All I want is a room somewhere...
Well a room
* Within zones 1 and 2
* Wooden floors
* Washing machine
* Own bathroom
* Walking distance with the tube and near night busses
* For around £170 p.w including as many bills as I can get away with fitting in within that tight budget.
* In a decent neighbourhood
These are the things that you come to realise are the priorities of life in London. Well failing that there is always the streets... I can say: Welcome to London I live very central. Its Oxford Circus tube exit six. Bring your own cup.

Addios IDS (as The Sun reported)
It had to happen. The Conservatives have dumped Iain Duncan Smith. It was a necessary business as the only time IDS ever made headlines since I arrived was when his leadership was in question. Michael Howard is poised to take over and will be the first Jewish leader of any major party (well one who hasn't been baptised)...

Uxbridge
Didn't make it to Pinewood Studios last night as we couldn't get a cab to see the BBC TV show taping I had tix for... But made it as far as Uxbridge... which is technically outside of London. It was a long way to go cider and a dodgy Indian meal but at least Skye and I can say we have been to Uxbridge.

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Opera and full frontal nudity: Rigoletto

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David McVicar's oddly modern production of Rigoletto is back at the Royal Opera House.

This modern and minimalist dark production has evolved over the years. It is better lit now but there is still an orgy and full frontal nudity within the first thirty minutes. This enables anyone not in the stalls an excellent view of a flaccid penis and a nicely shaved bush. But as time goes it seems more and more superfluous to the main focus of this tragedy of a court jester who seeks revenge. Here is hoping that the production continues to evolve...

Conductor John Eliot Gardiner keeps the music well paced. Dimitri Platanias in the title role sounded great and received a rapturous applause for his interpretation of the role. You get a sense more of the doting father rather than the court jester or cursed man here.

Vittorio Grigolo plays the Duke and sounds too lovely to be the cad the role calls for, but it is hard not to like when he is on stage anyway. And it is easier to understand the…
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Fluffing it: Rouge @Underbellyfest

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It's not enough for a circus act nowadays to offer a series of acrobatic feats. Nowadays, they are pushing all sorts of conventions. There's the all-male, the all-female, the all minimalist. Rouge is the all gender fluid pan-sexual circus for grown-ups who like a bit of everything. But only if that everything includes a little bit of nudity and a bit of mild titillation. 
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The performers are interesting enough. There's the aerial trapeze, the ring, and the strap. All are deftly executed. There's a terrific flame swallowing routine which seems all the more intense in the confines of the Spiegeltent.
An inventive sequence happens where the performer is wearing a lampshade and combines hula hoops with a frantic strip dance …
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Swatting: The Flies @BunkerTheatreUK

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The Flies at The Bunker theatre is a chance for production company Exchange Theatre - which specialises in translating plays for English audiences - to return to the piece that put them on the map. With live music, video and eye-catching design, it’s an ambitious piece. But it seemed to miss any sense of drama. And it’s star actor Meena Rayann was off too.

Jean Paul Satre’s take on the Oresteia and the Electra myth, was written during the Nazi occupation of France. Fast forward seventy years, it's tempting to equate today’s new nationalists with yesterdays fascists. But it's a lazy comparison given the grand themes under exploration here. It feels more like an apparent dig at Nazi occupation, organised religion or group think over fake news, immigrant bashing and economic hardship.


It opens where two travellers approach Argos, a town where everyone is in mourning. One is Orestes in disguise. The city has become a dark place cursed with flies as punishment from the Gods since …
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