Bloomsbury Coffee House – was a real pleasure to visit while
in London on the weekend despite long delays in the delivery of delicious
porridge with a compote of prunes and apricots. It allowed time to check
e-mails and read the Sunday paper headlines. I’ve decided to cook up a compote to have on
hand for breakfasts in future. My first treat in this regard was in Folyle’s
Hotel, Clifden, Co. Galway, where it was a rhubarb and ginger sauce. It was
Sunday morning in London though and the place was packed. The ambience was full
of character and kept us entertained - and maybe the new body in the kitchen
was not yet quite up to speed. My daughter thought the avocado on gluten free
toast was to die for.
In terms of design if you want to know how to make a lower
basement look great this is a good place to visit. The old metal window frames
remain intact. I hadn’t seen similar windows for a while. They reminded me of
the home I grew up in. It’s amazing just how long a building can retain its authenticity
when well looked after. White paint with shades of grey – and the bathroom
which could have been disaster was an enjoyable visit with a concrete floor
painted light grey and just a few lively tiles and a mirror reflecting such
light as was available. The white yard
with the steps down to the entrance painted red let plenty of light into the
larger two room
s of the coffee house.
Then, naturally, I met the Irish language poet, Louis
de Paor, outside - en passant. He also lives in Galway. You couldn’t visit London for a few days and not
come across someone from home. He was gracious in being accosted with a ‘hi
from Galway’ – just couldn’t resist it!
 |
| http://juddbooks.com/ 82 Marchmont Street, London |
Judd Books, justly proud of it it’s used academic books, was
just around the corner from the coffee house. It didn’t open until noon on
Sunday but then I had a good browse through their quality selection – both on
the ground floor and downstairs - once I’d received a clothes peg receipt for
the bag I’d to leave at the desk. There were large books I’d have liked but
then I’d have had to carry them around so I settled for Kid, the Simon Armitage
collection of poetry from Faber and Faber that ‘won the inaugural Forward
\prize for Best First Collection in 1992’. I have to admit I bought it because
two of the poems made me chuckle. When I flicked through it later on I
discovered Not the Furniture Game within – a poem Kevin Higgins had recently given
out in the Skylight Poets writing forum in the Galway Arts Centre as a writer’s
prompt (great for encouraging metaphors) and that I had left on my kitchen
table before leaving home in readiness for the Monday night group meeting
Having the Conversation – About Celebration. I was suggesting it celebrates
language. It evoked a powerful reaction in the group – for most it was
overwhelming, an overabundance of metaphor, too prolific a list and
insufficiently clear in its meaning. Just the kind of poem I need for the
Conversation group using poetry to provoke discussion. ‘This is not a poem,’
allowing us to try to establish what criteria it doesn’t fit and whether they
are in fact the criteria we want to use in evaluating a poem. Not something we
could establish. Just the kind of meat and drink required. It made one
participant want to vomit, for the same reason – too much. I love the poem, the cascade of language and metaphor and I wish my 'one-liners were footballs through other people's windows'. It
was an evening of visceral poetry with quite a few lists including Bertholdt Brecht’s To Eat of Meat Joyously and Pleasures following on from Chana Bloch’s Rising To Meet
It, a poem seen initially to be about childbirth but, taking the third stanza
into account (controversial in this discussion for being included for which,
again, I was thankful) more a celebration of woman’s warrior-ship invigorated
by the wisdom and intuition of the body. Lines from Rising to Meet It and from
Armitage’s Gooseberry Season, also found in his book, are now displayed on my
Twitter title @susanhlindsay.
Matilda The Musical
at the Cambridge Theatre www.matildathemusical.com/, on Friday night
was a disappointment. We should have known it didn’t augur well when three
adults and a child clamboured over us to aisle seats they could have reached
without discomfiting anyone. The man of the party who stood with his umbrella
all but spiking my stomach and his case blocking my knees while the rest of his
company flaffed around making it impossible for me to resume my seat for so
long that I had eventually to ask him if he’d mind making space to enable me to
sit again should have been a further warning of what was to come. The Grand
Circle seats were stacked high. Despite that, at one stage a man of the party
climbed over to swop seats with a child in the row before during the first Act,
the ultimate distraction after continual talking and movement among the party
who appeared to be explaining everything to the children as it took place, not
in whispers but in loud continuous mutter and even singing along at one stage.
Then the men who were now sitting together began to talk to each other.
Initially was in sympathy with the possible need to settle the children in. But when I
realised I’d missed a significant section of the first half of the performance
and was no longer clear as to what was happening, that the seats had cost us
sixty pounds, that others paid considerably more and our whole trip from
Ireland had been initially motivated by a wish to see the event, hear the music, enjoy memories
of the Dahl characters and see the children who would bring them to life it became
really annoying. The usherette shushed them and stood at the end of the lines
they occupied for most of the performance. Eventually I added my own
entreaties. In the interval my daughter pointed out that people from all the
surrounding seats had shushed and given glowering looks in the hope of enjoying
the show but to no avail. In fact the group appeared entirely oblivious to the needs of
anyone around them. In the interval those who had not already moved along to
fill the few empty surrounding seats did so as we did. But it was too late to
still fully appreciate and enjoy the show although we did what we could. I am
not sure what language the group spoke so maybe they did come from a culture
that doesn’t value silence in the theatre. It wouldn’t encourage me to travel
to another London show, too much at stake when audience members can’t be
trusted to allow others enjoy their night out.
I can’t tell you
much about the performance. It is quite amazing to see such young performers
deliver such professional performances that you forget they are children and
want to judge them on the same terms as everyone else and they certainly did
deliver such performances. Overall I thought it was a little mechanical and had
lost some sparkle. The artifice of delivering the storyline through Matilda
telling it her local librarian and saviour didn’t seem to quite work but having
been so distracted and trying to deal with the disappointment – not least
because I knew how much my daughter wanted to enjoy it - I am in no position to
judge.
Our Sunday afternoon trip down the Thames to Greenwich did
not disappoint. The sun came out while we were on the river and it was all the more appreciated for its absence earlier.
