Every now and then my old friend, Anthony, invites me to some wondrous deal of an event that he’s unearthed in London and usually I can’t go. This evening I could: Aida at the Coliseum. As a young thing I was told about camels on the stage (I think that must have been at Giza) and I’ve wanted to see Aida ever since. Well, obviously no camels at the Coliseum in London but plenty of other unexpected oddities. Probably to try to communicate the idea that issues of love, power, nationhood, loyalty and honour are universal, the costumes were eclectic: Greek soldiers in white skirts, turquoise cummerbunds and leopard-skin hats; some camouflage with machine guns; a little bit of CRS from Paris in 1968; and was that a hint of North Korea over there? All topped by even odder headgear. I found it distracting and a bit ridiculous. Surely the audience can be trusted to universalise a performance if the emotion comes through? Except that mostly it didn’t. I loved hearing that magnificent music superbly performed but my emotions were sound asleep with my banned camera at my feet. I much preferred the lusciously lit simpler set and costumes that appeared for one scene after the interval.

But hey, who cares? Live music! Yay!

The picture is Anthony with my friend Fatma as we had a bit of a pre-performance blip-hunt in atrocious light.

Earlier in the day Anthony and I went for a wander round Brixton where we shared a flat long ago. Chamaeleo recently blipped a picture of the gentrified market which I found hard to reconcile with my memories so I wanted to see for myself. There are some lovely cafes and eateries for Brixton’s ‘gentry’ (i.e. young people with jobs) but I was thrilled to bits to see a couple of lidded Ghanaian fish baskets (extra). 40 years ago they used to arrive in the market stuffed with salt fish and with British Caledonian airline labels tied to them. The stall-holders were delighted if someone would pay a few pence to remove a couple of emptied baskets from the pile and the ones I removed back then have served me until a few months ago. Once aired they made good laundry baskets and much later, as they began to disintegrate, were useful for holding the kindling that they were becoming.