Last time I started a post with the name of some music in the title, it was described by one reader as wistful. Given that the words "Carmina Burana" evoke no such feelings of wist, let's see how this post goes. It's lunchtime and I've stuck Carl Orff's one-hit-wonder onto the headphones before I get myself back down to the important stuff-I'm-paid-for of the day. For those desperately trying to place the Carmina Burana, that's the Old Spice advert, or the music from The Omen. The main lyric "O Fortuna" always makes me laugh as I hear it "Oh, for tuna...". What would the writer of the lyric do for tuna? I would imagine that he/she would buy some light mayo and make a sandwich, but maybe they haven't got any tuna. They're saying "I'd love to make a sandwich, but I have no filling, just bread and this light mayo... Oh, for tuna!".
Last night I scooted from work and hurried me along to a small fringe theatre on Camden where I've performed in some shows, some successful, others less so. I've also watched performances there. I've also had amusement with the people who run the theatre, who presently write a blog and podcast that I read. It's been a long relationship. Anyway, on this occasion, I was due to spend a night up in the lighting box running the sound and lights for their show. With only a couple of hours to learn the cues, run it all through and get ready for the audience, my stress levels were higher than normal. However, the good preparation of the cast and the guy who "booked" me was more than enough to get things right pretty quickly. In fact, the technical run through, where we just ran the cues, rather than the whole scenes (we never did a run through of the whole thing until the performance) was more stressful than the performance, all the cues coming artificially in rapid succession.
There were a couple of foul-ups, one of which was me missing the end-cue of a sketch, and the other was when the lights were brought up before the stage was set - neither were that major, nor was there much I could have done about either. The end-cue didn't quite seem to happen, though I was watching and listening for it, and the lights came up too early, but when I was meant to bring them up from the cues sheet... sometimes things don't work perfectly first time... they nearly did.
Nobody complained. They were all really appreciative, in fact. I should have tried messing it up harder!
Following the show, I decided not to stay around in the packed pub (they'd brought a full-house with them) for the back slapping, so I, along with my friend, headed out to catch trains and go home.
It was a late night. Very late, once food had been bought, eaten and talked over. We even did a magic-eye picture, which feels like some sort of mind-altering substance once you get it.
This morning, I woke later than planned, but early enough. I was expecting to meet a builder at 8.30. I'd totally forgotten about the aerial people I'd also booked for a quote. Luckily they arrived before the builder and will be contacting me with quotes for installing aerials around the house - I think that's important enough to do. The builder came later than planned and then we took longer than planned talking about how to break my house. I felt like things were becoming increasingly less solid with him as we discussed it all. I'm not sure what he'll quote me. I know there's big money to be spent. Gulp.
The other builder's estimate came through. It didn't scare me.
Today my new laptop should arrive. I feel like I haven't time to play with it. I have gigs on Thursday and Friday, so feel like I should devote some time to the house tonight and Wednesday. With a late arrival to work, I'll have to work later to make the time up. As always it's infuriating when my early wake up doesn't yield a benefit in terms of work arrival time. I suppose I should expect that long chats with workmen will not get me to work any quicker.
Last night I scooted from work and hurried me along to a small fringe theatre on Camden where I've performed in some shows, some successful, others less so. I've also watched performances there. I've also had amusement with the people who run the theatre, who presently write a blog and podcast that I read. It's been a long relationship. Anyway, on this occasion, I was due to spend a night up in the lighting box running the sound and lights for their show. With only a couple of hours to learn the cues, run it all through and get ready for the audience, my stress levels were higher than normal. However, the good preparation of the cast and the guy who "booked" me was more than enough to get things right pretty quickly. In fact, the technical run through, where we just ran the cues, rather than the whole scenes (we never did a run through of the whole thing until the performance) was more stressful than the performance, all the cues coming artificially in rapid succession.
There were a couple of foul-ups, one of which was me missing the end-cue of a sketch, and the other was when the lights were brought up before the stage was set - neither were that major, nor was there much I could have done about either. The end-cue didn't quite seem to happen, though I was watching and listening for it, and the lights came up too early, but when I was meant to bring them up from the cues sheet... sometimes things don't work perfectly first time... they nearly did.
Nobody complained. They were all really appreciative, in fact. I should have tried messing it up harder!
Following the show, I decided not to stay around in the packed pub (they'd brought a full-house with them) for the back slapping, so I, along with my friend, headed out to catch trains and go home.
It was a late night. Very late, once food had been bought, eaten and talked over. We even did a magic-eye picture, which feels like some sort of mind-altering substance once you get it.
This morning, I woke later than planned, but early enough. I was expecting to meet a builder at 8.30. I'd totally forgotten about the aerial people I'd also booked for a quote. Luckily they arrived before the builder and will be contacting me with quotes for installing aerials around the house - I think that's important enough to do. The builder came later than planned and then we took longer than planned talking about how to break my house. I felt like things were becoming increasingly less solid with him as we discussed it all. I'm not sure what he'll quote me. I know there's big money to be spent. Gulp.
The other builder's estimate came through. It didn't scare me.
Today my new laptop should arrive. I feel like I haven't time to play with it. I have gigs on Thursday and Friday, so feel like I should devote some time to the house tonight and Wednesday. With a late arrival to work, I'll have to work later to make the time up. As always it's infuriating when my early wake up doesn't yield a benefit in terms of work arrival time. I suppose I should expect that long chats with workmen will not get me to work any quicker.
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