Life in Dulwich

Watched Burn After Reading with my mate, Bert, tonight. I enjoyed it! But they were a bunch of the most awful people one might ever care to watch. A whole nest of self-centred, manipulative and yet strangely watchable people.

Very excited - Bert has tickets for Bill Bailey tomorrow and has asked me to go with him. I will be looking forward to it all day.

Busy busy weeks ahead, I'm out almost every night for two weeks catching up with friends or choir or something. I guess better busy than moping around at home...

My niece, Curly, was six on Sunday. Big sis' family and I, without Larry, went to have a pub lunch at Curly's bequest. (Larry had gone Laser Questing at another birthday bash.) Then back to the new family pile for party preparations and frolics.

Big sis had made a porcupine shaped cake with much love, labour, marzipan and food colouring and it was most excellent in every way. Her hubby commented on its passing resemblance to Marty Feldman - not an easy feat in the arena of cake making.

I think fun was had by all the six or nearly six year old girls - well there was a lot of screaming. Although Curly had a bit of a panic before it started because the Happy Sixth B'day banner wasn't up yet when the guests started arriving. She hid behind the door all stressed like. Entertaining doesn't run in the genes of our family.

I brought the family the largest bottle of chilli oil seen to mankind as a sort of house-warming present which we duly ate with the party sausage rolls.

Went to see Damon Albarn's Journey to the West at the O2 with my uni buddies and S. Haven't been to the Dome since it was the hub of entertainment that was the Millennium Dome.

It was heaving. Who would have thought so many people would schlep all the way to beyond the Isle of Dogs for a bit of light entertainment? I had no idea how much it had been transformed.

Leonard Cohen seemed to be a big hit with great crowds of people packing the restaurants and passageways pre-show. It's surprising there is a Gaucho Grill - all the other restaurants are more pack 'em in get them out quick. We had a disappointing meal at Water Margin, although at least they put a sprig of mint on the curry laksa.

As to the show - well, it was a spectacle. But that was about it. Didn't think much of the music which was neither tuneful nor experimental. The acrobatics were good and I am always impressed by people who can sit on their own heads, but the storytelling was poor, as was the characterisation. It was dull but visually fairly interesting.

The meal offer at the venue is a rip-off at GBP28. And the transport system is manifestly unable to cope with the great crowds of people leaving after the show.

And that's really all there is to say.

What a busy week. Monday had our second choir practice which was fun. It's clear that many people have been in choirs before - everyone watches the MD and listens and can sing harmonies and everything. We'll be doing carol singing around Dulwich at Christmas which I'll love. When I was working at McKinsey last December I joined their carol singing thing and enjoyed it so much. Singing is definitely good for the soul.

Tuesday I had my last PT session at the gym and it was a corker. Quite sad because my trainer is a really good person and it's been fun but I'm sure I'll see her around and about. Wednesday went to see How to Lose Friends and Alienate People. It was okay - they'd obviously geared it into being a bit of a rom com. Simon Pegg is extremely likeable though and the young up-and-coming starlet in it is sickeningly gorgeous and young.

Yesterday I made use of my new found status as solo climber and went up the wall at the gym... literally. I only climbed for 45 mins but actually fell off the wall, my arms were so tired. It's such fun using the self-belaying device - you can just jump off willy nilly - it's like flying! There's a difficult bit which is my nemesis - it overhangs, so you have to kind of climb upside down and get over the sticky out bit on the wall. I was gratified that the bloke who was climbing at the same time couldn't do it either.

Glad to be home today - have something every night next week too. Phew...

Watched Flamenco Flamen-ka last night, courtesy of my agent and good friend, R. As dance shows go, it was not bad, and the experience was greatly enhanced by the hunky, yet snake-hipped men, stamping their feet and brandishing daggers with wild abandon. Sadly, the one that caught my fancy was probably the least accomplished dancer, which dampened my enthusiasm for looking at him slightly. His shoulders seemed permanently around his ears and his hands were like little planks of wood, but he did have a passing resemblance to Hugh Jackman.

Like other Latin dance based theatre extravaganzas I've seen, they tried to incorporate some kind of dodgy storyline and then proceeded to sing in Spanish something not all together related and quite incomprehensible to about 80 percent of the audience. But the dancing was very good and the tango bits were sublime. I must take up tango again.

Today my best friend's baby sister gets married. When I first met her she was about ten. How time flies.

Why people find it necessary to stand on the bottom deck of the bus, thereby precluding anyone else from getting past them to sit on the top deck of the bus where there is often a plethora of seats, is beyond me. Even worse, it stops some people from even getting on the bus at all because the driver won't open the doors.

And yet people do.

Had a post birthday party on Saturday which was meant to be a picnic but the Indian summer I predicted didn't materialise. Cooked a big pot of noodles, lots of turmeric roast chicken, masquerading as Malaysian fried chicken and chilli clams. Big sis brought Indian sweets and samosas from Ambala and everyone else brought a lot of crisps, dip and chocolate. I no longer have to stock up for Christmas.

My friends, Eric and Ernie, made me one of the nicest presents I've ever had - a compilation of all the number one singles on my birthday from the year I was born. I am quite pleasantly chuffed to find that 'Those Were the Days' was number one on the day I was born. Now that's a mix tape and a half.

We had our first rehearsal for the new funky Dulwich Choir on Monday. And good fun it was too. Somehow I've found myself amongst the sopranos for the first time in my life. Although I could give the tenors a good run for their money too. The music de jour is Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol, which I've heard but couldn't have named to save my life, and something musical-ish which I suspect was written by the MD. It was such fun - I haven't been in a choir for such a long time.

I also got signed off to climb on my own at the gym today. And I chested a high E Flat in my singing lesson. "Mini wave in celebration of me!", as Chandler would say.

And most importantly...

I've got broadband again, all wireless and everything. It was like I was blind and now I can see. Sigh.

This is a good week.

Watched Tropic Thunder last night. It was really funny. I'm not a big Ben Stiller fan, although Dodgeball is pretty good. But this was really laugh out loud, non-stop guffaw funny - with a whole range of humour from toilet to wait-a-minute-I-have-to-think-about-that-for-a-second-oh-that's-quite-clever funny.

And much as I hate to say it, Tom Cruise was very good. Really funny. I didn't even recognise him till halfway through. There was no falling back on his I'm such a cocky, loud annoying git with crazed eyes acting mode.

I hope he doesn't build on it by doing some duff comedy like that de Niro/Crystal hitman/shrink film, the name of which escapes me.

No, got it - Analyse This.