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Searching undeterred: The Gift @ParkTheatre

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I recently had a few parcels go missing from where I live. The first parcel disappeared without a trace. The second parcel's contents were removed, and the box was left alone in the lobby. It's one of the things that you have to put up with living in central London. Apart from complaining to the delivery company and filing a police report, it crossed my mind to think about what would happen if I sent myself something rather unpleasant for a future parcel thief to open up. Well, Dave Florez's new work, The Gift, is in this line of thinking, except that the lead receives an anonymous gift of a turd in the mail rather than sending it to himself. It is lovingly gift-wrapped in a cake box from a posh north London bakery. It's a fascinating and hilarious three-hander currently playing at Park Theatre .  Colin (Nicholas Burns) is a little obsessive at the best of times. He doesn't let things drop quickly and is obsessed with the details behind anything and everythi...
Safe at work and play...

Working at Whitehall isn't all that bad... once you get used to the security procedures. It reminded me that yesterday after I strolled from Hyde Park back in the city and stumbled onto Grosvenor Square where the American Embassy was behind two layers of temporary fencing and a concrete barricade on the street. It would have made for a wonderful photo but I didn't know whether the guards with automatic weapons would have understood I was merely a tourist. Well I was struggling to work out where I was with a map but I wasn't so sure.

The other thing I have been travelling around with is my Diesel side bag. It is quite useful for storing an A-Z map of London book, a cd player and my pocket computer or camera. Of course when it is stocked full of these goodies it has caused some guards to be slightly alarmed at what I was carring to make it looked so packed. How could I explain it was just a few maps and Ute Lemper? I plan to get a more sensible work bag as soon as I have the opportunity but it has been so useful in the meantime.

Hard facts...
* The water here is hard, but I kinda like it. It tastes quite allright.
* Expats here blame the hard water for their hair falling out... They see their kettles full of crud and think "Oh my gawd that's in my hair". I don't know if there is any correlation between the calc buildup in kettles and the buildup in ones scalp. I just use more product.
* I try not to look too much at the floaty bits of calc that seem to find their way into the teacup anyway

Things that are so much better here...
* Supermarkets there is so much choice and everything is brightly packaged (although a drawback is the people who work in them but then again they don't speak English and are on minimum wage so why would they care?)
* Any food ending in "berry"
* Crisps... they seem to taste so much better... although salt and vinegar packets are green not purple which can be initially confusing

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