| There was another goodbye this month: Duncan & Lynn semi-relocated to Jersey, as Duncan has now become the Chief Statistician of the island and is therefore in charge of numbers in what is nearly, for most practical purposes, an independent country. I think he should make everyone in St Hellier count in the binary system, as it's bound to prove more economical. Lynn, pictured above with Bridget will flit from England to the mother country (the Duchy of Normandy) every week, as she will continue to work for the UK Food Standards Agency: indeed food standards were veryhigh at their leaving dinner chez Millard. Fi and Mark can be seen here with the remains of Duncan's piece de resistance, his fiery, vampire-baiting garlic laden guacemole. The stars of the evening were the vegetarian chilli fajitas, a photograph of which can be seen below. I don't normally take pictures of food, but it could become my forte- raspberry meringues, for example are known to have much less difficult egos than Naomi Campbell Martin & Julia, pictured below, were also at the soiree. and can be seen enjoying a private joke. I have to say though, that Colin looks a little bit nonplussed by it all. Rather a lot of red wine later, things were still going well, and my fellow guests were forgiving of my general garrulousness and we tried to play Just a Minute with the subject being "Nicholas Parsons is senile." I wish people would just take me to one side and say "Now, just be quiet, Mike," as it would probably do me good. Not that it did when I was a child.... As ever, I was the last to leave, and I donned my increasingly curious wardrobe. My Albanian scarf has now become de rigeur and I am not surprised to hear that corduroy suits have been banned from one of my former workplaces. What do I look like? Cross between Freddie Krueger and Dr Who, that's who... |
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| Off to the theatre again: Democracy by Michael Frayn National Theatre (Lyttelton) I have to preface these couple of paragraphs or so by admitting that I was not in the best of physical shape when we went to see this production. Neither was I that mentally alert: I had moved over the weekend, and had been over to Duncan's for the festivities described opposite...at times, I felt myself lolling around in my seat, trying to ward off sleep rather as I had in that one-man production of Under Milk Wood in Edinburgh last year, the memory of which still hurts. I had only been to the National once before, and the audience there exuded a different kind of atmosphere to the West End- at times it felt as though we were waiting for a Liberal Democrat rally to start; people didn't buy ice-cream during the interval, they brought cartons of muesli from home which they then started to knit.... But back to the play, which I don't think caused my somnolence- the subject matter was right up my street- Willy Brandt trying to open up relations with the GDR and Eastern Europe whilst an East German spy worked away in his office, the scenario allowing themes of loyalty both political and personal, ideological and national to be examined. Yet somehow, I didn't feel drawn into the whole thing: maybe it was the fact that I would have found discussion of the subject matter more pertinent in a university seminar, although on reflection I think that it is more than a little unfair of me- what is the theatre but a opportunity to reflect on and embellish all aspects of life. Maybe it was the set, which looked like an installation out of IKEA, but I suppose it reflected the cleanliness and efficiency of the West German State. Perhaps the sad truth is that I would just find a play about Germany that isn't about the Nazis and all their true explorable evil just a tad too...safe. In the final analysis though, had there never been the Nazi regime, two German states would never have been created with all that attendant schizophrenia. I'm not making much sense though, am I? Do you suppose though, that in Berlin today, there are theatrefulls of Germans laughing at a play in which a weary Harold Wilson flounders across the stage,worrying about the pound in his pocket, a drunk George Brown constantly trying to resign, simpering looks from and to Marcia Falkender? It's worth a thought. I'm being far too flippant now. For more information on the production, click here. |
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