Bike in the vet!

Rear view

21 Nov 2011: Oh dear, I have been without the BMW motorbike for three weeks now, it has been stuck at Bloors having itself fixed. The clutch is worn and this is the largest operation it has had since new - all previous work was minor, although never cheap.

Front view, with much of it laid out on the floor

 I've been managing with the car mostly, to work, but we now have a parking charge per day, so I am now getting into the habit of using the pedal bike more and more. The punctures were fixed on that, but I still have problems with the rear wheel chafing the frame. It's healthy and if one plans to leave early enough, it's workable. My time is still about 40 mins because of the long hill at the end, and the roadworks forcing me to push the bike over a long stretch of grass for the final leg.

Arturo Ui at the Playhouse

12 Nov 2011: We went to the Playhouse for the final night of the run of The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui by Bertold Brecht. It's always a good night out to the Playhouse, but on this occasion it was one of the largest audiences we have seen - the fame of this production has travelled widely. We saw 4 of our W Bridgford friends during the interval (Jacksons and Jones)
   It's not a fun night out.... the play was written in 1941 when the war was still in the early days, and to those escaping from Germany into exile, it must have seemed that the evil was unstoppable. It wasn't actually performed until 1958!
  This production started out in the Liverpool Everyman and completed its run in Nottingham.
  The play is a black comedy, played out against a background of Warner brothers view of Chicago in the thirties with gangs controlling areas of the city, and there were lighter moments. Of course the most ironic moment is the 'mercantile and middle classes' thinking that Ui would be quite useful to them in their money making schemes, and that if he ever got a bit uppish, they would be able to deal with it. We all know how badly that ended. The play becomes less 'comic' as it proceeds and as the thugs representing Goering and Goebbels take control, on behalf of their master.
   We are all so cultured to see things end happily, that it is deeply shocking to see it end with Arturo Ui and his henchmen in total dominant triumph - his final speech to the people (cauliflower vendors) of Chicago and Cicero is astonishingly reminiscent of the Hitler speeches at the Nuremberg and other rallies, even down to the minute of silence at the start, and the build up to a crescendo of anger and triumphalist hand gestures. 

Sunday Lunch in sunny November

6th Nov 2011: on a sunny day in November we had an enjoyable dinner in our house with our friends, the Harms, and with Sal's sister Rose and her partner Paul. Apologies, I forgot to take a picture of the event, but here's a picture of Paul and Rose's PV array!

Ruddigore at Theatre Royal

1st Nov 2011: It's years since I have been to a Gilbert and Sullivan, and possibly we may never have been to one together - what have we missed!? So, we went to the Opera North production of Ruddigore. Great fun!