I know you don't really wanna unleash the dragon

Oxfam are bastards, and they are in league with the buses of Reading.

Y'see, whenever I get to the bus stop (which isn't that often, due to cycling most days[*]) I do it slightly too late to catch the bus which is departing. Which means I have to wait around for ten minutes. And I can either sit about in a bus shelter... or go into the Oxfam bookshop. Just to have a look around, you understand. And pass the time.

Except Oxfam - as well as making the bus run ahead of time so I miss it - have got a habit of putting books with interesting covers at about my eye-height just as you walk in the door. Don't judge a book by its cover, y'say? I find it often works quite well. I originally bought my favourite-ever book because it had a cool cover.

So, interesting black and white cover? Silly-sounding plot? Dragons? Oh, go on then.

The ten minutes' reading I got in on the bus confirmed initial suspicions: I expect the rest of the book to be silly, lightweight, and rather enjoyable.

I'm not meant to be spending money on books, though. Not even charity second-hand ones :(

[*] But not today. Thanks to a rather strange slide-and-kneel-down movement I did on Kilburn High Road last night giving me a sore knee. The odd things was, the knee-pavement impact wasn't even very great, and I had time to think "gosh, that was an odd manouevre, thank goodness I didn't bang my knee hard, and I must look quite silly" before I got round to thinking "aaaargh, that's actually really painful".

Summer lovin', had me a blast

Last January sort of time I went to the Soho Theatre to see Midsummer (a play with songs). I now can't find the write-up of it I thought I did at the time, so perhaps that part only happened in my head.

Anyway, it's on again at the Tricycle Theatre in Kilburn until January 29th.

Right. If you don't live in London, I'll let you off. If you do live in London, you very likely have absolutely no excuse: go and see it. It's bloody marvellous. Ignore the blurb on the Tricycle's page, I don't think it really gives a good sense of what the play's like. It is a romantic comedy only in the sense that it concerns the relationship between two people, and it made me laugh. Anyone calling it a romantic comedy, however, is doing it a grave disservice. It's wry, and cynical, and hilarious. It's clever, and self-referential and a bit meta in places. It was a huge hit at the Edinburgh Fringe a couple of years ago, and is still performed by the same two-person cast. Their timing is immaculate (as it needs to be, for a lot of the dialogue) and the energy between them is amazing. Sitting in the theatre watching the story unfold (even though I knew what was coming) made me enormously happy.

Oh, and the songs are written by some chap called Gordon McIntyre, whom the smart money will immediately recognise as Mr Ballboy. And if you're not the smart money, get on the case because Ballboy are fabulous anyway.

Don't go and see Midsummer if you think that "Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck" is not a valid line of dialogue. Or indeed if people saying "fuck" offends you.

I have heard a mildly unsubstantiated rumour that booking tickets over the phone and quoting "January promotion" will get you tickets for £9. (It worked for us[*], but I had previously thought the January sale ended today). A further rumour suggests that Gordon McIntyre has offered a personal money-back guarantee if you don't like it.

[*] I stand corrected: apparently we quoted "january sales", and that offer runs til Saturday. We are unsure whether this "january promotion" is a different one, or just someone getting their facts wonky.