Paul in London

Very nervous woman in car (to man): Excuse me sir... Excuse me. Man on street: Yes Very nervous woman in car: Can you tell me why all these people are heading this way? Man on street: They're coming from a concert at Albert Hall. Very nervous woman in car: Oh Too bad she didn't ask me. I would have told her we just wanted to get the hell out of South Kensington and get on with our lives... Perhaps she had visited the following website...

Lady: The wine was actually really nice wine... Not like that old stuff Man: Yes really nice. Really really nice. Not the old stuff at all...

120820072145 , originally uploaded by Paul-in-London . The crush to get back into the hall in time for Act 2 of Götterdämmerung . Some folks thought they could stop traffic but the black cabs had other ideas... At least an hour for a meal break was provided since it started at 4pm... It had another three hours to go... All things considered (like it was at Albert Hall, the catering is rubbish and it was a concert version), it probably was worth the effort... No chance of snoozing anyway when one was sitting in front of the augmented horns section...

I keep forgetting that I should avoid going to proms concerts. Albert Hall is stuffy, the acoustics are bad, the seats are terrible, and you always have to worry about some old person falling over you with their walking stick as they navigate the steep inclines. I really don't know why so many old age pensioners risk hip replacements coming to these concerts, but they do... Anyway, I found myself among the OAPs watching two OAPs on Wednesday night: John Dankworth and Cleo Laine (well they both turn 80 later this year). Despite the limitations of the hall, they managed to give it a feel as if it were a jazz club and they were just playing some music. The audience loved it and it was a bit of a treat ...

Man: Well you aren't expected to know everything... Woman: Yeah, like... Like... What's it matter that I don't like know who Tony Blair is?

050820072026 , originally uploaded by Paul-in-London . Just when the sunbathers were enjoying the sun in the square, these fat bastards come by murdering songs with their guitars and piano accordions. Putting the trash into eurotrash, they were less Gipsy Kings and more Gipsy Queens... They were passing around a hat for money (or was that for doughnuts?) but that seemed to encourage them to stay so I gave them nothing...

Scenes from an office Tuesday 11.29 , originally uploaded by Paul-in-London .

Scenes from Waterloo Sunday , originally uploaded by Paul-in-London .

Source: Carmen Jones publicity artwork http://southbankcentre.co.uk I had been warned that Carmen Jones was a bit of a dated show. It is afterall a "modern" 1943 reworking of Bizet's opera Carmen into a musical. Given that piece of advice (and that I was still probably jet lagged) I figured the cheap seats at Royal Festival Hall would suffice to see this new production of the show. If it were a bit dull then I figured I could always have a sleep (especially during the overlong first half). Of course I forgot that the cheap seats means that you are surrounded by cheap people. In this instance it was cheap people with body odour problems, weak bladders, and noisy crisp packets. For the first half I was detracted by the cheap people around me who felt that the people's palace meant it was their living room. I was half expecting belching and farting since there was every other noise... Well that's where socialist idealism gets you in the twenty-first century... By t...

After Friday night's jet-lag cure I had to go and pick up the Hairspray soundtrack on Saturday. Movie soundtracks used to be crap compared to original cast albums (I believe this is the correct terminology for afficianados out there) but Hairspray follows the more recent tradition of being pretty darn good. It was refreshing to be back in a music shop that didn't just offer Michael Buble as its specialities. Mind you I did raise the point that the shop did not stock a lot of the new Australian musical titles that I heard while I was down under. After describing songs about shaving your balls and a musical about a gay love triangle set in a fun fair there was general concensus that some CDs are best left in the antipodes (or to be more accurate, in Melbourne)...