spinning jenny

Yesterday evening's show at Theatre 503 was excellent. The evening went to plan. We arrived first in Chelsea to meet for an early shot of expresso before we started the evening. Then to the Latchmere pub in Battersea for a pre-show drink. The pub was kinda busy, what with the rugby as well and the group of us moved to the Theatre lobby where we managed to bag a comfortable sofa before the show started.

And then to hear the trials and tribulations of Augustine Early, played with sharp tongue, Southern drawl, pyrotechnic energy swings and deep engagement by Ben Porter, in Ronan Noone's rapier wit of a tale of an amoral journalist who'll stop at nothing to get that front page headline.

Augustine Early is a despicably conniving, viciously scheming reporter who claws his way up the greasy pole of the Fourth Estate. There are maybe ten seconds of goodness about him in the entire play, but he soon snaps out of that.

Sex, Sleaze, Corruption, Politics and Death all play a part in this analog of the human condition. "I may be responsible, but I'm not culpable", he explains as he describes the morbid interest of his readers in the latest spinning that he has created with the gullible self interest of Jenny, his partial love interest in the piece.

Ben Porter, as an edgily psychotic Augustine, paces the piece with great assurance and timing, revealing the latent energy of a coiled spring, which every so often explodes across the stage. "Why be mediocre?", he implores, as he demonstrates every way to stay away from the middle ground.

Set in America, tightly scripted, adapted for the European audience, and set in a theatre modified to resemble...no I'd better not say...it adds to one of the twists in the piece. Highly watchable and easy to be drawn through fascination into this otherworld of deceit.

Great theatre, acting, script. I'd watch and enjoy again!

tags technorati : rashbre theatre london theatre503 offwestend chelsea battersea latchmere west end metro time out sloane square fringe The Atheist Ben Porter Ronan Noone

(Extensive tagging at request of Mel and Christina)

showtime

Off to see a play in Battersea this evening, supporting the renaissance of Theatre 503. There's more about the venue across at Christina's and I'll know more for myself after tonight's show.

Its quite an endeavour getting a theatre up and running and tonight's play is the first 'under new management'.

So I guess I'll be in the Latchmere first, for a pre show drink.

fenceless

I shall just have to admire this picture of fencing. Since the storms and winds in England a couple of weeks ago, there has been a run on replacement fence panels. So I shall be without borders for a little longer.

mu mu

Some people have a way with words, blending daily occurence with the sweep of gods. Today's humble post is for one such sprite who can flitter between Eris the goddess of confusion and chaos, the last train to transcentral and weightier matters which sometimes require an axe.

broken glass

I'd been using Microsoft Vista Beta with Parallels on an intel Mac for several months. Now I see the new Vista Home Premium which I bought today actually forbids this.

Microsoft has reworded its End User License Agreement to say: “USE WITH VIRTUALIZATION TECHNOLOGIES. You may not use the software installed on the licensed device within a virtual (or otherwise emulated) hardware system.”

So unless I want to turn my Mac over to Boot Camp dual boot, I can no longer use the product inside the terms of the agreement unless I dig deep for Vista Ultimate edition. The whole point of something like parallels is to be able to run Windows in a pane on the Mac. Microsoft say that "Home users have rarely requested virtualization and so it will not be supported in Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic and Home Premium.”

As a side note, one of the fun things about Vista under OS/X is the way it can be dynamically resized on the screen like a browser pane. Click my screen shot above to see a big picture of Windows in a small pane on OS/X. Or watch this three year old Apple trailer about iLife back in the olden days.

tags technorati : rashbre vista mac apple parallels virtualization boot camp microsoft intel EULA home premium

Microsoft Vista on Apple Mac OS/X

After my Vista post (above) I had several emails about the base install of a Vista upgrade on OS/X. I have several spare WIndows XP licenses from defunct systems and assumed the upgrade would work with either an original XP CD or XP serial number before the Vista one. But no.

Here is my Vista install to OS/X with Parallels.

1) Get a modern licenced version of Parallels and install it on OS/X
2) Create a Vista partition in OS/X with at least 512Mb memory and 20 GB disk space
3) Boot the legitimate Vista DVD from the Parallels partition (when the Parallels session boots, it trys to start the DVD in any case)
4) Click "Install Now"
5) Do not enter a Product key when prompted - if you try to you will get an ACPI, BSOD or can't upgrade error.
6) You will see a list of Vista editions. Select the one you have bought.
7) Install Vista normally - though it will be a trial copy with no serial number, only valid for 30 days.
8) Once the install is complete after circa 30 minutes, restart the DVD-based Setup from within Windows Vista.
9) Perform an in-place upgrade.
10) Enter your Product Key when prompted
11) Let Vista go through the upgrade a second time.

This procedure is much faster than installing a copy of XP and then upgrading to Vista. In fact, the upgrade after the original install completed in about half an hour on my iMac.

tags technorati : rashbre vista mac apple parallels virtualization boot camp microsoft intel

OTA Wordless Wednesday

red sky over a red part of Amsterdam
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Tag: Wordless Wednesday

Amsteldijk

There are two rivers running through Amsterdam; the Amstel and the Ij. The Amstel is famous for the Heineken Brewery and this evening a group of us found a rather pleasant restaurant on the bank of the Amstel, close to the brewery, where we enjoyed an evening of "boisterous debate".

Anne Frank

Related to my stay in Amsterdam, here's a direct link to Anne Frank's House. If you can't visit Amsterdam, visit the site. If you can visit Amsterdam, visit the house.

Rembrandtplein

Because I'm working during the day in Amsterdam, I only had part of the evening to visit the town. Early this evening, I met some colleagues, who were somewhat blitzed from their flights from Atlanta and San Francisco. I still had a further couple of meetings, whilst they took an incredibly early dinner in order to get some sleep before our early start on Tuesday.

I wandered from the hotel a little later, and here's a couple more snaps of Amsterdam at night, around the narrow streets and the cafes and bars, close to the hotel.

And, eventually, returning to the hotel, via tram, to escape the evening rain.

in the port of Amsterdam

I'm back in Amsterdam for a few days. I did spend a lot of time in Amsterdam a few years ago. Its a very compressed city, with the energy lines created by the concentric canals that force much of the life into a small area. I was previously based by the Damrak, which is a central and bustling pedestrian area that drives from the train station to the centre of the city. Every visitor to Amsterdam will walk some part of the Damrak.

The turnover of tourists on short breaks through Amsterdam is huge. With the pretty network of canals, the unique architecture, the Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh Museum, Anne Frank's house there is plenty for normal sightseeing.

Amsterdam also has de Wallen, a famous central red-light district. These "Hoerenbuurten" are common in Dutch sea ports and the one in Amsterdam is always busy with sightseers. De Wallen is also the centre for the Dutch Koffie shops, which, along with coffee, sell cannabis.

This time I'm staying in Heerengracht, right by one of the main canals. Here's Amanda singing a bawdy tune about this buzzing city.

Amsterdam

ps and in the post below, I've added an original version.

Jacques Brel

Naomi's comment prompted me to add this fantastic version of Amsterdam sung by its writer, Monsieur Jacques Brel.