A night at the Operetta

Our local village has more than one dramatic arts group to join - if only I had the time!!!!

The Gilber and Sullivan group have just finished a run of the GONDOLIERS and we knew 4 people in it so went along to see it.

Hearing that the theatre at the local school was hard to find we set off early to walk there giving us plenty of time. As we neared the gate I realised that the tickets had fallen out of my pocket and had to retrace my steps all the way back to the house to find them.

Our early start soon disappeared and saw us sheepishly scampering across the front of the auditorium to the last remaining seats just before the pianist started the Overture.

The show was very good even if a large section of the cast are a bit long in the tooth to be playing 'fair maidens' or 'handsome suitors'!

I think in fact that my inability to join the group because of my shifts may be a good thing: don't think my acting skills would allow me to even pretend to be romantically interested in someone old enough to have knitted my first cardigan!

Exactly when did the 90s end?

We recently went to see Divine Comedy at Warwick Arts Centre.
The name doesn't mean much to you: they did that song about the "National Express" - yeah that's all anyone remembers them for.

We mostly went cos the eccentric Duke Special was supporting and got there in the rain just in time to hear him.

Then Divine Comedy came on. The whole band look like they did when you saw them on tv when they were a bit more famous in the 90s. Still got 90s hair and still wearing 90s clothes.

It was weird to be at a gig where everyone else knew all the words but you didn't - felt that everyone was looking at us thinking "frauds". Still we had a good laugh people watching at the eclectic mix such a gig invites.

By the time they sang National Express I have to admit I was bored of standing up being jostled by 90s throwback geeks.

Working 9 til 5...

It certainly isn't a way to make a living - as the song says.

I just finished a two week 'course' at Police HQ to complete my probationer training.

Having worked shifts for the last 20 something weeks - what a nightmare working Mon-Fri 9-5 (well we never stayed later than 4) is.

I couldn't go back to civvie life again.

I've missed so much daytime tv, I had to get up the same unearthly hour everyday and commute with everyone else, sitting in traffic jams.

To make it worse the course wasn't even worth going on: it repeated things we'd already taught us and patronised with any new info by presenting it in such a dry way - the tutor even fell asleep twice!

Thankfully I am now enjoying a week off before getting back to the grindstone again of real Police work.

Have enjoyed having weekends again tho and very glad of the opportunity to use them to see friends and family who came to visit us here, or we travelled to them in Leicester or Surrey.

Right it's 13:45 now - should go and get dressed!

The Tate's in a State!

I have always loved visiting the Tate Modern and so was looking forward to seeing the new "rehang". UBS sponsored the new rehang which opened on May 23rd this year.

We decided to spend our 1st wedding anniversary in London wine tasting and gallery visiting so this seemed a good opportunity to visit the new and exciting Tate Modern collection. It was great to see some new exhibits but overall I wasn't too impressed. In fact I didn't like it.

"Study for Composition VII", 1913, oil and tempera on canvas, 785 x 1005 mm

The Kandinsky exhibition was fantastic and the new multimedia guide on a pda was excellent - highly recommend this to everyone (although the Kandinsky exhibition has finished!)

After seeing the Kandinsky work we visited the rest of the gallery- it was a busy Sunday morning and there were LOTS of people there which made it hard to view the work.

We were most disturbed by the new hanging of some of the rooms. The new hanging made the rooms very cluttered with multiple artworks displayed at different heights. We felt that this made it very difficult to appreciate each one individually.

Before we left we filled in a comment card explaining our feelings about the rehang...

A few weeks later I took a group of year 11, 12 and 13 students from school to the Tate Modern as part of their GCSE and A Level Art courses. While they wandered around completing the tasks we'd set I was able to wander round too. It was a much quieter Friday afternoon this time and I had time t hire the new multimedia guide for the main collection - this was just a impresive as the one we'd had for the Kandinsky exhibition - infact I didn't have time to finish it so will have to go back again.

When I got to that displeasingly cluttered room my multimdia gude put me in my place by explaining why it had been hung inthat way. Now with less people there I was able to appreciate that it was the Surrealist section of the gallery and that the earliest Surrealist exhibitions had been displayed in this way because of lack of space and to create a sense of disorder. The rehang has tried to recreate this Surrealist salon experience.

At least they haven't messed with the Rothko room.

Emma