Rev Stan's blog

Hi neighbors. I've moved my blog to TypePad. You can now visit me at http://revstansfilmblog.typepad.com/revstanstuff/. You can follow me on TypePad by visiting my profile. See you there! Please stop by sometime or if you are also moving to Typepad then please wave and I'll follow you.

Can't say I'm surprised by the news that Vox is closing. The writing has been on the wall for some time - inability to address spamming issues adequately, slow demise of QoTD etc.

I'll be sad to see it go though because this is my first ever blog, I've learnt a lot in using it and it holds a lot of memories for me. And I've also met, in the cyberspace sense, some really great and interesting people whom I hope will, as I am going to do, transfer to Typepad.

I feel a bit guilty that I've neglected this blog a little in recent months - the birth of the twins: Theatre and Film over on Typepad (boy am I glad I chose Typepad* as platform for those) has taken up rather a lot of my time. But I'm hoping that once Rev Stan Vox is settled in over there they'll all play nicely together and become one big happy family.

Really hope that those of you in my neighbourhood who do occassionally drop by and look at my pics and read my ramblings will be making the move also and will still stop by.

* Two of the reasons I chose Typepad for my new blogs is that it is easier for casual readers to comment but also easier to control spam.

August has seen some particularly poo weather - even for England. In fact it has been so cool and wet, tights even made a reappearance for the Rev Stan wardrobe this week. Tights! In August! I'm still in shock as you can tell from the exclamation marks. Here's another one just to make the point!

As a consequence there hasn't been a great deal of point in taking the camera out. Today the forecast was for more settled weather but it was gloomy so camera stayed at home once again. But when I emerged from a basement restaurant in Soho with my friend Kate, after eating half our body weight in ribs, to find newly drenched pavements but beautiful blue skies I was glad to give my new baby an opportunity to perform.

Just been watching the slightly above mediocre Adventureland (really would like to see Kristen Stewart pulling off a different performance some time) and this played over the end credits.

10 Don't Change

INXS were probably the first band I was truly crazy about as a teenager (Duran Duran was pre-teen). I got into them quite early in their career but didn't get to see them live until they went mega with Kick. I got my brother, the artistic one, to paint the logo from the album across the back of my denim jacket. I thought I looked sooo cool. (Still have the jacket somewhere, saved for an 80s themed fancy dress, I'll dig it out sometime and post a pic)
Don't Change is from one of there very early albums Shabooh Shoobah which I used to have on cassette. Sadly my cassette player is long gone, as are my cassettes....Great song though.

Bit o' lunch for Mrs Squirrel, originally uploaded by Rev Stan.

This little beauty I managed to capture while strolling across St James' Park on my way home on Thursday afternoon. OK so cards on the table, I'd had to use the loo and the attendant was standing in the doorway feeding this beautiful mummy squirrel. With nobody else around she was quite content to just eat and have her photo taken. (More piccies over on Flickr).
But this was towards the end of Thursday, my slightly chilled day, having had a nice massage at Relax and then treated myself to tea and cake at the fabulous Mrs Murengo's or rather raspberry and chocolate truffle cake and green tea. All gluten and dairy free, yum, yum, yum in my tum.

Mrs Murengo's magical raspberry and chocolate truffle cake

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Slight cheat by combining two days in one post but Tuesday was overcast so I didn't fancy going out with my camera. Instead I went to the cinema to see the latest installment in the Chanel story: Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky which I wrote about over on my film blog.
Then in the evening I headed over to West London to see the European premiere of a new play by Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Suzan-Lori Park at the tiny pub theatre the Finborough which I've written about on my theatre blog.
Sooo that was Tuesday and on to yesterday.
Weather forecast was a bit more promising so I headed up into town to visit the Banqueting House on Whitehall. Pass it all the time but have never visited. It's in the care of the Royal Palaces being the only remaining building of the Palace of Whitehall which Henry VIII had built. There isn't actually anything left from Henry's original Palace but BH dates from James I who had it built on the site.
There is only one room to look around but, wow, what a room. It was built for ambassadors' receptions and masques which were lavish part theatre/part ball affairs. The partying came to an end though when James commissioned painter Reubens to create a series of pictures for the ceiling at a cost of £3,000 (bear in mind that was an phenomenal amount of money back in the C17th) and didn't want them messed up.
The paintings are significant also because they symbolise the extravagance and lavish lifestyle of Charles who was to earn the wrath of Parliament and spark civil war. He was beheaded on a scaffold built outside the Banqueting House and accessed from just outside the room with the beautiful paintings he spent so much money on.
All very interesting and educational.

Not sure whether the world outside the UK has heard about the new bike hire scheme in London introduced by Mayor Boris Johnson. If not, just a quick recap, we now have hundreds of hire bikes docked all over central London. You have to register to use them and get given a little key which undocks them. The first half an hours use is free.

Anyway, it was only a matter of time before someone tried this. Oh and the place where he is trying out the Boris bike is the bike/skate park on the South Bank which I have been know to photograph on occasions.

A combination of replenishing holiday savings, never having had any more than a day or two off at home during the summer (or what passes for one here) and my deputy about to go off on maternity has led me to deciding on a week's staycation.
Not one for doing too much practical stuff around the home, I want to make the most of London visiting exhibitions and museums and of course going to the theatre and cinema. And as I'd normally keep a journal on holiday thought I'd keep up the tradition here.
So yesterday was technically my first working day off and I had some theatre tickets to buy. I've already got a ticket for a new play at the wonderful pub theatre the Finborough, for Tuesday (technically tonight now) but I got some theatre tokens for my birthday which I save for those specially selected expensive West End plays I really want to see, to help keep the cost down.
So first stop was the Old Vic in Waterloo to pick up something for their production of Noel Coward's Design for Living at the beginning of September (love a bit of Noel Coward).
Then as I was in that part of town I walked over to Tate Modern. Ok, so I'm going to confess, I have this thing which a friend has so appropriately labelled 'bladder leash' which basically means, owing to having a bladder the size of a walnut, I plan my routes according to where I know there are loos. I wasn't planning to actually go to the Tate Modern but I needed a comfort break and knew they could oblige.
And I'm glad I did head there because they have a great exhibition on at the moment called: Exposed - Voyeurism, Surveillance & the Camera which I decided to stop and see.
It explores photography in which the subjects are unsuspecting, a lot of great candid stuff of people just going about their own thing. There are also rooms devoted to the voyeuristic elements of photography with some moving pictures from wars including that famous one from Vietnam of the girl running crying naked away from a bomb.
It's well worth the £10 entry fee and really inspiring. In fact I came out and immediately started trying to take pictures of unsuspecting subjects:

So then I had a fuel stop and headed over the lovely Millenium Bridge:

Millennium Bridge taken from Tate Modern balcony

My intention was to visit St Paul's as it's been years since I went inside and I thought it would have some great photo opportunities. However, when I got there I discovered that you have to pay to go in and photography isn't allowed so decided to leave it for another time.
Using my brand new iPhone to check the easiest route, I sort of planned to head over to the Renoir cinema to catch a film but the Dickens Museum marked on the google map caught my eye. It's only five minutes walk from where I work and I discovered it on a lunch time stroll ages ago but have never visited. So I checked opening times and headed over.
It's a relatively small museum based in the house he lived in for two years when he was newly married. He wrote Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby there and it's definitely worth a visit if you are a fan of his books or just interested in the man himself.
I particularly like the room about his many female friends. I get the impression that Dickens was a bit of a romantic despite having had his heart broken in his youth.

Dickens Museum, London

The final thing on my day's agenda was to see if I could get a ticket to see All My Sons which has been getting rave reviews. It's another theatre-token show and definitely one for popping to the box office in person to see if there are any decent single seats left. Really want to see it this week and as luck would have it there was seat available for the front row for tomorrow night.
It probably means I'll be sat virtually underneath the stage and have to scoot right down in my seat to save my neck but I'd much rather that than be on row M and have a fat head blocking my view and not be able to see the actors faces.
Naturally I'm very excited:

Pleased with my first day's staycation activities and feeling rather weary it was time to head home. By the time I got there I'd clocked up over 12km on my pedometer, no wonder I was tired.

What would you do with a million dollars?

Well that is about £640,000 at the current exchange rate so after I'd gone out and treated myself to a Philip Treacy hat, I would buy the rest of my flat (it's shared ownership) and pay off the outstanding mortgage. Then I'd spend a bit of money on it, a new bathroom, kitchen and flooring throughout. Then I'd rent it out.

The rest of the money would hopefully be enough to buy myself a two-bedroom flat a little closer into town than where I am now and live mortgage free.

Not that I've thought about it much.

I'm definitely not happy, originally uploaded by Rev Stan.

Spent a few days up north with my friend Chris for her wedding.

Chris has a cat called Billy. Billy likes routine. Billy especially likes his 'mummy', Chris's husband-to-be.

So he was not best pleased that hubby was away for the night before the wedding and told us so at frequent intervals during the night after tapping at our doors, just to make sure we were awake.

And he certainly wasn't happy the next morning being in a house with an increasingly nervous and excited bride and maid of honour getting ready for the wedding but decided to save his display of disapproval for later.

"Ha! I'll teach them!" he thought to himself as he was sat on Chris' bed, when the house was finally quiet, and was then sick.

Happy Wedding Day from Billy so to speak.