The Cast

I’ve now found the programme for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and this is the cast.
Aaron Kelly – Egeus and Peter Quince.
Marcus Cooper – Demetrius and Starveling.
Katherine Bower – Helena and Snug and Cobweb.
Miranda Heath – Hippolyta and Titania
Dan Styles – Theseus and Oberon
Jamie Brown – Lysander and Flute and Mustardseed
Alice Brockway – Hermia and Snout and Peaseblossom
Daniel Creasey – Bottom
Zack Polanski – Philostrate and Puck.

Just thought I'd record them here, since their names don't appear on the website for Chapterhouse.

Chapterhouse Players

The Chapterhouse Theatre Company came to Barnham Broom last night, and performed A Midsummer Night's Dream outside on the golf course. Their scenery consisted of a tent big enough to hold the nine actors, a few pillars and a couple of urns on pedestals. The props weren’t much more extensive, apart from when the rude mechanicals brought their props basket onto the stage and produced a ‘wall’, a ‘dog’, and a few other items. Even Bottom’s ass’s head was minimal.
But if the props and scenery were lacking, the energy certainly wasn’t. The quartet of lovers also played the other fairies, and the rude mechanicals. Oberon and Titania played Theseus and Hyppolita as well (a fairly normal course of events, I’d suspect) and even Puck, who never stopped moving, almost, played Theseus’ rather camp servant. Only the guy playing Bottom got away with a single role.
I don’t know any of the players; they were a fairly mixed bunch with some excellent talent and some slightly weaker actors, more especially when it came to speaking the verse. Some of them missed the mark and the beauty of it at times; nevertheless the clarity of the words was excellent, particularly as there were no mikes to amplify the voices. (Curiously enough, there’s no listing of the actors on the website.)
The quartet of lovers gave huge amounts of energy to their roles, but even more to their parts as fairies, where they rolled and pranced and leapt and cartwheeled. These fairies were eccentric to say the least, but not at all lacking in spirit! And the guy who played Puck (he’d gone round selling programmes beforehand and didn’t seem all that lively a chap) was on fire. His relationship with Oberon wasn’t at all ‘gay’ but their intimate contact was very physical – not in any offensive sense, just without any sense of personal space, one might say!
The mechanicals were just a bit too over the top for my liking, especially in the last scene when they perform before the Duke and his wife (who have a bunch of sarcastic lines typical of their class, but which are fairly dull and were probably covered up by the audience’s laughter in original performances). But it was interesting to hear how Shakespeare sends himself up so thoroughly in the lines he gives to the country actors: mixed metaphors galore, and verbs that don’t belong to their nouns (‘I saw with my ears’ type of thing) and lines full of nonsense.

More on the subject of luggage

We arrived at the house we’re due to babysit on Wednesday to find the family just about to set off to Cromer for a few days’ camping. We were due to head back there ourselves because we’d left all our own luggage at my brother-in-law’s while we attended to a minor medical matter.
Anyway, the family’s car was full – and the daughter’s bag hadn’t even been put in. In a last minute plea, my niece asked if we could possibly deliver the daughter’s bag to Cromer for them. Of course we could. And then we saw the bag. It was virtually as big as the daughter herself, and may possibly have contained everything she possessed. We should have realized that you don’t go camping without all the things you might possibly need.
Whether she had the kitchen sink in there or not, I don’t know – she may have had two kitchen sinks, since the case was very heavy.
And talking of kitchen sinks, I’ve noticed something odd about the taps (faucets, if you’re in the US) leading into them. When I go to fill a kettle (jug, if you’re in NZ) from the taps, the cold water seems to be on the wrong side altogether. I don’t know whether it’s because I’m partly ambidextrous and do some things around the wrong way, but I have to reach over the top of the kettle to fill it, rather than being able to turn on the tap on my left, as I would at home. Maybe I need to try doing it round the other way – if I can. Although it feels a bit like trying to play golf right-handed to do that.

Searching with plenty of options

HitTail has had some interesting search queries thrown up that pick up my blogs, but I think the strangest has to be the following:
how to advertise the uneducated mother with the help of cartoons by about diarrhoea management
I have no idea what it means but the search results caught this blog first up! The two words that attracted it were ‘management’ and ‘cartoons’. The uneducated mother didn’t get a look in, and neither did diarrhoea, thank goodness. There’s enough of the verbal version of that on the blog without any other sort. The problem with such a range of words is that it’s likely to bring up fairly random search results. One on breastfeeding came up, as did one of HIV/AIDs; one of world population was there, as was one on helping a Jewish congregation manage their time. There were a few results for dealing with diarrhea also, which was probably just as well,

The delights of luggage

One of the delights of travelling is dealing with luggage. We aimed to have as little as possible when we came to England this time, but we still wound up with two heavy suitcases, a laptop and all its connection bits and pieces, my wife’s handbag (which contained her various ‘toys’), my backpack with books in it and my toiletries, and my wife’s backpack with clothes for the voyage. I saw the phrase ‘Not Wanted on Voyage’ as the title of a book the other day; haven’t seen it in a long time. I suppose it doesn’t much get used these days with ships being less popular for travel.
The trip was fine for the most part, as far as the luggage was concerned, because we had our suitcases sent through direct from Auckland to London. But when we got to the UK, and had to start hauling them about again, things were rather different. The worst moment was when we got off the underground at Bank station and had to climb two flights of stairs with the suitcases and all the other paraphernalia.
What we really need is luggage that carries itself. Now that would be ideal!
Incidentally, one of the things my wife wasn’t carrying was her Swiss Army Knife (one of the toys I mentioned before). With all the restrictions these days, it’s not the sort of thing you want to have in your handbag. She nearly lost it three years ago when we went to Australia, and she discovered just as she was about to front up to customs that it was in her handbag. She asked if she could take it out to her daughter for safekeeping until she got back in the country and they wouldn’t let her out of the area again. So there she was, calling loudly across the terminal to my daughter, who was just out of hearing range. Fortunately, in the end her frantic waving caught my daughter’s eye. Otherwise, the beloved SAK would have gone into the pockets of the customs’ people.
I was reminded about this because I just discovered that there’s a range of luggage called Swiss Army. Apparently it’s designed to the same level of excellence as the knives, though hopefully without the deadliness.

Ronnie Ronalde

A while ago I mentioned the famous whistling Ronnie Ronalde in a post. I’ve just come across a website about him, and find that he has lived in New Zealand, and now lives in Queensland. He’s in his early eighties, and has been entertaining people for generations. It was sad therefore to hear that last year, due to an apparent confusion of his name with another’s, that someone claimed he’d been arrested on a serious charge. Hopefully this has all been cleared up since.

And now Antonioni

Famous film directors are dropping like flies. First Bergman, and now Antonioni.
I can’t say I ever enjoyed anything much of Antonioni’s; my feeling was that he delighted in being obscure, and made the viewer frustrated by the lack of coherence in his movies. He was the sort of art film director that can give an art film a bad name, yet somehow he still made films that are talked about years later. I don’t know that I’d chase his movies up again in the way I would Bergman’s, but his death is still a loss to the world of cinema.

Realty

Realtor is one of those American words that just hasn’t taken on in other English speaking countries, at least as far as I know. To me it’s in the same category as using the word authored by instead of written by, or some other Americanisms that just aren’t pleasant on the ear.
It seems as though even Americans aren’t entirely comfortable with the use of the word, as when I look at a typical US Real Estate site, I find they’re using Real Estate Agents as the norm, and it’s only towards the end of the home page that there’s the use of the word Realtor, where it relates to the National Association of Realtors. Realtor and Realty seem to be official sort of words that get used with Real Estate in the US, but aren’t the common words.
Well, that’s all a bit of a burble on the topic, but then burbling about certain things is part of what I do!

Ingmar Bergman

Sad to hear that Ingmar Bergman has died. When I was in England the first time around, he was regarded as one of the great ‘new’ film directors. I saw most of the films that were available for viewing, but I’ve forgotten a lot of the details now. Though the mood of the films has stayed with me, in many instances. The joy of Wild Strawberries and its strange dreams, the weirdness of the movies such as Persona, the exuberance of Smiles of a Summer Night. I’ve seen very little of his movies since I came back to New Zealand, except for his delightful production of The Magic Flute. I think it’s time to track these wondrous movies down on DVD and see them as an adult viewer rather than a naïve young man!

Wind Farm in Water

Keep meaning to mention the wind turbines that we saw at Great Yarmouth. There are about 27 of them, if I remember rightly, set in the ocean about a mile or more away from the shore. They make a wonderful effect on the skyline, slowing revolving each at their own speed, and blending into the sky in a way that’s not at all unlovely.
I can imagine the furore that would have erupted if my home town of Dunedin had debated having a wind farm offshore like this. It’s been bad enough trying to get agreement over a wind farm in the middle of nowhere.

I've just had a look at this wind farm on the Net. Turns out that it's not quite in the ocean, as it appears, but is on Scroby Sands, a sandbank.

Secret Life of Bees

Finished Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees today, after having put it aside for a while when I struck a bit of a slack patch in the middle. It’s an interesting coming of age story - I suppose that’s what you call it, although a growing-up story might be more appropriate. Lily, the daughter of an abusive father, tells us early in the piece that she accidentally shot and killed her mother during a family argument. Her only friend appears to be a black woman called Rosaleen who works on the peach orchard Lily’s father owns. When Rosaleen is arrested and then hospitalised because she’s beaten up by angry whites, Lily ’rescues’ her from the hospital, and the two set out on a journey that takes them to a house owned by three black sisters - three wise, but rather strange sisters.
The story is set in the days when blacks were signing up to register for the vote, and when integration was happening but greatly rejected by the whites. But this is the background to a story in which bees play a large and vital part and in which learning about yourself, your anger, your failures and mistakes and the need to move forward all contribute to what happens.
The language is often rich and vital - sometimes almost too much so. Lily and Rosaleen, and Lily’s father are solid real characters. The three sisters never strike me as black women, somehow, as Rosaleen does. Maybe this is a fault in my reading of the story, but whereas Kidd presents Rosaleen as a physical black presence, the three sisters seem to live on a different plane, and thinking of them as black is something I found hard to do.
Kidd wrote the non-fiction book When the Heart Waits some years ago, and it was one of the better-selling books in the shop I ran. The Secret Life of Bees is different altogether, apart from being fiction. It has an odd spirituality in it, is very female-focused, and Kidd’s version of feminism again comes to the fore - though here it‘s entirely appropriate to the story. Nevertheless the male characters in the book are no ciphers; sometimes they’re more real than the women.

Here’s a short quotation from chapter fourteen of the book:
People, in general, would rather die than forgive. It’s that hard. If God said in plain language, ‘I’m giving you a choice, forgive or die,’ a lot of people would go ahead and order their coffin.

Weight Watching

My wife and I have finally come to a point where we are both start dieting together, rather than me going my way and she trying to diet on her own. So we’ve begun Weight Watchers with the support of my sister-in-law, who’s a successful WW person. Since we came to England we’ve not only been overeating, but also eating stuff we wouldn’t normally get into at home, partly because we’re not always at home where ‘proper’ stuff is readily available. We’ve been doing it well for the last five days, and doing some long walks as well - with the help of my sister-in-law again; she’s a keen walker.
We’ll keep working on it one day at a time, but both of us know it’s essential to do, and hopefully with both of us doing it, we’ll make progress.

Sunnies

For quite a long time I was well out of fashion when it came to sunglasses. I used to wear large ones that kept the light out not only at the front, but at the sides as well. They’re the type that fishermen like because they’re great for seeing the fish under the water. However, my kids always proclaimed these sunglasses as ‘buzzy bees’, which meant they were ridiculously large (in their eyes).
So, when I got new prescription glasses last year, ones that were much smaller than my old ones, I got a free pair of sunglasses to go with them, ones that clipped on magnetically. The only problem was they not only didn’t keep out the sun at the sides, they didn’t keep out the sun at all, making them useless when the sun was shining.
So I put them away and went back to the buzzy bee style, which, curiously, had come back into fashion again!
To be really in fashion, of course, I should be wearing Wiley X sunglasses. They’re the sort of sunglasses that fit snugly, and are great for sportspeople. Not that that means I can’t wear them (!) since you can get them as prescription glasses as well. So maybe when my current pair of sunnies get lost, or break, I can pick up a pair of Wiley X. Then I’ll have finally caught up with the crowd!

Lap of Luxury

After visiting so many stately mansions and large abodes on our travels around the UK, you’d think we’d have got an idea what it means to have a luxury home. But it seems we’re not really aware of what’s current.
A modern luxury home is expected to have all sorts of things included that once upon a time would barely be dreamed of. Many of them are ‘smart’ houses. They’re equipped with high-tech computers that monitor and control all manner of features in the house. Remember when Tom Cruise goes into his apartment in the film Minority Report and speaks to the lights? That’s just a very simple example. The computers in smart houses sort out not just the lighting, but the heating, the cooling, and the security. (Just don’t let there be a power cut - although no doubt many of these houses have their own generators as well.)
Modern luxury homes are also made of eco-friendly building materials, and incorporate a large number of features that make them green in the very best sense. (If we can just get computers to go green we’ll be really making progress!)
And then of course, the humans in these ultra-clever homes expect to be looked after - pampered even - by their homes. Spa pools, whirlpools, saunas, heated marble floors and towel bars are the sort of things that will keep the soft as soft humans happy. And for the woman - or her maid, more likely - the kitchens in these homes are aimed at the gourmet cook. They’re expansive (the kitchens, not the cooks) and they have smart appliances. That ‘smart’ word again. What does it mean when it comes to kitchens?
Because these luxury homes are likely to be networked electronically, kitchen items, from stoves to fridges may start ‘talking’ to each other. And may even ignore the humans!

Rain and Cold

On the radio here in England they keep going on about how cold the water at the beaches is. What do they expect? This is England, after all, and the temperature in the sea most of the time will be similar to the temperature in the seas around New Zealand. Chilly at best, and only occasionally warmer as you head north.
Far more important, and still related to water, is the flooding here in England. Oxford has been hit, something we wouldn’t have believed when we there ourselves, and some other places have only just got back to having drinking water and water to flush in the loos. It’s hard to grasp what it’s been like for these people when you’re not affected by it yourself; having always lived on hills ourselves, we’ve never really had problems with flooding. Of course there’s been similar flooding in New Zealand after the last few years, but again it’s been nowhere near where we live.
And now on the news this morning we hear that certain `yobbos’ as they’re calling them, have been fouling the water in the places where water is desperately needed. It’s hard to understand why the local yahoos would do it to their own water when they must be in need of it as much as anyone. Perhaps they’re just so lacking in sense they don’t understand the implications of their own actions. Candidates for the Darwin Awards, I’d suspect.

Churches in Cromer

Cromer has a large church in the centre of town, which didn’t initially strike me as very interesting. However, once you’d checked out the information around the walls and saw the pictures of past events, you realised that it suffered considerable damage in the last War, with windows being blown out, and sections of it being badly damaged. This will account for it not having so many unusual features. The church in Upper Sheringham turned out to have interested carvings on the ends of the pews; not animals this time, but a series of strange designs that almost looked like knights, some with hollow eyes. The front five rows or so, however, had additional features: beside the main designs were other individual designs such as a woman lying wrapped on her side, strange mythical creatures and so on.
And continuing on about churches, we went and checked out the Beeston Regis church, which is halfway between West Runton and Sheringham. It’s up on a hill, overlooks the sea and a large caravan park, and is in good condition. Celia couldn’t remember ever having been in there, and thought there should be a more ruined building there. That turned out to be the Priory which is further along the road towards Sheringham. The Beeston Regis church however did have a series of very old paintings on the rood (that sort of divider that separates the congregation from the altar area). Apparently they’ve been touched up at various times, but the paintings themselves are what the artists conceived centuries ago. It seems that if you don’t skimp your visit to churches you’ll find something special about each one.

Vending Machines Again

I like what one site says about the value of vending machines: they do all the selling for you, are always on the job, never call in sick, never insult customers, never give away free samples or steal your profits. And they collect the cash in advance…

You may think I’m just about to take up a vending machine franchise. Well, the more I look at the info on the idea, the more I wonder if there isn’t something in it. Of course, it would have to be a vending machine that sold something of reasonable value – I believe there are machines that sell pornography. Can’t see me getting into that!

Nevertheless, when I return home after my sabbatical in England, I need to find some work. And having a few vending machines bringing in cash would leave me some time for doing what I really enjoy: writing!

Might have to go back and check out more about what Multivend has to say on the subject. It may be just what I’m looking for.

Norwich

The memory I have of Norwich from when I was here in the early seventies, is of an accessible town, not that large, near a river, and full of interesting old buildings and dozens of churches.

I don’t know what happened to that Norwich, but it certainly isn’t the place we visit spasmodically while we’re staying in Norfolk. This one is large – much larger than my own home town – has many modern buildings (some of them tucked around ancient stone walls) and has the typical shopping malls that you expect in a large city.

Today we went to see the Cathedral, but we came out into a street called Tombland. No prizes for telling us how that name came into being. Tombland is a bit more like I remember Norwich, but only a bit.

Where have all the churches gone? There seemed to be one of every corner in the past, rather like corner dairies. And where’s Julian of Norwich’s ‘cell’ gone? I guess it’s around somewhere, but it’s certainly not obvious.

Someone’s gone and changed the place.

Blogging for Bloggers

Someone else is celebrating the pay it forward link thing I mentioned yesterday – and celebrating it late, like me.

I came across a site today called simply, Write for Blogs, via my old friend Jurgen Wolff (who’s always sending me interesting stuff). The site is focused on giving professional advice on – you guessed it - writing for blogs. So you can imagine I’ll be keeping my eye on what he has to say.

‘He’ is Glenn Abel who lives in Studio City, California (where else would you have a ‘Studio City’?) He works in the Internet industry – whatever that actually means – and he sounds like he’s writing like someone who knows. Always an advantage for the rest of us, who only think we know.

Anyway, in the post posted on the 22^nd July, he lists six other bloggers who are worth keeping track of. One of them is already on my favourites list, and that’s Darren Rowse of Problogger. (And he’s an Australian, so that has to count for quite a bit. And he’s a Christian, which counts for even more.)

The other five writers are Angela Booth, someone called Maki, Brian Clark and Jurgen Wolff himself. (Surprise, surprise! We all keep feeding off each other!) And finally, the seemingly anonymous author of the Writer’s Resource Center. I’ve never come across this one before, but it looks more useful than I first believed, and advertises a large number of writing jobs.

Vending Machines

Vending machines. They’re just there, aren’t they? Nobody ever looks after them, or refills them, or takes the money away, do they? They just somehow fill themselves up. Don’t they?

Vending machines might look like perfect robots, endlessly doing their task without complaint, but of course there are humans behind the scenes, who keep the machines stocked, keep them happy – and, of course, who take the money.

Owning vending machines is a way many people make a living. In fact, in the United States, one company called Multivend which focuses on vending machines with candy in them has some 9,000 people working with it, people who work from home, don’t have an office, and can choose their own hours.

Think about it. How many vending machines do you come across in a day? They’re everywhere, growing like triffids! In Japan, it’s estimated that there’s one vending machine for every twenty people. This works out to some 5.6 million machines in that country alone. And a huge income for the vendors.

As a little exercise. Next time you go into town, check out how many vending machines you see. And what they sell. You may be surprised at just how many you find.