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Belters and bohemians: Opera Locos @Sadlers_wells

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At the start of the Opera Locos performance, the announcement says that they really are singing. You could be forgiven for wondering that, given the amplification turns up the backing track and the voices so loud that you can't always tell what's real. But this is a mostly harmless and slightly eccentric blend of opera classics fused with the occasional pop classic. However, recognising the pop tunes would help if you were over a certain age. The most recent of them dates back twenty years. It's currently playing at the Peacock Theatre .  Five performers play out a variety of archetype opera characters. There's the worn-out tenor (Jesús Álvarez), the macho baritone (Enrique Sánchez-Ramos), the eccentric counter-tenor (Michaël Kone), the dreamy soprano (María Rey-Joly) and the wild mezzo-soprano (Mayca Teba). Since my singing days, I haven't recognised these types of performers. However, once, I recall a conductor saying he wanted no mezzo-sopranos singing with the s
News: The waiter did it A waiter has been charged with the murder yesterday . The Evening Standard website had photographs taken from a neighbour's house that showed a man on the street face down in a pool of blood, which have disappeared this evening... It has been alleged that the waiter described the motivation behind the killing as all very long and involved... Movie: Kinsey Finally managed to catch Kinsey last night. Whether it is true to life is another matter (it only briefly touches on some of the more bizarre things that Kinsey performed on himself as "research" - and it is a movie biography), but it does make for a smashing film about a pioneer of his time, who created the scale of one-to-six long before we started using such terms as metrosexual, fauxmosexual, straight-acting, and all those other euphemisms... Amazing how science could be infused with such drama as well... It was worth waiting around until the end when the footage of animals humping was play
Interestingly too, while I have walked down this street - which is home to many celebrities - I wouldn't recognise one even if I fell over one. And therein lies the problem. How can you spot the difference between an axe-weilding murderer and a media personality?
News Correction It wasn't a beheading, and it may not have been an axe, but it still sounds pretty gruesome and a Man was killed in street attack at Swiss Cottage ...
News: time to move You know you made a good decision to move when Man dies after being 'beheaded' not far from where you used to live, (and just around the corner from the Swiss Cottage Hotel where you recommended friends should stay when visiting London)... There goes the neighborhood...
Weekend etc... Caught up with my sister's friend Jen who was in town for a few days with her friends. I met them at Hyde Park since they were staying at Earl's Court (sensibly Australian thing to do). One of friends had fed a squirrel and was bitten so while they went off to seek medical advice on squirrel bites, I took Jen to the Serpentine Gallery. Future tourists to London should take note: It is probably not worth feeding squirrels in Hyde Park...
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Mess at the Serpentine Gallery - Hyde Park. Tomoko Takahashi’s installation throughout the gallery was an interesting look at junk being art. Personally I would have found it more interesting if the artist was still living in the gallery and walking about with a cup of coffee and in fluffy slippers but that wasn't the artistic experience we were going to get... 
Music: Rufus Rufus Wainwright's latest album was released officially this week and he was in town signing copies of it last Monday. Tonight there is a doco on him on Channel 4 as well. He is very popular here and given his talent for songwriting: An old whore's diet Gets me going in the morning Ain't nothing like it Gets me going in the morning It is not surprising...
News: The day that almost never was Yesterday while it was Friday for most, it was still Thursday at Westminster in what was the third longest day in parliamentary history. As they didn't break the 30 hour session, that means that Thursday never finished and the legislation passes on Thursday (even though it was late Friday by the time it did). This means all sorts of things including the fact that Peers will not get paid for Friday (or get anything for their huge overtime on Thursday) Quirky parliamentary traditions aside, the fuss was all about the anti-terror legislation and so the parliamentary ping-pong all makes sense with the election looming. All parties need to say enough to get noticed at this point, but the matter of being detained without trial is probably also something many are concerned about. And the secret the MPs and Peers used to stay up all night? Champagne, beer and pizza.
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Scenes from Leicester Square 12.00am 
News: Free travel and technology This morning the entire electronic ticketing system on the tube was down due to a glitch which by some gross exaggerations will cost £2 million as commuters travel free ... That sounds expensive... It would only be a free trip if you had pre-pay which (when it works) deducts money every time you pass through a gate... Travelcard users pay a flat fee for a weekly ticket. And technology is failing me more locally. Have discovered that my wifi setup is not correct (as it has rendered my flatmate's computer unable to connect to the internet) so will be offline until the weekend when I get the new bits to fix it... I think I will manage ... Weather: warmmmmmm It is a lovely mild seven degrees (c) today. It feels so hot after the last couple of weeks. It also feels hot as the central heating in most buildings still is on "bake" after the last week of snow. I have some potatoes on my desk going a golden brown as I write...
News: The newsreader Matt Barbet is back reading the London News on evenings. His beady eyes and marvelous speaking voice are just the antidote for the end of the day...
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Scenes from Apollo Theatre: 9.15pm 
Theatre: A Life in the Theatre Caught up tonight with the latest play starring Patrick Stewart and Joshua Jackson A Life in the Theatre by David Mamet. Told as a series of glimpses through a season of repertory theatre, it was a good chance to see Patrick and Joshua in various stages of undress changing in and out of characters and costumes. Some of the audience members found both Patrick and Joshua in pants to be worth making a noise about. Even wearing glasses I didn't see what the fuss was about. The interaction between the characters change as the season progresses. Initially Stewart sees himself as a mentor to the younger Jackson, but over time, rivalry and jealousy set in. While it is a comedy, it also depicted the life of the theatre as some nighmarish hell is enough to make you feel happy with my day job. Stewart also says "She's a cunt" which has to be worth the price of admission as well. An interesting (if not very substantial) evening's diversion for
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Scenes from Archway Bridge Saturday before noon: peering through the anti-suicide spikes looking south towards the City...  
Where has the time all gone to: The weekend I am back online today after buying a router (that is pronounced, row-ter, which I only mention as I was in a meeting the other day where non-techy people debated the correct pronunciation of this device) and hooking up wifi in the flat. It was a four-hour odyssey to do this as I managed to get my MAC addresses confused. I have no claims to being a techy and am far too impatient to read instructions that are poorly written and can be bypassed in any event, but the outcome is now that I can blog regularly from home once more... I can do this as out of the settlement for being in a relationship - I got the laptop. As it was one of those "desktop replacement" models that were oh-so fashionable January 2004 (before people came to their senses in March) it is a big ugly motherfucker of a laptop and I don't particularly like it, but as I curse it, I can think that it is storing nearly two years of photos and cheap laughs, so that has