The film is named after Theda Bara who was a big film star of that era. In the film Theda, Georgina did all the acting herself.

It was screened last Tuesday night at the Prince Charles theatre in Leceister square. The film was great; and it was accompanied by a live improvised score. People were turned away as the screening had sold out.

I got to ask Georgina a bit about the film after the screening. She did take some liberty with the scenes and injected some humour and whimsy at times. I was so intrigued by this film and wanted to know more about the original films.

I understand Theda will go on tour and appear in other cities. I highly recommend this film if you get a chance to see it.

More info about the project can be read at the link below.

Theda

Georgina’s web-site

I wonder what the person who designed them was ‘thinking’. Was this kind of design the rage at the time?

This morning I just noticed some of the flowers have bloomed again. I cannot say I have been up to much lately besides work. Well, I did go to Ireland for a weekend to visit friends but then this site is about London.

Hmm. I did go see ‘Wicked’ a few weeks at the Apollo Victoria. I thought that the play was good but acoustics at times really let things down; you could not make out what people were singing.

I am really looking forward to seeing the ‘Gotan Project’ (French Argentine Tango fusion) at the Brixton Carling Academy in Nov.

There are so many exhibits on the moment but I must stay in and get some work done this weekend; maybe if I am good; I will try to check out the art exhibit at the Battersea powerstation if I can get tickets…

M

I was wondering if it was a place I went to a few months before. Sure, enough it was. I grew up in Canada and the UK so I am not really an expert on Mexican food but I have been to Los Angeles and I have many knowledgeable American friends who know what Mexican food can be about and I have asked them what the real deal is.

I love Nachos they are one my favourite ‘treat foods’. I even do make my own salsa and guacamole. I have made relatively simple dishes like quesidillas and so on.

Anyway, back to the story; the place we went to was ok and I had been there two times now; not bad but nothing special I thought. I had a look over the menu to see if they had anything different; it was the usual tacos, chimichangas and fajitas etc… they do make really good hamburgers. I was in the mood for something different and ordered the BBQ pork chops; they were too dry for my liking. And the what was humorous to me was the guys who run the place are all Cypriot and pretend to be Mexican by adopting names like Roberto Carlos. Roberto is quite a lively chap I will say and the atmosphere was quite energised. I am really crap in that I don’t remember the name of the place but it is past the cinema on Upper street. The have done considerable work on the decor; it is very colourful inside.

In contrast, last year I was in Buenos Aires, Argentina and just down the road from where I was staying was a Mexican restaurant. This place had dishes I had never seen in other places. They had dishes made with mole sauce. Mole is a sauce made with chocolate; I liked it so much. In the three weeks, I was in Buenos Aires, I went back to the place three times.

Why can’t these restaurants in London avoid just being a clone of other places and their ’standardised’ Mexican food?

And the U.K. has become a bit of a nation of foodies. I have seen some really good cooking shows about Mexican food on the telly here. Like when the two hairy bikers where travelling thru Mexico on the BBC.

Hairy Bikers web-site

I am hopefully not the only person who craves better Mexican food in London. There are some good places like Cafe Pacifico in Covent Garden; I have eaten there quite a few times since I have been in the big Smoke.

I have had heard about a place called the Green and Red Cantina in Bethnal Green; it is on my list of places to check out.

Anyone from Vancouver reading this – how about Steamrollers the fresh burrito restaurant chain. I went there a couple of times when I was in Vancouver. I would love it someone opened one in London.

I almost did not go; I had a busy day; I was a bit bent out of shape and mentally drained.

But a good friend of mine was also going to the gig. And being in London, we don’t always get a chance to meet up with our lives running in parallel; me out in west London with work and living in SW in Battersea. He lives out in SE London in Catford and doing is art college in Camberwell.

The gig was at the E:vent gallery space in Bethnal Green. “Ok, I have to go and have a night out with some friends”, I thought to myself.

The attraction was to see a theremin performance by Pamelia Kurstin. I did not know Pamelia’s work and I had never seen a theremin played before. I remember the theremin from music by the Beach Boys.

The copy on the web-site said the performance would NOT be music just like one might have
heard in Sci-fi films where theremin has been used many times.

There was a few acts on before Pamelia. They were good to interesting; when I say interesting for some of the acts, the noise that was being made did not work for me but it made me think.

Getting back to the main act, Pamelia’s performance was fantastic. She really got the theremin
to make some beautiful music. She was working with samplers to loop herself as she played and she would create layers of sounds. She performed about 3 pieces.

My friends and I were so glad we went; and we only heard of the event just a week before. None of us had heard of Pamelia before.

And when Pamelia spoke she even made noises like a theremin. She is a live musical pixie. She has a really infectious joy about her. We did chat with her after the gig and we were all just so happy. She was happy; I was happy; my friends were happy.

This was the end of her UK tour (I believe). I hope she comes back.

Pamelia on Myspace

E:vent

But I did drag myself out of bed for a tour of the Royal Festival Hall as part of the London Open House these chances only come around once a year; I spurred myself on. I took part of a 45 minute guided tour of the renovation work going on. In fact, all the people who took the tour had to sign a document about health and safety and don hard hats and brightly coloured vests. The work is to be completed in June 2007. We got to see quite a bit of the building inside and even went up into the top of the site and could practically touch the new ceiling. The acoustics will be improved when done; the architect who gave the tour was saying how many musicians did not particularly like playing in the festival hall for it’s acoustics. One of the challenges is that the hall is used for both acoustic and amplified music; depending on the nature of the performance certain curtains etc. would be lowered to change how the sound works. It struck me that it is quite specialised work to do architecture for concerts hall.

Royal Festival hall Refurbishment

On the subject of London at night, recently a friend was in town from Los Angeles; I showed him around a bit of London he might not normally see: Seven Dials in Covent Garden; a Korean restauarant on Hanway street after having a pint at Bradley’s Spanish Bar. It was not his first time here and he apprecitated getting to see London with a Londoner and it was fun going on an impromptu tour skirting the main roads of the West End. When we were at the Seven Dials, it was quite late on a Friday night and the place was buzzing with people I always like to just sit there on the steps of the monument and watch the people go by.

In the Night Haunts web-site, the writer goes to places in London very few Londoners would see or perhaps want to; Sukhdev has gone down in the smelly sewers of London looking for giant hairballs (!) and up in helicopters flying over London at night.

Night Haunts web-site

I took part in both events last year and I really looking forward to doing it again.

London Open House

London Design Festival

I went with some ‘theatrical; friends; Ryan is an actor and Emily does stage lighting. The performance we saw was “Antony and Cleopatra”.

I was in the cheap seats – the standing area. It was only 5 quid; the play was 3 hours; it was a long time to be on one’s feet.

It was an evening performance and the weather was agreeable; it did sprinkle down with a bit of rain at times.

What a fantastic buiding the globe is; I imagined a bit what it would have been like to see a play in Shakespeare’s time. I would expect it would be bit a more rowdy in the standing area. Ryan pointed out in Shakespeare’s time all the roles were performed by men even Cleopatra; I am also told that people would socialize in the standing area; people would arrange to meet at the globe to chat as much as watch the plays.

As it is an open air theatre, there was must have been about 4 helicopters that flew overhead and at least one airplane. The actors must be used to it.

I must admit it was quite a challenge to follow the dailogue. It was like from one scene to a next I could just keep up with what is going on.

The staging was quite interesting; the actors wore clothing of the Jacobean era when the play would hace been orginally performed. there was to be a live snake in the play; there was signs ‘warning’ about it around the theatre but in the final act; I did not see any snake. Perhaps even snakes have off days and he did not have an understudy. The acting was very good. Frances Barber played Cleopatra and she was great.

It was a throroughly pleasant night out; we retired to a local pub on the river for last orders and had a good chat about theatre, performance and architecture.

Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre web-site

And as soon as August came around the weather got markedly cooler; well, it has been quite blustery with all this wind. But today it felt like summer had come back. It is almost seemed like the fall so far this month most of the time. But it was to soon for the summer to be over.

And what do you do when the weather is good in London? Go to the pub and enjoy the weather with some mates.

I met up with some fellow Canadians (actually, I am dual with Canada and Britain; born in East London and spent my school years and then some in Canada).

We went to one of my favorite drinking places in London Gordon’s Wine bar. It is such a popular place; it is always full of people when I have gone after work. But in the summer, people spill out on to the pavement at the side of the bar. This was the 3rd time that my friends and I have tried to get into the wine bar and this time we succeeded with the fine summer evening. Timing is everything; we purchased a bottle of rioja and got a ploughman’s platter: cheese, bread and pickles and a table was freed up at the same time; we actually got to sit inside the bar. The bar is partially below street level. It has really low vaulted ceilings in the rear of the bar.

Gordon’s is one of the oldest drinking establishments in London; there has been a bar here since about 1890. Just a short distance away form Embankment station.

Gordon’s Wine Bar – web-site