Sounds like you've spent a lot of time planning a great little holiday. Well done! Enjoy yourself. We'll all be waiting for your return with stories and reviews of all the fun.
[FONT="Comic Sans MS"]I have a few spareb minutes at 08.10 in the morning so I just thought I'd bring you up to date.
Last night was the first of my cultural events; The John Wilson Orchestra. For those of you who don't know who he is, he is a musician who periodically assembles an orchestra of top flight musicians to play music from Hollywood musicals although he doesn't limit himself to that alone. Last night was a tribute to one of the great American composers, Cole Porter (who was gay by the way) He's not at great as George Gershwin but then that's just my personal opinion. But he wrote some wonderful music from the "Golden Age of Hollywood musicals.
You can get some idea of the orchestra from this:
His appearance at the London Proms are always sold out and the Hall holds 6,000 people. There were a couple of standout performances during the concert, noteably a wonderful rendition of "The Physician" that was made famous by Gertrude Lawrence and you can hear an old recording with its very wittly lyrics here:
Then there was a wonderfully lyrical piece that he had written for Cyd Charisse to dance to in "Silk Stocking". I've seen the movie and watched the dance but not paid sufficient attention to the music that really deserves to be listened to.
During the interval we tried to change seats in to a box with a slightly better view of the stage but in the end decided that it wasn't a good idea and returned to our original seats. Just as well. At the end of the concert I realised that I had left my umbrella in the other box and went to try to retrieve it but couldn't find it. After several minutes of fruitless search I was suddenly approached by a white heair old man who asked me in a very fruity and theatrical voice: "Are you looking for something?" I said "Yes, I had accidentally wandered in the the wrong box during the interval and left my umbrella there. His reply was a little odd: "You stupid man! How dare you go in to my box!
My reaction wasn't quite what he might have expected and I just said "Why?" His attitude changed and he grabbed my hand and took me to the box and returned my umbrella. His original attitude had been a joke. He was very theatrical and not just a little bit gay. Sandra, the friend I was with, said that she was sure that she knew him and thought that he was an actor but couldn't place a name.
All in all a very enjoyable evening and we have even booked for the John Wilson concert on the 16th November next year!
Tonight "The Book of Mormons".
"You can be young without money but you can't be old without money"
Maggie the Cat from "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." by Tennessee Williams