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May. 26th, 2009 09:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magictreehouseWell we had a great time in London although our usual plan of walking around everywhere utterly failed due to where we were staying but I'll come on to that in a bit. On Friday afternoon I finished work early, came back home and got our train, so we got to London at around 4pm but as it turns out, after getting to the hotel in East India, then coming back to find the theatre we only just had enough time before our show started. I love going to London. When I'm there I realise that I've missed it quite a lot although I still wouldn't live there.
We went to see Hairspray at Shaftsbury theatre and it was hand down one of the best shows I've seen, and I've seen some shows. There was just something really compelling about the thing, everything flowed and there was nothing, absolutely nothing during the whole thing where I thought, 'that was a little off'. The films are also wonderful and I can't quite put my finger on why I love them all so much as I don't really like 60s music at all. It's all just so fun, enegetic and infectious. I really enjoyed the whole thing from start to finish. The sets also had a distintive style which was really nice too. The show is half way between the two films I think. More plot than the new one but more musical (obviously) than the original and it's fun without being stupid. I mean, it is stupid but it's not entirely farcical. Oh, and Michael Ball makes a great woman and seemed to really enjoy the whole thing. Loved it.
On Saturday we headed off out at ten with the intention of walking from our hotel to Greenwich. We had to anyway as the DLR was mostly down anyway. The tube and DLR being down became a problem throughout the weekend actually as it turns out that the public transport links around the area aren't great if something goes down. Anyway, we walked south and it was really nice, being by the river but God it was a long way. With that and all the walking around Greenwich I felt it the next day, especially at the top of leg/hip. Every time I sat down and then got up I had to limp as the muscle had seized up. That's not normal for me as we're used to walking.
Anyway, we got to the Canary Wharf area which is an odd place. We'd walked through it the evening before and felt so weird. Everyone was in suits apart from us. We went through the tunnel under the river and then walked round Greenwich which I love. So pretty. We had a cake, sat in a churchyard and then went to the CD fair being held there. After that we headed up the hills to Greenwich Observatory. The view from there is brilliant. I got to stand on the Meridian line which I was pleased with until Eleanor later told me that you can also do that in Cleethorpes which took the shine off a little. It's an interesting little place. The stuff there have there is fairly unique. We went to one of the Planetarium shows too, 'Ice Worlds'. I'd not been to one before but it was fun, although the seats being tipped back made me want to go to sleep, especially with all of the walking we'd been doing. We had lunch there too and I bought a Black Hole T-shirt which was very cute.
After that we headed to the Maritime Museum (In the buildings opposite they were filming The Wolfman at night. Exciting!). Boats don't really do that much for us but it's a very well put together museum. We saw Nelson's uniform though which was interesting. After that we went around Greenwich market which I looooved. I had to drag myself away as I bought myself so much wonderful tat. I bought a funky chicken doorstop which is now full of rice and sitting by the bedroom door. So cute. I also bought a Sock Pig which is what it sounds like really, a pig made of socks. Again, cute. There was also a hanging Totoro thing which also became mine. I will take pictures at some point and put them on here. We got a smoothie and then headed off to the O2. Now we thought that with Greenwich being so nice the walk to the O2 would be great. It wasn't. It really is horrible and it's surrounded by industrial and business parks. No wonder it failed when it was the Millenium Dome. It was in the arse end of nowhere! Still, when we finally made it we were quite impressed. It really is massive and with plenty of restaurants. I've never really understood why people go to the same old places to eat. The queues for the steak houses and Italians were massive (don't get me wrong, Italian is my favourite) so why not go to a place with no queue? We had tapas. Yum yum.
And so the main event - Girls Aloud. I wasn't wary as such as I knew it would be good. But with Out Of Control not really wowwing me much I did wonder if they could top last year. Thankfully they really did. The screens they had were amazing and they had a bit of a no ballad rule which was brilliant. It's funny though, they did The Loving Kind and it really showed it up as quite a boring song. Not their best. But it was brilliant and our seats were great - around the side but two rows from the front. Best song? Untouchable was brilliant on account of the moving platform and I was estatic that they did The Show, even though it was part of a medley. It's my favourite song of theirs. They chucked in Waiting as well which was weird, they didn't do any other old album tracks but it made for a nice surprise. Full setlist:
The Promise
Love Is The Key
Biology
Miss You Bow Wow
The Loving Kind
Waiting
Love Machine
Rolling Back The Rivers In Time
Untouchable
Sexy? No No No...
Broken Strings (yawn)
Love Is Pain
Call The Shots
Revolution In The Head
Sound Of The Underground
Fix Me Up
Womanizer
Something Kinda Ooooh
ENCORE
The Show/Wake Me Up/Jump/No Good Advice/Can't Speak French/The Promise (Reprise)
So yeah, really good fun overall.
On Sunday we went for a boat ride down the Thames. We'd not done it before and we thought that as we were near Greenwich it would be a good chance to do the full thing. It's interesting seeing London from the river. I didn't realise quite how much you can see from there but we got some great pictures. I finally found out why Canada Water is called that too thanks to the hilarious boat driver!
We got off at Westminster and went to Leicester Square where we had a mexican at Chiquitos, complete with cocktails (non-alcoholic though). Honestly, I'm getting so used to them. But it was 22 degrees so I needed a cooler! Then we had a wander up to Euston Road and hung around the train statiion for ages. We could have done with getting an earlier train really but no matter. We were back in good time. An excellent trip which seemed like a long time really.
Didn't do much yesterday and then back to work today. Anyone want to hire a librarian? West Yorkshire Archives don't. No interview for me which I have to admit I don't get. There's not much else out there really. Grrr.
We've watched a few films over the past few days. On Monday we watched In Bruges which I really enjoyed. I liked the fact that it was low budget but still looked very nice (due to the location). It was very funny too despite the somewhat dark content. Yes, a good film. Tonight we watched Clue which was also about killing people but played as a farce. It worked really well which surpsied me and it was quite clever overall. Very funny overall which says something as it's the kind of humour that could have been played out really badly. I'm glad that we're back into film watching. Wolverine tomorrow. Hurrah!
We went to see Hairspray at Shaftsbury theatre and it was hand down one of the best shows I've seen, and I've seen some shows. There was just something really compelling about the thing, everything flowed and there was nothing, absolutely nothing during the whole thing where I thought, 'that was a little off'. The films are also wonderful and I can't quite put my finger on why I love them all so much as I don't really like 60s music at all. It's all just so fun, enegetic and infectious. I really enjoyed the whole thing from start to finish. The sets also had a distintive style which was really nice too. The show is half way between the two films I think. More plot than the new one but more musical (obviously) than the original and it's fun without being stupid. I mean, it is stupid but it's not entirely farcical. Oh, and Michael Ball makes a great woman and seemed to really enjoy the whole thing. Loved it.
On Saturday we headed off out at ten with the intention of walking from our hotel to Greenwich. We had to anyway as the DLR was mostly down anyway. The tube and DLR being down became a problem throughout the weekend actually as it turns out that the public transport links around the area aren't great if something goes down. Anyway, we walked south and it was really nice, being by the river but God it was a long way. With that and all the walking around Greenwich I felt it the next day, especially at the top of leg/hip. Every time I sat down and then got up I had to limp as the muscle had seized up. That's not normal for me as we're used to walking.
Anyway, we got to the Canary Wharf area which is an odd place. We'd walked through it the evening before and felt so weird. Everyone was in suits apart from us. We went through the tunnel under the river and then walked round Greenwich which I love. So pretty. We had a cake, sat in a churchyard and then went to the CD fair being held there. After that we headed up the hills to Greenwich Observatory. The view from there is brilliant. I got to stand on the Meridian line which I was pleased with until Eleanor later told me that you can also do that in Cleethorpes which took the shine off a little. It's an interesting little place. The stuff there have there is fairly unique. We went to one of the Planetarium shows too, 'Ice Worlds'. I'd not been to one before but it was fun, although the seats being tipped back made me want to go to sleep, especially with all of the walking we'd been doing. We had lunch there too and I bought a Black Hole T-shirt which was very cute.
After that we headed to the Maritime Museum (In the buildings opposite they were filming The Wolfman at night. Exciting!). Boats don't really do that much for us but it's a very well put together museum. We saw Nelson's uniform though which was interesting. After that we went around Greenwich market which I looooved. I had to drag myself away as I bought myself so much wonderful tat. I bought a funky chicken doorstop which is now full of rice and sitting by the bedroom door. So cute. I also bought a Sock Pig which is what it sounds like really, a pig made of socks. Again, cute. There was also a hanging Totoro thing which also became mine. I will take pictures at some point and put them on here. We got a smoothie and then headed off to the O2. Now we thought that with Greenwich being so nice the walk to the O2 would be great. It wasn't. It really is horrible and it's surrounded by industrial and business parks. No wonder it failed when it was the Millenium Dome. It was in the arse end of nowhere! Still, when we finally made it we were quite impressed. It really is massive and with plenty of restaurants. I've never really understood why people go to the same old places to eat. The queues for the steak houses and Italians were massive (don't get me wrong, Italian is my favourite) so why not go to a place with no queue? We had tapas. Yum yum.
And so the main event - Girls Aloud. I wasn't wary as such as I knew it would be good. But with Out Of Control not really wowwing me much I did wonder if they could top last year. Thankfully they really did. The screens they had were amazing and they had a bit of a no ballad rule which was brilliant. It's funny though, they did The Loving Kind and it really showed it up as quite a boring song. Not their best. But it was brilliant and our seats were great - around the side but two rows from the front. Best song? Untouchable was brilliant on account of the moving platform and I was estatic that they did The Show, even though it was part of a medley. It's my favourite song of theirs. They chucked in Waiting as well which was weird, they didn't do any other old album tracks but it made for a nice surprise. Full setlist:
The Promise
Love Is The Key
Biology
Miss You Bow Wow
The Loving Kind
Waiting
Love Machine
Rolling Back The Rivers In Time
Untouchable
Sexy? No No No...
Broken Strings (yawn)
Love Is Pain
Call The Shots
Revolution In The Head
Sound Of The Underground
Fix Me Up
Womanizer
Something Kinda Ooooh
ENCORE
The Show/Wake Me Up/Jump/No Good Advice/Can't Speak French/The Promise (Reprise)
So yeah, really good fun overall.
On Sunday we went for a boat ride down the Thames. We'd not done it before and we thought that as we were near Greenwich it would be a good chance to do the full thing. It's interesting seeing London from the river. I didn't realise quite how much you can see from there but we got some great pictures. I finally found out why Canada Water is called that too thanks to the hilarious boat driver!
We got off at Westminster and went to Leicester Square where we had a mexican at Chiquitos, complete with cocktails (non-alcoholic though). Honestly, I'm getting so used to them. But it was 22 degrees so I needed a cooler! Then we had a wander up to Euston Road and hung around the train statiion for ages. We could have done with getting an earlier train really but no matter. We were back in good time. An excellent trip which seemed like a long time really.
Didn't do much yesterday and then back to work today. Anyone want to hire a librarian? West Yorkshire Archives don't. No interview for me which I have to admit I don't get. There's not much else out there really. Grrr.
We've watched a few films over the past few days. On Monday we watched In Bruges which I really enjoyed. I liked the fact that it was low budget but still looked very nice (due to the location). It was very funny too despite the somewhat dark content. Yes, a good film. Tonight we watched Clue which was also about killing people but played as a farce. It worked really well which surpsied me and it was quite clever overall. Very funny overall which says something as it's the kind of humour that could have been played out really badly. I'm glad that we're back into film watching. Wolverine tomorrow. Hurrah!
