The Importance of being Earnest

Tonight THE husband surprised me with two tickets for the open air theatre in Regent's Park. We decided to cycled there and, although the journey was a bit rushed as we were tight, the route was lush: an endless line of grand mansions and one of the best maintained parks in the world at the end of our ride. The play, The Importance of Being Earnest, was funny, witty and exhilarating. As a posh old dude remarked, it was a first class experience. The live music, the setting, the actors and, of course, the screenplay. Oscar Wilde is a genius. My adoration for him started in high school where I read and studied this play for the first time. Despite being adapted for the big screen and staged many times, I had never seen or read it since... until tonight. 18 years later! I still could recognise many of the famous quotes which have accompanied my rebellious adolescent years.

Lucy Brigggs Owen (far left) was hilarious in her role of Cecily: The open air theatre is a magical place... The sparkling lights, the romantic setting, the breeze (when it's not raining, granted!) and the freedom of watching a play while having a picnic is priceless. And it is even more special for me as it is the only place in London I have always been with my husband. Here the full story in three acts. It is also a pleasure just reading it.

"Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone" Oscar Wilde

stuff

IN SWISS COTTAGE

i am really tired. after a nice saturday spent at the sushi bar and cinema to watch a cleverly crafted thriller (tell no one), this week work has being crazy. meetings and business lunches are forcing me to be in my best behaviour 7 hours out of 7. thank god for the farmer market near my office where twice a week i get the best coffee in london, the best organic muffins, the cheapest freshly squeezed orange juice, the most delicious sushi, the freshest egyptian cous cous and the finest antique jewellery. i have never talked about helen here, the chatty lady at the antique stall i go and visit every friday. she is a bit forgetful - her head sits comfortably in the clouds, but this her charm, i believe. every time i stop by, she delights me with her stories. and she has got wonderful stuff. back in the 60s/70s she must have been a gorgeous and very fashionable woman (in her 60s she still is beautiful and stylish). her jewellery collection spans from art deco pieces to trifari and butler&wilson custome jewellery to vintage artworks from liberty or browns to unique items coming from bond street's antique jewellery shops, many of which jewellery used to belong to her. From her i bought a gold plated long chain with a magnifying lens framed by swaroski (Butler and Wilson), a snow flake brooch for steve's grandmother (trifari) and recently a magic fairy pendant/brooch holiding a precious opal. it is lovely indeed. helen is always very sincere in telling you the nature of a stone or a metal. if it is glass, she would say so, if it is silver she would direct your attention on the mark and weight. she also knows the history behind her objects and is always happy to share it with you.

BODY AND SOUL
i keep running (with steve) and doing yoga (without steve). i have seriously considered starting the teacher training from september, then convinced myself to spend those money with an enlightening trip to india with a few close girlfriends. so my mind is now moving towards that route. when i start fantasising about travels, i do it so deeply that it stays in the back of my mind all the time, and i tend to reconduct all my experiences to it... weird(o)...

dreamy princess

ARTS
what's more? hmmm... oh yes. i booked my flight to italy in august, gwen stefani's concert in september and reserved 6 tickets to go and see all about my mother at the old vic for my birth-day. i know that someone may find re-adaptations from a platform/media to another annoying, but i am always intrigued by the infinite possibilities of art vehicles. plus, almodovar's master-film and his interest for meta-theatre lend itself very well to the stage transposition, leading us to the fundamental question of the art debate: theatre as metaphor of life or life as metaphor of theatre?

FAMILY AFFAIRS
saturday little cousin giacomo is arriving for his summer course. i have a few boysh/adolescential activities in mind to entertain him but i am really struggling in finding many ideas. last time he was here i mostly took him in places he did not really appreciate. in one particular occasion he made me feel really naughty. we were in brick lane on a saturday night, surrounded by drunken bastards: a person was going up and down the street in a trolly with a bottle of vodka in his hand, other people had literally collapsed on the floor, etc. giacomo looked at me and candidly asked: "what kind of places do you take me to?" gulp! this time it will be better - i repeat to myself: he is a year older and more eager to *experiment*...

NEW BOKS, NEW FRIENDS
yesterday i attended my first book club, ever. a bunch of lovely girls meets up every month or so to recommend readings, swap books and chit-chat. i brought along the time traveller's wife and came back with two books: down under by bill bryson (for future reference) and ignorance by milan kundera, whose other (more famous) novel i read in german in my other life. as soon as i saw it, i decided i wanted that because it ticked three of my reading requirements: it is quite thin, with a charming cover and by one of the most reflective authors of our time. his books, in fact, go beyond fiction to embrace Literature at its highest level, and aurelie's description of its content seemed to fit perfectly our status of volunteer exile.

ELECTRICITY OR CANDLES?
on other news, we need to rebulb the whole house if we do not want end up living by candlelight...

horror w/e btw west- & east- end (1st)

it's never too late to chronicle the lovely london w/e spent with ary at the beginning of this month.

i was right on time to pick her up at waterloo station on friday 2 february. she was coming from brussels where her team was awarded a EU prize for energy saving. well done them! after a quick dinner based on beef wellington which arianna's skeptical palate feared it was cat (the finest english meat mistaken for a pet?!?), i took her to an intimate theatre in covent garden to watch the chilly woman in black. this time it was me who was skeptical at the thought that a musical can be scary. we soon discovered that it was not a musical as we thought: it was instead a theatre piece (still aimed to mass entertainment) performed by two and a half actors, half being the woman in black whose frightening apparitions freaked a rather young audience out: uncontained screams of young ladies were the real terror of this experience! after the show, we realised that a school had filled the gallery, which partly justified the emotional over-reaction.

on saturday, after a good sleep, we went for an organic lunch in the neighbouring queen's park. we had soup, salad, rustic bread, pear juice and hand-made jam. all very healthy and pleasant. the sun was coming through the cafe's window kissing the orchids which were adorning the only table of the venue. we then joined steve for his historical birth-tour around the historical pubs of london. the first one, and my favourite, was Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese. the change of pubs and people coming and going at different times of the day conveyed diversity to this fun day. we ended our tour with jack the ripper walk, which took place between the old whitechapel and the city. although most of the places were completely different from 1888 and not very atmospheric (it is for this reason the From Hell was filmed in Prague), our guide was very graphyc in her descriptions and pointed out in several occasions that most of the jack the ripper films portrayed a romanticised (and so unreal) vision of prostitutes and the quarter. the tour ended in a narrow street, which is possibly the only one vaguely resembling the area in its original status. this is why every time i had passed through this alley i could not avoid associating it with jack. the guide gave us the option to look at a photo of his last victim to conclude the walk. most of us eagerly tried to discern the bones and flesh in the picture. creepy! but we were a cheerful group of 20 happy to carry on the celebrations in the dirty dicks pub as if nothing had been narrated to us. by that time we were all tired, cold and hungry, so a full pint helped us restore our body temperature. [p.s. it will be only the night after, in bed, when i was reflecting on the guide's words and got really weary...] that night, however, proceeded undisturbed at the kick bar in shroedritch where we played some table football (strange place: it resembles a traditional italian or possibly brasilian bar and is located in the middle of the trendiest part of london: all drugs, mod-style and rock 'n roll). at 4am we all realised that we were in need of food and decided to go... for a restaurant meal. all the vietnamese places we fancied were unusually closed, so we headed to brick lane for a (bad) curry (at that time of the night, or i should say morning, what do you expect?!).

the morning after hangover and tiredeness did not prevent ary and i to check out spitafield. so, armed with good (shopping) willing, we went back to the east-end. ary was positively impressed by the market and we spent a few good hours browsing the stalls before going back home.

dinner was offered by richard: a traditional english roast (lush) followed by a succesfull game at risk (i won!).

that night was a grim night though, not only haunted by the first serial killer in history but also by the sad thought that ary was leaving us the morning after.