Every year so the Nelder two undertake a pilgrimage to London – partly to remind ourselves why we don’t want to live there, but mostly to replenish our thirst for knowledge at the Science, Natural History and British Museums, and to take in some shows. This time we met up with, Ray, my best man of 35 years ago, and Marion. If you need a peaceful meal in the bustling capital, try The Crypt under St Martins-in-the-Fields, not that there is a field for miles. The first show we saw was the musical Les Miserables. Victor Hugo would have been pleased. The Trevor Nunn version with Drew Sarich as Jean Valjean was perfect. The music brought back memories of my son playing the theme tunes on his clarinet for the Chester Schools Concert Band a few years ago and regaling European cities with them. On a spur of the moment we opted to take in another show on Friday night. Cabaret. Rushing to the ticket sales we were able to buy two remaining seats in the stalls almost touching the stage. This risky position puts us in range of any cunning narrator, and in this case it was the celebrity comedian, Julian Clary. No sooner had scantily clad young men and women cavorted about with erotic yet graceful dancing, then Julian encroached near the front and leered peered at us. He pointed at one unfortunate man in the audience and asked if he would like to take home one of the pretty near naked girls, or a boy. And he asked the next man, and then ME!
“Any thing I can get, please!”
The hilarious act along with semi-and full frontal nudity had a poignant pathos as the Nazi 1930s German politics impinged on the story line. The whole cast stripped for the last scene – earlier it was in jolly sensuous fun, but in the end it was for the gas-chamber…. The applause went on and justifiably on. Sadly, I didn’t get to take one of the beautiful young dancing girls home but I did have a blonde on my arm as consolation.
We enjoyed a rotational ride on the huge Wheel known as the London Eye: the vision of David Marks and Julia Barfield, a husband and wife architect team. The wheel design was used as a metaphor of the turning of the century in 2000. The top reaches 135 metres above the River Thames allowing us to a view of the horizon 40 km away. The journeys in the capsules are called flights and the 30 minutes journey felt like one. The photo shows long shadows of people on the pavement below us. Why am I fascinated by long shadows!
Two science museum items amused me. I didn’t know that Rowntrees chocolate manufacturer created the Black Magic box of chocolates after they commissioned a psychologist. He interviewed and tested 7000 individuals and the average consumer wanted a plain black box rather than the pretty flowery or scenic choccy boxes generally found in the shops. I was a caramel disappointed since the display was next to the aptitude testing fitting shapes into the relevant holes test. I always liked to empty chocolate boxes and see how fast I could the diamonds, circles, and squares into their receptacles. And then eat the ones I got wrong!
I also liked the machine that tested for accident-prone employees. A rotating paper passed in front of the candidate, who had to mark the circles nearest a central line. The speed increased and the chances of hitting the correct circles became less likely. The idea is that if the candidate persisted too long in the test then they failed. This is because they were deemed to take too many chances on success and so were more likely to have accidents than workers who gave up easily! Umm, that’s me out then .
Today I hiked 14 hilly frosty miles near Llangollen. Brilliant clear anticyclonic skies allowed the sun to send shadows looming for metres across the grass. I’ve put some photos of the walk on my website
I guess you pack as much into a day off as you do when working. When it comes to full frontal nudity, I guess you are glad you have a hearing problem rather than one that disturbs your vision!