The Internet is for Porn

Wow - getting a job has made me completely motivated to get out there and do tourist stuff on weekdays before it's too late and I have to join the American tourists on weekends. So - here is some of the cooler and more noteworthy stuff I have done this week.

Cheap Cocktails in Campden
This was a lot of fun - we didn't get royally sloshed or anything, but the cocktails were 2 for 1 and they were made properly by men who could put Tom Cruise in Cocktail to shame. They bounced glasses and bottles and threw things around. Then we shared an Oreo cookie cocktail and went for Thai food.

Equus
I went and saw Equus on Wednesday. It was fairly brilliant. For those of you who haevn't heard anything about it, it is the West End show with Daniel Radcliffe in it And Richard Griffiths for that matter. It was fairly intense - largely about psychiatry, adolescent disenfranchisement, sex, worship and passion. Sample quote:

Passion, you see, can be destroyed by a doctor. It cannot be created.

and again:

All right! The normal is the good smile in a child's eyes. There's also the dead stare in a million adults. It both sustains and kills, like a God. It is the ordinary made beautiful, it is also the average made lethal. Normal is the indispensable murderous God of health and I am his priest.

It was intense from beginning to end and Daniel Radcliffe did an amazing job - especially given he really is only 17 and the role was very demanding. And yes, he does get naked for quite a long time, but it isn't so much 'My God! Harry Potter is naked' but more 'That poor boy. His life is so monumentally fucked'.

The horse costumes were amazing as well. Giant metal contraptions that slipped over actors heads. They wandered around upright on 'horseshoes' that were metal platforms about 15cm high. Utterly stunning. Even the poster blew my mind, though perhaps it only gains its impact from seeing the play.




National Portrait Gallery
There are only so many paintings of pictures of people in neck ruffs any girl can handle. Fortunately, the Tudor monarchs (and friends) were balanced nicely by the Face of Fashion exhibition where there were a lot of naked photos of Kate Moss. I don't know if that's better, but at least there were no ruffs that were eerily reminiscent of year 12 production at Perth College.

My favourite picture from the Fashion exhibition was surprising, given that it was of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, neither of whom I particularly love. Yet the bored suburbia that the picture evoked, as well as the colours, was amazing when it was blown up and took up nearly a whole wall.



The exhibition of Tony Blair at war (black and white photography) was also really powerful and intimate. He is a photogenic man and, more than anything, the exhibition really showed a thoughtful Prime Minister who believed in what he was doing. It was also strange seeing photos of him battling his parliamentary collegues over supporting the US at war. Given that this was a war I don't particulalry support, I was surprised at the degree of empathy I felt, looking at these photos, for a man who was forced to make a difficult decision. (Don't bother posting political argument Jon - I am talking about the ART. The argument as to whether that can ever be divorced from context can be discussed another time. Yet, now I remember that you're working at the Defence Department I realise you probably relate quite well to Mr Blair's predicament).

Anyway, the gallery is amazing. If you like looking at pictures of people. The way some artists capture the essence of their subject is eerie. It's not all lighting and props, it is just the skill of showing what someone is really like on film or in ink/paint.

Avenue Q
This is not traditional West End theatre. There are puppets. There is puppet sex (not quite as graphic as Team America but I was in row C - very close to the puppet sex, so it was much more disturbing). It was absolutely hilarious - as in I was laughing out loud for the whole first act and most of the second. I may see it again.

Song titles include 'The Internet Is For Porn', 'Everyone's A Little Bit Racist Sometimes' and 'What Do You Do With A BA in English?'. Sample lyrics include:

I wish I could go back to college.
In college you know who you are.
You sit in the quad, and think, "Oh my God!
I am totally gonna go far!"

from the song 'I Wish I Could Go Back To College'. It was eerily accurate. Other gems include:

NICKY:
Oh, Schadenfreude, huh?
What's that, some kinda Nazi word?

GARY COLEMAN:
Yup! It's German for "happiness at the misfortune of others!"

NICKY:
"Happiness at the misfortune of others." That is German!

Anyway, it was funny. I went with Wayne and Katie. We ate dinner in China Town and went for drinks afterwards.

And for all you Buffy/Angel/Little Britain fans: I bumped into Anthony Head as I was turning a corner. He'd just finished Spamalot for the night. He is very tall.

Pete Doherty's Art Exhibition at Bankrobber Gallery
I just got back from this. It is the biggest load of self-indulgent, self-obsessed nothing that I have seen to date. And I have been going to quite a few galleries. All the paintings involved him in some way and were smeared with his blood or had needles and tea spoons glued to them. They had very little artistic merit to my mind. It was an attempt to recreate the anarchist punk art of the 70's without the anger, the immediacy or the talent. Destroyed UK flags as an artistic statement surely died with the Sex Pistols, who did it better. Example:

All I am saying is that it is a good thing the boy is dating Kate Moss or he would haev drifted into drug fuelled obscurity. I say this as a big Libertines fan.


The best bit about the whole thing was the cupcake I bought at Hummingbird Bakery (best bakery in the world) on the way there.

Anyway, that's about all I have to say for now. I spent today shopping for work clothes and crying every time I had to buy something pointless and practical when I could have been buying cool, colourful things.