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October 23, 2008

Here I go again. Once more, I'm going to try to sustain a blog... Let's see how it goes...

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Escapology

(J'ai réécrit cet article en Français ici)

We recently got a place in the countryside. So we're now splitting our time back and forth between the house out here and the flat back in Wapping.

And so that means the guinea pigs come back and forth with us too. At first they weren't so keen on the idea; previously the cat basket had been associated with trips to the vet and the ensuing prodding and poking, so they didn't take too kindly to it. But now, after only a couple of months, they've settled into the routine of going back and forth between two cages.

Given we moved into this house when it was still cold, their cage was in the sun room. I wouldn't call it so much as a conservatory; it's just a simple building attached to the back of the house with lots of windows, and heating and lighting - so ideal for the guinea pigs in winter when we wouldn't really be using the room anyway.

Also in there are the gerbils. They don't always come back and fo…

A Sober Year

It's now been just over a year since I quietly stopped drinking alcohol. I'm not the first person to stop drinking, and I won't be the last, but making the decision not to drink alcohol has given me some insights into alcohol, and how people view it - and how people view those who don't drink it.
Before I stopped drinking, I didn't drink that much anyway to be honest. I certainly wasn't someone who drank much in latter years. Back in my University days I could put away a whole bottle of Baileys, a fair amount of vodka and still not have a hangover the following day. It was one of the few benefits of youth. In fact it wasn't until my twenties that all those years of vodka started to catch up with me, and I started to feel what a real hangover could be like. I started to get home at night and lie in bed watching the room spin around me, close my eyes to make it stop only for the spin speed to increase. I just knew then that I'd regret it in the mo…

Defending the Rose

Last night, I went to the theatre with some friends to see Knights Of The Rose. We bought the tickets when we saw the song list and couldn't resist it. But then as the day of the show grew closer I started to read reviews, and let's just say they weren't great. In fact they were mostly awful.

Well, let's be a little more specific; the reviews were universally terrible.

I started to become concerned.

The main concern of the reviewers seemed to be that the show was unknowing. They suggested that whereas shows such as We Will Rock You and Rock Of Ages were ridiculous, they revelled in their own pomposity and broke the fourth wall to let you know that they were in on the joke. No such fourth wall breaking here, and there was a clear thread in all the reviews that the show didn't know how silly it all was.

But we had tickets, and so we turned up at the theatre and chatted beforehand about just how bad this could possibly be. And we braced ourselves and took our …

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