Long Haul Theatre

Well Sock Monkey & Mrs P went to the theatre on Sunday. The show started at 1pm and ended at 10pm!!!! Good Lord you can fly to America in less time.

We went to see Lipsynch by Robert Lepage who is a GENIUS theatre director. I've seen a couple of his productions before: Tectonic Plates, Polygraph, The Seven Streams of the River Ota. It is very difficult to describe what he does but it is very special and very visual.

Anyway Lipsinch follows the story of 9 characters over 70 years. The stories all interweave and culminate in a very sad story. From the young mother who dies with her baby in her arms to the opera singer who adopted him, to her neurosurgeon husband and the woman he operates on, to his patient and her schitzophrenic sister, the elderly speech therapist who helped the opera singer when she was a child, the home help who cooked and cleaned for the elderly woman, the brother who sexually abused the home help when she was a child, the pimp who provided girls for him, the pimp's contact in Nicaragua who sold his niece to him, the journalist who rescued her, and finally to the baby she left behind when she died. P was actually crying at the end. Beautiful opera, dialogue spoken in English, French, Spanish and German coupled with first class acting.

Both the audience and the theatre group went through a huge journey together. 9 hours and it was something very special.

Robert Lepage really is a genius. You can't go see it at the Barbican though. We went on the last night of the UK premier. Bad luck!

Dorian Grey

Greetings from Sock Monkey Mansions! Well I've had a nice evening. Sock Monkey's very good friend S and I went to Saddler's Wells to see Mr Bourne's new production: Dorian Grey.

My goodness I have never seen so many buff young people prancing around in their undergarments! Sam liked the young men whilst, naturally, Sock Monkey preferred the young ladies. Actually there was an older lady who Sock Monkey wouldn't kick out of bed in the morning. Miss Whiplash looking!

Actually it was v v good. I do love Matthew Bourne. Go see it. Very good and I am most impressed by the stage manager and stage hands who worked bloody hard.

Copycats!

Sock Monkey is disgusted.
Sock Monkey is appalled.
Sock Monkey shall be writing a stern letter to The Guardian.

For years Sock Monkey has been compiling a list called 'Stupid Book Titles' (see earlier posts). Gems such as 'Mammals of Luxembourg', 'How to Shit Around the World' , 'Bicarbonate of Soda: A Versatile and Natural Substance' and Uniform Retail Meat Identity Standards' appear on said list.

Then, last Saturday Sock Monkey opened up The Guardian Magazine and there it was in CMYK glory! The Guardian had printed an article about stupid book titles! They had obviously been reading my blogs and stole my idea! Admittedly they included different titles to mine (eg 'Fancy Coffins You Can Make Yourself') but nevertheless how rude of them!

Two New Things I have Learned

These hats are made of Canadian Black Bear.  It takes a whole bear just to make one hat!

And I'd like to know what they do with the leftovers:  its claws, teeth, ears & tail!!

And the Second thing I have learned is that every 2 weeks Battersea Dogs & Cats Home have a 'Death Day' when all the animals who aren't likely to be rehoused are put down.

The Undesirables Have Arrived oh joy

Some simply charming people have moved in across the hall from me.

This is a really quiet building (apart from the woman who stomps down the stairs at 7.30 every morning, wearing what appear to be horse's shoes then almost takes the front door of its hinges when she slams it shut).  Or at least it used to be until The Undesirables moved in recently.

Now I was actually sound asleep but P reported to me that one night Mr Undesirable was having a massive argument with Mrs Undesirable and was storming around the communal area shouting and swearing  (NB right outside my front door) in the middle of the night.  He was slamming doors so violently that all my windows and doors were shaking.  P described him as a 'Scary Big Fucker'. The next time I saw Mrs Undesirable she was nailing the door frame back on.

At 1.30am last Thursday morning I was rudely awoken by shouting and large scuffling noises coming from the hall. I got up and had a look through the spyhole in my front door and saw Mr Undesirable lying prone, handcuffed and being restrained by 2 police officers who were asking him to calm down.  He meanwhile was charmingly responding with 'I ain't done anything. Get your knee out of my back, She's an internet whore she'll be on the internet now, she's been in a mental institution, take me to court!'  This went on for half an hour.

Which was lovely.

The only thing between me and him was 2 inches of front door.

Then he passed out.  The police waited for 2 of their colleagues to help carry him out of the building.

Yesterday evening (after I had made damn sure I had the local police station number in my phone) I heard him and one of his delightful friends come into the building.  They were both pissed and each had a carrier bag full of more booze. During the 15 minutes it took them to manage to open the door they had the following conversation:

I hate this fucking dump [hmm I would like to point out that it was perfectly fine before you moved in], I hate this fucking country am going to leave [here's your hat where's your hurry], him next door gives us no help [hardly surprising], he doesn't understand alcoholics [shame on him!], blah blah blah de blah.

Lovely.  At the moment I am reading a book called 'Stuart a Life Backwards' which is the story of Stuart who was a homeless, drug addicted alcoholic.  Its like having him live next door except Stuart seemed 100% more pleasant. 

The freeholder has been informed so things should now become quite interesting...

Catch Up Time

Its been so long since I posted anything on here I had to have a long think to remember what my password is!

So what's been happening around Sock Monkey Mansions?  

Well Sock Monkey managed to leave 2 jobs in 2 consecutive days.  I had been working part-time for 2 companies and I left one on the Tuesday and the other on the Wednesday.  Two leaving do's in 2 days ha ha.  Actually the first one was really lovely as I had only worked there since January and everyone came out for drinks and they gave me a bottle of champagne and 50 quid's worth of gift vouchers which was really generous. 

Went to see Miss Behave's Variety Nighty which was absolutely fantastic.  I have never seen a woman swallow a metal table leg before, the table holding a wine glass & bottle at the time just for good measure.  Spy Monkey was my favourite act.  I did like their first piece where a woman would swallow various things only to have them reappear from her nether regions (eg she drinks 'washing up liquid' and bubbles appear from her, ahem down belows).  There was also this amazing woman who performed a wonderful acrobatic routine whilst gracefully dangling from 2 trailing sheets of silky fabric.  

I'd have definitely gone to see it all again but I went up to Scotland where my sister and I carried out the following activities:

cake baking, muffin making, a cheese sauce making master-class (I can now make cheese sauce which isn't horrible), expensive bra-buying, luncheoning, a visit to an auction to check up what kind of prices we could achieve for the rest of Mum's stuff which we need to sell, luncheoning again, oh lets just have a glass of wine, a visit to the Royal College of Surgeons museum to look at all the medical stuff (the one in London is a lot better - more unidentifiable things even though, disappointingly, they have hidden their pickled siamese twins) and a visit to the Edinburgh Festival to see Nina Conti and her extremely potty-mouthed monkey.

I spent a bloody fortune up there! However most of this expense came approximately 2 minutes after my arrival at Edinburgh Airport where I bought a MacBook.  I love my MacBook! PCs suck- macs rule yay!

Then I had another few days off before starting my new job.  This is an actual real job and not like the toy jobs I have been doing for the last year.  I was a bit apprehensive after the last time I started a full-time job at Fucking Bastard Publishing where I was dumped in a corner, given fuck all training and no support from my manager who then described my leave when my Mum died as 'holiday'.  However this place is the exact opposite.  They had worked out who would train me in doing what over the course of the first week and have been very friendly and supportive and patient with all my questions. The Summer Party is next week. Two friends from a previous job also work there so that's nice too.  

My friend left one of my previous companies after 26 years and they threw her a huge party.  It was great to see so many people from years ago. There was a big turn-out and it was a really fun evening although I doubt she made it to her tennis match for 10am the following morning!

So its been all change round at Sock Monkey Mansions.  And am going for a nice picnic later on today. 

We Looked Beautiful

Hannibal Murphy

above is what I wore

On Saturday a party was thrown in honour of Lynn's **th birthday. The theme was 'Dress as Something Beginning with 'L'". So after much deliberation (Pauline: 'Labrador!' 'Lizard!!) we plumped for 'Lunatic' (me) and Hannibal Lecter (her). I had originally decided to dress as Bertie Bassett as he is a licorice Allsort but decided that this would be a) too tricky and b) too hot.

I wore a straitjacket, pyjama-type trousers and a LOT of hideous facepaint, Pauline wore a fetching boiler suit and the mask above. The taxi driver laughed when he saw us - what do you think we'd walk the streets of Winchester like that?? Jan dressed as Lara Croft, Lynn was a Lady Who Lunches and I spotted Garry & Maurice in fuzzy coloured wigs and announced they were Lemon & Lime. Sadly there are no pictures of us at said event. We didn't actually stay that long as I became too full of gin and deserved a good kicking.

We did stay in a lovely hotel: The Gifford House Hotel. I've stayed there before and it really is lovely with loads of antiques everywhere and a fantastic breakfast. They only had 1 room left so we had to stay in the DeLuxe room. We had 2 bathrooms and the biggest bed I think I have ever seen. It must have been 7 feet wide and P said she still had no room as I had sprawled all over it. As usual.

Next day we braved the pissing rain and visited Winchester Cathedral. P bought me a lovely new cost - well when I say 'coat' I really mean a transparent plastic poncho which no, I didn't feel at all stupid wearing. Actually I didn't care. At least I wasn't soaked to the bone.