AnneMarriott

It doesn't usually, Jane.  I'm wondering if someone had advanced this as a more acceptable explanation of the behaviour than lack of social sensitivity aggravated by alcohol, in order to defuse the situation.. The behaviour would be perfectly normal at a rock concert (so I'm told) so isn't an example of the sort of involuntary tics and vocalisations associated with Tourette's

Follow-up to Post No 1 above. Just got back from walking the dog to find my parcel on the doorstep. John Lewis rang me this morning to say they were going to chase up Hermes tomorrow and give me an update, so I've rung them to say it's not necessary and to say they've regained a few customer service brownie points to make up for the ones they lost on delivery service.

Well, Janet, at least it was for you.  I had the indignity of answering the door late one evening to find a courier asking if I would take in a parcel for next door.  When I remonstrated, and pointed out that I had been waiting for a parcel myself he didn't understand me - very little English.  Just to make sure my neighbours knew I had a parcel for them (the man didn't understand when I asked if her was going to leave a card) I went round to leave them a note myself, only to be confronted by the man and his colleague driving back down the road with ... a parcel for me!  And it was Yodel.  Amazon Logistics just as bad - presumably that's now Yodel?

... rivalled only by Yodel for the title of least effective courier service.  My parcel has been "out for delivery" since 5.35 am on Thursday.  I presume the van is taking the scenic route to make the 9.5 miles from the depot in Hayes.  My cunning plan to get round this non-delivery was to reorder and opt for "click and collect" and then return whichever arrived last.  But the items I ordered are now out of stock and there is an ominous absence of any reference to email alerts for new stock.  Thanks, Hermes, for making me sit in the house for two whole days, with the prospect of another two or more to come.  And thanks John Lewis for changing delivery service to Hermes.  If I'd known Hermes were going to be the courier I wouldn't have opted for home delivery!

Ah, so that's where they went!

Yes, sorry John - but it's the first time I've got any SCS for ages!

Yesterday was Period 3 (Spring) booking for Basic Friends.  Very quick and smooth.  No problems at all , apart from the lack of Stalls Circle Standing, or anything cheap for that matter, for the Four Ts mixed bill.   Not exactly a novel situation and I was delighted to get SCS for two casts of Fille!

My niece in the UK had a mortar board and gown WHEN SHE LEFT NURSERY!!!

AAAAAGH! 

P.S.  Having completely messed up my attempt at multiquoting, I should like to say thanks for the seasonal good wishes, Anjuli!

Multinational corporations come from many countries - including the UK - and they buy out the small local shops here, too.

 

Nativity scenes are under assault here, too.

 

Political correctness is striking out against religion and other customs and traditions here, too.

 

Whatever country is in the ascendent at any given time often swamps the local people in far away places.  From Persia to Greece, from Rome to  when the UK controlled an empire upon which the sun never set.  

 

This thread - the anger I read - has been an eye opener for me.  

 

I hope you have a wonderful Christmas and a Very Happy New Year.

What's happening with your nativity play, Anne? Don't tell me it's got lobsters and octopi like in Love Actually...

Multinational corporations come from many countries - including the UK - and they buy out the small local shops here, too.

 

Nativity scenes are under assault here, too.

 

Political correctness is striking out against religion and other customs and traditions here, too.

 

Whatever country is in the ascendent at any given time often swamps the local people in far away places.  From Persia to Greece, from Rome to  when the UK controlled an empire upon which the sun never set.  

 

This thread - the anger I read - has been an eye opener for me.  

 

I hope you have a wonderful Christmas and a Very Happy New Year.

You are right, of course, Anjuli.  But I maintain that some other customs, traditions and even religions are neither enriching or worthwhile.  I'm thinking of the Indian caste system with the Untouchables at the bottom of the pile, the demands for dowry and the awful fate of some brides whose families are unable to meet the demands, female genital mutilation, the denial of education to girls, some aspects of Sharia Law ... Of course fast food, coffee shops, proms and the rest of it are small beer by comparison, but they are really not enriching as far as I am concerned.

What's happening with your nativity play, Anne? Don't tell me it's got lobsters and octopi like in Love Actually...

Well no seafood as far as I know, but a spider, certainly.  But that is pretty harmless - I'm sure there must have been spiders in the stables!  It's the introduction of characters like Wayne Rooney (footballer), and having the angels and shepherds doing Bollywood-style song and dance routines that I find inappropriate. I wouldn't expect to see a small Imran Khan singing Away in a Manger in a Pakistani children's play, either.  On the politically correct side, the headmistress of an infant school appeared on one of those early morning news shows informing us that 'last year our Nativity play was "Midwife Crisis" in which the midwife who delivered the baby (Jesus) was the star of the show'.  It seemed wrong on so many fronts!  

I don't feel enriched at all while watching my country's heritage being steamrollered by multinational corporations.

Absolutely!  It is one thing to enjoy the philosophies, food and festivals of other cultures but quite another to be swamped by things like fast food joints, coffee shops selling hot drinks that taste of anything but coffee, school proms, trick or treating and the like.  And one aspect of "cultural diversity" that has had me reeling this week is the effect on innocent little nativity plays.

And just when I thought we had survived Black Friday, my email inbox is full of "Cyber-Monday-25% off"-type messages.

The ROH website is offline all day Sunday (30th Nov). Someone at the Box Office mentioned that there was to be a radical re-vamp.

Oh dear!

Thanks for the information everyone.  Not sure Black Friday is really useful in view of what seems like back-to-back sales throughout the year.  And I certainly hope we don't import Thanksgiving too!

On a personal note of thriftiness, I always buy Christmas wrapping,  crackers, tree decorations etc. immediately after Christmas - W.H. Smith amongst others sells off this year's stock at half price and they're just as good next year!  And stocking fillers, too ...

Sorry to be an ignoramus but what is Black Friday?

An odd evening, yesterday - well part-evening if I'm gong to be accurate.  Didn't read the programme notes before the performance so only got some of the allusions in the Brandstrup.  But I found it intriguing enough to want to see it again.  I enjoyed it rather a lot, although felt sorry that Watson had rather a background role. Lovely designs, very evocative of the North Sea - which is grey, as I knew only too well in childhood.  And I enjoyed the choreography.

Sorry to say Age of Anxiety, for which I had high expectations, left me cold.  Splendid set designs and some brilliant performances by the excellent cast, but I didn't "get" any of it, including the score - forgive me Bernstein! - especially the end which seemed redolent of the Born Free big tune, and not in a good way. Quite what we were supposed to take away from the narrative, or theme, I still do not understand, even though I have now read the programme notes.

Left before Aeternum.  Wasn't looking forward to it, having not remembered anything about it from last time round - In fact the only thing I thought I did remember, the designs, turned out not to be from Aeternum at all, judging from the photo in the programme.  But after the disappointment of Age of Anxiety my other half and I called it a day.

Next week we'll be seeing the programme again with different casts.  Perhaps it will be an opportunity to reconsider ...

I'm with Aileen about Aeternum on this (sorry Dave and everyone else who loves it).  I saw it twice last time round and simply can't remember a thing about it except possibly the backdrop.  So it obviously didn't do it for me. 

There's this weird concept called "rent of ability".  It explains, or rationalises, the uncomfortable fact that a footballer or singer earns far more than, say, a nurse or fire fighter, despite the latter being arguably far more valuable to society.  And the footballer or singer doesn't even have to be particularly good, either - they just have to have some indefinable quality that makes them attractive to the public. Bur David Beckham is or was a good footballer, and Victoria Beckham is not the only singer of average talent who married a footballer and took his name. 

Heaven knows there are examples of celebrities who get a lot of money for being (to my eyes) unprepossessing, crass, foul-mouthed ignoramuses (ignorami?).  Whatever the injustices of the Beckhams' success and wealth, they don't appear to represent any negative characteristics.

Haha you guys made a difference! They did in fact fix it. Last Wednesday when (foreign-visitor-me) got there I was indeed dismayed by broken taps and no soap. By Friday there standalone soap dispensers, by Saturday there were new handles and freely flowing soap! (and some extra dispensers just in case.)

Hurrah! Thanks for the update.  In fairness I should point out that there were some freestanding soap dispensers some time ago - but they soon disappeared.  Could they have been filched, I ask myself.  Anyhow, I hope to enjoy the improved facilities on Friday ...

I've often suspected that the person who dreamed up the idea of the Euro had no intention of it being used by economies as diverse as Germany and Greece - I assume it was intended (although I'm sure not stated out loud at the time) that one large federation of non-sovereign member states would need one currency, and that the situation of having a single currency for a bunch of diverse countries would be such a shambles that it would lead to the federal Europe of the bureaucrats' dreams because the alternative wouldn't be tenable. I wonder if they ever thought that it would backfire so spectacularly (with the help of the US banking meltdown) that a breakup of the EU might be the more likely outcome than the United States of Europe.

 

I've noticed, during trips home, how things seem to be getting less European (and, unfortunately, more and more Americanised). It seems to be more common now than 20 years ago to see pounds, ounces, pints, acres, feet, and inches. And we never did swap miles for kilometres. Nowadays the most stubborn holdout seems to be the use of the centigrade thermometer rather than the Fahrenheit one.

Well of course that would be a spectacular case of putting the cart before the horse.  What a shame the people responsible couldn't foresee that the horse would shy and back away in a panic, trampling over everything in its path, because of course the poor thing couldn't see where it was going. 

As for the Americanisation of the U.K., I'm agin it too.  But just because I don't want to be forced into an American box it doesn't mean I want to be forced into a pan-European one, especially one with such dubious claims to democracy and transparency.

From the point of view of a confirmed Eurosceptic, the EU was sold to the U.K. as a sort of grand free trade agreement.  It has since morphed into a far more complex arrangement and I wonder whether the vote to join, or in the subsequent referendum to remain a member, would have carried if we had known how it would evolve. I even remember Edward Heath saying, after he had retired from active politics, that "it was always intended that the European Common Market would become an all-encompassing federation".  A pity he didn't point that out at the time.

I suppose one is either in favour of being part of a federal system, or one is not, but regardless of the principle of the thing I doubt if anyone can be really happy with the present situation.  The accounts are a disgrace.  So is the waste of money involved in the lumbering bureaucracy and the remuneration and expenses for MEPs.  A shameful few of the British population vote in the European elections and even fewer, I suspect, can name their MEP or state the party to which they belong.  How many of us know the European parties with which our national parties are aligned?  For most of us it would seem that dissatisfaction or anger over rules about employment, immigration, deportation of convicted EU criminals, the size and shape of fruit and vegetables and now it seems the strength of our vacuum cleaner motors is the main effect of membership.  Meanwhile we have alienated some of the Commonwealth countries because of EU trade restrictions. 

The general view seems to be that we can't go it alone.  And certainly the overseas global conglomerates (Japanese car industry, U.S. financial sector to name but two) seem to want us to stay as a sort of "all areas pass" into European markets.  But we're paying a terribly heavy price - and I don't just mean the £1.7 billion additional charges.  Sometimes I wish I were Swiss or Norwegian ...

And to add, as a final point - whoever dreamed up the idea of the Euro and thought that a single currency would work for economies as diverse as Germany and Greece must have been mad.

Edited to add final point.

And have a look at your hands next time you put them in an Airblade.  It's not a pretty sight.  I can't work out if that applies to younger women too or not.

 

.

Well it certainly applies to me, Alison - and thank you for letting me know that I'm not alone.  I've never thought to glance at a younger woman's hands - perhaps next time...

On the question of paper towels versus hot air hand dryers, I prefer paper towels.  I don't care for the noise or the sensation of the hot air kind, not the queues mentioned by MAB.  I remember my father once suggesting that an addition be made to the instructions for use of hot air dryers:

1.  Shake excess moisture from hands

2.  Rub hands gently in hot air stream.

His addition was:  3.  Wipe hands on trousers or tie.

On Tuesday I was dismayed to find the main ground floor ladies' lavatories in a worse state than usual.  One door had a broken lock (not at all unusual), two taps had no handles, there was no liquid soap in any of the dispensers and there were no paper towels in any dispensers either except for the two where there is a large wall mirror but no handbasin..  So having attempted to pee with my foot against the door to stop any unwanted incursions, I then had to find a basin at which to wash my hands (without soap) and walk around until I could locate a paper towel, disturbing the women doing their hair and makeup. I caught the eye of another woman who shrugged and we shared a "Can this be the Royal Opera House?" moment. I suppose I should be grateful that there was at least paper in the unlockable cubicle.  But goodness knows what any foreign visitors make of it all.

I'm afraid that the purpose of being a Friend is not to be able to get the best tickets but to support the Royal Opera House and its works.

Well that's what they always say, of course.  But I seriously doubt if most Friends of all levels would sign up without the incentive of advance booking.