The Bad Book

Had a pretty easy walk to school yesterday morning.  It was a lovely sunny day, Jonty was on his scooter and Henry and Rufus were busy firstly shooting lasers at each other and then secondly being on hotted-up motorbikes.  These are all imaginary of course.  Not the scooter - that was real.  At the traffic lights they were discussing in great detail the dimensions of the smoke-pipes on their bikes (exhausts).

I did get some funny looks as I was trundling along with one pram, two backpacks, two school jackets (thrown off during the heat of the game) a library bag and occasionally a hand on Jonty to stop him going pell-mell on to the crossing.  The pram is for when it all goes to pot with Jonty on the way home. Which it frequently does when tired.  That's me, not Jonty.

Normal families walk along nicely.  Ours is like some sort of travelling circus freak show.  After a day in which a great deal got done, I had prepared dinner, bathed Jonty and everyone was playing nicely.  I therefore settled on our porch with a glass of wine and current book The Great Gatsby.  THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE.  It was the best ten minutes of the year so far.

At bedtime I read to Henry and Rufus from a book I had got from the library that day - The Bad Book.  It is literally a book with illustrations about everything bad.  Hilarious.  I highly recommend it for anyone with children aged between 6 - 10.  The last story in the book is about how everything was bad.  Once upon a time everything was bad.  It goes on to say how it got badder and just when things couldn't get any worse they got very bad indeed.  The last ten pages of the book just get badder and badder and badder and badder and badder…….

Photo is from recent picnic on the river with some friends.  Rufus and Jonty not looking at camera.  Henry is not good with dogs but got quite attached to this one for the entire day.

Portrait

My new boss at the ballet school asked me if I had a professional head and shoulders shot to put up in the lobby.  (I didn't want to tell her that I had wondered why the previous contemporary dance teacher's portrait was still up there - but also had that unnerving feeling when starting a new job that they are just waiting for you to trip up - and therefore no need to get rid of the portrait. I must have passed whatever test was in store.)

Apropos of this it occurred to me that I have been 25 years in the business, and I have never once had a head and shoulders shot to use for publicity etc.  Lots of dancing shots.  Lots of me pretending to teach people dance.  Lots of ugly photos of me in the theatre/studio in the middle of rehearsals.  And one very funny picture of literally just my head which went into the Oxford Times, Banbury Post and Buckinghamshire Herald - unbeknown to me - until DH and I bought some copies at the petrol station. How he laughed!  Three weeks of non-stop laughter.

Anywho, at the grand old age of --, I need to get a proper professional portrait taken to put in the lobby of the dance centre for all to see.  I will need to wash my hair and get some bloody good lighting going.

If it is any good I will post it on my blog in a couple of weeks.  So you too can laugh for about three weeks.

Future Music Festival

Went to a Music Festival.  It was nothing like Glastonbury unfortunately.  The Chav/Bogans who turned up should have been told that denim shorts showing much bottom for the ladies and singlets with logos for the gentlemen are so passé.  It was OK.  Things I did not like:

1.  No wine, sparkling or otherwise.  Instead we were offered only canned pre-mixed drinks.  Yuk.

2.  Seven stages of dance music/DJs or live artists - all completely the same!  No variation whatsoever.

3.  No ambient tent/stage.

4.  34 degree heat and not much shade.  Not very well thought out by the organisers.  People were being carried off everywhere by ambulance workers.  But perhaps they sniffed something they should not have.

5.  The price - a whopping $170 for what?  So-called International DJs and bloody Pharrell Williams (more of him later in the blog).

Things I liked:

1.  Hanging out with Karolina and Jo - thanks girls!

2.  Tinie Tempah.  Fantastic stuff.

There is something very odd indeed about drinking a G&T at one in the afternoon in the baking sun and listening to dance music.  It is meant to be like you are at a club. But you are not.  You are at Flemington Racecourse trying to find some kind of ambience or atmosphere, and hopelessly despairing at the lack of creative genius as well as any kind of dress sense.  Kate Moss and her little dresses and wellington boots with bohemian plaited hair are another universe away (and 24 hours as well as completely the wrong season).

We had lovely greetings from the DJs/live acts "Welcome fucking Melbourians!  You mother-fuckers!  You are fucking awesome!  Fuck me!  Yeah!"  And then they would pretend to sing.  How inspiring - it turns out they know how to swear and everything.

Poor old Pharrell Williams must have thought 30 minutes of work was 30 minutes too long.  He couldn't sing, couldn't perform and could not muster any kind of stage presence.  What a disaster.  His backing track sounded so much better than he did, and the audience knew the lyrics - so he did even less.  Perhaps he should have been having a cup of tea somewhere and then the price of the tickets would have been about seventy dollars less for the rest of us who really didn't give a fuck.  Look I can swear too!  Perhaps I will take up DJing…..