Rosuav's Ramblings

The world is full of Charlieocracies

2011-11-18T19:36:00.001+11:00

Every now and then, Neddie Seagoon is referred to (usually by Grytpype-Thynne) as a Charlie. It's a word that teems with hidden meaning... well, not so hidden really, except that Seagoon doesn't figure out what it means. For the benefit of readers without a higher education in BBC Radio Comedy, a Charlie is a chump, a patsy, someone who can have tasks foisted upon him. (It should be noted that the term is not gender-specific; there are female Charlies too.)

In this world, we have many types of government represented. At the political level, someone can be given power through a mandate from the masses, or heredity, or even a farcical aquatic ceremony (though that one is getting rather rare these days). Heads of corporations are appointed by boards of directors or shareholders' meetings. And heads of non-profit organizations are elected at Annual General Meetings of their members.

Or are they? What happens when there's one candidate for President, one for Vice Pres, one for Secretary, and only as many (or not as many) as vacancies for other members? That's when you have a Charlieocracy. Instead of people being elected to positions, the positions are filled by whichever Charlies are willing to do the work. This is (usually) a compliment to the aforementioned Charlies, in that it means they're willing to do the work, but sometimes it can result in the wrong person in a position simply because nobody else stepped forward.

More and more non-profits are turning Charlieocratic. The good thing about that is that if you don't like the way something's being run, all you have to do is offer yourself - most Charlieocrats would be quite happy to take a break from the work to let someone else in for a bit! Plus, it's one of the best ways to become respected, and definitely the best way to get the inside information on what happens - do the work.

Find a community organization and join the worldwide Charlie Army today!

Mischans, and an idea for GMail

2011-11-06T11:51:00.000+11:00

From Wiktionary: mischan (pl mischans): a message posted accidentally to the wrong IRC channel.

When people have multiple communication channels available, it's inevitable that some message will be sent to the wrong one. Sometimes that's relatively benign (a public message that accidentally gets sent privately and needs to be resent), other times it's quite serious (a private message gets a wider audience, thus revealing secrets or making embarrassing statements). On MUDs, mischans are a part of life; Threshold RPG has an extensive thread on its forums dedicated to the funniest such events. In email, it's not nearly as common, but it is known.

I used to mischan quite frequently on Threshold - a consequence of having access to a large number of channels, and also having a tendency to snap off very quick replies. These days, I have just as many channels and snap off just as quick replies, but almost never mischan; but the solution applied does not conveniently translate to the alternate medium of email. Yet emails are just as easy to misdirect, and considerably more serious (everyone knows about the dreaded Reply All). I use GMail for all my mailing lists, for the threaded conversation view; it's excellent, but doesn't have any protection against mischans.

The solution is to make use of color. Train your brain to associate certain colors with certain topics or channels, and then any time there's a mismatch, the brain will instantly recognize it - before it's too late. Threshold RPG already has a feature for applying color to channels, but it applies only to what the server sends you; there's no way, normally, to change the color of your typed text. (Shameless plug ahead...) My MUD client, RosMud++, has a means of configuring the input color. From the Options|Color dialog, simply enter channel names and select the corresponding colors - and watch as your brain becomes accustomed to seeing text in the color it's going to end up. Unfortunately, it's not so easy with email.

I'll restrict the email issue to one common case: Mailing lists, managed by the popular Mailman software. Mailman powers myriad lists, including ones dedicated to the Python programming language, the operas of Gilbert and Sullivan, V8 (the Google JavaScript interpreter), MondoArchive, everything on lists.sourceforge.net ... a lotta little lists. It's a well-behaved mailing list manager; the emails it sends out have headers identifying the list, there's proper reply-to and from addresses, it's all very easy. Point to note: In a normal Mailman configuration, the default reply address is the single sender, NOT the list; and etiquette on most lists is to reply privately unless it's of definite interest to the list. It's therefore normal to hit Reply, type up your response, and then change the To address to be the list's (hitting Reply All will send a copy to the list and another to the sender, not usually the intended behaviour).

Two solutions recommend themselves. The first is to do the same as for the MUD; assign a color to each list, and get used to typing 'python' only for this color, and 'savoynet' only for that one. This requires quite a bit of configuration but could give excellent dividends. The other is to have a pseudo-address 'list' that can be used whenever you reply to an email, and which will send to the list address cited in the email header.

This isn't a different form of Reply button (Reply, Reply-All, Reply-List), although it could perhaps be implemented thus; it should be possible to send something to some address "and the list", where the latter is automatically filled in from the header. As a pseudo-address, 'list' could be permanently aliased to 'whatever the RFC 4021 header List-Post specifies', allowing the fingers to become accustomed to replying "to sender" or "to list" very easily. Fighting human nature is doomed to failure; working with the way the brain and fingers already want to work promises far more success.

We don't NEED all that design space

2011-09-02T06:43:00.000+10:00

Or, How Magic: The Gathering helps me at work

I fight for the users. -- Tron

At work, I'm a computer programmer; my job involves software and interface design. At home, I play M:TG, and enjoy reading Mark Rosewater's articles on game design. Every now and then, the two cross over and influence each other; one such example came up this week, so it's a good excuse to write something up (or write something down - isn't English a weird language) on the subject.

First, the Magic part. This is an article from late last year, discussing one of the mechanics from the then-new Scars of Mirrodin expansion set; and in discussing Metalcraft, the article explains many things about the nature of "threshold mechanics". But that's not the point of what I'm saying here. For that, read down as far as Lesson #2: There's A Sweet Spot.

If the ability had been written as "Metalcraft 3", then additional design space would have been opened up for cards with "Metalcraft 4" or "Metalcraft 2" or "Metalcraft 17" if R&D so desired. More flexibility is a good thing, right? Mark puts it better than I could: "We don't add a number, because there's no reason to open up future design space that we won't use."

In any design, be it a collectible card game, a web site, an automatic toaster, or a novel, this issue will always come up. We could number the pages of a book as "1+1", "2+1", "3+1", "4+1", etc, thus allowing ourselves to write books in the future where the page numbers increment by some other number. But this would be a bad decision, because we'll never want to do that, and it adds a completely unnecessary cost - complexity and mindspace. Every element that the user must grok takes up space in his/her mind.

With user-interface design, I have adopted the assumptions that the user:

Starts out knowing nothing about our system
Does not read the documentation
Won't click the crucial button that would have explained everything
Is in a hurry, and
Has a very specific goal.

This hypothetical user must achieve his goal, or our system is a failure. There's little value in having a system that has infinite power if it takes two weeks to learn; most people just won't bother. So what can we do to ensure that the user can do what he's trying to do?

Make our system similar to everyone else's. People can handle "log in by entering username and password", and "sign up with an email address, then click the link in the email we send you".
Ensure that the interface is itself intuitive, at least for straight-forward actions.
Make normal actions easy (and unusual actions possible). Don't force the user to click twenty different links to find the one that does what most people will want first off anyway.
Keep the screen uncluttered.

It's that last one that I want to focus on. Going back to the page numbering example: Suppose that you opened up your favorite document editor (Open Office, Microsoft Word, DeScribe, whatever) and said "New Document". Instead of just giving you a page in which you can start writing your latest novel, it asks you a series of questions (imagine this in the most annoying wizard ever):

What color do you want your paper to be?
What font would you like the acknowledgements page to use?
By what number should the page numbers increase?
Should the text color alternate on left/right pages?

Are these questions you need to answer before you see your document? No. They're just clutter; and even if they're pushed off to a "Document Options" screen, #3 and #4 should not even be asked. When you design a communication protocol, don't make every single element capable of having multiple values, just because someone might maybe want to put a second source port into his TCP packet. When you design a device for humans to use, don't go to great lengths to ensure that it can be used by someone who stands five meters high.

Everyone wants to make powerful software. Hey look, not only can you do this, but you can do this and this and this too! In every design discussion, somebody needs to fight for the users. Yes, that means dumbing it down. It's the right thing to do.

Travelog part 4

2011-08-25T05:48:00.001+10:00

10:41pm. Flight was due to depart 21:00, but at least we're sitting in the plane now. Looks like we'll be departing two down... two hours, that is. Fortunately it's not hard to catch up some time across a seven hour journey; we'll see what time we land in Dubai. Still have no idea what the cause of the delay is, but frankly, I'd rather have a delayed departure than some of the, uhh, oddities that we saw in US domestic flights.

10:51pm. Michael and I attempt to sync our ices to watch Dawn Treader together. We mused earlier today as to whether or not it would be more fun if these systems had a "show me what seat B9 is seeing" feature; it'd spoil the fun of syncing, but it would be easier to watch movies together.

10:53pm. Captain's announcement hints that the delay was due to a safety issue, but doesn't say what. Another announcement a bit later has some electronic screech in the background, so one of the cabin crew goes forward to give the captain some feedback feedback.

10:59pm. Pushback.

11:20pm. The optional, but very much enjoyable, part of flying. The mandatory part is scheduled for six hours from now, which implies that we'll be catching up an hour during the journey.

01:54am. The modern Voyage of the Dawn Treader movie is pretty good, as long as you like modern movies and have never read the book. Otherwise, not so much.

05:10am. This flight is supposed to have mobile phone support, but I've been unable to get to it with my 3G stick from England, my pocket wifi from home, nor Michael's phone. None of them get signal. It's very disappointing, Dame Hannah. Oh well. We're now descending, so I'll try the whole thing again on the next leg - if the option's there. Oh, and I forgot to get out the green cable to try the ethernet port, although it didn't do me much good on the outward trip.

05:38am. Landed - local time 08:38am. We were due to land at 07:05 local time, which means we've caught up a good half hour - but we're still quite late. Not a problem to us personally, but two passengers are moved to the very front of Economy to facilitate a hasty transfer, and the captain apologizes to us all. I'm still curious as to what delayed us two hours. Pulling in to the terminal is delayed somewhat too - possibly we've lost our path.

06:52am. Whoops, forgot to post while I had wifi. We're now boarding for the non-stop leg Dubai to home. Time to reset clocks to Melbourne time; it's now 3:52pm. (There goes most of Wednesday. No wonder we're landing on Thurs after taking off on Tues.)

04:11pm. Had some trouble fitting our stuff in the overhead lockers, but two rows ahead is a family that seems to have crammed four people into three seats or something, so the cabin crew have done some rejigging and are moving them southward. We may now have a bit more room upstairs.

04:33pm. Pushback. You'd think that after a century of commercial flight we'd have sorted this out, but it still takes a long time to get planes into and out of the air.

04:47pm. Takeoff. The downward camera gives us a beautiful view of our own shadow in the moments after we leave the ground - first the nose, then progressively the whole aircraft.

06:57pm. The ethernet port is just as useless as on the outward journey. I wonder - maybe it's a NAT router that connects to a 10.* or 192.168.* network with no advertised DNS? Be hard to figure anything out without docs. I'd say it's an unimplemented feature, still.

11:40pm. A couple of suggestions for Emirates' ice system, which I'll be emailing them once I get an internet connection (which will probably be on landing in MEL). First, please change the font to one that properly differentiates 3 and 5 - the two are quite similar. And second, consider implementing the "show me what my friend is seeing" feature :)

02:24am. Crossing the coast at Geraldton, with ETA in under three hours. This is what happens when you don't have to accel out of Perth - cuts a whole hour off the flight time.

04:45am. Captain's just announced that we'll be descending soon. According to the map, we've only just passed Adelaide. Australia's a big place, but we're moving at quite a clip... and we're still enjoying 200km/h tail winds. In spite of departing Dubai somewhat late, we're going to be landing in good time - about ten minutes early, even.

05:48am. HOME!! Just waiting for David to find his bag.

Delays, delays...

2011-08-24T07:09:00.000+10:00

Hello folks of world! This is Ned Seagoon folks, blogging to you live from Manchester!

Our flight was due to depart at 21:00. It's now 22:00 and we haven't even started boarding. The final call for passengers went out a while ago; we've all had our boarding passes scanned, and are in a checked-in state and merely awaiting the readiness of the plane. Emirates staff have come round a few times with bottled water, juices, nibbles, and such, but we still don't know what time we'll be boarding, much less taking off. Fortunately we have a three-hour connection in Dubai; I very much doubt we're going to have trouble with that.

There's no GPO handy to any seat, but Michael's phone is still happily connected on 3G, and is providing wifi to all our devices. There's just been an announcement saying that there's nothing to announce, but stating that connections will be sorted out once we take off - or, putting it another way: Henry can't go, it's a guaranteed connection!

Returning home from Buxton

2011-08-24T04:18:00.002+10:00

After some final mess to deal with regarding the crate of G&S Society things being shipped home (and with many thanks to Neil, Oliver, and Amy(?) for a chance encounter in the Octagon), we're finally ready to leave. We've said our goodbyes, there's nothing left on the to-do list, and all we have to do is make our way to Manchester Airport. Cinderella is in half an hour, which is good as our bus appears to be running late (it was due here five minutes ago and has only just arrived);
it's going to be a long trip. Fortunately we're well rested, having not just finished our show!

With a long trip ahead of us and no wifi, this is as good a time as any for a run-down of Buxton vs Melbourne. What have I most enjoyed here, and what am I most looking forward to back home? In Gustha Ebbastodder order.

Buxton:
* Meeting random people on the street and having something in common with them. We can trade G&S quotes with all sorts of people here.
* A G&S every night. Duh. :) And the whole Festival Fringe, where we and several hundred other people enjoy in-jokes and metahumour based on G&S. Related to the above.
* Unmetered fast downloads. I've been torrenting heavily while we've been here.
* Freedom to do things on a whim, without needing to schedule it around everything. I've been megging a lot of nights.
* Being of value to the Festival organizers.
* The small-town atmosphere. Quite a few people came to recognize us, and I don't think that's just because we're Aussies.
* Walking home with people like Jackie Mitchell after the Festival Club.
* Thorntons Chocolates
* Rambling conversations with awesome people like Robyn Pidcock, the BOH theatre techs (note, there is no F in there), and the Smiths
* Belle's Heaven
* No mosquitoes or cicadas!

Melbourne:
* Thea! I can't wait to see my darling sister again. And I know she'll be as delighted to see me.
* Casey. There's no convenient piano where we're staying - or anywhere else, pretty much. I made use of the Octagon's while waiting for the truck, but that's about it. I do like being able to just sit down and play something. Same with the church organ, too.
* Reliable internet connetions. Actually, it's probably no more reliable than here, but we've already solved all the issues at home, so it "just works". Also, I have control of the routers, so again, things "just work".
* Being of value to the nuclear family.
* The benefits of suburbia - convenient public transport, for instance.
* Pedestrian crossings that don't sound like alarms.
* Sweet As's chocolates
* Church services that are based primarily on the Bible, not on social gospel (three Angelicos discussing stuff isn't really church, although it is of interest)
* The whole family there to share in joys and pleasures
* No rain. Yeah, I know we do need rain (aye, sorely), but it does get inconvenient when you're out in it!
* My favorite skillet - with a lid. Frying sausages without a lid is so inefficient.
* Working fully in metric instead of the weird hybrid system found here

Every day, I learn something new, and do something productive. That's my rule. So far, I do not recall any day when I've failed to fulfil it. I'm not, by nature, one to express extremes of emotion; I don't tend to panic, fret, erupt in laughter, nor explode in anger; but through this whole trip, I cannot point to any time when I was dissatisfied or bored. Perhaps that says more about me than about Buxton, but certainly there has been much of delight and interest in these four weeks; I'm
glad to have come, and am looking forward to our next visit - whenever that may be - with hope and joy, but am also not sorry to be heading homewards.

Say goodbye - for the Festival is over

2011-08-21T22:02:00.000+10:00

Or: But now that it's all over, you may as well know the truth!

Or: It's over now, the music of the night!

Or: This seems as good a time as not to look around and write.

(Okay, better start writing content before I fill it up with subtitles.)

It's impossible to do justice to the G&S Festival in blog posts. There is something here that just can't be captured in words. Why, for instance, do we:

* Clock up hundreds of kilometers walking up and down and in and out, here and there and roundabout, looking for things that back home we know we can easily find?

* Volunteer to help carry scenery and costumes for the pro shows, shows that we have no connection with other than seeing them from the gallery?

* Rehearse our own show at very long hours, to the exclusion of other activities that we would have greatly enjoyed doing?

* Bump in and dress rehearse a show all in one day, with no time to fix up mistakes?

* Perform before a thousand people, knowing full well that one of them is going to come up at the end and tell us exactly where we did a bad job?

* Immediately after bumping in and performing, go to the Festival Club and perform even more?

* Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

Why do we? Because it's the Festival! There's no adequate way to explain this, it's just something that has to be experienced. But we do have some shareable happy memories, and looking around me here in my room at High Peak Halls, I can see quite a few things that are worth mentioning.

Claiming the attention right off is Steph's trophy for Best Female Voice. Since she already left, Ron Pidcock (as President) accepted it on her behalf, and we're couriering it home in our luggage. The base of the trophy has plates engraved with the names and shows of previous winners, including the mention that G&S Opera Victoria won this same award last time we came here (hi Lynlee!). I wonder what will be done in a few years' time, when the plate fills up.

The cup is sitting on top of two copies of the new Beauty Stone score. I've hardly had a chance to read through it properly, but I also haven't had a chance to tinkle it out on a piano so it's probably going to wait till we're home and with Casey again. (Why two copies? Well, we have a flautist at home too, and I think she and I might end up dueting... anyway, I wanted to be safe.)

Next to them is a tall pile of DVDs. Apart from a few that I'm couriering home for people, they're all ours. We only get DVDs of the really outstandingly awesome shows, so if you think that my reviews are aimed at mediocrity, let this adjust your opinion of my opinion of the shows.

Also sitting here is the full programme of the Opera House productions. We bought it at the very beginning of the Festival, and it has been through life my guide and monitor, allowing me to get everyone's names correct in my reviews (well, assuming the programme is itself correct - but nobody's yet complained). I don't go autograph-hunting, but i was talking with Simon Butteriss toward the end of the three weeks and he was signing a few people's programmes, so I asked him to sign mine too. :) This book was also instrumental in getting me to go to Scrivener's for the first time; I mightn't have made the time for that first visit if I hadn't seen their ad stating that they had a shelf dedicated to G&S. I'm so glad I went.

Under the programme are two framed certificates. The trophy cup is lent for one year and must be returned for next year's festival, but Steph gets a certificate to keep. Also, there's another one - to Michael and Chris Angelico, "in recognition of their contribution to the 2011 International Gilbert & Sullivan Festival". THAT is a trophy.

Speaking of trophies, this trip has been great for my IP trophy collection. But most people don't care about that.

Over in the corner, a collection of empty Thorntons boxes gives some idea of how much chocolate has been consumed here lately. It counts only the boxes that were emptied right here in this room, so add about as much again for the ones that went to rehearsal or performance and didn't come back. Yes, the chocolate definitely helps.

Sitting in a rough pile are my handwritten notes that become the show reviews. Michael's right that I try ever to be courteous to the mediocre, but I do try to say something about the superb in each production. Unfortunately it's not always easy to express myself adequately, without leaving myself open to the linguistic analysis that the Halls use. But these notes carry some extra, and rather subtle, information: if the comment is written tidily, there wasn't much happening on the stage; if it scrawls down the page in a horrid mess, then the stage had riveted my attention.

All this still does a poor job of capturing the "feel" of the festival, but meh, I just felt like writing something. So sue me. :)

18th International G&S Festival Awards: Results

2011-08-21T02:45:00.004+10:00

Presentations are made by Thomas Round (awards to individual ladies), Valerie Masterson (awards to individual men), and Gillian herself (group awards).

(* = winner)

International Champions
* South Anglia: Patience

Runners up
1. Derby: Princess Ida
2. Peak: HMS Pinafore

Best Chorus
* Derby: Princess Ida
Festival: Iolanthe
Peak: Pinafore

Best Supporting Actor
Sth Ang: Colonel
* Derby: Hildebrand (Michael Tipler)
(Missed the third nomination)

Best Supporting Actress
Savoynet: Peep-Bo
Sth Ang: Angela
* Trent: Phoebe (Jessica Nicklin)

Best Concerted Item
* Festival: Nothing Venture Nothing Win
Sth Anglia: If Saphir I Choose
Oxbridge: Quintet (?)

Best Male Voice
Oxbridge: Giuseppe
Peak: Corcoran
* South Anglia: Grosvenor (Adam Sullivan)

Best Female Voice
Oxbridge: Casilda
Derby: Melissa
* G&S Opera Vic: Elsie (Stephanie Gibson)

Best Character Actor
Festival: Lord Chancellor
Cambridge: Lord Chancellor
* Oxbridge: Duke of Plaza-Toro (Jordan Bell)

Best Character Actress
* South Anglia: Lady Jane (Anthea Kenna)
Peak: Hebe
Derby: Blanche

Best Musical Director
G&S Opera Vic: Richard Stockton
Derby: Ida: Andrew Nicklin
* South Ang: Patience: Stephen Kenna

Best Director
Derby: Ida: Andrew Nicklin
* South Ang: Patience: Shane Collins
Peak: Pinafore: Ian Henderson

Best Male Performer
Peak: Corcoran
Derby: Gama
* South Anglia: Bunthorne (Paul Tarrant)

Best Female Performer
Peak: Josephine
* Derby: Princess Ida (Austine Broad)
Festival: Phyllis

Best Animated Chorus
* Cambridge Iolanthe: Peers March
Festival Iolanthe
South Anglia Patience

Adjudicator's Award
Gilbert's dialogue. So impressed by this production - Gilbert's anniversary year. From this performance, clarity of diction
and dialogue, such respect - overwhelmed by that performance. Wanted to give special prize to the word.
* Festival Iolanthe: Tolloller/Mount/Chancellor

Most Traditional Opera
* Savoynet: Mikado
Festival: Iolanthe
G&S Opera Vic: Yeomen

Best Duet
* South Anglia: Jane/Bunthorne "So Go To Him"
Derby: Blanche/Melissa
Oxbridge: Casilda/Luiz

And at the end of the awards, a surprising one: to Michael and Chris Angelico, "In recognition of their contribution to the 2011 Inernational Gilbert & Sullivan Festival". Wooot!

G&S Opera Co: Utopia, Ltd

2011-08-20T14:45:00.002+10:00

As a lesser-known work, Utopia is generally considered hard to sell. In Buxton? Standing room only! With a superb lineup of principals, and the name "G&S Opera Co" on the heading, it promised to be rather excellent. And based on anecdotal evidence, extrapolating out from known data, and doing all those other horribly unscientific things, I deduce that 100% of audience members enjoyed the show.

Naturally, given the setting of the piece, the lighting was strong. Even the second act, set in the evening, was brightly lit - certainly far more than your average G&S night scene. The usual darkish corners of the stage were notably absent; whereever people went, they were illuminated. The set gave the appearance that we were in a largely wooden area, with a beach behind; although the semi-circular pieces could easily have been wheels of Dutch smoked cheese. Yes, I have a weird mind. But you knew that already!

As I said, a most promising lineup of names in the cast. Rebecca Bottone being still medically disqualified from singing, the part of Princess Nekaya was instead played by Beverley Werboys. She and her sister Kalyba (Catrine Kirkman), as very English schoolgirls, had lovely voices that unfortunately had trouble competing with the orchestra at times; otherwise, both were fun characters, particularly with their somewhat middle-aged suitors Dramaleigh (Barry Clark) and Goldbury (Bruce Graham). The contrast between the genuine English and the attempted Englishness created an entertaining tension, and never better than in the Drawing Room scene. The six Flowers of Progress (the aforementioned, plus Fitzbattleaxe (Oliver White), Corcoran (Stephen Godward), Bailey Barre (Martin Milnes), and Blushington (Simon Theobald)), in remodelling Utopia, were at once individual characters and a chorus; the latter being most notable in Society Has Quite Forsaken, in which six Flowers and King Paramount (Donald Maxwell) made a seven-person chorus of extreme precision but for the one who was always late - six Flowers moving in perfect synchronization, and the King eyeing them and doing his best to follow. The same was true of the First Lifeguards; one was always just one beat behind the others, although in that instance it may not have been for deliberate effect. But oh, such care they took of the Princess Zara (Deborah Norman) - delivering her to her father in an excellent condition of substantial and decorative repair - although I daresay stealing her heart doesn't quite come under "reasonable wear and tear". Her love duet with Fitzbattleaxe was beautifully sweet, though a trifle low - hard to hear them over the orchestra at times - and a lovely contrast to the comic ridiculousness of A Tenor All Singers Above, but handled just as well. It's no surprise that Zara's sisters were sent away from this pair; Lady Sophy (Jill Pert) would not have approved of such terrors on the high C's! A conscientious chaperone and dutiful governess, she had reason to be proud of her well-behaved charges; but more interesting was her relationship to the King, as we watch her understanding dawn in that second act scene where the truth comes out. (Oh so THAT'S why you didn't boil the author on the spot.) How disconcerting to have been one of the Wise Men, Scaphio (Simon Butteriss) and Phantis (Ian Belsey) - to be so thoroughly thwarted and so easily! Two comic geniuses, playing off each other both in character and out of character, with brilliant timing on their lines; and with the skill and stagecraft to know when to wait for the applause or laughter to die down before continuing. This was particularly noteworthy in the dialogue with the King, in which Scaphio pointed out that the editors of the Palace Peeper were being flogged publicly - which paused several times while we expressed our appreciation of the lines! But perhaps even funnier was the Public Exploder, Tarara (Richard Gauntlett), whose bang snaps sometimes didn't all go off - several times, one went off under someone's foot, several scenes later! Ah, life in Utopia could not be boring...

It's said that it's better to go out with a bang than a whimper. In more ways than one, the final show of the 2011 Festival (I'm being naughty and not counting the Pirates tomorrow night - it's the same Pirates that was performed at the beginning of the Festival) is closing with a bang.

Festival Production: Iolanthe

2011-08-18T11:45:00.000+10:00

Every show in the Festival opens with an overture, so it makes sense that this review open with a few comments about them. So far this year, I have not seen any shows with cheesy business during the overture; there's always been just the curtain with green warmers (and occasionally the house lights), and everyone listening in silence to the excellent Festival Orchestra which, night after night, has played superbly. In comparing one show to another, it's useless to discuss the overtures - no musical director has been so appalling as to be noteworthy - but in describing the Festival itself, they're delightful demonstration of the skill of the musicians; the material is perhaps familiar with them, but each conductor has his own style, and the orchestra gets only one run with each MD.

Iolanthe has a good share of superb music. It's been well represented in the community singing selections in the Festival Club; although we've only gone up on stage for the Peers March twice this year, down from about four or five times in the last festival we were in (two years ago). The title character's music is soft and beautiful. It needs to be played well, and this orchestra and tonight's conductor John Howells have handled it appropriately.

The aforementioned Title Character (Bryony Wilmington) has a lovely, sweet voice, although her diction did impact her audibility in the gallery. Her all-important second act scene was beautiful, as long as you already knew what she was singing; the attention of the Lord Chancellor (David Kay) was fixed on her at all times (she may have wanted to make more use of her veil though - I guess it's a magical one that doesn't need her to keep her hand at the level of her eye). The Chancellor's exteme energy was appropriately muted for that grand scene, but was in evidence at all other times - particularly during encores, of which we had a Gillian-satisfying half dozen - even to the consternation of his closest companions, the Lords Mountararat (John Colston) and Tolloller (David Brown). The co-leaders of the House of Lords, as inseparable as when they'd been boys together (well, one of them had), walked their minds through the maze of who was to destroy whom with passion and fervour and grace (okay, maybe grace isn't really what two noble peers would demonstrate, but close enough), with an utterly-bored Phyllis (Shelley Anne Rivers) upstage having a glass of wine with a robed peer of indeterminate party membership; if I'd been in her place, I would have just walked up to the backcloth and selected a book to read (c'mon, don't tell me you can't see the bookshelves in the depiction of that cityscape!), but apparently she's happy with the society of gentlemen who aren't totally fawning over her as they all were during the business of the day. This included her boyfriend at that time, too, and nastily probing the subject of mothers with Strephon (Anthony Mahon). He took it in his stride, casually explaining his mixed ancestry with an air of finality and a calmness that, oddly, corresponded to the way he was on their first meeting - a little enthusiasm would not go amiss. He does love Phyllis, although he's perhaps not the sharpest knife in the drawer - a little discretion in how he addresses his mother would have spared him a lot of pain (but we'd have missed out on the whole second act). In contrast, Private Willis (Ian Murray) talks less but has the brain and cerebellum too; and he has a good strong voice with which to deliver his thoughts to the audience. He's perfectly comfortable discussing his personal appearance with the Fairy Queen (Alison Davis), who is so taken by him that she breaks off her sentence as he walks in; all the fairies are impressed by him, but apparently they can do better - Celia (Victoria Goulden) and Leila (Holly Parker-Strawson) take the Lords Tollollerat for their money, and Fleta (Pauline Hepkin) waits until the very VERY end before pairing off (somewhat unexpectedly) with the Lord Chancellor's elderly page! It looked a little odd, with an unpaired Fleta downstage and several doubled-up "pairs" upstage, until she slipped into the wings and came back with her beloved.

Lighting tonight was handled skilfully. Subtle changes of mood, major changes of illumination, and also effects such as for Strephon's entrance, in which the fairies froze upstage in gloom while Strephon and Iolanthe conversed downstage in the light (actually, on the edge of the shadow, but that's insignificant), and a superb moment when the lights went down to a couple of cross lights for Phyllis's "For riches and rank I do not long" - she was right smack in the middle of the cross fire, in just the right spot when the lights changed.

Much has been said about cast having fun. I have no doubt that the members of this company had a lot of fun. And so did we.

G&S Opera Victoria: Yeomen of the Guard

2011-08-18T01:46:00.000+10:00

Oh, that's our show. I can't objectively blog about it. But this much I can say: Our Elsie (Stephanie Gibson) has a voice that's to fall insensible for.

Belle's Heaven

2011-08-16T00:53:00.001+10:00

Officially called Scrivener's Books & Bookbinding, to me it'll always be Belle's Heaven. Five floors of books, mostly old, with that "old book" smell all through; it's a lovely place to spend time. A lot of what they carry is first editions and such, priced appropriately, but there are some volumes that are more suited to a budget. I went up to the top floor, and I came down with something... no, not asthma from the dust (which isn't too bad, actually), but rather some books.

Behind the name "Scrivener's" is actually something like the story of Driver Bus Lines back home. Not only does "scrivener" have bookish meaning, but it's also the founder's name - Alastair Scrivener, who still runs the place.

I'm told that this is the busiest time of year for them (seems the G&S Festival brings quite a bit of custom to the place - the official Festival Programme contains an ad from them, and they have a shelf of G&S scores, libretti, and other books), but even so, there's never all that many people there at a time. It's easy to find delightful solitude in the upper reaches of this magnificent tower of books. Definitely a place that Belle would enjoy spending time with - has the character of her village's bookshop, but far more extensive (though not as huge as the Beast's library!). Scrivener's is a calm point of solitude, and would be even in a huge city.

Red Fire Productions: Foggerty's Fairy

2011-08-13T03:17:00.001+10:00

We will not allow our Foggerty to be presumed upon!

Or something like that. Anyway. Michael and I saw "Foggerty's Fairy" today, courtesy of a break in the rehearsal (that's like a break in the clouds, only instead of sunshine, you go to a place that's even darker). This is a play of Gilbert's that he did without Sullivan, and has an awful lot of dialogue between the songs... actually, I've yet to hear a song. Something about it not being a musical, whatever. Anyway. There's a lot of jokes in Foggerty's Fairy that Gilbert reused in subsequent G&Ses, so they're quite familiar to this audience; everyone's laughing at the lead-up rather than the punch line. The text bears Gilbert's hallmark humour and skilful writing, and the cast are rendering the jokes superbly. Energy, pace, and passion, all necessary to a strong performance, are in evidence among all those on the stage.

I can't do my usual run-through of the characters as I don't know the show at all, but the titular Fairy Rebecca (Naomi Webb) is a lot of fun, and the central Foggerty (David Jones) is maintaining a superb energy level throughout a long and unbroken performance. He's also a superb unrehearsed story-teller; throw anything at him and he'll weave it right into the story!

This is a very fun show, and one that ought to be less obscure.

Derby Gilbert & Sullivan Company: Princess Ida

2011-08-12T11:05:00.000+10:00

If I'd seen five thousand traditional Idas, this would have been a refreshingly new production; modernized, cleverly costumed, and with decent characterizations. Unfortunately, I get the feeling that I missed something; there's some concept here that I failed to comprehend - several of the principals appeared to have been costumed very specifically, presumably to ape somebody from popular culture or politics.

My reviews lately have been somewhat on the long side, so I will attempt to be a little more brief today. The songs were taken at a decent clip, although the dialogue sometimes dragged; vocal balance was excellent throughout, with beautiful alto lines clearly audible; the set was impressive. Diction was passable, but a lot of odd words were lost due to people singing upstage or facing across the stage, and in one sad moment, Melissa was all the way at the top of the set, and she was a veritable Strephon - invisible down to the waist, only her legs remained exposed to view.

Melissa (Alexandra Saunders) was an excellent performer, though; her drill sergeant work at the beginning of the third act ought surely to have satisfied her employer! But the strong Princess (Austine Broad) needed more than simulations to fight for her, and more than her excellent voice to defeat the invading forces. Her three brothers (Stephen Godward, Stephen Andrews, and Chris Hawksworth), wearing leathers with their "trusty blades" tucked into their boots, fought adequately enough against the three invading hordes Hilarion (Robert Jenkins), Cyril (Andy McPhee), and Florian (Alastair Maughan); rather than using swords, it was a boxing match, and the more agile Hildebrites overcame their adversaries. None of the words were changed, which meant that lines about swords were somewhat orphaned; Gama (John Torr) told them they would need no more than their tongues, even though they used no swords. Gama was quite thoroughly depicted as unpleasant, and played with the courteous nastiness that the role demands. On the other hand, Hildebrand (Michael Tipler) was a decent fellow, garbed in military uniform, and though he could be dangerous when crossed, he would be pleasant enough in his own court. So would Psyche (Roma Loukes), in Cyril's "court"; I have no doubt that he would enjoy her bubbly and fun personality. The Lady Blanche (Joan Self - were any jokes made in rehearsal about Blanche being played by "her Self"?), with free reign over the university, would undoubtedly have made more extensive use of their three display screens. Regrettably the center one was completely invisible to the gallery; I understand that it was used in A Maiden Fair Of Lineage High, but we didn't get to see any of it. In any case, they were of some significance to the lady undergraduates - a definite improvement over the usual setting of the opera, back in the years B.C. (before computers)!

One comment I'd like to make that doesn't really address Derby's Ida specifically, but is equally to every company performing on this stage. The gallery is extremely high up, and we get to see some things that you may not realise we see. Crossing behind something upstage isn't necessarily "safe"; we can see your head moving across as you prepare for your dramatic entrance. This isn't a major criticism, but more a point of amusement; the only time it'd be a real problem would be if someone's entrance (or, for that matter, exit) distracts during a particularly poignant moment on the stage, which hasn't happened this Festival.

Tonight's performance was not terrible, but I can't call it excellent either. My suspicion is that this is more than somewhat my fault for not grokking the concept, but that is one of the risks of concept productions; not everyone will understand or appreciate what was done. I welcome comments (as always); what did you think of it, and did the updating work? Comments also (of course) welcome from those involved - explanations, corrections, hate mail, whatever you like!

Magic Online trade account proposal

2011-08-11T19:34:00.001+10:00

This is proposed as an addition to the current trade system in Magic: The Gathering Online, which works quite well for casual trades between two players. But for trade bots, which are the way most players tend to acquire singles, there are a number of points on which this system could be improved:

* One bot account can service only one customer at a time. This means that the bot owner must run an army of bots, which in turn adds to server load; in addition, players need to figure out which ones aren't currently trading, and many bots solve this by rewriting their advertisements - again, unnecessary server load.

* Each bot account must have its own classifieds ad, which everyone must weed through to find the ones they want.

* Each bot has its own separate inventory. When you're looking for an obscure item, you might need to open trade multiple times with bots from the same controller.

* Bot credit is utterly unmanaged; there is no recourse from MTGO if a bot loses your credit, and there's no protection against misrepresentation by competing bots (imagine a bot that advertises that you can sell your cards to it for credit that can be used with a famous bot like Marlon). Also, it's very easy to "lose" credit by not knowing which bots you have traded with.

* Bots count as regular playing accounts, as demonstrated in the recent tournament in which myriad bots competed just to get a free booster pack.

* Most bots (I won't say all, but the bots I've seen for sale have said this) require a computer dedicated to running one bot account. I dread to think how many computers are tied up doing what a single computer ought to be able to do.

My proposal solves all of these issues, by creating a new type of account: a non-playing trade-only account. This does not in any way affect trades between two regular accounts, which can be done the same way they currently are. A trade account would replace one vendor's entire army of bots. This account would be managed by a script running on the vendor's computer, using a simple API to communicate with the MTGO server.

The requirements from Wizards' end would be:

* A new trade server connection, which would be a published connection-point in the same way that the current logins are done. This could simply be a different port on the same computer, or it could be a completely separate host.

* Ideally, a credit matrix. This is optional; the proposal will stand without it, but this facility would solve another of the problems (that of "lost credit").

The requirements on a vendor would be:

* Write an application that uses a simple network protocol to handle multiplexed simultaneous trades.

That's all. Quite simple on both ends.

I recommend a straight-forward TCP socket connection, using SSL/TLS for encryption, as it is available without much effort in many programming languages. The vendor's app (the "client") connects to MTGO's API server (the "server"), negotiates SSL, and logs in using a username and password (or a hash thereof), just as a player does using the regular MTGO application. The server can then notify the client of a new customer, and the client can query the customer's on-trade items, select items, communicate via chat, and be alerted of the customer's chat messages and item selections.

The protocol need not be complex. Each notification or command is terminated by end-of-line, as with IMAP and similar. For example:

(connect to server)

<--- OK Welcome to Magic Online Trading

---> LOGIN test_bot my_password

<--- OK Logged in

---> ADVERT Test bot: all cards, boosters, etc at great prices, blah blah

<--- OK Advert saved

(user named Rosuav opens trade)

<--- NEWTRADE Rosuav 0.00

---> ACCEPT Rosuav

<--- OK Accepted

---> CHAT Rosuav Welcome to Test Bot, Rosuav. Your credit is: 0.00

(user Rosuav selects an item - the server identifies it by its ID)

<--- ITEM Rosuav 123456

---> CHAT Rosuav You have selected: {Island} (foil) 3.40

(user Rosuav types "done" into chat)

<--- CHAT Rosuav done

---> ITEM Rosuav ticket

---> ITEM Rosuav ticket

---> ITEM Rosuav ticket

---> ITEM Rosuav ticket

---> CREDIT Rosuav 0.60

---> CHAT Rosuav I'll save 0.60 credit on your account. Please confirm!

---> CONFIRM1 Rosuav

(user clicks Confirm)

<--- CONFIRM1 Rosuav

---> CONFIRM2 Rosuav

(user clicks the second Confirm)

<--- CONFIRM2 Rosuav

<--- RECV ticket ticket ticket ticket

<--- ENDTRADE Rosuav

If MTGO doesn't save credit, then the NEWTRADE alert would not have a credit amount, and the CREDIT command would not exist.

Note that this protocol allows simultaneous trades with different players. The user name is given in every command and response, and separate trades need not interfere with each other in any way.

I would be prepared to write the code necessary to make this work. It could be coded extremely efficiently, and the protocol is simple enough that any basic computer could operate the vendor's account, without affecting other things running it.

This would require some set-up work, but this could be offset by charging for trade accounts. The added convenience of operating a bot in this way rather than the old way would be a great boon for vendors, and players would find things immensely easier under this system.

Savoynet Performing Group: Mikado

2011-08-11T10:07:00.001+10:00

I must begin by apologizing for an error in yesterday's review. I described Cambridge's Iolanthe as "pretty much sold out", but tonight we saw what "pretty much sold out" really means. I think you might have been able to seat three more people, if you rend them limb from limb and distribute them among your Irish tenantry... And this show merited the numerous and enthusiastic audience response.

There are other performing companies who can boast more International Festival productions total, but apparently Savoynet is the first to complete the canon (Thespis not included) at the Festival. A highly commendable achievement, and amazing that it should be a Mikado that finishes the set (although perhaps less amazing with Savoynet than others, as it's easier to assemble a Grand Duke cast when you have the international pool of talent that Savoynet draws from). Of course, not all Savoynetters are on the stage; there are several of the distinctive S'net t-shirt visible here in the gallery and in the upper circle. This show might not command many of the traditional SCA's (the Sisters, Cousins, and Aunts), but instead we have Savoynet's Committed Adherents who will unfailingly support the show. (I've just spoken with one who came to the festival for one night only; that's dedication.)

As was proven two years ago at the University Challenge, Savoynet is NOT a coherent whole, a Borg-style hive mind, a collective consciousness. No, Savoynetters are all individuals, with individual characters and personalities. This we saw on the stage tonight; we don't have a chorus of indistinguishable blur, we have a collection of real characters. This extended even more so to the role of Peep-Bo; often she's a person in her first half-scene, then relegated to "just another chorister", but tonight Rachel Middle was active in the role all through the first act finale, driving the plot along even though she has no solo lines. At the opposite extreme, the Mikado (Philip Walsh) was an absolute ruler and acted it - he owned the stage and everyone knew it. At least... the audience knew it, the local nobles knew it... but Katisha (Angela Lowe) didn't. A magnificent characterization, but no less than we have come to expect from Angela; she is a suberb performer. In "The hour of gladness", the lights dimmed and everyone faced upstage, giving her the stage all to herself - a beautiful moment. If she'd boasted of her singing instead of her elbow, perhaps she'd have acquired a husband more easily! Ko-Ko (David Lovell) didn't particularly want her, but when he went to woo her, he did so with strong passion and fervour. More passion, even, than he showed toward his ward; Yum-Yum (Kathryn Noonan) certainly wasn't much impressed by him. She had plenty of people attending to her, anyhow; in the opening of the second act, she even had native-guitarists playing for her - slightly odd, as we hadn't seen any such guitar in Nanki's hands (nor any instrument at all for that matter - he had a case but nothing to play). But Nanki-Poo (Rich Miller) didn't need an instrument to be a musician; his voice is all he needs. (The oft-missed joke in his opening dialogue, that he's a member of the band whose job it is to pass the cap around - and NOT to play - ignores the fact that he would make an excellent lead singer.) On the other hand, Pooh-Bah (Kevin Murray) forswore vocal intensity in favour of stately bearing and uppitiness; his characterization was strong, but I missed some of his lines up in the gallery. But William Revels' Pish-Tush was amply audible at the top of the theatre, and the snarking of Pitti-Sing (Emma Rogers) needs nothing to carry it but her expressive gestures. Both were extremely good fun.

Fun, in fact, is the best description for the show. Everyone on the stage had fun; everyone in the audience had fun. That, right there, is the definition of an excellent show. Just a few general highlights before I wrap up... The Little List song was tremendous, with a number of topical references in it; it was taken at a tempo and diction that allowed us to hear every word. The gag at the end, with the MD and Ko-Ko going back and forth after the latter "dried" was hilarious; it's funny how much rehearsal it takes to make something sound convincingly like a rehearsal! But convincing this was, to the extent that a number of people (including the adjudicator) thought it was a genuine failure. A show can afford to spend some time on gags of this nature when everything else is kept tight; and tonight's pace did indeed allow that luxury. This was an excellent show; Savoynet Performing Group, you have done the list proud.

Cambridge University G&S Society: Iolanthe

2011-08-10T10:38:00.000+10:00

Tonight's house was pretty much sold out, with the edges of the gallery and even the restricted-viewing seats being empersonned. (This is probably because Savoynet was well represented, as were the casts for our Australian shows. What, you don't think we made that much difference? Aww. Well, I can fantasize, can't I?) This unfortunately doesn't correspond to the show's quality, with several excellent shows having failed to fill; I cannot in honesty say that today's show was superior to them.

That's not to say that the show was terrible, though. The female chorus all plausibly looked as young as Phyllis and Iolanthe (and so did the Fairy Queen), and performers' voices across the board were sweet and lovely. However, several lacked the volume and diction to be heard in the gallery, which detracted from otherwise-notable songs (including "Fold Your Flapping Wings", a worthwhile inclusion when your Strephon can do it justice), and in some cases, words were lost upstage when someone faced away from the audience while singing or speaking. But this was clearly a fun show, with leads and chorus all enjoying the experience.

The set was simple and wide-open, leaving ample room for choreography. This room was often left unused in favour of having the singers all the way downstage, a fair trade if ever I saw one. When the entire stage was put to use (such as in the first act finale, with the fairies driving the peers around the stage in perfect formation), the effect was... effective. Lighting was stable, in stark contrast to the melodramatic appearance of the weekend's Ruddigore; changes were done gently and subtlely.

A few changes to the script bear noting. Strephon, not being on the large side, was described as "inclined to be blonde" - this apparently refers not to his hair but what's under it, as demonstrated by the length of time it took him to figure out that his mother's sisters were his... err..... aunts? As mentioned above, "Fold Your Flapping Wings" was restored; this along with several one-word changes cemented Iolanthe as a political satire - unsurprising for a university's production. Up in the peanut gallery, we were wondering if the Fairy Queen's second verse would be changed, but anoraks aside, it wasn't. (If you don't know why I'm referring to anoraks, you don't want to know. Long story off Savoynet - only other anoraks would know, probably! Apologies to everyone else - normal people, in other words.)

The cast, as we have been told, ranges from university alumni all the way down to first-years, several of whom have been demonstrating their excellent musical skills tonight on the cabaret stage. I can't single out people for commendation fairly without knowing who had how much experience, but I am told that there were some for whom this was their first stage show; to them, whoever you are, may I offer my congratulations and encouragement for the future! But in no particular order... Strephon (Aled Walker - this is not a typo for Alex) carried a strong character, a bit blonde at times (as mentioned above), but good fun. Knew to wait for the laugh after "Which half?" so that his response was not lost in it. His beloved Phyllis (Charlotte Greenhow) did enjoy looking in that mirror (you can't make me believe it was the first sight she'd had of one), and there's little wonder that the peers are all after her. Of them, the Lords Tollollerat (James Hall and Alan Hay) were an inseparable pair, able to ramble on at extreme length about which of them should slay the other (at which Phyllis was unutterably bored and lay down on the grass upstage), in spite of being on opposite political sides. Their love for Phyllis is a bond that binds them to one another... oh wait, wrong show. The Lord Chancellor (Jonathan Padley) juggled his two capacities carefully, remaining judicial while very much in love with his own ward; his wig was spectacular, until we learned that it wasn't a wig at all! (He greyed his hair for the performance, and commented on it when describing the damage to his constitution: "Three months ago, I was a brunette".) A stable Private Willis (Neill Campbell) quietly stood the stage for the entire second act, and at a word of command, sprouted wings for the finale in quite a convincing manner - him first, then the rest of the company. And the one who wields the power to command wings to appear? A youthful but powerful leader, the Fairy Queen (Anna Harvey); she didn't really look like a devastating leader, but when the need is there, she will be all you need and more. The Chancellor's misinterpretation of her as a classroom teacher isn't hard to understand, nor is his consternation at discovering that she's so much more. We must only hope that he is forgiven once it's known that she's also his mother-in-law, once he's reunited with Iolanthe (Danielle Phillips) - such a sweet voice, he must surely have recognized it to some extent. Iolanthe carried her beautiful aria fairly well, though I could have hoped for a little more passion in it; she's pleading for her son's lifelong happiness, at the risk of painful execution. And she knows full well that she is bringing death upon herself; it's only the timely intervention of Leila (Helena Culliney) and the rest of the company that saves her. With her opposite number Celia (Francesca Costigan), they led the company of fairies through their terrorizing acts, keeping the entire House of Lords on its toes or on its knees.

This is the company's fiftieth year, in a context with (I presume) heavy turnover of cast members. Maintaining a performing company under those circumstances cannot be easy, and Cambridge Uni G&S are to be commended. May I echo the sentiments shared by Gillian and Neil in their respective concluding remarks, that this company should go from strength to strength with, we hope, many good performing years ahead of them.

Volunteers are duck-typed

2011-08-07T23:13:00.000+10:00

Around the theatre groups where we work, my brother Michael and I are often confused for each other; and even more frequently, someone will know which name each of us bears, but will simply ask for "an Angelico" without caring who responds. Why? Are we fungible? To an extent, but not completely. To be more precise, people duck-type us.

Duck typing is, broadly speaking, the notion that you don't ask what something IS, you instead ask whether it's able to do what you want it to do. Popular in the Python programming community, it's the idea that you don't care if this is a file as long as you can write to it and read from it; you don't care if this is an integer as long as you can add to it and subtract from it; you don't care if this is a list as long as you can step across its elements.

When someone needs a volunteer, they don't care whether his name is Fred or Joe. They don't care whether he's cast, crew, or random passer-by. All they care is that he be able to do what's needed, willing to do it, and not presently occupied with another task. That's duck typing. It is, in fact, the ultimate in fairness and equity; there's no racism, no sexism, no ism of any kind. If you will work, you will be accepted.

Of course, there are times when other criteria are added (such as 'Weapon Proficiency: Screw-gun'), which will still work the same way. But often, tasks simply require a willing pair of hands - everyone has the necessary hardware and skills, and yet valuable volunteers are treasured like Hildebrand's wise remarks. There always seem to be two or three times as many jobs as people to do them; if you want the respect of pretty much everyone involved in a show, just offer to help!

Pro Ruddigore

2011-08-07T03:38:00.000+10:00

Having managed to get a ticket to the matinee, I was able to see the show again. I'm glad to have seen both performances; last night demonstrated how well the company cope with odd things going wrong, and today showed how well the company can perform when things go right. Last night was spectacular enough that I wanted to see the show again; today was even better. The first-act set behaved itself, everyone's lines were delivered in the right order (the verse order in "For 35 Years" being a deliberate change), and everything worked smoothly. I was sitting next to some well-behaved young children and their mother and grandmother, all of whom seemed to enjoy the show immensely. This is Ruddigore as it ought to be - a parody of every element of classic mellerdramer.

G&S Opera Co: Ruddigore

2011-08-06T14:41:00.002+10:00

Those of us who helped out last night got a privileged chance to see part of the set for tonight's professional Ruddigore, which was something elaborate. Ian Smith waffled at length in front of the curtain - listeners will note the cunning way in which the Goons fill in time on their programme - until someone signalled him that all was prepared and the gallant set awaited.

And the set, when we saw it, was indeed worth the delay. Dual-purpose structures were village houses until the finale, when panels in them opened out to make trees. The entire tone of the stage changed completely. (Owing to the complexity of them and the shortness of time, there were a few small issues with holding them open/closed, but this I am sure will be solved for tomorrow's performances.) The second act set, too, had two modes; rotating the flats changed them from portraits to empty frames.

Our first clue that this was not using the most usual score came in the overture, which was not the well-known Toye one but the original. We were subsequently treated to a number of pieces that were cut on, shortly after, or even before, the original opening night; various odd lines of dialogue, Sir Ruthven's second-act song "For thirty-five years", the second verses of "I once was as meek" and "In bygone days", and - something I've never seen performed on stage - the dialogue between Despard and Margaret in the first act, and one verse of the song about Mad Margaret's curse, which was spoken rather than sung for the simple reason that Sullivan never actually wrote music for it.

The curtain rose on Rose Maynard, err I mean Maybud, alone in the center of the stage. An energetic company of bridesmaids entered and encircled her in sweet voice, alas with something of a lack of altos; all of them were attentive and observant, qualities that greatly enhance a performance. Ensemble work throughout the evening was precise and crisp, highly commendably so.

Tonight's show can boast a large number of small "wins" - those little moments when something happened that was just so very right. None is necessarily noteworthy on its own, but together they make a good show into an excellent one. Such moments in this Ruddigore include Rose singing about her heart directing her left and then right, when the men were on the wrong sides of her - she gave a small hand-wave of acknowledgement; again from Rose, when Margaret refers to "Rose Maybud" and then says "I love him" - Rose looked up in some surprise; Gideon Crawle entering during the applause, and claiming it as his own; and several more besides. And there were some moments that definitely merit mentioning - crowning moments of awesome such as the beginning of the first act finale, with two completely different places created by a skilful lighting state. Actually, the lighting was superb the whole time; from the reds of Dame Hannah's legend to the monochrome appearance of the ghosts' scene (with Ruthven the only patch of color on the stage) to the moonlit second act, everything was well served by its lighting states.

Those who know me will know that I take particular note of Mad Margaret. I've seen quite a few, and she's fairly important to me. Victoria Byron played the part, somewhat noisily at times, but fairly believably. Her diction gave me no cause to complain, which is especially important with all the unusual material that was performed. A lovely Meg, and one that I would not be sorry to see again! And quite a dangerous mad girl, too; Rose Maybud (Charlotte Page) seemed quite scared of her, although oddly enough, this didn't cause her to put distance between them. I would have thought that, when faced with someone who talks casually of killing people and rending them asunder, any sane girl would back away just a little. Unless you have particular interest in insanity, you probably don't want to hang around with Meg... But on the other hand, Rose could show you the exact place in her book where it says that she is not to walk away while someone is talking to you. Rose's honorary aunt Hannah Trusty (Jill Pert) knows all about The Book, having probably had parts of it read out to her every day for the past decade; if one of the Murgatroyds had had to take care of Rose, I daresay one of his earliest crimes would have been to toss that book on the stove. But Hannah is too sweet and gentle to do that... sweet, gentle, and not half bad with a short blade, as Robin/Ruthven (Richard Gauntlett - did it cause confusion in rehearsal?) finds out. Robin's not a bad fellow, though, once you get past the fact that he, well, outright lied to a girl to entice her into wedlock, and yellowly ran out so that his younger brother had to take the curse, and a few things like that. But apart from all those crimes, he's a decent fella, and it's quite a dramatic change when he - right in front of our eyes, though with his back to us - is "turned evil" at the end of the first act. His devoted servant Adam (Simon Masterton-Smith), following him into crime and ending up ahead, seemed to enjoy applause rather a lot; on several occasions, he entered during the applause from the previous song, and claimed the applause for his own - highly amusing. In the first act, where he asks to honestly identify his master, we learn what poor weather he is used to; on the pronouncement of the name, a thunderclap erupts (as happened every time anyone named a Murgatroyd), and as soon as it was over, he declared that it was like eight hours at the seaside! Of course, such adverse weather would be all in a day's work for Dick Dauntless (Oliver White), busily running away from French combat ships while practicing his hornpipe; incidentally, it's the talk not only of the fleet but of his home village, too, and he manages to get the bridesmaids involved when he demonstrates it. In contrast to his despicable goodness, we have Sir Despard (Philip Cox), honestly evil and consciously atoning for it - although his beloved Margaret doesn't believe the atonement is sufficient. (Despard's not truly evil, though; as we learn in the second act, the crimes were really Ruthven's, performed by proxy.) The contrast between the evilness of Despard or Ruthven and the purity of (say) Dick Dauntless gave the follow spot operators some fun; at several points, two spots were used, in different colors. Of course, we don't see the ultimate evil (the original witch of the curse), and most of the ghosts were doddering old rheumatic things, so most of the demonstrated power of evil comes from Sir Roderic (Donald Maxwell). He led the ghosts for the simple reason that he had enough energy to actually do things. But when it came time to deliver some agonies, all the ghosts helped out; the effect, with lighting and sound and everybody's movement, must be seen to be appreciated.

In fact, that probably sums up the entire show. I can set some words down about what I thought of this, that, or the other, but ultimately, you have to see it to understand. This performance thrilled me enough that I went straight down to the foyer after the show with the intention of buying a ticket to the matinee. That is how I feel about this Ruddigore.

South Anglia Savoy Players: Patience

2011-08-05T12:41:00.000+10:00

Despite having lovely music and plenty of comedic material, Patience tends not to sell as well as some of the other G&S operas. Even here in Buxton, other shows sell out or are fairly tight, but tonight's Patience had quite a few empty seats in the upper stalls, and the two ushers added fully 50% to the gallery's population.

(Parenthesis: Neil Smith is an excellent wordsmith. I'll say no more.)

If you want a receipt for the mysteriously less-than-popular Patience, take all the remarkable hams in history, have them rattle off some Sullivan tunes. Or something like that. Everyone - dragoons, aesthetes, and Patience - contended for the title of Biggest Ham, although Patience (Charlotte Wattebot O'Brien - I hope I have that spelled correctly) pulled back for the "Iolanthe moment" of Love Is A Plaintive Song and let that number be itself. But for the rest of the show, she was the peanut gallery to Bunthorne's drama-queen performances, snarking and chewing a piece of straw. It didn't seem to bother Bunthorne (Paul Tarrant) though; when your ego is that large, you don't mind what sort of attention you get, as long as you get attention. His sense of comedic timing was excellent, and much appreciated. Had it not been quite firmly refused, we would have demanded he encore "When I go out of door" as well as "So go to him". The Lady Jane (Anthea Kenna) walked all over him, even literally at the end (just before he moans "Crushed again!"), so I think he did better with his tulip or lil-eye actually! She entered at the beginning of the second act with a tuba, which she played (for real, I think), although for her song she switched to the traditional cello and the traditional clueless sawing with the bow. Ladies Angela (Jenny Haxell), Saphir (Jackie Mitchell), and Ella (Claire Poth), particularly notably in the Off Note, have lovely voices and clear diction. Leading the maidens from within, they set the tone of the entire show in the opening number, and were highly important in keeping the plot moving along. Their "opposite numbers", the Dragoon Guards, were crisp and smart as military officers should be, although there were a few places where movements were a little ragged. Led by the Colonel (David Philips), whose diction improved markedly when he removed his helmet, the Dragoons were a vibrant splash of colour against the soft and wimpy pastels that the girls were wearing; normally, the guys are the epitome of precision, against the languor of the girls, but tonight, the Aesthetic Maidens were every bit as precise and synchronized as the soldiers. The Colonel's song had new words written for it (by ex-ButAGirl, Sharon Cutworth), which included a lot of local references that were lost on me, but clearly appreciated by most of the audience. Major Murgatroyd (Robert Barker) had a screaming parade-ground voice, but also a crystal clear singing voice for such moments as the Off Note, and the Duke (Mick Wilson) demonstrated superb diction and comedic delivery. Grosvenor (Adam Sullivan), wearing something like Lincoln Green, tried to just walk up to a girl and say "Hey, remember me? We were kids together. Will you marry me?" like the Disney animated Robin Hood. It just doesn't work that way... but we got some fun scenes before they realised that.

Ensemble work was at a consistently high standard of energy, observation, and utter hammishness. The men were a little sloppy on some of their salutes and such in their entrance number, but very minorly and it was tightened up by the first act finale. The women were particularly notable in the Magnet and the Churn, in which the movements were precise and well timed, producing a snappy on-the-beat marked set of actions.

This was a production done by people who loved what they were doing. This was, over and above all else, a FUN show.

Peak Opera: HMS Pinafore

2011-08-04T16:29:00.000+10:00

I never tire of listening to the Festival Orchestra play the lovely overtures to Sullivan's operas (I can't say "Sullivan's overtures" of course). Every night a different G&S, every night a different musical director to work under; and every night, beautiful music. Pinafore rollicks along with the promise of a fun evening, and that promise was not left unfulfilled.

There've been a few last-minute changes to cast lately, and tonight, Gareth Edwards was unable to play Dick Deadeye. When there's naught else to cast, he casts himself... yes, Ian Henderson took the part. Must have made the dress rehearsal tricky, but the show looked fine. Ian is an excellent performer; at short notice, it would be difficult indeed to find anyone better fitted to step into Deadeye's shoes.

Ensemble work was passably good all through, and excellent in places. The men were a little sloppy with their salutes and hat movements early on, but once they met up with the Sisters/Cousins/Aunts brigade, they sharpened up somewhat. Typical... they'll do anything to impress the girls! Speaking of hats, the chorus hats in "A Many Years Ago" moved in clean unison from watching Buttercup while she sang to facing front in the chorus responses; this followed a fairly consistent pattern of everyone facing front to sing - excellent for audibility and was mostly done without looking crude. Everyone sustained a level of energy and watchfulness that kept the show moving in the right direction, although at times we could have hoped for a little more pace.

The second act had an uncredited addition to it. Cousin Hebe (Elaine Bishop) sang "Why am I always a bridesmaid", solo on an empty stage - a privilege few Hebes get. Her part was considerably expanded from the Jessie Bond version that we're familiar with, but not by giving her the "Crushed again!" dialogue that is better known as Lady Jane's. Instead, she became Josephine's confidant; most of Josie's asides in the first act ("Oh, if only I dared", and so on) were delivered to Hebe, as were some of her monologues-to-the-audience (the whole "Sir Joseph's attentions nauseate me" speech, for instance). This was an interesting take on the scene, but unfortunately it was not backed up by future staging. Since Hebe clearly knows exactly what's going on, she should be in a privileged situation at the beginning of the finale; when Ralph is trying to kill himself, Hebe ought to know that it's unnecessary. But she acted with the rest of the chorus, not knowing any more than any of them. There, that's what my note tells me to say, and in my rough, common, sailor fashion, I've said it. Now I can get on with saying all the many things that I enjoyed about the show.

And foremost among the shows qualities has to be the music. Some excellent singers, most notably a strong Captain Corcoran (Ben McAteer), whose stage presence was so powerful that by merely *looking* at a cat-o'-nine-tails he could scare the sailors! His most attractive daughter Josephine (Roma Loukes), edging out Celerity and Impunity for the title, had vibrato enough to share, but a beautiful top range. Gracious enough to share the stage with Hebe for her second act aria, or flatly refusing to offer a common sailor her love, she carried herself with energy throughout the performance. Opposite her, Ralph (Harry Bagnall) gave us a clear and lovely tenor voice, and he matched Josephine in energy. He knew how to sing in an ensemble as well as in solo work, and the vocal balance in "A British Tar" was superb - all three parts could be heard. Likewise the Bosun (David Thomson, if I'm reading the programme aright) in the first act finale; being heard over a chorus without majorly dominating them takes some care - unless your character is the type to simply cut through and be heard, as Buttercup (Lucy Appleyard) was to an extent. The bumboat woman didn't seem to do a very good trade in the snuff and tobacco and so on that she brought to sell, but she quite probably has, well, another source of income. (And perhaps there's something to be done along the lines of reading weather reports in people's hands ("Warm, winds light to variable, and there is a cool change in store for you")? But, I digress.) Sir Joseph (Adam Bishop) was quite a Pooh-Bah of ego and flatterability, who seemed genuinely surprised that Josephine didn't fall for him. His good diction, decent sense of comedic timing, and the fun by-play between him and various other characters - mostly Corcoran - kept the show bouncing along Finally, and in a very successful violation of the "Never work with animals or children" rule, two young boys (whose mother was singing in the chorus) added a fun touch to the show. Tom Tucker (Max O'Brien) was joined by a short John Silver (his brother Daniel); they scurried about hither and yon, running small errands, bringing information, or whatever else was necessary; one of them even carried Ralph's loaded pistol off stage after he decided he wouldn't use it!

Overall, the show had the appearance of a final dress rehearsal. It could have done with a little more polish, and there were some unfortunate mishaps of dropped lines, but had there been a longer season these would have been corrected. The company clearly enjoyed what they were doing, and it translated well to our enjoyment in the audience.

Trent Opera: Yeomen of the Guard

2011-08-03T13:39:00.002+10:00

Tonight kicked off the adjudicated portion of the G&S Festival 2011, with a most enjoyable Yeomen. Gillian Humphreys gave her opinion of the show, emphasizing that this was just one person's view, and that every single audience member can and should be able to do the same - so, without further ado, here's mine.

Yeomen is darker than most of the G&S operas, and has many moments of drama, rather than comedy - not that it isn't funny, but it needs to be so real. And tonight, those scenes were beautifully rendered; the characters really existed, they were not caricatures.

The set was simple, with just an elevated platform and lots of open space to use. After a stirring and beautiful overture under Andrew Nicklin's skilled direction, we were treated to a lovely-voiced Phoebe (Jessica Nicklin) on the empty stage. Shadbolt (Stephen Godward) poked around and listened to her sing, then made his presence felt. Their interaction then, and equally later on, was strongly played and energetic; Phoebe made her views on assistant tormentors quite plain. Her father Sgt Meryll (Michael Tipler) had an excellent voice, satisfactorily justifying the inclusion of "A Laughing Boy But Yesterday". As with Phoebe and Shadbolt's, the duet between Meryll and Carruthers (Christine Anson) had energy and strong character, and realistic emotion. These scenes were not played for laughs; they were played straight, by a cast and director who trusted Gilbert's words to carry the show. Dame Carruthers had a little trouble staring people down at times (even Phoebe dared to talk back to her), which may have been deliberate, but it meant that she was unable to command the stage. Her singing voice was nothing to complain of, although she was somewhat outshone by her niece Kate (Charli Baptie - not listed in the programme), whose sweet clear soprano in "Strange Adventure" and set of individual tablets elevated the first-act cipher to her second-act cruciality. But of course, when it comes to beautiful soprano voices, it is no wonder that the best was cast as Elsie; in her marble-count aria ("Tis done!"), Alexandra Saunders completely won our sympathy. (She still had a few marbles at that point - didn't lose them until later.) Later, when she had a choice of suitors, she made a definite and clear decision; there was no hesitation and no ambiguity, she chose one and not the other - and Jack Point (Alastair Massey) moved further down the path to a broken-hearted finale. Alastair's singing is not what I would normally look for in a principal G&S performer, but he is competent at patter, and his expressive acting makes up for the musical ability somewhat. Alas, for all his jesting and jumping about, he was unable to impress his new master the Lieutenant, although the audience did appreciate his jokes. Both he and the Lieutenant 9William Revels) demonstrated excellent diction, being quite audible and comprehensible even in the gallery. I have to be careful how much I say about the gentleman who will shortly be playing in our Yeomen, but he is definitely to be commended for putting on a competent performance at extremely short notice. Fairfax (Joseph Shovelton) completes a quality cast of actors and singers, bringing professional talent as well as professionalism to the stage.

I shan't try to predict which shows are most likely to win which prizes, and to a large extent it really doesn't matter. But Gillian and I both enjoyed the performance, and from the sound of the applause that greeted the extended curtain calls, so did many many others in the audience.

Edinburgh G&S: The Mikado

2011-08-02T09:42:00.000+10:00

Quite a good house - and I was there for the performance! The Mikado is generally a popular show, so it's no surprise that it's packing in the audience tonight. Not completely sold out but it's only the restricted viewing seats and the sides of the gallery that have empty space in them. And, unlike the Pirates we saw on Saturday, the boxes are in use too. Quite a few children in the audience (my apologies, Mr Bah - "young persons"), which is all to the good.

Rather than following the traditional running order, this performance reverted to the opening night arrangement - The Sun Whose Rays was sung in the first act, and the Little List song wasn't until Ko-Ko knew he needed to behead someone. Also, Were You Not To Ko-Ko Plighted had two verses; unfortunately, Yum-Yum's diction was not quite as good as I might have liked, and some of the words were lost. I can see why the now-traditional edits were made, but as a variant Mikado, this worked well. (Incidentally, the "bassoon chuckle" from Three Little Maids was kept. Those bars would sound a bit empty without it!)

Speaking of traditional, there were a couple of shout-outs in the Little List song, including to the "adjudicationist" (and yes, this year we have a female adjudicator, so she fits in the Singular Anomaly slot) and "Anyone named Smith". As always with any such changes to words, diction is crucial, and Ko-Ko (Geoff Lee) delivered every consonant to the gallery. I do harp on about that a bit, but it really is important; poor diction destroys numbers, but excellent diction can prevent what could otherwise have been a problem - such as when the Mikado (Ian Lawson) and Katisha (Fiona Main) were all the way upstage for "From every kind of man", but could still be understood. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of Nanki-Poo (Scott Barron), whose lines sometimes didn't quite get all the way up to the ceiling; however, he gave a highly entertaining performance, particularly in duet with Yum-Yum (Gillian Robertson); if you're already familiar with the words, it's not as great a loss as it might be. And he performed with great energy, which is always a good thing. Yum-Yum carried her emotions strongly, being quite definitely "distracted" when Nanki's death was announced, and giving enthusiastic approval to the notion of a Ko-Ko/Katisha marriage. Pitti-Sing (Rae Lamond) also gave a strong performance, buoying scenes along with her anger or approval, and trying - unsuccessfully - to keep Pooh-Bah (Matthew Stanhope) from making a fool of himself in front of the Mikado, by seeking payment for singing his verse of "Criminal Cried". He had all the haughtiness that his history could boast, the unbalancing power of ancestral recall being ridiculously exploited; but he was too useful to be ignored. (Although, even light insults would add up - it would get quite expensive to do things in Titipu.) The functional functionary Pish-Tush (Andrew Edmonstone), and the lesser Go-To (Andrew Crawford), had figured out how to treat Pooh-Bah and were doing themselves fairly well; both performers demonstrated the energy and presence necessary to keep the show alive.

I was a little disappointed with the lighting in a few places, with the four corners of the stage all being quite dark at times, but the "evil lighting state" for Katisha was effective, and "The hour of gladness" in near darkness on a nearly empty stage was decent. "Brightly Dawns Our Wedding Day" had everything in darkness upstage, except for one odd puddle of yellowish light - I was left wondering if something would happen there, but nothing did.

Ensemble synchronization was quite good tonight. (Yes, that's another thing I harp on about.) Not as crisp as in Saturday's Pirates, but more noticeable - the simultaneous fan movements can be heard as well as seen. Some of the staging felt a little static early on, but improved by the second act. Harmonic balance wasn't bad; Sullivan's lovely alto lines came through beautifully. The show was hilarious fun, pork pie encores particularly so, and tonight's cabaret was worth waiting for. A long night and a fun one!

G&S Opera Co: Pirates of Penzance

2011-07-31T03:43:00.001+10:00

Gallery seats are quite a bit more expensive this time around than they were on our previous trips, but we know now that the G&S Opera Co shows are worth seeing. To ensure that we'd get good seats every time, I booked our entire season's worth of tickets at once; good seats are available in the gallery for all the shows at the moment, but that might well change as the weeks pass. And now, sitting here in the house, I can't see many empty seats - there's a few here in the gallery, and in the restricted-viewing seats on the sides, but the rest is mostly full. I wish we could get houses like this back home!

So here we are once more on the scene of everyone's former triumphs. The very first show of the festival, a matinee of the pro Pirates of Penzance. According to the programme, this show is directed by Gary Slavin, so I have some fairly high expectations (will he have the principals downstage center to sing?). He did not disappoint. Musical direction by Timothy Henty was similarly expert, as he kept the cast and orchestra together with only a couple of strayings (such as in Beautifully Blue The Sky, with the girls all the way upstage and less able to see him). Pace was maintained throughout the show, with rapid-fire dialogue never losing its crisp audibility.

Owing to an unfortunate loss of voice, Rebecca Bottone was unable to play Mabel, but as Ian Smith announced in front of the curtain, all the cast are excellent performers in their own right, and one of the chorus (Rebecca Moon) stepped up to take the role. I have no idea where she came from for her entrance - perhaps she was already in the chorus - very skilfully handled. She was a little weak in the "chook bit" and final cadenza in Poor Wandring One, but was otherwise excellent. Her place in the chorus was filled by an uncredited Rachel Middle, who at extremely short notice played the part smoothly - a highly competent stand-in.

The technical aspects of this show were well handled, although a few things had the feeling of the beginning of the season (there was a sudden and unexpected flash from one of the follow spots at the end of Cat-Like Tread). Lighting states mostly worked, but there were some persistent shadows downstage, and sometimes people were in shadow up on the rostra as well. But apart from that, everything was visible as it ought to be, and the second act starfield background was quite effective.

Act I opened with the pirates celebrating Freddy's birthday... by singing Happy Birthday quite flat. From there the show rollicked along as Pirates generally does, the pace being maintained through good tempi and machine-gun dialogue; we hardly got a chance to applaud after several numbers as the show just kept right on going. Diction was excellent all round, with special commendations going to Frederic (Jeremy Finch), the Pirate King (James Cleverton), and Samuel (Alastair McCall). In the audience were quite a few people who'd never seen Pirates of Penzance before, and they were laughing at all the jokes - every one of them was delivered audibly and with an excellent sense of comedic timing. Every ensemble number demonstrated an enviable precision and synchronization with the entire chorus moving exactly on the beat.

A number of the "classic" gags were abandoned (the Major-General having trouble with his rhymes was cut back severely), and new ones brought in to replace them. The Pirate King ascertained that it was half past eleven by gauging the direction of the wind, and when Samuel invited his compatriot to seize his dark lantern, the item in question was rolling down towards the orchestra pit - I don't know if that was deliberate or not, but it certainly made a lot of sense! Frederic and Ruth maintained their amusing byplay through all their scenes, but no matter what, they still managed to face the audience to sing - as did everyone.

Every member of the cast demonstrated excellent stagecraft and singing. I can't single out anyone in the chorus, as they all remained focused on the action, energetic, and enthusiastic (even gleeful, as the Stanley girls donned black armbands while singing "Go ye heroes, go and DIE!"); the harmonic balance was carefully maintained, with all parts audible in such as "Help! Oh, a tree!" and the counterpoint double chorus in Foeman's Steel. The stage was fully utilized, although there were occasions in the second act where things looked a little cramped downstage left; the cast had no trouble getting on and off stage in good time, avoiding the sloppiness of having three choristers still on stage when the dialogue implies that everyone's gone. Singers were downstage enough to be heard, even all the way up in the gallery.

The star-studded lineup of leads bears some noting. As mentioned above, Rebecca Bottone did not perform Mabel as listed in the programme, but Rebecca Moon gave an excellent rendition of the part. If we had not been told of the substitution, we would not have known that she hadn't been originally cast for the role; her top notes were ample for the part, and managed to break, if not the glass windows, then at least the nearby Frederic (Jeremy Finch); and his top notes were enough to break one of the girls, who swooned upstage while he sang downstage. Edith (Angela Simkin) and Kate (Melanie Lodge) carried their lines beautifully, holding harmonies and maintaining characters throughout their solos and the ensemble work; Edith and Mabel sang the "thirds apart chook bit" in the second act finale without a hint of rivalry. At the other extreme of vocal range, the Sergeant of Police (Bruce Graham) gave us a superb bass, backed by his half-dozen good basses, all of whom were crisp and accurate in their sung responses to Mabel's speech about Frederic. Comedic timing was in evidence everywhere but nowhere better than Simon Butteriss's Major-General Stanley during the Orphan/Often exchange with the Pirate King (James Cleverton). Again, rapid-fire dialogue kept the show from dragging, even through the dramatic-effect pauses. Ruth (Louise Crane) moved around the stage at a stride, able to get to exactly where she wanted to be at exactly the right time ("Let me tell you who they are" downstage center, immediately after entering stage right), and Samuel (Alastair McCall) didn't even need to move around the stage if he didn't want to - he could be heard just fine from anywhere. Excellent diction (oh, I already said that didn't I).

This is an excellent show; I am right glad to see it, and so's Michael. At the risk of sounding like an advert, I'll point out that there are several more performances coming up - tonight (as in, right about now), tomorrow, and a couple more in the coming weeks. Tickets are more expensive than they have been in previous years, but the show is well worth seeing. My heartiest congratulations to all involved.

Thornton's Chocolates Centenary

2011-07-29T23:52:00.000+10:00

It seems we came to England at the right time. On the way back from Aldi, I dropped in on Thornton's in Spring Gardens (if you know the geography of Buxton, that's like going from stage left to stage right via the lighting box). It's a chocolatier that I remember from our last two trips as being good, but a tad on the expensive side.

Turns out that it's their hundredth year in business, and they're celebrating with some decent discounts! I picked up four 230g boxes for 10 quid, and a couple of "lucky dip bags" of unknown content (but guaranteed to be worth at least 18 pounds) for the same price. Stocks are nearly out, but if anyone else has a Thornton's near them, it'd be a good time to drop in and see what they have!

Mmm chocolate.

Travelog 2011 part 3

2011-07-29T07:24:00.002+10:00

The third and final leg of our journey is on a slightly differently-configured aircraft. From Dubai to Manchester, we're spending seven hours on a plane that has power points in the seat backs (two between three in Economy, which is fine for us), and a rather unexplained ethernet port in the middle seat. I've plugged into this port and it's given me DHCP, but I cannot easily see where to go from here... it's quite undocumented. Still, seven hours on power? Don't mind if I do.

The ethernet port is quite a mystery. It's live, in that I can see a router and get a 172.16 address; but there does not appear to be anything else on it. I suppose it could potentially be used for seat-to-seat sharing, although not between us as we have only one port between us; perhaps it's a cool feature that isn't yet implemented. In any case, there's no internet available on this plane (no 3G either - it's active on a lot of flights but not this one), so no logging on from 10,000 meters up.

It's approaching pi time in Melbourne again, so we've been in transit for 24 hours. It doesn't feel like 3AM of course; in Manchester, it's now 6:12PM. By the look of things we'll be landing ahead of schedule, for a roughly 25 hour trip. Airport wifi at Manchester was a pay-for service last time we landed there (in 2007), so I'll be checking that out to see if it's changed. I still have the PDF receipt from last time's wifi purchase (5 GBP) sitting on my desktop, which is quite a feat considering that it isn't even the same laptop. Apparently desktops and laptops are completely independent things.

As we're now descending into Manchester, I'm making the timezone change; it's no longer 3:41AM Fri Melbourne time, it's now 6:42PM Thu UK time.

19:00. Touchdown! Bit bumpy but nothing to worry about. We plan out our disembarcation procedure during the taxi; it's quite pointless as the Business Class people will take far longer to get out than we will to get ready, but as an exercise in mathematics, it's fun. Sure enough, we're all ready to walk out well before the curtain opens to let us through... but hey, we were efficient! Side note. On our second leg, David had the window seat, I was in the middle, and Michael had the aisle. David had stepped out for a stroll when dinners were delivered, so we had to accept three dinners onto trays and then get David back into his seat without spilling anything. The result was a complex Tower of Hanoi manipulation in which people stood up, were passed trays, and moved around the cabin, with mathematical precision. Effective and efficient in both time and space!

19:30ish. We're all done with Customs and poking around for a bus. I've spent most of this time going through all the various unsecured wifi networks here, and have found one that permits 30 mins free (per MAC address) but "no VPN". Seems that "no VPN" actually means "no traffic on any port other than 80". So no trophying. :( Fortunately though, it's enough for me to retrieve one extremely crucial piece of information from my cloud. This is why I cloud things. It works.

The bus from the airport to Buxton runs once an hour at this time of night, so we're stuck waiting here for thirty minutes. The bus actually drops by here twice; it goes to Stockport, then back to the airport, then to Buxton, then back. I automatically suggest riding the bus out and back, only to be met with the scornful reminder that we're paying per trip here - no multimodal ticketing that makes extra trips free. Oops.

20:04. Not a lot to do here, it has the same feeling that we had at 8:30pm at home when we were to catch the bus at 9:15 - we're all ready, everything that needs to be done is done, but we can't proceed until the appropriate time. Since the wifi dropped me at the end of the 30 mins, I've been back to "isolation level 10,000 meters" (try that one, DBAs - it's great for safety), and am waiting until our arrival in Buxton before I can actually do anything useful. It's 5AM back home, so there won't be anyone there to talk to, but I would like to drop in on Minstrel Hall and see who's around.

21:45. The 199 bus made excellent time to Buxton, depositing us in the familiar stop at 21:33. As in previous years, the Derby HoR staff are helpful and prepared, and we're settled into our rooms with a minimum of fuss. The arrangements for the internet connection seem to have changed, but we can still get it for free (have to make a login, and it tries to up-sell us a faster link, but we can get a decent one for nothing). May cause some issues later on, but we'll sort that out. For now, Traal's the only device on the net. I'm going to try to sort that out... tomorrow.

Travelog's over now; we've arrived. Subsequent blog posts will hopefully have more real content to them.

Travelog 2011 part 2a

2011-07-28T20:09:00.001+10:00

Small postscript to the previous entry. As we approached Dubai, the in-flight display showed us a whole lot of connecting flights, in a nice table. More or less what you'd expect, but my database-driven mind did a double take; the columns were, I was pretty sure, "Flight", "Destination", "Time", "Date" - and the fourth column had a "TBA" listed. Ooops - that actually said "Gate". Yeah, that makes a bit more sense!

Travelog 2011 part 2

2011-07-28T19:40:00.001+10:00

or: "Hi, uhh, my ice is frozen."

After playing around with Malaysian wifi (and seeing a number of web sites that genuinely merit being in the .my TLD), we headed back into the plane for the next leg. In Melbourne, wifi costs money but there's plenty of power points around; in KL, there's free wifi (you do have to sign up and watch an ad, but then you get full access - the SSID is "Free Y5 @ DOME"; the "FREE_WIFI@KLIA" one works, but only gives port 80 - not even 443 - and is slow), but power points are hens teeth. Anyway, we finished up in good time and re-boarded, only to learn that sixteen pax were late to the gate. We end up pushing back at 12:30 Melbourne time, and taking off at 12:39. The plane is full now, or pretty close to it, so there's no moving around. Traal sits on my lap - perfectly safe, sleeping comfortably. Emirates cabin crew understand that people who carry laptops are intelligent enough to keep them safe... unlike the US domestic airlines we flew with a couple of years ago, who understood only the rules.

On these planes, I'm starting to live the life of a cat - all I do is eat, sleep, and blog. (What, you've never seen a cat's blog?) I try to overcome this by doing a spot of coding, but it's not easy to type in the available space between my seat and the one in front, so I abandon the notion and just listen to stuff on the in-flight info/comms/entertainment system. Until the screen stops responding to me. Meh. Part way into the flight, I grab the attention of one of the cabin crew to say... "Hi! Uhh, my ICE is frozen, can you reset it please?"

He notes my seat number and reboots my ICE a few minutes later (the next time he got down the back, I think), and I get to watch the loading messages. Nothing of particularly great interest, nothing that tells me much about the internals (except that it doesn't seem to be an in-seat PC, which is how I'd do it - each with an IP address that corresponds to the seat number, eg .17.2 for seat 17B), but fun to watch anyway. Fifteen minutes later, I'm going through the movies and it puts me in category "(null)", which seems to have some random trailers, and shortly thereafter, the ICE crashes again. I am not accustomed to computer hardware failing on me twice in quick succession like that; that's something that happens to other people! My recommendation: Do a RAM check on seat 17A's PC. Oh wait, they're not PCs. Oh well. Still, there must be a reason. Anyway, we have three laptops and two ICEs between us, so we're not short of stuff to watch.

We're now approaching Dubai, although we've been put on hold until an Air Traffic Customer Service Operator is available. Current wait times are 10-15 minutes. So we're sitting here listening to really expensive music courtesy of the Rolls Royces on the wings, only we get to enjoy a sort of slow rollercoaster ride at the same time. However, on the up side, we are ahead of schedule, so there'll be extra time to poke around Dubai Airport, hopefully finding wifi and power.

19:38 (Melbourne time): Plopped down in Dubai, on wifi and power. Yay. Connecting flight's already been called, but we have a smidgen of time before we have to get down there. Hopefully enough to check emails and stuff; definitely enough to add another trophy IP to my collection.

Travelog 2011 part 1

2011-07-28T11:18:00.001+10:00

The flight from Melbourne to Kuala-Lumpur has a lot of empty seats on it. We'll presumably be picking up more people for the K-L to Dubai leg, same as happened last time; but until then, there's room enough for us to spread out a bit. Boarding began rather later than we expected, so we sat in the airport lounge with power points handy, meaning that I now have plenty of battery power - always a good thing for a geek! - and we're enjoying the luxury of Emirates service. Michael and David are sitting in their assigned seats, while I've nipped forward to the vacant seat row ahead. Takeoff (which happened at pi time, 03:14) requires that all electronics be securely stowed, so Traal gets to sit beside me, safely seatbelted in like any other passenger.

Airports generally bustle with activity at all hours of the day and night, but Tullamarine seemed actually to be quite asleep as we went through - more shops were closed than open, and everything was surprisingly quiet. I'm normally active at this sort of time, so the hour didn't faze me at all, but Michael and David seem to prefer the quieter life. Well, let 'em sleep... we have a few hours ahead of us before the K-L stop.

Bilinguality is made fairly convenient when one of the languages reads left to right and the other right to left. Small brochures like the in-flight menu have the English first AND the Arabic first.

Now to sort out the in-flight entertainment system so I get some nice music as well as the downward-looking camera... Phantom of the Opera will do nicely.

06:20 (still on Melbourne time). A glance at the map gives some idea of how vast Australia is. We've been flying for a good three hours (that's longer than a bad three hours, in case you're wondering), are well on the way to our first landing, and where are we? Cruising over the desert of Western Australia toward Broome. Based on the "Airshow" (real-time map display and trip information) data, I expect we won't cross the coast for another hour or two.

07:25. As estimates go, not too bad. We're now heading out to sea past Broome. That's four hours of flying and more than half of the journey before we leave our native (golden) soil behind us.

09:39. Breakfast was a rather delicious omelette with some oddments including a bread roll, for which strawberry jam was provided. On seeing the latter, I immediately began whistling Sorcerer, but stopped on realising that the remaining ingredient would never be served on an Arab airline. However, we did have the opportunity for some Sound of Music when the hot drinks were brought around. (I think both my readers will recognize those references.)

Over breakfast Michael and I discuss the pressure vessels found in breakfast - can of soft drink, cup of orange juice with foil on top, bread roll sealed in plastic bag - and the possibility that they're deliberately pressurised to 8,000 feet the way the plane is. It seems likely enough; there's definitely enough business worldwide to justify making items unique to the airline industry, and overpressured foodstuffs would make for regular disasters at altitude.

It's now light outside, but the downward camera is hardly exciting. Seems there's some cloud between us and the earth - pesky stuff, that, pity it's so essential to life! Meanwhile, across on the other aisle, cabin crew take a photo of a young family using what is unmistakably a Polaroid, complete with the classic "shake the pic to make it develop faster" (no idea whether or not that actually works, I don't use Polaroid).

Touchdown at 10:55 Melbourne time or 8:55 local time (three TZs away but DST). Extremely smooth - almost a three-pointer. We popped out of the clouds straight onto the piano keys.

I'm posting this hastily from KL's free wifi. Unfortunately there's no non-HTTP access, so unless I can mail home a CGI script that'll let me access other things via Apache, it's not looking good... but hey, I can post this. And I claim 221.133.45.194 among my trophies. :)

Packing for England

2011-07-27T01:05:00.000+10:00

When a geek packs for an overseas trip, the definition of "necessary" isn't quite what it would be for someone else. I am taking more batteries than t-shirts... more power adapters than pairs of socks... more cables than jumpers (and that includes the type you wear as well as the type you put across contacts)... more network ports than bottles of duty-free port...

24 hours from now, we'll be in the airport awaiting departure. It's good to be flying Emirates again; their forward- and downward- looking cameras make great in-flight entertainment. Who needs a window seat when you can just watch on your own screen!

Like our previous trips, I'll be blogging periodically. Unlike our previous trips, Clippy won't be; but Midga will, so follow http://midga.blogspot.com/ as well as this one if you want random news of England.

On to Buxton!

Beauty and the Beast in concert - Waterdale

2011-07-23T17:49:00.003+10:00

As a not-so-secret fan of the geeky leading character, I was not sorry to support a friend by coming to this concert version of Beauty & The Beast. The atmosphere is intimate and friendly, with non-allocated seating in an auditorium that seats only a hundred people. By the time I booked tickets, every performance was sold out except the Sat matinee; and it, too, has sold out - a good sign.

There's no curtain, so we can see the orchestra readying themselves on the stage, and occasionally we see a patch of light under a door as people move in and out behind the stage. Two minutes to show time, the ensemble file out, all wearing show t-shirts - looks good, like a Savoynet cast photo. In their neutral blacks they can fit into any scene, but what's more impressive is that they can stay out of a scene without leaving the stage - with no little skill in sitting still and looking invisible.

Above the orchestra, a small projection screen took the part of the mirror and rose and a few other things. There were a couple of additional times when I would have liked to see it used - when the Beast gave Belle her special gift, and we just had to guess at what it might have been. Other than that, it served its purpose well.

The opening announcement was done by Gaston, in the same way Alfred Doolittle did for Scotch's My Fair Lady - complete with plenty of egotistical comments. (Advertise yourself, Gaston. It's what you do best.)

The chorus did an excellent job of carrying the action while focusing attention on the leads - for instance, in "Bonjour" they wore muted colours, while Belle was in the classic blue-white, and Gaston in red; also, any time they were not singing, members of the chorus remained almost perfectly stationary. During "Kill the Beast", typical crowd-conversation staging had them talking to each other; the three cloaked ensemble members spread the word, and everyone else carried it through animatedly.

Belle (Jacqueline Levitas) did enjoy her books, rather a lot. She somehow failed to return one, even when she went to borrow another. Apparently she's such a popular customer at the bookstore that he's happy to give her both books! At least she has the brains to use them, though, unlike the three awesomely stupid Silly Girls (Caitlyn Burt, who also played Babette, and Sarah Kiely and Sarah Burke) - whose greatest trait is to move and act in perfect synchronization in their fawning over Gaston (Robert Clark). Larger than life, with his ego pumping yes-men, he commands the stage. And leader of his yes-men, Le Fou (Anthony Julian), manages to own the stage when it's appropriate too, in his own inimimimimitable way. The two of them with Monsieur D'arque (Alexander Pech) form a fairly devastatingly evil trio, quite... quite delightful. But no threat of lunatic asylum fazes Belle or her father Maurice (Kristopher Brown) - not when they have the mirror on their side. The glow from the mirror is an excellent effect - although I would have liked to see more of the Beast up on the top mirror. He probably wouldn't have been hideous enough to project, though; played by Sam McPartlan, he has quite a decent voice, and isn't quite ten feet tall (sorry Maurice). But he has the trademark roar of temper, enough to scare Lumiere (Nathan Wright) and Cogsworth (Sean Walpole), who spend most of the show either by-playing off each other or getting in trouble with the Master. Still, they do get to order the master around once - "DANCE!" (it's probably the second-funniest waltz I've ever seen) - and I'm still not sure which of them won the one-upmanship contest. Not that Mrs Potts (Emma Fitzgerald) cared; anyone for a spot of tea? And Chip (Phoebe Bengough) was too well-behaved to complain at not knowing what was going on. Ever-helpful servants, they only live to serve and chat - and, in the case of Madame Grande (Bec Muratore), sing. Poor little forget-me-not, at least she still has that opera-singer voice; it's powerful enough to shatter, if not glass, then at least the confidence of the invaders and encroachers!

The technical aspects of the show did extremely well with minimal resources. Lighting (with one single follow spot) and smoke were used to good effect; even using the work-lights for one bright flash. The sound was a little out of balance at times, but most things were audible. The ensemble created some fairly indicative wolf-eyes with pairs of torches, and both they and the crew kept the microphones ready for the people who were going to need them - always preempting requirements, keeping things moving smoothly. Pieces of set were reused in several places, which also helps to reduce pressure on backstage room - which was clearly in short supply. And then a couple of crowning moments of awesome... at the end of "Be Our Guest", a massive pop emits a cloud of tinsel-confetti all over the stage!

Staging was of course simplified down to fit the small stage, but things still worked quite well. The songs "Gaston" and "Be Our Guest" were superb - well sung and well danced, as the first citizen put it. I suppose it's predictable that the leading girl will get my attention, but Jacqueline does have a wonderfully expressive face. During "Be Our Guest", she has nothing to sing, but plenty to act - and her wide-eyed enthusiasm helped to lift the number that bit further. And when she's miserable (when she realises what the beast is demanding of her), it's all written there on her face; but the joy and love that fill her soul later on, when she rejoins her father, are equally visible.

Smoke was used extensively in a number of scenes. (It smelled somewhat like maple syrup, which would make some weird form of sense given that Pancake Parlor sponsored the show!) Can't be good for the cast's voices, but it was an effective look. There were quite a few outlets... even Mrs Potts's spout, which caused several intruders alarm!

The programme states that Waterdale shows aim to provide opportunities for young people to get involved in theatre. This is clearly the case, and is reflected in the staging; several times, the cast were moving around and even climbing down off things immediately after a black-out. Good eyesight does help there; nobody appeared to have any problems with that.

This has been an excellent show, and shows off some excellent performers and crew.

RosMud version 1.6.4

2011-06-25T01:10:00.000+10:00

It's been a while since the last of these! Just some small changes, and mostly to plugins.

* Patched Aspell.dll to match a change to the GNU Aspell web site (change of posted URL resulted in the plugin being unable to show suggestions).
* Added some "easy shortenings" to the TinyURL plugin. ThinkGeek, NotAlwaysRight, and Youtube URLs can now (often) be shortened without going via TinyURL.
* Fixed a bug in the Timer plugin whereby a timer would sometimes (eg if the computer is suspended and resumed) "go negative" with a rather odd display.
* Added HTTPS recognition to both the TinyURL plugin and the click-to-view base facility.

World IPv6 Day

2011-06-08T10:10:00.000+10:00

Tada! The world ends now... oh wait. Wrong opening.

Look! The dawn of a new age... well, not quite. Started over ten years ago. Try again.

Uh..... Hello, world?

Okay, so it's nothing spectacular, to most people. But World IPv6 Day started a few minutes ago, and with it the commitment by a large number of web sites to activate IPv6 on their primary names. If you're on IPv6, you can now access Google at www.google.com - previously, you had to use ipv6.google.com.

It still doesn't sound very impressive, I realise, but there's a major chicken-and-egg problem with IPv6 deployment, and this should help to spread the word.

I know I haven't made anyone curious, but just in case I did:
http://www.worldipv6day.org/

Am I going insane? No, it's just Windows...

2011-03-23T08:12:00.003+11:00

Insanity, they say, is doing the same thing more than once and expecting different results. What is it, then, if you do the same thing more than once, expecting the same result, but you get different results? That's Windows.

I could open this post with a joke along the lines of "Your mouse has moved, please restart Windows to make this change take effect", but I'll just start with a fact. If you change your IP address, sometimes has Windows ask you to reboot. I was debugging a new router configuration, and had two laptops behind the router to test with; one running Ubuntu Linux 10.10, and the other running Windows XP SP[2/3].

The first IP address change on Windows triggered the "please reboot" prompt, so I grumbled, closed down the browser with 42 tabs that would later need to be reloaded, and restarted the machine. Annoying, but that's just how Windows is.

The next IP change didn't prompt for a reboot. Nice! Saves me some trouble. I went through a few iterations of router and laptop reconfiguration, and was never prompted to reboot. Things started going weirdly wrong, though... and eventually I set aside my reiplophobia and told Windows to restart. Voila! Everything worked.

So apparently, not only do you have to reboot XP after reconfiguring a network connection, but Windows won't necessarily even tell you this. You're expected to just figure it out for yourself. Clairvoyance or insanity, which will it be...

Sign.

2011-02-26T01:38:00.010+11:00

Server Room
No smoking
Violators will be put into a cheroot jail.

Finding the second occurrence of a regexp with sed

2011-02-23T19:16:00.003+11:00

This is something that I needed, but couldn't find. So for the benefit of the next person, here's what I did.

I have files that each contain two heredocs, and I needed a simple script to pull out the second one. The files look something like this:

#!/bin/bash

# various commands chomped for simplicity

ftp -n ftp.example.net <<EOT
user uid pwd
type image
get importantfile.tgz
quit
EOT

# lots more code

cat >scriptfile.sh <<EOD
#!/bin/sh
ftp -n ftp.example.net <<EOT
user uid pwd
get file1.sh
get file2.sh
EOT

# more code

EOD

# more code

After some searching and poking around with sed, I came up with this:

sed '1,/<<EOT/d;1,/<<EOT/d;/^EOT$/,$d' $1|ftp -n ftp.example.net

It locates one <<EOT, then locates another, deleting all the while. Then it stops deleting until it finds ^EOT$ and wipes out the rest. There's probably a simpler way to do some of this, but this is what I managed to hack together.

IPv4 address space depletion: what will it mean?

2011-02-03T14:32:00.002+11:00

The Internet has run out of addresses.

Okay, that's not perfectly accurate. What's happened is that, as of Feb 1st, the IANA is down to its last five Class-A address blocks, and according to policy, it must dole them out to five regional registries. So it's all a whole lot of noise in the upper echelons of the internet's organizational structure, and what's it mean for the end user?

In short: Nothing yet. You can ignore this whole issue and keep going as you are for quite a while. Your IP address comes from your ISP, and your ISP gets blocks of addresses from one of the registries, so they'll be alright for a while. How long is anybody's guess though; estimates range from three months to a year or so.

Ultimately, there will come a time when an ISP requests some more addresses and there just aren't any. What happens to their customers then? Various columnists have predicted that ISPs will have to switch to large-scale NAT - doing the same thing at the ISP level that is done at the home level when someone plops a cheap router down and shares their internet connection among multiple users. Effectively, the ISP will sell you half of a shared connection, and it'll be potentially tricky to run a simple home server.

But there's another possibility, and potentially quite scary because you won't know it's happening till it's too late. An ISP might go "on the cheap" and simply not buy enough IP addresses. Its customers wouldn't notice the difference, until some day everyone's online all at once, and your ADSL modem just can't get the information it needs, so it'd simply fail to get you online. You'd reboot your modem a few times, and eventually someone else would have gone offline, and you would get their IP address and be online. Meanwhile they're locked out, waiting for someone else to disconnect... and these days, people leave their internet connections on all the time, unlike in the days of dial-up.

It's time NOW to start talking to ISPs about IPv6. The true solution is to deploy IPv6 and to deploy it now; we need content to be on IPv6 and we need eyeballs to be on IPv6. Inquire about whether your ISP can offer you dual-stack networking - an IPv4 address and a block of IPv6 addresses - and if not, how soon they intend to offer this. It has to happen. It's just a question of how soon, and who is going to be left behind.

PSA: Hard disk passwords

2011-01-19T01:49:00.001+11:00

"You can't remember your password?"

Like Simon the BOFH, I have many passwords to remember, and occasionally my brain can't conjure the right one at the right time. Thus when, for the first time in several months, I rebooted Traal (and yes, despite my reiplophobia, I do sometimes reboot - this time was to replace a noisy CPU fan) and realised that I couldn't bring him up again. Some time ago, I put a password on the hard disk (ATA password), and the computer won't touch the hard disk without it being entered. After half an hour of trying to remember the password, followed by an hour of searching my other systems for where I might have written down a hint as to what my password was, I turned to password recovery services.

There are several services that, for a fee, will low-level format your drive and wipe out both password and data. This was not what I had in mind, as it is basically a way to get a cheap(er) hard drive; yes, it's cheaper than replacing the drive, but I would prefer to keep all my data, thanks! Forums posts and blog articles consistently stated that it's impossible to remove an ATA password without wiping your data, but one site promised to do just that.

A-FF Repair Station boasts that it can remove passwords from a large variety of hard drives. Generally it seems best to add the drive as a secondary in a desktop; with SATA drives, this is quite easy, as desktop and laptop SATA is the same connection (with PATA/IDE you need a 44-to-40 adapter). The free download of the Repair Station will examine the drives attached to the system, identify them, and tell you which one(s) have passwords; it will not, however, remove the password until you pay for it. It scanned my drive and told me that it ought to be able to remove the password, so I got out the credit card and prepared to pay for my inability to remember unusual passwords.

The purchase was smooth and troublefree, and I then told Repair Station to have another look at my drive. Unfortunately it then - and only then - told me that it was unable to depasswordify this drive, which was a great disappointment. It did not, however, charge my account for this failed recovery, and left the credit there; and later on, after I'd figured out the password on my own, I was able to get a refund to my credit card of the full amount. Quoting from Daniel Clay of Atola support:

Upon investigating session logs at our end, I see that the problem is related to the specific firmware revision of your hard drive. There are some rare firmware revisions of WD drives that Repair Station fails to unlock, while initially misdiagnosing as "unlockable". This is actually quite rare (well less than 1% of all sessions). Our simple refund policy was designed exactly to cover these.

While 1% may sound quite high (eg 1% downtime average for a server is appalling, 1% misdelivered mail is a lot), what this really means is that they have a free service that can, with an excellent degree of reliability, predict whether or not the drive is unlockable. And as their refund policy covers the rest, this is fairly safe.

So, conclusions.

1) Popular opinion, that it's absolutely impossible to remove an ATA password, is not necessarily right. I can't say for sure that A-FF Repair Station will be able to work as promised, as I haven't seen it in action, but it certainly appears to be valid for a large variety of drives. (I'm not prepared to password a drive and pay for its removal JUST to verify the program, though. I'll let someone else do that.)

2) It's still worth remembering your password. The removal service costs $50 (less if you buy in bulk) and you have to have a spare computer to plug it in to, and only certain drives are supported.

3) If you do have an issue with A-FF Data Recovery, their support people will handle it. I had a full refund back on my credit card within three days, and considering that the first "day" started at 11pm, that's decent turnaround time.

Ultimately, of course, no encryption on a removable device can ever be perfect. It would be possible, albeit slow, to just brute-force the password, and I think there are services that offer this. But you need special hardware or a REALLY patient person, so it's not practical. However, A-FF can remove passwords in fixed time, making ATA passwords largely bypassable; if your data is too sensitive to be released, use software encryption using industry-standard cryptography (maybe in addition to the hard disk password). Nothing's perfect, and ultimately, the only way to be sure is... to make sure your laptop isn't stolen. But you knew that already. :)

A secure ticketing system for Melbourne

2011-01-14T22:51:00.003+11:00

Or: MyPKI.

Actually, this is sufficiently general that it could probably apply to any city, but I have Melbourne in mind as I write this. Though it has its faults, it IS still a great city to live in!

A public transport ticketing system has to cope with a large number of possibilities. It has to handle:

Regular commuters, taking regular services every day, and knowing they're going to do so for the foreseeable future;
Periodic travellers who might use the train a couple of times a month, and want it convenient when they do;
Short-term visitors, using PT for a fixed period before departing the city;
One-off trips with no prospect of using the system again any time soon.

Ideally:

Each of the demographics should pay for their use of the system;
Each of the demographics should feel that they are not over-paying;
Fraud should be discouraged and/or made unprofitable;
Neither travellers nor staff should be put to unnecessary effort.

To keep the costs down (important for goal #2), existing technology should be used whereever feasible. A smart card of some description allows a convenient touch-on/touch-off pattern, high throughput in peak time, and can be easily implemented. The current MyKi system is a little slow in its definition of "touch" (hold your card on the reader for a few seconds), but this can be improved upon.

The four demographics can be served well by a dual system: the smart card for those who wish to keep their long-term costs down, and some other system for those who care only about this one trip. For the latter system, cost is important. Anyone should be able to buy a bus ticket on the bus they're about to ride, a train ticket from the station where they intend to board, a tram ticket on the tram; and they should not have to "buy into" a system they're not going to use. This can easily be dealt with by having very simple (possibly coin-only) ticket vending machines which, rather than providing a smart card, provide a simple token valid for a single trip - a uniquely-numbered, cryptographically-signed slip of fax paper would suffice. The slip can identify the date and time of issue, and the fleet number of the vehicle on which it was bought, making fraud difficult; in the unlikely event of deliberate, systematic fraud, the cryptographic signature can be used to verify its origin.

For the longer-term travellers, a smart card makes a lot of sense. Have some kind of up-front cost (possibly just that you must buy a minimum of, say, $10 of credit) to cover the cost of production, and then reduce the per-trip costs to the point where no sane person would regularly travel on single-trip tickets (goal #4: don't make bus drivers fiddle with coins all the time). The card itself should store a very small amount of information; a card identifier and an account identifier would be sufficient (or even just the card identifier, with account information centralized too). A single account could plausibly have multiple cards associated with it (a company could have a fleet of tickets, all paid for on one bill), or a lost/stolen card could be disabled and a replacement sent out at a reasonable cost.

The smart card does not need to store much information, but it may be beneficial to have it cache some information. However, this cache would be invalidated by fleet ticketing and external top-up, and should not be relied upon. Important: For security, the card itself must NOT be the primary location for any significant data, especially not financial data. Such data must be stored centrally, to prevent unauthorized modification. As the Boston/MIT ticketing hack demonstrated, storing financial data on the card itself is inherently insecure; even encrypted, it is accessible, and brute-force attacks are straightforward when there is nothing to prevent rapid testing of keys.

The obvious consequences of central storage of all data are the significant server load, and the communication requirement. Server load can be handled by industry-standard database engines^*. Requiring that all validators be networked, though, may pose a problem. It would require that every bus, every tram, and every railway station have a way to query the server and get back a response in no more than 250ms; any more than that, and the passenger has already moved away from the validator and the next person is trying to touch on/off. The card need not remain in contact with the reader for the full quarter-second, however; if the server reports insufficient funds in that account, the reader can beep a warning. With validator-controlled barriers, the networking requirement is slightly tighter; ideally, 100ms response time.

For railway stations, the solution is simple: Run a wired network along with all the other railway infrastructure. This will give easily enough throughput for 100ms response time. Trams may also be able to add infrastructure. For buses, however, it's not as easy. One option would be to use the 3G (mobile phone) network; another would be to have points at every stop where the bus can communicate back with base. Either way, the system must cope with the possibility of dropouts, by queueing requests and delivering them when able. With touching on, this may permit small-scale fraud; it would be possible for someone to board at a place known to have no coverage - by the time the driver is aware that someone is on the bus without a valid ticket, he's moved on, and probably doesn't know who of his passengers it is. However, it would not be difficult to "blacklist" any card (by its ID) when it goes below, say, negative $10, and have the blacklist cached on each validator, so that it will be refused if it attempts to validate when there is no contact.

Adding money to a card is of course crucial to the utility of the system. People should be able to recharge their cards at any railway station, via the internet, and possibly other ways. Of utmost importance is that this process be secure; if a fraudulent recharge station puts money onto a card without accepting money, the entire system collapses. The simplest and best solution here is to use public/private key encryption; digitally sign and encrypt all communication, and have every recharge station use a unique key pair. If anything is found to be suspect, that station can be configured "down", and it will then deny and be denied. This encryption and verification will add load to the servers, but recharging is a far less common operation than validating, and the comparative load would be insignificant.

There are a number of ways in which a malicious person might attempt to subvert this system. With sufficient logging, all can be recognized before they become a major problem, and dealt with or undone.

Attempting to edit one's own smart card will merely result in the invalidation of the cached records.
Sending forged recharge requests will be impossible without a genuine recharge station's private key.
Tampering with a recharge station to make it give free recharges would be detected as soon as its money box is counted, and could result in it being administratively disabled.
Recharging ridiculously small amounts (eg 20c at a time) in order to clog the servers could be prevented with a simple minimum recharge amount.
Randomly "zapping" other people's cards (eg by passing a validator through a crowded train) with a direct-charge marker (eg one used for buying a daily newspaper, as per MyKi's proposal) would log entries with the vendor's identification, similarly to current behaviour with credit cards.
Failing to validate could be conveniently checked for with hand-held validators.

In conclusion, there is nothing required which is beyond the realm of current technology; Melbourne deserves better than either Metcard or Myki has delivered - so far.

^* In peak time, there will be roughly 2000 validations/minute; each validation might result in 1-2 database updates. A good database engine, running on a well-built cluster server, should be able to handle this without problems; see for example http://www.mysql.com/news-and-events/on-demand-webinars/display-od-475.html in which MySQL and connected open source software achieves 200,000 TPS, which would be enough for probably 50,000 validations per second, or 300K per minute. This is an extreme, but even with simpler and cheaper hardware, 5000 queries per second is an easy target for any good database engine; it may even be possible to manage on a single (non-cluster) server.

Problems fscking Ubuntu 10.10

2011-01-05T03:29:00.002+11:00

Most of this evening was spent battling a problem with an ext4 hard drive, and Google didn't turn up as much hit quality as it usually does, so I'm documenting the process for future reference.

The most important thing to note is that the entire problem was caused by improperly shutting the computer down. Powering down in the middle of bootup is a bad idea. Obviously there are times when it's unavoidable, but let this wasted evening be a cautionary note: If you can do an orderly shutdown, do.

In theory, the system should fsck (that's File System ChecK, not profanity) on boot up; for some reason, this wasn't working. I haven't plumbed the reason for this, but presumably the normal thing is to simply have a delay on next bootup, and things proceed as normal.

Instead of booting normally, it dropped me into a repair/recovery console. Unfortunately this console did not have an fsck command available, and attempting to mount /dev/sdc1 (the root partition) simply froze the computer.

Next attempt: Boot the Ubuntu 10.10 install CD, and hit Ctrl-Alt-F1 to go to tty1. It had the fsck command, but whenever I tried to use it, it told me that the file system was unavailable, possibly because it's mounted. It did not seem to be, though, and I have no idea why it would have been. Attempting to mount the drive caused the exact same hang as from the recovery console. A slight variant though, I discovered:

$ sudo -i
# mkdir harddrive
# mount /dev/sdc1 ./harddrive
Ctrl-Alt-F2 to go to tty2
$ ps -A
$ kill [pid of bash that's running the sudo -i]

It was possible to kill bash and leave mount running. But it still wasn't possible to do anything with mount. Similarly, proceeding to the next step in the installer caused it to attempt to mount the hard drive, causing the same hang.

Ultimately, I found a solution: Boot some Linux _other than_ Ubuntu. I used a Slax ISO from http://www.slax.org/get_slax.php to get a workable console, then was able to fsck /dev/sda1 (for some reason it became the first drive, whereas under Ubuntu it kept being the third - possibly something to do with how the BIOS handled PATA vs SATA, and presumably inconsequential). It found some errors, fixed them, then dropped me back to the shell. I tried mounting the file system to see if it looked alright, but Slax's mount told me that ext4 was an unknown partition type, and flat out refused. Why would it be known to fsck and unknown to mount? Doesn't make sense!

But fortunately, that Slax fsck was enough to get the drive functional again, and everything booted quite happily after that. It does worry me, though, that (a) Ubuntu couldn't fix the problem, and (b) the Ubuntu installer was unable to simply format the disk and start fresh (which, ultimately, should always be possible - no matter how much file system damage you have). Googling for 'ubuntu mount hang' was surprisingly unproductive, so I've posted this here in case anyone else has similar trouble.

We return you now to your regularly scheduled programming.

Reiplophobia

2011-01-02T05:26:00.003+11:00

Since it's been mentioned in a couple of places, I feel I ought to explain myself on this one. What's reiplophobia, why do I have it, and where did the term come from?

I'll start with the easy one. Reiplophobia is the fear of rebooting a computer.

Why? What's so bad about a reboot? Several reasons. Firstly, rebooting is the mainstay of apathetic, careless, or incompetent tech support. "You have a problem? Reboot your computer." Since this frequently achieves the short-term goal, it's held up as the ultimate solution to all problems. This is a bad thing for the long-term health of the system, because the problem has only been dodged, not solved.

Secondly, restarting a computer destroys all transient data. This is more serious in some situations than in others, but if you have any unsaved data and you need to reboot, you have to either delay the reboot while you deal with it, or lose whatever hadn't been saved. If all you're doing is editing files, you might think that periodically pressing Ctrl-S will ensure that you lose nothing; but most editors maintain a lot of less obvious state, such as cursor position and undo stack, which can be extremely valuable in figuring out where you were up to in some major task. Being able to set something aside for a week and pick it up where you left off is a valuable thing, and most editors won't fully support this if they've been restarted.

But most importantly, a reboot means downtime. Yes, downtime! and you shuddered at the very word. Actually, you probably didn't, because you don't have the same pathological hatred of outages that a network admin does. (Unless you do, in which case, I applaud you sir.) To my mind, a service should always be available. That means that a server should always be up. Imagine if the internet was built on a 99% uptime rule - every little piece would just randomly be unavailable 1% of the time. You'd be forever frustrated; first your ISP drops you out for a few minutes, then you can't find the site you want, and then you find the site but it's decided to go out for a smoke (you DO know that computers run on smoke, right? Let any of it out and they stop working) and won't respond to you till it's back. Completely unacceptable. So the only option is to aim for 100% uptime. No downtime. Ever. And that means... never reboot. If a problem can be fixed without a reboot, then fix it without a reboot, and the server will keep running all through.

(Technical note: It would be more accurately described as an aversion, not a fear, but everyone understands what a phobia is.)

So what's with the name? Reiplophobia? Did it come up in your alphabet soup this morning?

Not quite; it came up in my CONFIG.SYS a few years ago. The term "REIPL" is from IBM; I first met it in a directive which has for years been my favorite example of IBM-speak:

REIPL=C

It's perfectly obvious what this does; it causes fatal errors to be logged to a file called C:\POPUPLOG.OS2 - why didn't you understand that right away?

IPL stands for Initial Program Load, and is IBM's term for, well, booting a computer. Yeah. IBM don't want to call it "boot", it has to be "IPL". So "reIPL" means "reboot" (and I've seen this term in a couple of places, but I'm pretty sure they all derive from IBM). If there's no REIPL= directive in CONFIG.SYS, then fatal errors will be dumped to the screen and the system halted; specifying a drive letter (that's what the C means) causes the system to log to a file on that drive, and then automatically reboot. It makes some (a little) sense that way, but it's still a fairly incomprehensible construct. You have to know what it does before you can understand it.

So there you have it. Reiplophobia: the fear of rebooting a computer.

PSA: Google Docs sharing bug

2010-11-28T06:45:00.002+11:00

There is a current bug with Google Docs & Spreadsheets, with many users unable to share documents. On Minstrel Hall, this is a bit of a problem for us, as character sheets have to be shared between a player and a DM. But fortunately there seems to be a workaround.

Shorten the document name, then share it. Once both people have access, rename the document to a more appropriate name, the sharing will be retained.

Courtesy of a user on http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google%20Docs/thread?tid=100dda558d2f9df5&hl=en&start=40

Savoy Opera Company: Patience

2010-10-25T02:17:00.001+11:00

I wasn't expecting to be able to get to this show, having several scheduling conflicts, but at the last minute, time opened up for me to see the matinee. Patience is a show I've seen quite a bit of; my first non-crew role was a Heavy Dragoon, and then two years later the G&S Society took a Patience to England. It's less popular than some of the Gilbert and Sullivans, but its music is no worse than any other. Unfortunately a production that's artistically good but undersells is a tough proposition for a performing company.

And today's show was good. There were a few unfortunate moments, where lines were lost or unplannedly altered, but by and large it was a fun show. The cast were clearly enjoying themselves, and it communicated.

Patience (Lucy Pfeifer) was marvellous in her scenes with the two poets, and then she topped herself in the second act with Lady Angela (Bec Muratore). Over the top? She started there and kept on moving up! But with all her effort, she still had a fair way to challenge the OTT-ness of the hilarious Lady Jane (Jennifer Donohue). The second act opens with Jane and her cello, which she made no pretense of genuinely playing. When she dragged her bow across and the orchestra didn't oblige, she glared down at them comically. And later, in her duet with Bunthorne (Stephen Smith), both of them played up the comedy, with an energetic Reggie popping up and down behind Jane - their relative heights made this work quite well. Bunthorne and Grosvenor (Stephen McNealy) had a similarly energetic "When I go out of door", upstaging each other with enthusiasm. Among the 35th Dragoon Guards (what do dragoons need to be guarded from, incidentally?), I think there were about one and a half minds - occasionally the Duke (David Campbell) disagreed with the others, until being brought back into line by the Colonel (Matthew Cookson), or the somewhat ineptly soldierly Major (Julian Raff), who needed to pause to figure out how to get the company off stage (Oh yes! Left, that's right. No, right is right. Left. Right. Left. Got it!). Their singing was far more impressive than their soldiering, though, and especially in the Soft Note, we heard a very good set of voices. Ella (Ariel Chou in the matinee) was clear and lovely, if a little timid at times; Saphir (Lucy Fitzmaurice) came forward rather more, both musically and in her characterization.

There were a few places where the show perhaps could have done with a little more polish, which may have been a consequence of having missed out on the previous night's performance; the Dragoon Guards particularly do need to look precise in their movement, for instance. But it was still a good show and a fun one, enjoyable and enjoyed, and I'm very glad to have seen it.

RosMud version 1.6.3

2010-10-17T11:22:00.000+11:00

* If you have "Prompt on close: Always" and active connection(s), then you will now get _two_ (or more) prompts before closing.
* Fixed an obscure race condition with Passive Mode.
* Updated the wealth plugin to the new format

Practically Perfect in Every Way

2010-09-12T18:24:00.000+10:00

Two brothers and I saw "Mary Poppins" at Her Majesty's Theatre on Thursday. The ticket price was rather higher than I had been planning to pay, but I had hopes that the show would justify it. The cost of a programme ($20) was in line with the ticket price, but for that we got a large full color programme and a B4 booklet of close-up photos, which made that fairly good value. It had several points which piqued my interest. The quintuple casting of the two children was an obvious necessity, given the amount of work they have and the length of the season. But more notable was the crediting of "Mary Flight" engineering. In Sheldon Cooper's world, that would be a spoiler... we went in with our minds "pre-blown" with the expectation that we'd see some spectacular flying. More on that later!

Our seats were up in the Grand Circle, around to the side a bit. As readers of this blog will know, a bit of altitude doesn't bother me; in Buxton, we always sat in the balcony seats, and in closer-to-home productions, I'm frequently in the roof, operating a follow spot. In the Maj, the view from the Grand Circle is more than adequate, and the show was carefully miked to ensure that every seat heard the show just fine.

From our seats, we could see the domes and lighting board. There were four domes, all of which were used to good effect. It was occasionally distracting to see the full cone of the spotlight, which mostly happened after smoke had been used on stage - which was done extremely well, eg chimney scenes - but the most notable attribute of the follow spotting is precision. Marvellous precision. They would 'bing' on and 'bing' off and be perfectly placed every time.

Throughout the show, precision, precision, precision. I wrote it on my notes five times, all up, and that's only because it would have been redundant to write it any more. The ensemble work was crisp, the technical aspects were executed smoothly, the timing was spot on. It's not easy to stand perfectly still, and then to break into movement at the exact same time that the lights and the music begin moving; and that's exactly what happened.

The title character's first entrance was smoothly done. We weren't specifically looking for her, and completely did not see her - the lights went down, there was a flash of lightning, and then the lights came up to reveal her in the middle of the stage. It's an effective technique - once. When the same method was used a second time later in the show, we could see exactly where she came from. But it still worked fairly well.

A side point, on entrances/exits: The set for the inside of 17 Cherry Tree Lane had an upstairs, which the children would exit by when heading to their rooms. The painted outside showed that there was a bit of a landing before the stairs started moving up, so it didn't look 'wrong' to see the children walk through the exit and not begin climbing stairs. It's a minor point, but one where forethought can maintain artistic verisimilitude - and over and over again, this production had it working right. There were a very few cases where things looked odd (the statues in the park, when they became animated, were clearly in costumes that were zipped up behind), but they were far outweighed by the alternative (like the projected rain effect, which was used in three different ways to create drizzle, driving rain, and snow).

The story takes place in a large number of different locations. This necessitated some swift scene changes, frequently in the middle of other action. To accomplish this, some scenery was flown, and other components were brought in on tracks in the stage. I have no idea how much stuff was in the wings, but it must have been quite considerable. We never saw stage crew, but they were clearly extremely active through the whole show - not the "thirty minutes of boredom, thirty seconds of blind panic" model of some shows.

As a geek, I was of course looking closely at the technical aspects of the show. How would the carpet-bag be handled? I didn't quite satisfy myself on that point. It disgorged a hat stand, which might have been telescoping and might have come from a trap in the floor; a plant, which could easily have been folded down on itself; but also some bedclothes, which couldn't really have fitted along with everything else. There must be some alternative entrance to that Bag of Holding... but we didn't see it. The stage magic was equally impressive in the finger-snap tidying sequence, where a kitchen disaster was smoothly undone without the luxury of running the film backwards, and in a front-of-projection scene where Bert drew a "Welcome" message in the sky prior to Mary's return. His arm movements synchronized with the projection with just a little delay that could be explained by the altitude at which he was writing.

Normally, I would plan to applaud after each song, and occasionally after a particularly awesome entrance or piece of stagecraft. Unfortunately we weren't permitted to do so for quite a while - important dialogue followed immediately after a good song, so applauding would have meant missing out on that. But as the show continued, we got more time to applaud, and we were far from alone in doing so.

Everyone who works in theatre knows what it means to "fly" something. It's not really flown, but rather is strung up and lifted into the roof. And everyone who's used a kite knows what it means to "fly" a kite. But in this show, kites are flown in both senses at once - a convincing rendition of kite movement, in the windlessness of theatre. And not just one kite, but five - moving in and out smoothly - and one of them managed to get stuck on an approaching Mary, a rather neat effect.

Yes, my expectations of "Mary flight engineering" were not disappointed. Even if there'd been only a few short flights, it would have been impressive. But for the grand finale, in every sense of the word, she did more than just fly around the stage - she flew right across the audience's heads, and up into the roof! Two men came to a lighting tree in the auditorium (why two? I don't know; maybe one is in charge of safety) and took what had been a fixed lamp and turned it into a follow spot, smoothly highlighting the departing star. (And yes, she behaved very much as an operatic star, both in singing style and in how she took her bow - I think she earned that privilege.)

And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell more about these characters, who through stage magic walked up walls, appeared through dollhouses, turned houses around, held families together, and became powerful in foreign armies (okay, not that). These were all commended for their stagecraft, yet none of them received as much applause as they - and even more so, the invisible crew who made it happen - deserved. This show had its awesome moments. The rest was merely spectacular.

RosMud version 1.6.2

2010-07-30T12:39:00.002+10:00

* Fixed a bug with paste that could potentially crash RM if an arbitrarily long line was submitted. Now, it will cut the line short without crashing (but without erroring either).

* Changed the default world file.

Also a couple of slight tweaks to plugins and default options that will make the initial install a bit cleaner.

RosMud version 1.6.1

2010-05-03T17:25:00.002+10:00

A few small bug fixes, nothing enormous.

* Double-clicking a world name in the Connect window will connect to it.

* Fixed a small bug with the HPGraph plugin (retroactively added to some 1.6.0 releases)

* Fixed a small bug with passwording: the window would stay in "concealed mode" if you disconnect from the server while entering your password.

* Updated the default world file

One very good Ventura Knoxfield driver

2010-02-26T08:13:00.004+11:00

Ventura Bus Lines, Knoxfield depot. Home of Melbourne's bus route 742, which I use morning and evening (unless I take the almost-parallel route 693, operated by Invicta) to get to and from work. For those who don't know the geography, grab Google Maps or similar, or just bear with me; the specific locations don't matter all that much. Route 742 sometimes dips underneath Centro Oakleigh to go directly to the station, and sometimes arcs around Hanover, Atherton, and Station Streets. (It depends on whether the bus is terminating at Oakleigh or going on to Chadstone, but again, immaterial to this account.) In the arc there are three bus stops: one partway along Hanover, one at the corner of Hanover and Atherton, and one midway down Atherton, at Eaton Mall (tangent: it is so named because it used to be Eaton Street before it was made no-traffic, but it's singularly appropriat because the mall has a large number of eateries...) All buses then go to the Oakleigh Station Bus Loop.

Yesterday, I was on an arcing bus, which I like because I can disembark at the first Hanover St stop and go shopping - it's the most convenient way to maintain my supplies of soft drink (aka soda, to my American readers) and cheesy snacks for at work. I was short on snacks, so I hit the "next stop" button and prepared to disembark - but the driver didn't stop. This is unfortunately quite normal - a lot of drivers miss that first stop - and as we ran past it, I reminded the driver that I'd wanted that stop. (The usual course is for the driver to then stop at the other stop on Hanover, which entails a longer walk for me but still lets me go shopping.) He said no, there's no stops here. I pointed out the signage, and he said they were stops for other routes, but not for this one. We unfortunately had a bit of an argument, and I ended up departing the bus (at Oakleigh Station, and unable to go shopping) in something of a huff, giving the driver a dirty look rather than my extremely usual "Thank you" as I departed the bus.

Today, he changed all that. I boarded the bus as usual, and the driver - yep, the same guy from yesterday, I believe, although I've not a good memory for faces - said, "I owe you an apology". There are not many bus drivers who are prepared to apologize to their customers (aka passengers), and as far as I'm concerned, this turns the incident completely. I wish I knew his name, so that I could thank him formally, but whoever you are: Thanks. It's good to know that Knoxfield drivers do not all fit the negative stereotype!

Oh frabjous day!

2010-02-02T21:57:00.002+11:00

Google has announced that soon support for IE6 will be removed from Google Docs and other services... okay, so the browser isn't dead, but if more and more major sites make similar declarations, eventually all those corporate locked-down systems will have to get upgraded, and that would be a Good Thing. Hopefully, when the crunch comes, they'll think about going to Chrome or Firefox rather than IE8, but even moving to IE8 would be better than staying with IE6.

Everyone's already said everything I would have said on the subject, but I have to give some more airtime to this delightful paragraph with which Think Geek regaled its loyal readers:

In a missive that made designerds and code monkeys everywhere swoon with Valentiney love, our sweetheart Google announced they would stop supporting IE6. Or as our codeslingers call it, IE666. Google pulled out their vorpal blades and with a snicker-snack, they left IE6 dead. Hearing the news was just like being in high school and getting a pass out of P.E. We are chortling with joy. Callooh! Callay! We love you, Google. Muah! Now, if you could only do something about Comic Sans and Papyrus fonts...

There is a sheer brilliance to this which is noteworthy even among ThinkGeek missives... go Geeknet!!

RosMud version 1.6.0

2010-01-03T17:21:00.002+11:00

Wow, it's been so long since the last of these posts. Well, time for a birthday release!

Quite a few changes here, so I'm calling it minor (1.6.0) rather than revision (1.5.10).

* Added a way to display recent numpad nav travel. Use the /lastnav command, put by default on the * key, to see up to 16 recent directions travelled. The list is restarted every time you start travelling using the numpad.

* Fixed a display issue with the input box when ANSI color is disabled (thanks Gesslar!)

* TinyURL plugin will now process multiple URLs in a single command, potentially tinifying them all.

* Added /debug command 'a'.

* You can now copy and paste with timestamps. Hold Ctrl while marking and copying, and timestamps (in the same "line timestamp format" configured in Advanced Options) will precede each line.

* New plugin: Kill counter. Designed for Threshold RPG; keeps track of the NPCs you have seen die (note that this is not necessarily the same as the number you kill, but it will likely be close). If you see all the same NPCs all the time, consider that you might be over-borging them! :D Not world-aware. (Type /killcnt to see stats.)

* The Editor now has an AutoWrap button which controls whether or not sending will be wrapped (previously it would always be wrapped).

* Also, the Editor now treats wrap to 0 as "don't wrap" (like it should have long ago).

Terms for groups of programmers

2009-11-30T10:02:00.002+11:00

Programmers sometimes work alone, and sometimes in groups. It stands to reason that there should be logical terms for such groups...

A single C programmer is a unary operator.

Two C programmers is a brace.

Three is a trigraph.

Any more than that, and you have a block.

ThinkGeek finally shipping a product they announced seven months ago

2009-11-12T01:23:00.002+11:00

ThinkGeek, the well-known geeky toys and tools company, announced a product early this year, but they were not shipping it. Today, seven months later, they announce that they finally are - or rather, they are accepting pre-orders. For most companies, this would be a disaster of PR (or else a triumph of PR if they could make it sound like a good thing), but in this case it's a completely different triumph.

The product? Tauntaun Sleeping Bag - a nice warm sleeping bag, done up to appear like the even smellier part of a creature of Hoth, sliced open by lightsaber. It originated as an April Fools joke, part of a series of hilarious fake new products such as Squeez Bacon, a USB pet rock, and other equally geeky offerings; but this one attracted such interest that they decided to turn it into a reality.

And reality it now is. You can preorder your very own now, and they'll ship them by the end of the month. That's roughly eight months from "Hey, you know, there's actually a lot of interest in this" to "Here it is folks, on your doorstep"... pretty impressive! And, being ThinkGeek, they of course wrote up an excellent description page, including a video... worth watching.

ThinkGeek: Bringing Hilarity To Your RSS Feed Since... oh, I dunno, when did they start having a feed of new items? Anyway, since whenever you choose to add them.

Savoy Opera Company's Iolanthe

2009-10-25T01:22:00.002+11:00

I'm delighted that it was tonight that we'd planned to come, as we got to see Bec playing Leila, which she's only doing for two of the performances. (Hey, may as well be honest - I come to these shows for the people in them, so the more people I know in the show, the better!) And we weren't disappointed; it was a fun show, as Iolanthe needs to be.

The overture was played well (I love the triangle, Sullivan put it to good use). Pity that several audience members were still finding their places, though. From the waving of the curtain, it seems some of the cast were, too, although that's something that always seems to happen. The curtain went up on a group of sleeping fairies, who were progressively roused by wand-jabs until all were awake in time to sing their opening number. The set was extensive, especially right at the beginning; there was so much that there was no room for choreography, although that didn't matter much, as there wasn't much choreography to need room for. Later some of that was flown out (and a couple of large mushrooms removed by an unfortunately-visible stagehand), but for the opening, it was fairly crowded. Not too crowded, though, for a lovely bit part for the tiny fairy who brought the Queen a cuppa and newspaper - delightful! The set was mostly canvas, and I think there was not a part of it that didn't get bumped at some point, which was a pity. But it looked good, and Iolanthe was able to make her entrance from behind it, rather than the boring option of just walking on from the wings.

Lighting was subtle, never drawing attention to itself. There were a few places where things seemed a little dark, but mostly things worked. One or two followspots would have improved things significantly, as there were several points where people weren't in their specials, but one can't have everything, and for the most part, everyone could be seen.

Musical direction was respectful, and sounded good. There were a number of places where the singers and orchestra got out of sync, but they always got back together eventually. One interesting change was made: "If we're weak enough to tarry" was put in the first act, and "None shall part us" into the second. This placed the songs where they were originally written to be, but they were shifted very early on and are more usually performed the other way around. I'm not sure whether they work better this way around or the other, but it certainly worked just fine tonight.

Problems happen in every show, and I'm very impressed with the way one was handled tonight - although the people in charge of properties (Geoff Fisher and Annette Cott, according to the programme) will have a bit of a repair job. One of the fairy wands broke, but a swift foot-jab and the broken end scuttled under a flat and into the wings. Good job!

Well, if it's the people I see the show for, I should talk about them - some. The choruses were large, and for the most part singing well, although vocal balance was a bit lacking (what operatic society *isn't* desperate for good tenors??). Without too much actual choreography to do, all still maintained a level of interest in what was going on, and kept focussed on the action. One of the hardest things to do is to demonstrate lethargy, but in the opening number, that's precisely what the fairies did... and then snapped out of it on "No, we haven't any notion". The three fairies Celia, Leila, and Fleta (played by two different people each across the season - tonight, Rhiannon Stevens, Bec Muratore, and Shona Armstrong respectively) fitted in and led the chorus. You will not think me biased, I am sure, for singling out Leila - of course I wasn't looking at her especially, just because I know her! She definitely was good, though; and there is something incredibly comic about such a short fairy staring down those immensely tall earls! Fleta has only a few lines, but plenty of character; and Celia definitely led the entire company in the second act. These fairies have enough magical power behind them to push the entire House of Lords around; and the men can't leave until the fairies resign themselves to the fact that they're going (upon which they can happily leave, right through the mass of fairies). The two Earls Mountararat (Matthew Cookson) and Tolloller (Glenn Murray) handled their respective parts with the nobility that they demand; these stately Lords of England, so simple-minded yet so grand, long may they stand and flourish - types of our English land! The second act, with them and the Lord Chancellor, was full of pork pie - funny pork pie, but still just pork pie. They feed off each other well, and worked effectively with the incredibly comic Andy Payne as Lord Chancellor. Spry (as was his train bearer, Laura Bourke) and hilarious, Andy also quietened down for his scene with his unrecognized wife, that beautiful moment when she pleads with him to no avail. And plead she did... Iolanthe (Rebecca Domorev) brought out the emotional range from inconsolable grief to ebullient joy, comforting Strephon in his loss, and accepting fate when her queen is about to revoke her pardon. Once the Fairy Queen (Jenny Wakefield) made her decision, that decision was made - she may be all friendly and happy when she welcomes Iolanthe back and gives her a tiara and wand, but there is no appeal from her decisions, which she delivers with such utter deliberation. The same deliberation is in evidence when she selects a husband, too; there's no indecision, no contemplation - she makes the alteration to the law, and then in perfect calmness summons her a man to her side: Private Willis (Nicolas Sharman). He steps out of his sentry-kennel (err, I mean, sentry-box) and obeys her call, for he's a British soldier, and will happily ill-convenience himself to save the female in this dress. He's accustomed to having the ladies' attention - he had Phyllis's, while the two earls were discussing her fate (and by the way, that was one of the best renditions I've seen of that scene), and he later says all the generals admire him. But he takes the Fairy Queen, who apparently isn't too concerned about what her laws are, as long as they're followed. And Strephon (Stephen White), shepherd-turned-parliamentarian, isn't much concerned about laws either, as long as he can marry Phyllis; we don't see many of his acts of P-A-arliament implemented - which is a good thing, seeing that the Fairy Queen was suggesting such things as politicians getting no superannuation, in a fun little modification of her description of the peers' "doom appalling". All Strephon wants is his flagolet, his sheep, and his girlfriend, and when one of them is removed from him, he's pretty brokenhearted. That emotion may have been a little overacted, but he certainly did some fairly convincing hugs and kisses when he was with Phyllis (Rachel Sztanski). Lord Chancellors aside, they really would have been made happy forever by getting married (and they delivered that dialogue excellently - Phyllis knows exactly what Strephon means, but is so nervous about the whole matter...). Phyllis's marble count was clearly dropping during the finale (and the poor girl had nobody to turn to, so she just had to stand there sobbing on her own), although by the second act she'd found back enough to be more stern with Strephon than distressed. (Although she seems to have lost her eyesight somewhere along the way. How long has she been harassed by - err, I mean, engaged to - these two earls, and yet she doesn't recognize them when they come to kiss her hand?) By the end of the show, she'd found them all back again, I think, and happily went off to fairyland along with everyone else (leaving the House of Commons to rule the country).

There were a couple of people in the audience who laughed at just about everything, and the applause was maintained throughout, so I think everyone else shared my opinion - that the show was a lot of fun. Well done!

Transubstantiation

2009-10-18T14:14:00.001+11:00

Has anyone ever put forward the theory that Jesus was actually made of bread, and had wine running through his veins? It's just as Scriptural, just as plausible, and just as comprehensible as any other form of transubstantiation.

Magic: The Gathering Grand Prix, Melbourne 2009

2009-10-10T21:28:00.003+11:00

Today I attended my first ever big Magic event, first event at Competitive REL, and first event with, get this, 416 players. Playing in prereleases was a great lead-in; the structure is almost identical, and the only really significant difference is that this event uses decklists. (What this means, which I didn't record in the timestamped log, is that instead of cracking boosters and building a deck from them, you crack boosters, sort by color and affabeckly, record every card on a sheet, and then pass deck and decklist on to someone else, receiving in turn a pool that someone else cracked. It's this second pool that you build your deck from, and which you keep afterwards.) So! On with the first impressions.

Got here 7:30 (dropped by Mum) and wandered around to find the place. Got inside before 8:00 and began mooching. Chatted with fellow players - one from Brisbane, one from country Vic. Lots of unfamiliar faces, of course, but also several people I know from Good Games Melb (Edmund has a stall selling GG staples, so I picked up a pack of sleeves; not my favorite blue ones as they're out of stock, so I got red instead). Quite a few Chrises around - when there were only 10-20 people in the place, there were already four!

8:48. Registrations officially closed at 8:45 so this should be everyone. Apparently the last GP Melb was only 200 people, and GP Sydney was 290 or something; this event has already broken that mark, and there's hope that there'll be 400 here, which would make a nice milestone. They have done their duty - I shall do mine. Gae, get here and do yours!

Speaking of which, yesterday's Ladies Invitational had just eight people in it. It nearly didn't run. Everyone in it had good fun, and I reckon Gae would have held her own. For $10, you get a draft and potential prizes... that's doing fairly well! (I was speaking to the lady who came second; she won three boosters.)

8:51. The announcement has gone out that registration is definitely closed (as always, the official cutoff time is set well before you actually want to cut off, and lateness is an expected phenomenon). Event will start at 9AM. There's a few wireless networks around, but all secured; it's odd - some places can give free wifi, but this apparently can't. Anyhow, I doubt I have enough battery to do much internetting.

I have a foil Chrome Mox now, and also an official GP tee (in XXL size - apparently this is deemed "one size fits all", so I hope it's not TOO huge... Magic players vary a lot in size, but most seem to be reasonably trim). The Mox should be worth something, no matter how badly I perform. (Although I don't know that I'd sell. It's a fun card to play with - {0} to drop, exile another card, tap to add mana of any of that card's colors, so it's an easy and powerful mana accelerant. And Gae's not going to run it. If she wanted one, she should have come today! So there!! :) )

The main event is Swiss format, so I don't know how long it's going to take. One of the guys I spoke to had won three byes, so he reckoned he'd not be playing till 1PM - which would work out to one hour per round, plus an hour at the beginning for deckbuilding, but he would have to deckbuild the same as everyone else. Wonder how many there'll be in the event... if there's of the order of 300-400 people here, that's doing fairly well, and we will most likely get a lot of rounds. We'll see. Table assignments seem to be going up, so (especially as it's 8:59) I think it's time to suspend and go see where I am!

11:25. My first pairing was against one of the handful of ladies in the hall, Tammy. She had some absolute BOMBS in her deck, including Ob Nix, which she managed to drop in each of the first two games. (And then in the third game, the possibility of her dropping it led to an agonizing decision of whether or not to Journey a 2/1 Intimidate.) Three games, all close. I won the first (in part because she Rite of Rep'd her Ob Nix), she won the second, and then the third could have gone either way. I think my Allies are the best thing in my deck, because dropping them first game was followed by a win (Ondu Cleric gave me quite a bit of life, and they kept getting first strike from Highland Berserker), failing to draw/drop them in the second was followed by a loss, and having a few in the third game resulted in a close run. I won that final game by attrition, finally dropping a Conquerer's Pledge (six Kor Soldiers).

11:32, and time has already been called for the first match. We're scheduled to start the second match at 11:35... ah, pairings have just been posted. Off I go!

12:08. Lost my second match 2-0. Manascrewed in the first game, these things do happen. Second game, my opponent swung with everything and I was staring death in the face... pulled Tuktuk Grunts off the top, and dropped it. Equipped my machete to it. Had a 5/4 hasty, and my opponent was on 5 life. I glanced over the board and said "Over to you", thinking he had a blocker....... but no, it was just Adventuring Gear! Argh! (Mind you, chances are the third round would have gone badly for me anyway. But it's awful to think I could have won that game, and didn't because I called "Over to you" prematurely. Blah!)

12:20. Hot pie and sauce. Not bad lunch. Everything's overpriced of course, but meh.

2:26. Round 3 went to time, so no chance to blog. We were 1-0 and on the second game when time was called; it's possible I might have won that game, but not in five turns, so I conceded. So that's another 2-0 loss. Round 4, though, a bit better. Game 1, my opponent was manascrewed badly... game 2, I was drawing poorly, but hung on for a while before succumbing. Game 3, we bashed away for a bit; my opponent had almost no guys, and they all fell to my early removal - he drew no more until the very end, and I overwhelmed him with fliers. Not the most satisfying of wins, as we never really had a fair and honest game, but it's a win all the same. I don't know what prize payouts are like, but now I have two wins out of four; if I can maintain this ratio, four wins in eight (there'll be eight rounds, it was announced at the beginning) would be a fairly reasonable showing. There's now ten minutes left in the round (round finishes 2:40), and lots of people are done; but all it takes is one match that goes to time and we all wait.

2:40. BZZZZZZZZZZ! That's time. Pairings will be up shortly.

4:44. Just finished round 6. Doing very badly. There's no prizes riding on this, fortunately (other than the cash prizes for top 64, not likely I'll be getting one of those!), so I think I'll drop at 6:00 and go join the Planechase event. That gives me time for one more round, hopefully, meaning I'm only out of the one last round - not bad.

5:40. And I lose round 7. You need a maximum of two losses to proceed to day 2, if that gives any indication of how badly I've done. However, it's worth noting that in that last round, we were tabled RIGHT at the end - meaning that everyone with less than two wins had already dropped from the tournament. Well, time to sign up for Planechase. For that, we'll be randomly assigned precon decks (randomly because when they gave people the choice, everyone picked the same ones), so we run from those. Considering that I have (a) never played Planechase, and (b) never played multiplayer Magic, this ought to be rather interesting. Since we all use precon decks, it should be perfectly fair. The official who (I think) is going to be running the Planechase subevent is a multiplayer expert, so I might natter with him a bit about it first.

6:17. Played a casual game against Steven, who'll also be playing Planechase; he has an interesting gold deck, which he pits against my sealed deck. He's running five colors with half a million bombs; I'm running a burn+lifegain deck. He could have beaten me, but I was just a smidge faster. He has a way cool deck! But five color costs tempo.

6:24. Planechase starts.

8:45. Planechase is over. Whoo this was fun! Steven (wonder if I can get his surname from DCI records of my matches?) helped me master both multiplaying and planechase, and helped me pilot a good deck to a decent win. At the end, when prizes were given out, a couple of boosters were awarded to the person who was most fun to play with, or most sportsmanlike, or somesuch, and I'm glad to say he was unanimously voted for that award. There were a few other awards too, including one that I won for an amazing chaos play (the current plane had Chaos: Turn up the next three planes and perform their chaos actions, and the next planes included one that gave me a 5/5 flier - which Steven, the only remaining opponent, couldn't block - and also one that gave me another turn after my current one - so, game win right there), and others for pure randomness. Very fitting to the casual nature of the game!

What we actually did was thus: Each of us is randomly assigned to one of two four-man pods, and in each pod (at least, in the pod I was in; presumably the other did the same), four different decks were randomly assigned to the players. I got a red-white deck, with an absolute bomb of an 8-drop - take control of all creatures for one turn, untap them, they gain haste. That wiped out two players right off, and meant that Steven was actually dangerously low on life, instead of being comfortably above twenty. A few turns later, the play described above gave me a pure-luck win. Steven and I then took our decks into the second game, as did the top two players from the other pod; the bottom two players in each pod also played each other, in a corresponding second game. In match two, I got soundly defeated, and then Steven and one other player duked it out for final victory. All in all, a pretty fun format, although I'm not sure how well it'll play at home, since I have only ten (eleven if you include the Zendikar prerelease one) plane cards; officially, you need ten per player, but maybe we could manage on less at home.

9:00. Reached RMD and will be hopping the 9:10 GWY to home.

9:36. MWY station and home. Day is over.

Princess Ida (G&S Opera Company)

2009-09-16T03:20:00.000+10:00

Having heard so much about this show (largely from Elise, but not only!), I admit that I watched the professional Ida with considerable interest, and while Elise yields to no one in admiration for its casting and musical virtues (not forgetting that it endeavoured to work upon her feelings - you saw the delight in her post when she distinctly perceived a tear glistening in her own eye!), I shall myself join the admirers, after allotment.

As has been said by others, the sets and costumes were of a high quality. I'm no expert on costumes, but the court of Hildebrand reminded me very much of The Court Jester - in fact, I could have sworn Grizelda was among the chorus! Hats were quite something, too; especially the ladies' military headgear in the third act. Some of them were a little on the large side - I'm not sure how well the folks in the gallery would have been able to see faces - but they were so funny, especially when Blanche came out wearing an unmistakable teapot on her head!

The dialogue, all through, was delivered with feeling and clear diction. I can't single anyone out here, as everyone did a good job! There were also some odd little asides and things (after Hilarion said that at the early age of two he had not yet learned to speak, he chased down his father to say "That was a good joke!"), and the characterisations were maintained throughout. Singing was competent; there were a few places where things got a bit out of sync, but the conductor managed to bring people back together again each time. One piece of business has been remarked upon by several people, and I'm somewhat curious as to how it was actually done, as it appeared so smooth: Hilarion, Cyril, and Florian found, not academic robes, but curtains - hanging. They then pulled one down and tore it into three, very easily. Cyril then sat at a sewing machine, running them through it, and they changed into them extremely rapidly. It was all so amazingly smooth, very impressive!

Enough of babble. Come, characters! King Hildebrand (Gareth Jones) took a masterful lead in the first act, rallying everyone to order ("Come, bustle there!"), and then in the second act, faced off with his daughter-in-law elect - unable to take complete control, but not for lack of imposing presence. His son Hilarion (Oliver White) was funny (and thinking himself funny, see above!) at times, but when he got serious, he knew what he wanted, and how best to achieve it. And he really loved the Princess, too. (How could she have been so blind as to not notice that the young woman sitting right at her feet during "Broken Toy" was in point of fact a young man?) Cyril (Tobias Merz) was, as Cyril must be, a total flirt, nearly destroying the plot time and again, before finally doing so with the kissing song. Tonight, I was able to hear Mistress Lalage's official title - most Cyrils seem to swallow the line a bit. (Oops, I said I wasn't going to single anyone out for their diction, didn't I.) Florian (James Cleverton) was the cynic of the trio, boggling at Hilarion's statement that he would use no force in warring with Ida, and then when they arrive at Castle Adamant, he gets out a cigar (which is how Blanche and Melissa could find it) as he calls Ida's college the "maddest folly going". His geeky sister Psyche (Lisa Anne Robinson) was not at all ashamed of her childhood antics (explaining all the Ranunculus Hipparchus's dinner guests before he determined longitude, or something like that), as a good geek should. I would be happy at any time to work with her on some programming project - she clearly has the mind for it. In the third act, where she was Ida's most dispensing chemist, she was making it all up as she went along - it was not a practiced speech or prepared report, but rather a string of conjured excuses for the lack of any real work done. In complete contrast, Lady Blanche (Jill Pert) always had something prepared, and presumably spent her time coming up with new ways to try to befuddle. (We will not trouble her for a demonstration.) In talking to her daughter about the three new students, too, Blanche was clearly in command, and Melissa (Victoria Byron) did a very good job of standing up to her mother when she hadn't a leg to stand on. As mentioned above, Florian had a cigar that he'd nearly smoked, which settled the deal, but even with that, I could well imagine Victoria's Melissa keeping on going even further. Their duet needed a little tweaking in vocal balance, but by the second verse they had settled in. King Gama (Philip Cox) padded out his song with an additional verse (by Gilbert, but little known and seldom performed), and would have done justice to another beyond that, had Ida not cut him off with "I yield". I can't pinpoint anything specifically wrong with his dialogue, but it lacked something, somehow... but he rather made up for it with the song. His three sons, fine fellows, young, muscular, and brave, looked the parts, and played the parts. Arac (Ian Belsey), Guron (Terence den Dulk), and Scynthius (Alastair McCall) behaved as though they had only one mind between them (mostly in Arac's head, I think), and stuck together whenever they possibly could. If one of them wanted to sit down, the other two would join him. (And they took the 500lb gorilla approach to seating arrangements too. When they came on as heralds and desired a seat that some of the courtiers were using, they just went there, and the chorus cleared for them.) You got the impression (consistent with their statements early on) that they fought for the love of fighting, and I suspect that when they come to grief in battle, that it doesn't signify perdition, but they just start another battle tomorrow. Politics isn't their forte, yes, but you'd think they might care a bit more about defending their sister... and what a sister, too. Princess Ida (Chloe Wright) could take absolute command, gesturing imperiously at the invading soldiers, facing off against her father-in-law, dismissing her "craven souls" of women soldiers... but when she was alone, she was human. She sang the marble count aria (I built upon a rock) well enough that we can forgive her for milking it for all it was worth, and it was fairly believable.

As the choruses are the most important characters in any G&S, it is fitting to conclude with them. In every scene with a chorus, there was constant activity, everywhere (soldiers lounging around on the tables, eating the luncheon that the girls hadn't had a chance to deal with - and girls coming over to try to fend them off), always in character and always respectful of the main action. The chorus action never took first place when there was something else happening, although it would cheerfully do so the moment the principals paused for breath. You could look anywhere and see something happening; which means that for everything you see, you've missed three other pieces of action. No singing scenery here; people are people, and scenery is scenery - a jolly good arrangement.

Travelog conclusion

2009-08-31T15:42:00.002+10:00

7:42AM. (Blogging on New Zealand time still.) About to launch, suspending.

7:52AM. Pushback.

8:09AM. Takeoff.

8:21AM. At altitude, able to blog. Long long monologue about entering Australia, all about what needs to be declared and such.

8:45AM. There's a fault with the in-flight entertainment. Before takeoff we were told that the safety video couldn't be played, ergo they went for live demos by cabin crew; now we learn that fast-forward and rewind may be problematic. I'd love to know more about the architecture of this setup and how these things are worked.

8:59AM. Entertainment system is rebooted. All screens go black. In five minutes it'll all be turned on again; apparently it'll take 15 mins to get back to the welcome screen after that. Fairly slow boot process. Oh well, good thing I'm not depending on the provided entertainment!

9:31AM. Switching to Melbourne time in readiness for home. It's 7:31AM.

9:38AM. Uneventful flight. Will shortly be beginning descent to MEL - have had stiff headwinds (>100km/h!) most of the way across the Tasman, so we're behind schedule. (Were timetabled to arrive MEL 9:40AM, but current estimate is 10:05ish.) Sound of engines has just changed; we should soon see some familiar land!

9:41AM. Land ahoy! Oooohooh! Dirty big land ahoy!

10:30AM. We're down, have baggage, and are just going through Customs. Wow, it's so easy for returning Aussies - they hardly even bothered to check things. If the computer accepts that our passports were the genuine Australian article, we're through.

Time not recorded: HOME!! YAY!!! Hugs from parents and siblings. Ahhh, it's good to be home!

Safety vs Rules

2009-08-30T04:32:00.001+10:00

Airlines have numerous rules which are there to ensure safety. This is well and good, but when the rules are applied without thought, they can work against their intended purpose. Northwest Airlines today gave me a perfect demonstration of this.

Rule: For takeoff and landing, all items must be stowed either in the overhead lockers or under the seat in front of you.

Rationale: Loose items might fly around (if not during a normal takeoff, then in an abnormal one), which would be dangerous.

Specific instance: Traal, my laptop computer. (Regular readers of my blog will understand that I refer to my laptop as "he", and with a name.)

Traal and I have flown together a number of times; I believe this is the fifteenth takeoff and landing we've made. The very first time he flew, the seat beside me was free, and he sat there with his own seatbelt. Every time since, he has ridden the takeoff on my lap, held as securely by my hands as any infant in his mother's arms. Every time, that is, until now. A flight attendant insisted that everything go under the seat; I responded by placing Traal between my feet, anchored, in such a way that he would definitely not fly around, but I wasn't too happy about his own comfort. But that wasn't good enough. He had to be flat on the floor! This is absolutely insane, because Traal is low enough (lid closed of course) to fit underneath the structure of the seat, and thus fly around the cabin, should anything untoward happen. Pointing this out was to no avail; the rule had to be followed, that was that. As a slight sop to safety, I placed my foot next to Traal, anchoring him against the seat foot (that is, my foot was between Traal and the aisle), but there wasn't much I could do to stop him shooting forward if we'd had a sudden deceleration.

As this was a direct instruction from a flight attendant, I complied, but felt I was compromising safety in doing so. The same flight attendant (Brenda Kaczanowski) insisted on my putting him under my feet for landing, so this time, as a sharp deceleration is normal, I placed one foot in front of the laptop and one foot behind - awkward but somewhat effective. It was still significantly less effective than a good pair of hands; that under-seat area is simply not designed to house an object 25mm tall (that's about an inch tall, if you speak feet and inches), but a person's lap is.

Since this time, I have been asked by two other FAs on two other flights to again place Traal under the seat. Neither time, however, was the command given as discourteously as it was the first time. Perhaps if the first request had been more polite, I would not have been so irked by it, but the fact still remains that it is safer for all concerned to keep a laptop securely in its owner's hands.

If it is Northwest Airlines' policy that rules are more important than safety, then I have nothing further to say; clearly everything is functioning as designed. However, if this is not the case, I invite Northwest to post an official statement, using the blog comment feature. (Anyone else is of course equally welcome to post their views, as is always the case on this blog.) I'd love to hear from you!

Travelog part X

2009-08-30T04:28:00.002+10:00

28/8/09 8:07AM. Been awake for the past hour or so, am now up and mooching around. Keep hearing cars and thinking it's Anth but it's not. 8:14 - here he is! Seems there was nobody at the office. Odd.

8:19AM. Check out of motel and go to meet Anth's family. Lovely people :)

1:30PM. Head off to lunch and airport.

2:15PM. Over to the airport, farewell to Anthson. Check in and then fly to Denver and thence to Los Angeles.

9:09PM. Change timezones again, now blogging on Pacific Daylight Time. It is now 7:09PM, and I'm standing here waiting for our baggage. The landing announcement said that we were twenty minutes ahead of schedule, and she asked us to please remember this next time they were twenty minutes behind! (I applauded but it wasn't taken up by the other pax. :( ) So far, not much baggage has arrived. Passengers are beginning to gather, the carousel is turning, the incoming conveyer belt is stationary. Come on, bring on the bags; we have three hours till the next flight, I want to spend as much as possible of it on external power!

8:20PM. We hunted down Air NZ's checkin. Couldn't find them, so we asked an airport official. He pulls out a little reference card and informs us that they're in Terminal 2 - handy information! We're told that that's some distance away and round the corner... so off we go. Turns out it is a LOOOOONG way from Terminal 5 (where we were) to Terminal 2... ahh well. We arrive, and Air New Zealand move our things through at some efficiency. I like. Through customs much quicker than I was expecting, so we make our way to Gate 28 and, hooray, discover an open GPO. Wifi is all secured or hl-secured, but I have power. Yay!

10:05PM. We board Queenie. Stairs in an aircraft.... wheeee! We're not upstairs though. Incidentally, there's what looks like a private compartment underneath the stairs - for those passengers for whom "First Class" just isn't exclusive enough.

10:11PM. There's wifi on this plane!! It says "Sorry, the Gogo Inflight Internet service is currently down. Please try again later", so I will - specifically, when we're at altitude. I don't see any power outlets here though; I think I'll ask the crew - maybe they can do what Emirates did and take a laptop (or battery) to be charged in their station. It'd be more than a little cool to be blogging live from altitude - and sending pigeons home!

10:32PM. Pushback 10:42PM. Takeoff! Ooooh da power....

10:47PM. The usual PA announcement about what's happening. Today, the flight crew supervisor informs us that Air NZ is committed to the environment, and consequently would request that people retain and reuse their plastic cups; and also, that they'll be happy to fill people's water bottles. M: Yay!

10:53PM. No wifi detectable. Hmm.

Mmm. Dinner. They served the same cheese as last time, so now I know the name of it: Egmont.

1:27AM. (Still blogging on PDT.) Amazing that we've only been flying for three hours. Feels so lovely and at home here. I'm beginning to think that international flying is just way more fun than US domestic - the service is far better, the comfort levels are excellent, and you're on a plane with some real size to it - for instance, my backpack (Mont 40L, specifically specced to be within airline carry-on dimensions) fits in the overhead locker, not guaranteed on all the small craft that flit around the US. With Air NZ, I feel completely comfortable, but with Frontier I didn't, even though there was nothing specifically wrong with the service. There's something fun and lovely about this flight that calls to mind our days with Amtrak - sure, the cabin (in this case, seat) is small, but it's not a problem.

1:32AM. Having finished the above paragraph, I feel like a little sleep. You probably feel the same, now that you've read it. No wifi btw, so no sending pigeons down fram altitude. Guess what I found on the ground was actually from another aircraft parked next to us.

9:30AM. Changing to Auckland time, which is GMT+12 (no DST now, we're nearly home!). It is now 4:30AM. Breakfast has been served. Only a couple hours till we land in Auckland; and last time we came through, we had ethernet available but no wifi, so this time we've brought some cat 5 in hand luggage. After Auckland, two more timezones to cross and we're home... so it's now 2:30AM at home. (Actually, I'm not so sure now. Windows tells me NZ is on daylight time. This may and may not be correct - I've known Windows to be wrong on these things - but either way, it's 2:30AM at home, I'm pretty sure of that.)

6:28AM. Landed in Auckland, have come through security, and with an hour before our next flight, we park ourselves here. Unfortunately the wired ethernet isn't working; nobody knows who's in charge of it. Fortunately, though, I still have a login at the paid wifi that I used last time, so I can get online with that. Yay!

Travelog part IX

2009-08-30T04:26:00.001+10:00

I'm still blogging on GMT+1 (British Daylight Time) for the moment. It's now 1:30PM and we've had lunch; M and I are watching simultaneous Star Trek, complete with the usual fiddliness of sync.

27/8/09 1:37PM. Captain reports we're passing Greenland. Meh. Can't see a thing, as it's on the opposite side.

5:00PM. Changing timezone, it's now 12:00 EDT. Captain estimates we'll be on the ground in 35 mins, if we get the nearer runway, or 40 mins if we get assigned the other. Incidentally, the far runway means we'll overfly a couple more US states. The Yanks don't seem to understand that states are allowed to be fairly large...

12:25PM. Landing shortly, suspending.

2:11PM. We've landed and collected baggage. Thanks to the Traal battery crash mentioned earlier, I have no information as to where we need to head next. After several failed attempts to get wifi to load emails, I get to an information desk which sells us 7 minutes' internet access (on their public-access computer) for a few bucks. Not cheap but we need this. Now at least we know the flight number and departure time, so we can happily kill the next hour - the flight isn't even on the boards yet. We poke around, looking for three things: a GPO (vital), a place to sit (vital), an internet connection (highly desired), and food to eat (pretty vital). Err, FOUR of our ... I'll come in again. NOBODY expects the Highly Esteemed Goon Show! Ha ha ha ha! Ahem. Anyhow. We got three of the above, so I'm typing this all up offline.

2:44PM. Michael goes off to look for wifi, flight info, and maybe a place called "The Lounge". I tell him that I'll swap SIMs in my phone and get onto the US number. And then, just what I always wanted to see. The pocket in which I'd placed both the AT&T and the usual Optus SIMs had been umop... and the Optus one was there, the AT&T not. Great. So not only am I unable to charge my phone here (charger takes 240V and won't take 110 - unlike, for instance, IBM laptop chargers), but my SIM card is loose in my backpack. No WAY am I tipping the whole backpack out looking for it - not here. In fact, I can't think of any time when I WOULD be happy to tip my backpack out, until maybe we crash in a hotel room... twelve hours from now. No thank you. Phone is bricked till we get home, I think.

2:51PM. M returns with news of our gate, so they're probably taking checkins. Let's go.

4:16PM. We're on the plane, it's due to depart, but we haven't gone yet. Meh. So what else is new.

4:22PM. Pushback. At last.

4:58PM. Takeoff... that was one slow taxi. (Wing congestion. Also fuselage congestion.)

5:44PM. For random reasons I begin contemplating takeoffs and landings. Traal and I have done quite a few of them so far. I counted fifteen, in fact; however, it has been noted that one of the goals of aviation is to maintain approximately equal numbers of takeoffs and landings, and at the moment, there is an imbalance in favour of takeoffs. Hopefully we'll be able to rectify this within the hour.

5:48PM. Ah! Me public. (No particular reason, just felt like saying that.)

5:52PM. I ask Michael, "Got a screwdriver?". My armrest has three screws in its underside, all of them extremely loose. Do Northwest Airlines not care about these things? Guess not.

7:40PM. Landed, transferred, and taken off again, all in somewhat of a hurry. Michael has the details of a couple of spiffy things we saw in Detroit Airport, so I'll be brief: They have two-lane travelators, and an express tram (works sorta like a monorail or maybe cable tram) for moving large numbers of passengers around the terminal efficiently. The tram is also very effective at moving two people backwards and forwards while they examine the tram itself... fortunately we weren't the last to board our connecting flight!

7:45PM. Changing to Texas time - it's now 6:45PM. We have two hours and some of flight, so we'll be down about on schedule.

2:11AM. Been a while since I wrote anything down, mainly for lack of GPO. Landed, met Anthson, found our baggage (yes, in that order), and went with him to a Tex-Mex eatery where his parents were waiting for us. Had dinner together. Went off to an Irish bar and chatted for a while. Now M and I are crashing in a little motel, Anth's gone home; he'll meet us in the morning at 8AM, so we have a nice five and a bit hours' sleep before we have to wake up. Time to crash, I think. Been quite a day, especially considering that we picked up six extra timezone hours along the way and called them all part of Thursday!

Departing England

2009-08-30T04:24:00.000+10:00

Having made everything completely ready the previous day, we had nothing to do all night... well, okay, we weren't THAT organized. I stayed up all night, cleaning up my room, sorting out what was to go in hand luggage and what into the hold, and Threshing. (What a surprise.) Lots of stuff gets thrown out, of course, but the stuff we're taking takes all available space. As everyone knows, the primary purpose of clothing is to do the job that trucks or bubble wrap do in mundane packages - cushioning the important stuff, in this case DVDs and books and stuff.

Michael's alarm was set for 3:45, but at 3:30 he was up already. I'd already nipped down to the office and found out that, contrary to our previous thinking, we would be able to leave our keys there in the office; so at 4:05, we headed down, towing all our luggage (two trundlies, two backpacks, two things-in-hand) down the flights of stairs. Fortunately it wasn't raining, so it was a pleasant stroll. Unfortunately, we were heading to upper Buxton, the market square, so we had a bit of a climb.

Sharp to 4:30AM, the bus arrives. Two one-way to the airport - L8.80. Not too bad. Friendly driver. Surprisingly, quite a few other passengers, even at this hour! Seventy minutes' journey later, we arrive at the airport, having gone through some territory familiar to both of us, although we hadn't seen most of it for two years. Heaps of time before our flight, so we made our way through customs etcetera, and then looked for breakfast. Not many options unfortunately; I figure a "breakfast hot bacon roll" for L3.35 should be passable (everything's overpriced in airports, so that's no surprise). It's not. The bacon was hot, but that was all. I think they just have bacon constantly hot, and just pull out a few rashers, drop 'em on a bread roll, and call it done. Not impressed.

When finally our flight is given a gate, we make our way down there. According to the boarding passes, the gate CLOSES at 7:30 (for an 8:00 flight); but owing, we suspect, to some other flights being late departing, this flight didn't get a gate till nearly that time, and loading started (with one wheelchair) at 7:27. Primary loading wasn't for another ten minutes, but once it happened, was efficient enough that pushback was able to happen at 7:59. (How? Largely because we all walked out onto the tarmac and then mounted stairs into the aircraft... using two doors. Two doors doubles throughput through all those highly-congested aisles!) Bit of delay getting moving after that; lots of planes taking off. We launched at 8:16.

Uneventful flight to Dublin. Landed 8:52AM; boarding passes for the connecting flight to JFK said gate closes 9:15. Having seen what happened on the first, I was prepared for a change to that, but still didn't want to risk it. We burn it through the walking parts of the transfer, then cool our heels queueing up to go through customs and stuff. Takes ages at some of the steps. And here it is, 10:35, flight scheduled to depart 10:30, and I'm sitting in seat 14A (funny, I think a Puffing Billy loco cab is a tad bigger than this) waiting for the crew to finish pre-departure checks. Traal's battery crashed out on me in Manchester, so I lost all my loaded tabs, including vital info about our US domestic flights; hopefully we will be able to get onto wifi in JFK!

The first airliner flight I went on, I was able to charge my laptop on the plane. Since then... never duplicated the luxury - why not? Is it that hard to provide 110V to every seat, or every pair? Oh well. Yay, pushback - 10:39AM. Traal suspend.

Pirates of Penzance (G&S Opera Company)

2009-08-24T09:21:00.001+10:00

We couldn't get seats for the show, but managed to get, not a private box, but a private suite - to be precise, the Paxton Suite. The video link was provided, but oddly, we were the only two people there. As when we saw the Irish Gondoliers, the view was far from perfect, but enormously better than missing out on the show altogether.

The show opened with a slightly modified overture - a few bars of Away Away and Cat-like Tread were attached to the start. Then the curtain went up on an impressive set: we were not in a rocky cove, but actually on board the pirates' ship. After the Pirate King's song, there was a brief blackout, a little bit of music to cover the transition, and then we saw Frederic on the beach, no more ship, and Ruth chasing after him. Worked splendidly.

Both choruses (I suppose I should say all three; the men were pirates, then police, then split, as is often done) demonstrated remarkable precision, moving in near-perfect synchronization - even in dialogue (all the pirates move simultaneously to look at the time). The off-stage chorus of girls (before "False one") worked perfectly - no raggedness - and again when the pirates sang about penalties.

The principals were of equally high standard. Frederic (James Elliot) demonstrated strong emotion in his duets, both with Ruth and with Mabel, and kept everything moving along. Ruth (Jill Pert) brought her own particular take to the dialogue with Frederic, and sang with feeling but without losing clarity and diction. The Pirate King (James Cleverton) commanded his crew and the stage with equal ease, as a pirate king should do; all three of the above were absolutely over the top hams, making an enormously fun trio scene in the second act. (Is it really believable that the PK and Ruth can so totally "not get it" as Fred tells them that Stanley - is - no - orphan? Hardly. Is it fun, when played that way? Undoubtedly!) The Major General (Richard Suart) had exceptional dialogue and patter skills, although his acting sometimes left a little to be desired - on the other hand, competent direction meant that this was seldom an issue. When he appeared, we knew at once why the girls were so precise in their movement - he clearly drills them regularly, leading his troops through footwork almost on par with the knighthood scene from The Court Jester. Mabel (Victoria Joyce) was very operatic, and definitely wanted the downstage center position as much as possible - which fits Mabel completely. During Poor Wand'ring One, Edith and Kate took Frederic aside when she began the "chook bit" (all the Ab, Eb, Db "Ah ah ah"s); they seemed to have almost persuaded him that they were as eligible as she, until she started on the cadenza. For some weird reason, Fred liked the idea of marrying someone who could sing like that... doesn't he know how irritating it'd be to wake up to that every morning? Although Mabel did sing it very well; as did Edith (Victoria Byron), in the finale, where they sing the chook duet. Most of the Stanleys looked plausibly sisters, but it was amusing to see Kate (Sioned Ellis) dancing with the Major General in the finale; she looked like she could possibly have been his wife. At the other extreme, Isabel was clearly the youngest - she had a funny, although slightly affected, "It's the vewwy pwace for mermaids" voice. Samuel (Michael Kerry) had an excellent tenor voice, taking the higher notes in "Take your file, and your skeletonic key" with ease. Rounding off a competent cast, the Sergeant of Police (Bruce Graham) has the same command of his troops as the Major General, leading his men through some pretty complicated footwork, through which they followed him perfectly.

Throughout the show, the entire cast showed energy and interest in what was going on. I'm glad to have had a chance to see this show, and will await eagerly the arrival of the DVD. Congratulations, all!

Gondoliers (Festival Productions, Ireland)

2009-08-23T12:10:00.001+10:00

The opera house was entirely sold out for the Irish production of Gondoliers. Apparently, the winner of two consecutive festival championships is expected to produce a good show... in any case, we couldn't get seats in the house, and watched the show from the Paxton, where the projector screen was put to good use. The video link was a good thing, but nothing like actually being there; it felt more like watching a recording than attending a live show, but that's still orders of magnitude better than missing the show altogether.

And what a show. Now that the awards have been announced, I can cite them as proof of what practically everyone who was there will agree; ten nominations and five wins, including the championship itself, making this their third consecutive win at this festival.

Unlike the previous Gondoliers, this opened with the familiar overture, with all the usual skill of the festival orchestra. The curtain lifted and we were treated to an incredibly active chorus - never flagging throughout the show, too. Chorus movements had noteworthy precision, which is something I love to see. Then the Plaza Toros arrived, bringing with them the sounds of Spain - at least, a rather amusing version of a Spanish accent. (It got in the way of their singing and diction at a few points, but it was definitely funny.)

The lighting was less than stellar, unfortunately, leaving the edges of the stage and, often, the downstage area in a not-very-congenial gloom, although the middle of the stage was always brightly lit. The performers would have done well to hang around in the light, but they went all over the stage, and sometimes had only the follow spots to keep them from being in complete darkness. But in the middle, where most of the action was, it was an appropriate blaze of light.

Quite a good round-up of principals, with one notable exception. The Duke of Plaza-Toro (Wilfred Pyper), Her Grace the Duchess (Jackie Curren-Olohan), and their beautiful-voiced daughter Casilda (Nicola Mulligan) - I say, their beautiful daughter Casilda - had energy, enthusiasm, and comic Spanish accents. Casilda could be loving, but she could also be quite nasty if she wanted to be - she was quite rightly described as having a naughty temper! Luiz (Barry McGonagle) had her love, though, and he knew it. He moved around the stage as though it were his own, and when he and Casilda were alone together, their duets were lovely. But if Luiz owned the stage, Don Alhambra (Adam Lawlor) certainly knew how to take command of it - in two words, he had everyone's attention. (He did it in the Festival Club, too. A low "Buenos noches" and everyone laughed, and gave him their attention.) The two kings and two queens sat up and took notice of him, even though they were adamant they didn't need anyone to take their unders today. Marco (Brian Gilligan) and Giuseppe (Jamie Rock) made a great pair of kings, and Brian's TAPOSE had real feeling to it. Their energy kept everything moving, and both had good clear diction, sending their lines to the gallery and beyond. Tessa (Rachel Kelly) and Gianetta (Emma Walsh) scored well in these men, even without becoming queen! Both ladies also had lively energy, bouncing through the show, but were able to be sympathetic too (it's strange how "I'll pinch her and scratch her" and "make her to shake in her aristocratical shoes" turn into the softer tones when they actually meet Casilda - jealousy is merged in misery, I suppose). "When a merry maiden marries" and "Kind sir, you cannot have the heart" were both sung beautifully, and the quintet "Here is a case unprecedented" was full of its own kind of energy and movement. Finally... Inez was played by Toni Morgan... actually, by Tony Finnegan (who also played Annibale). Yes - a man. I'll say no more.

Based on the show, the cabaret afterwards, and above all the awards ceremony, I have to say that the people of Festival Productions, Ireland are incredibly full of energy and enjoy what they're doing. If we saw a mediocre performance by people who had as much fun as the Irish did here, we would have fun too; how much more when the show itself is of this standard!

Yeomen (Peak Opera)

2009-08-23T07:10:00.002+10:00

Of all the Savoy operas, Yeomen of the Guard is the most tragic and least comic - but it still has its comedy, and most of it doesn't come from the one character who claims to be funny. Yeomen has beautiful arias, strong emotions, and real characters. It can be performed superbly, but it can also fail in a most spectacular disaster.

Tonight's show took neither extreme. There were a number of points at which things threatened to come undone, but it came together again. Some unusual pieces of business, which is a good thing; some of them worked, but others definitely did not.

The set had numerous entrances and exits, always a good thing when dealing with the inevitable issue of wing congestion, but one of them puzzled me. An open portcullis led to the prompt-side wing; was this leading out of the Tower, to the street beyond? to an inner protected area? to something else? Shadbolt, Leonard, Fairfax, and the chorus of villagers all used it, so it doesn't make perfect sense any which way. Still, it did its job of getting large numbers of people on and off stage efficiently.

Musically, the show was a little mixed too. Most of the difficult sections (such as the counterpoint in "Tower Warders") held together just fine, but while people were rushing on stage, milling around, and so on, things got messier - perfect proof of why everyone needs to watch the conductor. Ensemble harmony was reasonably good, although the altos and basses could have done with augmentation at a few places; Strange Adventure sounded excellent.

Richard Miller had been slated to play Fairfax, but at the last moment had to withdraw, and Chris Diffey stepped in. He could claim one of Julia Jellicoe's lines: "I flatter myself I can do justice to any part on the very shortest notice". His performance stood out magnificently; of all those on the stage, he was the most consistently audible in his singing, and the most believable in his acting. Such an absolute cad of a character, though - not only does he steal Elsie away from Jack, he even hires an assassin (the Second Citizen (Stuart Pinel)) to, I kid you not, murder the hapless Point with a dagger. That was a rather odd ending; the audience didn't really know what to make of it, and the applause was rather dodgy for a while.

Looking at the rest of the cast: A very operatic Elsie Maynard (Alexandra Saunders) sang beautifully, but being paired up with such an excellent Fairfax made her acting appear poor. Jack Point (Liam Geoghegan) truly loved her, although his character had few other sides to it that were as well fleshed out. Kimmo Eriksson, who played Leonard Meryll (the REAL Leonard, the other is butter-substitute), was barely recognizable when he appeared with the chorus. (I've seen it when Leonard was instantly obvious in his other part, and it was quite confusing. Much safer to not double up at all, of course, as long as your Leonard is happy to sit idle a lot.) In his second act scene, he gave a genuine hug to Phoebe, who seemed to have learned to appreciate him - in the first act, she was almost cold towards him, which he hardly deserved, even though he had no reprieve for the Colonel! Phoebe (Lucy Appleyard) had a lovely voice, with a good low register for "tears that bliiiiiiiiister" in "When a wooer goes a wooing". The Lieutenant of the Tower (William Revels) brought his very own brand of fun and energy to the show, which was not unwelcome. The First and Second Yeoman (Stuart Bull and Joe Lowe) also sang the Third and Fourth Yeomen parts, respectively, which I suppose turns them from bit parts into two-bit parts. The other tiny part, Kate (Karen Richmond), was also somewhat enhanced; in the dialogue before Strange Adventure, she was quite clearly interested in "Leonard" (the Margarine). In the song, also, she sang with distinction. Dame Carruthers (Angela Lowe) was unfortunately a little hard to hear in Strange Adventure, but for the rest of the show she was more audible. She and Sgt Meryll (David Lovell) had a constant by-play going on, making his line about shunning her like the plague quite believable. And, saving the best for last: Wilfred Shadbolt (Gareth Edwards). He was nominated for Best Male Performer, and deservedly; he was probably the best performer in the entire company. He had a rather peculiar habit of keeping one hand on his leather vest as much as he possibly could, as though he had to hold it in place lest it blow away; it was noticeable during his first scene with Phoebe, and then maintained consistently right through till the final curtain. A good voice, too, when he got a chance to sing; he would have done justice to Jealous Torments, had it been included, but it was not.

A few pieces of stage business deserve extra mention. Just before Elsie was to be blinded and taken off to meet her doom (err, I mean, her husband), Shadbolt entered - blowing his nose. On the same handkerchief that was used on Elsie's eyes! Ewww! (Of course, for the sake of the stage he was only pretending, but poor Elsie...) Later on, when Fairfax was trying to convince Elsie to ignore her husband and elope with him (just before "Hark, what was that sir"), she slapped him on the face, which almost made up for the disappointingly crude gunshot that followed it. And Phoebe, though unremarkable for a lot of the show, did do a good job of Were I Thy Bride, with her fingers wandering for a long time over Wilfred's noisy keys, and at the end of the song, her father sent them back to her via halberd, which worked well.

I have to be honest and say that the show did not really live up to my expectations; Yeomen can be done really really well. But it was not the worst show I've ever seen, either. It received nominations for Best Male Performer (for Shadbolt) and Best Concerted Number (for Strange Adventure), which were appropriate, but was hardly in the running for the overall championship.

Gilbert and Sullivan Festival Awards

2009-08-23T03:15:00.002+10:00

Just attended the awards ceremony, and these were the results, in the order presented.

Four people were thanked with flowers:
* Dawn (Peter's wife) - setting up Paxton
* Pat & Peter Holland (Portacabin)
* John & Judith Savournin
* Unseen in Octagon with sewing machines: Sandra Vamplew (accepted by Sarah)

And the actual awards were:

Adjudicator's Award
Entry of Peers' Chorus, Iolanthe, South Anglia

Youth Awards
Best Female Performer: Freya Palmer, Lady Angela, Patience (Youth)
Best Male Performer: Henry Smith, Bunthorne, Patience (Youth)

Best Duet
Winner: Iolanthe, South Anglia, None Shall Part Us
Sorcerer, Bournemouth, Welcome Joy
Gondoliers, Derby, There Was A Time
Ruddigore, Trent, There Grew Little Flower

Best Animated Chorus
Gondoliers, Derby
Gondoliers, Festival Ireland
Iolanthe, South Anglia
Winner: Sorcerer, Bournemouth

Best Concerted Item
Winner: Ruddigore, Trent, Madrigal
Yeomen, Peak, Strange Adventure

Best Male Voice
Ian Walton, Cox, Cox & Box, Avon
Brian Gilligan, Marco, Gondoliers, Festival Ireland
Winner: Roderick Hunt, Sir Roderic, Trent
Rossano Saltfleet, Alexis, Bournemouth

Best Female Voice
Jemma Truss, Aline, Bournemouth
Nicola Mulligan, Casilda, Ireland
Charli Clement, Rose, Trent
Winner: Sasha Liebich-Tait, Mabel, Toronto

Best Chorus
Iolanthe, South Anglia
Winner: Gondoliers, Ireland
Pirates, Toronto
Gondoliers, Derby

Best Character Actor
Stephen Godward, Old Adam, Trent
Gareth Edwards, Ko-Ko, Abbots Langley
Winner: Adam Lawlor, Don Alhambra, Ireland
Roy Schatz, Major General, Toronto

Best Character Actress
Winner: Angela Lowe, Baroness, Savoynet
Jackie Curren-Olohan, Duchess, Ireland
Joan Self, Mad Margaret, Trent

Most Traditional Opera
Ruddigore, Trent
Mikado, Abbots Langley
Winner: Iolanthe, South Anglia
Pirates, Toronto

Best Supporting Actor
Colin Dawes, Giuseppe, Derby
John Harrison, Usher, Western Australian
Winner: Ian Henderson, Prince of MC, Savoynet
Thomas West?, Paramount?, Oxford

Best Supporting Actress
Winner: Jane Brendler Buchi, Julia, Savoynet
Sara Clark, Lisa, Savoynet
Jessica Nicklin, Iolanthe, Festival Prod

Best Male Performer
Wilfred Pyper, Duke PT, Ireland
Simon Theobold, Despard, Trent
Winner: John Gerken, JWWells, Bournemouth
Gareth Edwards, Shadbolt, Peak

Best Female Performer
Cherrill Ashford, Lady Sangaz, Bournemouth
Winner: Zena Bradley, Dame Hannah, Trent
Zena Bradley, FQ, Festival Prod

Best Musical Director
Jean Holt, Sorcerer, Bournemouth
Andrew Nicklin, Gondoliers, Derby
Stephan Kenna, Iolanthe, South Anglia
Winner: Aidan Faughey, Gondoliers, Ireland

Best Director
Shane Collins, Iolanthe, South Anglia
Winner: Vivian Coates, Gondoliers, Ireland
Alan Spencer, Sorcerer, Bournemouth
Andrew Nicklin, Gondoliers, Derby

International Champions: Gondoliers, Ireland
1st Runners Up: Sorcerer, Bournemouth
2nd Runners Up: Iolanthe, South Anglia

The Irish sent a large and enthusiastic contingent, and every time they won an award, the place erupted with cheers!

HMS Pinafore Pot-luck

2009-08-22T11:05:00.005+10:00

Tonight was a pot-luck Pinafore, and like all pot-lucks, it was rollicking fun without any sort of pressure to perform well. So in keeping with that, I'm not going to do a full review, but just to report on its occurrence.

Cast, in the order they were written on my notes:
Conducting: John Howells
Sir Joseph: Gordon Smethurst
Ralph Rackstraw: Anthony Mahon
Bosun's Mate: Matthew Plunkett
Dick Deadeye: Stuart Pinel
Capt Corcoran: Chris Hall
Carpenter: Geoffrey Brocklehurst
Buttercup: Gennie Plunkett
Josephine: Sarah Vamplew
Hebe: Sarah-Jane Hall

Great fun Deadeye, absolutely over the top at every possible opportunity. Fun ad-libs from everyone (Chris Hall: "I shall never be untrue to thee - well, hardly ever", and looked over at Sarah-Jane, his wife).

I hope you folks approve of Google, because I'm augmenting this Blogspot blog with some Picasa stills and Youtube videos. :)

Photos:
http://picasaweb.google.com/rosuav/PotLuckHMSPinafore21stAug2009

Videos:
http://www.youtube.com/rosuav

Iolanthe (Festival Productions)

2009-08-22T06:17:00.003+10:00

Tonight's show was one of the several that are rehearsed during the festival, competing for people's attention, trying to put on as good a show as can possibly be done while economizing on rehearsal hours. It's amazing how many people can be found to do each of these shows; tonight we had twenty peers (including Tollollerat), and they almost didn't fit on the stage.

The show opened with great energy, a chorus of very active fairies. They were enjoying themselves, and we couldn't but enjoy ourselves watching them. Iolanthe's arrival brought its own joy, enhanced excellently by the other fairies' interest in what was happening, and by an appropriate build in the lighting. (I half expected Iolanthe to appear from underneath the bridge, but that was not to be.) The entrance of the Peers was suitably impressive, too. Everyone loves singing through the Peers' March (we've had it several times in the Festival Club, and each time the stage is crammed with men... and a few ladies come up too!), but the colorful robes and stately march make the scene even more grand. There were, as always, the few who weren't quite in time (when have you EVER seen a men's chorus that was perfectly synchronized?), but for the most part, it worked.

Several of the songs received encores. "If You Go In" even received the honour of a double encore, with appropriate stage business.

The show exhibited a fairly strong cast. Strephon (John Hurst) had energy, ease of movement, and smoothness, and although he could at times be a little too quiet to hear up in the gallery, his diction was clear. Phyllis (Penny Daw) was excellent, especially in the second act, where she plainly was not at all enjoy the company of her two noblemen. (She slipped off while they were conversing and had a drink - in fact, had quite a few drinks - kindly provided by one of the other peers. Of course, the two earls were far too busy discussing which of them would slay the other, or they might have been a bit jealous of this!) Mountararat (Stephen Godward) and Tolloller (Mark Hurford) played off each other well, and both typified snobbishness as though they had been born sneering.
We had a delightfully spry Tolloller for "If you go in", too! The Lord Chancellor (David Craig) was also quite energetic, and also had the diction and projection necessary for an audible Nightmare Song. His scene with Iolanthe (Jessica Nicklin) had real emotion to it; it's a beautiful scene when performed well. The off-stage chorus had trouble seeing the conductor, though, which somewhat spoiled the effect (there was a lighting change as they sang their "Willaloo", and then it changed back to the prosaic world of the Chancellor every time they fell silent); these are the sorts of problems that normally would be solved during Tech Week, but when there's only one dress rehearsal before the performance, it's practically impossible to get everything like that to work. Rounding off the cast, Private Willis (Paul Thompson) didn't need a peerage to be impressive on the stage; the Fairy Queen (Zena Bradley) didn't even need to be a person to be impressive! Both had excellent voices. Zena we've seen in quite a few productions this festival, and she's quite competent to the roles, but one must wonder how much rehearsal time she was able to give to each show. Celia, Leila, and Fleta (Shorelle Hepkins, Holly Strawson, and Pauline Hepkin respectively) were not just three members of a uniform chorus who happened to deliver solo lines; they were individual characters, maintained consistently throughout the show. Fleta was forever trying to get a wand - or her Queen's spear, even - but was constantly denied one. Leila wanted to lead (and, in fact, conducted the finale, in the "This word is French" section), but it seems Celia was always the one who actually led. And finally, one who's never named or addressed... the Lord Chancellor's trainbearer. He was very much a part of the action (especially in the final encore to If You Go In), and at the very end, he got paired off with Fleta for his trip to fairyland, where presumably he will go on serving the Chancellor for the rest of their lives (which, if Leila is correct, might last a rather long time).

The most important characters in any G&S are of course the choruses. Without the chorus, what would the Peers' March be? Without a chorus of duchesses, marchionesses, etcetera, who would save Iolanthe's life? Without that huge altercation between peers and fairies, what would keep the first act finale from utter yawndom? The choruses today were a bit mixed, but fairly energetic, and definitely taking some interest in what was going on; and when that happens, we the audience are also interested, and the show works. Tonight, things may not have been perfect, but they were definitely enjoyable.

Ruddigore (Trent Opera)

2009-08-21T09:01:00.001+10:00

I approach Ruddigore with high hopes and expectations. It's a show that can be really spectacular, but at the other extreme, it can fall really badly flat. Tonight's show may not have been tremendous, but it was definitely far from dull.

The chorus (villagers and bridesmaids both) were extremely attentive during Dame Hannah's song, taking a real interest in what was being said. A balance has to be struck - you don't want to upstage the song itself, but should have enough movement and reaction to keep the audience's attention where it should be. Tonight did well at that, at several other points as well (notably during the Act I Finale). It really lifts the show when all those on stage are aware of the action.

There will always be the odd slip-up in a full-length show, and unfortunately this was no different; I fear the stage crew will have had a fair job sweeping up all the dropped lines. However, the show was always picked up on again, and the pauses weren't the end of the world. As David Turner acknowledged earlier in the festival, it feels awful to be the one to lose a line, but it's not the ultimate disaster, and the show WILL go on. The same when the singing loses track of the orchestra... and the conductor can (and must) always bring things back together.

On the subject of music, though... The Act I madrigal was pure delight. Superbly sung, and well handled. All vocal parts were audibly represented, and Sullivan's music was heard to good effect. What more need I say!

In naming the principals, I am completely at the mercy of the programme, so I'm not sure that all these names are correct. Please let me know where I go astray! Whoever played Ruth lucked out completely, as her name is not even listed - granted, the part exists only for one scene, but she's an important part of the chorus all the rest of the time! So whoever you are, thank you for your performance tonight, and apologies that I cannot grace you with a name.

Everyone else, though, I can give a name to (hopefully the right one!). Robin (Andy McPhee) brought life and enthusiasm to the stage, maintaining energy even while being reserved and timid around Rose in the first act. With his devoted Old Adam (Stephen Godward), he opened the second act in a manner suitably creepy, and their dialogue was clear and crisp. Rose Maybud (Charli Clement) had such a sweet voice that I would have been sorely disappointed if Bygone Days had been left at just one verse - was delighted to be given both! Dame Hannah (Zena Bradley) performed well, although she could perhaps have used some more rehearsal time. Nonetheless, the Melodrame worked well, as did the transition to the duet with Sir Roddy Doddy; and she got rapt attention from the bridesmaids during her first song. Speaking of whom, it must have been inevitable that Roderick Hunt was cast as the newest ghost - as well as sharing the name Roderic, he fitted the role AND the voice superbly. (His painting, at the end of the hallway, really did have a bad light, too - it came on whenever the ghosts started doing their agonies, which was rather odd. That was the only time the lighting ever grabbed the audience's attention, though, normally far more subtlely supportive.) I thought Joan Self's Margaret had some peculiar facets to her, such as her doll (in pram), which she mistreated at every possible opportunity (why did she have it? What strange mad fancy led her to do this?); an amusing character, though a little hard to believe at times. She and Despard (Simon Theobold) had an amusing scene in their second act entrance, bringing on a bed and demonstrating their morning exercises and the very English notion of tea first thing in the morning - they had two cups waiting for them under the pillows! Dick Dauntless (Joseph Shovelton, not John Tyler as per programme) performed a very simple hornpipe and got everyone on stage involved - bridesmaids AND villagers. The girls were all over him, and he enjoyed every minute of it. Zorah (Jean Krzeminski) had to make sure she grabbed him before someone else got him!

The show deserved all the applause it was awarded.

Grand Duke (Savoynet) - David Turner adjudication

2009-08-15T10:11:00.009+10:00

The Festival Adjudicator, Mr David Turner.

Grand Duke is probably more theatrical than you expect it to be, if you don't know it at all. And it was a very theatrical opening tonight, for theatrical people were singing what it is, a pretty wedding, with true theatrical insincerity. It's a very tricky opening scene, but they cleverly filled it tonight with lots of colourful theatrical types - carpenters, wardrobe staff, dressers, chorus girls, etcetera, etcetera - and each little group made their own input. Then we get the introduction of the principals, and this was very skilfully done. We don't ever talk in rehearsal cos we never have time about the construction of the piece. The Mousetrap is something I've been connected with for a very long time, and I always have to be careful when I say to the two actors which open the play, "Right, okay. Christopher comes on and he lifts the whole thing". Which is absolutely true, and they think oh! are we so awful? No, we're not, it's the way it's written. And it's the same with Grand Duke - the principals come on and they lift the whole thing, and how cleverly they did tonight. The chamberlains' entrance is difficult to do but we left, very sensibly, Rudolph to develop the scene. There's not a lot you can do except really come on and stand. We gave him all the work to do, and effective it was

The chorus work tonight I thought was always secure. Some of the acting was perhaps a little basic but musically they were absolutely solid and very very effective - and what good listeners they were. Terribly important. A spectacular opening to act two - well sung, well choreogreaphed, very effective - and then the welcome arrival of the Monte-Carlos, together with that strange bunch of supernumeraries and an irritating costumier. But it brings that life to the second act.

Musically it's such an attractive overture, and it leads in to some very strong chorus work. I found tonight there were no hesitant entries, and all those four parts were coming through; this chorus worked hard. Obvious attention too to the principals - I thought particularly impressive were the quintets early in act one. The tricky act one finale, with its many moves, again I thought was handled skilfully. The attack of the opening of act two was very well achieved. But amongst all this are some lovely arias and duets, and none more lovely than "So Ends My Dream", Julia Jellicoe's solo which comes and it was really a joy, but a joy not because it was skilfully sung - and it was skilfully sung - but its sensitive interpretation was spot on.

Lighting was okay tonight, it was effective, it gave emphasis to main acting areas; it had a few odd moments. Costumes were a mixture of styles and periods; I couldn't make out what time we were in - I thought it was 1930 once and then I thought must have been around 1900 - but whenever it was, it was okay. Props were very few. There aren't a lot of props, but what a lovely roulette wheel - they must have pinched it from somewhere.

Let's look at the characters. The Grand Duke Rudolph. He wasn't given a very good first entrance cos he is officially the leading role and he should have been given a bit better entrance. But he quickly established himself. Lots of over the top gestures and expressions that were always effective. I thought his work with the Baroness Krakenfeldt was very entertaining; I think anyone who worked with her would be entertaining! And we saw again another aspect of his character. There's a lot of difficult dialogue and it comes thick and fast, and he did splendid job with it. It was assured and it was secure.

Ernest Dummkopf. Energy and attack is what this character must have, and this is what he did have, and in abundance. He immediately took charge. It's necessary for the plot that we have this change of pace, and this enthusiasm which has to dominate and he did, and did a splendid job.

Ludwig - a heck of a role, and demands an awful lot. He reminded me very much of some of those old Viennese characters in the old MGM musicals; there was a wonderful one called SZ Sakall - Cuddles he was called, and I thought of dear old Cuddles tonight. He brought that lovely bubbly energy and charm. Very good stage presence, lovely light touch; held the stage always; I hope he thinks this is a nice comment cos it is - a good poser.

Dr Tannhauser, the Notary. An obvious clerical figure, always looking the part, excellent diction whether in dialogue or music. I hope he's not worried about having a little hiccup - cos we all do, and if he doesn't know the plot, how the hell are we going to! (laughter and applause, lengthy) It does happen, it does happen. Years ago when I was in Arsenic and Old Lace, I remember the dress rehearsals - I was always pretty solid - and I stopped in the middle of the dress rehearsal and I said to the director, "I'm sorry, what act are we in?". The irony of it is I was playing opposite his wife who, on the first night, came on in act one and said act three dialogue. Which he blamed me for! But it does happen, and to you it feels like end of world. But it ain't, cos it happens to us all.

Prince of Monte-Carlo. What a scene stealer of a performance! (applause) I think if I were asked to appear in a production and saw his name on the list, I would say "not available", because to overcome that charm is pretty nearly impossible. He didn't ooze charm - it flooded out of him. But it should overwhelm, and this he did with such skill, and that roulette song was a success because it was in his hands.

Princess of Monte-Carlo. Attractive - had some saucy moments - gentle charm. Lovely style.

Baronness von Krakenfeldt. Well, an actress of some experience I'm pretty sure, a character she established from the moment she walked on stage, and how she works, and how she gives. It's what we give to one another on the stage that makes us good. She enjoyed what she doing, and so did we. Again, lovely style, nice bearing, very good sense of timing, lovely contralto, and such fun when pickled. (laughter, scattered applause)

Julia Jellicoe - the English actress with a mid-European accent; a determined, purposeful interpretation. I audition, over a year, I suppose hundreds of young actors and actresses, and when I'm back in London in two weeks time I've got two whole days when I will be sitting, auditioning new youngsters into the business. But you not only assess their acting ability, you assess the person too - cos you think, "Do I want this person in the company?". I wouldn't want her! Very much the leading lady - you know, she's the sort that greets you, she hasn't seen you for six months, and she comes up to you and says "DAHling I've missed you so much", not a shred of sincerity there at all. Very terrific stage presence, lots of purpose, lovely theatrical figure, grabbed the part and relished every moment. I think if she is such a temperamental leading lady, she might have insisted on a better costume for the first act - I would never put someone with that colour hair in that colour dress!

Lisa - lovely energy, bright sparkly performance, and all the more effective when you put it alongside the drama in finale of act one. Pretty voice, pretty girl. What I appreciated were her dramatic moments, and especially her spiteful ones. I thought the bitchiness toward Julia had a reality one should avoid!

I'm a Midlander by birth, and recall alas the war years, and I remember with great - with great fear I suppose - the night Coventry was bombed. We were not able to go to bed all night, and the sky was red. And in the morning, all that was left of the cathedral was the spire - everything else had gone. We thought it would never be rebuilt, but it was. And I remember going inside for first time and being... I think shocked is the word, with the Graham Sutherland tapestry which hangs at the back of the altar there, like an enormous green beetle. It took me a long time to relate to it, so much so I realised at the base of it there is a long wooden seat - probably still there - and I sat and I looked at it, and sitting almost next to me was a very old lady. We obviously had the same thoughts because - we didn't share them, but then very quietly she said, "The eyes are really kind", and they were, and I hadn't noticed. And you know it's like that with The Grand Duke. There's much in it that's lovely, that's attractive, and tonight has entertained us. So let's absorb the whole thing and say to this company tonight, "Well, we don't know The Grand Duke very well, but tonight you really introduced us to it.".

Exit David Turner. Applause.

Mis(s)Trial By Jury (Light Opera Of Derbyshire)

2009-08-15T05:00:00.002+10:00

The program is divided into two parts: the auditions (set 10:00 this morning), and the performance (set 3:00 this afternoon, which coincides with the stated time for this entertainment). The first half scarily accurately depicts what has happened on many occasions in real auditions, with auditionees having no idea what show they're here for, or unavailable for the performance date(s), or just totally unsuited to any role... or, as is far far too common, there just aren't enough auditionees at all. As the end of the list of names is reached, the producers despair of casting the show at all, leaving us to an interval while they try to concoct a cast out of this strange collection... of course, anyone who's read the programme will know what happens, when you have a large number of excellent female auditionees and no men except for one of the producers!

Some excellent singing so far. Sharon Cutworth (last night's Tessa) gave a lovely rendition of The Lost Chord (along with many comments about its being obscure - I wonder if there was a single person in the audience unfamiliar with it!); William Revels' audition was as pleasant on our ears as on the producers' (pity for their sake that he couldn't make the performance - too busy rehearsing Peak Opera!); Jane Buchi slipped into her Grand Duchess pseudo-German accent to tell the panel that she was NOT going to do chorus!

Miss-Trial itself is rollicking fun. For the most part, all male roles are played by women, and the few female roles (namely, the Plaintiff and the Bridesmaids) are men (are men stuck in her throat). The words needed very little alteration most of the time, and even "O'er the season vernal" was untouched (although the bridesmaids - or whatever they were now - had a completely different verse). There were almost as many changes "just for fun" as there were gender changes (for instance, the Defendant had all the latest electronics, and had Facebook and Twitter contacts).

For the most part, people sang according to their character roles, with octave shifts as appropriate. During the "chaos bits", though, people sang as per the original score, which was I think a wise move. Vocal balance was alright, although (unsurprisingly) a bit light on the basses; alto/soprano balance worked well.

This was definitely not your regular Trial By Jury. But it was never meant to be. It was meant to be fun, and it absolutely was.

Gondoliers (Derby G&S Company)

2009-08-14T13:07:00.002+10:00

We got to the theatre tonight, as usual, after 7pm. Normally it's possible for us still to get seats at that point, but this show was so popular that even the gallery was sold out! Fortunately for us, there were two ladies each seeking to return one ticket, so we were still able to see the show.

Rather than the well known overture, the show opened with a new one written by Andrew Nicklin, the musical director. (Thanks to the anonymous commenter who confirmed this!) I'd love to be able to hear it again a few times. Performing a different overture is a daring move, as the orchestra will be unfamiliar with it, but it seemed to work quite well here, and gave us a different look at the music.

The singing was of a high standard. Balance between vocal lines was mostly good, although at a few points there was a lack of basses; and diction was absolutely superb - I could hear every word that was sung, except during "Small titles and orders", where laughter - my own included - drowned out the song! There were some changed lyrics, but they were so funny that we missed out on some.

But even more notable than the singing was the attention paid by those on stage to what was happening. The chorus took an interest in what the principals were doing, and reacted appropriately. This was consistent throughout the entire show, but was especially notable in the opening chorus and some of the work with the two kings and two queens. Excellent!

Above all else, the show was fun. Everyone on stage had fun, and we had fun. There were some peculiar touches added to the show, such as Luiz being asked for a demonstration of his ability to imitate a farmyard - which he gave, but it was deemed unsuitable. It was even less suitable later on, when he re-entered - his series of farm animal noises led to the Duke's firm conviction that he needs to travel with a full band! (My quirky brain wondered why Luiz, since he had this skill, didn't obey when Casilda said "Neigh, Luiz"!) Another change that worked well was the mention of "The Duke Of Plaza Toro Dot Com" - it got a laugh, and another laugh in the second act (where it comes up again). And then for "Small titles and orders", as mentioned above, the laughter drowned out the words... the number was performed with a data projector and a screen flown in, absolutely fitting for the demonstration of the value of a dot-com company!

I've said a lot, so I'll take only a quick look at the main characters. Luiz (Ollie Metcalfe) and Casilda (Alex Saunders) were completely believable in their duets. Casilda made plenty of the coldness, even brusqueness, toward Luiz, and then as the Duke and Duchess left, you could see them watch the moment approach when they could embrace. Casilda made good use of her riding crop when Don Alhambra harassed her, too. The Duke (Simon Theobald) carried himself with all the nobility of a Duke, even when his Duchess (Joan Self) was telling their daughter what an effort it was to love him (and how she tamed him, complete with bullfight antics). Giuseppe (Colin Dawes) missed a couple of musical entrances early on, but settled into things and gave an excellent performance. Marco (Paul Bailey) gave a simple and clear rendition of TAPOSE (Take A Pair Of Sparkling Eyes), and both of them made extremely awkward kings (trying to shake hands with the Duke and with Casilda, and each time ending up shaking hands with each other rather than look complete fools). Their wives Tessa (Sharon Cutworth) and Gianetta (Charlotte Clement) have lovely voices (Sharon also demonstrated excellent diction with some patter work in the cabaret), and their post-wedding dialogue was delivered full of energy, as it should be. Don Alhambra (Stephen Godward) acted very suitably offended when addressed in such a familiar way as "My man" (to the extent that Marco backed off on "But which is it") - recall what I said earlier about reactions. His full voice carried well. Inez (Zena Bradley) entered in glittering array for her "moment", which was a bit of a surprise - apparently these brigands know how to make piracy pay! Her voice was plenty strong enough to command the stage, as Inez needs to.

One piece, if you'll excuse the pun, of stage business bear mentioning. The opening of Act II was dominated by a chess game, which would have been distracting if there had been any other business happening, but once you realise that this IS the primary business (and once you realise that the two kings are... the kings), it becomes of significant interest. I wish I had had my usual seat in the gallery, rather than down in the stalls, as I couldn't see the game very well; but the game ended with what appeared to be a classic queen-rook mate on the edge of the board, although I'm told the rook was adjacent to the king and not protected, which would have meant the king could simply take it to get out of check. But that aside, it was an interesting way to handle the opening, with the kings being pushed around by the two chess players.

All involved showed enthusiasm and energy, making a very fun night.

The Sorcerer (Bournemouth)

2009-08-11T11:24:00.002+10:00

After seeing Opera della Luna's Sorcerer, I was hoping for a more traditional production. This fulfilled excellently, keeping all Gilbert's words and Sullivan's music, and having excellent direction to support them.

The curtain rose during the overture, leaving the scrim in, with some action in front. This seemed to center on four strangely mobile trees, which shifted around several times during the production - like the bush in the Looney Tunes short "Don't Give Up the Sheep", if anyone else is as sad a cartoon geek as I am. The scrim was put to excellent use, with front and back lighting used in turn to hide or reveal what was happening. Lighting states during the full stage scenes were a little simplistic, perhaps, but the follow spots were wielded so expertly that the principals were always hilighted; the one time that two spots couldn't manage alone was the quintet, in which two couples took the sides of the stage, and the vicar sat on the rostrum in the center; and for that, there were three orange specials, hilighting in colour excellently. The vicar's one could have done with being a little brighter, as the stronger background light there overshadowed it a bit, but it was still visible.

The singing was generally good; although some of the principals seemed stuck upstage at some points, and thus less audible, they were much clearer when they came down; and the chorus always gave us well balanced harmony. A few songs were taken rather slowly, such as the end of the Incantation scene, but the show never really dragged. Speaking of the Incantation, though - we got some REAL pyrotechnics! No cheating with a puff of smoke and a bit of a lighting effect, this was a real bang. Actually, there were five bangs; one in JWWells's opening (which was also enhanced by some traditional magician's tricks), three in the incantation of course, and finally (I don't think I'm spoiling the plot for anyone here!) at Wells's death. The death worked extremely well. He stepped behind a curtain, then poked his head out for "Be happy all", and finally disappeared behind it, with a pyrotechnic flash. The curtain opened instantly - and he was gone!

A strong cast kept the show moving along at a good pace. Mrs Partlet (Cathy Murray) and her daughter Constance (Charlotte Deverill) set the scene of rustic village life, and when Dr Daly (Ian Metcalfe) came on, they hid behind the trees (which had conveniently brought themselves up near the steps) to watch and listen. The scene between the three of them was well directed, with the conversation using most of the space downstage, and the upstage areas having a few other people scattered around, taking an interest in the proceedings. Lady Sangazure (Cherrill Ashford) carried herself in perfect style, clearly a fitting mother-in-law for a great Pointdextre. Aline (Jemma Truss) looked and sounded lovely - any tenor would do well to win her for his bride, such a pity she had to go to such a bounder as Alexis... but as tenors go, he (Rossano Saltfleet) certainly earned his right to woo the lead soprano. Their duets sounded lovely. Sir Marmaduke (Mike Griffiths) had the voice and presence to take command of the stage, calling people to his mansion for a feast, courteous but not afraid to make himself heard in a crowd. John Wellington Wells (John Gerken) also took complete command of the stage, though in a different way; one does not ignore the man who, while he may not turn you into a guinea pig, would be likely to blow you to pieces - not maliciously, but just by mispositioning one of his explosive charges! (As he laid some on the steps, during his opening explanations, one fell down onto the next step. Fortunately it wasn't fused, or the story would have been cut quite short... hmm, that would be an interesting plot twist!)

A most enjoyable evening. Well done to all involved.

University Challenge: Savoynet

2009-08-10T11:53:00.004+10:00

Tonight's cabaret included a University Challenge contest involving Savoynet. I'm not sure what it proved, save perhaps that Savoynetters don't know much about the 20th Century D'Oyly Carters. It was hilariously funny, though, with randomness coming through from both teams, and the emcee awarding negative points whenever he felt like it. The two teams (the Flowers of Progress, and the Savoynutters) scored almost equally in the final tally, and the audience was scored at an impressive negative ten.

The teams consisted of four Savoynetters each, and everyone was asked to introduce themselves before the game began. Nobody used their real names, and I think nobody used their email addresses either. Captaining the Flowers of Progress was a Scotsman named McCranky, and with him were Gretchen and two others whose names I forget; captaining the Savoynutters was Elise Curran, but I didn't catch what name she gave (I was totally expecting her to call herself Mabel, but she didn't), with whom were three proofs of why I should write these things down at the time, instead of trusting to memory.

Some of the questions were quite hard, although others were just a bit tricky. Where, for instance, do you find a barcarolle in the G&S canon? There are several. A few were easy because there are so many right answers - like, name a monarch mentioned in a G&S. Sometimes a team would scupper themselves completely by hitting the buzzer before the question has even been asked, and then make a totally stupid guess like "South Kensington" or "Mornington Crescent" before handing the question over as a total gift to the other team.

I wish I had a record of the entire thing, but in absence of such, I call for audience assistance. What do you remember of the quiz that I've omitted? Add a comment!

Utopia Ltd (Oxford University)

2009-08-10T11:53:00.001+10:00

I was most enthusiastic about tonight's show, as I've never seen Utopia before except once on video. It's not an easy show to put on, and has a reputation for drawing a small audience - although that seems to have little effect at the Festival, as the auditorium was mostly full, with only the gallery having much empty space.

The curtain rose during the overture, revealing a scatterment of Utopian maidens, all languid and motionless as could be expected from the hot sun and opiates. Actually, the lighting seemed to show a dawn - as the curtain went up, the stage was blue, and then orange light filled in. (I'm not sure if it was intentional or not, but it seemed appropriate.)

The chorus generally had good balance between parts. Sullivan wrote some lovely alto lines, and it's great to hear them clearly. There were several points where the orchestra got out of sync with them (there, Gary, have fun), but beyond that, it was well done.

Oddly, Calynx's lines in the opening were handed over to Tarara (Jonathan Davies), and Tarara's entire swearing-in-Utopian sequence was cut. There were a few other casualties in the dialogue, including the whole semi-transparent being speech; in that instance, I can't say that we truly missed it, but on the other hand, Scaphio's (Jordan Bell) completely indeterminate ideal makes it impossible for Phantis (Sheridan Edward) to call him out for loving the opaque Zara. It could do with some kind of alternative, although that's really a job for Gilbert himself.

Speaking of the Wise Men, they must surely have been sweltering in those elaborate robes, under the hot Utopian sun. Everyone else had sensible clothing, and there they were with something better suited to the England that they hated! Although on this particular day, the hot sun seemed to be behind a cloud a lot of the time - the stage had quite a few dark patches - so perhaps it would have worked out alright.

Two distinctly modern touches added amusement to the first act. When the two princesses were showing themselves off in the marketplace, the Kodak used was a digital one - we saw the LCD as it was shown around the chorus; and then, totally stealing the show, Mr Goldbury (Robert Hazle) had a laptop and a projector, using a graphical presentation to enhance his Limited Liability proposition, to great and hilarious effect.

The marketplace performance by the two princesses Nekaya (Verity Thomas) and Kalyba (Halka Kucznyska) was enhanced, almost upstaged, by the "Bold Fac'd Ranger" (Matthew Hosty), who demonstrated great agility in his dancing around the stage. The Lady Sophy (Zosia Kuczynska) was constantly on duty, and from the number of times she had to nudge her charges to keep them in check, I think she was earning her pay!

King Paramount (Thomas West) took charge of his entrance scene, and then did an excellent transition to the subservient monarch when the Wise Men came in. It must be hard for the poor guy - to maintain the appearance, to his people, of being in charge, and yet to have to remember to doff his crown when in the presence of his superiors. Capt Fitzbattleaxe (Nick Pritchard), on the other hand, could be completely honest with everyone, making no secret of his affection for Zara (Anna Sideris), which alas could not be realised in the first act due to his breastplate, or perhaps breastwok, and of course the slight problem of Scaphio and Phantis. By the second act he had disposed of both problems with equal ease, and his love had strengthened, he claimed, to the point of disrupting his singing voice - not that that stopped him from singing a beautiful duet with her, which they both sang so sweetly. (I could have wished for it to be a little less "low" in volume, however, or alternatively for the orchestra to back down a little.)

There were a few things that disappointed me. "Society has quite forsaken" seemed rather static, with almost no movement from anyone except right at the end; and on the brief movement that the Flowers did, they lost touch with the conductor and had a pretty train-wreck for a while. Also, there were several places where someone desperately needed a spotlight, and it just didn't happen. Had the stage been sufficiently bright, it would have been alright, but at points like Zara's entrance, I was expecting the follow spot to come into play.

However, in spite of these, the show was definitely a success. Tarara evidently overcame his diffidence and natural timidity enough to set off a decent batch of TNT behind the king's throne (during the entrance of the chorus in rebellion), although his earlier crackers didn't seem to have much bang in them. Paramount and Zara were quite scared by the angry throng, so it was a good thing Zara remembered the last and most crucial bit of English lifestyle to bring in, before they both got belaboured bodily!

Both choruses were fairly consistently energetic, well balanced harmonically, and in sync, although there was in evidence the one person who got it wrong every time (I don't think it was the SAME person each time). The harmonies were equally in evidence during their cabaret, which featured some unaccompanied singing by the full company. Lovely. Definitely enjoyed tonight.

G&S in 3/4 Time (Elise Curran)

2009-08-08T11:46:00.003+10:00

Introduced to us as the "Florida Foghorn" (followed by some strange noise from backstage, can't imagine who), Elise Curran gave a recital of various pieces of Gilbert and Sullivan (and some other) music, all in 3/4 time, but covering quite a variety of styles. Each piece was introduced and explained in Elise's particular style, full of fascinating little details and obscure oddments (I'd never thought of "I built upon a rock" as a march, for instance), and then sung, either by Elise alone, or with her guest assistants (her page-turner stepped up to sing alto, and then two men who'd been sitting in the audience were suddenly called upon to complete a quartet), or by the entire audience, in the case of songs with a chorus.

Michael and I had to be apologies for half a Savoynet rehearsal to attend this, but it was totally worthwhile (especially since our involvement in the S'net show is fairly slight). Each half of the programme included one number from Grand Duke, and from the lack of strong voices joining in on the chorus, it was clear we were the only ones who'd wagged rehearsal! Fortunately the audience's contribution was more firm in such numbers as "Thank you, gallant gondolieri" (hey, we mostly just have to sing a whole lot of "tra la") and Elise's signature tune "Poor wand'ring one"... there's nothing like a good audience chorus.

Of course, as well as the familiar pieces, there were some that were more obscure; Gilbert's "Princess Toto" and Sullivan's "The Chieftain" each contributed a song. This is likely the only airtime either opera will get in the entire festival, so those songs should feel privileged that they were written in 3/4! It is fun to get the odd song that we've seldom, perhaps never, heard before. (And who knows - might give someone a reason to look up the whole show, and find something they might never have seen else.)

It was, as hoped for, a fun and informative afternoon. Many thanks to Elise, the page-turner-and-alto (Jo Savournin), and the two men who joined them (John Savournin, and Richard Cotton, who was called in at the last moment!), and of course to the pianist, John Howells. Much enjoyed it.

Holy Trinity Handbell Ringers

2009-08-05T15:15:00.002+10:00

The performance was billed as "Ring Forth Ye Bells", but the first number played was "There Grew A Little Flower" (yes, they did do the Sorcerer opening, but later). Handling two or three bells each, a small company filled the room with beautiful resonance. The music must of course be arranged specifically for bells; of the G&S pieces played today, this work had been done well.

As well as demonstrating the full-on bells, the Ringers introduced us to bell-plates, what might be called the economy class handbells. Instead of several thousand quid for a set of bells, the bell-plates are a few hundred - and they sound *mostly* as good, but not quite. They lack the resonant beauty of the bells, but are played the same way and produce a reasonable tone.

One thing that can't be done with bell-plates, though, is holding two in one hand. It's the bell equivalent of playing a piano with both hands, I suppose; handling four bells and knowing which one to ring at any given moment is something that calls for some serious skill. We were treated to a three person four-in-hand number - twelve bells between three players - including their conductor, who in most of the other numbers wasn't able to himself play.

My biggest regret about this afternoon is that it was not recorded for DVD. The playing was excellent, the music lovely. There were a few numbers that seemed to have a lot of mistakes in the playing... oh wait, those were the ones where the experts stepped aside and invited audience members to come up and play! Yes, we got to try playing through a couple ourselves - pick up a couple of bells and swing them when the music calls for it.

Great fun afternoon, a pity it was so ill-attended.

Iolanthe (Charles Court Opera)

2009-08-03T18:48:00.002+10:00

An excellent production! Like last night's show, this Iolanthe had no chorus. And again, it worked quite well. Rather than a full orchestra, this used cut-down orchestrations, using roughly half the number of players to achieve nearly as good a result. It almost never sounded "thin", although there were some slight balance issues, mainly with the brass section dominating the single flute.

The opening was most effective. Curtain went up on a stage with a number of semi-transparent flats (filled with an inorganic jelly... wait, wrong opera), behind which the fairies were concealed. The lighting kept them invisible. As the lights came up, we could see them - perfectly stationery, with a precise yawn at the appropriate points in the music.

Instead of three leads and a nearly-mute chorus, we had four named fairies (Celia (Lydia Jenkins), Leila (Rosie Strobel), Fleta (Charlotte Wooll-Rivers), and one named Lettie (Sarah Sharkey)) who all shared the dialogue. In spite of being, presumably, a couple of centuries old, they all behaved as though they were about eight years old - is that one of the advantages of being immortal, that they never grow up? But these fairies have some real power behind them, as we find out when they face off against the Lord Chancellor (Giles Davies) and the Peers (the two leads (Sebastian Valentine (Mountararat) and David Menezes (Tolloller)) and three nameless chorus members (Robin Bailey, Michael Webborn, and Matt Kellett)) - the peers are lutes in their hands, they play on them whatever tune they wish.

The Fairy Queen (Jill Pert) is a loved and loving mother to all the fairies, and of all of them most shows her age (with white hair reaching past her waist). Her daughter and tutor Iolanthe (Anne-Marie Cullum) seems to have been permanently stained by the green water at the bottom of her stream-home, but it hasn't harmed her voice at all (Anne-Marie has just entertained us in the cabaret, with a song of her own composition). Strephon (John Savournin) and Phyllis (Georgia Ginsberg) made a lovely couple, and also reacted superbly to what was going on elsewhere on the stage (most notably during the Act I Finale). Private Willis (Martin Lamb) was so entirely motionless that when he spoke, the fairies were taken completely aback.

All worked with extreme precision. The five peers (with flowing coffers) made their entrance without the usual fanfare and splash of colorful robes, but with such perfection of movement that it was just as impressive. The Act I Finale showcased everyone's ability to maintain stasis and reaction, and characterisations were clear and accurately maintained. Phyllis seemed to spend a lot of time looking to us, the audience, instead of the person she was speaking to, but apart from that, it was a completely believable show. The insane chaos of "Young Strephon is the kind of lout" totally worked; the softer, sadder moments worked too.

I admire the CCO people for performing twice in one day, and the cabaret afterwards as well, and presumably rehearsing in the morning. A full-on day's work and a great day of entertainment for us.

Sorcerer (Opera della Luna)

2009-08-02T13:29:00.000+10:00

"It is obvious that this is no ordinary sorcerer." -- Wile E Coyote. The elimination of the chorus necessitates some changes, but there were quite a lot of changes besides. Some were good, some perhaps less so... most drew plentiful laughter and applause from the audience.

The overture included business on stage involving Dr Daly and handbells, with the good vicar working hard to get people organized so things could be played in some semblance of order. His eventual success shows him as a better organizer than most vicars I've met! The bells featured at various points in the music, with the musicians (one piano and a reduced orchestra) pausing and letting a bell take the moment.

There were a number of points where something in the show was gone over a second time, to good effect. Dr Daly's blessing was echoed back by Marmaduke and Alexis, complete with full business, and taken to the length of hilighting the piece's inherent ridiculousness. Similarly the signing of the wedding contract ("They deliver it, they deliver it") was done over, because the camera wasn't turned on. Part way into the second rendition, Daly gestured to the musicians to hurry it up a bit, which they did.

I was slightly disappointed at the loss of the whole filter/philtre joke, although with all the additions, something had to be removed. Oddly, the word "philtre" still occurred during the song, and once during the discussion of its effect on married persons.

What was worse, though, was the interpolation of The Lost Chord into the finale. Was it not this particular piece that was specifically requested by its composer not to be burlesqued? Hrm. I found it hard to applaud that, even though the rest of the show was largely quite funny and well done.

The second act opened with an unsurprisingly thin chorus. The scene hardly works with only two people on stage, so most of it was cut. ("If you marry me" came back as a reprise, though, once the entire company was there to sing it.) Another major change: Instead of Alexis insisting on Aline drinking the philtre, it was Aline who required it of Alexis. I don't know that Gilbert would have approved of Alexis and Dr Daly falling in love, even under the influence of sorcery.

That said, however, the show was well rehearsed and well received. Philip Cox as Dr Daly held things together with a well-brewed pot of tea (there was even some left at the end of the show - cold tea, anyone?); Gareth Jones made a surprisingly spry Notary; Ian Belsey as Sir Marmaduke paired off well with Sylvia Clark's Sangazure, although the latter seemed to have some trouble with the lower notes. I was fully expecting a top-notch performance from Simon Butteriss (especially having seen him earlier in the day - see previous post), and was not disappointed. A completely classical Aline (Emma Morwood) contrasted a 60s hippy Alexis (Oliver White) to great comedic effect. Mrs Partlett and Constance (Susan Moore and Claire Watkins) handled the opening cleanly, but then were almost completely relegated to the chorus (although, there being no other chorus, this was vital to the plot). All held their own strongly, and were well balanced against the orchestra (although in some of the places where words were changed, I could have wished for a little more volume from the singers).

The set was simple, but effective. One large tent, with several entrances (including one past the piano, used only occasionally), and a large central pole that seemed to keep on getting in someone's way or being leaned on (it almost deserved to be credited as another member of the cast!). Skilful lighting spared the need for a chorus in the Incantation, as well as setting the mood perfectly in each scene. Lighting by its nature is designed to draw attention away from itself, and one usually only notices it when it's bad or inadequate. This was not one of those cases - the lighting dramatically highlighted every piece of funny business and kept our attention rivetted on the stage.

This is a new production which is to be taken touring. In a sense, that makes tonight's show the beta test... and a reasonably successful one. The show sat fairly happily with me, apart from the mangling of The Lost Chord; although as Teresa says in The Mountebanks, "I'm only one, and possibly I'm wrong"... most of the audience seemed to quite enjoy that interpolation, finding it most amusing to hear "It may be that only in heaven I shall drink such tea again". The audience definitely enjoyed the show (myself included), and ultimately, that's what really matters.

Nightmare Songs (Opera della Luna)

2009-08-02T01:46:00.003+10:00

First Opera House show of the festival is a two-man piece called "Nightmare Songs". Like "A Song To Sing, O", it is a compilation of songs (mainly patter but not exclusively) from nearly all the G&Ses, woven together with a plot. The plot is entirely fictional, and apart from mentions of Rupert D'Oyly Carte and Martyn Green, has no historical people in it, but the production "is dedicated to all those performers who could have been stars, but, through no fault of their own, never were", and I have no doubt there's a number of real people who make up this patter man. (Set 'em to simmer and take off the scum...)

Simon Butteriss is discovered in bed, tossing and turning, and it would have been too easy to have him sit up and start singing the Nightmare Song. Actually, he sings a few snippets, but, as we find throughout the show, he's having trouble remembering the words. His noise wakes up a fellow lodger (Jeff Clarke), who comes in, and sits down at what to us looks like a piano, but isn't. Between them they sing and play songs from all the G&S operas, omitting only Thespis, Utopia and Grand Duke (and barely touching on Trial), with some rather clever medleys as well. It's not all patter; "I Built Upon A Rock" comes through, to good effect.

For most of the first half, and part of the second, the audience is not permitted to applaud - songs cut off abruptly with another line of dialogue, which fits the mood of the scene rather better than stopping for applause would.

The show concludes on a rather sad note, but after the bows, both men come back on stage again and finally manage to get through the entire nightmare song without losing the words.

I can't talk of this show without making some mention of the lighting. This was done well, synchronizing with the bedside lamp, and giving snap changes of color to indicate different operas (requiring precise timing in some of the medleys). There were one or two places where it would have been smoother to have an actual follow spot, rather than just turning out one light and turning up another, and one point where I thought the stage was a bit too dark to see what was going on, but it was made up for by the excellent window. Not only could you see moonlight through it (which was put to great effect when the poor patter man was completely indecisive about whether to get up (turning on his lamp) or go to sleep (turning it off), but it gave a good rendition of the coming day by brightening and becoming yellower. (I'm not sure what performers did in those days, but it seems to me he may have overslept a bit. The sunlight was streaming in rather strongly by the time he decided to get up!)

A fun show, and skilfully put together. Both men did an excellent job of delivering their words all the way to the gallery (where I was seated). Very much enjoyed it.

Buxton!

2009-08-02T01:39:00.002+10:00

Well, we're now here in Buxton. Things are settling down a bit. Had dinner with a few other S'netters who got here early, including Angie who had the Savoynet tshirts (yay! no luggage but now I have another thing to wear). The Festival has officially begun, now, with the first day's activities begun. We're staying in the High Peak Halls, same as we did two years ago, and it's completely satisfactory. Incidentally, there's a couple of other Aussies in the same wing - Perthites, here for "Cinderella" on the 5th. Unfortunately they can't hang around for much else of the Festival, but hopefully we'll see them there.

There's plenty of shows available to be seen, and I expect there'll be plenty to blog about.

Travelog part VIII

2009-07-31T23:37:00.001+10:00

20090729, 7AM. Midga's alarm goes off again. (Why can't he figure out how to turn the silly thing off when he doesn't want it? Next thing he'll be sleeping through it.) I take breakfast in the diner, then mooch back and play with Traal.

11AM. Lunch, again in the diner.

2PM. Arrive NY Penn; get wifi at ClubAcela. The person we were to meet now can't, so all we have to do is get to the airport. People here aren't nearly as helpful or courteous as we've become accustomed to, and the station itself is just way less friendly... still, after a few tries, we find out how to get ourselves to Jamaica Station, which is where the AirTrain departs from.

3:51PM. We're on the AirTrain. This thing is completely driverless... impressive, but leaves me wondering: what happens in a serious emergency? Is anyone monitoring from afar? It's rather neat though. We get a driver's eye view of the entire journey! The train runs at a pretty good clip, but not too fast for us to see the road signs on the way in, and find out that Aer Lingus departs from Terminal 4. Pull-ups at stations are about like a human driver would - definitely no worse, although if a computer is in charge, I would expect some more precision.

3:58PM. Arrival at Terminal 4. Now to find Aer Lingus and check in... we have 1h 47m before the plane departs.

4:25PM. We're through airport security. My prediction was off - I figured it would be less than an hour that we have to "just kill", but here we are, killing an hour twenty. Aer Lingus service is good.

6:08. Another 15 mins to takeoff :(

20090730, 5:15AM (now on GMT+1): We arrive Dublin. Cabin crew seem surprised by the rapid approach.

6:00AM. Midga lost his passport! Ack! Returned to plane in case it was there. Nope. Searched all pockets. Nothing found. We're discussing what to do - can we call on the embassy for help??? - but fortunately the passport turns up, in an unexpected pocket of the jacket. WHEW! Praise God. Meanwhile, I've been looking for wifi (you can do anything as long as you have an internet connection, everyone who watches movies knows that). Airport wifi costs money, but you can get live arrival/departure information without paying. That's a Good Thing, although personally I reckon they shouldn't need to charge at all.

6:30AM. We burn rubber through the customs checks etc and get onto our transiting flight. I misread the boarding pass; it said gate closes 6:15 and plane departs 6:40, but I thought the plane actually departed 6:15, which would have meant we'd have been seriously tight for time. As it happened, we got there at the tail end of regular boarding (even after going to the wrong set of gates, as we had NO idea what gate our flight left from - fortunately any ground crew can pull up that sort of info.) We board; on the AirStairs, there was a terminal with what seemed to be a telnet session for control or information. Midga walks up behind and says "GEEK"! (Me: "Guilty as charged". Crew member who was busily telnetting (to an address in 10.*.*.*, as it happened): Something dismissive, told us to get on board (with a sense of humour).)

6:36AM. Pushback.

6:43AM. Takeoff. (Not as bad congestion as JFK!)

6:51AM. Midga and I have a discussion about airline crews and accents. I think the Canadian and Kiwi accents are the nicest to listen to of all I've heard... airlines (especially countries' official airlines) need to take good care who they hire, not just because their courtesy and helpfulness reflects on the country, but also because of the accent! Incidentally, as regards helpfulness and courtesy, the only city in which we really missed out was New York. We were scurrying around, trying to get from the railway station to the airport, and didn't find anyone who was all that helpful, although we did end up getting the info we needed.

7:00AM. Midga's alarm fires. Duh.

8:04AM. We're down. Now to gunzel our way to Buxton!

9:08AM. Our luggage is missing. Blah. Well, at least it happened on THIS leg, and not one of the earlier ones where we had no time built in. Guess it'll be sent on to our lodgings. We're now sitting on a train about to head to London Victoria, from which we can get to Euston and thence hopefully Manchester.

3:30PM. Adventures, adventures. I've had enough adventures for a while now, can we just settle down please? Sigh. And it totally doesn't help that everything is noisy, full of smokers, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. I hate cigarette smoke.

20090731, 1:30PM. Just woke up for the Nth time, but this time I'm actually getting up (rather than logging on to Thresh, poking around, and going back to bed). Time to wake up my voice and ring about the luggage.

Travelog part VII

2009-07-29T02:38:00.001+10:00

20090728, 7AM. Midga's alarm goes off. My body flies out of bed and logs on to Thresh.

8:30AM. Wake up again, go back to Thresh.

10:30AM. Properly getting up now. Marah, Midga, and I discuss what to do. There's an expensive theme park right nearby, skip that. There's a much more economical option, but we'll have to hunt it down. All pile into the car with all gear and look for lunch first, amusement second.

11:30AM. We have lunch at Chik-Fil-Adobe (the A in their logo is almost exactly the Adobe icon), during which Marah explains the company to us.

1:30PM. Off to Discovery Place Museum. We got lost a bit on the way, but nobody minds.

3:00PM. A demonstration (part of Disc Place) of various ways of creating light. The presenter (on her own, due to some kind of mix-up - normally she'd have had assistants) was highly knowledgeable and enthusiastic. After the show-show, I asked her about a couple of things; turns out she's a researcher in bioluminescence, investigating when and why fireflies glow, etc. Fun stuff!

4:00PM. Finished with Disc Place, now to look for a chocolatier. Lack of wifi makes it hard, and we get lost a few times, plus the first place we go to is closed anyway. But we find ourselves at Godiva eventually. My evaluation: It's not Sweet As. I pick up a couple of boxes of chocolates for Marah and family anyway, though. We mooch off to a Borders and Marah finds the original "Pride and Prejudice", flips through it, looks over a few passages, and declares that the zombie version was done very well.

10PM. Heading back to Spartanburg.

11PM. Back in Spartanburg, at the railway station. We pile out and get all our stuff ready for when the train arrives. Time now for all the hugs and farewells, of which there are plenty. These people are totally part of our family now.

12:02. Train arrives. We board, and that's really the end of our America trip. Yes, we still have one train trip and one person to meet in NY, but this is it, really. We head to bed.

Travelog part VI

2009-07-28T01:35:00.001+10:00

20090727, 9:37AM. ThreshCon is over, really REALLY over, and we're heading home. Some people departed late Sat or early Sun; most people left by the end of Sunday; we and one couple stayed an extra night to relax before the trip home.

Some photos have already been posted (privately until all those concerned give their approval for publication), and more will follow. I'll put a link to the thread when the time comes.

From a bookstore slash cafe near the hotel where we stayed, where we had lunch one of the days, Jodi bought "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies", a well-done parody of the famous book. According to the cover blurb, "... Pride and Prejudice and Zombies transforms a masterpiece of world literature into something you'd actually want to read". Midga's getting back into reading aloud in the car... he's out of practice but you'd never know it.

6:06PM. Plans for this evening have just been defenestrated by a phone call. There's been something of a disaster in Marah's family, which needs to be dealt with. (Her children need desperately to learn when not to place requests on their mum, though. It really doesn't help when they're throwing out "Can we this? Can we that?".) We all pile back into the recently-vacated car and head off.

9PM. Turns out the disaster isn't as bad as it could have been (phew!), but it's definitely not good news. We spend the evening talking and praying, mostly.

ThreshCon

2009-07-25T12:42:00.002+10:00

We're now at ThreshCon! The stream-of-consciousness posting will continue under the new title.

Got here at 4pmish, checked in at the hotel, then checked in with Ari. Met people, nattered, waited for people to gather. Eventually went off to tea.

Dinner was fun. Food's cooked in front of you, and it's not just cooking, it's a full-on performance. These guys are experts.

We're now (10:47pm) all gathered at the hotel again, and are nattering more... and talking on cit, too. Funny about that. Looks like Murder Arcanus is about to start, too. I've just been assigned my target. Right oh, [[CENSORED]], you're in trouble now...!

Disney World and Threshers!

2009-07-23T23:39:00.002+10:00

It's been a day or two since the last post. Sorry about that, but a lot has happened and I didn't get around to blogging it all.

So we arrived in Florida and met up with Morvinia, and then (when he got home from work) Sanskrista. Great people... really lovely. And loads of fun. Morvi's nephew is staying with her too, and he will be coming with us to Disney World. (Morv does too, of course, although Sans can't.)

We come out Orlando direction and meet up with another thresher, Reshad. He'll be coming with us too. We all pile into Morv's Prius and toddle off to Animal Kingdom to meet Mabel, who works there, then we spend most of the day in Hollywood Studios (because that's the park that the Floridites bought tickets to).

Unsurprisingly, it was hot under the Florida sun. Fortunately, quite a few of the Disney attractions are indoors, and they keep the air con on high; so you wilt outside, then get inside and enjoy even standing in line.

And the attractions are worth it, too. They have a Star Wars exhibit that includes what, from the inside, feels almost like a rollercoaster, but actually goes nowhere (it's a full-on flight sim with acceleration and tilting to give the full impression). Two actual rollercoasters, both with a plot behind them (which means that people don't just wait in line to get on the ride - you first wait in line for the beginning of the plot, then you get shuffled onto the ride; means the waiting time "feels" less). I could have wished they were a lot longer, though. You get through it and think "So that's it?"; especially if you've been waiting an hour or more.

Speaking of waiting an hour, the Fastpass/Standby arrangement is well balanced. You can either join the Standby queue, which operates exactly like any other queue, or you can take a Fastpass and come back later. Standby will get you into the attraction sooner, but Fastpass lets you go away and do other things. The exact time difference between the two varies according to popularity, but the more popular the ride, the more extreme the difference - like, for instance, 80 minutes in Standby versus a 4-hour clock on the Fastpass.

As end of day approached, we all gathered up and made our way back to the hotel. Had dinner, then sat around talking until a couple more Threshers turned up: Alumsaye and Yubae. (We had been hoping to have Mabel join us for dinner, but that didn't work out.) We have a good time of reading funny help files and ooc info, talking a whole lot of rubbish, and enjoying Morvi's excellent ocokies. Actually, this was a pretty good mini-con... and a "drop you in at the deep end" introduction to the wonders of Citizen and Con for those who joined Thresh not two weeks ago!

And now, I am being dragged out to a swimming pool. Marah wants proof that I'm human; I think she just relishes the idea of a pasty-white geek getting thoroughly sunburned. Well, whatevah. If that's what she wants, I don't mind, but I can't find anywhere what color a sunburn is, so I don't know what to paint myself. I guess I'll have to actually go out into the sun after all.

Travelog part V

2009-07-23T23:38:00.000+10:00

20th July, 5:50pm We're at the airport, about to head to FL, and they have free wifi. Alas, their DHCP is failing on me. Eventually Traal settles on an IP address of 196.254.115.68, which geeks will recognize as what you get when there's nothing to get. At this point I really miss my POSIX tools, because "ping 255.255.255.255" doesn't work at all on Windows :( Also I have no ifconfig utility; ipconfig is supposedly the same, but it's not. (Have you ever noticed how Windows has the utilities slightly differently named? You don't configure a networking interface, you configure your IP address. Meh.) I must look so petty here... whimpering because I can't do a real broadcast ping??!

So I'm offline :( But I'll survive. I've managed offline for most of this trip, I'll be alright for another hour. America's weird... I've lost my eternal connection (my 3G one fills in everything between my home and work ones), but when I *do* get online, it's so amazingly fast. The best possible metric for quality of internet connection is the ping time to thresholdrpg.com, and everything at home is over 100ms, but around here it's an average of maybe 30ms. Almost makes me wish I were borging more.

6:10pm. No room to blog while on the plane. Dropping the tray table makes it plausible, but certainly not easy.

21st July, 1:34pm Morvinia met us at the airport last night and we're staying with her. Too busy doing stuffs to blog!

We're going off shopping now, and Morvi takes the car through a car wash. Midga reminds her to make sure all the windows are closed, so of course she opens his just as we enter... although she closes it again before anything gets seriously wet. Meanwhile, Marah ponders the Thresh equivalent of a car wash... maybe it's Thracian weather?

Travelog part IV (short)

2009-07-20T23:47:00.001+10:00

19th July 2009 8:40pm.
We dine - J's mom's treat - and since we're sitting outside, a few flies bother us. Naturally we Aussies do our best to deal with them, although it's a bit harder than usual. I discuss possible reasons why, including that these aren't your regular houseflies; we're accustomed to flies moving upward but these things want to go down (between the plates etc). J suggests that it's because we're in the other hemisphere and things go the other way here. Fortunately all the bugs get dispatched before the end of the meal - that's my Boy Scout good deed for the day.

Travelog part III

2009-07-19T20:27:00.000+10:00

6:30PM. Fellow passenger Diana, mentioned earlier, is taking a connecting sleeper same as we are, although not the same train. We're all in the ClubAcela lounge. She sees me getting a drink and insists on showing me something: a chocolate bar with Obama's image on it. She also insists on buying it for me. :) We spend a good while talking about politics and such. She's definitely fun to talk to.

7:00PM. Just boarded The Crescent, which will take us to Marah's. Once again, folks are friendly and helpful - people hear that we're Australian and just open chat with us. The connie just informed us that we were about to leave, and would be departing "like a herd of turtles"... picturesque turn of phrase! Dinner will be shortly (they sure don't let us starve!) and sleeper passengers get first service. 7:09, and we're moving. We're heading out through a tunnel that Michael says is most likely original (bluestone walls and such); he says it looks about 1960s-70s. Like most long tunnels, though, it's dark except for a few safety lights, and we're going underneath a lot of the city, so it's not of very great interest.

Just sighted the Capitol building. Okay. Now we can say we've seen it.

Ha! On the back of the ticket stubs, it invites feedback by saying:

How was your trip?
Tell us and enter a sweepstakes to win FREE travel!
You could be one of 10 winners to receive $500 in FREE TRAVEL by completing a simple confidential survey at www.amtraksurvey.com blah blah.
(small print) No purchase necessary.

Very interesting. Very interesting indeed. Not sure whether that means no purchase after I've taken this trip, or if they would solicit trip quality feedback from people who haven't even taken a trip... fascinating. Well, I guess I might throw some feedback their way, if I feel like it. $500 free travel won't do me much good!

7:40PM. We stroll off to the dining car but it's full. We're told to seek back in half an hour. Back to the room for Looney Tunes.

8:05PM. Connie pops his head in to say that there's tables available for dinner. Nice! We stroll on down. The fish option tonight is salmon (rather than the trout that it's been previously), so I go for that. Mmmm. Favorite of the lady of the river, and no surprise. During dinner we notice a strange hot-electrical smell, which waxes and wanes a bit; it seems to be stronger during acceleration, so it's probably not the brakes.

Back to the sleeper after dinner, and we ask the connie to notify us at Gastonia, which is about an hour before our stop. Then a last couple of Looney Tunes and bed.

2:30AM. The train has stopped. I can't see a station sign though. After lying there for a while, I get up, don shoes, and walk the train in the expectation of finding someone to ask. Uhhh.... nope. The entire train is deserted. Odd, that. On all the previous legs, the lounge has been active or semi-active the whole night - or at least, any time I've looked it has been. This time, everyone's asleep. Also, I try various windows, but no luck seeing any sort of station sign. Eventually a crew person walks in, and I ask him where we are and how far to Gastonia; he says we're at Charleston (I think) and that Gastonia is the next stop once we get moving, 15 minutes away. Five minutes later, we're still not moving.

2:55AM. We're moving now, although I missed noting actual time of departure. No idea what the long stop was for.

4:00AM. Connie just popped in to say we're 15 mins from destination. Yay! Dunno what happened to Gastonia though.

4:15. Here we are!!

5:30AM. Marah! YAY!

Travelog part II

2009-07-19T03:35:00.002+10:00

Last night was spent with Ysadri, a Thresher I've known for a number of years online but never till now met in person. She's lovely. :) We dined at a Thai restaurant that she recommended highly, and then spent the evening nattering and poking around on Traal - talking to Skan on the Skype, chatting on Citizen, and so on. Our train TO her town was ten minutes late, and I (thinking as I do of suburban services) thought we ought to ring her and say that we'd be late, but she assured us that ten minutes' lateness isn't all that much. The following day - that is, this morning - we had a northbound service due to leave at 11:35, we thought; turns out it was actually scheduled for 11:08, but it was running late. How late? Uhh..... three hours. (What is the use of timetabling something as accurately as 11:08 if ten minutes late is normal? It's like trying to tell time by the hour hand alone and then give accuracy to the millisecond. Makes no sense whatsoever.) Fortunately we had a fairly free connection with our next service, but it did mean we had only about half an hour in the Chicago first class lounge (yeah, people with sleeper tickets get the top notch treatment), and no time to ride the suburban system, nor even to look around the station, before boarding our next train. However, we're now on board, happily on the way to Washington DC where we will connect with a southbound service.

Dinner on board the "Capitol Limited" train is similar to what we had on the last sleeper, the "Southwest Chief". So are the carriage arrangements; curiously, we got compartment #4 both times. Opposite us (in compartment #3) is a lady named Diana; we got to chatting, and ended up going to dinner together. She's rather fun, has some interesting political ideas (and has thought them through), and knows how to hold a conversation over dinner. Was an enjoyable dinner; plenty to see out the window too, with sailboats (one of her interests) and trains a'plenty. I'm now back in the compartment, and we've crossed the boundary to Eastern Time, so we're now on the only timezone we'll need for the rest of the USA part of this trip. Traal has been informed of this change. I don't know what time Clippy thinks it is.

We're still completely dependant on finding wifi somewhere. The first class lounge has both wifi and power points, and Ysadri had a good connection that we were able to make use of (she has the connection, but no computer to use it with - hers died, it died, it died... I was all ready to build her one on the spot, but we had no idea how much time we'd actually have available (if I'd known the train wouldn't be leaving until nearly 3pm, I might have considered it, but expecting it to be at 11am meant no such opportunity), so she's still comp-less); but outside of those places, there has been nothing reliable. Every time we stop at a town, I check to see if there's any open networks, and once in a while I'm rewarded with one; other than that, we're stuck working offline. I don't so much mind blogging offline, but I'm coming to realise that most of the good Windows games I play actually involve the internet (MTGO, Kong, and of course Thresh) - all my best single-player offline games are written for OS/2 and reside on Stan. Oh well. Plenty of blogging to do, plenty of coding I can poke around with.

Interestingly, Michael's phone often can't pick up 802.11 that I can. So in spite of having been specifically bought to relieve pressure on the Traal, the phone is spending most of its time doing other duties (GPS speedo or compass, games, etc), and Michael's uploading Clippy's Logs from Traal as before. Oh well. Fortunately we get a good connection every day or two. I don't think we could manage else.

6:12AM (EDT). Got up and departed the sleeper (M's still asleep) to drop myself in the lounge. Outside is a lot of greenery; above us is an unbroken grey mass of cloud. There seems to be a lot of mist around, too, or else there's thick fog. Not sure which. There's either a lake or a river beside us, I think, which could cause mist. Anyhow, the upshot is that, while there's greenery in the near distance, all the middle and long distance is pure grey. I'm not sure where we are, although an examination of timetables would probably tell us. (Seems it's a river, as we still have it beside us.)

6:30AM. I'm going to need to get myself a Melbourne-time clock. That probably means coding something up. Hmm. Also, I finally got around to renaming all the RHains MP3s that had sat around all this time. I did a bit of Python to parse the XSPF playlist (which is an XML file) to produce a list of desired filenames, list comprehension on os.listdir() to get a list of current filenames, and then map(os.rename,b,a) to do the actual work. Beautiful. I love Python.

Hmm. For a while, we had left behind the fog or mist or whatever it was, but it's back now. I hadn't noticed us change altitude much, so it can't be that we were above it. Not sure what the cause is.

12:53PM. We're approaching Washington DC and the end of this leg of the journey. Over lunch (at 11AM) I got randomly chatting about geography - remarking that I'd seen plains, islands/rivers, mountains, and forests, but no swamps - and discovered that the young lad on the table opposite plays Magic! After lunch I grabbed my box of cards and we went to the lounge for one game. Then back to the sleeper to gather stuff and do final pack up while we pull in to the station.

1:36PM. ClubAcela (first class lounge) facilities open to us, as sleeper passengers. As in Chicago, power and wifi, so I'm happily blogging. Will probably get time to do quite a bit of gunzelling but we're not going to leave the station (on current plans).

Next leg will get us down to Marah's. Wheeeee!

Dining with Amtrak

2009-07-17T06:36:00.001+10:00

Since we've been travelling Sleeper all this way, we take our meals in the dining car at no additional cost. (Coach passengers can use the dining car too, but pay for everything. If we'd had to pay for all our meals, it would have worked out to about half the price of our twinnette sleeper right there.) Lunch and dinner are by reservation only (the Dining Car Steward comes round asking what time slot you want to dine, and books you in), but breakfast is first-come, first-serve. In each case, diners are asked to enter the dining car and "wait......... to be seated". Every table seats four people; anyone in a party of three or less (including us) will be seated with strangers, so "You will be making friends all along the journey" (as Anton explained - in a tone that made it sound like "You will, or else!"). So far, we've had five meals; and only once have we been with people we were previously seated with. For breakfast today, Michael and I were separated (he was still asleep, while I was up and about), so I sat with a party of three, which otherwise wouldn't have happened.

We have dined _extremely_ well. There's no way that these Amtrak guys are going to let us go hungry. Sure, we could have gotten around the place quicker and cheaper by air... but the journey has been such fun, and so relaxing. (We do not want to arrive to see someone we've never met before, jet-lagged and exhausted, but this way we get a couple days to sort ourselves out before meeting anyone.)

I'm posting this from the First Class lounge in Chicago Union Station. As sleeper passengers, we get the luxury facilities, including an internet connection with 35ms ping times to Threshold - woooo! (On the flip side, it's 227ms ping time back home. But that's no big deal.) Premium service here, I love it!

How's America different?

2009-07-16T22:36:00.002+10:00

I suppose my loyal readers (both of them!) want to know what I found different about America compared to home. Actually, not very much... not much at all. People are people, helpfulness is helpfulness, and airports seem to be identical the world over. There's a lot of little differences with signage and such (for instance, their pedestrian lights have a countdown in seconds showing how long they'll be red-flashing before they go solid red), but there's that much difference between different councils in Melbourne. Also, of course, I can only compare with Los Angeles, CA, but if anything is contradicted by later experiences I can always comment it.

There were two things that were disconcerting, though. Driving on the wrong side of the road, and - believe it or not - the lack of "tick-tick-tick" alerts on pedestrian lights. Back home, our pedestrian lights give aural feedback - while the light is red, a sharp clear "tick" once every second; when the light turns green, the ticks come rapid-fire. The primary purpose of this is to help vision-impaired people, but it's a great help to the sighted too. You can allow your attention to wander, and then let your ears alert you. The lack of this means that we spent more time at traffic lights, which is a problem when we're trying to catch a bus that's a diagonal cross away from us and the cycle is too short.

Driving on the wrong (yes yes, I know you call it the "right") side of the road is mostly not a problem. I see cars moving, I accept it. There's a couple of times when it becomes more of a problem. The first is when I'm crossing a road that doesn't have any cars on it right this second; I'm used to flicking my head from left to right to see if there's any cars coming, and completely ignoring the side from which cars won't come - I look to the intersection one half, and the road the other half. Now, I'm looking the wrong direction, which is terribly disconcerting. (Incidentally, the trains seem to go the other way. Of the two tracks here, we're going on the left and trains pass us on the right - except once when I think we were shoved into a loop. Hmm. Maybe there's the pass line and the freight line, because the time we were looped it was a pass service. Must ask M if he knows anything about that.) The other time was when I was on the bus, and the driver started doing right turns straight into oncoming traffic (of course, it didn't help that he drove like a maniac and used the horn freely). We're swinging right, I assume that this means passing the oncoming vehicles and going to the patch of road beyond them; but it doesn't, and we slot neatly into the available space _before_ the cars (which looked to me like a left-turning lane or something).

Apart from the direction of driving, the level of unfamiliarity is really no greater than I could find by going elsewhere in Australia. There's a lot of familiar business names, a lot of basic structure of a well laid-out city in the Western world, a lot of universal humanness, that means we can get around quite easily. There seem to be a lot of level crossings here (they ought to grade sep them!), but they look pretty much like ours - except for one odd difference: no bells! Are Americans all so deaf that it's not worth giving that aural feedback? They're missing out on the benefits of additional modes of communication. Well, there's plenty of things we could learn from here, so I guess this balances it out a bit with stuff they could learn from us. So be it.

Travelog: Beginnings

2009-07-16T22:28:00.001+10:00

Hello at last! I had hoped to post constantly, but we had no internet connection, so I've had to queue it all up. I'm now in Kansas City and have found wifi (I'm still on the train, but there's an AP somewhere within range). Here it is, timestamped in local time.

Landed at LAX around about on schedule, 12:30pm local time. From then until 6:40pm we had a few things to do: open a Bank of America account, get onto an internet connection and post to our blogs, sort out telephony, and make our way to Union Station.

The first stop, then, was the bank. Since we had no map (Traal failed to suspend at one point during the flight, and so had to be bombed hard, losing all my loaded tabs), all we could do was guess and go on memory. Went some way, then walked into the first place of business we saw (a car rental place) and inquired. Easy enough; and at the same time, gathered evidence against the assertion that Americans are rude and unhelpful.

Opening the account was fairly painless but took rather longer than we expected, largely because of requirements that we hadn't thought of - for instance, $75 initial deposit, for which we needed to withdraw some Australian dollar funds - but we were served by an extremely helpful and friendly gentleman; his exact position in the bank was not made obvious, but he seemed to be, if not the actual bank manager, definitely a manager of some sort ("new accounts manager" maybe?). His office was right next to the customer areas, giving him the perfect opportunity to be available to serve.

Next stop: Starbucks, a block further north, for hoped-for power and wireless internet. They were out of hot chocolate somehow, so I had an apple-cinnamon variant instead, which was... interesting. Still, we got wifi - although I don't think it was an official Starbucks offering - and power, so we could plan our next moves.

What we planned was to sort out telephony in a hurry, and then take a bus to Union Station. I'll let Midga describe the telephony issues, because it was his phone that had them... and I'll move straight on to the bus trip. If you ever come through LA, do your best to avoid riding the buses. Seriously. They have seats with no padding at all - worse than the worst Melbourne buses by a notable margin - and it's a long trip to the station. Also, our driver was somewhat appalling, although I was assured by a fellow passenger that missing stops that people have tung for is not normal. The driver seemed good friends with the horn. I was not sorry to disembark.

Union Station, and we pick up all our Amtrak tickets (booked via the web). This is the simplest way to do things, and also it's the only way to get hold of tickets for at least one leg, where we can't pick them up at the origin station. This works well.

I'm typing this up from the train (although there's no wifi so I can't post it), where we are partly settled into an extremely compact twinnette sleeper compartment. There'll be room for us both, but not a lot else. There is one power point, so Traal's on power; the compartment isn't lockable, though, so he's coming to dinner with us. He still thinks it's half past noon, but I'll inform him of the vagaries of local time once we reach EST.

The journey has well and truly started.

It's now half past midnight local time - that is to say, California time, because I'm not sure if we've crossed a time border yet. No wifi on the train, but fortunately there's power, so I have a fully active Traal with no internet connection. I dozed off at 9pm local time, woke up at midnight, and decided to take Traal down to the lounge/observation car for a while. There's not a lot to see; the only lights are in the extreme distance, and maybe would be of interest to someone who knows the area, but that someone ain't a'goin' ta be me. A party of three is playing cards at the end of the carriage... I wander over. Turns out they're playing Cheat! I would fain have joined them at the beginning of the next round, but there was no next round, there was no next upkeep.

We've just gone through a tunnel. I know only because the tone changed - it sounded as though a jet had gone overhead, only not quite - and because peering out into the blackness showed back a vaguely grey image instead of black with distant pinpoints.

Every now and then we cross a massive Constructed Container Block Constructed train - double-decked containers (how do you deck someone twice? Whatevah). As one passed, our table companion remarked that they sometimes exceed 100 cars; and on that particular one, I counted 95 cars. We passed probably half a dozen of these services just during dinner... this is some ENORMOUS traffic. If we had that in Australia, we could afford some serious track and motive power investment... unfortunately we won't get that sort of traffic UNTIL we do some serious track and motive power investment. Ah well. I guess we're stuck with the trains we have.

5AM California time. I'm back in the lounge car; there's now a bit of a false dawn, leaving me wondering what the nonsense about the darkest hour being just before dawn means... unless it's just that it's always darkest just before it begins to get lighter, which would be a statement suited to a Dufflepud. It's extremely difficult to try to gauge the speed we're eating miles at - the track doesn't talk to us at all. That could be partly because we're on the upper level, but mostly it's well-maintained track. However, Michael judged our speed to be about sixty, and based on the trees outside the window, I'd be inclined to put it no higher; this is quite a bit slower than a spark.

The lounge car seems to be the place for coach class passengers to sleep. Hardly the most comfortable arrangements, but it's a good bit cheaper than the sleeper accom that we took. (On the other hand, sleeper passengers have all meals included in the price of the ticket. That's pretty good going! The meals are all priced at $16-$25, desserts at $2-$5, etc, etc; if you're in Coach, you have to pay the bill at the end of the meal, but in Sleeper, you just record your car and room number.)

I've no idea where we are (although an examination of timetables might tell us), but there's only two tracks here. We've come to a halt, and I'm guessing that something's going to flash past us before we move on. There we go. A train just zipped past (another pass service this time, double decker, silver cars - looked like the cars that are streamlined to fit with single deck cars too, as opposed to what we're on which is obviously designed to be a full-height block train), and now we're moving again. Very gentle start; not sure why.

We've just arrived at Flagstaff Station. (Funny... it's not underground.) It's a picturesque country town, like we have back home. If it were in Victoria, I'd say it was a gold rush town - the era of architecture and such seems to hint at it. I don't think we're still in California, though, and I've no idea where else in the US they had gold rushes in the same era we did. There's a few wireless networks around, but nothing that I can connect to. Oh well. (Ah. It seems we might be in Arizona. Was there an Arizona gold rush?)

It's still pre-dawn, the sun hasn't lifted its head over the horizon, but there's plenty of light. We're trotting along lazily, as though there's all the time in the world and plenty of scenery to take in. And what is the scenery? Sprawling country towns, looking very typical of country towns back home, with some personally-owned businesses and some big chains, and a lot of the big chains are international ones (Shell petrol stations, Subway, KFC, etc). And as the Captain said, "Trees - lakes - mountains - seen one, you've seen them all". In fact, the most "different" part of America here is the bit that's coming with us - this full-length double-deck train, running so perfectly smoothly.

Another train of double stacked containers just passed us, this time on our left - that is, we're on the right track now. Peculiar. Incidentally, another oddment of these freighters: There's a lot of slack space between the containers. I can see the entire back of one container before the next one comes in. I've no idea why that might be, but it can't be good for streamlining. The main point of note about it is that it looks as though the train's finished already, and then it's not. We're now stopped while a freighter lazily strolls past, and I can see a lot of gear between coupling and container - in fact, these are well wagons, so I should compare with our own wells. So double stacking doesn't quite give you twice the capacity - it gives you slightly less, if you measure container slots per kilometer of train.

(It seems that trains run on the right same as cars do, so the peculiarity is that we had trains passing on the left during dinner.)

Ah! Sol has lifted his glorious orb. It's truly dawn now, at 5:37 California time (we're in Arizona, which is on the same timezone). Dawn would possibly have been a little earlier than that but there were mountains in the way; the end of the mountains revealed the sun a little above the horizon.

5:56AM. We're now travelling through the Arizona desert. A native Californian chats about the enormous amount of freight moving around (and not just on the trains, they have heaps of 18-wheelers on the roads too) and remarks that they (Cali) feed the world but don't feed their own people - food comes from Mexico. Not just from another state (as is encouraged by the weird sales taxes), but from another country. Seems the US transport industry is one of the absolutely recession-proof ones - if there's this much stuff being carted during economic downtimes (4-5 trains with maybe 200 containers each, just while we were having dinner), it's either recession-ignorant, or an absolute boom the rest of the time. I've not kept track of how many trains have zipped past, but there've been quite a few (some were pass though), and I can see some trucks on the road in the distance too. Ahh, the coffee lady (Shirley) has come on duty - at 6:02, and the announcement last night was that the lounge coffee bar would open at 6AM. The lower section of the lounge car progressively filled with people eager for their morning coffee... there was a "line" (aka queue) of people sitting in random places around the car. Hmm. Since it's now past 6AM, breakfast will probably be being served. I'm going to mooch on up for some.

7:20AM. Breakfast wasn't ready at 6:00, so I went back to the sleeper for a bit and came back for breakfast with Michael. We were tabled with a couple who had visited Australia three times, so we were able to chat about travel through deserts - we've been riding through the Arizona desert, which for once is actually green, rather than its usual burnt brown (which would have looked very familiar to us). As regards timezones, it's rather messy; California is on PDT, but Arizona is on MST - which is the same time - because they don't usually go DST (although I gather there's complications that mean they might sometimes...). Once we hit New Mexico, we change our clocks, even though NM and AZ are both on "mountain time" - because NM observes DST. We'll reach Alberquerque NM at about noon, and sit there for a while; it would seem that the train is going to head north after that, which means we turn left. Whew, looks like we'll get to the right destination.

Noon. We arrive in Alberquerque. Michael and I spend some time getting a few good photos and videos of turning left. After a somewhat late departure, lunch is served, during which we take some rather rough and tight turns, so Michael gets some decent shots of the train itself turning left (we were heading east from LA to Alberquerque, and then began to head northward to reach Chicago). I'm now sitting in the lounge car, and I'm going to add a keyword to all the Looney Tuneses where Bugs makes a reference to the left turn.

Dinner was excellent - I had the trout again - and then M headed back to the compartment while I parked in the lounge to hack Looney Tunes and get editing facilities (double-click the row). Back to M to demonstrate it and play some. I end up crashing out till 6:30AM local time (9:30PM Melbourne time).

We have telephones now, but nobody knows our numbers but us. As soon as we get an internet connection, I'm going to mail Kate and Jodi with my number. I can't find either of theirs, or I'd ring them. However, I do know that we'll be hitting Chicago during decent hours, so I expect at least one of them will be online. Obviously, once I get one non-internet connection, I can piggyback to others. (My guess is I'll find Jodi online, and ask her to ask Kate to ring.) Jodi has a skype-in number, but I have no idea what it is, because it's always been more sensible for me to just skype her. I've just done a thorough search of my skype history (back as far as the last install) for the word "phone", and not come up with a phone number for her. Ditto 1, but I didn't expect to find one there (there's phone numbers for people at AusThresh, but not US or UK).

There's not really a lot for me to do here at the moment. Without an internet connection, all I can do is pile an awful lot of words onto one blog post, to be dumped onto the web as soon as I get online - which probably means at Chicago - and it'll take you nearly as long to read it all as it took me to write it. Ahh well, at least you'll get up-to-date news (written at the moment it happened), even though it's not constant updates, like I intended for it to be. Once we hit England, of course, it'll be easy - we'll have an internet connection every night, every time we return to the HoR. Hopefully, daily updates and instant reviews of shows!

Finally I get this posted. We're leaving this internet connection behind in about a quarter of an hour, but I'll talk to you again soon!

Air NZ and the chocolate test

2009-07-15T08:17:00.001+10:00

I gave Air NZ the chocolate test on a piece of cheese. With our dinner was a small piece of cheese, which was rather delicious... so afterwards, I asked one of the flight attendants (bearing a name badge "Sharee") if I might have another cheese. The response was a smiling "I'll check what we have". She came back a few minutes later, with a cheese. Chocolate test passed, with flying colours... no pun intended. Thank you Air New Zealand!

Auckland

2009-07-14T15:27:00.002+10:00

Next stop in the travelog is Auckland, NZ. I'm making use of a full on writing desk, with two power points, writing gear, and... an ethernet port. Alas! I left my network cables in checked baggage... so I've paid for the wireless. It's $NZ10 for an hour, which translates into about $A8, significantly cheaper than Melbourne Airport. It's a good connection, and I can thresh on it. On the way home, must remember to have the cat-5 in the backpack, ergo in carry-on!

No complaints about Air NZ service. And in contrast to Emirates, there's no need to say everything in two languages (which instantly doubles the length of every announcement). Everything's working out fine so far, apart from one near-disaster on the train on the way in (which was resolved very efficiently by Connex staff - see Midga's blog for more on that one).

I've just been told (in a lovely Kiwi accent) that our flight will be departing at 1945 local time, instead of 1905 as previously announced - and instead of 1830 as printed on our boarding passes - but I don't mind. Might need to buy meself another hour's internet time, but that's all. This connection is running at a good speed, so I'm pretty happy.

Time to play some Magic: The Gathering!

NZ124 to Auckland

2009-07-14T11:25:00.001+10:00

No, this is not posted from several miles above the earth, but it is posted from inside the aircraft. For no particular reason at all, I'm blogging from a 777-200ER about to depart Melbourne Airport for Auckland.

Wireless Internet

2009-07-14T10:38:00.003+10:00

I'm posting this from Melbourne Airport, in the cattle-class lounge, near Gate 5. There is an open wireless network in the area, but the airport is all about making money, of course, so they ask $4 for 15 minutes' internet access (or $20 for two hours).

Why? Having installed the infrastructure, they have practically no costs. I'm fortunate enough to have an alternate internet connection (3G), but for people who don't, there's no option. The airport moves huge amounts of money through, why do they have to squeeze an extra few dollars out of what could otherwise be a rather convenient service?

Coffee shops around the world offer internet access for nothing. You don't even have to buy a coffee, although it'd be a bit impolite to regularly use the service without. Does it hurt their business to give without charging? Apparently not, or they'd stop. But of course, the airport has to make money anywhere it can, lest they miss out on some cent of profit that they might have gained.

Stupid policy.

Going overseas!

2009-07-14T03:59:00.003+10:00

Two years ago, Michael and I went to England for the G&S Festival. I could say that we immediately promised that we'd return as soon as possible, but it wouldn't be quite accurate... but the fact is, we're now returning. And not only that, but we're going for the entire three weeks... and also attending ThreshCon in America. Yep, it's a big trip... a big trip indeed.

It's currently 4AM. In four hours, we leave home... another four, and we board an Air New Zealand flight to Auckland and thence to Los Angeles. From there, we become guests of Amtrak, in their mobile hotels, riding the trains all around the US until we get to Jodi's. Then it's off again, with her, and ultimately getting to ThreshCon. After that, hop across the Atlantic, land in London, and take the train to Buxton. Finally then, we will actually slow down... and spend three full weeks in one place.

Time enough between now and departure to snatch a short hour of sleep. Hopefully I'll get internet access often enough to keep people updated during the trip - for the few of you who care and aren't on any other form of chat. For those of you who don't care and aren't reading, this blank space is for you.

<-- this space paradoxically left non-blank... -->

RosMud version 1.5.9

2009-06-10T13:58:00.001+10:00

A few new features today. Thanks to Armon for the idea for the mischan protection!

* Added a "View sent commands" option to the Editor. Disabling this will make for quieter, perhaps cleaner display; it also allows lines beginning with a slash to be sent to the MUD directly, without having to have extra slashes added to prevent them from being parsed as local commands.

* Added /debug command 'b'.

* Added input hilight colors - for example, set a channel to the color it comes out as.

* View|Color to configure. Can be a handy mischan protection.

* Updated the Wealth plugin to the new format

The Warner Bros Bay

2009-04-01T18:37:00.003+11:00

Torrent downloaders worldwide will note with interest a buyout/merger arrangement between Warner Bros and The Pirate Bay. You'll need a BitTorrent client to view this, but if this is of any interest to you, you'll probably have one already.

Press release, on TPB