Category Archives: Life in the UK

Aaaaawkward….

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I went to the theatre last night. Another super deal in the Metro tempted me to the Wyndham Theatre in Charing Cross Road to see Abigail’s Party. So I headed on in after work and had a quick bite to eat before making my way around the corner, into the theatre and up the stairs to my seat in the Royal Circle.

The scene below brought back memories of growing up in the 70s: bold patterned wallpaper (we had the most…ahem, extraordinary black and white geometric pattern on our kitchen walls when I was a kid), shag pile carpet and orange, orange, orange…

The play follows its five protagonists who gather to while away the hours as Sue’s 15 year old daughter hosts her own party down the street. Laurence and Beverly host, complete with nuts, cheesy pineapple sticks and copious amounts of alcohol, and give the audience a sense of their toxic relationship right from the outset.

Before long, the new neighbours arrive. Tony, handsome and morose, sparks a predatory gleam in Beverly’s eye, and Ange, gauche and outspoken, seems to say all the wrong things at the most inopportune times. Long-time resident Sue arrives last, conservative and mousey. And so this freakish five are left to careen slowly towards the play’s shocking climax.

Mike Leigh has the ability to cut to the very heart of our human foibles.

Selfish, opinionated Essex girl Beverly is hell-bent on her gin-fuelled binge while Ange faux-pas her way through several G&Ts herself as she tries valiantly to fill the uncomfortable silences. And the men? Well Tony stays stoic under Beverly’s lascivious eye and Laurence flaps about, swinging between conciliatory concern for his guests and violent fury at his wife. And Sue tries, politely yet unsuccessfully, to stay aloof from them all. The whole evening is just awkward.

And absolutely hilarious.

I am told that no-one does Beverly like Alison Steadman, but for the rest of my life, I don’t think I will ever forget Jill Halfpenny, gyrating on the cream shag rug in her mint green maxi dress…to Demis Roussos.
The end is not all happy-happy and tied up with a bow and I did leave the theatre thinking it was all over with a whimper rather suddenly. But that certainly didn’t detract from a very entertaining and laugh-out-loud kind of evening.

Even if it was all a little bit…aaaaawkward.

Bookings are open up to 1st September but if you are anything like me – marking something mentally that I’d like to see, then never getting around to booking until it’s finished that is – you should google theatre deals and Abigail’s Party and get yourself along…

…or before you know it, it’ll be curtains.

Father’s Days…Or Should That Be Daze?

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Today we will be taking a little break from my recent travels to explore the concept of Father’s Day.

It’s been prompted by the fact that the UK and the US (and a lot of other countries apparently) celebrate today yet we Aussies wait until the first Sunday in September to pay tribute to the Old Man. 

It doesn’t even align with Mother’s Day, which we celebrate on the second Sunday in May (same as the US) almost 2 months later than here in the UK. It’s mighty confusing. And in pondering this very issue out loud with my hairdresser yesterday, I made a pledge (she did have scissors in her hand at the time) that getting to the bottom of this sticky question would be my priority for the remainder of the weekend.

Father’s Day is a relative newcomer to the ‘holiday’ calendar (although who gets a holiday?) first appearing in the USA 102 years ago when, following a sermon in Spokane in 1909, a young parishioner, who had lost her mother in 1898, asked for a way to honour her father. Originally suggesting her father’s birthday, the 5th June, the eventual date was set for 19th June 1910. And whilst Father’s Day was born, it took until 1972 for it to take hold when Lyndon Baynes-Johnson declared the third Sunday in June a national holiday.

The third Sunday in June is the Father’s Day of choice for many countries – USA, UK, India, Canada, China, France, Greece, Hong Kong, Pakistan, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Switzerland and Turkey. But other countries choose different dates to honour fatherhood. Russia celebrated on 23rd February this year and Thailand will take its turn on the 5th December. Spain, Belgium and Italy celebrated on the 19th March, Germany on May 17th (always on Ascension Day the Thursday forty days after Easter) and Sweden will on the second Sunday in November. South Korea had Parent’s Day on the 8th of May (so one day for all parents instead of two separate days) and Brazil will celebrate the day of fathers on the second Sunday in August.

You can see why expat life can be very confusing.

For the record, Australia and New Zealand pay tribute honour make an effort on the first Sunday in September. I have googled and googled and there is nothing that tells me why this is – which makes for a rather uninteresting and pointless post. So I decided to look at what else happened on the 2nd September in the vain hope of finding something.  No cigar but here are a few of the more interesting things I found:

In 44BC Pharaoh Cleopatra VII of Egypt declared her son co-ruler as Ptolemy XV Caesarion.
In 911 Viking-monarch Oleg of Kiev-Russia signed a treaty with Byzantines
In 1666 the Great Fire of London began in Pudding Lane
In 1859 gas lighting was introduced to Hawaii
In 1929 Unilever was formed by merger of Margarine Union & Lever Bros
In 1945 Japan formally surrendered to the Allies, bringing an end to World War II
In 1969 the first ATM to be installed in America started dispensing cash at Chemical Bank in New York City.
In 1993 South Africa celebrated its Day of Peace
In 2003 it was happy 100th birthday to the Harley-Davidson motorcycle
And in 2011 Apple won in court in Dusseldorf banning the sale of the Samsung Galaxy Tablet in Germany   

And what about 2012?  Well, Venice (the one in Italy) will stage their annual regata storica parade as prelude to the regatta, Vietnam will celebrate its national day, the inaugural Poptronik Festival will take place in Sitges, Spain and the annual Butter Trail Run will be held at Tatamagouche, California.

In the UK, the Christchurch Medieval Festival in Co. Dorset happens over first weekend in September, the 22nd Stormin’ the Castle at Witton Castle, Co Durham will be winding down, while England and South Africa will play cricket at Lords and Olly Murs will play Chelmsford.

And at Gidday HQ, I’ll be wishing my Dad a Happy Father’s Day…again.

So to my old man, hope you have had a brilliant Father’s Day (in-waiting).

Your 2012 Five A Day – June

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So here we are. The 1st of June. Summer at last. 
Long days ending in lingering twilight.
A chilled Chablis. A long tall Pimms. A cheeky Gin & Tonic or two.

And maybe a little social over-excitement as we here in the UK try to cram as much celebratory drinking behaviour as possible into any one of those random summer days that deem the great British Isles worthy of their rays.

So get out there now and make short work of the grassy knoll that has become your back garden. Get the little people outdoors, fire up the barbie and put a few beers in the esky.

Just like Colin Carrot…

But remember to slip, slop, slap peeps.

                                     
 

 
Otherwise being half cut will be the least of your worries.
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Women Hold Up Half The Sky

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It’s a great title for a post isn’t it? Thought-provoking, controversial with a whiff of feminist rant thrown in.

But I can’t claim any credit. These are actually the words of Chairman Mao. That’s right, the founder of Chinese Communism. Women could what men did, he said.

But don’t despair. I haven’t been off reading anything highbrow. Or anything remotely related to philosophy or Chinese politics (well not intentionally anyway). I filched it from an interview with Angelica Cheung, editor of Chinese Vogue, that appeared in last weekend’s The Times Magazine.

And what it made me think about is our own woman in a man’s world here in UK, Queen Elizabeth II.

Next weekend, we will celebrate Her Majesty’s Diamond Jubilee. That’s 60 years as the Head of State in the UK and 15 Commonwealth realms as well as Supreme Head of the Church of England. I still remember her Silver Jubilee in 1977. Australia had a special 50 cent coin made to commemorate it and there was lots of telly-watching at school to enlighten all we convicts colonials about the importance of the occasion.

For all the good it did – I voted for a republic in 1999.

Sorry ma’am.

While my republican views remain firmly in place, I have to admit that there is something quite extraordinary about a woman who commits her life to her country at the age of 25 and still enjoys the kind of public respect and affection that Her Majesty holds today.

Granted there have been ups and downs. But she still appears as poised, active and interested 60 years on. What a fantastic ambassador. She has navigated 12 prime ministers at home and many more of their counterparts abroad, across both her own Commonwealth realm and the world at large.

 

So as far as I’m concerned, next weekend’s moment in the limelight is well and truly deserved. Here’s to a woman who has seen her nation dutifully, safely, peacefully through a lifetime of challenges.

You could even say she’s held up her piece of sky.

On The Move…

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It’s Sunday again and I have been sitting here wondering what to post about.

Should I take inspiration from this week’s train reading and have a little muse about the lack of female role models?

Should I have a little rant about table manners and that the situation has become so grim that London’s Kensington Hotel has taken it upon themselves to educate the nation’s little savages with Petite Etiquette?

Should I express my incredulity that during the week, I learned (via a translated snippet from April’s ‘Emballages’, a French Packaging Magazine) that in February the French Ministry of Ecology decreed that teabags were not packaging? (It may surprise you to know that there was quite a debate at work over this.)

Or should I convey my wonderment and excitement that the sun is indeed shining this weekend. All weekend. That includes yesterday when I spent a couple of hours outside and accomplished this…

Aaaah…such pretty paws!

All riveting stuff I can assure you…or it would become so under my fleet-fingered tap-tap-tapping.

But the birds are singing and the sun is out (did I mention that it’s sunny?) and I have removed myself from my usual blogging locale in the Gidday HQ lounge room to here…

…because I have a bright shiny new laptop!

I can’t decide what I am more excited about.

That I don’t have to pedal hard to coax the old desktop into doing what I want – quite frankly, the number of times it has given up the ghost three quarters of the way through a post and made such a mess of what was saved that I’ve had to type it again. You guys should think yourselves lucky I’m addicted to sharing this blogging caper.

Or that I can surf from the comfy couch. Or anywhere in Gidday HQ for that matter (although the wifi signal did just drop out…)

Or that it goes fast. Really fast. Like 6GB fast. With lots of tabs open and stuff.

So I am tap-tap-tapping away as the birds sing and the sun shines through the french doors into the back room at Gidday HQ today…

…just because I can.

And for all of you doubting Thomases (is that the correct pluralisation for more than one doubting Thomas?), I would like to draw your attention to the date/time stamp on the photos to prove that it is really sunny today. Gloriously so…with a forecast top temperature of 19C.

So I’m off into the great outdoors again before it all disappears…

A Woman of Substance…Again!

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Here I am in the closing hours of a very chilled bank holiday weekend. Having spent yesterday in complete and utter indolence, I had decided that today should feature something a little more productive. So I ventured out for a brisk 40 minute walk around the local park this morning…

…and that’s about all I’ve managed.

After being tempted by the final film in my current LoveFilm trio this morning (Inception, and by the way, it was absolutely brilliant) I kept the telly on in the background while I sat down to tap-tap-tap away. That’s when all my good intentions flew out of the window.

One of my favourite books as a teenager was Barbara Taylor-Bradford’s A Woman of Substance and guess what’s showing on the telly – the whole series from 1984, back to back.

So I’ve climbed to the Top of the World (in the book this is Ramsden Crags on the Yorkshire Moors) and I’m just flitting about at the opening of the new Harte’s department store in Leeds. I can’t wait for the rest of the adventure to unfold…again!

Bliss For The Worker Bee…

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This weekend is a Bank Holiday Weekend meaning some celebration of British-ness has given we worker bees next Monday off.

True to form, the skies have opened, the temperatures have dropped to single figures – 8C is the high for today, THE 5TH OF MAY (yes, that’s me shouting) – and the forecast is not filling me with the hope of any improvement.

As usual.

But a damp-on-the-outside weekend can hold many joys.

Like a cover-to-cover reading of my beloved Saturday Times…


…some inspired planning for my Roman Holiday… 

  …or a few choice flicks (thanks to a free trial from those kind folk at LoveFilm)…

…from the fabulous cosiness of the Gidday HQ couch.

But best of all?

I have nowhere I have to be and I have 3 lovely days in which to do whatever I please.

Now THAT’S worth celebrating.

Your 2012 Five A Day – May

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What is it about jokes of the ‘bodily function’ variety that reduce one to a giggling adolescent?

 
As an Aussie making her life in the UK, I cannot tell you the amount of times I have let it slip that I got my pants wet stepping in a puddle on the way to work. Or that I left my thongs at the door to avoid getting your carpet dirty.

Yes, trousers and casual summer footwear take on a whole new meaning on the other side of the planet.

But this month’s Five A Day reminded me of another Aussie twist on the English language…with the word root.

Here are few definitions from Merriam-Webster. It’s an Encyclopedia Britannica company so it must know:

1a : the usually underground part of a seed plant body that functions as an organ of absorption, aeration, and food storage or as a means of anchorage and support and that differs from a stem especially in lacking nodes, buds, and leaves b : any subterranean plant part (as a true root or a bulb, tuber, rootstock, or other modified stem) especially when fleshy and edible
2 a (1) : the part of a tooth within the socket (2) : any of the processes into which the root of a tooth is often divided b : the enlarged basal part of a hair within the skin—called also hair root c : the proximal end of a nerve; especially : one or more bundles of nerve fibers joining the cranial and spinal nerves with their respective nuclei and columns of gray matter—see dorsal root, ventral root d : the part of an organ or physical structure by which it is attached to the body
Nothing odd here. Long, complicated and a bit boring (actually I ‘switched off’ about two lines in). Just what you expected, right?
But in that land Down Under (you know, where women glow and men plunder), root is another word for having sex.
Yes that’s right.
Sex.
So when you ask us to root around and find that information, we suppress a childish giggle.
And when you ask us which route you should take, those fresh off the boat may let an adolescent snigger escape. (The rest of us are sniggering on the inside.)
And heaven forbid when you Americans say you are rooting for us…
*snort*
*blush*
So what cross-cultural euphemisms have caught you out? Go on, you can tell me.
It’ll be our little secret…
*wink*
*chortle*

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I Feel Pretty…

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I was out and about earlier and while there’s still a nip in the air, there are blossoms everywhere, leading me to believe that Spring might have finally arrived.

Early in March I was delighted to see some scattered daffs under a tree in nearby Victoria Park…

Then we had a couple of weeks of gloriously sunny weather (remember that time when we were warmer than you beloved Melburnites?) We were all delirious over here and there was even a breathy mention or two…could this be the year that we have a ‘good summer’?

Then it rained for a few weeks and I had to resort to bringing the outside in…

Bunches of daffodils are cheap here at this time of year and last between 10 days and two weeks

But today’s blue skies and spring-like 14C (I know, my expectations have lowered considerably on the temperature front over the last 8 years) have brought forth a veritable tour-de-force of blossoms…

I was crossing the High Road in East Finchley today when I snapped this glorious spread behind my bus stop
I noticed these buds on my side fence from the kitchen window last weekend which are now in bloom. I don’t know what they are so if any less horticulturally challenged than me can advise, I would not look stupid in my own garden be grateful
These are growing in random plastic buckets in the back garden. Haven’t a scooby what these are either. They live without much input from me. This makes me look good happy.

London is so unbelievably pretty in the Spring – I actually think it’s one of the things where it beats Australia hands down.

Even Google is getting in on the act!

Google 22nd April 2012

But lest you be misled, I should let you know that after a glorious t-shirt and light jumper walk this morning, it’s now raining…

Yes indeed, Spring has definitely sprung.

Oh What A Night…

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How could a post about the fabulous Jersey Boys be called anything else? It was a night to remember indeed.

To celebrate A-use-to-be-down-the-hill’s birthday a couple of weeks ago, I decided to spring for a girlie night at the theatre. Jersey Boys has had such great reviews during its London run and you never know when these things are going to finish or get all expensive so I grabbed a couple of tickets and off we went.

Fuelled by a couple of glasses of wine over dinner beforehand, we climbed the stairs to the Grand Circle of the Prince Edward Theatre, squashed any vertiginous tendancies and squeezed into our seats to be greeted by a bird’s eye view of the entire stage. Then the music started and we were away.

I’d heard of the Four Seasons and Frankie Valli – although I did get him a little confused with Ritchie Valens before the show began (it’s sometimes good to feel too young to know these things for sure) – but with the first note, I realised that I knew every song. Some of the time I remembered the later cover versions – I particularly remember bopping along to The Spinners’ version of Workin’ My Way Back To You Babe in 1979 – but classics like Big Girls Don’t Cry and Walk Like A Man featuring Valli’s trademark falsetto are still as great now as they ever were.

The show charts the story of The Four Seasons, the struggle to hit the big time, the genius of Bob Gaudio’s writing and Valli’s extraordinary range, the personal tragedies and the ups and downs of life on the road. As Valli (Ryan Molloy on London’s stage) points out, as the bad times always pass, so do the good ones.

This is a fantastic, feel good musical. The cast is great, the show moves swiftly and the music of the era runs its nostalgic fingers through slicked back hair and many great memories. And quite frankly I defy anyone not to let a little tune burst forth on the walk back to the tube. 

Oh wait…I think that was just us…