Life's about experiences. These are mine.
In 1998 the curtain came down on the satirical TV sitcom Drop the Dead Donkey. Set in the fictitious newsroom of the Globelink News organisation it was recorded close to transmission and included topical jokes based on the week’s news. It made stars of several of its cast most notably Stephen Tompkinson, Neil Pearson and …
Reading holds an annual programme of classical music events called “Classical Music Alive” which includes a variety of events. As part of this we went last night to the Hexagon to see Film Music Gala. This was basically classical music but for those that are afraid of classical music! I’d never seen the Hexagon so …
Continue reading “Royal Philharmonic Orchestra – Film Music Gala, Hexagon, Reading”
Now that I have retired (well almost) I have more time to explore interests that previously were off-limits due to a lack of time. One of those is photography. In the past, I have had a variety of cameras from simple point and shoots to 35mm SLRs to cameraphones, but as the saying goes “The …
My annual round-up of the year just gone (you can read the previous year’s reports here). This year I was interested to see how the fact that now I am pretty much fully retired would have had an impact on some of these stats. For a start, I feel that I have listened to less …
Over the last year or so I have been getting into the films of Wes Anderson, the film director with a very distinct style. His films often have a very large cast, the same individuals appear repeatedly (Bill Murry and Owen Wilson for example) and they have a very distinct visual aesthetic. They often make …
Continue reading “Accidently Wes Anderson Exhibition, London”
Musicals – they’re only for women and gay men or so they say. Given that I’m quite partial to musicals I’m not sure what that says about me. I’ve seen quite a few over the years. Some such as Amélie we’ve been to see a few times. Some I’ve fallen asleep during (Wicked I’m looking …
I fancied a trip out this morning but didn’t want to go too far so a museum at the local university, within walking distance, seemed to be an ideal choice. I’d done the Cole Museum of Zoology at the university last year and so today I thought I would try out the Ure Museum of …
Continue reading “Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology, Reading University”
I was in town with some time to kill so I thought that I would visit the new exhibition at the Reading Museum – In the Company of Monsters. Reading Museum is a lovely place both inside and out. Housed within the Waterhouse designed Town Hall the museum has an interesting and diverse collection of …
Continue reading “In the Company of Monsters, Reading Museum”
During lockdown one of the things that many took great delight in was Toyah & Robert Fripp’s weekly videos where they would cover another artist’s song in their own style. What made these so watchable wasn’t so much that Toyah barely dressed for the videos (although that obviously helped) but that Fripp would wear make-up …
Continue reading “Toyah & Robert’s Sunday Lunch, Basingstoke 2023”
I have always been a big Genesis fan and Gabriel-era Genesis in particular. I was too young to see Genesis in concert with Gabriel as the front man so seeing him live has always been on my bucket list. To be fair I had seen him play in 2007 but this was at a festival …
Continue reading “Peter Gabriel, O2 Arena, 20th June 2023 – Don’t Look Down”