Paul in London

Scenes from G-A-Y at the Astoria Sunday 02:08. Jason Donnovan singing live. The photo can't capture the horror a gaunt, aged poxy-ridden (he had some sort of flu) man he actually was. Guess those years of class A drugs took their toll... The punters loved Jason, but I think I was too sober to get into that. Oh to be at the Astoria on the wrong night. In two weeks time Madge will be there performing live to plug her new album release "Confessions on A Dance Floor"... Timing is everything... 

Theatre: Macbeth and the night of woodies On Friday evening I caught the opportunity to see the travelling production of Macbeth at the Almedia. It was a one-man version of the show starring Stephen Dillane (he starred opposite Nicole in The Hours ). Alas it wasn't the most interesting of shows to see. The words pretentious and rubbish come to mind when describing it. You have to hand it to a director who manages to strip all the nuances and power from a story and just leave you there trying to work out what's going on while an actor changes voice, speaks in French at times (a French lady Macbeth anyone – ooh la lah!), and fights to be heard above music screeches that were composed specifically for this production. It is the sort of show however that some people have loved, and its short run is practically sold out. I wondered how some of the audience managed to applaud after 100 minutes of squirming and restlessness. I didn't. It was the first time since seeing the Englis

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...