends tragically.

The book is beautifully written, and really conveys the German boys misunderstanding of what's going on around them. The conversations between the two boys are so well done that each one made me weep. It's genius.

So they made it into a film. Time to be afraid! But for a while things seemed hopeful: the director had made Brassed Off, which was great, David Thewlis was playing the father, and the marvellous Sheila Hancock played the grandmother.

But hope is a fragile thing, and slowly as they changed little parts of the story here and there - it's not a very long book so these things are very noticeable! - I started to be disappointed. In my head it was a lot bleaker, there was way to much greenery in it. They had to change the emphasis as it would have been impossible to film as it was written, but something got lost. Thankfully not the ending, which is just as surprising and shocking as the book. Go buy the book, and a box of tissues.

Yesterday was another busy day, but it turned out well.

I took Mum shopping, and thanks to some careful preparation I managed to increase the amount of Christmas shopping I've done to 35% without too much trouble, which is a relief!

I also saw the 24 year old, who made me cake:



That's sponge with peaches and fresh cream. In some cultures I think that might be a proposal of marriage, but not this one!

London - part 2

I stayed over, because I was seeing Thom on Saturday and it was almost cheaper to book a room at a Travelodge than use the train two days running. Besides I rather like a Travelodge, they're pleasingly minimal and you can pretend to be someone else when you're in them.

I nearly didn't find this one though. It was near Liverpool Street statioAn, but I took the wrong exit from the station and headed miles in the wrong direction and was on the verge of giving up and heading directly to the theatre when I spotted the street. Annoyingly I made exactly the same mistake when I came back to it in the evening!

The Gherkin

The hotel was literally two streets away from The Gherkin building which I still never seen up close, so Saturday morning after I checked out of the hotel I went for a quick look. It's simply stunning! It must be so exciting to work in the most iconic building that has been built in London in years! Obviously I took lots of pictures:

london november 2008

More Art

I met Thom at Tate Britain and after scones and gossip we went to see the Francis Bacon exhibition. Like Warhol on Friday he's dead and frequently exhibited: I've seen two decent sized retrospectives in the last three years, one in Norwich, one in Edinburgh, so I was a bit worried that there'd be nothing left to say.

And to start with I was right - the first few rooms, covering his early years, feel over familiar and not very interesting, but the suddenly he discovers colour and seems to learn how to paint and the results are spectacular! There's one room devoted to paintings of a boyfriend which are particularly good, but really any of the later stuff is just magnificent! Well worth a look.

After that we wondered the streets in search of coffee, catching up as we walked. Then for lunch we ended up in Mother Mash, a tiny restaurant off Carnaby Street that specialised in mash, with sausages or pie. It was lovely!



Lovely to see you Thom! XX London was great and really put me back on my feet. Let's hope things stay that way!