Paul in London

Adding Feedburner to my site has unearthed some interesting things about who reads my blog. For instance if you search Google using the following terms my blog is (apparently) of assistance: Nearest IKEA store to Finsbury Park (but I prefer John Lewis !) Catherine Naglestad Tosca Covent Garden 2006 (fair enough I did write about that) Paul Lange Australia address (who the fuck is that?) BFI Southbank (fair enough I have been there a bit in the past week) THE RISING BALLAD OF MANGAL PANDEY (there's no need to shout!) Testicle torture Daniel Craig (what?) Hampstead Heath gay exact location (what am I George Michael's personal assistant?) And alas if you type "Paul in London" and "motherfucker" in Google I somehow top the list...

Scenes from BFI Southbank Bar Wednesday 23:22 , originally uploaded by Paul-in-London . Perhaps one has stayed too long at the bar when they start putting up the chairs around you...

How many cheap jumpers can one take in an evening? Well I guess it was the 1970s... And it was Bermondsey... Wednesday evening I caught a double bill of 1970s television movies at the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival. I was dreading the experience thinking that it would feature a lot of cheap woolen knits and moaning about socialism. It did of course, but the treat of the evening was catching the 30 minute play Bermondsey which was described in the programme as Brokeback Mountain in a south east London Pub. It was a bit more sophisticated than that, and told the story about a love triangle and how the wife and gay lover conspire to keep a man from running off with his mistress. Written by Sir John Mortimer and filmed in 1972 it was definitely a cut above the usual fare that is served up at these festivals. There was plenty to talk about over post cinema drinks at the smart new bar at the BFI Southbank (not that an excuse was really needed for that anyway)...

In a slow news day like today, police are warning people not to attempt to recreate the stunt of skiing down the Angel Tube escalator, which is the longest escalator on the tube network. The video below was recorded over a year ago which means that it is too late to prosecute under railway by-laws. Filmed with just a helmet camera, it captures the 1992 station refurb quite nicely I thought...

DSC04660 , originally uploaded by Paul-in-London . The evenings are getting longer... A series of plantings of pansies along the Southbank is commemorating the murder of David Morley in 2004 .

Scene from "Eating Out 2". That is Adrian in the centre... Guy from American Idol and Rebekah Kochan are either side... All has been quiet over the past few days as I have been taking a few days off work and just enjoying springtime in London. I have also caught a couple of screenings at the London Lesbian and Gay Film Fest at the newly refurbished BFI Southbank On Sunday it was a collection of shorts filmed in Britain, but it really should have been called Made in London. Most interesting of the films was one called Le Weekend which featured an irritating and sexually ambivalent Frenchman (is that a tautology?) who also is a film maker. The premise is that he comes to London to do a film school assignment and ends up wandering around central London with the help of a friendly (and rather fit) local. It all ends in tears (sort of) but in the meantime there are some great locations of Soho and surrounding areas. On Monday it was a charming film called Eating Out 2: Sloppy S

Abercrombie & Fitch , originally uploaded by 8lettersuk . The new Abercrombie and Fitch store has opened as of Thursday and the signature features of a flagship store are there: low level lighting and two male store greeters with washboard stomachs (if you look hard they are in this photo from a Flickr user 8lettersuk ). A&F has been big here for a number of years (particularly amongst gay men) thanks to e-bay and online orders. Will be interesting to see if classic American tailoring with a twist now explodes across London... Particularly on Savile Row which is not known for its casual wear... Mental note: must get Fierce . Have run out...

Man in a bar: You have great teeth... Paul: Are you a dentist? Man in a bar: Uh... No...

Man #1: Nooo, noo. I've had pills I don't want to eat anything! Man #2: Aw come on... Man #1: Nooo I've had pills...

You know you might be in for an interesting evening when the director for the Barbican addresses the audience before the start of the concert apologising for the every-changing line-up. Originally it was Thomas Hampson and Susan Graham who were appearing in this concert with the BBC Symphony. In February it was announced Hampson was withdrawing for personal reasons (a curious euphemism up there with gardening leave ) and Bryn Terfel was stepping in as his replacement. Curiously the Barbican expected loads of people to get rid of their tickets at this point and offered replacement. I held on to mine. Then on Friday came the announcement that Sarah Connolly was stepping in to replace Susan Graham. By this point I had lost all interest in the concert, but since I hadn't seen Terfel sing live I figured it was probably worth still going to see. Terfel is a great performer and even in the circle row seat which had some unusual acoustics (you could hear the orchestra like it was bes