The trouble with having a blog is that you start writing one in your head while you’re actually experiencing something and then you immediately forget as soon as something else happens. So I’m trying to remember the smell of the London Underground, the hot, stinky air that punches you as the train approaches, the crowds, the steel band that was playing outside Brixton tube, the excitement mixed with the instant familiarity of being back in London after 15 years.
I loved it, although I was there less than 24 hours. From this distance, a trip to Rome for three days with a tacked-on night in London means you spend something like 28 hours in the air and approximately 55 stuck in transit lounges, duty-free areas and pre-flight holding pens. Plus, your bag is x-rayed 150 times. I think it might be radioactive now.
Apart from the Flaming Lips at the Albert Hall (okay, that's the last reference to that) I also managed to squeeze in a trip to the V&A museum to see the Modernism exhibition, in which there is a multi-coloured suit that immediately made me think of Split Enz. There were also a lot of chairs. Modernism got a bad rap in the UK, where it was translated into a load of brutal tower blocks and housing estates, but you forget that a lot of the stuff designed after World War I, some of it still in production today, was new and exciting and supposed to herald the beginning of a utopia after the horrors of the war. Here’s a bloke who knows a bit more about design than me who also went.
But that was so last month and now I’ve recovered, I think it took about two weeks, and it’s back to more important things. Like, does anyone else think that NZ Idol has jumped the shark? Okay, dumb question, but Iain Stables? Megan Alatini? Who are these people? And isn’t the whole cash prizes thing just a bit desperate? Who’s managing the winner now that Paul Ellis is gone? If you don’t care who is in the final of American Idol, here’s a good story from the LA Times about that phenomenon.
Speaking of local, Orange Roughies is very sexy, apparently. I’ve PVRed it, which brings me to a big complaint about the otherwise excellent MySky PVR. On a number of occasions, I’ve recorded programmes and upon viewing, the recording stops before the end of the show. Fuck! The only way to avoid this is to record the programme directly afterwards as well, which will pick up where you were left hanging.
Good news: TVNZ is promising The Sopranos later in the year and Life on Mars very soon. Appointment viewing, friends.
Last, I have the Letterman list:
Monday, May 29, actress Halle Berry; Monster Garage star Jesse James
Tuesday, May 30, comedian Bill Maher; actress Rita Wilson
Wednesday, May 31, actor Jason Lee; animal expert Jack Hanna
Thursday, June 1, actress Julia Roberts; musical guests Pearl Jam
Friday, June 2, actor Vince Vaughn; musical guest K.T. Tunstall
Monday, June 5, actor Tom Cruise; chef Jamie Oliver