I got back from my travels Monday night. On Tuesday morning I watched the debate that I had recorded (it aired at 2 AM here), did laundry, and worked on the blog.

Gord had tickets to take the students to see Kinky Boots Tuesday night, and there was an extra ticket that I was able to use. It was interesting to see the London production, somewhat different from the Broadway one. The British accents were better, obviously. Amy Lennox, who plays the role of Lauren, was fantastic. The rest of the cast was great, too, but she stood out, in my opinion. The stage in London was smaller than NY, but it seemed to work well.

On Wednesday, I worked some more on the blog and did some more laundry, towels this time. I'm trying to figure out how to get the towels done on the morning we leave in December, because they take so long. I've been trying out different machine settings to see which is the fastest. The regular cotton setting takes over two hours just to wash them! Then the landlord doesn't want us using the dryer during the day because electricity is apparently much less expensive at night. She wants us to hang the towels on the drying rack and then when they are almost dry to finish them in the dryer. So it is really a full-day procedure. And on the same morning we will have bed linens to wash as well. I may have to check out a laundromat....

On Wednesday night, we went to see Donmar Warehouse's production of The Tempest at King's Cross Theatre, which is about a twelve-minute walk from us. I really like the Donmar's productions. We saw them do Henry IV at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn almost three years ago. (And they will be bringing The Tempest there in January, in case anyone wants to book tickets.) The Tempest, like Henry IV, uses an all-female cast directed by Phyllida Lloyd with Dame Harriet Walter in the leading role. Both plays are set in a prison and many of the actors we saw in Brooklyn were also in this production. One of the standouts (although they were all excellent) was Jade Anouka, who plays Ariel (and Hotspur in Henry IV). They are also doing Julius Caesar (Jade Aouka plays Mark Anthony), and I'm planning to get tickets to see that in November. I'm sure it will also be set in a prison. Several times this fall they are doing all three plays back-to-back. As much as I enjoy them, I'm pretty certain I would not be able to do a marathon viewing.

I finished and posted the Italy blog entry Wednesday night, although I could have tightened it up a little, and I couldn't get the videos to play. Sometimes you just have to let it go.

Today, Thursday, we went to the Victoria & Albert Museum to see the exhibition You Say You Want a Revolution? Records and Rebels 1966 - 1970. Gord is bringing his class next week and he wanted to preview it. What a nostalgic afternoon! It covered a lot of things, much more than I expected. They talked about the Swinging London of the mid-1960s, the music, fashion, film, and cultural scene. There were lots of Beatles stuff, including Richard Avedon's photos, but then it shifted to elsewhere in the world, a lot about the US (race struggles, Kennedy, Vietnam, the moon landing) and Canada (Expo '67 had a large area of one gallery, and there was another section that mentioned George F. G. Stanley who designed the Canadian flag). Design and marketing factored in as well. I learned about Alice Herz, an 82-year-old Detroit woman who set herself on fire in March 1965 to protest the Vietnam war. I was a month shy of 11 years old at the time and was living right across the river from her, so why had I never heard of her before? The show reminded me a little of the David Bowie exhibition in Bologna (also organized by the V&A). I really like the automatic headsets that change as you move to different areas/rooms. I do think they could have done a better job with the placement of the wall text and labels. They were much better suited for someone in a wheelchair, which is a nice thing, but some of the signage needed better lighting and could only be read if you were kneeling. A mannequin dressed in a Mary Quant outfit was blocking most of another wall text. I suppose it was made worse by the crowds of people--so much for the timed entry. We were as guilty as everyone else, though, because we were there 2-1/2 hours. I would have stayed longer to watch more of Woodstock.

We took another half hour to wander around the main floor of the museum. With museums of this size, I always try to notice something that might be overlooked if you were walking down a corridor. Here is what I found today.

It's hard to believe these ceramics are 700-800 years old. They are from the Koryo Dynasty of Korea and were made for Buddhist temples. The detail shows up much better on my phone than it does here, but there are floral motifs, phoenixes, and cranes on the bowl, inlaid and painted under a celadon glaze. The bottle is inlaid with chrysanthemums and glazed.

After the museum, we went over to the Pretty Green store on Carnaby Street to an Art in a Corner private view of 23 photographs that Robert Whitaker took of The Beatles when they were in Japan in 1966. Jann Haworth, the cover artist for the Sgt. Pepper album, had a new painting that was also displayed. I liked some, but not all, of Whitaker's photos. (Thanks, Jo, for sending us the invitation.)

So it was quite a Beatles-filled day for us.

Some observations about being in London this year as opposed to nine years ago:
1. More men walk around with backpacks, and seem oblivious about the extra space they take up. I noticed this in Saratoga this summer, too, so I don't think it's a London/UK thing.
2. More men are offering up their seats to me on the subway, and I have mixed feelings about it. I know I'm nine years older, but that doesn't classify me as elderly, does it? I'm pretty sure the gentleman today was older than me. I'm still capable of standing up. On the other hand, it is rather nice to be able to sit.