Strings and Burritos

On Friday night I met up with Kristy at South Bank to see a string quartet play in Elizabeth Hall. The quartet was American, the composer was Czech (Dvořák), and the inspiration for the piece came after a trip to America. Oh, the circle of life.

(The Emerson String Quartet. This picture commemorates the time they bumped into each other beneath an old rail bridge in London. They were all wearing suits.)

I sat beside an old man who appeared to share genetic code with a herringbone jacket, which he wore (or perhaps it wore him?). He made affirming wheezes in between sections, and rested an elaborate baton on his knee. Or was it a walking stick? It was too thick to be a baton, and too short to be a walking stick. (Regardless, you can never win with one of those things - use it to conduct an orchestra, people will say it's a walking stick; use it to walk, people will say it's a baton.)

We enjoyed the music very much; however, when we made to leave at the end, we noticed an alarming number of jackets left on seats. Intermission - foiled! We left anyway.

Before the show, Gerrod joined us for dinner at Tortilla (his London home-away-from-Chipotle-in-New York) for some delicious burritos and bottomless soft drinks. I don't use the word 'delicious' lightly here (though I've been known to in the past) - that sucker was the best burrito I've ever eaten, and it may have weighed close to a kilogram. And bottomless soft drinks, well, what can be said about them that hasn't already been said?

Our Place and Duncan

Well we have moved into our new place, and it’s all very delish. It’s even more delish seeing as now we have phone, TV and Internet, all for the low, low price of 27 pounds a month.

Shelley’s Dad has taken a couple of pictures, which really make the place look a lot better than it does in real life; that’s why I’ve posted them. This is what we look out on to at the back. Most days a fox will emerge from the bushes and just sit there staring at our window.





I'll put up some of the inside sometime later.

Last night we went out to South Bank with Peter and Jo (Shelley’s mum and dad) for a walk around. It turned out to be even more eventful than we thought it would be. Just on dark we came across a movie set with cranes, lights and people crowded around, and nowhere to move, so we thought we’d stop. Now, I don’t want to blow my own star-spotting trumpet, but here goes: I saw him first.



I saw a face and thought, ‘Wait a second, don’t I know you from such movies as “Accidental Hero”, “Meet the Fockers”, and some other thing about a cross-dresser? An older lady who wasn’t quite all there stepped up to us and said, “You know who that is, don’t you? That’s a famous movie star, that’s Duncan Hoffman”. Indeed, it was not. I can just imagine her walking away with his autograph, examining it, and then throwing it away in disappointment.

Peter behaved like three paparazzi rolled into one. Click-click here, rapid fire clicks there. He got some good ones.



“Do you know what movie it is they’re shooting?” I asked the lady. “It’s a new one,” she said, “it hasn’t been released yet”. What a scoop! Having failed to glean any useful information, I terminated the exchange.

Emma Thompson was there also, however I missed her. Duncan’s star quality was just too over-bearing.