On Wednesday, I got up at a reasonable time and checked out. Headed over to Paddington (the station, not the bear) to buy my ticket and stow my backpack for the day. That done, I took the tube down to Picadilly Circus and wandered around Soho looking for some lunch. After the Indian buffet (not terribly good, but not awful), I decided on my matinee. Today it was Death of a Salesman, and the performance was outstanding. I mean, it was really, really good. I cried twice. I had never seen the play, never read it. I only knew it was supposed to be the epitome of drama. Well, this performance delivered. The set kept moving around, while the actors were onstage. They’d actually walk along against the circular movement of one of the pieces, for example, and you would see them approach the kitchen of the house, for example, but they wouldn’t actually be moving from their location on stage. And the acting was just excellent. Brian Dennehey played Willy Loman. I really could see him essentially going crazy, being caught up in his past and not seeing a way out of the terrible situation he was in.
When I got out of the play, I felt somewhat adrift, emotionally drained. I stopped and got a smoothie to try to come down a bit. Headed back over to Picadilly Circus and over to the 6-story Waterstone’s they have there. (A giant bookshop.) And then I went made my way to Paddington and caught the 19:35 to Plymouth. There was a terribly annoying girl who got on at the first stop. She was either listening to Eminem on her headphones loud enough that everyone in her half of the car could hear the beats, or else she was jabbering on her cellphone about the texts she exchanged with some chav. Eventually I got fed up with it and put on the new Dredg album. (Brilliant, by the way. I’ll put a track up on SOW once I get home.)
For the past few days I’ve been reading Master and Commander, the book the movie was (half) based on. It was written in the 20th Century, but you wouldn’t know it to read the speech patterns of the characters, or to see the depth of knowledge the author has of naval terms. He was pretty free with them in the first two chapters, and didn’t bother to explain was a ratline or a top or a topgallantyard or a shroud was. But all that was covered in chapter three, in a rather ingenous way, so I’m quite well versed by now.
Arrived in Exeter at 10:15. Brian was waiting for me, which was very kind of him. We drove to his house and I ate a little soup. We talked for a bit, but I was quite tired, so we went to sleep pretty soon after. I thought I was going to get up aroudn 9, but it ended up being 11:20. Brian and I went driving in the afternoon. Went round to Ruth’s work to drop off some lunch first, then drove up to the border of Dartmoor and went biking for a bit. (I shouldn’t have worn boxers [d’oh!], but it wasn’t a tragedy.) The scenery was beautiful. The very definition of bucolic on one side, and wonderfully desolate on the other. Saw a few tors on the moorland.
Now we’re back home, after stopping at Waitrose (a Whole Foods-type supermarket) to pick up food for the next few days. And now Brian and Ruth are waiting for me in the next room; dinner will be on shortly.
I’ll blog some more later.
