when we say Cypress, you say…
And it’s two months on from my first trip ever to the Royal Albert Hall, despite my first ever gig in London being thirty six and a bit years ago in 1987 (The Cure at Wembley Arena, for anybody interested) and Cypress Hill did not disappoint. I’ve said it before, but the problem with summer on the blog is that the more time I spend out doing fun, exciting things, the less time I have to write about doing fun exciting things and then we wind up with gaps.
Within this recent gap we’ve had some of the hottest days of the year (and this year with no aircon; thankfully my Meaco fan has coped admirably), trips to the Tate for some Expressionism, the Design Museum for Barbie (which made for the second trip to Kensington inside six weeks when added to the Cypress Hill gig at the RAH back in July) and closer to home, the Barbican (art gallery-conservatory-library and many, many trips to the cinema).
Even FrightFest has been and gone, which gives me the opportunity to throw in a recommendation for The Substance (should be everywhere from the 20th September) to go with this weeks’ tips for Kneecap, Blink Twice and finally Sing Sing which I saw yesterday and can’t recommend highly enough, although I bawled so much at the end that I had to stay in my seat until the very last credit or risk embarrassing myself in Waitrose. In my defence I was still a bit frazzled after an energetic afternoons’ clubbing at Koko in Camden last Saturday and could have done with a bit more sleep, but the Peach 31st birthday party doesn’t come round every day, and Koko is too pretty to pass on.
This morning it was once again time for the annual teeth-grinding battle to get London Film Festival tickets; bar last year (which went so smoothly it was just plain weird) every single time is an endless-buffering, sanity-testing nightmare, and whilst I got my tickets in the end it took a full two hours and three separate log ins to avoid being kicked off with a full basket and losing all eight after the forty minute timeout. I wish I didn’t speak from experience, although eight is a lot even for me – I had no idea how badly I wanted to see the life of Pharrell Williams played out by Lego figures until the seconds were ebbing away and the panic set in. Roll on October!
The evenings are getting gradually darker, the heat is abating nicely and my favourite time of year approaches; the coming week is a busy one with theatre tomorrow and an early finish on Friday for Before Midnight at Gunnersbury Park, then a nice cosy (and a lot cheaper than the Royal Opera House itself, plus popcorn is not frowned upon) streaming of the Marriage Of Figaro this Sunday afternoon over the road at Barbican 3. Being the philistine that I am it will always be the music from the beginning of Trading Places to me, but there’s nothing wrong with that after all…
So in honour of (probably) the last big outdoor dance event for a while, another classic. Terrifyingly, I still have (and wear) the giant cargo pants I remember jumping up and down to this in twenty eight years ago. I may wear them on Friday!
More soon. Next week I will definitely be staying in…