Paul in London

Monday night I caught the new production of Tosca at Covent Garden. There are two casts so I did not see the now infamous (non)star turn by Angela Gheorghiu but a fantastic performance by Catherine Naglestad who could act and had the voice for such a dramatic role. I got the ticket as A decided to swap his tickets for tonight with Saturday's final performance with Gheorghiu (and thankfully ignoring the advice from the opera house staff that he already had tickets to the better performance). The opera sinks or swims on the strength of the soloist in playing the title role. Thankfully Naglestad was a tiger and not a Romanian kitten . Perhaps she turned up to rehearsals so she knew what to do with the heavy dress she was burdened with for the second and third act. She also was never drowned out by the orchestra. These were things you would think you would take for granted when going to see something at Covent Garden, but apparently they were missing at Saturday evening's perform...

More images by clicking on the photo. So another year another pride, although this year was bigger given it was Europride swelling the numbers to somewhere around half a million people... Marching down Oxford Street was fun. Mind you the group I was walking with (not under any banner just the assortment at the end) were tempted to ditch the parade as we passed John Lewis thinking of all the bargains we were missing out on in the half-yearly sale. I went back on Sunday however...

Old Compton Street. England may have crashed out of the world cup , but at least there still was a party going on...

Outside Selfridges young gentlemen wearing Aussiebum cosis were giving out sweets on sticks... Who could resist such an offer? And yes that is "What a gay day" written on the Selfridges window...

Just another day on Oxford Street really... Sales have started... Oh and there was Europride ... Not all the bargain hunters were expecting that (judging by the startled looks on their faces - particularly when horns and whistles started going off all over the place)...

Scenes from Soho Friday 23:42 Originally uploaded by Pauly_ . A man in a bear suit on a bike (with a bear). It is going to be one of those weekends...

The theatre reviews for Avenue Q have been surprisingly tepid. Basically the papers seem to be saying that the show lacks balls and compare it unfavourably to Jerry Springer The Opera. I thought this was interesting as after seeing the show a few weeks back I found myself discussing the merits of Jerry Springer The Opera with one of the creators. He was under the impression that the show was shit. I did suggest he take a look at the show ( which is on DVD ) and see for himself...

Tonight I caught Fool For Love which is a play Sam Shepard wrote in the 1980s. It is a very compact play that lasted less than ninety minutes and where the main characters – played by Juliette Lewis and Martin Henderson - air some family issues. Shepard's themes are always the same but the way they are written are so entertaining and engaging. Juliette Lewis , known more for her rock singing than her movie roles nowadays, seemed to be a little off tonight. Maybe there have been too much throaty singing of late which was a pity as you got the impression she thought she was projecting. The Apollo Theatre isn't the most pleasant of theatres to be in on a warm evening. The seats are too small and the air conditioning is non-existent. There was also a series of unnecessary delays to pick up tickets and curtain-up was fifteen minutes late. Part of the problem I observed was that the agent to one of the cast members was trying to pick up a comp seat and figured that he was important ...

Scenes from Covent Garden Tuesday 19:50 Originally uploaded by Pauly_ . Despite the overwhelming popularity of mobile phones, phone boxes persist in London as a place where you can smoke your crack pipe in peace or where purveyors of erotic women can advertise their wares...

A book is now being kept about words that I use. Apparently they are not used by everybody so I thought I might add some of these to the blog on a regular basis. One that I heard on television tonight was: Furkid – a pet that is a substitute for a child. Usually furry with four legs. Hmm I know a few people with furkids…