London – Hamlet
Posted: Fri 21 August, 2015 Filed under: Day Trips, Domestic, London, Travel Leave a comment »Following on from yesterday’s post about London, Burgers and Hamlet, I thought I’d add some thoughts about the actual presentation of Hamlet.
The basic version is that I enjoyed it, and thought it was bloody good – although I’ve also got no solid reference points to compare it against. Technically it was still in the previews when I saw it – although paying full price for the tickets when it’s still in previews is a bit of a piss-take. But it was worth seeing, and thoroughly enjoyed.
Happily, by the time we saw it, they’d put the ‘To be or not to be’ speech back in its proper place, rather than done as a speech at the start, and for that I’m thankful.
The staging is spectacular – as per previous reviews and thoughts, I’m a real geek for the technical side of shows, gigs and plays – and absorbing.
The play itself is, of course, equally absorbing, and interestingly done. I was surprised by how many lines and expressions from it are now in common usage – not something I’d realised at all. I thought Cumberbatch himself was good (but perhaps not excellent? I don’t know, with nothing to compare to, but he didn’t strike me as having that absolute star quality) and the rest of the cast were equally good, although at least one could’ve done with having a microphone arrangement, as his voice didn’t really carry at all.
That aside, I did enjoy the entire thing, and would happily go again, should the opportunity arise. (I doubt it will, but you know, it’s still something I’d be content to see again) And now I need to see more Shakespeare stuff – as well as read more of it – and get a better grip on these things.
London – Meat and Hamlet
Posted: Thu 20 August, 2015 Filed under: BurgerCrawl, Day Trips, Domestic, Food, London, Single Life, Solo Dining, Travel Leave a comment »Last weekend, I was very lucky. A friend had gained tickets for Hamlet (with Benedict Cumberbatch) at the Barbican for herself and a few others. As it turned out, one of those people couldn’t go, so the ticket was up for grabs. And I thought “Yeah, OK, go for that”. So I did.
I have to be honest, it’s not something I was eagerly wanting to see. I’m a bit of a philistine, and don’t really know Shakespeare’s stuff as much as I could/should. Yes, I know Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet – plus bits of Tempest, but only because I’ve seen Return To Forbidden Planet. I’d never been to see a Shakespeare play at the theatre, and really had no idea what to expect.
Anyway, things being as they are, I decided to make a day of it – and then both Honest and Blues Kitchen revealed new specials on their menus. Well, it’d be rude not to, wouldn’t it?
It turns out, you can park at the Barbican for the whole day on weekends for £8. That’s not far short of remarkable – and something I’ll definitely be taking advantage of again in the future. I figured it would be ridiculously busy later in the day, so went up early, when the entire place was virtually empty. (I’m glad I did, because the parking spaces are… entertaining, to say the least)
From Barbican, I could easily walk to everywhere else I wanted to be that day – bearing in mind, that’s “easily walk” in my terms, not necessarily those of anyone else/sane – so it was an easy day. A long one, as it turned out, but pretty easy.
I got to Barbican, parked up, and wandered. I knew where I was heading – but hadn’t actually clocked how close things were. It was about a mile, so not a long walk at all. (As always, for my values, not necessarily those of anyone else) As a result, I was there far earlier than expected, and well before they actually opened. So – a further walk and explore was the result.
Once they opened, and I’d ordered, the Blues Kitchen burger was absolutely stonking. Best I’ve had in a long time…
Then a walk down to Honest – again, about a mile, maybe a bit further – and more of the same. I wasn’t overly taken with that special – it was still good, but not actually all that special.
From there, I had quite the wander – bits I didn’t know all that well, so spent some time mooching around, making discoveries, connecting parts of my mental map of London, and all that kind of thing.
And then eventually back to Barbican, where I spent a very relaxed time on the Lakeside Terrace, reading and people-watching.
I’ll comment about Hamlet in another post – but safe to say, thoroughly enjoyed it.
Getting back was a doddle too – I’d expected the car park to fill up for the evening, which didn’t happen. So the performance finished at about 10.30, and I was home just after midnight. All told, a very civilised way to do a Saturday…
Burger Crawl
Posted: Mon 27 April, 2015 Filed under: BurgerCrawl, Day Trips, Domestic, Food, Getting Organised, London, Reviews(ish), Sociable, Travel Leave a comment »Over the weekend, I took part in a very silly event that I’d discussed and come up with – a Burger Crawl in London.
It started off with a conversation about alternatives to pub crawls – I can’t even remember why it came up – but it seemed like a fun idea.
Originally it was going to be four of us as a trial run, but two dropped out, so it ended up just being one friend and me doing it, but that was fine.
Because it was the first one, and my idea, it ended up being my plan for where to go. So I made the choice that it was going to be all new places, nowhere we’d been before, and all in a similar area of London, rather than roaming all over the place.
As it turned out, it almost started badly. The place I’d picked for the first one – breakfast at Honest Burger‘s place near Liverpool Street – wasn’t open, they only do breakfasts Monday to Friday. So, a bit of a trip on the first hurdle, but we had other places on the list of possibles, and went for one of those instead.
So the final list was
- walking up to Dirty Burger in Shoreditch (with a donut from DumDums to start, as Dirty Burger wasn’t quite open when we got there)
- a coffee at Fix 126 on the way to the next place
- another burger at Blues Kitchen in Shoreditch
- walking down to Brick Lane (ish) for an NYC Torta (a sloppy messy burger-type affair which was ace) at DF/Mexico
- a much bigger walk down to Whitechapel, then a tube to Embankment
- Drinks and a break at Scoff and Banter in Leicester Square
- The final meal bit was the “Gentleman’s Afternoon Tea” at Sanctum Hotel in Soho
- And then walked back up to Euston Station in order to go home.
We did well – much more food and it would’ve involved exploding stomachs – and was a brilliant day with all the new venues being excellent. I plan to return to all of them – just maybe not all in one day again.
Oh – and we covered a fair amount of distance as well, which probably helped in dealing with the amount of food…
There will be more BurgerCrawls in the future – and we’ve had a couple of other related ideas too – but for a first go, it all went really well, and definitely a success.
Peter Gabriel – Wembley SSE Arena – The Downside
Posted: Fri 5 December, 2014 Filed under: Cynicism, Gigs, London, People, Reviews(ish), Sweary Leave a comment »While I loved the Peter Gabriel gig on Wednesday, it has to be said that the audience consisted of some of the biggest vagtrumpets known to Man.
I really don’t understand people – as has been said many times before – but I truly don’t get why on earth you would pay £50 or more per ticket and then spend the entire concert walking to and from the bar, or chatting to your friends instead of, you know, listening to the music and enjoying the concert.
It’s even worse when – as with the concert last night – it’s an all-seated gig, so these jizzmopping fuckflannels keep on disturbing the entire row in order to go and get drinks, come back with drinks, go to the bog, and whatever else they’re doing. It makes me want to punch them in the kidneys as they go past, just so they’ll stay in one place for a while.
Maybe I’m getting old, but I just can’t see the enjoyment in going to a gig and not really listening to the music at all.
(The one that really pissed me off though was the so-called fan, when they played one of the key tracks from that ‘So’ album said that he ‘had never heard that one before’, for fuck’s sake)
Peter Gabriel – Wembley SSE Arena
Posted: Thu 4 December, 2014 Filed under: Domestic, Gigs, London, Reviews(ish), Wembley Stadium Parking Leave a comment »Last night, I went to see Peter Gabriel at the SSE Arena in Wembley – not a venue I’d been to before.
In fact, having seen the changes around Wembley, I realised that it must be a good four years (and yes, it turns out it was September 2010 to see Muse) and there’s a lot of new stuff gone up in that time. Not least a whole set of shops – sorry, a ‘retail village’ – and eating places etc., which is pretty welcome when you consider how poor the facilities of the area were for that kind of thing when I was there last.
Anyway, rather than use the godawful parking this time, I opted for parking further out (Watford, to be precise) and taking the tube in to Wembley. It actually worked out really well, despite me ending up using Watford station itself, rather than the intended Watford Junction. I blame a) stupidity and b) having one of those wavering decision processes of mine, of not being sure which station I’d use. So I ended up going to a station I hadn’t intended to use, but it working out as being for the best. Such is life sometimes.
I didn’t write beforehand about seeing this gig, because well, my attendance record with Peter Gabriel gigs isn’t really that good. I was determined to go to this one, but that doesn’t always equate with it actually happening, sad to say.
Anyway, for this one I did get there- and in tons of time, too. Watford’s a shithole for getting round (although some of that’s due to my own stupidity and crap timing, getting there just as most people were leaving) but once I got there all was easy.
And the gig itself was brilliant – thoroughly enjoyed all of it. It was billed as a gig in three sections – starting with an acoustic, going on to the electric (and super-loud) section, finished up by a complete play-through of the “So” album in it’s entirety, and in the order it was originally supposed to be. And it did all it was billed to, and more besides.
As always, the lighting and staging was innovative, in the same way that Nine Inch Nails gigs tend to be – in this case, making a lot of use of small video cameras on all the players, and five lighting rigs on counterbalanced dollies that could move around the stage, controlled by stagehands. Very very impressive – and reminiscent of the Martians in War of the Worlds (which I’m seeing at the O2 in ten days time) in how they loomed over the stage and seemed almost animated.
Getting home afterwards was pretty much a doddle too – out of the Arena, up to the nearest tube station, wait for the correct train back to Watford, and then drive home, straight up the M1. Ninety minutes door-to-door. On evidence of the last time I went to Wembley, in that time I wouldn’t have even got out of the car-park in that time, so all good.