"ladies and ladies... welcome to the Palace Theatre"

 

“Makes Mamma Mia! look like Chekhov. Insanely euphoric… wildly contagious”
Charles Spencer - Daily Telegraph

“There was one gag involving a man nicknamed Trumpet and a ginger nut biscuit that almost had me out of my seat and writhing helplessly in the aisle.”
Charles Spencer - Daily Telegraph

“Puts the Glory into Gloria and the Gay into Gaynor.”
Michael Coveney - The Independant

The last time I was in the Place Theatre was 1978 (or thereabouts) on a school trip to see Jesus Christ: Superstar.  We were right up in the gods - seating so steep it gave you vertigo and I eventually worked out that the very strong smell wafting back from a few rows down was my first whiff of "pot".

Priscilla - Queen of the Desert was, so we were informed, our chance to get in touch with our inner woman - well I had a great time but the father-with-wife-and-daughters next to me sat through the entire performance stony faced.

The Trumpet joke is very rude indeed!

A real buzz as we left - most of the audience was too young to have seen the film first time around and certainly way too young to have discoed to the music.

For future reference the show ended at 22:10 and I made the 22:45 from Paddington to Reading with about 5 minutes to spare.

A little trip into town

I have an OYSTER CARD - I felt so cool and metropolitan - not at all a gawkish-tourist-newbie...

It also does "contactless payment" - what shall I spend my cash on...

ummm.. maybe not

funny - but not funny enough

...ahhh Bibimbap (yum)! and Kimchi (ouch!)

Two little gems from the ##IMPERIAL## War Museum

 Strange - they had the letter all typed and ready but there was obviously some doubt about with whom we were going to war with (?against?) - so "Germany" was written in by hand.

While in India Montgomery was in charge of sports for his battalion - note the score.  Jerry should have quit while he was behind!

Goebbels was what?

Strangely a google search returns....

"Tall, athletic and incredibly sexy, Dr. Goebbels (born Paolo Josepo el Guepo) was the most famous teen icon, super model, and Propagandist of the Third Reich."

See the full article here

Tate Britain - Harrier and Jaguar

I saw this dangly plane in a Sunday supplement - triggering my first return visit to Tate Britain (it was just "The Tate Gallery" then) since a disappointing couple of hours in 1978.

The "installation" (is that the correct word?) is called "Harrier and Jaguar" and it was very good, popular and seemed to attract an interesting mixture of visitors. Had quite an emotional effect - which I suppose is sort of the point

And so to Lidköping (with a pilgramage to the Holy-Of-Holies on the way)

"Everybody remember where we parked..." So up at 03:00am and to wonderful Stansted airport - at least there is a Pret and they do hot porridge

It turns out I will be seeing a lot of this in the future (as the EMA flights to WRO are now at a sensible time on a Monday morning... something over 70 flights so far this year and there is still December to go.

A little detour via the Saab Bilmuseum and a very very nice restaurant next door

The X-box generation are not impressed

This is THE Stig's* SAAB 99 Turbo

'Stig' Lennart Blomqvist

"Ursaab" - that being Saab car number #1

Sensibly the Swedes save space by building military aircraft runways into trunk roads

Welcome to Räda

The Western Region Night Radio Orienteering Championships - tricky, very tricky indeed - especially as the transmitters were wrapped in camouflage netting and then hidden under bushes - with just the small orange plastic punch visible.  It was so cold my map board underwent rubber-glass phase transition and shattered...

 Every trip to Lidkoping must include a visit to Kinnekulle - while we were parking 3 big Volvo police cars drove up and disgorged at least 12 police officers - if the police eat at the restaurant it is usually a good sign.  In 1089 I had waffles with hjortron - no such luck this time - but that was soon corrected...

Following a short tour of Lidkoping's finest sport shops (stocked with wall to wall chav fashion - we did not have the heart to tell them the mistake they are making), Simon took me to the best cake shop/cafe in town - Garströms Konditori - reassuringly expensive - £4.50 for an open top beetroot and trimmings sandwich

Uncle Gunnar has two young dogs -  100% obedient (as long as there is the immediate prospect of food)

A surfeit of waffles - as ever Ula over-caters and  we had the remainder for breakfast the next morning

Where did that contact lens go?

OK... off for an eye examination - I am sure I put a contact lens in my right eye - but where did it go (Toric - always rolling up and hiding) - and of course I can't see w/o the lens.. answer - take a photo, blow it up large and have a look on the monitor

Bag full of toys - but once again it is Thunderbird 2 that gets...

...grabbed first, played with, and then not dropped until it is time to go to Pizza Express

How nice to be back in Bournville (for a day at least)

This is from my walk to work...

11 days working -  get home from Poland Thursday evening, Friday back in Bournville office, Saturday - not working (if you don't count packing and booking carpark and checking in for RyanAir flight) and then back to Poland, on Sunday

The more I put in now the sooner it will be over!

Shiny New Brazilian, Daft Taxi

The new Embraer E-195 on its third in-service flight

A nice smooth flight - but why were we parked on the last but one stand (286)?

We landed at the Blue dot, Taxied the Magenta - past the terminal, past the engineering hangars, past the cargo hub, past the fire practice hulk, past the fuel depot - 20 metres further and we would have been hiding in the bushes beyond the perimeter fence, then in a bus (Green) to the terminal

and then on the outward flight taxied (slowly and late) all the way back (yellow)  for take off.  1 hour flying, 25 minutes messing about on the ground.

Another day in the factory

...no windows in my office which is inside a factory with no windows - if you have no windows then you eliminate several sources of foreign matter/contamination - which is good.  Shame that you arrive in the dark, miss most* of a lovely sunny day and just catch the sunset at you leave (*you can see the outside from the canteen - hooray!)

A year spent in taxis (thanks Marcin and Stanislaw and Darek (aka Captain Slow))

(this probably won't work in Facebook - need to see the original in blogspot)

Something like 300 taxi trips in Poland this year, and it is always "eska-rock" on the radio.. and these are the tunes of 2010 so far...

Miss Perry



Miss Burke



although...



made more of an impact at the time

and finally some Polish Girl who sings "la la la laj"



Sorry that last one is really awful