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I’m heading into an especially boring blogging phase, I’m afraid. There will be things to write about soon, but not quite yet. Sorry about that. I guess I could say that The Grand Budapest Hotel was a great film – which enthused me with its suave, camp zest for the ridiculous – but you probably already knew that, because I’m about a month late here. Believe it or not, Disaster Zone: Volcano in New York is less good. (We’ve been on a bit of a binge of bad Netflix movies recently. There was also Miley Cyrus’s LOL, which did at least feature several fondly promotional shots of Chicago’s CTA.)

In the meantime, I do have some genuinely heartfelt gratitude to embarrass people with. Lots of people have been very kind to me over the last few weeks, but two in particular went so far beyond the requirements of friendship that I now owe them more than I do the Student Loans Company. Thank you, Cat Hurley and Susannah Belcher. You are both wonderful.

Did You Know?

This blog will be ten years old this month. Ten years ago I looked like this:

Rome, 2004

Two things.

Projectors are cool

Firstly, I just got back from seeing Katie in Durham and helping to bring her stuff back home for the holidays. And it was so, so good to see her! And watch Stardust. And walk around Durham in the dark, talking about the Seven Bridges Problem and looking at the one constellation we can both name. And streaming old Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes on the train home.

Secondly, Michele and I broke up. I’m going to have to copy and paste this news onto Facebook, because it’s suddenly developed a shyness about broadcasting such information, but I’d rather people knew. Because I’d want them to also know that we had a wonderful time together, and I hope and believe we will be friends for a very long time.

It’s the whole point of this blog, really – to mark the wonderful times 🙂

I know I say everything at the Tricycle is amazing, but Red Velvet (starring Adrian Lester) on Friday night really was exceptional. Based on the real-life Ira Aldridge, a pioneering black American actor who took the lead role in Othello in Covent Garden in 1833, the play is a sometimes funny, often deeply moving exploration of racial prejudice and changing attitudes to theatre itself. It helps that Othello is my favourite Shakespeare play (thank you, A Level English Lit!) and so those scenes were a wonderful bonus. I wanted to give a standing ovation at the end but felt so completely immersed that I couldn’t really move. If you haven’t seen this and you get a chance, you just must.

Happy birthday Josh

Meanwhile we’ve had a pretty social week: drinks with Abi and Oliver along with Michele’s friend Misha, dinner at my parents, another pub outing with Susannah, Josh’s 25th birthday (suitably illustrated, right) and then tea with grandparents plus Carolyn, Alix and Adam. All lovely, but missing something… transporty. Like, say, the London Transport Museum this morning along with Josh, Cat and Matt?

Yes, once again I cursed the enthusiasm of small children to sit in the bus driver’s seat (“but I want to sit in the bus driver’s seat!”) at TfL’s always glorious museum of… well, allegedly transport, but to be honest it’s usually the beautiful (yet utterly absurd) posters of Metroland which do it for me. And the tragic Northern line maps which still have Drayton Park on them, before it got hived off to the hellish cavern of despair that is First Capital Connect. Can you imagine a museum devoted to First Capital Connect? No. There’s a reason for that.

Commutes never change