very small earthquake, nobody killed...
I was woken this morning at about 2.00 am local time by my very first earthquake, it was a most peculiar sensation, a sort of cross between someone shaking the bed and a surreptitious belch. I suppose what woke me up was the strangeness of it, not that it was extreme or terrifying.
We’re all finding it very difficult to get a handle on Singapore; it feels very familiar, yet very strange. It is very obviously a former British colony; the cars drive on the left, there are British 13 amp plug sockets and everyone speaks the lingo. Yet at the same time it has mutated into a sort of mega-capitalist state, where brutal skyscrapers are demolished to make way for yet more brutal skyscrapers and everywhere there are shopping malls, even the theatre we are performing in has its own mini-mall, just in case you hadn’t shopped enough when you come to see a show. Yet the audience seems to be very discriminating and discerning (I’m not just saying that because we are sold out for both shows), people actually seem to know who we are, and despite the fact that we are sharing the building with ‘Phantom of the Opera’ there is a genuine appetite for experimental theatre.
After putting the show in today, we were invited to go for a meal with the festival organisers, one of whom is a vegetarian, and the other suffering from a gippy tummy, thus the three of us were forced to struggle with a five course seafood banquet, which, as a piece de resistance, offered us the local speciality: a vast cauldron of chopped up crabs in chilli sauce. Quite apart from being totally impossible to eat decorously, there was also way too much for us to eat. Our hosts kindly had it parcelled up for us to take away, and suggested that we eat it later. I’m afraid it was deposited in a convenient bin on our way home, it was delicious, but, rather like a kebab, existed only of the moment, and would only have been regretted if encountered in the morning.
Our lazy meander back to our hotel took in Raffles Hotel, because you have to, and we ordered Singapore Slings and tried to look manly drinking them. I can safely report that they were disgusting, and tasted of pink, the only other thing to say about Raffles is that it had rather an interesting shrew which did a couple of laps around the bar before vanishing into the shrubbery.
I felt that this was encouraging, as it was the first piece of indigenous wildlife I had seen, this was followed by two geckos in another bar, and things were looking up.
Our Hotel is not actively very nice, the hybrid Asian/Japanese/European breakfast takes a bit of getting used to; Dim Sum with Bratwurst, Toast and Jam anyone? Singapore is used a lot as a transit point, so there are loads of stopover passengers, mainly elderly Australians, who are casually labelled up and shepherded on and off buses. Everywhere you go, you will encounter troupes of them, each with their colour coded sticker to distinguish them from another party.
Tiny Rebellions
Whilst sitting in the gentle spring sunshine on South Ealing tube station, waiting for the non-arrival of my train to Heathrow, I was pondering the somewhat excessive and frequently silly security measures at the airport. After mentally congratulating myself for having put on Velcro fastening shoes I then wondered how embarrassing my socks were going to be, upon inspection, the answer was ‘fairly’, although I was wearing the eminently practical and comfortable Baxters’ bonny socks (see link), one was turquoise and the other bright pink.
Those who know me may recall that I do always wear odd socks, this started as a small rebellion when I was still at school, and I haven’t wavered once since, it depressed me slightly to realise that next year will be the thirtieth anniversary of my tiny revolt. This has only once caused comment, when I was called as a prosecution witness to a car accident, and the defence lawyer tried to discredit my observational ability on the grounds that I had failed to notice that I was wearing odd socks. Needless to say, I was able to set the record straight, and tell the magistrates what colour (purple and green), and on which feet each sock was, without looking down. I did have to put my feet up on the witness box to prove it! Despite all this effort, he got off.
Finally, whilst travelling through London the other day, I was somewhat startled to discover that the Flora London Marathon has an official beer, Fullers London Pride no less. Can anyone tell me why? Fullers has been my local beer for years, and I have been witness, man and boy, to its hallucinogenic charms, what it can’t reasonably claim, apart from being perfectly wholesome (indeed it is very good beer!), is any sort of health and fitness giving properties. A couple of pints before the London Marathon, and they’ll all be wanting a little snooze in the sunshine, rather than slogging their guts out for 26 miles. Oh well, it’s all marketing I suppose.
http://hfweb.co.uk/bonnysocks/products.htm
let them eat...?
I have blogged before about the various strange tasks that a jobbing theatre technician has to take in his or her stride. This weeks mission was entirely routine, or it would have been if it had been in the same country. The company I am working for is very family friendly, and there are a number of children from various permutations of the core company members floating about the place.
Next week we are going to Singapore to do one of the small shows, and we are taking one of the kids with us, as it will be her eighth birthday while we are away. So my task has been to locate a suitable birthday cake for an eight year-old that we can order over the interweb.
Thanks to the blogosphere, and creative input from various people we now have cake sorted, check these out and drool...
http://www.thepatissier.com/webtop/index.phtml
http://www.swensens.com.sg/order.html
I think we're going for the icecream cake, as none of the adults could resist the idea of pouring water into the box and seeing it bubble with dry ice.
Thanks to Mia Nue (http://skinny-epicurean.blogspot.com/) and Martin for their contributions.
Embarrassment
There are some moments in anybody's life that won't ever go away, no matter how much therapy and alcohol fuelled attempts at oblivion. This particular cringe dates back a few years, when I was participating in the reconstruction of the previous home of the Northern Professors. My capable assistant (one of the former slightly sensible Ladies of Clun) and I had been sampling the local beverages, this involved a healthy two mile walk, which on this occasion had not been enough to sort us out.
A few days previously the Northern Professor had shown me an advert for a company specialising in rare and exotic tomato varieties, unfortunately I remembered at about 2.00 am, country pub closing times being a little flexible, and decided to call and leave a request for a catalogue on their answering machine. Having once been played back a message that sounded like a series of low mooing noises that I knew was me trying to say I wouldn't be in for work next day, I was conscious of the need to be clear and concise for the tape. Imagine my horror, when rather than the familiar click of the message tape, someone actually answered the 'phone. Someone who was more than a little sleepy, and confused. I stammered incoherent apologies, and tried to explain that I thought they'd have an answering machine.
He cut through my babbling with a simple question; 'was it about tomatoes?', when I answered in the affirmative, he grunted and said, 'oh well, that's alright then,' without a hint of irony, and took my details for the catalogue.
They are still going, still excellent, and probably just as obsessed, they're good for chillis too...
http://www.simpsonsseeds.co.uk/
