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No country for old women: Old Ladies - at Finborough Theatre

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The day after seeing The Old Ladies at the Finborough Theatre , I was describing the play to someone in great detail: about three old ladies who lived in a rickety house in southern England in 1935. Based on Hugh Walpole’s novel and adapted by Rodney Ackland, it is the sort of story with enough believability, humour and mild thriller to stick in your mind. Perhaps it is the lure of this dark, forboding tale of a life without money, to be alone and to be old, that makes you feel attracted to this poverty porn. But then again, given the state of the world, the cost of living, an ageing population, or just the fact that it’s a dog-eat-dog world, it might as well be an every little old lady-for-herself, too. It’s a well-acted and staged piece that moves at a brisk pace, so there isn’t much time to think about it too much. And in the intimate (or should that be claustrophobic?) space of the Finborough, there’s nowhere to avert your eyes. Even if you wanted to.  The scene is a grim Cathe...

It's too darn hot, we're having a heatwave...

With the temperature reaching 36.6 degrees near Gatwick on Wednesday, it was not a day for bragging when one was in one of the few offices in the building with air conditioning (and sitting right under it). I stayed back late at work just to enjoy the cool. In this heat other anti-social acts include:
  • Going out for ice creams and not coming back with enough for everybody

  • Closing the ventilation windows on the tube trains claiming it is too breezy standing next to it

  • Perspiring over fellow audience-members at a Proms Concerts (it was the Queen's 80th Birthday tribute tonight and the television cameras have picked up the audience battering programmes desperate for some movement of air)

  • Forgetting deodorant and using the grab rails on a peak hour Clapham omnibus

It is weather strictly for the Abercrombie and Fitch cargo shorts, a light t-shirt and flip flops… Incidentally thanks to global warming summer temperatures are expected to become more Mediterranean in London over the next 10-15 years so today's record is one that is unlikely to last for long…

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