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Jul. 22nd, 2006 10:55 pmThe post this morning brought the latest brochure from the Arcola Theatre in London, advertising their forthcoming Federico García Lorca season in honour of the 70th anniversary of his death. It included a voucher for a cut-price ticket to see Mariana Pineda next week. Mariana Pineda is one of my favourite plays, but, alas, between now and the 31st I can't even raise the fare to London, let alone even a cut-price theatre ticket on top, and although the play's run extends into August I've still got so far to go to escape this wretched overdraft - and I have to find the money for my HWFC season ticket out of my next pay - so it's just not going to happen. I sadly dropped the brochure in the wastepaper bin.
Mucho mayoral duties today. First stop, this afternoon, was the opening of a new building at a local day nursery. There was a fete on there, and a sign advertised a free beer tent, and a lot of the dads and uncles were walking around drinking bottles of Beck's... A very nice lady took us on a guided tour of the nursery, including the new building, and told us all about what they do there; they had great facilities for the kids and seemed to have a very good set-up. We were never taken to the beer tent, though... My mother cut the red ribbon to symbolically open the new wing and said a few words, then we said goodbye to the lady and headed across town to a little community fete. On the drive, I mused that I'd missed out on getting a free Beck's and my mother said I'd have to get a drink at the show we were attending this evening...
While we were walking round the second fete, a group of youths said hello to me. They were the sons of my cousins Steve and Marion, plus friends. We all had a good chin wag for a while, and one of my young cousins kept asking my mother and I if we were rich. We said no, and he pointed at my mother's Mayoral chain and said "how much is that worth?" She told him it was worth £3000 but that it belongs to the Council and is only hers to wear till next May. Later we met a girl, about 12 or 13, who was mightily taken with the solid gold Mayoral chain and said she wanted to be Mayor when she grows up, so she'd get to wear it. We told her she'd have to get on the Council and serve as a councillor for 10 years to get to be Mayor, whereupon she went off the idea and decided she'd marry a Premiership footballer instead and wear diamonds. There was a hammer and bell 'Try Your Strength' stall there, and the lady organiser invited me to have a go for £1.50. I mentally put the calendar bitch's head on the whacking button, brought the hammer down like Thor, rang the bell, and was invited to pick a prize from a selection of kids' toys! They had Rubik cubes, so I chose one of those for nostalgia.
This evening it was off to the Thorngate to see their resident amateur variety company in 'Hooray for Hollywood', a light-hearted singing and dancing tribute to legends of the silver screen through the decades. We were welcomed by the company secretary and shown to seats in the front row. When we were seated and the secretary had left us to go about her duties, I, desperate for a beer, looked round to the corner. Disaster - the bar was shut. I had to settle for popping into the foyer for a can of Coke, then returned to my seat to find I was unable to sit as my mother was leaning across it to talk to someone in the second row. I discreetly said 'excuse me' but still had a few minutes to wait before she moved over to let me sit. Then, as she'd done with her conversation, I began to moan about the absence of alcoholic beverages on offer. My mother told me to go next door, to the Thorngate complex's main bar, in the interval; I replied that the interval wouldn't be long enough for me to go there, get served (especially with Saturday night queues) and come back in time for the second half, and anyway the bar next door is a private members' club so they wouldn't even let me in. I moaned on - and as we weren't talking to anyone else, and the show hadn't started yet, and I really was cheesed off about the lack of beer, why shouldn't I have a good old British grumble? I wasn't harming anyone. My mother, alas, has no respect for this great tradition of Old England and mid-sentenced me with an angry guttural clenched-teethed "You can get a drink IN THE INTERVAL!" ignoring all the shortcomings of that plan that I'd pointed out a couple of minutes earlier. It was just as well that the MC arrived in the corner then to start the proceedings.
The show was rather jolly. All the old 'uns in the crowd loved the numbers from the 20s, 30s and 40s. Their 'Laurel and Hardy' tribute was really funny. The company delivered what they do best, a light-hearted enjoyable evening's entertainment. Come the interval, my grumblings were vindicated, as the break was only 10 minutes in length and we were taken off backstage and given a cup of tea. Not even the option of coffee, which I far prefer - we got tea and that was that. (Though it wasn't bad.) We were introduced to some of the cast, who were nice people and I did like chatting to them about the show. Even so, at the end of the evening as we were filing out, I was not pleased with the way my mother had spoken to me earlier so I made a cutting remark about it and how it had proved untrue. She didn't reply. Then we had to get in the Mayoral car and talk to Peter the driver, until he dropped us home where I headed straight for my PC to type this...
Mucho mayoral duties today. First stop, this afternoon, was the opening of a new building at a local day nursery. There was a fete on there, and a sign advertised a free beer tent, and a lot of the dads and uncles were walking around drinking bottles of Beck's... A very nice lady took us on a guided tour of the nursery, including the new building, and told us all about what they do there; they had great facilities for the kids and seemed to have a very good set-up. We were never taken to the beer tent, though... My mother cut the red ribbon to symbolically open the new wing and said a few words, then we said goodbye to the lady and headed across town to a little community fete. On the drive, I mused that I'd missed out on getting a free Beck's and my mother said I'd have to get a drink at the show we were attending this evening...
While we were walking round the second fete, a group of youths said hello to me. They were the sons of my cousins Steve and Marion, plus friends. We all had a good chin wag for a while, and one of my young cousins kept asking my mother and I if we were rich. We said no, and he pointed at my mother's Mayoral chain and said "how much is that worth?" She told him it was worth £3000 but that it belongs to the Council and is only hers to wear till next May. Later we met a girl, about 12 or 13, who was mightily taken with the solid gold Mayoral chain and said she wanted to be Mayor when she grows up, so she'd get to wear it. We told her she'd have to get on the Council and serve as a councillor for 10 years to get to be Mayor, whereupon she went off the idea and decided she'd marry a Premiership footballer instead and wear diamonds. There was a hammer and bell 'Try Your Strength' stall there, and the lady organiser invited me to have a go for £1.50. I mentally put the calendar bitch's head on the whacking button, brought the hammer down like Thor, rang the bell, and was invited to pick a prize from a selection of kids' toys! They had Rubik cubes, so I chose one of those for nostalgia.
This evening it was off to the Thorngate to see their resident amateur variety company in 'Hooray for Hollywood', a light-hearted singing and dancing tribute to legends of the silver screen through the decades. We were welcomed by the company secretary and shown to seats in the front row. When we were seated and the secretary had left us to go about her duties, I, desperate for a beer, looked round to the corner. Disaster - the bar was shut. I had to settle for popping into the foyer for a can of Coke, then returned to my seat to find I was unable to sit as my mother was leaning across it to talk to someone in the second row. I discreetly said 'excuse me' but still had a few minutes to wait before she moved over to let me sit. Then, as she'd done with her conversation, I began to moan about the absence of alcoholic beverages on offer. My mother told me to go next door, to the Thorngate complex's main bar, in the interval; I replied that the interval wouldn't be long enough for me to go there, get served (especially with Saturday night queues) and come back in time for the second half, and anyway the bar next door is a private members' club so they wouldn't even let me in. I moaned on - and as we weren't talking to anyone else, and the show hadn't started yet, and I really was cheesed off about the lack of beer, why shouldn't I have a good old British grumble? I wasn't harming anyone. My mother, alas, has no respect for this great tradition of Old England and mid-sentenced me with an angry guttural clenched-teethed "You can get a drink IN THE INTERVAL!" ignoring all the shortcomings of that plan that I'd pointed out a couple of minutes earlier. It was just as well that the MC arrived in the corner then to start the proceedings.
The show was rather jolly. All the old 'uns in the crowd loved the numbers from the 20s, 30s and 40s. Their 'Laurel and Hardy' tribute was really funny. The company delivered what they do best, a light-hearted enjoyable evening's entertainment. Come the interval, my grumblings were vindicated, as the break was only 10 minutes in length and we were taken off backstage and given a cup of tea. Not even the option of coffee, which I far prefer - we got tea and that was that. (Though it wasn't bad.) We were introduced to some of the cast, who were nice people and I did like chatting to them about the show. Even so, at the end of the evening as we were filing out, I was not pleased with the way my mother had spoken to me earlier so I made a cutting remark about it and how it had proved untrue. She didn't reply. Then we had to get in the Mayoral car and talk to Peter the driver, until he dropped us home where I headed straight for my PC to type this...
