The Year of Celebration

I don't know what's considered a milestone in the blogging world, but today I noticed I've had over 20,000 views of my blog, which seems pretty incredible to me. I've received nothing but support over these last two years of chronicling my journey on this path called life and I have you readers to thank for that. As an homage to posts past I'm going to revert back to the old format. Music. Fact. Quote. All related to numbers.  Music: Rent My favourite musical is Rent. I remember seeing it when I was 14 in London and again when I was 22 in New York and of course the film came out between those times. I've never been big on musicals, but Rent revolutionised them for me. I realised that my love for music and theatre could actually be combined into something that wasn't trite or cheesy and could carry a profound message. I went to Liberty Theatre in Bermuda and watched the movie Philadelphia with my dad when I was nine years old. I remember it so clearly ...

Daniel Radcliffe in 'The Cripple of Inishmaan' In the last four weeks I've been blessed enough to see four plays. My mission took me from the Arcola Theatre Tent in Dalston to the very fringe Vogue Fabrics in Stoke Newington to the Orangery in Holland Park to the Noel Coward Theatre ( again ) in the West End. The first performance was put on by the Arts Council England-funded Generation Arts Future Stage Company. Generation Arts is a company which provides a training ground for young people who would otherwise not have such exposure to the arts. It works specifically with those in the margins of London who are not in education, employment or training and who are considered at risk. The Future Stage program allows such young people to form a theatre company for a year and put on a production, which I was fortunate enough to witness. I was immensely impressed by both the talent and the writing in 'Enough Said'. I usually don't like comedies, but I laughed...

" Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure." Oh, Mr. Darcy! There are few literary lovers that live up to that of Mr. Darcy. So, therefore, it's quite a feat to act the role as there's a lot of pressure on that thespian to make women's heart race, to portray cold and reserved, yet filled with emotion. I went to the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park last night to watch a production of Pride & Prejudice.  The genius of Jane Austen's work is that the story itself is so brilliant that it transfers well from book to play to film. So let's deal with Mr. Darcy first. I must say the actor playing Darcy managed to portray him very well and exceeded expectation. I say that because just as when I watch Romeo & Juliet (which I did a couple of weeks ago in another open air theatre, which featured my good friend Jason Eddy) I am prepared to dislike the actor who plays Romeo, because he couldn't possibly live up to my fanta...

In the space of a week I was lucky enough to see two plays in London's West End and they couldn't have been more different from one another. As explained in last week's post , Peter & Alice inspired in me such depth of thought regarding my own life. Book of Mormon on the other hand just allowed me to escape from my life for a couple of hours. My relationship with comedy is an awkward one, because whilst I love a good laugh, I also rarely choose to watch comedies so it's up to someone else to suggest them. The lovely one always remarks that unless a film makes me cry I'm uninterested in watching it. That's entirely untrue. I just enjoy films with depth and meaning (and maybe a good dose of death). Whenever I attempt to watch comedy I prepare myself to be disappointed, because frankly, most of the time it's not  that  funny. Yes, it can be mildly amusing or  quite  funny, but it's rarely leaving me in floods of tears (I suppose maybe the litmus tes...

London: Love/Hate Affair. I have been utterly miserable for the last few weeks. I've been homeless (let's not exxagerate, Liana, you have been staying in spare bedrooms at lovely friends' lovely flats, says my inner self). I've lost my laptop. Yes, LOST. Not stolen. Not misplaced. LOST. Because I am a moron. To be fair, with all the moving around I was carrying so much of my stuff, shuffling from one fantastic friend's flat to another. I was overwhelmed, flustered and getting soaked in the rain and somewhere along the way the laptop disappeared. Woe is me. First world problems. Wah. Wah. Wah. And then suddenly, this past weekend, I was alright. Not fantastic. Not great. But alright. Surviving. I was staying at my friend Zoe's flat and she and her boyfriend Ben had gone away for the weekend and for the first time in a month I had some proper sleep. I slept all day Friday and Saturday and I suddenly felt normal. I hadn't even realised I was sleep-deprive...

Today's celebration post is an easy one, I'm celebrating my father, Julian Ernest Sinclair Hall. Two years ago today Dad passed away, and not a day goes by that I don't feel a twinge of pain thinking about him. Grief and depression are a strange combination. The accepted theory in the DSM is that grief becomes depression when it goes on past a certain accepted period of time. Well I challenge that. My father's death changed me irrevocably, and I will always grieve for him. However, it was for the duration of a year and a half that my personality changed, and I'm only just beginning to get the "old" me back. I became much less social, less interested in interacting with people, less bubbly and more depressed about life. Many of my friends have remarked I'm beginning to become more like my past self, and I'm not entirely sure if that has to do with my medication or not. Either way, I'm thankful for it. My father lead a very interesting life. If y...

No, clearly it is not Black History month, but the birthdays today inspire me to write something about it. It is the birthdays of Malcolm X (1925), Lorraine Hansberry (1930) and Grace Jones (1948), and in fact both Malcolm X and Lorraine Hansberry died in 1965. It is also my gorgeous little brother's birthday, so he's among some pretty great legends (that combined with his Barack Obama ears makes me certain he's a legend in the making himself). Happy 8th Birthday Saladin! Sorry I'm too far away and couldn't be with you today. Instead I had a hungover lunch at Sophie's again. Yes the service was again terrible due to understaffing, but the food was amazing. I had a MAP 'n' Cheese, which was the most calorific, yet delicious sandwich with pulled pork and mac n cheese in sourdough bread. After a nap I went for a beach run, so I'm sure I burnt off about a quarter of the calories. But then I was wildly late for the play, with only half an hour to get read...