Skip to main content

One secret I'm not prepared to keep

The older mini-W turned eight recently and we booked some tickets for the local theatre. After a pizza with her sister and some mates from school, she was escorted across the road to see an adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett's classic children's story The Secret Garden.

Yes, we're very posh these days, but I have to admit that I'm not good at theatre at the best of times. I've always preferred the telly. And this production was a real endurance test by anyone's standards. Someone had written a lengthy musical score and we were bombarded with melancholic, quasi-operatic performances for a good two hours. The story starts with an epidemic of cholera in India and my instant impression was that the composer had successfully captured the spirit of the outbreak.

Next weekend, it's Mary Poppins up in town. Now that's what I call music. First rule of the stage: people like happy songs about magical nannies and cockney chimney sweeps and are less keen on lyrics that focus on dead flowers.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Captain Birdseye and other people of rank

Regular readers may recall that I once doubted the existence of Yeo Valley. I'd never heard of the Yeo mountain range and I therefore rated the likelihood of there being a valley at somewhere between 0 and 5%. Of course, I had yoghurt all over my face when I discovered that the place really does exist. Somewhere in Somerset, I seem to recall. Today, having read an article in the latest edition of The Marketer magazine, I'm astonished to discover that there really was a Captain Birdseye. Well, I need to qualify that just a little. There was a Mister Clarence Birdseye who invented the fish finger back in 1955. The avuncular, uniformed figure who dominated our TV screens for about thirty years may have been an invention of over-eager advertising creatives, but he didn't blow in on a trawler during a squall. There was actually some connection to a real human being. These revelations about fish and yoghurt are causing me considerable disquiet, because I'm wondering h...
3 comments
Read more

Special Constable update

I've now studied the Special Constable poster in more detail (see blogs passim ) and can reveal the idea is even more complex and bizarre than I first thought. You'll recall that a Special is on some seedy looking street corner, just yards away from where a drug deal is in progress. He's keenly observing events and looks ready to take some kind of action. The copy says that Specials wear uniform and always have back-up. But this guy is on his own in plain clothes. Worrying. Perhaps he's off duty but just can't leave the policing thing alone? Once a part-time copper, always a part-time copper. But wait. There is back up. It comes in the form of the constable's own reflection in a puddle. If he took his eyes off the criminal activity for just a second and took the trouble to look down at his feet, he'd see that in Puddle Land, he is wearing a uniform and carrying a radio. There's enough material here to fill a semiotics seminar for a day. If I disco...
4 comments
Read more

When one name isn't enough

You may have heard the news reports about the turmoil in Kingston, Jamaica, resulting from the government's attempts to pin down a notorious drug lord on behalf of the US. I was struck by the number of self-styled monikers this guy has given himself. He is, depending on the channel you listen to, known on the street as 'Dudas', 'The Big Man' and 'The President' - worshipped by many impoverished Kingston residents as a benefactor to slum dwellers. It's his real name that seems most appropriate, however. If you were a drug baron called Christopher Coke, wouldn't you leave it at that? It's certainly not a name to be sniffed at.
Post a Comment
Read more