Paul in London

Scenes from Regent's Park Open Air Theatre Wednesday 20:08 - A delay starting due to wet weather... Those in the know brought garbage bags and towels. Live and learn. As for the show, well HMS Pinafore in the damp cold night air wasn't the most pleasant of experiences - it seemed less of a production and more of an embalming of G&S. The last time I saw this show I recalled: It was funny and the actors had comic timing, The orchestrations were better, Buttercup also wasn't played by someone who should be in a retirement home. Ok Lesley Nichol is a wonderful actress but it was just wrong for her to be in this part... Also of note: Desmond Barritt seemed to have confused the role of Sir Joseph with his role as Vice President Dick Cheney in Stuff Happens at the National - he spent most of the time walking around looking pissed off. The hero (Simon Thomas) has his shirt off at the beginning and mercifully puts it on. Nobody needs to see a pasty white flat

One houseguest or two My flatmate R has a friend staying over for the week. He is English but lives in Barcelona as a lifestyle choice. He is a great houseguest however as already it has only been a day and he has cleaned out the cupboards and fixed the blockage in the bathroom sink. If only all houseguests could be so useful... Anyway, he brought with him some chorizo sausage from Spain which he left hanging in the lounge room. Sunday evening he awoke to hear the sounds of something chomp chomping into his sausage - and not in a good way. Our resident rat had found it and somehow managed to eat half the thing. Last night as the event was described to me as an unwelcome visitor I was wondering whether it was one of R's gentlemen callers that were quite interested in a bit of Spanish sausage. They have been known to come around for a bite at 3am and again at 5am. But when it was clarified it was a caller of the ratty kind it all made sense. I had thought it had been a case of all qu

News: The awful truth about the piano man The piano man mystery has been resolved. This was the man who appeared at a beach in a state of distress and purportedly could play the piano rather well. Well the truth is that he is just a gay German acting a bit odd . Nothing really out of the ordinary there. Even more ordinary was the fact that he actually couldn't play the piano. In fact his performance of chopsticks wasn't that great by all accounts... How he got to be the piano man from chopsticks is anyone's guess, but when you have Bavarians trying to drown themselves you shouldn't let the facts get in the way of a good story.

Shopping and whatever... I went shopping with A over the weekend at Zara to buy some trousers. Zara is one of the cheap chic high street stores and Spanish in origin that have smart clothes that you can wear for a season and then throw out. The men's collection is popular with a certain type of male as well (usually a gay one)... Anyway while I was buying trousers A was trying on a sporty sort of jacket with a furry lining thing that he thought was great but I told him it made him look like Attila the Fashionable Hun. And that ended the shopping experience. Afterall nobody wants to look like a Hun. Even a slightly fashionable one... Of course the look all summer has been vintage clothing. There are places like Pop and Rockit in London where you can get a pinkish polo shirt (the only colour this summer) with that "worn in" look. You could say the clothes are second hand but vintage sounds so much smarter... But if you don't do second hand many of the leading labels n

Scenes from the Thames outside the Tate Modern Sunday 14:49. Bikes, pedestrians and the rest on a lovely summer day... 

Art: Frida Kahlo Finally caught Frida Kahlo's exhibition at the Tate Modern. The large collection of her artworks spanning 11 rooms were quite a sight. There were all her famous works and many self-portraits to take in during the course of a Sunday afternoon. Such an amazing woman who while she painted survived a nasty bus accident, several miscarriages, an affair with Trotsky, a turbulent marriage and the odd bit of lesbianism. Loads of imagery referred to the female form of course. I will never quite look at an open cut cantaloupe in the same way again I think.

Movie: Crash Saw Crash with A on Friday. It is set in Los Angeles and is about a series of characters whose lives intertwine over a 36 hour period. Race relations (or the lack of them) and the post 9/11 world are at the forefront of this movie. The movie should really have the subtitle "City of Assholes" given all the angst and lack of humanity expressed by most of the characters. Still it was a gripping series of stories that was well acted and raised a few interesting questions, including why the hell would anyone want to live in LA?? It is also not the standard Hollywood blockbuster so be prepared for Matt Dillon looking a bit chubby, Sandra Bullock not airbrushed as much as normal and Brendan Fraser a little bit paler... And the title Crash comes from the series of car accidents that feature in the film. Some are small crashes, others are a little more severe. It dawned on me since being in London I have not driven a car but I dare say that people here don't tailgate