FRINGE FUN ON THE DOORSTEP (PART 2)

Now that the Fringe season is over I can look back on the month and say that we had some extraordinary fun seeing some of the best, and worst, at Camden.

I've already expounded on the ill prepared actors and acting in OAPz (oh, didn't mean to name it - for more detail read previous blog!) and also on the joy of Shazia Mirza who was one of the best things we saw....

The Ten Commandments turned out to be a student rag - or so it seemed. It was a full house - but full of friends and family of the cast who tended to laugh to extreme at their mates dressed in women's clothes or similar rather than at the tag lines of the gags which were mainly predictable although there were occasional flashes of brilliance - but too few.

We saw Mr & Mrs one Sunday evening and found it to be a fascinating script but not particularly lively in deliverance which made us rush to the programme afterwards to see who the actors were - only to find that they were playing themselves, two stand up comedians talking about what it's like to live together and be married. Of course this is one we could do better! So watch this space....

Thirty minutes later we were back in the same studio for 'This is a Chair'. We felt cheated - it was a bare forty minutes worth and never seemed to say a great deal that made any sense. I suppose it was modern and thought provoking but who knew that the cameo of a two adults allegedly encouragng a baby to eat was in fact a statement about anorexia? Various scenes were played out with different people playing different parts of stories that had no beginnings or ends, just middles. Afterwards Rob discovered it had been played to critical acclaim elsewhere so that no doubt casts doubts on our abilities as reviewers...

'Breaking Legs' was a great improvement At last we started to see some drama we enjoyed and understood! A dialogue between understudies backstage was funny and fascinating at the same time as they vied with each other to try and, for once, be on stage playing the parts instead of watching in the wings.

'Vera and the Sea' was powerful and well acted by all but one of the cast who tended to bring out a reaction in me like squeaking chalk on a blackboard. However this ghost story of abuse and manslaughter kept us gripped throughout.

'A Dinner Party' was another dialogue with great substance and took us to a different venue as the other plays were all at the Etcetera and this was at the Camden People's Theatre which was a venue we often see on our way home from The Magic Circle.

However the best piece of all had to be 'Shaft' - a powerful, funny and telling play about girls backstage at a pole dancing club. The characters were acted with great realism and were so very different from each other - and the pole acrobatics were amazing in themselves! Raunchy as could be, it was not really the time to be sitting in the front row as eye contact was worrying to say the least!

All in all, though, we had a great time seeing the good, the bad but not the downright ugly at the Camden Fringe and we discovered some amazing eateries too! An Indian restaurant in the Stables with a buffet at £6 per head or a vast Oriental buffet at not much more which included desserts of many kinds - and a Mr Whippy ice cream machine and cornets to fill! What more could anyone need from a night out?

FRINGE FUN ON THE DOORSTEP!

The time flies by and then it was our first wedding anniversary and we hadn't had time to get used to being newly marrieds yet!

How to celebrate? We thought we might go away towards the end of the month.. then we thought we wouldn't. We thought we'd go to the theatre... and then we thought we wouldn't. We thought we'd celebrate on the day itself... and then we thought we wouldn't (I was working all week so we decided to wait till the next day which was Saturday).

And then we discovered that Camden was having a Fringe! Oh joy or joys! We could do the kind of thing we love doing best - but without having the travel and accommodation expenses we'd have going to Edinburgh (and we couldn't afford it this year what with credit crunch and all).
In case you are wondering what this pigeon is doing here - it's the emblem of the Camden Fringe!

We have decided to 'do' the Fringe all month as and when we have time. So we got a Chinese takeaway (and we have the very best of 'em near us) and had the most brilliant anniversary evening watching the DVD of the wedding! Oh how we laughed at Graham's speech! Oh how we giggled at Brian and David's appendix to their official (?) reading. Oh how we gloried in seeing our friends once again, some who hadn't surfaced in our neck of the woods since the day!

Then on Saturday we enjoyed two one-person shows at the Roundhouse. We wallowed in the wonderful wisdom of Shazia Mirza's observations and fell about, albeit guiltily, at Scot Capurro's audacity in offending absolutely everyone. Then we wandered into the Stables courtyard and found the most fantastic Indian buffet meal for a mere £6.00!

Yes - it was meant to be our paper anniversary so I suppose tickets for shows count as such. And a glorious time was had with the promise of more...

... until today. We went to see another Camden offering 'as seen on TV' and came home deeply disappointed. What had the promise of an hilarious hour fell at the fences with actors losing their ways, forgetting their lines and a shortened plot that must've lost lots in the editing from two hours down to one! I won't name it, for decency's sake, but it did make me wonder what else is lurking in the depths over the next couple of weeks.. delights or dispairs - watch this space...

BRIAN'S TAGGED ME - AGAIN!

It's been a while since I've either read Brian's blog (or anyone else's) or written my own but I've been compelled to do this now as Brian has all but given up on me! He apparently tagged me over a week ago and I hadn't noticed because I hadn't visited!

It's an arduous meme too 26 answers required, with pictures to stop it being boring as it's all about me! So here goes:

Age: No answer, too many young magicians read this!

Bed Size: Double - because other sizes are expensive and we don't seem to spend big money on house stuff. The duvet is king size though - does that count?

Chore you hate: Is that the one I don't like doing but do anyway - cleaning the loo, washing the floor. Or the one I hate so much I don't do it - washing windows, gardening, decorating, putting things away!

Dog's name: We don't have a dog now as we never know when we are going to go away. When I was ten my grandma nagged my aunt to go rescue a dog advertised free in a newspaper. Once she'd brought it home my grandma said 'What do you want a dog for, better you give it to the children!' So our family of two adults and two children (three of whom terrified of dogs) acquired Sherry the Cocker Spaniel or, to give his full name, Sheridan Ostler of Ware, He stayed with the family for around fifteen years and when he had to be put down as he was so ill my brother told everyone my mum was the 'dog murderer', because she'd taken him to the vet, for years afterwards.

Essential Start your Day Item: Cocopops (when I'm home) and prunes in hotels.




Favourite colour: Blue since a child but nowadays loving pink so guess i've mellowed.

Gold or silver: I thought i loved gold but I think I prefer silver as it shows up so much better whether tanned or not.

Height: 5' 1.5"

Instruments You Play: You should be glad the answer is none! Can't even sing and that is not being modest, it's true. No sense of rhythm, [refer spoken word to music!

Job Title: Magician

Kids: One son, Hadleigh, who lives in Phoenix.



















Living Arrangements: Now what does that mean? Who with? Type of house? Owner occupier or rented? I live with Rob, my partner of 16 years and husband of 11 months in a terraced ex-council house.

Mum's name: Myra - sadly she doesn't know her own name now, let alone mine.


















Nicknames: This might give my age away - I was called Ricey at school because of the prominence in the news of Mandy Rice Davis and in teens was also called Randy Mandy for no reason at all other than the words rhymed!

Overnight Hospital Stay other than birth: Mine or someone else's birth? Mind you, Hadleigh's birth was not the first time - I was there for nine weeks, six before and three afterwards. I was in hospital as a child for: adenoids, then for a hole drilled in the bone of my nose to stop mucus traveling to the brain and killing me within hours (I don't know, I was two but my mum said so). Then there was a few years gap till ten and was in for two weeks to learn how to inject myself with insulin; then... wisdom teeth; infected lymph gland; benign breast lump, hysterectomy. I should also include the two weeks I stayed in a London hospital but was allowed out during the day so they could monitor blood sugars - had a great time shopping, theatres, films, museums! Well... you asked!

Pet Peeve: Being patronised!

Quote from a movie: I can never remember things like that from movies although I want to. I suppose the obvious one - 'I'll think about that tomorrow!' from Vivienne Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind - or 'I am born' from any production of David Copperfield.



Right or left handed: Left which makes learning card flourishes and fancy stuff difficult.

Sports: Absolutely not! Not playing nor watching!

Time You Wake Up: You have to realise we don't even think about going to bed before 3 a.m. and lately it's been nearer 4 before putting out the light so wake up tends to be around 11.

Underwear: Always

Vegetable you dislike: Beetroot and cooked spinach. The spinach reminds me of the night we arrived late at a hotel in Belgium and they did us a favour and made us supper - Eggs Florentine, poached eggs on a bed of spinach. I can still see my brother crying and her my mum and I retching as my dad insisted we ate it so as not to offend anyone!

Ways You Run Late: If I'm working I'm always early. But if I'm meeting people or just going somewhere like visitng my mum or deciding I must leave the house to shop or go to the bank - I misjudge how long everything will take me before I go out or how long the journey will be or start doing things that 'will only take a minute'.

X-Rays You've Had: Give me a break - you can see the list of hospital visits I've had! Most recent one was a couple of months ago to see if I have Arthritis in my hands - but I don't.

Yummy Food You Make: Good old-fashioned Jewish Chicken soup. Oh - and a mean Christmas turkey! Take your pick - I please everyone!

Zoo Favourite: Whipsnade! Seriously - I love that zoo. You can drive from area to area and the animals appear to have freedom but it's not like a Safari Park so you don't have to be confined to your car either. I also love Regents Park - and although I remember Brumus the Polar Bear cub, my favourite Zoo animal was Guy the Gorilla.

So I'm done - I know that no one else will do this but I feel honour-bound to tag people so I am tagging Rob Cox and Mark Lee! Of course, Hadleigh, you don't have a blog yet but consider yourself tagged too!

COMPUTER BLUES II

You take it for granted don't you?

Sitting down every morning to mindlessly delete all the penis enlargement ads or the selections of drugs available at the click of a button... reading the emails that actually are addressed to you from people you know.

Tell me - how did we manage without Google? Everything you want to know is there plus many things you didn't! Every twist and turn of your day can involve googling something that will improve life in general.... where is that restaurant Joe mentioned last night? Which is the best way to get to the next appointment? I must send flowers to friends in the US... I must buy that book they were talking about on the radio.. It's all there at the click of a google button - and then it isn't!

All I did was reboot, honest! I heard the start up sound, I heard certain programs whirring away and even the final opening of Skype which always signals the completion of 'restart' but... nothing! A bewildering black screen showing no light at the end of the imac tunnel. If in doubt - reboot again. So I did - and still nothing.

It was the end of the line for my five year old machine. I'd overworked it to extreme and it had decided enough was enough in spite of the extra memory and the recent clean up of files it had breathed its last. I needed to find a repair man - but I couldn't google it so had to rely on others t do that for me.

A mac specialist gave advice over the phone but it didn't help so he called back to make an appointment to visit.

'Tell me straight' I demanded, 'What are the chances of you coming over here and still telling me I have to buy a new one?' 'Extremely likely,' was his reply and so I knew what I had to do. I needed to look for a new computer - but I couldn't google it!

Eventually I did the only thing I could do - with no money available but a currently unused John Lewis store card in hand I drove down to Brent Cross and returned clutching the unlimited joys of a brand new machine with lots of exciting new on screen gadgets.

Now came a new problem - how to get the information, and some old familiar applications, from the old onto the new when you can't see what you are doing. It's easy, they said, just connect the two by firewire. So I tried but a photo of the backs of both proved that one had a 400 fitting and the other an 800 although the wire was the same at both ends - they don't warn you about this anywhere. A new cable had to be bought but this still didn't do the trick - and desktops are heavy to carry through heavy shopping centres to Mac Stores however helpful they profess to be.

In the end a PC experienced hardware friend came over and performed an autopsy, removed the hard drive and connected it, eventually. I had to check that he had the 'special screwdriver' that a friend in the US advised was needed. Turned out that he did have this but was thankful I'd mentioned it as he would not have brought it with him. The outside screws were quite normal but once you got inside.... However now I could transport most, but not all, of what I wanted and needed.


So here I am - a new computer with lots of things to play with. I haven't had time to do much investigating yet but I'm back with my beloved Google to answer everything once more. What more can a girl need?

MAGIC WORKSHOPS - THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME

It's official - well put it this way: I have truly discovered my metier in this uncertain world of magical entertainment.

I have alway known that i could teach - just don't have formal qualifications. My problem was that I have never been that sure that I knew enough to set myself up as a teacher, even of the basics. So although I launched highly successful one-off corporate workshops, I couldn't bring myself to suggestion follow ups. I was an excellent tutor for people who have no knowledge of magic but would love to learn a little to impress friends and even to add to their selling techniques. These workshops have been very sought after and I continue to infiltrate corners of the City, working with companies who wish to entertain top clients and offer them meals plus something extra and different. However I've always kept these as one-offs, not prepared to go back and take these people to the next level. However...

Last week I ran a series of half-term workshops for teenagers in an East London borough. This time I'd be working with the same group for ten hours of instruction.

I have to say, though, it was great! The kids were very focussed and interested, only one had short concentration span and I had a very enthusiastic teaching assistant who helped out with one boy who was autistic. She had a brilliant time learning magic - and taught the crowd the infamous 21 card trick (every non-magician who says to a magician 'I can do a card trick, can I show you?' invariably does this one! Twelve had signed up for the course but we lost three brothers due to the fact that the eldest already had amazing card skills but wasn't interested in learning other tricks such as rope magic or mind reading so they only came along for the first day.

The remaining nine had to 'put on a show' in the last part of the last day, and that was particularly worrying, but they all came up trumps; they performed for thirty minutes and had a wow of a time. We ended up with only three card tricks, two rope tricks, one book test and one escape performed by two magicians simultaneously. So it was a varied show and their performance skills improved greatly over the four days. We had started with all of them shuffling their feet, swaying from side to side and talking to the floor. We ended up with them all looking at the audience and standing relatively still... although some forgot their opening line 'Hello, my name is ......... and I am a magician!'

I really enjoyed myself and am looking forward to repeating the exercise in August. Last week's group all professed a desire to continue to work with me but the organisers are loathe to do an improvers' group so I have to start again with new kids... let's hope they are just as good and as receptive and I have a super summer too.

So - now I can say, without hesitation, that I can take a group and give them a series of basic workshops covering various disciplines of magic so that everyone will have a really great time and learn something useful too! After all anything that helps you to stand up in front of a crowd and not fall flat on your face has to be a worthwhile endeavour!

So contact me for your group - but be warned, before you begin you have to sign a Magician's Oath not to tell.

Can you keep the secrets?

COMPUTER BLUES

Been up for ages.... Rob has a hospital appointment today, for the severe ear infection he's had since before the wedding in August although he now believes he can see the light at the end of the tunnel or, at least, the ENT doctor can - but maybe that's the problem! Or is it this....


I have to be ready to go out, over to Sharon and Jack who are old friends living nearby. We have been teaching them computer skills - or how to do just the things they want to do on the computer which was given to them by a well-meaning relative....

Jack had done a beginners' course but he is of Moroccan and Israeli origin and only learned those languages during his formative years at schools. So his written English skills leave a lot to be desired. We take the teaching thing very slowly and I'm quite proud of their progress in one day a week sessions over the past three weeks. Both of them can now get Google and look for things they want:

For Jack it's Moroccan music and the newspapers on line so he doesn't have to wait for Sharon to finish reading them on a Sunday before he can do so!

For Sharon it's how to find cheap flights to Israel (no such thing!), how to email family (daughter and grandchild in California and Jack's family in Israel), how to download photos of said grandchild and how to use Skype.

Meanwhile... after a huge saga of trying to get a microphone to work which we've now accomplished, the whole thing started to run soooo slowly that it's just impossible to use and, although it has a very fast connection, it seems unable in the last week to hold it's internet connection. Sooo....



A BT man is coming today - between 8 and 1 - and one of us has to be ready for him to arrive as we can't leave S & J alone. They won't understand a word he says!

So I've been up early.... but it's 11.21 and no sign of him yet.... I just hope he turns up but you know how these things can be..

THE IMPORTANCE OF NO IMPORTANCE

My friend Brian Sibley has tagged me! I have to come up with six things of no importance about me - and then tag six other people (and he's used up all the best ones!)

It's important that the things of no importance are important enough to be considered of no importance - surely it can't be six things of no importance that are so not important (yes I know but it fitted better!) that they are not important enough to even be here?

I could easily come up with six things such as:

1. I brushed my teeth this morning
2. I am sitting at this computer doing this instead of cleaning the kitchen
3. I feel peckish
4. My desk is a mess - as is my side of the office.
5. I want to link this to my web site and don't know how.
6. I having nothing to do on Easter Monday

Well - those are six things of no importance aren't they?

But they aren't six things of no importance that are important enough to warrant being in a list of six things of no importance... and I think that they need to be.

So let me think:

1. When I was eight I went to a fancy dress party and didn' t know it was a fancy dress party. I was teased so much that I took all my clothes off and said I'd come as Lady Godiva! I always make sure I'm in fancy dress if required now - in case the urge ever returned because now I'd definitely frighten the horses as my grandma used to say!

2. I bought a watch in a sale at the fashion department of Woman magazine where I worked. It had no winder (no batteries then) and I took it to the jeweller around the corner to have one fitted. He demanded to know how much I had paid and all I could say was 'not much' as i was embarrassed by the price - I should've confessed as it turned out the watch had no works in it at all! He thought I'd been well and truly 'done' but I had only paid 2p and I never told anyone that...

3. I learned ballet from the age of 2 and a half. I stopped when I was 11. When I took up tap as an adult my mum retorted: 'Well you were a fairy elephant when you were three so I don't think you will have changed much!' And I was very thin in those days too!

4. When I was told I had a baby brother I said: 'I'd rather have a poodle!' and when asked if I preferred the name Barry or Bradley for him I chose Barry... he was called Bradley, I think the rot set in then..)

5. The last present my mum ever bought me was a lilac and white teddy called 'Smiles'.

6. I won't be celebrating Passover this year as the kitchen is being decorated - bad timing!

So now I have to tag six people... who to tag?

Who reads this apart from me? I know - let's do it another way:

If you are reading this then you are tagged! :) So do your six things of unimportance about you and let me know! I can guarantee Mark Lee will read it and maybe Eudora and Suzanne - you know who you are!