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The Bella Donna plant that I found recently has started to produce berries…

A little green berry. Wait a few weeks and it will be nice and purple ans shiney.

Some Bella Donna flowers photographed today.

View of the plant with flowers poking through the railings.

Sat 26/07/2008 13:00
Drums of the Lost and Found Orchestra

The lost and found orchestra have an exhibition of their ‘instruments’ (AKA piles of rubbish) at the Royal Festival Hall in London. Here is a picture of some of their equipment. The instruments are made from all sorts of junk and are played by the guys from the musical STOMP.

The band will be playing at the forthcoming WOMAD festival. WOMAD is where lots of music that people don’t usually listen to gets played by bands that nobody usually likes. The people who go to WOMAD are the one’s you see in Whole Foods buying things that people don’t usually eat or can afford to buy such as Swiss Strawberries that have been freeze dried and taste like cardboard boxes.

Here is picture of the WOMAD festival:

Looks like fun…

WOMAD full of people not allowed into the country…

Visa problems for WOMAD artists

A number of artists booked for this year’s WOMAD Charlton Park have sadly had to cancel due to various problems with obtaining visas.

We have just received sad news that Asif Ali Khan (Pakistan) will not be able to make it to the festival due to this very problem.

Happily, Sufi Women of the Islands (Mayotte/France) are able to stand in at last minute for Asif’s performance and workshop and have just been added to the bill.

Dhoad Gypsies of Rajasthan (India) were also affected by visa issues and have been replaced by Children of the Khmer (Cambodia).

Kasai Allstars (Congo) had to cancel their whole European tour as they couldn’t get the visas they needed. Their performance slots are now filled by Nortec Collective (Mexico) and Wasis Diop (Senegal).

The good thing about WOMAD is it keep Peter Gabriel away from us for a few days.

All that for only £125.00 cheap at half the price.

Fri 25/07/2008 12:28

Here is a photo that I took this afternoon of a squirrel eating a cooked chicken leg retrieved from a dustbin. Clearly more evidence of bad food choices in modern society. Watch out for obese rodents near you some time soon.

According to the Essex Wildlife Trust the Grey Squirrel’s diet consists mainly of nuts – especially acorns,
beechmast, chestnuts and hazelnuts – but they eat a variety of other
foods, including fruit, cereal crops, fungi and roots. They also eat
the buds and shoots of many trees, and in hard times strip the bark -
this has given them a bad reputation with foresters.

No sign there of fried chicken. This seems to be a practical demonstration of the urbanisation of the squirrel population. I suppose squirrels in Islington are eating houmous, falafel, salad, hot peppers and olives in pitta rather than the more common fried chicken.

Squirrel food…

Went to see the opening night of The Wizard of Oz at the Royal Festival Hall last night. For a first night the performance held together very well and after the first 15 – 20 minutes the performances really warmed up. To my horror I had seem that Gary Wilmot had been cast in the role of the cowardly lion but in the end I need not have worried as he was a revelation. His singing voice is strong and wide ranging and his performance lit up the stage every time he came on.

Sian Brooke in the role of Dorothy started a bit nervously but again she warmed to the audience and made an good job singing Over the Rainbow. The real winner for many in the audience is the dog who plays Toto I have never seen such an obiedient and passive dog in my life.

One thing that is definitely Worth noting is the minimum age suggestion on the RFH website: Recommended for aged seven and above. There seemed to be many parents who had decided to ignore this recommendation and brought along very young children. Guess what? some had to leave because it was a bit scary in places and many more fell asleep. The travel journalist Simon Calder was sitting next to me but unfortunately had to leave with his small child who was a bit upset by the staging after only 5 minutes of the start. They never returned. So think twice before you throw away 50 quid on a sleepy kid. There’s no place like home…

Vin Diesel has a new movie out at the end of August. Surprisingly enough it’s an action thriler not that Vin has been typecast he’s just good at it I suppose.

Well good at it is probably an overstatement he’s really just a 21st centuary Steven Seagal clone now that the great man has gone on to become a rock god.

Here’s the clip in french just for fun: