Air ambulance

We had noticed a sign about second hand books outside a house on the edge of Holne in years gone by, but on this occasion we actually made it in. The occupants turning out to be an army couple retired from somewhere west of London to Holne and who run a second hand book operation out of a large shed in their front garden, mainly in aid of the Devon Air Ambulance. It seems that they do rather well at it.

A lot of ladies' holiday reading, but I turned up the two volumes illustrated.

First, a celebration of 50 years of Jamaican independence, produced with or by the Daily Gleaner, lots of shots of front pages being included among the political, sporting and cultural events. Plus coverage of visits by world celebrities like Martin Luther King,  Haille Selassie and Fidel Castro.

Second, a luxury hardback, if not learned, edition of Romeo and Juliet from Sterling Signature of New York. From reference 1, I learn that this is an imprint of Sterling Publishing, an imprint which does what one might call gift books and which appears to include half a dozen or so of the better known Bardic plays. Rather more books about various aspects of wedding planning.

Romeo and Juliet comes with a reasonable amount of apparatus, including introductory essays and in-page translations of obscure words and usages. Nicely produced with good quality paper, generous amounts of white space and respectable binding in signatures. But the main point is the illustrations by one Kevin Stanton including a lot of what one might call cut-out art. See reference 2. While reference 3 gives quite a good idea of his contribution to the book in question.

Apart from adding to my collection of Bardic texts, Arden and other, the book has served to remind me of a rather odd speech by Romeo in Act III, Scene III in which he compares his lot to that of a carrion fly, still allowed to crawl the hand of his Juliet. The gloss tells me that the carrion fly is the sort of fly which lays its eggs in rotting flesh.

Reference 1: https://www.sterlingpublishing.com/.

Reference 2: https://www.behance.net/kevinjaystanton.

Reference 3: https://www.behance.net/gallery/3874119/Romeo-and-Juliet.

Wilde one

As just advertised, last week to the Vaudeville Theatre in the Strand to see a revival of 'A woman of no importance', first performed there some hundred years before.

Not quite as lush as some west end theatres.

Much talk of proscenium arches in the interesting programme, seemingly an invention of the Victorians. Must read it again.

Four scenes interspersed with three songs, these last being led by the spirited and not so young Anne Reid (Lady Hunstanton). It all seemed rather too long to me, with far too many gaps between the gags, to the point where I nodded a bit during the second scene. Good effort from Eve Best (Mrs. Arbuthnot) in the second half. While Dominic Rowan (Lord Illingworth) did not quite pull it off. Crystal Clarke (Miss. Hester Worsley) rather weak. A play which apart from showcasing Wilde's brand of humour - rather too much of it for my taste. Its not that funny - did address some of the serious issues of the day; he did fancy himself as a serious writer. But it all seemed a bit tired to me. Maybe a slicker, quicker production would have been better.

Quite a large cast, with sixteen turning out for the curtain call at the end.

Tea and cake at Delaunay's on the Aldwych, with it being mild enough to sit outside and watch all the goings on - including plenty of very high heels, some clearly causing the wearers some discomfort. My second visit to the establishment, my first being noticed at reference 1.

Over Waterloo Bridge, where I managed to slip going down some steps, managing to bash my right arm and shoulder on the way down, and on to the Green Room where the very pretty and luvvy looking waitress guarding the floor of the restaurant denied us access - and we did not care to wait until tables would be freed up by people going off to the National next door. Nor did I pat her knee or anything else. I must have noticed our successful first visit to the place, some time ago now, but so far I have failed to find it. I shall carry on looking and may report further in due course.

The first of two outings to this Wilde season.

PS: later: our last visit turns out to the Green Room restaurant turns out to have been around two years ago, with the key to finding it being 'Rambert' of the ballet.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/cello.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/big-charles-1.html.

Reference 3: http://www.greenroom.london/.

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proscenium. It is now clear that the things were around a long time before the Victorians had a go, whatever the programme might say.

Den of iniquity

The rather discrete brass plate indicating the presence of the headquarters of the Nimex theatrical empire down a very Victorian looking alley next to the Vaudeville theatre, off the Strand.

No doubt the scene of all kinds of dreadful knee patting in its time.

PS: we must be the laughing of stock of Europe. First we vote to abandon ship, now we are sacking senior ministers for patting young ladies' knees twenty years previously.

Fake 18

Snapped in the course of our picnic at the RFH on our way to the Vaudeville Theatre, an outing which I am about to notice.

Substantial wooden steps which at first glance appear to have been fashioned from solid timber but which at second glance puzzled. Clearly some sort of laminate but I was puzzled by the ends, which did not look like any end grain that I knew, rather as if something had been glued onto the ends. Fair enough now, but were they doing this kind of faking back in the 1950's? Maybe all will become clear if I take another look.

The rather grander wooden steps of the main staircase up to the various levels of the hall proper were different again. More obviously a sophisticated version of blockboard as I recall.

Donkey alert!

We were concerned to read in yesterday's Guardian about a major problem, not to say catastrophe, in the world of donkeys.

It seems that for more than 2,000 years the Chinese have been making a folk remedy by boiling down donkey skins to a sort of jelly. For all this time the consumption of the jelly - and in consequence of donkeys - was modest. But now the Chinese are rich and have health fads and fashions just like us, and demand for this jelly has shot up. While the local supply of donkeys has shot down, in part because of the massive movement of population from country to town.

With the result that their buyers are scouring the world for supplies of donkeys, the price of donkeys is rising and ordinary working donkeys are already beyond the reach of a lot of the poorer farmers in the poorer parts of the world. There are also reports of casual cruelty.

The European Commission is on the case and is thought to have proposals to take to the United Nations shortly. Maybe POTUS can be persuaded to take some time out of his busy schedule and take on the chairmanship of the proposed OffDonk, although some doubt whether he will be able to overcome his distaste for this symbol of the hated Democratic Party, all but commies.

Knotweed

On the first Horton Clockwise for a while, spotted this knotweed like plant in the hedge along Christchurch Road. Not Japanese knotweed, but with similar habits. What looks like a freely suckering, quickly spreading clump.

Then along Horton Lane to find plenty of flail action along the hedgerows, action which has left its usual, rather ugly mess.

I associated to the trees of Sheffield being taken down by their PFI roads contractor. In the present case, I imagined the council going along to their contractor to be told something along the lines: 'You didn't say anything about doing it nicely when you let the contract. And you don't seem to understand how much it would cost to do nice with the sort of people that we employ to do this sort of work. We might be able to do something for another £500,000 a year...'. Which, of course, the council has not got.

I associate further to IT contracts, where the main contract might well be let at a loss by a contractor keen to get the work, who would then get his money back in spades from all the change notices which would be issued through the life of the contract. Things which had not been thought of. Mistakes. The world changing. It all adds up, but the increments, taken one at a time, are not too hard to swallow.

Which all goes to show that getting someone else to do the work (aka privatisation) does not save us as much money as the Tories would have us believe. Not least because it greatly reduces one's ability to flex with changing circumstances. Not least because that is the whole point: let's pass a few fat contracts to our friends at the Bullingdon Club. Or wherever.

PS: the post having just been delivered, I can offer a footnote on the wonders of contracting out. Two theatre tickets for a show in Whitehall, bought from London Theatre Direct, have arrived from the Czech Republic. What on earth is going on? Is there some enormous ticketing operation serving the whole of Europe and beyond working out of some shed in Prague old town (aka Krocinova 3)? Have I been scammed? Perhaps it is appropriate that the theatre in question used to be the home of the famous Whitehall farces.

Free services

Bing's picture of the day today is a striking picture from a place called Uummannaq, an island just off the west coast of Greenland, just across the water from Baffin Island.

Curious, I went across to gmaps (reference 70.677187,-52.1188768) to find that the StreetView cameras had got there by August 2015.

Considering that advertisements are not very intrusive at all in the parts of google that I use, that is a lot of service. Somebody has to pay those camera men to wander around far flung parts of the world and to pump the images out onto the Internet.

Thinking with my fingers, I dare say google knows a good deal about me and tunes what it turns up for me accordingly. This is often a good thing, as careless search terms often turn up the right thing, that is to say whatever it was that I was looking for. Sometimes what it thought I ought to be looking for. But maybe they actually get paid by selling my email address to people who want to send me advertising emails, people like theatres. So maybe I pay for my google services through theatre tickets. While other people might pay their share through other online goodies. A sort of indirect tax like VAT, with the difference that this tax is going to a for-profit entity, rather than to my elected and reasonably representative government. With a small slice going to those nice tax haven people in the Duchy of Luxembourg.