Location: London, UK COVID-19 / Coronavirus Outbreak Lockdown Today I saw two planes in the sky, leaving fluffy trails behind them. Now maybe I've not been looking closely enough, but I can't remember the last time I saw a plane flying overhead. I'm pretty sure that the birds have been louder too - or maybe I can just hear them better. When not looking at the sky, I spent most of Thursday on Zoom. I was on there pretty much all day for my day job followed by two back to back calls in the evening with a weekly writing group and then friends. And it's exhausting. I actually enjoyed all parts of the day but "being on" and constantly seeing your own reflection is just a bit too much sometimes. I look forward to bed not just because of fatigue but as it's where I can look at a book instead - I've even taken to preferring to read my current "not on Google Play books" book because otherwise it's just another screen. And I...
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Location: London, UK COVID-19 / Coronavirus Outbreak Lockdown The Freeview box is back to 18% - clearly I need to watch a bit more recorded TV. This week I watched the superb " When They See Us " on Netflix. If you are a subscriber, I would highly recommend it. Based on the true story of the Central Park Jogger case in 1989 it follows the story of The Central Park 5 - five black teenagers, children really, who were falsely accused of the rape & assault of Trisha Meili who was left in a coma for 12 days. It is a truly heartbreaking story. I thought the acting (and casting for that matter) was brilliant as was the direction. https://parkmadisonnyc.com/collections/shirts/products/brotherhood-tee
Location: London, UK COVID-19 / Coronavirus Outbreak Lockdown Here's a mad thought. If you had to choose between a glass of tap water from the bathroom or from the kitchen, which would you choose? The kitchen, right? It's nonsense because they're from the same source of water. The water hasn't somehow degraded by the time it reaches the bathroom. It must be some subconscious thing our brains tell us, that the water from the kitchen is somehow better. Except... except if you're hungover / still drunk / actually ill and water from the bathroom is the closest, then it's like sweet nectar from the gods. Water never tasted this good! That's all. *Apparently water in bathrooms used to come from tanks and was therefore not advisable to drink. So that's why I (and maybe you) think the way I do!
Location: London, UK COVID-19 / Coronavirus Outbreak Lockdown In growing news, the surviving courgette plants have been planted outside... Let's all hold our breath to see if they make it. The tomatoes are still a bit small to be transplanted but seem to be doing ok - although I genuinely don't think they have grown at all for a couple of weeks. In very exciting growing news, the potatoes, peas and carrots planted 10 days ago are growing at a staggering rate - I swear I saw one of the potato plants grow in front of my eyes yesterday. The idea that I can actually grow my own food is, I appreciate, not new, but to me it's very exciting, such a simple pleasure!
Location: London, UK COVID-19 / Coronavirus Outbreak Lockdown I'm kind of done with the news at this point. I check in every now and then and Twitter is good for the highlights, but there isn't really any "news" is there? It's just sad figures, thousands of people - friends and relations who have died or it's people flouting the rules who seem to think they are above contagion. What concerns me is that there must be other stuff happening. People are still working, albeit in their pyjamas at home. There IS other news and it's not being reported. What's going on under the radar that when we get through this, we will discover has happened? I felt the same about Brexit - at least half of news broadcasts for 3 years were about bloody Brexit. What else was occurring? I know that's a bit conspiracy theorist but I stand by it.
Location: London, UK COVID-19 / Coronavirus Outbreak Lockdown Lots of casting directors have been extremely open and generous with their time during the lockdown and have been doing Q&A's live on Instagram. There is general optimism that work in the world of commercials, film and television will be getting back in production fairly soon, with social distancing measures in place. This is great news and hopefully will happen. My query is this: the dramas or adverts being made, are they going to reflect our current world or the one we left on the 23rd March 2020? I can slightly answer my own question - any drama that was mid-filming and set pre-Covid will likely not change, that would be madness. But the on-going dramas and soaps will be able to have adapted their stories to encompass our new situation. Commercials - this is where I am most interested. Just prior to lockdown I auditioned for a commercial which involved hugging. That commer...
Location: London, UK COVID-19 / Coronavirus Outbreak Lockdown Following on from Thursday's blog, one thing I struggle to keep up with is the publications I subscribe to or am gifted second hand by friends. My two biggies are The Stage newspaper and Empire Magazine. I really enjoy both, but because I read them pretty much cover to cover they take me ages to get through. I'm working on my back catalogue but particularly with The Stage, it's strikingly eerie reading the news section and what's going to be opening later this year, when so much has changed. I have occasionally looked at my pile and considered recycling the whole lot, but I know that there will be some great articles within them that I don't want to miss. So I will plough on and one day, I might finish them.
Location: London, UK COVID-19 / Coronavirus Outbreak Lockdown I've always been quite a busy person. As a child I had activities after school almost every day and some back to back on Saturdays - ballet followed gymnastics - my poor dad ferrying me on and off buses for half of his well earned weekend. And I've always had a sense of there not being enough time for it all. I want to do things, go places, read stuff and one lifetime isn't long enough. Even now, with a gift of seemingly unending time on my hands, I still need more. What I have refused to face up to and am still in denial about, is that I won't do all the things I want, travel to places on my bucketlist, I won't read all the books and watch all the films. Unless JK Rowling can gift me with a Time Turner, it just won't happen. In a now uncertain world, will I ever get to see Petra? Am I likely to hike up to Griffith's Observatory in Hollywood? Sing "What's n...
Location: London, UK COVID-19 / Coronavirus Outbreak Lockdown It's amazing how long you can put up with something that is broken or has ceased to work in exactly the way it should. The work-arounds you find. The small sacrifices. This was the case with our very hardworking Humax remote control. I think the first feature to stop working was the MEDIA button to take you to recordings - never fear there was the MENU option to resolve this, but it meant 2 pressings of a button, but that's ok. The SKIP FORWARD button stopped working a while ago (probably 6-8 months at a guess) so we used FAST FORWARD instead. PLAY and PAUSE gave up at some stage - OK it is then Then STOP stopped working - EXIT will do... Finally, FAST FORWARD stopped and an arrow button was used to fill the gap. Now, this just shows how clever a simple remote control is. It's also...
Location: London, UK COVID-19 / Coronavirus Outbreak Lockdown Did I fall asleep and wake up in the South of France? (I wish) It's not yet midday and already the temperaure is already 20°c plus! I'm not moaning, I love the sun but I do wonder how things might have been different if the weather had been different (how British of me). The wonderful weather for most of the past 8 weeks has been, for many, a blessing - gardens and parks being used by lots of people who more often than not, just pass through them. Also a place for the cooped up kids of lockdown to burn off a bit of energy. But it's also been an enticement - at the first sign of good weather, we Brits love to strip off, have a BBQ, get a bit drunk and a bit burnt and generally congreate with other people. Clearly this allure has been too much for many who have ignored the social distancing suggestions and done it anyway. Had the weather been more typical (18°c-20°c and cloudy) maybe...
Location: London, UK COVID-19 / Coronavirus Outbreak Lockdown I love to walk as I've mentioned before and to accompany my walk, I enjoy a good podcast. But I've also taken to listening while I cook or clean. My regular ones include: Make Me Smart - Usually weekly, now daily, American. Looks at news, economy and tech, really interesting and fun. The Chickpeeps - This is a podcast about all elements of veganism. It's much more accessible and fun than it sounds and will answer any questions as they have loads of experts as guests. Serial - the first series was a huge talking point worldwide, featuring the case of Adnan Syed. I would also recommend the following series, very interesting. The Teachers Pet - about the disappearance of Lynnette Dawson in Sydney, Australia in 1982. Fascinating and quite frankly, horrifying. Slow Burn - series 1 is all about Watergate which I am currently listening to....
Location: London, UK COVID-19 / Coronavirus Outbreak Lockdown How is everyone getting on with their lockdown bucket lists? I still haven't watched Star Wars. The planted things are growing so that's good. The Humax box is hovering between 18-19% free which I'm fairly pleased with. I'm getting a "Miranda Tan" as my friends kindly call it - i.e. a slightly darker shade of white My weekly meal plans are involving fewer recipe books as I'm losing motivation to try a new recipe. However, I've baked new cookie and cake recipes which went excellently, so clearly, treats are where it's at.
Location: London, UK COVID-19 / Coronavirus Outbreak Lockdown I love a crappy film. You know the kind, usually on Channel 5 in the afternoon, staring people you've never heard of, set somewhere in America that you haven't visited, with a storyline encapsulated in the title. Here are some I've watched recently: Girlfriend Killer Who Stole My Daughter? The Other Mother Cheat Sleeping with my Student Can you guess the plot outline from the title? Of course you can. The thing is, these films aren't that bad. The acting is usually pretty decent, the stories often have a good twist you didn't see coming and the production values are high. So why do they have a bad rap? I've seen plenty of over-hyped, big studio backed crap, with big stars that I'd happily swap for one of these little gems. On a technical note, a title that tells you what the film is about is actually quite a skill. "Four Christmases" - yep I have...
Location: London, UK COVID-19 / Coronavirus Outbreak Lockdown Theatre is probably going to be one of the last type of venue to open and is going to struggle. The Nuffield in Southampton has already gone into administration. 50 members of the House of Lords have signed a letter urging the government to provide financial support to the performing arts industry. The letter is below. What I find incredibly sad about this, is that there was virtually no reporting of this. At all. Google it, you won’t find much. I know that at a time of economic uncertainty it will be low down the list of priorities of things and people who need money. So, let me just ask you a question. During lockdown, have you watched tv? A film? Read a book? Listened to music? The artists which brought you that work need to be paid and need support now and for the future so that the very entertainment that has helped keep us all sane and t...
Location: London, UK COVID-19 / Coronavirus Outbreak Lockdown This is an excellent article by Tarek Iskander who is the artisitic director at Battersea Arts Centre. In it he talks about the performing arts world using this time to address the issues in theatre before we launch back in - what we had wasn't perfect and now we can change things: https://www.thestage.co.uk/opinion/opinion/the-arts-after-covid-19-lets-fix-the-things-that-werent-right-before I think it's a sound point that this is a moment in history that could be used to fix some problems and one that we could apply to many elements of our daily lives. Where have our priorities changed? What is essential to us now? For example: many people like to work from home or have the option to do so. Before the lockdown I know of many friends who were denied this by their companies saying it wasn't possible, or just doesn't work for their company. Well clearly, that's not the case. It is po...
Location: London, UK COVID-19 / Coronavirus Outbreak Lockdown We haven't yet had the chance to mourn what we have lost. I heard someone say that on one of my regular podcasts I listen to the other day and it really struck me, because I think it's true. For most people we have been in a kind of bubble for the past 7 weeks and it's only been a bit of a theory about what has changed. But as we dip our toes trepidatiously back into the real world, I think it will become far clearer what it is we have lost. Everything happened at such speed that there was no time to prepare for it - which is why people went crazy with the panic buying - but also no chance to steady ourselves mentally. Every element of our daily lives was altered - shopping, socialising, exercise, entertainment, holidays. We didn't have time to process these small and great loses of freedom and choice. Life changed in an afternoon. So I think that now we will enter into a second p...
Location: London, UK COVID-19 / Coronavirus Outbreak Lockdown I work for a fantastic promo agency who employ actors for their in-between work - I've said it before, I'll say it again, actors don't rest. They set us a fun competition to "Recreate A Masterpiece" similar to a challenge The Getty Museum were doing. Here is my entry (I was a runner up) and re-creation of Nighthawks by Edward Hopper - one of my favourite paintings You will see that my version feature Henry VIII and one of his wives at the bar and they are being served from a tiny tea set by a mouse.
Location: London, UK COVID-19 / Coronavirus Outbreak Lockdown Boris Johnson made a long-awaited speech last night which I think left many more confused than anything, brilliantly summed up by Matt Lucas (below). There was a noticeable increase in traffic on the roads today and some restaurants / coffee chains have started sending out notifications that they will slowly start to re-open. But can we go back to "normal"? What is normal anymore? Normal is going to be facemasks for some time that's for certain - and you can't really sip a latte out of one of those. And I think there is understandable fear - we have been separated for 7 weeks. That's a long time. That's long enough for a new normal to become imbedded. Do I want to run into a room full of people? No. Do I want to get on the tube? No. Do I want to go and get that latte? I'm really not sure. So while I think some people will bounce back gang-h...
Location: London, UK COVID-19 / Coronavirus Outbreak Lockdown Today I won. Today I managed to get the cat to take her worming tablet on attempt #1. It involved some skulduggery as I essentially re-enacted what happens in "Danny the Champion of the World". I cracked open one of her treats, scooped out the middle, put the tablet in and glued it back together with Marmite. And she ate it up without complaint - not spat back in the bowl, not eaten around, not just licked clean of Marmite. In. One. Go. So today I win!