T'eyla Minh

Paul reminded me a couple of days after the event that I'd omitted something from my Sunset UK Tour write-up(s), which in turn also jogged my memory for another tiny thing I'd forgotten.

( Addendum )

In almost-related news, I think I'm almost inspired to make a start on my epistolary AU story after re-reading the outline yesterday. I've also made a start on my other, soulmate AU, at least on paper, but it needs a lot of tidying up. I've been pottering about with various bits and pieces lately and should really start typing some of them up...

Nothing else to report, except that I didn't get the job I went for. Got feedback this morning and it was very close, points-wise, between everyone - all the things I apparently should have said at interview I literally remembered about two hours after the event. I was struggling with a really bad sore throat and fighting off an inevitable cold on the day, so my brain wasn't functioning as highly as it should have been.

They advised me at the interview (and also today) that there were supposed to be three roles, but HR would only agree two initially. They have now agreed to recruit to the third post so it should reappear at some point, and they urged me to reapply if it does. I'm currently debating whether or not I will, but I'll see how I feel if/when it rolls around, and in any case start job-hunting afresh in January when all the Christmas stress is out of the way...

TBF, I kind of suspected I hadn't got it because I didn't get a phonecall about it (I was off sick Thursday/Friday with the aforesaid cold and subsequent migraine), so I didn't find out until I checked my emails this morning. Regardless, getting to interview achieved what I set out to do, which was to prove to myself that I do, in fact, have transferable skills.

Right, having spent the past I-dont-even-want-to-know how many minutes trying to get Semagic to work with LJ and DW to make cross-posting easier, here's a write-up from Friday night, when Paul and I went to see the new UK tour production of Sunset Boulevard, starring Ria Jones and Danny Mac. I'm hoping to do this in one go, but it may well end up being two separate entries (one for each Act, as last time) because it is, of course, an Eternal Onion and some of the stuff I wanted to mention will probably end up being quite wordy once I start properly thinking about it...

Anyway, for the uninitiated, Ria Jones was the person who originated the character of Norma (as she appears in the musical) in the original production of the show back in about 1992 at the Syndmonton Festival. She was also the understudy for Glenn Close in the London production last year, which is probably all you really need to know - except that from her programme shot she looks like the Norma in my head, though oddly not so much when actually in costume!

Danny Mac was a runner up on Strictly Come Dancing and other than that I know nothing about him, but he was appropriately pretty so that'll do for me. :P

Such being said, the audience seemed to comprise mostly Strictly fans and Ria Jones fanboys and a fair few Sunset fangirls - which is a vast improvement on when we saw it in London and the audience was mostly people who were only there to see Glenn Close in her West End debut with no concept of the actual show. (The same people who subsequently threw a hissy fit when Glenn Close was off sick and Ria Jones took her place, walking out before the show even started - but fie on them because they have no idea what they were missing.)

I very much suspect the reason for the sudden UK tour, so close off the back of the London show, is because (a) it was so popular (as it always is whenever it rolls back around!) and also (b) next year will be the show's 25th anniversary, so I'm hoping the tour is a run-up to a great big London show which will (fingers crossed!) be filmed and/or broadcast live and thus released on DVD. Because HOW AWESOME WOULD THAT BE? I'd love to see Ruthie Henshall as Norma, actually...

Right, that was a big of a digression, so here's the actual write-up. I will tackle this in the same way as the last one, scene by scene. I have made some rough (mostly illegible) notes to work from, scribbled down when I got home Friday night, so hopefully I won't forget anything!

( Sunset Boulevard UK Tour 2017 )

Right, it took me far too long to get around to this and (of course) it's taking me longer than anticipated, so I will post this first part now and tackle the rest after dinner - or possibly tomorrow.

Watch this space!

Right, I will approach this in much the same manner as the previous one by going through the score song by song.

Before that, though, there's something I forgot to mention in the first post - it's more of a general observation anyway so it doesn't really fit any specific scene...

Basically, the whole show was imbued with additional irony by the sheer fact that it was Glenn Close starring as Norma Desmond - not least because she last played the role on Broadway 20 years ago. All of the references to Norma's "return" to Hollywood and her status as a big name at the time were doubly relevant. In particular, this exchange:-

JOE: Norma, they don't want you in every scene.
NORMA: Of course they do - what else would they have come for?

Given that (I assume) quite a lot of the audience were only there to see Glenn Close, or specifically to see her in this show, that part was especially ironic, and there was definitely a murmur of amused acknowledgement from the audience.

Anyway, without further ado, here is the rest of the write-up - hopefully this one will not take me seven hours like the last one did...

( Act Two )


Well, this one did not take quite as long as the last one, but I still have no idea where any of it came from.

My next task is to start a complete overhaul of "Tango Up On Sunset" to try and include all of these new feels and theories. I am looking forward to that, in a vaguely masochistic kind of way...

I can't believe there's only one more episode to go. :(

( Babylon )

In other news, today the occupants of Lifford House have had to evacuate and work elsewhere due to a burst water main in the street. I thankfully had a meeting at the access centre this afternoon, and another one tomorrow morning, so hopefully by the time I've come out again it might be fixed...

Only one more of these entries to get through, and then we shall return to your regularly scheduled lack of posting other than to complain about my health and my job. Although there is every likelihood that after seeing Sunset Boulevard in April I will fall back into that fandom with an almighty crash, as usual, by which point I should hopefully have had time to get X-Files out of my system again.

So yeah: BE WARNED.

... on episode 3.

( Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster )

I can't believe this season is half over already. :( Six episodes? NOT ENOUGH.

So, series five of Jonathan Creek started last night (only just in February, it seems). As you might have guessed, I approached this situation with no small amount of trepidation, given the low-flying rumours and episode information handed out beforehand...

I can safely say it wasn't as bad as "The Clue of the Savant's Thumb" - but in fairness, very little could be as bad as that - and I think in many respects I approached series five in much the same way as I approached the POTO movie ten years ago, i.e. that I'd built it up to be so horrendously awful that anything more than that would have been a bonus.

(The irony of these two things being a decade apart has only just occurred to me.)

Anyway, some thoughts under the cut, rambling, shambolic, and with hopefully slightly less capslock abuse than last time, but I promise nothing! (Also: this icon makes me feel better.)

( The Letters of Septimus Noone )

So, there it is. Let's see what the next two weeks have to hold. I can't say I feel much better about the possibility of Caroline Quentin returning, even at this juncture, but let's not count our chickens, eh? ;)

In other news, I have a very annoying tickly cough which I suspect is as a result of there being no heating at the Access Centre and thus breathing in recycled fan-heater air. I've been sneezing / sniffly for months now so I wish it would just turn into a cold and be done with it!

Well, that was an up-and-down sort of four days...

( Easter Weekend )

So, that was our Easter weekend. I had planned to get through a load of washing, but obviously the weather conspired against me. According to the weather forecast it's also going to be grim when we're away in Tenby next week, although they also said we would have ten solid days of rain in Birmingham and there's blue sky out there today, so maybe they're wrong. ;)

Here's the recipe for the Indian-style prawn toasts, off the top of my head... I might have missed something seasoning-wise but I think this was the process.

( Recipe: Indian-Style Prawn Toast )

Today I have managed to injure myself twice in the space of 30 minutes, firstly by bashing the back of my hand off the corner of a desk (I actually have a lump there now), and secondly by walking into the door frame on my way downstairs (probably going to be a lovely bruise). I'm going to the gym later so let's see what else I manage to do. Also my fingers are peeling at a rate of knots, so no chance of getting my nails done all pretty for going away next week. Bah.

Okay, I think that's long enough. Over and out.

I turned the three-day Bank Holiday weekend into four days by having Friday off. Initially we were meant to use this day for house-viewings but only managed to get one in, on the Saturday. Instead I used Friday to have a much-needed lie-in, and we didn't do anything except go out for a very nice curry at Pangaea in the evening.

( House viewing )

After that we went home via town, realising on the way there that it was Pride weekend. We had some breakfast in the Briar (having left too early to have any before), where we ran into Abi and Anna (ex-Inliners), who were fuelling up for the parade. Unfortunately I have been too knackered to enjoy Pride in about four years so we decided against it, instead popping into the Works (picked up a new recipe book, containing useful information on how long to freeze stuff, and some presents for a one-year old), and then into GameStation (three Wii games obtained - Wii Music, Super Paper Mario and a Star Wars game for Paul).

I spent the rest of Saturday catching up on EastEnders and watching How to Train Your Dragon, which was quite good, whilst Paul was out for Jon's birthday drinks at the Yardbird (I wasn't in the mood for a loud pub or going out again).

On Sunday we went to Jen and Dave's for Acacia's first birthday bash. We had bought her a harmonica (well, that was more for Dave) and a duck hand-puppet that quacked three different tunes (Frere Jacques, London Bridge and Old MacDonald, if I remember rightly). It took Paul and I at least an hour to figure out that the different 'notes' the duck quacked were not random; shamefully, Dave figured it out in about three seconds. :P

I had taken an antihistamine before going to Jen and Dave's because they have cats, except I foolishly bought Sainsbury's own the last time because they were half the price of Benadryl for twice as many tablets, and only realised they weren't non-drowsy about half an hour later. Thankfully the party didn't last too long and we were back home again by about 3.00. I pottered about online for an hour or so and then joined Paul in a two-hour nap.

Oh, I forgot to mention - our oven is broken again. As a first attempt Paul stuck down the bottom lip of the seal again in the hope that would help, as it appeared to be not heating up and circulating cold air, but after a quick Google search it transpires it's the heating element that's broken. It is actually very easy to replace oneself if the oven is set up in such a way as to be able to unscrew it by just taking the back wall of the cavity off, except (of course) with ours you have to go in from behind, which means disconnecting the electrics. So that'll have to be a call-out job (found somewhere online which will do it for about £120 all in, which is cheaper than a new cooker). Thankfully the grill acts as an oven also, so we've had to use that. As a result, however, we ended up ordering pizza on Sunday night.

I can pretty much guarantee that once we've fixed the oven, the next thing to die will be our fridge. The door seal is not looking healthy as it is, and this flat seems content to drive me mad before we get a chance to move. :P

( Fandom-Filled Monday )

Back at work today and it's a long time until my next leave. Once Paul's leave year refreshes in July I need to book my time off in September for a holiday, but I will probably need a day or two before then in any case... No choir tonight as it was a bank holiday yesterday and also half-term this week, so we're going to the gym instead, with our last personal training session tomorrow. Or, well, we're going to ask if we can drop to an hour per fortnight for a bit as £80 per month (£40 each) is more manageable than £160...

Ah, and it's now midday so I can post this. Huzzah.

PS: It has just occurred to me that I could use the Wayback Machine to retrieve my old Brinkster site, possibly. Hmmm. *scratches imaginary beard*

Okay, I have music meme stuff and embroidery stuff to post, and in regards to the former I will just be re-starting where I left off, because I think my last meme post was on 27th August and I don't feel like doing that many in one go... I also have some other bits to update about.

( Music Meme and Embroidery Pics 21-23/?? )

My week off is almost over and I have no idea where the time went... In brief:

Saturday - I made my first ever curry! We went to a nearby supermarket and got £15-worth (a full carrier bag) of spices in order to make said curry, followed by a trip to Moseley Farmers' Market for sausages, cheese, local ale, wine, etc. Spent rather too much money, but meh. Anyway, I've now rebagged all the spices (including a 1kg bag of garam masala - I'm going to be making a LOT of curry now...) and my kitchen smells divine. :D As for the actual curry, I did spiced fishcakes to start with a coriander chutney, followed by Anjum Anand's "Punjabi Chicken Curry", which was lovely. I forgot to put the chillies in, and also I put in too much water so it didn't quite go as the recipe stated and I had to thicken with cornflour, but it tasted delicious. Definitely going to make that again. :)

Sunday - I think I had a migraine. Can't remember.

Monday - went to visit jackiesjottings in Oxford, which was a lovely day. We had to change at Milton Keynes, where the structure they laughingly referred to as a bus station consisted of three portacabins and some pavement, with only a cricket ground nearby to break the tedium. It was about a 15-minute walk from the actual bus station in the city centre and thus not worth the effort. Milton Keynes is poo; everything is square and all the buildings are identical. Give me an organic rambling city any day.

As for Oxford, it was beautiful. I wish I'd been clever enough to go there for uni, really. Something about the surroundings inpsires you to Be Academic. We wandered around several of the colleges, found lunch in a quiet pub, and were briefly followed around by a strange-but-friendly cat. Photos are here.

Tuesday - nowt. Recovering from the day before!

Wednesday - we went out to see Avatar in 3D at the IMAX, having missed it the first time around. ( Review / Spoilers )

Thursday - more nothing. Did some more embroidery.

Friday - we were supposed to see Toy Story 3 but neither of us were particularly in the mood. Spent the afternoon searching for shoes for Paul as he's at a wedding today, then he went off to stay over at the bride's mother's (don't even ask, it's the weirdest wedding ever - Paul is a "bridesmate" for starters...) and I came home and watched Marie Antoinette, which we'd picked up at Blockbuster in the cheap sale DVDs rack. Quite an interesting film... Internet was deaded all last night (in addition to cable telly being half-b0rk all day yesterday and again today - you suck, Virgin). I stayed up til about 2.00am in order to knacker myself out before attempting to sleep, otherwise I wouldn't have managed it. Surprisingly, I actually had a fairly good night's sleep, although did have a very odd dream this morning that Paul had briefly come home before going back out to the wedding again...

Today - nothing much at all. Got up 10.00ish after finishing my current book ("Loves Music, Loves to Dance" by Mary Higgins Clark) and have pottered on t'internet since then. Should probably straighten my hair and get ready soon as I have to be at the same wedding's reception at 6.00. Given I hardly fit into any of my clothes any more, I have no idea what to wear. Meh.

Tomorrow - chillaxing and enjoying the last day of my leave. I should have booked another week. Hopefully I will be having another week off after my birthday anyway.

And that's it.

So, I actually have a whole week to update about, if not longer... Cut to save your eyeballs.

( Birthday! )

( Weekend )

( Week Off, including film review... )

( London Weekend )

Sooo, that was London. As I said, show write-up coming later.

As for Sunday, I was aching for most of the day thanks to my injury, so didn't do very much at all. Unpacked the case, did some washing, watched my 'stories', and not much else.

This entry has taken two days to get written thanks to lots of typing yesterday, but at least last night I managed to finish Katie's CD letter and hopefully I can get that posted this afternoon. I now need to knuckle down and finish my Christmas decorations, as I was hoping to get another one at least midway finished during my week off and somewhat failed due to the horrible distraction that is daytime television and DS games.

Photos of Christmas decorations coming soon, also.

Right, that's more than enough. Over and out.