Paul in London

I knew it was going to be a bit of a treat last night when Renée Fleming walked on stage in a sensational Vivienne Westwood gown and the audience at the Barbican started cheering and carrying on. This was even before she sung a note. As she would later tell us during the course of the evening that the programme was something she was trying out with pianist Hartmut Höll and there really was something for everyone in it and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves – especially Renée. The recital in the first half consisted of songs by Purcell and George Crumb. Fleming gave some background on why Crumb was a particular favourite of hers, noting that while as a composer he wrote rather dark moody music, in real life he is such an unassuming character he offered to fix a neighbours lawn mower (so there!). André Previn, Alban Berg and Schumann completed the second half and by the end of it all the audience was completely taken by her. It was what the punters had come for. And she is such a

Australian : Did you go out on the weekend? Other guy : Yeah it was a big night on Sunday… Australian : Did you take any pills to get you through it? Other guy : Yeah had a few things, how about you? Australian : Yeah me too, although the one I like the clubs don't like here… Other guy : Yeah GHB is good. I did a bit of K too… Australian : I'm not a fan of K. I like to know where my feet are… Other guy : Some of my friends don't like it because they think it is a horse tranquilizer, but it must be okay if paramedics use it… Australian : Yeah I know what you mean. I try and do the cryptic crossword to make up for those brain cells I am killing off…

Last night the first episode of the new series on Rome aired so I was among the 6.6million people who tuned in to watch it. After a few minutes of viewing I couldn't help but think that for a show about Rome there were an awful lot of maps of Tasmania on display. Getting past the beaver and buttock shots (which were interspersed amongst gore galore – which in retrospect was an inappropriate time to be eating lasagne) there was some sort of story, which potentially could be quite interesting over the next ten weeks, but I think the story isn't the drawcard here. Get the punters in by having freshly sacrificed bovine blood rubbed over Atia's tits is the drawcard. As fascinating as all that is it just isn't as fun as A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum…

There is a north / south divide between Londoners, which is silly really as there are crap parts of London both north and south of the Thames. Only the other day I was taunting somebody in NW London over their local unisex sauna that they described was where you could pick up an Eastern European sex slave. Welcome to the new Europe. In SW2 where I am now located there isn't much of that. Although on the weekend a strange man (who was not local) knocked on the door and asked if A would mind "holding his things" for a little while… Apart from that it is a nice quiet street, in easy walking distance to Balham and Streatham Hill, although personally I prefer the extra walk to Balham than Streatham Hill which has to have one of the crappiest high streets in Britain . Well this arrangement is temporary and depending on the outcome of a few things my location will change quite drastically in the next week or so…

Yesterday I caught the Diane Arbus photography retrospective at the V&A . It was quite an amazing and fairly extensive exhibition of her work. Arbus was famous for her photographs mostly shot in New York from the sixties up until her suicide in 1971. The exhibition originated in San Francisco MOMA and at the moment you can't go anywhere on the tube without the V&A's ad for the show featuring an Arbus photo of a drag queen holding a cigarette, mouth partly open and hair in rollers. Don't know if that sort of imagery will bring the punters in but it certainly grabs your attention underground… At the exhibition there were quite a lot of photographs to get through in the hour I set aside to see it. The exhibition also included letters, proofs and other paraphernalia relating to her life and gave some insight into the inspiration for her photographs of eccentric yet everyday scenes. You don't get much of a sense of why she may have killed herself at the age of 48 (a

Scenes from Soho Thursday 23:29. After failing to get into a pub on the Southbank where an Australian TV programme was being filmed, Ad and I walked back into Soho and went to a more familiar bar that had a much more cheekier display. The bar dancer moved like he was imitating a spin cycle on a front loader, but the punters seemed to like that anyway... 

On Saturday catching a tube back home someone left a bag in the car I was travelling. The first thing I knew of this was when a passenger pulled the emergency alarm. The rest of us just sat there as the passenger informed the driver of the situation. He must have been awfully worried about this piece of left baggage as he took off while the rest of us just stayed on the car. The driver appeared. He asked the car if anyone owned the bag. Nobody did. I looked at the bag. It was just across from me. It looked very thin. There was a small child sitting there earlier, maybe it was hers. Anyway, surely it was much too thin to hold an Indian Tupperware containing some sort of explosive device. So I just sat there like everyone else. Surely it was harmless.  Station security must have thought so too as after a few minutes a man appeared and grabbed the thing and the journey continued on…

Idle Friday Lunchtime Chatter Paul : I live near Tooting Bec Common now Fa : Well you will have to get yourself a dog so you can walk it in the common Paul : Yes I notice that dog walking or walking small children is the popular thing to do there Fa : Hmm... I would just stick to the dog...

Scenes from SW2 Thursday 11:35. The morning milk run...  

Another rant from Gwyneth this week has set everyone talking. She calls customer service here rubbish and complains about the dirty streets and the weather. Actually she is sounding more and more like a local… Her best advice though was to bring your cashmere sweater when coming to Britain. Of course it is worth noting that cute little outfits that cost a fortune carry no cachet with Londoners . Dress shabby. And of course customer service here IS rubbish. I used a pretty lousy minicab service the other night to get to SW2 and was charged an extra £5 for carrying luggage. Ok so it was a little TV, a monster suitcase and a few boxes but I still thought that was outrageous. I suspected I was being scammed here but in the end I couldn't be arsed to haggle over it. I just made a mental note to write about it on the blog and to avoid that company in future…