MST3K and the Sci-Fi London Oktoberfest

This weekend I attended an all-night film festival for the Sci-fi London Oktoberfest -- about 10 hours of icecream, red-bull and the hilarity of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 (MST3K). On the programme it's listed as "Seriously funny {stuff}!", and it really was.

I arrived at the Odeon West End (near Picadilly Circus) at about 23:15 ... and then found out I was in the wrong place! Not sure how that happened, but suddenly the benefit of having Google Maps on a phone became very apparent -- even I could find my way, despite both my own lack of a directional sense and London's winding, Celtic roads.

So I wasn't too late. I met Allen "Conky" there; he gave me my (half-price) ticket and we wandered into the cinema.

Extremely comfy chairs! Free tea, coffee, icecream and red-bull! A couple of guys from EA (the games company) showing off their new XBOX 360 game (and a guy dressed up as the main character, how funny is that?!). I wasn't sure what to expect, but £15 for at least 4 movies I was ready to enjoy myself. So how happy I was when the organisers handed out "showbags" on the way in -- a bunch of DVDs (including a metal-cased special edition Voltron!), some badges, t-shirt transfers, little "build your own X-fighter" toys.

Even better for one attendee -- he got the "lucky" seat and ended up with a brand-new XBOX 360 and a bunch of games (all courtesy of Play.com -- thanks!).

So I was already in a merry mood when the movies started, and they turned out to be really, really funny. Take a bunch of bad, bad movies -- including the Worst Movie of All Time, "Plan 9 from Outer-space" -- and add a commentary by a couple of funny guys (actually one guy and two robots). The hours flew by, and before I knew it it was 9am!

We stumbled out of the cinema into broad daylight, squinting, dazed and confused. Whether it was the all-night laughs or the red-bull cola, I felt fine! A little bit dopey but certainly not tired, so I walked home and woke Dee (heh heh), trying to convince her to come outside and go do something!

About 5 minutes later I was asleep.

However, after 5 or 6 hours sleep I woke again, had a snack and went to see some comedians at The Comedy Pub with some friends and friends of friends (Joyce, Luke, Heather and Wayne). They were so funny too! Hard to remember the jokes; harder still to actually deliver them. After comedy we had a late dinner in China Town (I almost ordered pigeon, but settled on chilli and bean chicken).

Sunday we cleaned up the house, did the paperwork, and had a delicious dinner courtesy of Colleen (our housemate) who was really just cooking for her little brother :-).

An evening at the theatre

Indulged our thespian hearts with a trip to Shakespeare's New Globe Theatre last night.

First: dinner at Harry's Bar in the city. Named after a famous cocktail (coquetier! eggcup!) bar in Venezia, Italia (Venice, Italy ;-)), Harry's of London shares, well, nothing with it's Italian namesake: it's a wine bar and restaurant, and the wine is Chilean, Australian and French rather than Italian. Nevertheless, the food was good: I had gnocchi (maybe Italiano!) with prawns; Dee tried the risotto (ooh, maybe it's more Italian than I gave it credit for). We ate with a friend of Dee's, her partner and two of her friends, and although we were both tired and didn't really like the idea of meeting new people just then, the night turned out okay.

Apparently Harry's in Venezia is really expensive; in London the bill was cut down to a more manageable size by a mid-week special: half price on the total bill if you have 2 courses. It was cheaper to have a main and dessert than to just have a main! Now that's a savings plan I could get into. Guess there is some good in the credit-crunch -- with all the bankers out of work, swanky places like Harry's has to let rabble like me in!

After dinner we wandered down towards the Thames and across one of the many bridges, the city beginning to sparkle as dusk mellowed to dark. Behind us, Wren's St. Paul's loomed ominously, whilst ahead the whitewashed walls and thatched roof of The Globe warmly invited us; it could've been the late 1600's, with both Globe and the great church rebuilt after the Great Fire of London. Or so I imagined.

We handed over our little cardboard tokens and shuffled up the wooden stairs to the top gallery, whereby we were afforded a near-birds-eye view down upon the stage the the players. We sat upon hard wooden benches, eschewing the hired cushions that those of less-hardy temperament (and posterior fortitude) felt necessary. Shortly the strains of a light tune played on lutes and horns signalled for quiet; a hush fell upon the crowd.

The play's the thing, you see, and the thing in this case was a jolly little tale, "The Merry Wives Of Windsor". A comedy, although I could not say whether t'were the skill of the Bard or that of the players that made it so; t'was a genuine laugh-out-loud, raucous comedy. Ooh, look thee upon these words! T'is like the particular, peculiar method of Shakespeare's own art hath soaked my brain; stewing in olde English forms of yore, it cannot help but express itself as I pen this journal!

So: perched upon hard benches (of birch or cedar) we watched a tale of clever wives, jealous husbands, bellicose doctors and rotund knights and laughed. Sooth: I could not decide whether Shakespeare so influenced English humour, or whether the comedic endeavours of Fawlty Towers and it's ilk were the influence for the players of this tale; in either case, you've not seen impotent fury until you've seen a skinny English gent in a badly-fitted wig first tempting a knight to make advances upon his wife, then cursing that she, in appearances at least, entertains such carnal ideas with said knight.

"CUCKOLD!!"

(Comments in thy best rendition of olde English please.)

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter to everyone! It's been a little while, so I thought I should fill you in on all the exciting stuff going on in Adelaide.

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It's been very hot.

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But seriously, the Fringe Festival has ended now, it went for about a month all up. We saw a few shows: Ross Noble; Claire Hooper; Best of the Edinburgh Fest (all comedians, and all quite entertaining). By far the best thing we saw though was La Clique. It's a little bit sideshow, a little bit circus and a little bit burlesque. There was a couple of gymnastic guys who balanced on each other's heads, and a contortionist who fit his body through two tennis racquets. The contortionist was my favourite to be honest, he was both disturbing and hilarious, plus at one point he fell off the stage - who doesn't like that? There was also a rollerskater, someone with hula hoops, a guy in a bathtub and another guy with disturbingly high pants. I can't recommend it strongly enough, it's such a fun show to see.

The Adelaide Festival of the Arts has also ended - it had a public light show on North Terrace that was so popular they extended it for a couple of weeks, which was just as well because we only got to see it the other evening. It is really impressive.. Essentially they project lights onto the great old buildings along North Terrace.. but they create spectacular work with that simple idea. We didn't take photos because you really need a good camera with a long exposure and a tripod.. but thanks to the magic of the internet you can see some photos here and here.

In about an hour we're off to pick Sam up from the airport, he's visiting over Easter which should be fun. I hope you're all having an enjoyable time and hopefully we'll catch up around Christmas (or at least eventually)

Dayna visiting us

A quick post (aren't they always?) because, regrettably, I'm at work, but I had to tell y'all about the action-packed weekend we've just shared with Dayna. Tons of fun, but I'm a little bit tired now on Monday morning.

Dayna arrived on Friday and Dee met her at Bethnal Green station -- I was still at work! (Hmmm, it gets in the way, work.) We went out for some drinks and a lot of good Indian food on Brick Lane on Friday night -- by the end of the evening I seriously thought I would never need to eat again. (I later also realised that white wine, although deceptively tasty and easy to quaff in the rare London-evening sun, was merciless if you don't have enough water before going to bed. Still, I recovered soundly by Saturday morning.

Dayna headed off quite early on Saturday morning to meet her round-the-world friends Mez and Carly, while Dee and I took it a little easier and headed out for shopping along the market-esque Bethnal Green Road. Talk about cheap! We had fun searching for housey stuff (pegs, coat hangers, an iron) in the plethora of discount shops and stalls. Our new iron was £5! Bargain!

We met Dayna (and co.) in the city that night and went to see the stage show Wicked -- the true story of the Wicked Witches of Oz. Very funny, very entertaining, great music, fun fun fun! I think Mez and Carly were almost falling asleep tho' -- they'd been up and traveling for some ridiculous amount of time.

Sunday we took it easy. Well, Dee and I took it easy -- Dayna got up early to go meet her friends and do touristy stuff (sensing a pattern here?). Heh heh, probably shouldn't have stayed up so late when we got home from Wicked, sorry Dayna -- guess we were just being wicked. Anyway, we got up eventually (tee hee!) and toddled off to met Dee's friend Emily, stopping at a couple of the Sunday markets along the way -- the Flower Market and Spitalfields. (We'd intended to hit Cambden Market too, but didn't quite make it as you'll read soon.)

When we finally caught up with Emily we were tired (from walking) and hot -- it was sunny! We had to wear sunscreen! I might get a tan! Luckily Emily invited us into a cool underground cinema to see a movie with her -- but not, as it turned out, exactly what we were expecting!

Em's brother was the director, for one thing, which is cool in itself. The film was a documentary about the Zawoses, a family of musicians living in Tanzania, and how they struggled (are struggling) to keep their music alive now that the head of the family has died. Tanzania suffers from the same problems that much of Africa does -- the shortages of food and water, difficulties in education and health, and the epidemic of HIV -- and training the new generations in the music making skills of the Wagogo tribe whilst staying alive is a difficult proposition.

At the end of the film there was a question and answer session with the director and one of the Zawose band members, followed by a live performance! Now we don't generally listen to African music (or even world music really) but the beats and drums and handmade instruments and dancing was so cool! Complex rhythms and timings, harmonies and just such a wide vocal range. Very cool -- I bought the CD to put on my MP3 player and listen to whilst at the gym!

Afterwards we caught up with Dayna, Mez and Carly again for dinner and drinks at "The Dove". Good solid pub grub, and plenty of different beers. Dayna bought a jug of strawberry früli beer, I had one called "Lucifer" (very strong) and then we tried a chocolate beer which was surprisingly chocolatey. (I know, I know, what was I expecting? But it was weird that "beer" and "chocolate" could go so well together.)

So a busy weekend indeed. Needless to say we're having a night in tonight, maybe watching a DVD (we bought The Last King Of Scotland after renting and watching half of it back in Edinburgh). Now don't tell Dee, but I'm trying to figure out how we can cram even more into next weekend ;-).

Could be my wicked side again, I s'pose. >;-P

We'll have to organise to go see Dayna one weekend.