Taxing the Ole Memory

I can assure you that things, very interesting and perhaps even important things, have happened in my life in the last two weeks. Nonetheless, I have, to this point, failed to blog said things. I shall attempt to rectify that now. Where were we? Or more accurately, when were we? Ah yes, two Mondays ago.

Nothing happened Monday. Tuesday, however, we had a night at the theatre for Chicago. I find the irony of University of Chiacago students going to London to see an English production of "Chicago" overpowering. Still, I hadn't seen it and was therefore excited. Beforehand, we were supposed to head to a Indian restaraunt for dinner. This led to a bit of fun and even some controversy.

I'll save the long version for another day and just give the short version. Essentially, the train was too full for all of us to get on the tube, so Roderick, Laura, Josh, and I were one train behind. We knew which stop to get off at but not directions from there. They didn't wait for us at the tube stop, so we were left in Piccadilly Circus with no real idea of how to get where we needed to. This led to some misadventures regarding directions. Eventually, we got there. The controversy relates to Laura mocking me for misreading a sign and perpetrating the outrageous slander that I didn't know the name of the restaurant (Imli) when I very much did. Ah well, such are the perils of leadership.

Anyhow, we got there. The food was merely ok. The appetizer was passable. The entree was a bit too spicy for my tastes. The mango ice cream was incredibly delicious.

Then, we headed off for Chicago. The theatre wasn't actually a very nice theatre but since the staging for Chicago is sparse it worked out well enough. As for my thoughts on Chicago, I think of it this way. It's pointless to say whether on not I think it is a good show. Obviously, the musical going public has decided that it's a classic musical. As to whether it's a good production of it, I can't say because I haven't seen it before. As to whether I enjoyed it, I did but not as much as I would something campier like Mamma Mia. I like my musicals big, campy, and colorful. Chicago is muted, jazzy, and low key (relatively). Hence, I didn't love it but merely liked it.

Wednesday we went to Lynley Sambourne and Leighton houses after class. Edward Linley Sambourne was a cartoonist for the British humour magazine Punch! which earned him a reasonable living but didn't make him fabulously wealthy. Linley Sambourne house is one of the only surviving examples of a middle-class Victorian home with original furniture and art. It was quite interesting. The Victorian design sense is quite ecletic and busy. They enjoy putting lots of art items together in order to show the variety and quality of their tastes.

Leighton house was a bit less interesting. Fredick Leighton was fabulously wealthy, so his house was huge and opulent but it isn't in original condition in the same way that Linley Sambourne's house is. Original furnishings and art have been removed. It's still interesting to see the beauty of his Arab room, for example, but it just isn't as authentic and for that reason not as interesting as a more well-preserved house would be.

Friday we took a trip through the legal area of London. First up was a trip to the Old Bailey Criminal Courts. The unique think about these courts is that they allow visitors to sit in and observe trials. Actually, I'm not entirely sure it's unique. It's just cool, either way. We were split into two groups because the first courtroom's visitor area got full. I was in the second group. We witnessed about an hour of what we think was an axe-murder trial. It was at the very least, an axe-attack trial. Here's the rough outline of what we got. There are rival Sri Lankan regions. Some people from one Sri Lankan region did in a car owned by a guy from the other region. Other guy and posse game back with the intent of responding in kind. Things apparently got out of hand and, allegedly, and axe attack occured. It was fascinating stuff.

After that, we walked through some of the areas described in Charles Dickens' Bleak House. Bleak House has a plot that heavily features the Court of Chancery and characters involved with it, so we went to see the areas were those characters were depicted as living and working at. I found it all quite boring, to be honest. It was nice to be able to more fully envision what Dickens was writing about, but things look so much different than they would have then so the impact is lessened.

Our tour left us off in Covent Garden, which is a great eating/shopping district. We got lunch Emily's expense account at Just Falafs, which is, not surprisingly, a falafel restaurant. Then, a bunch of different groups split off to go their seperate ways. I went with Laura, Jodie, and Roderick to see High School Musical 3: Senior Year. I had never seen either of the other two HSM films, but I got the distinct impression that I would like them on the basis of their campy Disney ridiculousness. I wasn't wrong. I don't know that I can call HSM3 objectively good, but I enjoyed it more than I enjoyed seeing Chicago. Highlights include Troy doing choreographed dance moves during the state championship game in the opening number, Sharpay and Ryan's brilliant "I Want It All" number, Troy's spinning room and basketball rain on "scream," and Chad and Troy's bro-love ode to child hood in a junkyard.

Saturday was pretty quiet. We (and by we I mean myself, Katie, Katie's friend Steve, Dan, Lisbeth, Michelle, Laura, and Ali, hereafter known as "The Doctor Who Gang") ended up watching some Dr. Who and then playing Apples to Apples because Steve had never played. I won't get into explaining Apples to Apples, but suffice it to say that it's a fun party game and we had fun playing and drinking a bit. Ali in particular got smashed, which was hilarious because she had only one glass of merlot.

Sunday was not fun for me. I woke up at about 6 am and had to use the bathroom. At that point, I started throwing up in the sink. It was then I knew that I was in for an interesting day. I went back to sleep after cleaning up after myself and when I woke up I still felt horrible. I had a headache, backache, no energy, and couldn't keep food down. And I had to write a paper for Monday. I'm not, in fact, sure that those facts aren't related. I'm pretty sure my illness was just a combination of not eating right, getting poor sleep on these horrendous beds of ours, and being generally nervewracked over the paper and other personal matters. At any rate, I was laid up all Sunday and the Bills lost to boot. Not a good day.

Monday, I woke up feeling fine, but I hadn't ate anything all Sunday (or rather I had but it didn't stay down), so I was weak. I took the day to simply work on my paper and get healthy and skipped class. My paper, I'm happy to say, seemed to come out very well and I finished it before midnight, which is some kind of miracle for me I think. I even finished in time to watch Dr. Who, which was an extra bonus.

Tuesday was rather non-descript, mostly. Just more Dr. Who and such. There is one thing that happened but that's probably best saved for another time.

Wednesday was likewise quiet except for our screening of "The Buddha of Suburbia." Our London: City of Nations course aka "Feelings," includes weekly movie screenings. This week's selection was "The Buddha of Suburbia," a miniseries adaptation of the Hanif Kureshi novel of the same name. It's essentially the tale of the coming of age of a boy who is the son of a white mother and a Pakistani father. Given that it is the late 70s, sex, drugs, and rock & roll feature prominently. Especially sex. There was a lot of sex. Basically, Royce, our professor, expected us to all watch this bizzare 4 hour miniseries about a young mixed-race man's voyages of (often sexual) exploration and then be prepared to discuss it in class. There was not much chance of that happening. People will abide by a two hour film for class. Not many will abide by a four hour one.

Emily sweetened the pot some by putting pizza on her expense account and serving that before the screening. Not surprisingly, many people came for the pizza and then simply left or left after the first of four parts. Only four of us, Katie, Laura, Constance, and I (along with Emily to the extent that she counts) finished the film. It was alright as a whole, but it was quite frankly bizzare and nothing really makes sense until the end. There's no real plot to bring the movie together. Nonetheless, I got a major kick out of being able to mention in class an orgy scene in 4th part and have it be both a) pertinent to the discussion and b) completely shocking to people who didn't watch it.

Thursday night featured more Dr. Who and, of course, our thursday standbys of Nevermind the Buzzcocks and Beautiful People. Nevermind the Buzzcocks was great on account of the appearance of Australian feminist Gemane Greer. You would not expect an aging feminist to be the one to completely deconstruct and embarrass host Simon Amstell, who has more or less made a career of doing the same to his guests, but she did and it was hilarious. Beautiful People also had it's best episode yet, so good times were had by all.

That's basically where things stand at this point. Friday was our Yorkshire trip, which deserves a special blog of it's own. Saturday was yesterday and nothing really happened. I slept in. There was a fire alarm. I watched Everton beat Fulham. It rained, so I didn't go to Battersea Park for Guy Fawkes fireworks. We watched Dr. Who. We saw the fireworks from the comfort of the Res Hall lounge. That is all.

So, I'm pretty caught up on general happenings now (thank goodness). Hopefully, I can get some more blogs up that aren't simply recountings of events. Also, maybe I'll finally get around to blogging the fourth day of that Wales trip, which I at this point barely remember. Stay tuned.