Part… 963, Culcha.

There’s very few places in the world that really do offer ‘everything’. I mean ‘everything you’d want’. Not necessarily buying little boys or beheading practice, but everything you might want to see or do of a nice nature. And London is right up there with so many fantastic opportunities. Ok, we don’t have ‘the seaside’ but they now have a few horrible beaches along various parts of the River, just for heaven’s sake don’t immerse any part of any toe in or you’ll end up with something that would make Ebola look like hay fever.

And we have trees. As many as you’d ever need in any one go anyway. Yes, you can go to British Columbia and see more trees than there are Chinese people in Hong Kong. Then what do you do with the rest of your time? Count them? I have a tree in my garden. There it is; pear tree. Cross ‘trees’ off the list and find something proper to do. If my tree is not enough, go to Hampstead Heath or Richmond Park and see as many as you’d ever need. Any more and it becomes needless repetition.

We have football. In London alone there are several big teams. Tottenham, Arsenal, Chelsea, Crystal Palace, QPR. There’s also West Ham. And a whole host of other lesser teams. There’s rugby, there’s cricket, in not one but two wonderful grounds; Lords and The Oval, where just yesterday the glorious and victorious England team beat those Indians. And yes, for sporting events only we do count south of the River as ‘London’. Just sporting events.

Then there’s culcha. So much fucking culture you barely need to get drunk to the point of vomiting. So much culture that you’d expect this City to be positively awash with foreigners all summer long. Oh, it is. And they get in the bloody way. But even though we don’t want to be a part of it, we’ll take their Euros all day long. And most of the night too. Museums, the best in the world and amazingly, all free. The proper ones are anyway. The silly tourist rip-off type London Dungeon and Madame Toussauds and Sherlock Holmes house (HE WAS FUCKING FICTIONAL!!!! HE NEVER EVER LIVED IN BAKER STREET NOR ANYWHERE ELSE. GET A GRIP. AND SAVE YOUR MONEY), they do charge, but half the galleries too; free at the point of entry. Without breaking in. We have multiplex movie popcorn vending establishments and we have lovely, decent, independent cinemas too which even show non-English films on occasion.

And of course, we have theatre. Not just ‘a theatre’ but an entire industry. Ok, most are crumbling old Victorian relics which need a bit of work to hold the ceilings up, but they are the theatres of Shakespeare, of Oscar Wild, or Lawrence Olivier, Ralph Richardson, John Geilgud, Judi Dench and Kristen Stewart. Well everyone turns up there eventually, regardless of talent. And if that’s not sufficient, we have ‘the fringe’. London’s ‘off-Broadway’, but as we lack a Broadway to begin with, we call it Fringe Theatre instead. And its for those who’d rather spend 12 quid to see rubbish than to spend 75 quid to see worse rubbish in Town. But sometimes there are little gems to be found.

Sunday night at the Gatehouse Theatre, a grandly named room-above-a-pub in Highgate Village, Mel & I went to see a show. Mel found it. I had nothing else to do, so followed along. With reservations. I don’t mean for the seating.

We saw ‘confessions of a rabbi’s daughter’. One person show. Musical. 85 people sitting round watching. And it was great. Really great. Different. Original. It was about a rabbi’s daughter, coincidentally, bearing in mind the title. And she’s about to marry a rabbi herself, to the pleasure of all concerned, including herself for whom this represents a lifelong ambition, when on the wedding morning she… she… she realises she’s in love with her (female) best friend. Holy. Shi-ite. One young woman, wrote it all, words, music, performed it, probably made her own prop (there was only one). Proper unsung talent.

And London has rainbows. This one arrived last night. Spectacular.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx