Paul in London

Scenes from SW4 Friday 21:52 , originally uploaded by Paul-in-London . The time has come to leave SW4. This weekend I move north... Well, at least to SW9. I say goodbye to Jesus and the other iconography that adorns my London flatshare... Actually with half his head missing, Jesus looks worse than a Chelsea fan flying back from a match in Liverpool ... Over and out from SW4...

Thursday night (rather than packing) I went to Putney to see the PLOS (that's Putney Light Opera Society) production of Copacabana. Well, I nearly didn't get in as it was sold out. Fortunately thanks to the rather efficient house manager seats were found. Upon getting inside it was immediately clear why the show was a sellout. With 36 people on stage (plus band but they were hidden) even if everyone only sold two tickets the theatre was bound to fill up. As for the show Copacabana. Well the book is so bad that it takes on charm of its own. Based rather loosely on Barry Manilow's song (and co-written by him), the show is padded out with melodrama, bad gags and at least two reprises of the song Sweet Heaven so it was stuck in my head. The actors didn't take all this too seriously and neither did the audience. At one point we all hissed the villain. It seemed so right... The leads were great although at times it was Piccadilly Circus on stage there... Anyway, the Putney

Scenes from Waterloo Bridge Tuesday 23:42 , originally uploaded by Paul-in-London . 31 sculptures of artist Anthony Gormley go up over the city... Somewhat confronting... Although perhaps not as daunting as trying to navigate Oxford St to see Kate Moss at Topshop ...

Man 1: It is hard running with this thing in my front... Man 2: Yeah and I'm cold... Man 1: Lets run on the spot... Man 2: Good idea...

Scenes from a church steps in Borough Saturday 19.52 , originally uploaded by Paul-in-London . Cantaloupe

Scenes from Tate Saturday 15:40 , originally uploaded by Paul-in-London . Despite the warm sunny weather, hundreds of people still flocked to the Tate for the last weekend of the Hogarth exhibition . Warm sweaty (and sometimes a little smelly) bodies huddled close to take in the fine drawings, bringing suffering for art to a whole new dimension... Faces visiting the exhibition looked like some of the post-coital faces painted by Hogarth but it was probably just the hot weather and not something sordid going on in the members' lounge...

Scenes from Waterloo Station Sunday 16:07 , originally uploaded by Paul-in-London . I have no idea what they were doing here at Waterloo Station, but it did look rather impressive...

Create Your Own Photos from the West End Whingers After a long day rehearsing for upcoming concerts with the London Gay Men's Chorus in deepest darkest N15 (that's a long way from Clapham), I went back to civilisation and the West End to a party thrown by the West End Whingers . The Whingers first noticed my blog after my account of watching Cabaret last year. There was mutual agreement that the show was rubbish despite all the critics going ga-ga over it (and the fact that it is still playing). Well anyway their blog is definitely a must read before a night out at the theatre. The party brought bloggers, along with wannabe whingers, fans, friends, miscellaneous people from the theatre business, and a dame or two. In fact we all had name tags to describe who we were and what we were doing there. In writing out my tag and putting the word "blogger" I realised it was the first time I identified myself as one. I never identified with that group before. Nevertheless I h

Liz White and Tom Brooke in Dying For It In a week of playing theatre catch-up, Friday night I managed to catch Dying For It which is based upon Nikolai Erdman’s once-banned satirical comedy The Suicide. It is a sort of silly story about a man who is propelled into celebrity for announcing he was going to kill himself and pokes fun of all sorts of people in society - particularly post-revolutionary Russian society but I was wondering whether there are any analogies for Islington society as well... I thought there were a number of similarities - artists, the intelligentsia, officials, ideologues, pragmatists, sex workers, unemployed - you get 'em all there... It is always fun to watch a silly play with a silly person. And that I did by seeing it with An. An loves farces and I think I have seen more farces with him than anybody else and so we were able to laugh out loud at double entendres about socialistic uprisings and sex and the like. Actually we do that anyway (the double enten

Scenes from the Victoria line Saturday 17.28 , originally uploaded by Paul-in-London . After a long day of rehearsals for the upcoming LGMC concert Bad Boys , one's feet were a tad exhausted... Oh and this marks the first photo posted using the Nokia N95 camera... Hmmm

Ulrich Muhe in Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's "The Lives of Others." Photo by Hagen Keller (image from film) I caught The Lives of Others this week. Set in the early eighties, it is a creepy drama-meets-thriller about a Stasi operative who spies on a famous writer for reasons that are less to do with state security and more to do with a woman and a jealous rival. The movie beautifully recreates the banality and subtle horror of a totalitarian regime before its fall. You get a sense that Formica has never been photographed so lovely. The story unfolds like a thriller but it is a little more than that, and its interest in human frailty is really what makes it stand out. Seeing it with M, I had to explain the history of East Germany as much as possible without annoying the other cinema-goers so it does help to have some understanding about post-war Germany before seeing it... And there I was thinking that everyone had seen Gotcha! so that would explain enough... Anywa

I finally got to the theatre this month and saw Porgy and Bess - the musical... As somebody who had appeared in an all-white chorus of a concert production of Porgy and Bess back in Australia ten years back (don't ask) I was very familiar with the piece and curious to see how it was translated from opera to musical. The short answer is that it doesn't translate very well. Of course there were moments that worked well, particularly the numbers that are not operatic anyway. The plot was also a lot easier to follow without all those recitatives getting in the way too. But all told the production seemed to be missing a lot of drama and tension the opera has. Also while the soloists "jazzed it up" the chorus still sounded like an opera chorus, which gave it the feel of one of those period musicals rather than something new and different. In a way Porgy and Bess is already a musical (albeit a four hour sung-through one). Most productions in the past have made cuts to the o

Scenes from Jubilee Bridge Sunday 18:38 , originally uploaded by Paul-in-London . Matching pastels and thongs on the bridge to the South Bank... Well, after an afternoon of people watching on Green Park (a popular thing to do when the weather is fabulous) it seemed silly to stop...

Saturday night we checked out the latest new bar in Soho - Profile - which is a real venue for the online Gaydar brand. The venue certainly has had a bit of money thrown in it and there is loads of orange decor and mirrors. Alas it was too popular on Saturday night and with the odd bar layouts it took forever to get a drink. Maybe it was all the minor celebrities there that caused all the fuss... I am not sure who they were but I was informed they were lurking about amongst the rest of the non-entities... Anyway a novel thing about the bar (apart from the free internet access) is a text messaging system where you can send text messages to a series of screens across the venue. Apparently irony is lacking with whoever approves these messages. My text "Ad is a cocksucker" was not posted on the grounds that it was rude and offensive. A couple celebrating their civil partnership engagement and looking for a spit roast in a local hotel did however make the grade. Well maybe they

Scenes from Gielgud Theatre stage door Saturday 22:19 , originally uploaded by Paul-in-London . Stage door Johnnies (and Jills) waiting for Harry Potter to appear from Equus ...

Dude 1: You know, she's pretty lucky having you... Living where she does in the middle of nowhere... Surrounded by sheep and cows... Dude 2: Yeaaaah.... Dude 1: Like, who else would go out with her?

Guy: You fancied that guy didn't ya? Girl: Gehorf he was all o' twenty Guy: Didn't ya! didn't ya! Girl (looking in Paul's direction): Shh I think that guy over there can hear us...

Scenes from the Royal Academy Monday 15:20 , originally uploaded by Paul-in-London . Great views, great location... Probably a bit drafty... I wonder if the RA would consider renting out their Jericho installation...

DSC04795 , originally uploaded by Paul-in-London . We have big butter in Clapham...

Murphy looking all wistful... With all the flat hunting that has been taking up my time in the past few weeks I have not had the chance to see any theatre. Such a shame as everytime I write something about the theatre I get at least an extra person reading this site. And I have been informed that my site ranks up there on Google when you type in Elaine Paige's Tits so that gives me good theatre cred surely... Anyway, I did manage to catch the film Sunshine on Saturday. It is part 2001 A Space Odyssey, part Alien and part Stargate. But anyway, Cillian Murphy even looks a bit like Sigourney Weaver (and conjures up a little of Jaye Davidson as Ra in Stargate too). The plot involves a mission to restore the dying sun. It starts off slowly and maintains this pace throughout. Some people have told me they felt the film was boring, pretentious rubbish but anything that plays homage to 2001, while throwing in some strange weirdo alien being that has had a bit too much sun can't be

DSC04765 , originally uploaded by Paul-in-London . Good Friday and good weather...

Scenes from an SW8 Street 17:38 , originally uploaded by Paul-in-London . One of the joys of checking out new properties (as I will be shortly moving) is finding strange and interesting new streets, full of rubbish and debris... I passed on the property in this street... The search continues...

Tony Kushner and composer Jeanine Tesori Earlier this week I caught the documentary Wrestling With Angels which was a brilliant snapshot of the life of one of America's great living playwrights and liberal political activists. It captures the period of Kushner's life from September 11 2001 through to the presidential elections in 2004. During this period it traces the filming of his major work Angels in America (by HBO), a book with Maurice Sendak, an opera and the musical Caroline, Or Change. The film ends with Kushner's attempts on election day to ensure that people get to the polling both. You leave the movie with a sense of wanting to go out and do something to change the world. Although given the outcome of the 2004 election, you are inclined to wonder what is the point... Definitely the best movie I caught at the film festival . One to look out for on the film festival circuit...

Paul: Eww, that man with the beard who keeps smiling at you has missing teeth... Adam: That's okay, I quite like gummy bears ...

Scenes from an over-engineered office Thursday 16:23 , originally uploaded by Paul-in-London . I was in a meeting room on Thursday and after going "What the f---" managed to take this little memento... I think they are sitting in water but it could be that stuff hairdressers sit their combs in...

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

Scenes from Waterloo Bridge Saturday 16:19 , originally uploaded by Pauly_ . One fine day in March... Bare arms have now been spotted in London...

Tonight while I have had a quiet night in, in between playing "Rear Window" with the neighbours in the properties opposite my bedroom window, I have made some minor changes to the blog layout including setting up being able to Subscribe to Paul in London by Email ... So Mum and that other guy from Wichita who reads the blog can know when I update...

Scenes from Haywood Rehearsal Thursday 18:29 , originally uploaded by Pauly_ . Good quality mineral water and loads of fresh towels... Who could want anything else?

Wednesday evening I took part in rehearsal for a concert the London Gay Mens Chorus is performing at the Hayward Gallery as part of An Evening of Radical Singing . I am not sure how radical it is to sing "Come Fly with Me" and "The Rose" (although I do tend to get the lyrics about the Rose mixed up and get my seeds and bleeds confused so that could sound a bit radical). We will also be doing something interesting involving a bit of movement and free singing with "Wade in the Water" a classic spiritual song. It should put the variety back into Thursday evening anyway...

Tuesday evening I caught the excellent production of The Glass Menagerie starring Jessica Lange. I thought it was a superbly staged, acted and directed show. For over two hours I was kept alert (no falling asleep in the stalls tonight). Lange was great to see on stage. A simple stare seemed to convey so much. And when in the second act she puts on her best outfit for a gentleman caller you can't help but feel horrified and pity for her as well. The rest of the cast were just as good. There was Ed Stoppard as Tom - the son who always seems to be going to the movies and coming home late (one time with a red handkerchief in his back pocket ... Say no more). And Amanda Hale as the Laura the crippled daughter too nervous to face life and its disappointments... It may not be Tennessee William's best play (some of the flashbacks and the narration is jarring and unnecessary) but there is so much in this story to ponder over (at interval and at the bar after, on the tube home) that it

Scenes from a South Bank subway Saturday 16:46 , originally uploaded by Pauly_ .

As a tribute to the Tate Modern's excellent Gilbert and George exhibition I thought I would include some imagery of their less confrontational shitty art. An entire floor has been devoted to their work and it isn't hard to do this since as they progressed through the years, they really went for large scale stuff. Some of it is quite impressive, but the period where they were fascinated in bodily functions seems a little quaint these days. Going through the exhibition, a highlight was watching one father point out to his two young sons the bright green and pink buttocks and testicles of the artists in a piece titled. the City Fairies. Judging by the looks of other punters in the gallery they seemed to think this was a bit inappropriate. I guess with parental guidance anything goes these days... All told, it is nice to see that their latest works have moved away from bodily fluids and to the big issues of the day such as terrorism, intolerance and extremism. Besides, turds on a

The Good German poster , originally uploaded by Daryl Van Horne . At one point during The Good German I turned to Ad and said to him, "Forget it Jake it's Potsdam". There was a hint of Chinatown about this movie. The only difference was it wasn't as well acted, directed or with an intelligible story. But there was plenty of confusion as Clooney plays a character called Jake who spends most of the film chasing Lena (Cate Blanchett) all over the American and Russian sectors of 1945 Berlin. Why he pursues a woman with such a badly fitting wig is anyone's guess. She spends most of the movie pouting and talking in slow, low and deliberate voice. Her line "Yuu shud naht huv cum bahk to Berlin" evoked memories of Meryl Streep as Karen Blixen in Out of Africa "Yuu have mede me barrhen"... Tobey Maguire also has a role. He gets to say very non film noir words such as "fuck" and "cunt" in an unusually high pitched voice. Fortun

Vegetarian: You don't mind eating vegetarian? Paul: No not at all. I eat vegetables so what's wrong with eating a few more? Vegetarian: Oh... Paul: Besides, any place called Mildred's is my kind of restaurant...

Furphy . To divert attention away from main issue. Until I checked I didn't realise it was more slang from my peoples.

In a packed week I only found out on the weekend that I was quoted in this month's GT . Alas it isn't the Gin and Tonic but the Gay Times - a glossy magazine that for the most part is pretty unreadable advertorial and filler. Fortunately my quote is tucked well into the magazine so I don't expect anybody to be quoting me back anytime soon. I didn't even say something funny (or try to at least)... Such a waste...

Rather than catch a university revue while I was in Cambridge, there was a new print of Belle Du Jour playing at the local cinema, so I had to see that. Last time I saw the film I didn't quite appreciate the boredom of Deneuve's character with her perfect life. With the new print it (along with those cable-knit jumpers) all seemed to be much clearer...

DSC04511 , originally uploaded by Pauly_ . Ok I spent most of the weekend out of London in Cambridge where there were rowers and loads of bi-cyclists... It's that sort of town really. And only 45 minutes from London (assuming you don't get the train from Kings Cross that goes via Stevenage)...

Thursday evening while trying to get over some weird head cold I picked up this week I caught The Science of Sleep went with Mandy, who also had a cold. It was a bit of a trippy film that we both wondered whether we should have been under the influence of something stronger than pseudoephedrine hydrochloride to enjoy it. At various points we looked at each other in the film and asked whether the characters were on drugs. Still it was quite an enjoyable and fun tale, with some very imaginative set pieces with the two leads. There was also full frontal nudity of Gael García Bernal which is always good for the punters... I also appreciated his bad haircut and quirky beanies, even if I wasn't convinced that he was supposed to be this timid dreamer (he is too charismatic for that)...

Scenes from outside Criterion Theatre Piccadilly Tuesday 21:41 , originally uploaded by Pauly_ .