The Owl and the Pussycat, Brentford Lock

From Owl and Pussycat

Finally, culture comes to Brentford.  This was the premier of a performance by artistes from the Royal Opera House of a specially commissioned opera, as yet another part of the 2012 Cultural Olympiad.  The librettist is Terry Jones (of Monty Python fame) with a score by Anne Dudley (of Art of Noise fame). The event was staged on a specially modified barge on the Grand Union Canal, right outside our apartment block, so no excuse for not seeing it then.  Except that all the tickets had sold out by the time I was in a position to make a booking.  No problem, the residents' garden at The Island fronts onto the canal so we watched it from there. That's why the performers often have their back to the camera.
The story broadly followed the version in Lear's poem, with an additional prequel explaining how Owl got to meet Pussycat in the first place.  Enjoyable performances from the principals and the supporting characters, particularly the 'ladies' from the cat protection league, although the music was nothing to go home humming about.  If you look closely at the audience in the background you can just make out the rather glum looking faces of Dudley and Jones (9th and 10th from right respectively), who were clearly not too impressed about some aspect of the performance.
Anyway, the performance has continued its tour around London on the Grand Union Canal, to largely positive reviews.  But a first for Brilliant Brentford!

Latitude 2012, day three/four

From Latitude 2012

The rain started to come down quite heavily in the early hours of Saturday morning, and continued all through the night.  By the time we woke up then next day, the campsite was looking distinctly Glastonburyish.
There were not really any musical acts that I wanted to see in the first part of the day's programme, so we spent much of the afternoon in the comedy and literary arenas.
As the evening approached, we waded over to the  iArena to catch a lively performance from the up-and-coming Django Django.  I had to cut this short to get back to the Obelisk Arena to see Laura Marling, who just seems to get better each year.  For the day's finale we took up our positions close to the front to get a good view of the festival's headliners, Elbow.  These guys really know how to do festivals, and Guy Garvey has the ability to get the audience eating out of his hand.  It doesn't do any harm that they have one of the most audience friendly sing-along songs since hey Jude, with their hit One Day Like This.  A classic way to finish off the day on a musical high.  

From Latitude 2012

We awoke on the Sunday to glorious sunshine. Hooray!  The day's entertainment kicked off with a recital by the world renowned Chinese pianist, Lang Lang, who treated us to a virtuoso performance of various piano classics from Chopin, Liszt and Brahms. Next up, in the coveted Sunday Midday slot (actually 1pm) was Rufus Wainwright and his band.  Great to listen to while lying in the sun, sipping the first pint of cider of the day. I was feeling too lazy to get up and we ended up listening to the next act, Alabama Shakes,who delivered some impressive blues/gospel songs, particularly considering the relative youthfulness of their lead singer.

Then:

 Thomas Dolby, St Vincent, Simple Minds, Bat For Lashes,

Buena Vista Social Club, Paul Weller

Latitude 2012, day one/two

This year we decided to abandon the premium camping field after our boggy experience of last year, and slum it with the masses. As a consequence, I needed to arrive on site at the start of the festival, on Thursday afternoon, in order to bag a decent camping spot, rather than rocking up mid Friday afternoon as we have done in previous years. We also planned to up the luxury factor another notch by bringing a massive self-inflating air bed, which meant that I had to do two round trips just to lug all our gear to the site.

From Latitude 2012

Entertainment was fairly sparse on the first day, but I enjoyed an energetic performance by the Aldborough Young Musicians Ensemble. By Friday, the weather took a turn for the worse as I went to pick up Alison from Diss station. By the time we got to the arena, we had missed a few of the earlier acts, but I was able to catch an act going by the rather unlikely name of War on Drugs, which was hard to classify, but certainly provided a pleasant ambient atmosphere. The headlining act was Bon Iver, who put on a much more heavyweight stage show than I would have imagined possible, based on their more ethereal studio albums.

Posted with Blogsy

Paradise Gardens Festival

From Paradise Gardens Festival

This was the first event (for me) in what promises to be a veritable cultural feast that will be offered to Londoners and visitors to the capital over the next few weeks as part of the 2012 Cultural Olympiad.
Paradise Gardens is rather a misnomer for the site on which this festival was held.  It looks more like a disused gravel pit, which perhaps it was.  The best bit IMHO was the jugs of cocktails served up be the overworked bar staff.  The musical line-up was not that inspiring, possibly being aimed at a somewhat younger and more urban crowd than us oldies.   We watched a rather formulaic performance by Dreadzone, who I had liked previously in the context of a chilled out Rhythm Festival. Here they really only seemed to be going though the motions, with most of their sound coming from a backing track.  The band I would really have liked to see, Alabama Three, was on the Sunday line-up, so I never got to see them.
Our main reason for coming on the Saturday was to see the Silo D firework display.  This was a mixed media show to commemorate the death of 73 workers that resulted from an explosion of a government TNT factory in nearby Silvertown in 1917.  The show itself was delivered in a rather worthy, if uninspiring manner.  The fireworks were certainly the highlight.
Our exit from the park was somewhat challenging and disconcerting, with security people apparently blocking every possible exit.  Somehow we managed to escape and get onto a DLR train heading back home.

Crazy Elephant, Singapore

From Singapore 2012

My itinerary included two days in Singapore, to visit various friends living there, to see what's new, and to revisit some of my favourite haunts. I managed to fit in my two favourite music venues: Harry's Bar at Orchard, and the Crazy Elephant on Clarke Quay.  Good to see the Blues Machine still doing their stuff at the Elephant, currently fronted by an Aussie called Dave, and as ever featuring the inspired guitar playing of the owner, Johnny Chee.

Erawan Waterfall

From Erawan Waterfall

The Erawan National Park is about an hours drive from Kanchanaburi, and its main attraction is the waterfall, which is said to be the most attractive in the whole of Thailand. Its distinguishing feature is that it is comprised of a series of seven linked cascades, each feeding a pool, most of which offer great swimming. It's quite a trek from the base to the seventh level, but well worth the effort. Level two offer a large bathing pool, which thankfully was not particularly busy on our way up, so I took advantage of it to cool down. All the pools are teeming with fish, some quite large, but it's the smaller ones you need to watch out for as they are keen to nibble your feet. A bit disconcerting at first but quite pleasant when you get used to it. By the time we got to level five, I felt inclined to give my feet the extended fish treatment, and they were soon swarming around. Presumably it is much the same as the fish foot spars that are springing up all over the place, but here it is for free rather than having to pay 150 baht. Then on up to level seven and another refreshing swim. The waterfall and its pools are really very attractive, with a clear water that look turquoise from a distance, presumably due to the limestone that it is flowing though.

The return downward journey was much more rapid, and time again for another swim at level two before heading back to Kanchanaburi. I had wanted to visit one of the local limestone caves on this trip, but the tour company that provided our driver for the day wanted to charge a ridiculous amount for the extra 12km, so reluctantly we gave this a miss. Nevertheless, the Erawan waterfall was enough in itself to make a very worthwhile day out.

Hellfire Pass

From Hellfire Pass

The plan for today was to travel on the Death Railway to its terminus in Nam Tok, and then take a bus to the Hellfire Pass Museum, which commemorates the building of the Thailand-Burma railway. Unfortunately I managed to miss the train. Having been told that the train is always reliably 1 to 2 hours late, I had adopted a relaxed schedule. However, on this occasion it was only half an hour late and so I managed to miss it by five minutes. So the journey to the museum was on the local bus, which was quicker than the train, but missed out on some of the scenic train route.

The museum exhibition itself duplicated much of what I had seen the previous day in the Death Railway Museum in Kanachanaburi, but its main selling point was that it provided access to some of the most challenging engineering feats on the rail route, including the notorious Hellfire Pass. This is the deepest cutting on the route and was given its name on account of the flickering lights that the PoW workers used to illuminate their activities as they toiled though the night.