So, Duke + I have rather spontaneously gone to see an awful lot of theatre in the last little while, and one of the shows we went to see was Posh, at the Duke of York’s Theatre.

It’s a small theatre, and we were lucky to get seats mid centre, a few rows behind the premium seats. The show wasn’t quite sold out (understandable for a matinee session on a Saturday afternoon) but all in all it was pretty lovely. The only downside is that it’s quite close to the tube, which, having sat in the stalls, surely must have been right under our feet. Not only could you hear the trains, you could *feel* them rumble underneath you. Only slightly distracting.

The show, well, it was both hilarious and a bit revolting. It’s essentially about 10 over-privileged Oxford boys and the sense of entitlement being rich brings them. That could otherwise be read as: young rich boys can be dicks.

There are 10 young and extremely privileged boys from Oxford who are part of a dining society, the legendary Riot Club. The idea being that once a term they meet for dinner with a few rules. No one can leave the room once the dinner has started, there is a ridiculous amount of drinking (toasts, they call it) and by the end of it, they trash the room, with the intention that they will pay their way out of it with all their wads of money. They’re trying to tone it down in the interest of avoiding the bad publicity to club got last year, but aren’t especially clever about it.

It starts out pretty light hearted, the boys are all very witty with big grins. There are jokes and digs and laughs. Very entertaining, actually. Very posh, loads of colloquialisms, which helped bind everyone to the ‘were all in it together’ kind of mentality. It was all quite hilarious, actually. They intersperse a few of the scenes with some pretty awesome hip hop 10 man barbershop type performances, with tunes like LMFAO’s I’m sexy and I know it, Maroon 5′s Moves Like Jagger and Labrinth’s Earthquake. It was actually amazing, and was definitely one of the more enjoyable aspects of the show.

However, as the dinner moves on, and the more trashed (one of the main themes that was pretty heavily dished out through the show) the boys got, the darker and more tense things got. Their carefully laid plans were foiled (a 10 bird roast that only had 9 birds, the hired prostitute who leaves rather unexpectedly), and then comes the bitching, with bucket loads of resentment, specifically towards politics + the coalition government, disdain for those of lower classes, and the landlord, the poor guy who runs the gastropub in which the dinner is set.

The ending was a bit violent, and entirely without justice (or the ‘all for one’ group solidarity which I’d expected). Left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth, and made a very clear point about the upper crust of the society in which we live.

I think a lot of it went over my head. I’m not English, I’ve been here a year and a half, if that, and I’ve never encountered characters like the play depicted. The upper class of society, I’m not sorry to say, is well outside of my experience, and, with my pay grade, I am unlikely to ever have to face them.

Over all, enjoyable. Like I said, both hilarious and revolting. Witty dialogue, cute actors in tails, and a pretty clever stage set. Worth a viewing, if you get a chance.

You know how sometimes you listen to a song, and then BOOM! You’re suddenly 14 again sitting on your sisters floor angsting your way through puberty? I’ve been rediscovering a whole bunch of tracks that remind me of a different time, and a different place, and that’s been pretty novel.

I kinda thought I might try it in reverse, though. I’ve been listening to some pretty random stuff lately, and I wanted to track some of the tunes that I’ve been listening to, so later, when I want to remember what it was like in London Town, how the whole city changes when the sun comes out, what it’s like catching the night bus at 3am, and the tube on a Sunday afternoon. The hordes of people as you navigate through Soho, weaving my bike around the back of Regents park… that kind of thing.

I know I can’t force the memory associations, but when I listen to this mix a billion years in the future, I’ll be curious as to what kind of associations I have formed. We’ll see. In the meantime, perhaps you’ll find something new (or enjoy some of the old, it’s a bit of random mix) and form your own associations.

For your easy listening pleasure, the playlist is here thanks to Spotify.

Thoughts?

I once watched my friend learn to play the saxophone, and we spent a good long while in giggles while he made pretty much fart noises while he figured out his embouchure (it’s what you do with your lips and things to make a note with the reed + the mouth piece). Because of that singular, incredibly amusing experience, I thought it was difficult.

Turns out it’s not really difficult at all. My friend Cee had a sax, and when I told her I’d added this to The List, she offered to teach me. An hour or two later (with only a few random fart noises) I was making many clear notes. Fun times!

I didn’t expect it be that easy, so this was taken on my phone. It’s a bit shit, but perfectly demonstrates that woo, #122 – done!

It started off fun, if not a little ridiculous. He called me sexy, and I called him sugar. There was flirting, but mostly it was harmless. He’s on the other side of the world, with an almost fiancée, and a house and all those things that keep you rooted in one place. Despite all his bravado, he’s not the type to cut ties and move over here on a whim. Not like I did. Instead he’s about daydreaming, and reminiscing and talking about grass-is-greener hopes and wishes.

I wish he’d stop adding me to the list of wishes. We had the chance to pick each other, once. We laugh about it every now and then, but in the end he picked his roots and hunkered down back home, and I choose to take a leap and have been travelling ever since. This is not a premise for some epic love story (there’s that almost fiancée, remember) but rather it’s something that happened, was quickly forgotten, and remembered only in this weird time-zone different gtalk conversations that happen late at night for him, and mid morning while I’m at work here.

I’m not sure why boys from the past keep coming out of the woodwork. Am I really that girl the boys from long ago wistfully wonder about? Seems a bit ridiculous, really. But if we’re speaking about wishes, here is what I wish for him: I wish he’d either come to peace with the decisions he’s made, or be brave and make new decisions that suit him better. I wish he’d stop bringing up with the past like it’s this amazing sparkling event he wasn’t sure about, rather than the everyday ordinary it was. I wish he’d stop talking to me like I was the fish that got away, and acknowledged the friend I could be. I wish he was content and satisfied with his life, rather than wishing for the greener grass. I wish for him to see that what he has got, with this amazing almost fiancée and his house and all these trips to far off places are brilliant. His life is brilliant.

We’ll see. Maybe he’ll open his eyes and understand that wishes are a dime a dozen, and that his reality is worth more than that. Fingers crossed, right?

When I was riding my bike to work (in that amazing time before my hip got all nana-like) I’d ride to work through Regents Park. On the outer circle there is a massive trapeze set up with the Gorilla Circus. Knowing full well it was on The List I noted the url on a banner, and booked me and two friends into a beginners class.

It was pretty amazing. They teach you on a low bar how to put your legs above your head and hang on to a bar by your legs. They then put you on a rather high platform, and do the same again. It was both exhilarating and demonstrated my complete lack of flexibility and upper body strength. Well fun. You get a two or three practice goes. And then, towards the end, they set you up for the catch. The catch is where you you stand on a platform and jump off. You swing out, and as you do you put your feet over the bar. On the swing in you let go with your hands, and on the next swing out you’re caught by the catcher.

Now, I’m a pretty determined person (read: stubborn as). When I want to do something, I usually do it. On the ground I was determined that I was going to do the catch. Up the ladder, and on the platform, I was going to do the catch. While I was on the bar? While I was on the bar I learnt a few things about myself. One is that when a lady yells at me to let go of a bar and swing from my legs, my initial, completely irrational response to yell back ‘Woah buddy, not happening’.

Turns out that on a swinging bar a ten metres up in the air as I’m flying in a not especially graceful arc is when my inner coward comes out. Which is a bizarre realisation to have when you’re pumped with adrenaline and feel like you can (and should be able to) do anything. I didn’t fear the fall, because I’d already fallen. You need to, to get down. We weren’t up high enough to fear the height. I knew, rationally, that my legs were perfectly capable of holding my weight, more so than my arms.

My reaction was irrational, and completely instinct based. It was a very bizarre experience.

Still, I got up there, and gave it go, and I’m down with that. When my hip is less painful I’ll try again. Loads of fun, Trapeze. Hard work, though. Using muscles you never use, and expect your hands to be pretty raw by the time you’re done. I had mad calluses!

I’m glad I went, it was well fun. Number 74, done!

The Breakdown. The class is in Regents Park, and you can book online at gorillacircus.com. It was £23.50 per person plus booking fee, and is about an hour and a bit lesson. You’re in a class with 9 others, and you’ll get 3-4 turns on the trapeze. Fun times all round!