Linky

The Great ID Card Rebellion

Reduced Shakespeare Company

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)

I suspect everyone else's seen this by now, but somehow I always contrived to miss it - out of town when it was in, or busy, and never found the time to see it in London. For those who have missed it, it's supposedly all 37 plays performed in 97 minutes - and for those who say, "What about the sonnets and those weird poems?" they do get mentioned. Of course, they cheat - the Histories turn into an American Football game, there's a one size fits all comedy and some of the tragedies I suspect are conveniently ignored. There's a reasonable amount of National Theatre of Brent style malapropism and disastrousness, and (gak) Audience Participation, but it was a fun couple of hours. The second half is largely devoted to Hamlet, which is of course ripe for messing around with - as say Tom Stoppard has two or three times already.

It Could Be You: 42 Days and 42 Nights

A while back, abrinsky, lamentables and myself were all individually prevented from taking photos such as the one to the right, "in the light of the current situation." I don't recall hearing of anyone being stopped during the period of the IRA bombings in England, nor can I see that this sort of thing is likely to be useful to any Al Quaida operative. This is surely paranoia - and you would have thought that someone found their shopping centre interesting enough to take photos. (Mind you, I've taken some of ugly ones too.) Of course, the shopping centre is private property, so the security guards can do what they like.

 

 

 

Then I heard that a photographer from Sittingbourne had had two rolls of film confiscated by the Humberside police, for taking photos in a shopping centre in Hull - although not the ones depicted to the left, although you can glimpse it behind the curiously short and squat woman.

Ok, maybe candid photography might look a bit creepy to some people, but it sounds like an over reaction to me by the police (although note he did get the films back this week). A little word with him should have been enough to reassure the police. But watch your step, and be proud to do your part to Stand Up Against Terrorism.

No photos! There's nothing to see. Move along.

For story see: here and here

Reading VII

VII Peter Robinson, Past Reason Hated (1992) (or 1991?)

Another Inspector Banks novel, and a female officer, DC Susan Gay is introduced. There's a red herring here (so far in the series), in that it's about the murder of a lesbian and Susan isn't as far as I know... gay. There's a comment when she meets the surviving lover though.

This one didn't quite ring true, but maybe I need to make allowances for the passage of time - I would have thought Banks would take lesbianism in his stride more, especially as he used to police around Soho and thus must have encountered a range of sexualities. He's usually presented as more cultured and right on than this - although he's not quite homophobic here, just awkward. Of course, I'm not saying his views reflect the views of the author, and may be we're meant to wince. But Pascoe and Dalziel's reactions to an outing in an early Hill novels is dealt with more deftly.

Anyway, Caroline Hartley is found murdered by her lover, with a record still playing on the turntable, and Banks and his colleagues spend Christmas tracking down suspects - her estranged husband and his new lover, her brother and father, and her fellow members of cast in Twelfth Night. Both Banks and Gay seem to get over familiar with suspects here, and we are twice reminded who Jenny the psychologist is. I guessed the identity of the killer early on, and confirmed it way before the reveal.

The title is from Shakespeare's Sonnet CXXIX - which is quoted in the novel.