Paul in London

Scenes from the Bakerloo line Saturday 23:24 , originally uploaded by Pauly_ . A gay reader with a very big book... Must be one of those sci-fi novels...

Lady 1 : Oh I went to the dentist this week... Lady 2 : Is that the gay one Lady 1 : Oh yes, but he has lovely eyes, and nice hair... Lady 2 : I went to him once... Thought he was a bit stiff... Lady 1 : Oh but I could stare into his eyes all day...

Babel , originally uploaded by stef_install . Thursday evening I caught Babel . All three hours of it. Sitting there for that long you run through various thoughts such as, "can this drag on for any longer?" or "why is nobody wearing makeup?" "how much blood can Cate loose?". It aims to be a sprawling global story connecting everyone through a single moment but it really boils down to depressing and pretentious story. I can see why Americans may take to it as it is full of angst about Americas place in the world, but it is seriously undermined by really poor characterisations and a never ending stream of unbelievable events. Not all the actors have much to do in this flick either. Before Cate gets shot she just looks sullen and Brad Pitt looks very old and dusty throughout most of the film. If there was a makeup artist present, you wouldn't know it. It all seemed a bit depressing, but I left the movie feeling that the central message of the film wa

DSC04374 , originally uploaded by Pauly_ . A light cover of snow. It was the first significant snowfalls since 2003. By 9am it had started to melt and by the lunchtime it was gone... Pity... SW4 had never looked so pure...

The things people do for publicity... Such as the London Gay Men's Chorus . Well I guess any publicity is good publicity...

Scenes from Leicester Square Sunday 17:33 , originally uploaded by Pauly_ . TV celebrity with very pink turtleneck interviewing punters who were big fans of Beyoncé at Dreamgirls premiere in Leicester Square. Beyoncé showed up later so it was a bit of filler... I hadn't seen such a small crowd at a premiere since Superman Returns. There were more temporary barriers than people...

The new insult is when I was drinking a vodka lime and soda over the weekend and told that was the sort of drink Jade Goody would drink. Jade is the latest bette noire after purportedly taking part in a series of racist incidents that appeared on Celebrity Big Brother. It came to its expected conclusion Friday night when she was voted off the show but over the past week it has been treated as if it were some major national event. Well the show needed the publicity as into its second week it was struggling to attract an audience. Jade Goody has in the past few years carved out a niche in the "lovable slapper" market making TV shows on Channel 5 - known for showing CSI and wacky police videos - and generally showing up in the celeb photo columns. That is, she is world famous in Britain. The fallout of the last week is that sponsors have "suspended their involvement" in the current series (at least until the whole incident blows over ) and Jade has even had her perfu

DSC04340 , originally uploaded by Pauly_ . No trains due to the weather. People transfixed at blank screens. All the good reason not to live in Orpington I guess...

Millennium Bridge closed today , originally uploaded by Ian Tindale . The "death winds" closed the Millennium Bridge as police feared people could be blown into the water ... It would probably not be a nice way to go... The Tate Modern lost a few panels from the top of its chimney... All the action of the City of London police telling people where to go was captured by a Flickr user... By the end of the day the death count across Europe was: Britain - 9 Germany - 7 The Netherlands - 4 Czech Republic - 3 France - 2

Man (to another): Lorrell, where's my dress?

Idi Amin gives a speech to his people. , originally uploaded by foxsearchlightphotos . Some people like rom-coms, some people like dramas, some people like political thrillers. I like 'em all, but I did have to lie to get F (who dragged me to that Holiday film) to attend this. Since he knew nothing about the film or Idi Amin I told him The Last King of Scotland was a comedy. A comedy it ain't but a great blend of fiction and fact with an incredible performance by Forrest Whitaker as Amin. Ok Whitaker has been around for years, but this is going to be a performance to be remembered... The fictional part of the story involves a young doctor ending up going to Uganda and ending up as Amin's personal physician. Against this is the real story of Amin's erratic rule and reign of terror. You don't see much violence in the film until towards the end. It is enough to want to make you throw up in a popcorn bucket, but a worthy experience all the same. The film looks grea

Scenes from the tube Tuesday 23:12 , originally uploaded by Pauly_ . General shenanigans...

I finally got hold of the double CD album of Dreamgirls with Beyonce, Jamie Foxx, Eddie Murphy, Anika Noni Rose and Jennifer Hudson. They all sing on this album and for a Broadway score about a motown-like group channeled through a movie soundtrack idiom (with R&B producers) I think it was fantastic. Also with what is likely to be the best possible cast assembled for the job. The show is all about compromising to get that "smoother sound" and I enjoyed the irony of it all with the super-smooth sound of this album... Oh and when it arrived it was hard not to revert to complete stereotype (see previous post on Jake Gyllenhaal). But hey, this is still great music. The single album is at the top of the billboard charts this week. This album could potentially go the way of The Bodyguard . Ok it doesn't feature Kenny G, but who knows what will do it for the punters these days? The dance mixes for "One Night Only" and "And I'm Telling You I'm Not Goi

You look like you should be on Strictly Come Dancing. Nice shirt. Zara ? Nice profile. Online. Which gym are you at? When did you see Kylie at Wembley? Looking forward to Dreamgirls opening? Speaking of Dreamgirls. Jake Gyllenhaall appeared on Saturday Night Live and provided a tribute for his "brokeback" fans...

Vauxhall: Home of spooks and gay men. Discuss...

I caught Mahler's Ninth Symphony at the Barbican tonight. Conducted by Daniel Harding with the Staatskapelle Dresden it is a great piece about life and death. Towards the end the tension was so tight you could feel Mahler's presence. Or it could have been the man in the pinstripe suit to my right breathing heavily. I wasn't quite sure what that was about but it added to the tension of the evening anyway. Who said going to a concert solo wasn't an adventure? Anyway a fantastic performance by both the conductor and orchestra. One other thing I noticed was that many of the women in the Staatskapelle Dresden brought their handbags onto the stage and slung them over their seats. It was an interesting grab bag of handbags to see. Security back stage must seem to be a bit dodgy...

DSC04298 , originally uploaded by Pauly_ . Sudoku is still popular with tube goers... Thanks to the two free afternoon newspapers including it in their pages the punters cannot get enough of it...

I didn't particularly want to see this romcom or chickflick... But F dragged me to it on the guise that it was funny and that it was at the Canary Wharf cinemas where he could sign up to this new movie deal where you pay £14 a month for 12 months and you could see as many movies you like. You do have to provide a bank statement and in this day and age of electronic banking who the hell has one of them? I also find this chain of cinemas to have the worst cinemas in London. They are usually dirty and smell like a toilet. While the Canary Wharf cinemas were clean, the toilets were flooding so I figured that was keeping consistent with their standard. As for the film, it wasn't as bad as I was expecting. I did like the idea that Kate Winslet's character walks from her job along Albert Embankment to possibly Clapham Junction railway station. It is such a long walk that the exercise no doubt kept her trim and looking gorgeous. She then has a gorgeous little countryside cottage i

The National Theatre was having a discussion with Tonya Pinkins on Wednesday. She used the time to talk about how she landed the role in Caroline, Or Change (which is about to finish its London run) and talk about her career and her book. She used her book to workshop how to take a compliment. She asked the audience to turn around and pay a compliment to the person behind them. The person receiving the compliment had to say "Yes it's true. Thank you". Much laughter ensued as people complimented people's shirts, smiles, hair... It is just not the done thing in London normally...

Monday I caught the film Shortbus which is an ensemble piece about the sex lives of a group of New Yorkers and directed by John Cameron Mitchell. There is the sex therapist who can't orgasm, the lonely dominatrix, the gay couple who want a third for different reasons, and a carnival of other characters that pop in and out of this sex club called Shortbus. There are some very interesting scenes in this film which were enough to keep one awake after a long night of new years festivities. The sex scenes (and there were plenty of them) weren't particularly sexy but I suspect that was the point... It all ends with a big production number complete with brass band around a New York blackout. The power of the black out to focus people on other things has been somewhat diminished over the last year thanks to some very irritating adds from a mobile phone company that seem to use the New York blackout of 2003 as the basis for telling you to switch off your mobile phone... It seems to be

Scenes from Waterloo Bridge Monday 01:36 , originally uploaded by Pauly_ . New year partying was popular in London this year, although it was mainly confined to the river approaches...

Saturday night I caught a preview of the new Renée Zelweger flick Miss Potter . It is about the life of Beatrix Potter which for the first half of the film was as jolly and upbeat as one of her books. The second half things get a little grim but then they sort things out and the film ends as briskly as one of her books. After the film I was discussing how disappointingly short the film is. At ninety minutes it seemed like it could have gone into more about the creative process behind her stories or the influence of the Lakes District on her. Particularly since in the case of the latter its preservation is part of her legacy. They could ave even read one of her stories in full to pad it out, although that might have felt like a sketch from Little Britain... Still the acting was great and it was a very watchable film. Even if Renée and Ewan weren't photographed nicely, the story was too short and there were a lot of things they could have expanded upon. Although it was a preview it

Making the most of the holiday break I caught Love Song Friday night at the New Ambassadors Theatre. Love Song is a new comedy about a man who falls in love and goes a little crazy (or was he already crazy?), his sister and her husband. It is a simple premise but with Cillian Murphy, Michael McKean and Neve Campbell in the leading roles it is quite funny. Leaving the theatre you wonder whether you actually saw anything or whether it was all in your mind. Alas it wasn't totally hilarious and I think part of the problem was that Kristen Johnston was still not performing in the role of the sister / wife. Johnston took ill early December and reportedly has returned before Christmas but she wasn't on last night. Romy Tennant as understudy filled the role. While she was serviceable in the part, looked right (if a little young) and said the right lines, it was clear watching the play that you really needed a strong female lead to make the play soar. But alas that's live theatre

Wednesday night I caught Flags of our Fathers which is Clint Eastwood's film about the story behind the taking of the famous photograph of American soldiers placing a flag on Iwo Jima, and how it became a crucial photo in helping the war effort back home. The battle of Iwo Jima is less important here than the story three of the soldiers in the photo who survived the battle and went back to the US to help the war bond effort. It has the basis for an interesting movie on the power of perception and a single image. Unfortunately like the film Saving Private Ryan it had some pretty awful narrative, including throwing in the son of one of the men two thirds through the movie as someone trying to "piece together the story" for a book. Cue interviews with old and limbless men with grave faces and Paul wondering who the hell these people were. Still at over two hours it moves pretty quickly and is still an interesting enough film. Given the small audience I suspect it won't

Christmas television is a major event in this country. This is because of the following. .. Tonight there was the death of Pauline Fowler in Eastenders. Bless her. I think Wendy Richards best work was on "Are You Being Served", and her death wasn't the most glamorous of exits, face down in the snow. Eastenders is a fascinating show where everyone bitches about everyone else but an argument never gets heated enough for anyone to say dickhead, letalone motherfucker... And this show is supposed to be set in London?? The Dr Who episode Runaway Bride lived up to the hype and featured Catherine Tate in the lead role. The sets may still creak and the leading villain had a serious case of overacting but still it was fun... The Vicar of Dibley is also concluding after twelve years, and it is going off with a wedding... Little Britain Abroad suggests that the show has "jumped the shark". There is a storyline for the characters rather than repetition of the same punchl

DSC04222 , originally uploaded by Pauly_ . A post lunch walk was popular with the punters today... Afterall, the Dr Who special wasn't coming on until 19:00 so there was plenty of time...

A special Christmas message from the London Gay Mens Chorus (taken from the Barbican on Wednesday night). Other extracts are available on YouTube or can be purchased as a DVD ... Oh and you can see everyone from the choir in it... If you look hard enough...

Normally I am in the audience at the Barbican watching some concert or piece of theatre, but tonight I was actually performing in the chorus for LGMC's Make the Yuletide Gay . This is the third time they have presented at the Barbican and it was a sellout. What can you say about a show that allows the audience to do a drag impersonation of Shirley Bassey, sing a few Christmas carols and listen to some (choral versions of) ABBA? I don't know but judging by the reaction of the punters it sounded like it was their kind of show. Some work colleagues attended and they all thought that when compere Sandy Toksvig asked the members of the chorus to identify who was in a relationship (and not a shag from last night) that had special resonance for me. I have no idea what they were inferring. I was outraged. I spent most of the day in Selfridges singing Christmas carols in the lead up to tonight's concert anyway... Anyway it was great fun. We do it all again (albeit on a scaled down f

DSC04156 , originally uploaded by Pauly_ . A foggy night...

DSC04091 , originally uploaded by Pauly_ . The Christmas lights, the people, and the Scientologists on the pavement peddling their little cult... It's Christmas time in London...

Saturday night I caught Sir Thomas Allen in a recital of music by Fauré, Duparc and Ravel at the Wigmore Hall . The first half was Fauré's La bonne chanson and L'Horizon chimérique and I thought they were great. I still had a bit of a hangover from all the merriment of Friday night so when it came to interval and everyone was bitching about how the old man was struggling through the music people started knocking back the drinks in the bar when they found out I was enjoying it. Well there are a couple of points to make here. The first is that Allen is only 62. The second is that as I had never heard some of this music performed before I was more interested in the music than the quality of the performance. But the audience was very appreciative of Allen... All told I preferred the Fauré works to the others. But I didn't hang around afterwards to get any of his CDs... I needed coffee...

DSC04047 , originally uploaded by Pauly_ . 'Tis the season for silly hats... These ones were pretty camp ones at that as well... Still the dinner that came with them was very nice...

Man with no shirt on: Um hey uh do you have any wax? Distracted Paul: Uh wax? Man with no shirt on: Yeah you know... for hair... Paul: I don't have wax... I have clay... Wanna try? Man with no shirt on: Oh I guess I could give that a shot... Paul (producing tin): Here, help yourself... Man with no shirt on: Oh so I just put a bit on my finger... Paul: And rub it... Man with no shirt on: Oh... Okay..

DSC00062 , originally uploaded by Pauly_ . Christmas lights in need of an ASBO...

Checkout lady (scanning Paul's shopping) : They found another body... Paul : Did they? You mean a fourth? Checkout lady : No a third*... She had been sssstrrrangled. Paul : Oh Checkout lady : You got club card? * The conversation took place before the news that two more bodies had been found in Suffolk today...

I have spent the last couple of days watching Superman II: The Richard Donner cut. For reasons that are too involved to explain (but rely a lot on the power of internet nerds) an almost complete (there is one screen test to substitute the film) second version of a sequel to a movie made thirty years ago has been released on DVD. This clip includes previously lost footage of Marlon Brando, Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder and has some significantly different scenes. The YouTube clip above explains some of the differences. In all almost half this film did not appear in the original theatrical version that was credited to another director... Alas having seen what is now a rare extended cut on Australian television (which supplemented the original version with footage shot by Donner) neither this version nor the deleted scenes includes the great campy lines such as Ursa played by Sarah Douglas , screaming "MEN! TO KILL!" Perhaps one day all the lost footage can be found... Un

Sunday night I caught a concert showcasing new music from composers in New York and London called Christmas in New York . It's great to see new music in the West End since most shows nowadays are juke box collections of classic hits or revivals. The only trouble is that new music doesn't always mean that it is great music. Even though it wasn't necessarily the case, by interval it felt like every song seemed either dour or trite or a bit of both. It would have been fine in an elevator but in a large theatre that was a bit of a problem. And surely only composer Frank Wildhorn could use a lyric call St Paul's Cathedral "ancient"? The British composers who had their new songs showcased tonight were good, but I still couldn't get over the rest. If it wasn't earnest, it was a song that would be good to slash up by. I guess music theatre was once at the cutting edge, but I wasn't thinking along these lines. I guess nowadays if you want cutting edge you d

Scenes from Oxford Street Sunday 18:12 , originally uploaded by Pauly_ . No trip this Christmas is complete without a visit to the Christmas Ghetto , a "squat art concept store" by underground artists on Oxford Street. It is the site of an old Clarks shoe store and this window displays an evil looking Santa with a belt buckle that says "Satan" endorsing anything and everything. And there I have been thinking that Oxford Street between the circus and Tottenham Court Road is full of shit shops and one of the worst shopping experiences in the world... Suddenly it's got good... Then again one shop does not make an experience...

Paul: How many French Martini's have you had? M: I don't know... Paul: How many mojitos have I had? M: I don't know but you were knocking 'em back Paul: I needed the vitamin C I have a cold...

Man #1: His mother is Moroccan and his Father is Brazilian... Man #2: Ah so that's why he's got such great skin... Man #1: Yeah its all natural...

Scenes from an office water cooler Thursday 17:35 , originally uploaded by Pauly_ . The water-cooler conversation today was strangely enough... About water coolers. Over the past few weeks somebody had been putting the plastic cups in the dispenser the wrong way and it was starting to really bug people. Apart from looking aesthetically dreadful, the cups would get stuck in the dispenser... Today it was crunch time for the rouge-cup-dispenser-placer. After a colleague had spent earlier this week fishing out the cups which had been put in "end in" only to find by the afternoon they were around the wrong way a notice was placed to alert this rogue cup person that there was a right way and a wrong way to stick in plastic cups... I assisted in the drafting of the notice by suggesting the phrase "the lip goes in the hole first". I thought that was not as suspect as the drawing... But anyway...

Scenes from an office window Thursday 11:01 , originally uploaded by Pauly_ . Heavy rain, high winds and hail was all that was happening. There were reports of people flying (or rather knocked off their feet) in the high winds as it knocked them off their feet. All of this is a bit better than Kensal Green in north-west London which had a small tornado. By 11:05 it was all over.

Tuesday night was the opportunity to take An to see Caroline Or Change , which just won the Evening Standard Award for best new musical. Well comparing it to the other new productions that were in the running (Evita, Spamalot, Sunday in the Park with George) it is like comparing apples to oranges. An missed the first 15 minutes after leaving his credit card behind at a shop so I had to fill him in at intermission on the story. He was surprised that so much happened in the first fifteen minutes, and actually thinking about it, composer Jeanine Tesori and writer Tony Kushner are very economical with the story. It moves at a brisk pace with both halves of the show running at an hour. Again the show was fantastic. It wasn't a full house by any means which isn't surprising. Caroline lasted less than a year in New York. It doesn't have brand recognition being a new show, and maybe a show with a simple premise about Jews living in Louisiana with a black maid doesn't grab the p

Scenes from the Southbank Saturday 20:58 , originally uploaded by Pauly_ . A bit of colour for Christmas on the construction site of Royal Festival Hall...

Paul Keating plays Seymour... Hello! Suddenly Seymour he purified everyone... Tonight I caught Little Shop of Horrors at the Menier Chocolate Factory near London Bridge. Again it is another fantastic production that doesn't put a foot wrong. I have never seen a stage production of this show but this musical has been a long-time favourite of mine... There's a talking plant, a sadomasochistic dentist, a sweet girl and a nerdy boy. Throw in the late Howard Ashman's witty book and lyrics and Alan Menken's music and you have a very entertaining show. I knew almost every lyric in this show and found myself still laughing at the jokes... They still seem fresh and funny even though the show is approaching 25 years of age... My excitement over Little Shop of Horrors surprised Mk who I went with. He likes the show too and normally we have rather different tastes in musical theatre. For instance he has seen Mamma Mia ten times and I just can't bring myself to seeing it yet...

In news that doesn't feature polonium 210, we learned this week that London cabbies have the most stressful job in the UK. Poor things they have a hell of a time earning all that money and having to refuse fares if they take them to places they don't want to go (like South London)... Everytime I have caught one it has been a rather enjoyable and efficient experience so I could be missing out on the stress and everything... Then again in September I did see at Cambridge Circus one driver get out and shout to a pedestrian who punched his window (after the driver went through a red light no less), "Come back and do that again you little cunt!" so I guess there could be some anger management issues for drivers...

As a sometime fan of Dreamgirls since discovering it after the concert recording that was made in 2001 featuring Audra McDonald, I was chuffed to find out that the original Broadway cast recording has been remastered with a few additional tracks included ahead of the movie release (in February in the UK). It arrived today and I have been giving my colleagues a drip-feed on the musical brilliance of this show. This special edition also includes orchestral versions that could become... Karaoke versions... I can just see after a few work drinks me trying to lead everyone in a version of "And I'm telling you, I'm not going". As for the movie soundtrack... That's out December 11 , but thanks to the wonders of YouTube you can see just what Beyonce is like in the movie with the song "Listen" (below). Beyonce performed this last week on Oprah and the copyright lawyers haven't spotted this infringement yet... This movie is going to be huge... It's releas

All the talk this week has been about polonium-210 so A and I went to Piccadilly to find out what all the fuss was about... The sushi was definitely off the menu so we went elsewhere for a bite... Meanwhile the police have reportedly updated their investigation from an "unexplained death" to a "suspicious death". Polonium-210 poisoning does sound a bit suspicious as I don't think its a normal filling in a California Roll ... It would bring a new meaning to "Asian fusion" cooking if it did... The Economist this week offers helpful advice for dissident Russians living abroad: for longevity don't investigate the murder of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, the mysterious Russian apartment bombings in 1999, or the embezzlement of funds for Chechnya reconstruction. These subjects could soon find you loosing your hair too...

The death of a Russian ex-spy this week in London from radiation poisoning is causing a bit of a stir given that three London locations have found traces of the radioactive substance... Tonight the Met reports that "Traces of Polonium-210 have been found at the Itsu sushi restaurant in Piccadilly, the Millennium Hotel, Grosvenor Square, and at Mr Litvinenko's home in Muswell Hill, London (not prepared to discuss further [whatever that means - Paul]). The sushi restaurant is currently closed, and parts of the Millennium Hotel have been closed while examinations continue." Itsu Restaurant has been at pains to point out that the poisoning didn't occur from dodgy fish, but dodgy Russians... And to date there are no special deals at the Millennium Hotel for anti-static rooms... Oh for the days when people were just stabbed with umbrellas or found hanging from Blackfriars Bridge...

Scenes from the Tate Modern Friday 13:59 , originally uploaded by Pauly_ . As part of a team building half-day away day I suggested that we try out the slides by Carsten Höller at the Tate Modern . Well actually, the away day was fashioned around the desire to go on these monster slides but never mind that... I tried both slides in the foreground. Starting with the one on the top level I found it to be a bumpy ride that was only improved after yelling a four-letter expletive for the entire journey down. The lower one was more fun and I managed to even enjoy it a little... There was a shorter slide that I even managed to make "wheee" noises for... By that point I had become a slide pro... The slides will be around until April next year. By then I may try the slide from level four that has you going at speeds of up to 30mph... But not today... Höller may be onto something when he suggests that slides should be incorporated into new buildings as an interesting way of gettin