This week has been a mixture of fun going out and really dull not going out. I'm finding the not going out bits hard to write about because I feel a tendency to whine about how dull they are, which just perpetuates the dullness!

Anyway, today will definitely not be a dull day as I'm going to London. Hurrah hurrah! I'm hoping three hours on the train will make significant progress with the book I'm reading, which is disappointingly dry but must be finished before I can start something new. And I may buy new shoes :-)

Last night I went to Wisbech, not normally the location for a fun night out but surprisingly that's just what I had!

I met Trish & Janet at the Elm Hall Hotel, a rather grand looking hotel bizarrely situated between a roundabout and B&Q on the outskirts of Wisbech - classy location! It's not a place I've ever been to before and doubt it would have occurred to me to go but Trish has been there before so off we went. I think we were expecting to be able to buy a bar meal, but they sat us in the restaurant and then we had a bit of a wait whilst the food was cooked. So long in fact that there wasn't enough time for pudding! But actually the food was lovely - I had a red Thai vegetable curry which was gorgeous!

Apparently Johnny Depp and Liz Hurley have both been to this hotel. And if they haven't I'm going to keep spreading that rumour until someone believes me! Actually there was some evidence on the internet that the Johnny Depp story is true, which is frankly astonishing.

Then we headed into Wisbech to a recently opened cinema called The Luxe. It's been promoted as a luxury cinema experience and that's just what it is! Instead of rows of flip down seats there are large individual leather seats! There was a better choice of sweets than a better choice of sweets than your average cinema and nice toilets too!

Here we are enjoying the lovely leather seats:



We went to see Dorian Gray. Oscar Wilde's book is one of those things I keep trying to like but never quite get: the original book irritated me, Will Self's modern day rewrite was even worse, and only Matthew Bourne's dance version delighted me. So hopes weren't really high for the film.

It turned out to be okay - the weaknesses were mostly to do with the book, although the actor playing Dorian didn't help - far from being the most beautiful man in London he had a strange shaped face and a scrawny body with a hairless chest - yuck!

The best bit about it was Colin Firth, who is normally a bit safe and twee but in this he's a little bit dirty and bad, which makes a pleasant change! It all looks good and near the end it got a bit jumpy, but it still didn't persuade me that the story's any good.

By coincidence my own portrait turned up today, although it's going on the living room wall not in the attic:



It was a birthday gift from Ema & Alan last year which I've only just got round to sorting out. Here's the original picture:



Barry took it at the Latitude Festival this year. Trish thinks the look is coy, but I think it's more of a smirk, and despite that I really like it.

Right, we've got some catching up to do, so pour yourself a drink, get some cake and watch me ramble...

London

Sunday afternoon I was in London with Ema to go to the theatre. This was odd for three reasons: 1. I hardly ever go to London on a Sunday; 2. I never go to London with Ema; 3. Until very recently theatres were shut on a Sunday. So which it was all familiar things it was also strangely unfamiliar, but as the sun was shining and London was gorgeous it was completely fab!

We went to see Prick up your Ears, a new play about the playwright Joe Orton and his boyfriend, Kenneth Halliwell. They lived together in a tiny flat in Islington after they met at RADA until Kenneth killed him and then himself in 1967. The play is set in the flat and is about their life together - the only other character is a fabulous nosey neighbour.

It's all based on a biography which itself was based on Orton's diaries, a book which every gay men I know has read because it's funny and very filthy! I've loved his stuff for a long time and have seen his plays whenever I've had the chance, including Entertaining Mr Sloane earlier this year. So although I'm not sure there's anything new left to say about someone who has been dead for 40 years I was still excited about seeing it.

It's set in one place, the bed-sitting room of the flat they shared, and covers all of their life together. They stay off really playfully and it seemed almost like the actors were just messing about and trying not to laugh. But as the years go by and Orton's career takes off whilst Halliwell's doesn't things start to get tense. Orton's compulsive cottaging doesn't help and Halliwell ends up on medication. Finally it all gets too much for him and he smashes Orton's head in with a hammer before taking an overdoe. Despite knowing how it was going to end it was still shocking and when the actors came back to take their bows they looked absolutely exhausted by it!

Halliwell was played by Matt Lucas from Little Britain, who has surprisingly little theatre experience. He was good, although every time he did an odd voice I found myself trying to work out which Little Britain character it reminded me of. Orton was played by Chris New who was apparently in the production of Bent with Alan Cummings which I saw a couple of years ago, but I didn't recognise him! Judging from who he's following on Twitter I think he might be a little bit gay - hurrah! The nosey neighbour was played by Gwen Taylor who was camp and funny.

A great afternoon out then!

Brighton

When I got home I hardly had time to jump in the shower and change before a gentleman caller arrived from Brighton. He would have turned up earlier in the day if I hadn't been out - how frustrating to have nothing in my diary for weeks then two things on the same day!

He's the lovely man who makes stained glass, who I met in Brighton last October and who has stayed over here once before. He was in the area to install a window in a nearby village so it seemed rude not to give him a bed for the night.

Obviously he's coupled, but they're very stable and grown-up about their infidelity so I don't mind joining in. And it was a treat to start the week with someone else in my bed.

Fame!



Surely everyone my age hears that theme tune and immediately pictures legwarmers and people dancing on top of yellow taxis. So the news that the film has been remade was really quite exciting! The advert got my pulse racing so expectations were high.

But before I saw the film on Monday there was dinner, with Trish & Janet in The Globe in King's Lynn. We grabbed a booth, gossiped and ate too much. I had a good pie - chicken, leek and ham - with the ideal amount of crusts: two (don't settle for anything less!), followed by crumble, because it's autumn and I can get away with this kind of food now. And I'm a greedy pig.

Anyway, back at the cinema there was a crowd! Turns out tickets for Mondays are £3, which is precisely the amount Fame! was worth. Oh the disappointment! It starts well: the audition scenes have a lot of energy and it all feels quite exciting, then there's a scene in a canteen where the students spontaneously invent a song, which made me grin.

But after that it's downhill quite rapidly. The problem is that the film covers four academic years and far too many students, not to mention their families and teachers. Little wonder that by the end I couldn't tell you anyone's name! Some bits work better than others: the music obviously works well, because music is such an integral part of life now. The dancing is good too, I think because we're used to seeing singers dance, so it's not like dance is some alien artform. Less successful was the acting, because it's tricky to get actors to act as actors acting in any meaningful way, so it became more about the business of acting than anything else.

By the time it got to the big finale there had been tears and drama, but not really enough of either. It occurred to me that I've never seen the original film, so that might have been equally rubbish but I do remember the TV series and loved it at the time!

The students were all played by actors I'd never seen before, whereas the teachers were already famous: Frasier! Frasier's wife! Karen from Will & Grace! And Lydia, the teacher from the original Fame!, you know, the one who said, "Fame costs, and right here's where you start paying" - genius!

I don't think it will encourage a legwarmers revival. Thankfully!

Yesterday was another of those nicely relaxing Saturdays that I'm getting so good at. And because last week was interesting and next week will be too I didn't mind the fact that the most exciting thing I did all day was go to the garden centre!

To be honest I can't keep away from the garden centre. For the first time ever the garden is looking great and I'm excited about it. I can't stop weeding and watering it, or buying plants! I'd been craving a Japanese Anemone and I found one, and as a bonus I got a Mexican Heather. There will be no more plants this year, I really need to let these settle in and grow!

Besides gardening there was ironing, because Sunday is no longer ironing day, and cleaning because I have a visitor later. I could have had a man yesterday too, but the garden centre sounded more fun - welcome to middle age!

He was the man from London who visited at the beginning of summer and left me feeling like a potato, and kicked started my summer of no men, which is turning into and autumn of only very select men, which may well turn into a winter of no men at all, but we'll see.

Today I'm off to London, rather excitingly to the theatre, because theatres are now opening on Sundays too, which is a huge bonus for those of us who live in the country with very variable train services!