Subject: A grand day out 8th July 1999 
Date: Thu, 08 Jul 1999 10:08:21 PDT 

HI All ! 

with my work I get Sunday and Wednesday's off ! 

I always want to just stay in and relax but I hate being cooped up and for 
those who know me well I always like to be on the go. 

So today I got up at 9am and did my duties around the hostel, summer of 
course has rolled around again and australasians are flooding London again. 
I decided to give the toilet a bit of a clean, the plumbing ain't too good 
and some girls here keep flushing bloody tampons down them, you can tell cos 
when the bowl overflows it's all red. In today's case it had overflooded and 
someone has actually done number 2s, so when we drained the bowl there was a 
bit of stuff smeared up near the top of the bowl, yechy ! 

Luckily I am upstairs now and as there are less people it's kept in much 
better condition ! 

Today I had in mind to do some music shopping, ain't done it in about 3 
weeks, I'd sold a bit of stuff via ebay an online auction house some weeks 
ago but even though I sent in some money to top up my account with them I am 
still in the red so I'm really anxious about it as I do have a lot of stock 
here still to sell. 

I had to return a library book (Bill Bryon - Neither Here Nor There) and 
also wanted to possibly get to a sale.  I got a call from Nina and we 
planned to meet in Leicester Square at 3:30pm. 

I never made it to Harrods first day of sales, last year Cher opened it, 
this year it was Sophia Loren and there were lots of good bargains  to be 
had, I may go there this Sunday though it is also the Bangladesh New year 
festival of some sort so I want to go to that. 

I checked out a second hand store and at the end of the day I spent 15 
pounds on 15 cds !! 

I finally caught up with Nina at 4:15pm - we'd got a bit lost ;-) 

Too late and too expensive to go to the movies round the west end, we 
checked out the halfprice ticket booth, this is a store in Leicester Square 
and they sell for halfprice unsold tickets for shows. I don't know why all 
the other ripoff fullprice places get patronised so much ! 

We definitely want to see West Side Story before it finishes but I had a 
hankering to see Mr and Mrs Charlton Heston in "Love Letters". 
It is a two hour play where both people sit on a desk and read out letters 
that trace the relationship of Melissa and Andy, starting at primary school 
through to the end. The point being that it is letter writing that keeps 
their friendship together but also keeps them apart romantically. 

No one else is too keen to see it but I greatly admire Charlton Heston so 
I'd like to see him in real life !!  Unfortunately the booth only has 
halfprice best seat tickets so down from 36 UKP to 18 UKP ! 
Still too much, we were hoping for halfprice 10 UKP tickets ! 

Decide to save money so Nina and I check out some stores, there is a gay 
outdoor festival happening so she picks up a ticket for that despite the 
rude man at the gay shop we went into. We want to go as Marc Almond is the 
headliner, Jimmy Sommerville was the one last year. 
But I may be working on that day. And with his forthcoming concert next 
Friday I may be all Marc'ed out ! 

For dinner I grabbed some Wendys, hadn't had it for about a year, tastes 
just like back home ! yum yum !  Unfortunately my stomach gets upset easily 
so I was feeling a bit bloated after it. 

Sometimes I think Nina and I are one and the same, to further this 
hypothesis is the evidence that she does not have a watch, so we must rely 
on the kindness of others. 

We decide to go home and see if there are cheaper standby tickets 
available !  As we walk down Haymarket road we decide to walk by Phantom Of 
The Opera and just like Tuesday I find 10 pounds on the ground !  joy ! 
Nina looks at me and says it is fate and I have to go see "Love Letters" now 
! 

Everyone is dressed immaculately outside the venue, I am wearing khaki 
shorts and tshirt, I dig into my bag and get out my all purpose purple shirt 
for such occasions. 

I bowl up to the box office and ask for the cheapest tickets available, he 
says 10 so I say go for it, he says there are some smpty seats on the first 
level and points vaguely to the side of the seating plan. 

Nina has to head off to her grans so I give her a hug and head inside 
feeling quite elated but tired as well ! 

I head on up to the royal circle and look around for my chair on the 
sides, eventually I find it and I am right in the middle of the front row ! 
Possibly the best seat ! 

Anyway I'll save you the boring bits about the 'play' it was just worth it 
to see them in real life. The play lingers a bit on the middle and doesn't 
have quite the sufficient amount of closure I prefer in relationship based 
plays. 
On stage he looks like the chisel-jawed legend that he is, when he got up 
to leave though I noted that he had a slight hunch now, or perhaps because 
he was bending down to escort his wife. 

It went for 2 hours with a break in the middle and held my attention ok. I 
picked up a program and his autobiography and got it signed, as we went into 
his room it was all very exciting. We didn't have much time to chat so I 
shook his and gibbered something about how it was a pleasure and then I 
left. The girl in front was estatic at meeting her hero ! 

me....I quickly bolted for home, man what a day...... 


http://darrylfong.webjump.com/idesk/darryl.html