14 March 2024

I have walked every street in London Borough of Richmond

I have always walked for fun as well as for transport and I like to explore new places. Using MapMyWalk allows me to record each walk and CityStrides then pulls all these together to produce a cumulative map and to produce statistics for each city/region.

What finally pushed me to walking every road in Richmond was paying for the CityStrides premium service which highlights all the unwalked places with red dots. I was then able to visit specific areas, e.g. Barnes, Fulwell and Hampton, and clear all the red dots there. It took several visits, e..g I went to Barnes four or five times, and a lot of time walking down dead-ends.


CityStrides tells me; There are 1,458 streets in London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, totalling 403 kilometres. My first activity to complete a street was on 6 June 2011 and It took a total of 404 activities to finish, totalling 4,707 kilometres.

My next most walked areas are Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames and City of London and I am just over 50% on both. I do not expect to fully walk either area because I do not go to the southern part of Kingston very often and the GPS in the City is so wild it is hard to hit the red dots.

1 March 2024

Player Kings at New Wimbledon Theatre

The opportunity to see Ian McKellen in a Shakespeare play close to home was too good to miss. It was expectedly pricey so I went for the Upper Circle where my ATG membership card got me seat A11 for a measly £25.

It was billed as a version of the two plays Henry IV Parts 1 and 2 but, other than the early start time of 6:30pm, there was no clue of the runtime and it was only when a friend got to the theatre just ahead of me and discovered that it was almost four hours! Luckily I am used to long plays and had been well stocked at the usual venue, Mai Thai, beforehand.

First the bad news. Henry IV 1 & 2 are not Shakespeare's best work with the two unrelated themes, the pure history of Henry IV and the tomfoolery of the Falstaff. There were some first-night issues too where the main problem was the safety curtain that was lowered at times for dramatic effect and when it did it hid half the stage, or more, for those of us in the cheap seats.

The good news was the smooth staging (too low curtains apart) which used curtains pulled from the sides to make the scenes changes seamless allowing the stories to move smoothly.

The best news was the performances. Of course Ian McKellen was good but he was in a supporting roll and praise must also go to Richard Coyle as Henry iV. The last time I saw him on stage was in To Kill a Mockingbird. It was also good to see a cameo role by Robin Soans.

The performances, and the staging, were more than enough to make the four hours fly past entertainingly. ot a great night, Henry IV was never going to be that, but it was certainly good.

22 February 2024

Macbeth at Dock X


I have seen Macbeth numerous times and there has to be a pretty good reason to drag me out to see another version, and this production did that. Clearly Ralph Fiennes is a big attraction and I was also very tempted by the prospect of a staging in a performance space rather than a traditional theatre.

This was Julia's birthday treat so we pushed the boat out, quite a long way, and paid £85 each for our seats.

Dock X is in Canada Water which was convenient enough to get to (via dinner at Culture Grub by Waterloo) and a little difficult to find, we had to ask.

The venue was basic with bare concrete floors and simple seating in the auditorium. The stage was simple and raised and I had an excellent view of the whole stage ftom a corner position. I may have read my own biases into this but it looked more like an event audience than a theatre audience to me, e.g. it was much younger than I am used to for Shakespeare.

I was expecting the staging to do more than it did as the uniqueness of the production was billed as a key feature whereas I found it all very obvious. Indeed, productions like the one at National Theatre with Rory Kinnear in 2018 were much more experimental.

Essentially this was a standard production of Macbeth disguised as something more interesting.

Enough with the bad news, the production was probably the best Macbeth I have ever seen thanks to the production letting the words of Shakespeare do all the heavy lifting and to stellar performances by the two leads who gave those words the time and the space to flourish.

3 February 2024

Israel is a terror state


Depressingly it is still necessary to show public support for Palestine despite the recent ICJ ruling against Israel as our government is still backing the wrong side and doing so with direct support, including weapons that are being used to kill civilians.

We started at Portland Place, home to the BBC but not our target, and took a simple route past Oxford Circus, Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square before passing along Whitehall to Parliament Square.

Unlike all the previous marches there was an incident this time.

I was marching with the Socialist Workers Party group (I am not a member but am broadly supportive) and soon after we entered Haymarket a small Police snatch squad swooped in and took someone they had clearly targeted plus one other who got involved. The two were dragged into Panton Street where a line of police officers stopped us following. There were quite a few of us and the police called in several groups of reinforcement, though there was no physical contact.

For bout twenty minutes we chanted at them, things like "Let Her Go!", while they took lots of photographs of us. We were soon joined by some Legal Observers and also by several people giving out leaflets on what to do if arrested. It was good to see an organised response but worrying that police action made it necessary.

The stalemate was ended when the two were taken away in a van and we rejoined the march that had been carrying on behind us for all that time, despite us starting towards the back. There were a lot of people there.

2 February 2024

Kew Orchids (2 Feb 24)


Kew Orchids 2024 officially opened on 3 Feb but members were given an early preview and I was happy to take up the offer. This year's festival followed the trend of recent years with fewer large displays and a strict one-way system which takes about half an hour, depending how often you stop to take photos.



This year's theme is Madagscar and while there are a few orchids from the island on display this mostly means that the animal sculptures are of the island, which works very well because of the unique environment there.



Having fewer orchids arranged less densly than previously meant that the flowers made more of an impact individually and it was easier to appreciate their unique characteristics. Orchids have been around for approximately 80 million years and over that time they have evolved into over 800 genera; that is a lot of variety.

 

One advatnage of the members' day was that it was quieter thnan usual and another is that coming at the very start of the month-long festoval it means that it will be worth going back again in a couple of weeks or so when different orchids will be in flower.

30 January 2024

Drop The Dead Donkey: The Reawakening! at Richmond Theatre


So often when I book a theatre show it is a no-brainer but very few are such obvious choices as an update to Drop The Dead Donkey written by the original team, Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin, and staring many of the original cast.

Quickness got me my preferred seat, Dress Circle A24, for £37.5 on the very first night of the long tour. Quickness was necessary as the week was completely sold out, though it has already been booked to come back again in June.

The premise was simple, the original Globelink News team had been recruited to start a new algorithm-led TV news channel on the lines of Talk TV or GB News.

The cast came on stage one at a time to loud cheers from the audience and a chorus of "Oh Fucks! from those already there.

After that it was pretty much Drop The Dead Donkey as we lovingly remembered and loved it with the same characters behaving in the same way and saying the same sort of things. 

The dialogue was constantly funny and the one-liners came thick and fast. There were topical jokes too, such as a reference to Marcus Rashford who had been in the news just a couple of days previously.

There was some good physical jokes too, like George's run-ins with a voice-activated coffee machine, and with a light switch.

Drop The Dead Donkey: The Reawakening! was everything that I hoped it would be, and more. It was genuinely funny in its own right and being an update on an old favourite was a nice bonus.


27 January 2024

The Hills of California at Harold Pinter Theatre

A few things had to fail and to work for this evening to happen.

It was my birthday so I was looking for a special show to see and my default option, a Matthew Bourne ballet at Sadler's Wells, was thwarted by the show finishing earlier in the month. I was rescued by a new Jez Butterworth play opening on my birthday and ATG offering club members decent prices.

I was quick to book and secured three seats in the centre of the front row of the Royal Circle for £55 each. Clearly a good deal.

Of course I had to find a suitable venue to eat beforehand and with my sister joining us the usual vegetarian Indian across the road from the theatre was not an option. A quick search came up with the swanky and moderately priced Masala Zone on Piccadilly Circus. It proved to be an excellent choice, the food was superb and different, the service was exemplary and the ambience was perfect. I will be going back!

The view from my seat was very good and I settled down for a show that was expected to run to a little over three hours, with breaks; hence the 7pm start time.

The scene was the private quarters of the Sea View Guest House in the wrong part of Blackpool (it does not have any sea views) where four sisters are gathered on the imminent death of their mother. As they reminisce they talk about when they were girls and their mother was building them into a singing troupe modelled on the (three) Andrews Sisters.

After a while the stage rotated and took us back in time to the same room when they were girls.

And that is about it.

As with the other Jez Butterworth plays I had seen (Jerusalem and Ferryman) there was a lot of talking, some of it funny some of it dark, but little in the way of action. That may sound like a thin meal but then nothing happens in Waiting for Godot either. The Hills of California relies on its dialogue and with Butterworth the dialogue is more than enough. The two and a half hours or so are thoroughly engaging, helped by excellent performance all round from the women and the girls.

I wanted something special for my birthday treat and The Hills of California was just that.

6 January 2024

Memento at Hounslow Sports and Social Club (6 Jan 24)


I was aware that Hounslow Sports and Social Club was on the local covers band circuit and I had walked past the place a few times on my walks but I had never been there before. What took me there this time was Memento, feedback from other people who had been there and confirmation that some mates were also going. 

 I have targets to reach so I walked there, the route I chose was 9.5km, took 1 hour 45 and added a few more roads to my CityStrides Lifemap. My timing was good too and I arrived at 9pm just as the band started playing.

The venue had a lot going for it. While it cost £3 to enter (it is a members club) that was quickly made up with the cheap beer, at £3.4 for a pint of Pravha it was almost a steal. And being a social club, it was well set up for concerts with a stage, dance area then tables then a long bar. It was busy too which always helps.

The stage was well and truly set for Memento and they used it very well. They are excellent musicians and play some great songs, e.g. Stairway to Heaven, and a few not so great songs that are still good to hear, e.g. Final Countdown.

With a short break, they played until well gone 11pm, stretching the value of the £3 investment even further. It was a superb evening and I strongly suspect that I will be back to Hounslow before too long.

I'll see Memento again even sooner. Friday.