DAY 10... or is it DAY 11???
I am in London and I am home sick. I am very well surrounded with friends, acquaintances and chance encounters, yet I miss my bosom buddies from back home. Every day I do several interesting things, and am starting to feel tired of it. I don’t think my body functions all that well on vacation… Because I am in London, I don’t allow myself to laze around and read. So I “do something,” and don’t laze around and read. I am starting to understand how people return from holiday more tired than they were before leaving!
I usually set out at around noon. I bring a lunch, which saves me oodles of money (more on that later). Yesterday I was a bit tight to go to the National Portrait Museum before the matinee at the Globe, so I passed by Westminster Abbey instead. I didn’t go inside because the fee is 10 £ (about 20 $ CDN) and had little time, so I took a few pictures of the outside before heading towards the South bank.
The Globe is a recreation of the theatre where Shakespeare worked and presented his plays. It is set pretty much where the original Globe was located. It is an Elizabethean theatre made of wood (uncomfortable seats), with an open roof (if it rains, you and the actors get rained on, and pigeons eventually become part of the performance) with an expanded stage that spreads into the parterre, where the 5£ ticket holders (that’s me!) stand throughout the play (that’s right, the parterre has no seats). I saw Love’s Labour’s Lost, a comedy. The Globe seeks to recreate the spirit of Shakespeare’s plays as they were presented 450 years ago, which means that instead of being scruffy old Shakespeare as most imagine, the plays include music, singing and dancing, there is lots of room for burlesque type physical comedy, and in a whole they are “popular” and coarse (and in some cases, down right vulgar). Also, they encourage the audience to participate in the play, much as viewers used to do, voicing their pleasure or discontent directly to the actors. The standing for 3 hours was a bit rough, but well worth it! It was funny, the actors were engaging and generally I had a great time. They are also showing The Merchant of Venice now, which could be interesting to do this week-end.
Afterwards I practically forced myself upon Valentine (poor thing), a friend of Claire’s who studied Industrial Design in London and now works here. It is the international design happening and thanks to her I got to attend Design Boom, and exhibit of a bunch of young and upcoming designers, from ceramics, to lighting, to textiles. The venue was strange and enchanting: two old side-by-side factories, haphazard, unfinished and unpolished, where the works were exposed in corners, some at the end of labyrinth passages, painted up to suit the needs of the exposed pieces. My co-worker Mike, who had mentioned this design week to me, can now be seriously envious of me! There were people from everywhere, and the imagination and talent of some of these designers is simply amazing. And Valentina is a darling. A memorable evening.
This evening, Claire and I went to the reading & discussion of Jonathan Coe’s new book: The Rain Before it Falls. It took place is a big bookstore on Piccadilly. To my great surprise, this 3 £ event attracted no more than 40 attendees, many of whom seemed to be foreigners like myself. I asked J Coe about it at the end during the signing, and he said that the British audience prefers the biographical type novel. Apparently the turnout was very successful for London. He also said that his Italian audience is much more enthusiastic, and that 12,000 people showed up at his reading in Italy.
Today I walked around a rich department store, Harvey Nichols. I was looking for Harrods, but never fell upon it. HN is overpriced. The customers were mostly older women. Dom’s sister had suggested I go there to try out the sushi bar that’s on the top floor. To my surprise, the food court is filled with bio and fine imported foods. Quite interesting to browse around. As for the sushi, I had decided it would be my lunch. They seat you down along a counter that has a conveyor belt on which various sushi dishes are strolled along. The dishes are colour coded for pricing. The meal was delicious. The sushis did not crumble when bitten into, the fish melt in my mouth, and they had little bean paste treats for desert. The whole meal included miso soup, 5 little plates, and water, and it set me back 23 £ (about 50 $CDN). So from now on I think I’ll be making myself some more lunches…
Today I did get a chance to go to the National Portrait Gallery between HN and J Coe. I found the museum very interesting, but my mood was a bit dampened by a headache. Meanwhile, an official launch was taking place on the ground floor called “Confessions to a Serial Womaniser: Secrets of the World's Inspirational Women” by Jeroo Roy. This city is quite a busy one.
I usually set out at around noon. I bring a lunch, which saves me oodles of money (more on that later). Yesterday I was a bit tight to go to the National Portrait Museum before the matinee at the Globe, so I passed by Westminster Abbey instead. I didn’t go inside because the fee is 10 £ (about 20 $ CDN) and had little time, so I took a few pictures of the outside before heading towards the South bank.
The Globe is a recreation of the theatre where Shakespeare worked and presented his plays. It is set pretty much where the original Globe was located. It is an Elizabethean theatre made of wood (uncomfortable seats), with an open roof (if it rains, you and the actors get rained on, and pigeons eventually become part of the performance) with an expanded stage that spreads into the parterre, where the 5£ ticket holders (that’s me!) stand throughout the play (that’s right, the parterre has no seats). I saw Love’s Labour’s Lost, a comedy. The Globe seeks to recreate the spirit of Shakespeare’s plays as they were presented 450 years ago, which means that instead of being scruffy old Shakespeare as most imagine, the plays include music, singing and dancing, there is lots of room for burlesque type physical comedy, and in a whole they are “popular” and coarse (and in some cases, down right vulgar). Also, they encourage the audience to participate in the play, much as viewers used to do, voicing their pleasure or discontent directly to the actors. The standing for 3 hours was a bit rough, but well worth it! It was funny, the actors were engaging and generally I had a great time. They are also showing The Merchant of Venice now, which could be interesting to do this week-end.
Afterwards I practically forced myself upon Valentine (poor thing), a friend of Claire’s who studied Industrial Design in London and now works here. It is the international design happening and thanks to her I got to attend Design Boom, and exhibit of a bunch of young and upcoming designers, from ceramics, to lighting, to textiles. The venue was strange and enchanting: two old side-by-side factories, haphazard, unfinished and unpolished, where the works were exposed in corners, some at the end of labyrinth passages, painted up to suit the needs of the exposed pieces. My co-worker Mike, who had mentioned this design week to me, can now be seriously envious of me! There were people from everywhere, and the imagination and talent of some of these designers is simply amazing. And Valentina is a darling. A memorable evening.
This evening, Claire and I went to the reading & discussion of Jonathan Coe’s new book: The Rain Before it Falls. It took place is a big bookstore on Piccadilly. To my great surprise, this 3 £ event attracted no more than 40 attendees, many of whom seemed to be foreigners like myself. I asked J Coe about it at the end during the signing, and he said that the British audience prefers the biographical type novel. Apparently the turnout was very successful for London. He also said that his Italian audience is much more enthusiastic, and that 12,000 people showed up at his reading in Italy.
Today I walked around a rich department store, Harvey Nichols. I was looking for Harrods, but never fell upon it. HN is overpriced. The customers were mostly older women. Dom’s sister had suggested I go there to try out the sushi bar that’s on the top floor. To my surprise, the food court is filled with bio and fine imported foods. Quite interesting to browse around. As for the sushi, I had decided it would be my lunch. They seat you down along a counter that has a conveyor belt on which various sushi dishes are strolled along. The dishes are colour coded for pricing. The meal was delicious. The sushis did not crumble when bitten into, the fish melt in my mouth, and they had little bean paste treats for desert. The whole meal included miso soup, 5 little plates, and water, and it set me back 23 £ (about 50 $CDN). So from now on I think I’ll be making myself some more lunches…
Today I did get a chance to go to the National Portrait Gallery between HN and J Coe. I found the museum very interesting, but my mood was a bit dampened by a headache. Meanwhile, an official launch was taking place on the ground floor called “Confessions to a Serial Womaniser: Secrets of the World's Inspirational Women” by Jeroo Roy. This city is quite a busy one.
posted by julie at
7:04 p.m.
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