Theatre Diary 2009
( click for list )

Thought I would do a quick post about something that's been bothering me. In the past 3 weeks I've been watching X-Factor and while I understand it's quite compelling to watch, I just keep wondering whether reality show fans realise just how staged it all is.
I read a book a while back that was a piss-take of the show, Chart Throb by Ben Elton and I absolutely LOVED it. This was before I ever saw an episode of the actual thing, which as I said happened a month ago for the first time. The book was very very clever, describing the strategies the judges use to pilot the viewer's likes and dislikes, how they put the contestants in different lights and also how repetitive they get. In the book, after every performance they would tell a character that "they owned the song". In reality I've discovered the phrase actually is "this was your best performance so far" but you get what I mean. My point of view is, regardless of someone's education and/or gullibility how can you not realise the sheer amount of time that sentence is uttered on the show? How can you take it seriously? Of course I like watching it cos it's about singing, but the contestants seem fairly average at best, specially when compared to the costentants of the other talent show we watched (which to be fair was casting a West End show so the bar was much higher). I'm just a bit baffled... It's one thing to watch something for the entertainment value, it's another to believe everything you're told.

Sent from my Nokia E63

Do I:

- get Wednesday off at work and go with Nina to see the Rock You matinee, which is basically my last chance of seeing Rachel as Scara, BUT then work 6 days in a row before my next day off?

OR

- keep my Friday off so that I get a bit of a rest before the bank holiday weekend but then miss out on EVER seeing Rachel Scara?

Wonder if instead of having 6 days in a row to work I can do Thu-Fri-Sat, half day on Sun, then Mon, half-day on Tues, Wed-Thu and then day off and possibly trip to Leeds on the Fri... I'll ask tomorrow. That's 8 days at work in a row, but the half-days should break it nicely as it nearly feels like a day off.

Gosh, so many favours to ask and I've only been back one day.

I'm doing the 5 Things Meme. Comment on my blog and I'll give you five things that I associate with you. Then go back to your blog and expand upon them. I commented on fudaliciousfud 's blog, and she gave me the following 5 things.
PS: You don't have to put them under LJ-cuts, I just did because they were long and the entry wasn't looking very pretty.

Musicals ( read )

Crazy-awesome-superbly-quickly-acquired-British-accent ( read )

Venting ( read )

Migrant ( read )

Outstandingly weird memory ( read )

I also stole this from lanafromoz:

( handwriting meme )

Chiara is currently in Rome.
Coincidentally, tonight is also the closing night of a yearly festival which, much like Eurovision, is a competition between equally crappy/cheesy songs. Eurovision is completely unknown in Italy and this festival is completely unheard of in other parts of Europe... as it should be. It's something that is extremely traditionalist and as such only really appreciated by the older generations or those without a personality.

The big talk of the festival this year is this nearly illiterate songwriter, who participated twice before, both with equally saccharine-heavy songs. This year the song he's presenting is titled "Luca was gay" and is about a man who after a 4-year relationship with an older man, finds his one true love in a woman, marries her and has a son.
I should perhaps mention that a couple of years ago this man said in an interview to a famous magazine that he'd had a gay "phase" for a few months and after that he had "overcome" it, and also helped two friends of his in the same situation "become" straight.

Nowhere else in Europe I don't think, would a song like that be allowed to be presented on national television for 5 nights in a row. In Italy, not only it can but it is also one of the candidates for actually winning the festival.
All this in the name of "freedom of expression", meaning if we are so generous that we actually let you gay people have lives, and form your little political associations, then we have that same right to say what we think of you on one of the most followed events of the year. Sure.

Freedom of expression like this would only work in countries where gays have actual civil rights. Now I live in England and I doubt that a song like this would even make it past preliminary stage, but say it does - it'd be taken for what it is - a point of view, in a society where gays can marry, anyway, so it's not putting their rights at risk or anything. It's there, it's annoying and probably a publicity stunt, but you don't really think that people are going to talk about it... except in a negative, bashing sort of way.
In Italy instead, where gays have no rights, it's just another attack towards a category who cannot defend themselves, and it's going to have most people saying "about time there was a song who put it out there how unhealthy gay relationships are!". It is absolutely gratuitous and cruel.

The thought that my wife is sitting at a dinner table with people who AGREE with what this song says, makes me completely and utterly sick, and makes me want to destroy everything in my sight.

Ah, the joys of having a 24-hr Tesco 5 minutes from our flat. I had my first proper browse of the mega Tesco today after I'd popped in briefly on NYE, but my arms were too full of dish drainers and loo bins then to actually see the whole place. God it's MASSIVE. And this is no good. Because it means for the first time EVER, our food shopping came to over £100. How we did that, I don't know. But they have some pretty awesome stuff.
First of all we found Beretta brand salami and mortadella. MORTADELLA! I haven't had that in at least 2 years! Funny thing is, it's marked as one of Tesco's "discount brands". Beretta? A discount brand? You must be joking me. We now have a lovely starter made of grissini wrapped in different types meats, we even found something similar to speck (smoked peppered ham) but it tastes a lot stronger.
It's really bad to put me in a supermarket that big. I felt like a little kid. I was proper skipping around! They had a take-away counter with taster cubes of some really strong cheese and a make-your-own-bowl-of-olives out of mix and match bowls and OMG they taste delicious. I got olives marinated in lemon and ginger, although I don't really like ginger (but I love lemon!), pimento stuffed and garlic. So unhealthy! I'm going to be thirsty all night!
Also I found mysel grabbing something like 10 different flavours yogurt. Oh the wonder! They have pear! Hazelnut! Lemon&passionfruit! I will never eat them all before they expire! The one we shopped at before only had a very limited choice of either Mango or Cherry and that was IT... and now I found myself with more stuff than I can eat? I must have put back at least 4, and still counted 6 when I eventually paid (that's like a week's worth, and I don't even have breakfast at home every morning)

Ahem. Onto more serious things. I am probably the one person who hasn't put up her theatre list yet. It's very similar to Chiara's but some things are missing because sometimes the freebies she got were singles, or I was working and she went with kikkathecat 

( Theatre list 2008 )
Films wise, they can be summed up on one hand! I'm hopeless. If I remember correctly, I went to the cinema all of 4 times this year: Wanted, Kung Fu Panda, Wall-E and The X Files, in that order. I don't remember if Sweeney Todd came out this year. If it did, then 5 times.
Books wise... I really need to start keeping track.

So, to good news [lanafromoz and lfae are still seeing Wicked in London on the 9th of Jan] follows bad news [we can't find any kind of cheapies for that night that aren't in row T in the circle. so either Chiara queues or we won't go], and to bad news follows even worse news - Alexia Khadime's going back to Wicked after Kerry leaves.

That's it. The 9th of May will be Manuela and Chiara's official goodbye to Wicked, at least until a new Elphaba.

Also, eryslash is looking for a Wacom graphic tablet and I just happen to have one back home in Rome that I got the Xmas before I moved to England and that I had to leave behind. It might be good for me to sell it and make some extra cash, esp as we'll have to buy a sofa bed for our new flat for when our friendsies stay over. But see, #2 on my list of things to buy for the new flat was a desktop computer (FINALLY after 2.5 years of using a laptop with very limited graphic resources), and if I do go back to a desktop, then I might as well need the tablet again.
I was once able to produce very good artwork. Proof:
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