Something Fishy

This started off as not a great day. I went out for a meeting this morning and returned home in the pouring rain after lunch intending to do around two hours of work before meeting someone in the evening. So I got home to find I'd forgotten my keys. I called Cyclops to see if he had hidden a key anywhere about the place and he said no. I reminded him where I thought he might have hidden one and he said yes maybe he had. So I checked (which involved climbing to height, and mud, still in the rain) but in fact no key. I had a load of stuff that I was carrying so I posted it all through the letterbox and then went back to town.

Now it is all very nice to get an unexpected afternoon off but my first choice would not have been to spend around two hours returning home, messing around, and then going back into town whilst getting very rained on. Plus I thought I might have some work things to deal with on an email address that doesn't come in to my phone. Which was running out of battery anyway because I'd been playing online scrabble on it on the bus. Grr. So I went to some Fringe shows and that was all fun.

Fringe Show 14: Mabbs & Justice: Love Machine (3*)
This was a sketch act, set up as a presentation about a dating agency and with two guys playing several charcters. The ending was pretty dark which I liked. And one of them took his top off, which I also liked.

Fringe Show 15: Yours, Isabel (4*)
This was a play about a couple from the USA and how their courtship played out during WWII - starting from being apart during basic training to deciding to marry, to how she should act as a married woman living alone during the war and how things might change when he came home. There was a lot of depth to both characters and their struggle to align their values, and it was bittersweet and at times difficult to watch as Isabel realised she could follow her dreams of having a job and living in New York but was stifled by expectations of giving it all up when her husband returned.

Fringe Show 16: Richard Herring: What is love anyway (4.5*)
I like the way Richard Herring (pictured) looks at the world. He is able to philosophise and make connections in a way that most people don't. The things he says and the points he makes are often contraversial and thought-provoking and I love that he brings this kind of thinking to a wider audience. This time he was talking about love, in all its shapes and forms. The whole thing felt like it lasted about 20 minutes (although was an hour) and the excerpts from his teenage diaries were hilarious and the section about his gran was poignant. Very good.