Feeling Hot Hot Hot!

I am so unfit at the moment! In the entire period since my race I have swum 50 lengths of the ULU pool and that's it! And the pool's due to close on 31st for two months! In the meantime I feel vile and flabby and generally disgusting and horrible. It's too hot to go running, and with the exception of the odd ten minutes of yoga, I dono't exercise any more! And I loathe myself for it.

Anuway, enough self-loathing for now. Last night "Ducklings" was on at Hampstead - well, a bit of it, anyway - and the lack of swearing 14-year-olds meant it was a marked improvement on Soho. The actors were absolutely brilliant! I'm awaiting "feedback" which I will share here at some point - the only feedback I have so far is from the little in-crowd I took along with me, and that was generally good, though I did bribe them all with a bottle of wine in the interval...

Some of the other plays were excellent, in particular "False-Faced", which was very John Godber-esque, with lots of crude language which upset my mother. I then set about "networking", that is to say, I wore a short dress and precariously waved around my half-filled wine class whilst trying to be ingratiating to people from the Union Theatre and the Latchmere and (perhaps more excitingly) to Crispin Bonham-Carter.

I hope somebody will produce the whole thing. I'm flying off to Guernsey tomorrow but will send it off to the Latchmere and grill Hampstead for their feedback as soon as I get back.

Summer In The City

If you're one of those people who's complaining about the heat, STOP IT!!! You know that you're truly British if you're one of those people for whom only a temperature of between about 21 and 25 will do. Any more and it's too hot, any less and you're moaning we never get proper summers. Well, I think this weather is wonderful. Even Elephant looks faintly pleasant in the sun (actually, "pleasant" is possibly going a bit far, but you get my point.)

It's actually cooler than Venice. This has not diminished my desire to go there.

Went to the "Ducklings" rehearsal yesterday, which seemed to go pretty well. For a start, "Maria" can actually do a proper Lancashire accent rather than "Standard Northern," although we had to cut the Latin prayer because she couldn't manage it, which is a shame. "Susie" looks absolutely how I'd have expected her to look, though the actress is 29. The whole thing lasts just over 20 minutes, and they are even toying with the idea of playing a bit of Moz at the beginning as Susie stands on Maria's doorstep plugged into her iPod.

I'm not sure why, since my mother is keen to point out that "it's only a scene", but I'm starting to flap about Monday. I've discovered that two of the other writers have agents, and this makes me nervous. They emailed round a biog sheet asking me to list "only your 10 most relevent credits, due to space limitations." 10?!? I have one - Soho - and most of that was drowned out by screaming teenagers. I also have visions of my worlds colliding with potetnially impressive results - boyfriend, bset friends, LGBT Soc friends, trainee vicar, mother and boss are all going to be there. This does not bode well...

I am itching all over today. Lying in bed last night I heard the high-pitched whine mosquitoes make, then, worse, heard it suddenly stop, which means the little bastard has found flesh, namely mine. I hope it's highly allergic to B positve blood.

Received an email, in perfect English, from my friend in Avignon. She claims my French is 'good', which means not only can she write fluently in a foreign language, she can be ironic in it too.

Saw yet another film yesterday. Yet again, everyone is dead at the end, apart from a small child. The subtitles, though, kept me amused. The film is in Italian and was shown with the original English subtitles, written, presumably, some time around 1947 when the film was released. They have clearly been written to ring true to an English 1940s audience, and as such jar rather if you have even my pesky knowledge of Italian, or, indeed, any sort of knowledge of anything remotely non-British. Why, for example, would an Italian rebel shooting at German soldiers from the hills shout out to one of his comrades, "Look out, old chap!"? At certain points of the film, the subtitler seemingly gave up altogether, and there were long gaps when nothing was translated at all. Then there was all the religious language, which the subtitler presumably thought too exotic for an English audience (and perhaps rather too over the top for cinemagoers who would be largely Anglicans.) The word "Prego" (literally "I pray") pops up all the time, and is usually translated onscreen as "I hope", which I would argue is not the same thing at all. As for the many pleas to the Virgin Mary, these are pretty much ignored altogether, which is a shame, as they are, presumably, not all that difficult to my granny frantically crossing herself and exclaiming at speed "jaysusmarianjoseph!"

As it turned out, I needn't have paid £3 to sit in amongst an eclectic mix of Italian twenty-somethings and that certain type of middle-class, retired woman who probably lives in Hampstead and frequently goes to see foreign-language films and provides a knowledgable running commentary throughout, just loudly enough to irritate me: it's apparently on BBC4 next month.

I have found a new flat, and move in in 6 weeks. It's in Kentish Town, so doesn't earn many points in term sof glamour, being as it is on the edge of a huge Council Estate, its only highlight being the public baths on the corner which Camden is currently trying to close. It does, however, have the distinction of being (as far as we could tell) mouse-free and devoid of huge holes in the bedroom wall. It's got a gorgeous kitchen and is wonderfully bright, with velux windows in the two main rooms. Most importantly, though, it's cheap (though not worryingly so), so I will be able to save for a deposit so I can move into my own hovel rather than throw away cash for the priviledge of living in someone else's. I would show you a picture, but they are so ruthlessly efficient that it has already disappeared off their website.

"Italia! Campioni del Mondo!"

So, Italy won the football. This is a Good Thing, since their players are prettier than the French ones. Luca Toni's new haircut, however, is not a Good Thing, as one could almost call it Short.

I've come to the realisation I'm doing Too Much Stuff. Following my slightly scary cinema visit on saturday, during which I realised that I was the only member of the audience that wasn't Irish and had to sink deep into my seat while everyone else shouted obscenities at the on-screen Black and Tans, I clambered up onto the roof of St Michael's to deliver some food to my rooftop priest (sorry, Deacon). It's very high. Quite glad I didn't volunteer to sleep up there. Braving Camden Odeon again on Sunday I saw the next installation of "Pirates", and concluded there are worse ways to spend three hours of your weekend. Johnny Depp is still rather wonderful, and while some of the effects are a bit cliche and the story somewhat spurious, it's worth the money, patricularly when you get a student discount. My cinema weekend does mean, though, that I was subjected to three "Try Not To Die On The Roads Or Kill Anyone Else On The Roads" ads.

Then on Monday I met up with "My Director". I just thought I'd slot that in because I like being able to say "My Director". The reason I have a director is that Hampstead Theatre, for whom I completed two Equal Opportunities monitoring Forms (see January posts) are putting on a scene from "Ducklings", my artier/soppier rewrite of the Play Formerly Known As "Hell and High Tide". My Director is about 45 going on 19 and calls me "Darling". He was at pains to point out my working class characters are not stereotypes (cheers!) and was not thrilled at being made to go up to the counter just to ask for a Latte.

In the meantime I have also finished my dissertation, and as a result have signed myself up to go to Palestine (if indeed Palestine hasn't been bombed to shit by next June.) I have been warned not to stand in front of any tanks or Caterpillar bulldozers. Please rest assurred that I am neither than brave nor that daft, plus my lovely boss is giving me the time off even though it's during term, and will not be thrilled if I'm returned in a box.

On which chirpy note, I plan to go home tonight, cook chilli and listen to the Morrissey CD I finally acquired last week and have only since listened to once. There's only so much excitement you can take in one go, and inside me there's a very mundane, middle-aged woman screaming to get out.

The Luck of the Irish

It's been a busy weekend. Am about to chill out from it by settling down in the beautiful thing that is Camden Odeon to watch the new Pirates film, but in the meantime I'll report on the other two films I've seen this weekend.

'The Wind that Shakes the Barley' is, in the words of a colleage who saw it last week, 'two hours of gratuitous violence. He's right. It also made me feel mildly supportive of the IRA, and this worries me. The story revolves around Ireland's quest for independence in 1920/1921. The brutality of the occupying British forces, sent there to put down the rebellion, is horrifying (amongst other things, they pull out a young man's fingernails one by one, and kill another for refusing to state his name in English). IRA propaganda? Perhaps. But I also wonder if there are deliberate parallels to be drawn throughout the film with the current situation in Iraq. 'Independence' itself leads to Civil War, with the new 'Irish Army' to an extent taking the place of the British, splitting families into those who are happy with the way things are, and those who (understandably) are not happy with their country split in two and forced to swear allegiance to a foreign power. There is an almost Animal Farmesque feel to it, with the former liberators becoming the tyrants, but the IRA aren't exactly come across as Nice Chaps either, with a sort of mob rule attitude and displaying merciless violence themselves. I think perhaps this is why it is such a good film: it could have been too simplistic, it could have relied on the violence to make its reputation, but it just about manages not to. There's also a brief but telling dig at the Catholic Church: "As always the Catholic Church sides with the rich." No shit.

'Team America', on the other hand, is a film I've seen before and have been meaning to buy for ages, so when I found Fopp selling it for a fiver I couldn't resist. Even better, its warning on the back states: "contains strong language, violence and sex, all involving puppets" which is marginally better even than 'The Da Vinci Code's' 'contains mild flagellation'. 'Team America' is written by the guys who did 'South Park' and contains humour along the lines of 'My Hanky the Christmas Poo' as well as a bit of pseudo-politics and a dig at just about every race (their idea of Arabic involves the phrase 'durkadurkadurka' interspersed with the word 'jihad'). It's really the most brilliant film, I can't endorse it enough, because it manages to be both political and wonderfully childish at the same time, whilst taking the piss out of just about everyone concerned. It really does make me feel differently about Kim Jong Il, someone about whom I know absolutely nothing save for the fact that last week he was responsible for North Korea setting off a missile which 'could have hit Alaska', except that it fell into the sea just off the Korean Coast, because, you see, poor old KJI is 'so ronery' (if you have no idea what I'm talking about, watch the film.) Matt Damon's character is good as all he says is "Matt Damon", and keep a look out for the song about how shit 'Pearl Harbour' was.

To those of you who sponsored me today, I did the Race for Life this morning in memory of my friend Kirsty. It was quite sobering when I realised I had five names I could put on my back to say who I was running for, but Kirsty was the first person I knew who died from cancer. She would probably remember me as someone who was crap at sport (she did a lot of sailing and was quite good) so might have found the whole thing amusing. Personally, I felt quite smug. My time was 33 minutes and I jogged all the way, apart from having to stop twice when we all bottleknecked because there were bollards in the way. Had it not been for that I might have been under 30 minutes, which was my aim. Unfortunately, we were divided into 3 groups: runners, joggers and walkers, and I aligned myself with the joggers. Next year I'll definitely go with the runners as I spent much of the race navigating my way around other people. Anyway, thanks to those who supported/sponsored me, and if you still want to, it isn't too late! :-)

Give me just a sign that there's faith and that there's something better than This

Well, my priest has now been on the roof for 7 days. I won't go Goddy on you fellow Bloggers and Bloggerettes as I know what your reaction will be, but I don't, as per usual, have any great news, so I need to explain this away somehow. So, Fr Malcolm (whom I'm reliably informed by a parishoner is in fact a Deacon and not a priest - and he refused to give me money on account of the fact that I incorrectly said he was a priest) is sleeping on the roof of St Michael's Church in Camden Town for ten days to raise money for our Community Renewal Project (as well as, more mundanely, the good old Church Roof). Why the roof exactly I'm not sure, but it seems to have got him lots of publicity. He is doing it to live "like the homeless", though quite how this translates into sleeping on a roof with a laptop I'm not sure. But anyway, he is relying on others to give him food and sunhats (we're worried he's going to get sunstroke) and he details his toilet arrangements, or rather lack thereof, in his online diary, where he is getting righteously indignant about the delightful people of Camden Town. (My God, there are some odd people in Camden! While collecting money for Fr Malcolm outside Sainsbury's, aside from the Deacon comment, I have been hugged by drunk people, asked how much I cost, been called various unrepeatable names, and one woman told me in great detail about how Jesus came to her in a vision when she was in hospital, smiling at her through the crown of thorns.

You can donate through the website, too, if you so wish...

In other news, I only managed to catch the second half of the Italy match, which meant that the beautiful, glorious and generally wonderful Luca Toni was substituted about ten minutes after I started watching. But they win - my goodness did they win!! So three guesses what I'll be doing when I'm done running round Regent's Park on Sunday.

The third floor cubby hole that I call My Flat is uncomfortably hot. Open the window and you're kept awake by freight trains and people vomiting outside your front door and singing "Danny Boy". Oh, joy.