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Somewhere that's green: Potty the Plant at Wiltons Music Hall

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"I'm Potty the Plant," sings a potted plant in this odd little fringe concept of a show. It's hard not to get the tune out of your head, even if the show is brief. It's an earworm for a show that features a worm-like plant as a puppet. And given the show's brevity, running at only an hour, it's hard to get too annoyed by a lack of a coherent story, even if it still seems like the show could use a bit more development (which is underway). It has made its London debut at Wilton's Music Hall. The premise is that Potty, the plant, lives in the hospital office of Dr Acula (geddit?) and dreams of a life with the cleaning lady Miss Lacey (Lucy Appleton). But Dr Acula might be responsible for why all these children are disappearing while trying to romance Miss Lacey for her family's money that she doesn't have. Three nurses are on the case, trying to solve the mystery.  If the show settled on a convincing plot, location and set of characters, it could ...
1066 and all that

Hastings was an interesting afternoon adventure. I forgot about all that 1066 business but was reminded about it when I got there. The town itself has seen better days. It seems to be a relic of tourist salad days long gone. Now it seems to be over-populated by post-pubescent teens with a penchant for breeding as there isn't much else to do. It is a bit of a pity given the history of the place.

I took a cable lift up to East Hill and went for a walk around the Hastings reserve. It struck me as very quiet. There were people about but it still was strangely quiet. The park scene with low bushes reminded me of the film Blow Up. I was expecting a flustered Redgrave to run into me while I was photographing badger holes (well that's what I hoped they were) and other things and then to find a body. It didn't happen. Just an active immagination.

Walking through Hastings and then to St Leonards along the seafront was great for some fresh air (and to note the maps that pointed out just how far away the French town of Dieppe was) but it was still a little quiet. It was a little too early for the hibernation period, I just assumed that Hastings and St Leonards (unlike Brighton) were just quiet places.

Worth every bit? Apparently if you sold everything in the UK it would be worth £5 trillion. I wonder if that even counts for the shabby footpaths in Haringey and the endless amounts of rubbish everywhere? Actually there were some stats about that too. Londoners produce enough rubbish to create a Canary Wharf-sized tower every 10 days. I don't think I have lived here long enough to care about this problem. But that's okay. London's recycling authority calls my market segment Urban Trash. I guess that's a bit better than being called "white trash"! Now where is that pizza box??

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