Paris with a Teenager

Posted on August 26, 2024 by katese11

This might be one of many posts about our recent holiday but also, I’m quite tired as a result of our recent holiday so forgive me if they don’t materialise. In fact, this might be just a series of one which says “baguettezzzzzzzzzzzz” as I fall asleep on the keyboard

We started our Paris trip in the unglamourous surrounds of the Premier Inn, Euston Road. My logic had been that we needed to catch the Eurostar earlyish in the morning and, once again, the Chingford line was not functioning. With a choice between a Premier Inn stay or the rail replacement bus in a hurry, I chose the former but I may not have chosen well. The windows were open because the aircon didn’t work and the noise from the Rocket pub opposite didn’t make for a peaceful night’s sleep. I think Nathan and I went there on his Monopoly stag crawl in 2002 but I don’t remember any of us loudly singing football chants at midnight. Ah well.

So it was a groggy and grouchy family traipsing through St Pancras in search of adventure. We’d had the Premier Inn breakfast but Eva had got into trouble with the staff for dropping her hash browns so that hadn’t helped with the general atmosphere. Then we got shouted at by a passport official for following the exact instructions his colleague had just given us and all of this while I was clutching Eva’s half-drunk mango bubble frappe because there was nowhere in the security queue to dispose of it. So it went through the X-ray machine in a special cup holder and then I threw it away just before the boarding lounge. Eurostar travel is *less* stressful than going through an airport but I sometimes think they’re trying to emulate that Stansted pre-holiday feeling.

Once we were actually aboard the Eurostar, all seemed calm. We had table seats so could Nathan and Roo could play “Tinny Dungeons” and Eva could draw or read or eat snacks. All very civilised. The two hours zipped by and we started seeing the outskirts of Paris. I’d decided not to go to Pret at St Pancras because I had my hands full already and Roo had suggested there might be a Pret in Paris, given it was a French word. I mocked him for this because I didn’t think the French would really get behind a brand often referred to as just “Ready”. But what was the very first thing we saw as we disembarked?

I stand corrected. I am pret to admit my teenager knows more than I do.

What none of us knew about was the ticketing system for the Paris metro. This was to be a theme throughout our travels but the machines at Gare du Nord were particularly crowded and we were just four of the hundreds of hapless tourists trying to figure this out. A bit of retroactive research suggests that some of the normal options for travel were unavailable or were inflated in price because of the Olympics, even though we were visiting in the gap between the Olympics and the Paralympics. Either way, I ended up buying a small stash of single-trip tickets at 4 Euros each before later crumbling and buying the day passes at 16 Euros each, which adds up to a pricey 64 Euros for our family. And no clarity on whether that’s a day ticket like a calendar date or a 24-hour period. Either way it cost a lot but luckily I still had enough single use tickets for the Sunday morning anyway so everything got used, even if we paid above the odds for it. Everyone at the station seemed similarly confused about the options and the queue when a Eurostar had just come in was a bit scary.

Once we had the tickets, it was a relatively straightforward question of negotiating the ticket gates and the trains with our luggage and finding our way to our hostel in Montmatre. We were a bit early for check in but could leave our suitcases in the luggage room and that made a massive difference. At this point, it was raining lightly but Nathan didn’t think about taking his coat out of his suitcase and onwards with him. Remember that. Reuben hadn’t packed a coat at all. I’d grabbed a thin waterproof when we were leaving home and had Eva’s raincoat with us but had forgotten my cardigan and had panic bought a replacement at Fat Face in St Pancras. We were not the best prepared for any weather events, having left London in glorious sunshine.

You know what’s coming. You can probably tell from the umbrella in the picture above. Yup, weather event. But more on that later.

The boys had tickets for the Eiffel Tower at 17:30 and it was about 13:30 when we left the hostel, suitcase-free. We had some time to kill but surely that wouldn’t be hard, right? We’d already located the bibliotheque, scourge of many a GCSE student’s spoken exam, but there were a few more exciting things to find. So we headed back to the Metro, bought those day passes, and caught the train towards Notre Dame.

First though, a quick fuelling stop at this petite eaterie I believe they call “Cinq Hommes”:

It took us a while to find it in the increasingly soggy streets while my Google Maps struggled with a wet screen and uncertain phone coverage. But this branch was right next to Fontaine des Innocents and also near but not inside the Westfield mall. No, not the one in Stratford. The Cinq Hommes experience is reassuringly familiar, for tweens who need that reassurance, but there are no refillable drinks in France so you have to juggle QR codes as well as drinks fountains. Also, the fries come in a silver tray. It was a good use of having learnt those complicated French numbers though, so I could listen out to “Deux cent soixante cinq” when it was called.

After we left, it became increasingly apparent that the rain was no longer light, even in the City of Light. Eva claimed to not want her raincoat, so Reuben borrowed it and we ducked into a tourist shop to buy umbrellas and this rather fetching poncho:

Fed and re-enforced against the weather, we were ready to do some standing around looking at the cathedral. Obviously, Notre Dame is not currently open to the public but it’s still very impressive from the outside. There are steps opposite the front so you can climb up and see what’s behind the hoardings. Just watch your step as it can be slippery in the rain.

Wait, it’s raining? I hadn’t noticed.

I do love this photo of Roo and I looking at Notre Dame while Eva channels a grumpy Parisian who doesn’t know us:

We had been outside for a while so it was a relief to dive back into the Metro for some temporary warmth and dryness. We were heading towards the Eiffel Tower but it didn’t take very long and we still had around an hour to kill before the boys went up. Eva and I would then need to hang out for another 90 minutes or so until they came back down. When I imagined all of this, we were lounging in the sunshine in the gardens around the Tower. The reality was a little different. Not only was there no sunshine but there was also a shortage of garden, given that part of it was fenced off for the Olympics and the bit underneath the Tower was behind security gates. I later found out that it was free to get into this bit and so we could have gone through but we found that out a bit too late. Still, enjoy this photo of Reuben doing his classic “I fell” gag:

So as the rain intensified, we ran into the nearest cafe where we paid eyebrow-raising tourist prices for a coffee but dagnam, that was the best tasting coffee I’ve ever had. I think it was just because we were somewhere cosy while las pluie battante battered on outside. The staff were friendly and spoke English to us even though we attempted a bit of French. The decor was pretty and Reuben had a very sticky crepe that gave him the strength he’d need for the climb ahead.

Then we said au revoir to the boys and went to find something to occupy ourselves. We were quite tired by this point, having not slept much and schlepped all over Paris. So somewhere with a lot of space to sit down would be ideal. Which is how Eva and I found ourselves in Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, watching videos of tribal rituals in the soothing semi-darkness.

It was mildly unsettling, as experiences go. So late on in the day, the museum was empty and some of the artefacts were a bit terrifying. It was what Eva would describe as a liminal space and, sure enough, there was a mention of liminality on one of the videos:

But it was warm, and no one bothered us if we just sat on one of the many seating shelves and rested. Most of the exhibits were around the cultures of traditional societies of Africa, Asia, Oceania & the Americas but then there was a small exhibition about black superheroes that had an X-Men ’97 Storm action figure. It was a little incongruous but nicely familiar in a space that was a bit otherworldly:

Now I think about it, maybe that little action figure was the one controlling the weather. In which case, she and I need to have words.

If you’re wondering how Nathan and Roo got on at the tower, here’s a couple of photos:

I’d booked them a guided tour without really meaning to but apparently it was very entertaining. I’d also booked them stair climbing tickets instead of the lifts but they managed it OK and I think they’ve forgiven me. If you’re wondering why Eva and I didn’t go, then see any post where Eva has to deal with either heights or steps or both. That’s how come we ended up hanging out with this guy instead:

We were due to meet up again at 19:00 and that’s the same time as the museum closed. We stayed as late as we could, taking advantage of the facilities and browsing the bookshop, but I’m mildly phobic about being locked in a museum overnight so we left with a bit of time before it closed. A quick visit to a shop for chocolat and a baguette brought us up to the meeting time, with only a small delay to get the most Parisian of photos. Eva already owned the beret but once we added the baguette, it seemed essential to pose in front of the Tower with both.

This next bit is mildly painful, as the tour de la tour overran and the boys were still up on the 2nd floor while Eva and I were waiting for them at the bottom. My phone coverage was still patchy due to my network being conflicted as to whether I allowed roaming or not (spoiler: I did). So we couldn’t really stray far from the meeting point because I didn’t know if I could contact Nathan or not. And even if the network behaved, my battery was running low and I didn’t have my powerbank with me. We could have gone back to the hostel but that would have meant leaving the boys to tackle the Paris metro on their own and that didn’t seem fair. So we picked a spot by the exit of the Tower and we waited. Eva found a dryish patch of ground under a tree and sat there to eat her baguette. It was, of course, still raining.

All this was fine – not ideal but manageable. The chocolate helped. Eventually I sat down next to Eva, on the damp-but-not-soaking ground and it wasn’t long after that that we got apprehended by the armed gendarmes. They politely asked in English if everything was OK and I replied in English as this didn’t seem like a great time to stretch my French. They requested that we move from our tree-sheltered and sit on a bench as this would be “a better seat”. I didn’t want to argue too much with a man with a gun but the bench was really very wet, and there was a giant muddy puddle where our feet would go…..so I didn’t sit there. But neither we continue sitting under the tree. Instead, we stood awkwardly by the exit until the boys emerged. I’d managed to get hold of Nathan after a few failed calls and so they left the tour early and headed for the lifts. It was 19:45 by the time they got down, so the tour really was overrunning quite badly and Eva and I were keen to move on after our brush with the law. Once we were reunited and on our way back to the metro station, I reminded Nathan that I knew a song about gendarmes but it didn’t seem like a great time to sing it. He agreed.

I was so glad to get back to the hostel and finally check in. We had booked a family room with four bunks in one space but were charmed to find something more like a suite, with a kids room around the corner from the adult room. The toilet and shower/sink were in two separate rooms, both off the adult room so there was a bit of shuffling around during the night but after sitting on the damp ground, it was luxurious. The toilet seat may have been cracked and have a step down that was bound to trip us up but like the Four Yorkshiremen, it were home to us.

The next morning, we had hostel breakfast which looked basic from the picture and the 7 Euro charge. When we picked up our trays of nothing but condiments, I feared for a second that it was really very microscopic but then our table was given a pot of four pastries and four hunks of bread. Again, I might just have been grateful for small luxuries but that bread was amazing. I didn’t even need the condiments, other than the butter. We got a coffee each from the machine, which was an extra 1.50 Euro each, to be paid at check-out after some confusion about whether it was included or not. Then we were ready to face the next step of our journey, which was a long train ride to Stuttgart. But more on that in another post.

Almost exactly a week later, we were back in Paris and this time the sun shone. Now, THIS was the Paris you see in the movies. What’s more, we already had Metro tickets in hand, having spent our spare Swiss Francs on them on board the train from Zurich. Yeah, there are a few posts missing in the middle here. We were only en Paris for a few hours before our Eurostar home so had booked left luggage at Mobile Store, near Gare du Nord. Every time I booked a random luggage storage place, my family had concerns but this guy could not have been friendlier and was from Bangladesh, so spoke English to us. It was very straightforward and we retrieved the bags just before heading home.

That left us once again suitcase- and fancy-free in Paris. And once again we went to Five Guys, this time the one in the station. The big draw here was being able to order at a kiosk, although it was a bit confusing when picking up drinks cups, and by now we kinda understood the QR code system. There were no toilets, so we had to use the ones downstairs in Gare du Nord at a Euro a pop. Let’s skim over the stressful aspects of that bit and go straight to our destination for the afternoon – Musée d’Orsay.

Eva had wanted to go to the Catacombs but see my previous comment re Eva’s dislike of steps – 120 steps to get out of the Catacombs seemed like it might be pushing the boundaries of what she could cope with and it would have been an expensive gamble. So when I spotted a discount on Musée d’Orsay tickets through Booking.com, I floated it to the kids. Roo knows about Van Gogh from both Art and Doctor Who so he was bought in and Eva will probably end up doing Art GCSE so it’s good for her to see these things too.

First off, the building is beautiful. It’s an old train station and I do love a bit of station architecture. Also, the collection is super-impressive and there are plenty of paintings that even someone as ignorant as I am can recognise. True, there was one Monet that I looked at for ages wondering where I knew it from before Eva reminded me that it was on a mug in our kitchen:

But there were also some very famous works in there, especially on the 5th floor where the Van Gogh room is:

I mean, I remember having to sketch this in Year 7 art class when we were looking at perspective so it’s pretty cool to see IRL:

The Monet room is equally awe-inspiring:

And on the 5th floor, there was also a roof terrace with some quite incredible views over Paris:

One of my favourites was this painting by Frédéric Bazille, called “Family Reunion”. I mean, there’s a tricky family dynamic right there, isn’t there?

And there were some incredible sculptures, like this “Gates to Hell”:

Meanwhile, Eva was busy spotting all the paintings of cats there were painted by people who seem to have never seen a cat before:

And both kids loved this polar bear sculpture:

In fact, Roo was the most enthusiastic and didn’t want to leave until he’d seen everything. I think we may have missed a few rooms but we were pretty exhausted and my plan to stop for a break in the cafe was thwarted by the queue going into the cafe. So instead, we pressed on to see a few more rooms and sadly never found the temporary exhibition about dogs. It’s been a year since Eva and I last went to see an exhibition about dogs so we’re overdue for a refresher.

After all that culture, we needed a sit down and the Jardin des Tuileries across the river looked ideal. As with the gardens at the Eiffel Tower, a lot of it was fenced off for the Olympics so seating was a bit scarce. Still, we found a bench and a kiosk selling ice cream so had a quick break and a pot of mango sorbet. I wanted to walk eastwards to the nearest Metro station and take in the outside of the Louvre on the way but the fences blocked our path so it was back across the bridge for us. Again, lovely views:

And from there not much else to tell. It’s difficult to buy a fresh baguette in the vicinity of Gare du Nord on a Sunday evening but the family made do with whatever I could buy in the Monop shop and then the Eurostar lounge once we’d gone through security.

I also had a heart-stopping moment when I witnessed someone dropping their suitcase in the gap when boarding the train. Nathan tells me that a fellow passenger just stuck his arm down to get it back. I don’t know why I gasped so…whether I was worried that it would delay us or just feeling extreme empathy for the person who dropped it but it’s fine, it all worked out well. The trip back was then perfectly smooth – we had a table again so feasted on my hastily assembled picnic.

London was cold and now we’re back home and facing the looming prospect of September. But before then, I need to fill in the gap (not with a suitcase) and tell you all about the bit between Paris and Paris. Hopefully it’ll make me sound like less of a British tourist monoglot than these bits. But maybe it won’t be today….

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Dopamine Land – 03/08/24

Posted on August 3, 2024 by katese11

I seem to have a bit of a curse at the moment where I’m writing about things no one will soon be able to go to. As soon as I reviewed Fox in a Box, they announced they were closing. I went to a Club de Fromage daytime party shortly before they revealed that they were stopping everything *except* the daytime parties. And now I’ve finally got round to going to Dopamine Land just a week before the doors shut forever. Still, if you’re at a loose end in the next week or so you know where to go!

Dopamine Land is just next door to Accidentally Wes Anderson so the nearest tube is South Kensington. We have a well-worn route to South Ken that unfortunately wasn’t viable today, due to both the Overground and the Piccadilly Line having closures. So instead it was a bus to Walthamstow, tube to Victoria and then an awkward change on an overcrowded Circle and District line platform. I stand by what I said about Victoria station being full of tourists who have no idea where they’re going.

Still, I’d accounted for at least some of these complications and left time for things to go wrong, especially in light of the patchy buses and lack of trains we’ve suffered for weeks now. So we got to South Ken with a clear hour to spare and decided to hang out in a Pret that’s considerably larger than the Petit one inside the station.

If you haven’t heard yet, the Pret subscription is changing in September so don’t worry – this non-stop advertising will soon cease. Pret and I have decided to see other people. A conscious uncoupling, if you will.

While having coffee, I started thinking about the logistics of being in a ball pool when neither Eva nor I had socks on and whether we’d be told off. So I nipped back across the road and managed to secure two pairs of socks from Cards Galore in the station arcade at a reasonable-ish price. Plus, they have Highland Cows on which is a bonus.

All of which preparation brings us to Dopamine Land itself. You’re greeted several times as you go through – once in reception then once in this room full of neon frames:

This is a bit of a holding area where you can put bags into the cloakroom and use the loo (through the bar area but you’re told not to get too distracted by it) and then sent through to the experience itself once the group in front has moved on. As a starting point, it can feel a bit too curated like you’re going to be monitored at every stage but everyone is friendly so it’s not a problem. The first room is a timed experience – one of only two – so that’s why the first part is carefully managed but there’s a lot more freedom to wander at your own pace after that first room.

The first room is quite special though, and it’s the one which appears on all the posters. You can see why:

You can also see why it’s timed once you’re in there as it’s a very small, enclosed space and could get claustrophobic once those doors are shut. The time went by very quickly but we got a few photos:

Next up was the musical squares room. We didn’t quite work out how the music was working but basically you jump on squares as they light up to create a tapestry of sound and light. It’s fun although quite dark so none of my photos really worked. This one does look kinda like a 90s music video though:

It is quite a full-on sensory experience so some people might find it overwhelming but Eva was fine, even with her noise sensitivity. The corridors in between are also quite dark and the neon, combined with the ambient noise, gives it a bit of an eerie Stranger Things vibe. That’s not a bad thing but it might be worth keeping younger kids close if they’re easily spooked.

From there, a couple more rooms that were a bit more low-key so a bit of breather after two quite intense ones. The writing room is getting really quite full up now so it was hard to find a blank space to add to and I must have leant on the wall at one point because I seem to have writing on my arm.

Nathan climbed on the stool and wrote on the ceiling – I’m not sure whether that was the intention but other people had clearly done it before him.

Reuben wrote “The Game” of course but you sadly can’t really make it out. Luckily, it’s been immortalised in lego and on a bracelet this week so we won’t forget those words too easily. Eva also wrote it on the sand in Margate but that might have been washed away by now.

The other room was the lucid dreaming room but that was a tad underwhelming – just some mirrors and video and I wasn’t quite sure how to interact with them. I might well have missed something.

We’d caught up with the group in front in the writing room and the group behind ours had caught up with us so there was a bit of a bottleneck going in to the ball pool area. The idea is that you go to the story cave first – which has fridge poetry and shadow puppets – and then the waiting area to take your shoes off. With a few groups going in different directions there was a bit of confusion and the possibility that the family coming up behind us might overtake. Credit to the guy in charge of that area though – he sorted us all out and everyone went to the ball pool and then the fire lantern room in order. We shared the ball pool with the group of two behind us but that was fine…there was plenty of room.

I didn’t get many pictures as I didn’t want to lose my phone in the balls but you get the idea. We lost Eva under the balls a few times but we recovered her in time to get back to the waiting room.

Then we chilled out for quite a long time in the fire lantern room. It’s spacious and calming and there are lots of mats to lie down on so we did just that. It’s the kind of play facility I longed for when the kids were little….”now children, here’s a room where we all lie down and do nothing. It says we have to on the wall”.

Again, my pictures are pretty ropey because it was so dark but it was a nice, relaxing experience. As was the next room – the forest:

We hung out there for a while until it got a bit crowded and we moved on to the final room before the bar area…the Pillow Fight room. This is quite a shocker after two nice calm rooms…the lights are flashing and there is “Set You Free” by N-Trance on repeat. I think this juxtaposition of quiet and loud is deliberate and meant to get you used to the transition back to the real world. Or maybe it’s just meant to put you in an aggressive mood for pillow fighting, which must have worked cause we ganged up on Nathan and beat him to the floor, Lord of the Flies-style.

And then we went for a lovely bubble tea in the bar area. You really do go through the full range of happiness-related emotions in this place. Happiness at sitting in a nice room and sipping on passionfruit and blackberry bubble tea (or Coke for the boys) just after the happiness of getting your aggression out by walloping each other with pillows.

There are a few more photo opportunities in the bar area as well, while you enjoy your drinks so of course we took them all.

The experience takes around an hour plus time at the bar, so it was about half past four by the time we were ready to leave. Ridiculously early  – in my opinion – for dinner so I suggested a short walk to a different branch of Five Guys. This might be because the South Ken branch is always crowded but also just to spin the day out a bit longer before we had to tackle the homeward journey.

So we set off up Queen’s Gate and found the newly renovated Wildlife Garden at the Natural History Museum. At least, I think it’s newly reopened – it was closed off when we were there in January. I’d hoped we could wander along the path and it would take out a bit of the route but the north end doesn’t link back up to the street so we had to retrace our steps.

Still, it was a very pretty and soothing diversion and it’s amazing how wild it feels considering it’s right in the middle of London. There was also a dog statue on top of one of the buildings:

We took a similar diversion at the top of Queens Gate, to walk west through Kensington Gardens instead of along the road. We saw a dog fountain on the way, which Eva had to stop and pet:

And a rainbow of plants, including a very goth front row:

We also saw a trapeze training school which was impressive but terrifying looking. Eva was not overly keen to sign up and I can’t say I blame her but kudos to the students – we stopped to watch one trapeze trainee and she had mad skillz. I didn’t get a photo of her in action but you can trust me on this one.

Fearful of having to double back again, I cut back to the road way too early – just by the coffee kiosk – when we could have walked through right up to the end of the gardens. Eva had clocked by this point that the short walk was longer than I’d made it sound but luckily we were now in sight of Kensington High Street and I could assure her that Five Guys was within reach. I was a little distressed to find out that my old branch of Clarks was now an Itsu but I guess times change and sushi might be more popular than sandals now. If only someone had thought to combine them and open up a sushoeshop.

Luckily, I was not wrong about Five Guys. And they even had their very own rainbow to greet us with:

Despite some confusion at Kensington High Street tube (where *do* you get the District line towards Upminster from?) we had a smooth journey back, with Vic line spookily quiet for a Saturday afternoon and the bus turning up after a fashion at Walthamstow. A successful day out!

Dopamine Land is open until 11th August. For tickets and more info, click here

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“Kathy and Stella Solve a Murder” at Ambassadors Theatre – 17/07/24

Posted on July 20, 2024 by katese11

Now, there’s no starker realisation that the toddler years are over than when you take your baby girl to see a show and she is laughing uproariously at a well-placed F-bomb in the first scene. There are many well-placed F-bombs in this show, including one that’s backlit and giant as part of a hashtag so I would emphasis the age rating – 12+ – and gently nudge anyone who’s after proper toddler content towards Tales From the Shed or Little Angel Theatre.

That disclaimer out of the way, I’ll go for another, which is that I booked this on a whim because I could not get the trailer song out of my head. So I gave in to advertising and hoped it would stop me singing it. Spoiler: It did not.

So I really wasn’t expecting much. Our seats were £20 each and advertised as “restricted view” so I wasn’t even sure whether we would see anything. I told Eva that, given it was a show about a podcast, then we could always just listen to it like a podcast and not worry too much. As it turned out, we could see most of the action apart from one rather vital bit towards the end but we did have to lean back a bit and look up. If we looked straight ahead, this would be our view:

We were also right by the speakers, so some bits were a little loud but there were advantages too. A surprise character in the second half popped up almost in front of us  – I won’t spoil the surprise by saying who the character was but Eva described their outfit as “iconic”. And we got a few stray winks off the lead actors plus a cardigan pocket full of confetti. That’s pretty much the front-row-for twenty-quid experience….a crick in the neck but a few souvenirs too. And legroom! All balances out.

If you haven’t seen the trailer and aren’t familiar with the concept of the show, it’s about two best friends who have a true crime podcast and aspire to become “true crime famous”. But then they become embroiled in a real-life murder and have to solve it before their own lives are in danger. If you think this sounds a bit like “Only Murders in the Building”, then you’d be right. I’m not sure which came first but the basic concepts and dynamics are very similar. However, where OMITB is very NYC, KASSAM is KUH. That’s Kingston-Upon-Hull or just Hull for the fans. In fact, it’s so Hull that there’s a chance that tourists might not be offended by the swearing because they don’t have any idea that it’s a swear word. Thanks to going to university in Reading with Roast Dinners in London, I am more than familiar with Hull-tinged swearing. And yes, I was very pleased when Kathy of Kathy and Stella revealed that she also went to Reading Uni, even if her experience wasn’t too positive.

Not as excited as I was to see her “Once More With Feeling” mug though. There were three references to Buffy in the show and all of them made me happy but that more than anything.

I know I’m focusing on the small details before I get to the big picture – mugs, accents, outfits – but isn’t that the forensic way? Look at the small details and build up an intelligence picture. We’ll get there.

First though, a few of the themes….at its heart, this is a show about female friendship. You know that any pair of friends who swear undying devotion to each other at the start of a show are gonna fall out about halfway through (just in time for the third coconut) and then make up by the end. That happens here, and it’s a fairly predictable arc about growing up, growing apart and finding a new way to relate. But that’s all fine…from that familiar trope, layers of character and murder-based humour are piled on to make it into something new. When Kathy sings that “if I didn’t have you, I’d die” she mimes someone disembowelling her in gruesome fashion. Stella, the less emotional one, is more non committal about the whole thing and wraps her sentimentality up with a sneaky Rickroll.

Another theme is neurodiversity. In the same song, Stella says “I hated pretty much everyone/’Til I found someone who hated everyone too”. They’re outcasts and nerds – Kathy the flower child and Stella the rock chick – but they’ve found each other and a way to channel that nerdiness into something productive. They have anxiety (Kathy) and dyspraxia (Stella), both of which Eva strongly relates to and it’s good to see some positive representation…..acknowledging the struggles of anxiety but not overdramatising it.

The third theme is the fickleness of pop culture, which is also explored in another of Eva’s favourite murder musicals – “Chicago”. Kathy and Stella start out as fangirls themselves before discovering that their idol isn’t all she’s cracked up to be….and later they briefly become the celebrities themselves. It’s a show that’s made for the internet age, where everything is polarised and turns around quickly. The aforementioned giant hashtag illustrates that nicely and it’s summed up in the song “Approval of Strangers” where Stella sings “From this point I can’t see any danger/in rooting all my self esteem/To the approval of strangers”

But I’m aware that all of this makes it sound very earnest, which it really really isn’t. It’s all handled a bit tongue-in-cheek with lots of sly winks to the audience and fourth wall breaking. The dance numbers are gloriously over-the-top, with the theme song performed in spinning office chairs that come dangerously close to the edge of the stage when you’re sitting just in front of it. A storyline that looks like it’s turning into a love story takes an abrupt turn when Kathy falls in love with the morgue itself, not the man in it, and celebrates atop an autopsy trolley. I’m glad that love story didn’t go anywhere because the actor was also playing Kathy’s mum so it was all getting a bit Oedipal.

The props were similarly over-the-top with not just the confetti but also those giant foam fingers you get at American sports games but they’re all holding murder weapons. There’s crackling energy throughout, even though the seven actors are frantically multi-tasking and constantly diving off the stage only to come back seconds later as a different character. There are red herrings galore and the final reveal – which was the key moment we couldn’t quite see from our seats – was less important than all the build up around it. And, of course, the inevitable escape after it. They’ve been preparing for a hostage situation all their lives, don’t ya know?

Eva laughed a LOT and was quoting it all the way home. She’s now developed what I believe the young folks call a headcanon but we don’t need to go into that. I didn’t see anyone else there in the tween age range but it was a school night so more young people might want to go now it’s school holidays. As long as you don’t mind the swearing, it’s perfect for your nerdy tweens – joyous, funny, modern but with a classic whodunnit theme. See you next murder!

“Kathy and Stella Solve a Murder” is on at the Ambassadors Theatre until 14th September. For tickets and more info, click here

No disclaimer needed as I paid for this one. All opinions remain honest and my own though.

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This is London…with a teenager

Posted on July 13, 2024 by katese11

This is the shocking post you’ve all been waiting for. This blog turns 13 today, on 13th July and in honour of that milestone, I am renaming the blog once and for all.

Welcome to….London With a Teenager

The mathematically-inclined among you will have figured out the reason for this dramatic change. If I had a toddler in July 2011 then it kinda stands to reason that I now inexplicably have a giant GCSE student. And an almost-as-giant tween coming up to take the mantle in a year or so.

It’s not like I haven’t dropped some hints over recent years. Things like sword fighting and escape rooms aren’t classic toddler activities and I can’t remember the last time either of my kids set foot in a sandpit. I still love a paddling pool on a hot day though.

So that’s my way of saying that nothing’s really changing except for the header image and a new URL that basically just points back to the old one. Thank you to all my loyal readers – I know a lot of you now also have secondary-school aged kids so do stick around. There might be something to help wit all those long summer weeks that are stretching ahead of us….

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“Much Ado About Nothing” by East London Shakespeare Festival – 08/07/24

Posted on July 8, 2024 by katese11

This is our third visit to an ELSF production in Highams Park. The first year was “Twelfth Night” in blazing sunshine, to the point that we were having to create shade for the kids to sit in:

Last year was “Romeo and Juliet” and it was a little damp around the edges:

What would it be this year? As we sat on the train home from church, watching the torrential rain, I wasn’t feeling optimistic. Neither was I as I dashed home to grab umbrellas and camping chairs while Roo babysat my halloumi fries in V’s Burgers. But we were hardened Shakespeare goers and Eva is now a part of the ELSF youth theatre so we were determined to be supportive, whatever the weather.

The unlikely outcome is that the rain stopped on the way up to the lake and only resumed at the curtain call. I know! I wasn’t expecting that either. We didn’t have anything that would prepare us for hot weather  – no suncream or cold drinks – yet here we were in sun-soaked Messina, as promised by the promotional material. I must admit I had said a few times I was expecting it to be soaked-soaked than sun-soaked but in answer to Beatrice, yes I will eat my word. Here’s how it looked just before the start of the show:

And apart from a few light spots of rain during the first wedding scene, the sun carried on throughout. We did not use the umbrellas and we did need cold drinks in the interval. I take it all back.

© YIODA NICHOLAOU

So with the skies clearing and the technical issues sorted, what happened next? What went down in Sunny Messina? Well, ELSF productions always take a few liberties with the Bard so there was an opening sequence in an airport that might not have been in the original and there were a few comedy asides that were added in to give it a bit more of a contemporary feel. Oh, and the dance sequences to Dua Lipa and “Mambo Italiano”. The Dua Lipa song is one we dance to in Dance Fitness and someone from my class was there on the front row so we were tempted to jump and add our own moves but you’ll be pleased to know we resisted. Someone next to me did get drafted in to the one-line role of the Sexton though, to much applause.

© YIODA NICHOLAOU

Contemporary costumes and songs aside, it’s actually pretty faithful to the text. Nearly all the dialogue is pure Shakespeare, delivered in a way that makes it accessible and relatable. The bantz between Beatrice and Benedick in the opening scene is up there as some of Shakespeare’s snappiest dialogue, rivalling the Hermia and Helena fight in the speed-punning event. Ursula Early as Beatrice and Kieran Garland as Benedick do not disappoint and you can really feel the tension between them. I will say at this point that I’m never convinced by the prospect of B&B as a long-term couple….it’s all very well to have an enemies to friends trope but I feel like the events of the play don’t really alter Leonato’s prediction that “if they were but a week married, they would talk themselves mad”.  Still, the love-hate dynamic makes for an entertaining show.

© YIODA NICHOLAOU

I always think it’s a bit futile nitpicking Shakespeare but this plot more than any makes no sense at all. The motivation of Don John to mess with Claudio and Hero is cloudy at best and without that drama, there really would be very little plot at all. But that’s fine and all part of the experience of watching a Shakespeare comedy. You have to accept that all siblings look identical, all Friars suggest faking your own death and all long lost families will eventually be reunited. Then you can relax and just enjoy the ridiculousness of it all.

Speaking of Claudio and Hero, I must give a shout out to Isambard Rawbone and Londiwe Mthembu who played the couple with tenderness and wide-eyed innocence. Neither character gets huge amounts of depth in the script so there isn’t much to work with but Hero was a joy to watch throughout and Claudio suitably lovelorn apart from that bit where he inexplicably decides to publicly humiliate her. Dang, I said I wasn’t going to nitpick didn’t I?

© YIODA NICHOLAOU

You’ll notice the sunshiny palate in all of these cast photos, which gave the production the feeling of summer even if the sun itself hadn’t done us the courtesy of rocking up. Deck chairs, cocktails and even a swimming pool added to the holiday vibe. Don’t ask how they made Benedick swim but it was a hilarious highlight. Thinking about it, it might have been a river instead of a pool but still, it was an impressive feat to recreate in the park.

© YIODA NICHOLAOU

Physical comedy was an important part of the show, especially as there is so much of the plot that involves people hiding while other people pretend not to have seen them. That opens up all kinds of possibilities with hatches, bushes and watering cans and ELSF took every opportunity going, even involving the audience in asking to help them hide. This makes it visual enough for the smaller members of the audience to enjoy, while not detracting from the plot in any way. It must be exhausting to perform such a physical show so many times over a weekend but the actors showed no signs of flagging. Maybe they were powered by the sunshine.

© YIODA NICHOLAOU

Aside from the two main couples, there were four other actors – Alistair Brown as Don John and the Friar, Lauren Hendricks as Don Pedro  and Margaret, Natasha Mula as Conrade, Messenger and Ursula and Paul Willcocks as Leonato and Borachio. The four other actors were also doubling up in the scenes with the Watch so everyone was working pretty hard, especially with the multiple costume changes and a green room that’s basically just a tree. Lauren Hendricks also sang most of the linking songs and did so beautifully. Sigh no more, ladies. It did take me a while to realise that they’d gender-swapped Don Pedro’s character as I just assumed it was a girl playing the part of a man  – coming from a girls’ school, I always had to play the men’s parts. My Year 8 Shylock was legendary. But after a few references to Don John’s sister wooing Hero confused me, I finally clocked. It did work in terms of the plot but I’m clearly not that quick. Like Snug, I am slow of study.

The ensemble worked well together, switching between all those parts seamlessly and bursting into a hip hop rap every now and then just to shake things up a bit. The airport scene at the beginning paid off at the end when the final scene between Benedick and Beatrice became a Richard Curtis-esque dash to the airport. In the script, I seem to remember Beatrice is just kinda standing there and Benedick takes her mask off….but this was much more fun.

And fun is what this production is all about. It’s not to be taken too seriously – it’s Shakespeare for the bawdy masses, just as the original performances would have been. The audience were politely sipping Prosecco rather than jugs of ale but it’s the same vibe. I always regret not taking a full picnic as the people next to us had but there’s always next year. Fingers crossed they’ll be lucky with the weather again.

Of course, by the time we were walking home via the ice cream van it was raining again. But what else do you expect in the London summer? As Will himself said: “The spring, the summer, the childing autumn, angry winter, change their wonted liveries, and the mazed world, by their increase, now knows not which is which”

But I call this season ice cream and umbrellas season:

“Much Ado About Nothing” continues to tour through July and into August. Click here for tickets and more info. No disclaimer needed as I paid for the tickets but all opinions remain honest and my own.

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Fox in a Box Escape Rooms – 16/06/24

Posted on July 6, 2024 by katese11

It’s taken me a little while to write this one up because, really, what can you say about escape rooms? You can’t give away too much otherwise they’ll find you and lock you up for real. But I’ll try to give you a flavour of the experience as best I can.

First though, the flavour of lunch. You can’t lock three teenage boys and a tween girl up in a room without feeding them first. Roo wanted to try Grab Burger, which was at Dalston Junction, just opposite the escape room. Sadly it was closed so we walked up to Honest Burger near Dalston Kingsland. It wasn’t super quick service but the staff were really friendly and we had time to kill so that was fine. And the burgers were good  – I had the Dalston special, which came with a little pot of jerk gravy. I could have done with a nap after all that food but no, onwards.

We still had a little time to kill before we went in, so we hung out in Dalston Curve Garden, which was heaving on a sunny day (remember those? We had about three of them in June). We found a small table and enough chairs to have some of Roo’s birthday cake and relax while the teens hit each other with sticks. Standard stuff.

Then it was time to go and get locked up. We’ve been past Fox in a Box many times but it doesn’t look big enough to have three separate escape rooms inside. Turns out that you don’t need much space for prison cells. There are three options of games to play and we’d chosen “Prison Break” which was meant to be Intermediate difficulty. There’s no formal age limit but under 14s need to be accompanied by an adult.

I can tell you that we spent some time trying to solve a tanagram puzzle in the lobby and the fights over that made me think we were doomed. There are also lockers and loos while you wait so leave some time to get yourself sorted before the experience begins. There’s also the Wall of Shame, which we assumed we’d end up on.

Then you are ushered through the portal and into the prison. The six of us were split into two cells by the very serious prison officer and from there we were on our own….albeit with a few handy hints from a mysterious voice.

I won’t tell you too much about the experience except to say remember the principle of Mise-en-scène – everything in an escape room is there for a reason, even if the reason for some things is to act as a red herring and throw you off the scent. There was a fair bit of a lateral thinking needed and even a bit of maths but the mysterious voice kept us on track and we managed to escape with a full nine minutes left on the clock. Given we utterly failed last time we did an escape room, I’m pretty pleased with that result. We celebrated with juice from the nearby Co-Op and sent the spare teens packing.

So a fun afternoon out, if a little on the pricey side. It lasts 90 minutes so definitely good to have lunch and a bit of chill out time before going in. It was the right kind of challenging for teenagers and their increasingly brainfogged parents. The orange t-shirts were a nice touch and we got sent team photos for no extra cost. The staff were all super helpful – when not in character – and it felt like everything had been considered in making it a smooth experience. Plus, we won so no Wall of Shame this time! Maybe we’ll be back to try out some of the other rooms….

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LWAT is 800! A Guide to Leaving London

Posted on July 3, 2024 by katese11

I mean, not permanently..what the heck kinda move do you think this is for an anniversary post? Though I do have a bit of a blogchange coming up which will surprise and shock you all. But that’s still a week or so away, so watch this space.

No, I’m talking about leaving London for a weekend or maybe a short break using one of our eight glorious railway termini. Yes, that’s the link to the 800th post. It’s a bit lame but it came to me as I was on my way to Leeds at the weekend, which slightly doing anything more practical for the 800th post. Eva and I travelled about 400 miles in total so if you times it by the two of us, I guess that’s 800 miles covered. But more relevantly, we got to hang out in Kings Cross for a while which is one of the eight I’ll be covering. I know the Monopoly board tells you there are only four but Monopoly lies to you. In so many ways.

We’re starting at the North-West corner though, with:

Paddington

Where is it? Nearish Central London, nearish to Hyde Park on one side and Little Venice on the other.

Where can you get to? Wales! Which used to be handy for nephron exchanges before half of them moved up here. Reading, which I used frequently when I lived there and Nathan was in London. Various other places along the M4 corridor like Bath and Bristol and places in the West Country, like Plymouth and Penzance.

Have I blogged about it? It’s popped up a few times.  We passed through last October between the Rickroll tunnels and candy floss the size of Eva’s head. And we picked up special packages there in 2017 before walking through Hyde Park to the Royal Albert Hall. We also went there on Nathan’s birthday in 2022, mainly to try out the new (at the time) Elizabeth Line.

Is there a Pret? Yes

Is there a Five Guys in the vicinity? Noooo, doesn’t seem that way

Any special features? Everyone loves petting the statue of Paddington, don’t they? He’s moved around a bit but photos on Google Maps from last month suggest he’s still there and up for selfie opportunities. This picture of mine was from quite some years ago though.

What’s the overall vibe? Big, echoey, confusing tube interchanges…it’s basically three or four stations in one. Nice roof.

 

Then moving East to:

Marylebone

Where is it? Kinda near Regents Park but not really close to anywhere

Where can you get to? Birmingham and Oxford mainly, with stops along the way in the Chilterns. Eva and I went there to get our connection to Stratford-Upon-Avon last year, changing at Leamington Spa

Have I blogged about it? Yes, on that visit in 2023 but also on our Monopoly jaunt for the 500th post (which was a lot more effort than this post)

Is there a Pret? Yes and this was post-subscription so of course I went there. Even though it’s really hard to balance coffee and suitcases

Is there a Five Guys in the vicinity? It looks like there’s one on Baker Street but it’s a rare Central London branch that we haven’t blessed with our presence.

Any special features? As mentioned above, it’s a Monopoly square so that makes it special but also it has a tiny version of Bicester Village in the middle of the concourse.

What’s the overall vibe? Super-cute, retro, redbrick. Half the appeal of going to Stratford-Upon-Avon was the chance to catch a train from here.

And again to:

Euston

Where is it? Very Central London, right on the Euston Road. Not near anywhere pretty but handy for UCL and museums like the Wellcome Collection.

Where can you get to? All the biggies of the North and the Midlands – Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool as well as a bunch of places in North-West London that are basically the Bakerloo Line. I also took my niece there to eat Burger King chips one night a few weeks ago because of…complications. We sat in cinema-style seating and watched the stressed-out passengers trying to catch the last train. I also caught the train to Manchester on a work trip there a few months ago and it was an underwhelming experience

Have I blogged about it? It certainly featured in this post, about one of the most surreal moments of my life. We also visited on mine and Roo’s big adventure to see the Cbeebies panto in 2014. Apparently we also visited in 2013 on our way to Southport but I have very little recollection of this. And even further back, in the very first month of the blog, it featured in this classic post.

Is there a Pret? Yes and it’s really crowded and stressful….there’s a one-way system and nowhere to sit.

Is there a Five Guys in the vicinity? Not super near, no

Any special features? Well, there’s the way that you now have to leave the station to get into the tube which really confuses people like me. And I think there’s a street food market outside but I’m not sure whether that’s permanent or a pop-up.

What’s the overall vibe? Shed-like, hectic, full of commuters and people who seem a bit cross. Apparently it used to be beautiful but the frontage was all torn down in the 60s.

Even further East to:

Kings Cross

Where is it? Near Euston really but with easy access from Islington

Where can you get to? The North – we were there just a few days ago for our trip to Leeds. But you can go even further than Leeds to places like Newcastle and Edinburgh. Plus of course Paris and Brussels from the neighbouring St Pancras.

Have I blogged about it? A surprising amount, yes. Firstly in 2011 before all the redevelopment when it was just a claustrophobic glorified waiting room. Then two years later when I seemed amazed at all the changes and we visited the the Camley Street Natural Park. Then various posts about the fountains, the canal and ukulele busking there last Christmas. Plus a very special trip there on Eva’s 9 3/4 birthday

Is there a Pret? I think there are about three and at least one has decent seating even if the queuing system is chaotic.

Is there a Five Guys in the vicinity? Yes, and we went there both ways on the Yorkshire trip last weekend. Saturday AND Sunday fries

Any special features? I love the roof. I really cannot stop taking pictures of it every time we’re there. I know I’m sad. But it is a thing of beauty. Plus, a fun kids area in the waiting room and a birdcage with a swing it in just outside

And of course THE tourist attraction  – a bit of wall with a trolley sticking out of it and adjoining gift shop. Not to be missed!

What’s the overall vibe? I would never have said this in 2011 but it’s pretty chilled out. Having Granary Square to hang out in before your train makes all the difference as you can watch the boats on the canal. Also the interior is relatively spacious even when it’s crowded and there are a nice range of eateries (Leon and a mini-Giraffe). A definite favourite.

South a bit and East again to:

Liverpool Street

Where is it? Just on the line between the City of London and the start of East London. Handy for the City but also close to Spitalfields and Brick Lane

Where can you get to? Mainly Essex and Cambridgeshire destinations, with a quick link to the seaside. Plus all the Overground lines to Cheshunt, Enfield and Chingford.

Have I blogged about it? Yes, which seems weird seeing as I walk through it hundreds of times a year. so it’s a bit like blogging about our local Tesco. But we lingered back in 2021 on our way to Adventure Island and of course we went there on the Monopoly day. And I took a bunch of English class students for lunch there after the Lord Mayor’s Parade.

Is there a Pret? Yes – at least three in easy reach and I’m a regular at two of them. I know all the staff. Don’t judge me.

Is there a Five Guys in the vicinity? Yes. Weirdly narrow stairs but nice and spacious upstairs

Any special features? The Kindertransport statue is always kinda moving, even when there are pigeons perched on all the children’s heads. There was an episode of “The Piano” being filmed there when I walked through the other day but I suspect a lot of the stations will have that same claim to fame.

Plus there’s that weird rusty brown obelisk thing at the Elizabeth Line end that doesn’t seem to serve any purpose.

What’s the overall vibe? A confusing mix of commuters and tourists heading for the Stansted Express. Both groups get very tetchy with each other when there’s a queue at the gates. The station concourse is spaciousish but you’ll probably still walk into someone if you don’t look where you’re going.

Heading South to:

London Bridge

Where is it? Just south of the river, opposite the City

Where can you get to? Kent mostly – I think I went there on the way to Orpington and Herne Bay but I don’t think I’ve caught a train from there in years. There’s also the Thameslink to Luton in the opposite direction to where you’d expect a South London station to connect to.

Have I blogged about it? I’ve blogged about the surrounding area a lot but I’m not sure the station itself has ever come up much. the trip to Orpington and back in a morning is referenced in this post but nothing about the station. There are lots of posts about trips to the Globe and the Tate Modern, which are both in the vicinity and this trip last year to Delight in Borough Yards

Is there a Pret? Yes but Eva was sick in it in 2015 so we can never go back

Is there a Five Guys in the vicinity? No but there are so many nice places to eat in Borough Market that even Eva can accept the lack of fries.

Any special features? That giant Shard thing is quite a feature but it would really eat into your schedule if you were in a rush to get a train and wanted to go view the loo with a view. Obviously the view from the bridge itself is pretty special and I can spend ages there taking pictures of Tower Bridge and the City. The incredibly steep steps coming off the bridge are special in their own way too and there are often random statues along the embankment there.

At one point, I swear the station was missing a Platform 7 – with signs to Platforms 1-6 and 8-14 (Guess which platform we needed?) That’s pretty special.

What’s the overall vibe? Very commutery and hectic but with the river nearby for a welcome breather.

Heading back West again to:

Waterloo

Where is it? Also just south of the river but further west – opposite Westminster and near our old Kennington haunts

Where can you get to? Why yes, I HAVE been waiting for thirty years for someone to ask me to recite all the stops between Winchester and Weymouth. What, you don’t want me to? Fine. I’ll just say it’s heading towards my own home turf of Hampshire plus the seaside delights of Dorset and the slightly less delightful delights of Portsmouth. Also handy for Surrey and if you’re insane, you can get the train to Reading from here instead of going from Paddington. But don’t blame me if you age a decade on that train.

Have I blogged about it? I’ve blogged a million times about the South Bank and stuff to do a mere stone’s throw from the station…it remains one of my favourite places to hang out even if we don’t live just down the road anymore. I’m sure I’ve mentioned the station itself before, like in this trip to Feltham in 2015 and a more recent meet up in 2021 when we had relatives coming up from Hampshire. And we saw the naked bike ride. Don’t click on that link expecting pictures tho.

Is there a Pret? Yes but you have to go up a flight of stairs to get in, which isn’t fun with luggage and would be completely impassable for a wheelchair or a buggy

Is there a Five Guys in the vicinity? No, they seem a bit sparse south of the river.

Any special features? The view as you come into Waterloo never gets old – there is something so very London about glimpsing the Houses of Parliament and the London Eye as you pull in. There’s a whole new bit of the station that I haven’t explored yet so that might throw up some interesting features. And the clock that you meet people under is pretty iconic if you come from Hampshire. Also, do check out the graffiti tunnel if you have time before your train.

What’s the overall vibe? A fair amount of commuters rushing around but prone to flash mobs and people giving away free ice creams, which cheers things up a bit. The stepfree access is a bit out of the way but works once you know where you’re going. 

And back over the river to:

Victoria

Where is it? Central London, near Buckingham Palace and Hyde Park

Where can you get to? More seaside! Sussex destinations like Brighton and Littlehampton as well as less glamorous Kentish spots like Gravesend. We’ve picked relatives up from the coach station a few times too, but it’s not super close to the train station.

Have I blogged about it? Not really and I’ve only passed through it when I was childfree, I think…on my way to Worthing in 2022. It also gets a mention in this very stressful post from 2013. But we wandered around the area lots when we lived in South London and could walk to places like the secret paddling pool of Pimlico. 

Is there a Pret? Yes, a couple and I’m sure I’ve been to at least one but I can’t remember much about it

Is there a Five Guys in the vicinity? Apparently so! But we haven’t been there…we don’t seem to go to Victoria very often

Any special features? Didn’t a baby get left in a handbag somewhere around here?

What’s the overall vibe? Super touristy, with all the attractions nearby and the Gatwick Express. No one has any idea of what they’re doing so you will almost certainly trip over a suitcase if you’re not careful. Or maybe a handbag.

 

So I know after reading 2,400 words about train stations you’re desperate to know how I rank these eight. Well, wait no longer:

#8 Euston – just so lacking in character theseadays

#7 London Bridge – sorry, you’re just not that useful and the station itself has nothing much to recommend it

#6 Victoria – crowded and I just don’t seem to have used it often enough to love it

#5 Paddington – useful but an awkward trek from everywhere we’ve ever lived

#4 Liverpool Street – not the most aesthetically pleasing but super useful and has its charms

#3 Waterloo – this may be mainly nostalgic but also it has the South Bank right outside

#2 Marylebone – such a small and niche station has no right to score so high but have you seen it? So cute and twee and takes you to other places that are also cute and twee

#1 Kings Cross – some great destinations, the best outside space and that showstopper of a roof. A deserving winner!

 

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Club de Fromage Daytime Party – 22/06/24

Posted on June 23, 2024 by katese11

I know – I’m getting adventurous in my middle age. Not content with Disco 2000ing in the evenings every few months, I’ve now taken to over 30s daytime clubbing at Scala. Wild times indeed.

And in that spirit, we started the afternoon with a nice margarita from Sons and Daughters in Granary Square. In case you hadn’t worked it out by now, this was a childfree excursion. My kids might be ageing rapidly but last I checked neither of them were quite in the over 30s bracket yet. So we started almost as we meant to go on – I must admit, getting trapped on the wrong side of a cycle race wasn’t in the plan.

But we found a way out via a kind of footbridge over the track and we were free to go party.

I haven’t been to Scala in years. The last time may have been in 2002 when Bob and I were promoting Scooby Doo the move there. I know a photo exists but sadly I can’t find it anywhere. I also remember going to see Gorillaz there in 2001ish and both times I thought it was a huge space. When we walked in yesterday, all of us thought it seemed tiny compared to what we remembered but maybe we’ve just grown.

It being 3PM, the dancefloor took a little while to get going but when they played “Crash” by the Primitives I decided I might as well go for it. It’s not like I’m a stranger to starting a dancefloor. And seeing as the playlist promised “Pop” and “Cheese”, I wasn’t sure how many danceable songs there would be.

Turns out, quite a few. We were on the dancefloor solidly all afternoon, with only the necessary bar and toilet breaks. Some of the music did fall into an indie girl’s nightmare playlist – the kind of songs that were used to torture me in the student union at the turn of the century. I couldn’t quite bring myself to dance to Steps, Ricky Martin or the Spice Girls but the full-on cheese of the decade before that is just fine by me. So we wailed along to Bonnie Tyler and quick stepped to Footloose with no shame at all. And there were plenty of songs that were in the rock and indie genre too. Bob remarked that Kurt Cobain would not be overly happy to be classed as “cheese” but I guess he doesn’t get an opinion.

But no one goes to Club de Fromage for the groundbreaking playlist. It’s all the extras – confetti cannons, balloons, limbo competitions – that make it a fun night. Or afternoon, in this case. And the four Club de Fromage dancers were what kept the party moving. Whether they were dressed as grannies doing the splits, football fans tossing out giant balls into the crowd or rock chicks with mullets and inflatable guitars they did everything with a grin on their faces and a sense of fun that was pretty infectious. My favourite was the one in the wedding dress, who constantly looked like she was living her best life.

So yes, three middle-aged mothers survived an afternoon’s clubbing with only a small amount of backache to show for it. Staggering out into the slightly jarring sunlight, we took refuge in the nearby Pizza Union for dinner and some frozen mojitos. Rock and roll, indeed!

If you want to see what it was all about, have a look at my video on YouTube here:

No disclaimer needed cause I paid for this one but for more info, click here

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Family Sword Fighting Demonstration at the Globe – 01/06/24

Posted on June 1, 2024 by katese11

Copyright Pete Le May

Half term may be nearly over but the summer holidays aren’t far away and I bet you’re looking for something to entertain the tween or teen in your life. Well, I have just the thing for you. It helps if your kids are into DnD and/or Shakespeare but luckily I have a Shakespeare obsessive who doesn’t mind a bit of DnD and a DnD obsessive who doesn’t mind a bit of Shakespeare. So a demonstration of Shakespearean sword fighting seemed perfect for us.

What wasn’t perfect was the signal failure at Clapton that meant all the trains were cancelled. We wearily flagged down a 275 and headed to Woodford, via the North Circular – a diversion that adds an extra few minutes to an already lengthy trip.

But the good news is that once we got to Woodford, a Central line train was just about to leave and so we jumped on and were at St Pauls within half an hour.

Plus, we were sitting opposite two small doggos, which pleased Eva. And you get to play the Central line Museum of Illusions game. Where’s your head at, Roo?

None of this left much time for lunch which was, of course, at Eva’s preferred fries dispensary. Happily, there’s a branch just next to St Paul’s so we managed to grab some food and walk over the wobbly bridge in time for the workshop to start at 2. In fact, we had a few spare minutes to wash the ketchup off our hands and relax in the the tent downstairs.

As it happened, the workshop wasn’t in the main bit of the Globe at all but around the corner, at the entrance marked as “Guided Tours Entrance”. We had a few minutes to kill before the workshop started so posed a bit for this photo opportunity:

As per the instructions, I didn’t take any photos during the workshop itself but here’s a press image so you can get the idea:

Copyright John Wildgoose

Our hosts were two actors called Marie and Rob. I believe Marie is also a fight co-ordinator but they both knew a lot about the artform and how swords were handled in Shakespeare’s day. Apparently swords were as common a sight in Shakespeare’s London as cars are today and, like cars, there were varying degrees of quality and prestige. They talked us through four different types of weaponry and at each stage, demoed the weapons with a fight. Occasionally they reminded us to not try this at home and I have tried to re-enforce that with Roo but he seems keen to try out the new knowledge he’s absorbed. Maybe he’ll be able to work it into GCSE Drama somehow. I should also say that the weapons were blunted as they’re stage weapons and they would also have been blunted in Shakespeare’s time.

The first weapon was the Rapier, which was demoed alongside the dagger. As well as showing off their duelling skills, the hosts also linked the different weapons to characters in different Shakespeare plays – from Tybalt vs Mercutio to Prince Hal vs Hotspur. There’s a lot of information but interspersed with the practical demonstrations, which included some very dramatic death scenes. I forget all the types of swords we were shown but Reuben, who was obviously listening well, tells me there were longswords, shortswords and staffs. Plus one which had a Scottish name that none of us can remember but it was used along with a shield in the Scottish play. I should probably pause at this point to apologise to Marie and Rob for the number of times that Reuben said the name of the Scottish play. I think he underestimated just how superstitious actors are.

There was a bit of time for questions and the hosts answered everything we threw at them, such as whether there were any female swords(wo)men, whether anyone in Shakespeare’s company ever died on stage from a swordfight and whether the hosts themselves had ever sustained any injuries from swordfighting. If you want to know the answers to these questions, you should probably just book tickets to go. No spoilers here.

At the end, we got the chance to handle two of the swords ourselves. They were held at the other end by our hosts but I promised the kids I’d magic-eraser the hands out so it looked like they were freely wielding the weaponry. In the interests of transparency, I’ve included both versions here – health & safety version followed by clumsily edited version. No one lost any limbs, that’s all you need to know.

So, here’s Reuben with the Rapier:

 

And Eva with the same, stabbing Rob to death:

And both kids with (I think) the longsword:

 

It was a really fun afternoon out and really interesting to learn a bit about the art of stage fighting. For two Drama students it was a handy lesson and feeds into their special interests as well. It’s probably more for older kids than littlies as the swords are quite heavy and, even in this controlled environment, could be dangerous in toddler hands. Besides, there’s a lot of listening to be done and a basic understanding of Shakespeare comes in useful. But for my two, it was pretty much spot on and it meant we got to see a bit of the Globe we’d never visited before and there were some cool things to see along the way. There’s even a fake but lifesize tree down there:

So definitely one for the older and geekier kids in your life. Don’t forget the (near-obligatory) trip to Spice Mountain in Borough Market afterwards, to stock up on weird flavourings and fruit powders. I didn’t get a photo of Eva’s spoils of war but trust me, our spice drawer is now full restocked.

The sword fighting demonstrations run until 27th October. For tickets and more info, click here

Disclaimer: I received free tickets in exchange for a review. All opinions remain honest and my own. 

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Sunday Sunday Here Again

Posted on May 26, 2024 by katese11

It’s a Sunday afternoon before a Bank Holiday and I am doing nothing in particular but it’s given me time to write about what we got up to the last Sunday before a Bank Holiday. Which was also nothing very exciting but it was un-exciting in a geeky music fan way.

The short version is that we found St Charles Square, which has recently been memorialised in a blur song:

The “why” of this story is a bit longer. Blur have featured on this blog a few times – from a trip to France where I referenced every song on Parklife to actually seeing them in the flesh at Wembley last year (albeit from a long way back). And of course, we have this Parklife landmark just a few minutes’ walk away from home:

Essentially, we found ourselves childfree and directionless in West London that Sunday. Not quite lost on the Westway, but we did at one point pass Under The Westway:

We’d dropped Eva off at a bowling party in Queensway and Reuben was playing DnD with friends in Dalston so we could have just gone home and waited for the chicks to return but we were so close to that Square that I figured we might as well jump on a bus and see what there was to sing about.

Funnily enough, the bus we’d got on the way there from church also had a bit of a blur-themed stop:

From Queensway, we jumped on a number 70 bus which not only passed under the Westway but also crossed Portobello Road, which I think is referenced on a song from “Modern Life is Rubbish”. I did not get a good photo of the sign.

But here we are at the St Charles Square bus stop:

We were on the lookout for the sign in this tweet but  – spoiler – we never did find it. We did walk round the entire square, which is no way a square, and found a few signs but none that matched exactly.

And when I say it’s not a square, I really mean it. These yellow highlighted bits are what is labelled as “St. Charles Square” and yes, we did walk down each of these offshoots to see if we could find the right sign.

And on the unhighlighted bits, we found some interesting Things to See, like this house which is more plant than dwelling:

And this office building, which used to be a furniture depository:

It felt like we were in Hampstead Garden Suburb or some kind of far off village rather than a few minutes north of Notting Hill.

After such a lot of adventuring, we naturally retired to the pub:

And on the way back to Ladbroke Grove happened to catch a band called Phantom Limbs, rocking up a storm on the pavement:

So this might have been the epitome of LWAT “Just Wandering” but it was a fun afternoon’s walk and another pop culture landmark to add to our list, alongside the house from “Spaced” and the phone box from the back of “Ziggy Stardust”. Not bad for a Sunday Sunday walk in the park….

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