Left in good time, and caught the 8 to just past Liverpool Street Station. I was so lucky to get a seat - it filled up completely (real squashed-against-the-windows crowd, all seats and the downstairs aisle full of people). And, of course, it was a new Routemaster - and with temperatures on the rise, the upper deck of one of those is the last place you want to be on a hot, sunny day, what with the malfunctioning aircon and the windows that don't open! Still, it was hot and sticky even in a downstairs seat, and I drowsed most of the way, before squeezing gratefully through the crowd to get off.
Ahead, next right, and straight ahead - I easily found 15 Hanbury Street. What wasn't so easy was actually finding Juju's! Consulting Google Maps on my phone, with its rapidly fading battery, I concluded that yes, it was behind this friggin' brick wall, somewhere. (One thing I do hate about Funzing is its constantly changing, and obscure, venues.) Peering through the railings along the side street revealed a beer garden, but the door was resolutely locked. Desperately consulting the event page, I read that entry was along a lane.. through a courtyard.. well, continuing down the lane with the railings proved fruitless, so I headed further along Hanbury Street, to where an enormous queue was waiting to gain access to some festival or other. Turned out that was at the other side of the courtyard where Juju's was. (Whee!)
People were just starting to arrive, and the guy at the door was asking for our "tickets" - would this do? I asked, brandishing the event confirmation page on my phone. Boy, was he scrupulous about checking. When he finally let me in, I stood at the bar for A Very Long Time before one of the Three Zombie Barmen finally got around to me (hey, it wasn't that busy!), then took a seat. It was scheduled to start at 7, but of course it didn't - still, it was bad that they hadn't yet removed the spangly stage backdrop so our speaker could show slides.
These things generally start about 30 minutes after time - I was surprised when we started at 7:15 (maybe the speaker was fed up). And the trouble started straight away, with a mic that apparently had to be held at a specific angle in order to work - and then only if it felt like it. The speaker was patently annoyed that people were arriving until well into the talk (they evidently expected the standard 30-minute delay with Funzing), and it didn't help that there was constant noise from the outside bar, until they closed the doors, and no aircon, which meant the place was sweltering when they did close the doors. Dreadful, dreadful place for a talk - typical Funzing, just pick somewhere with a good bar. Because I daresay it would have been a good bar, if drinking were the point of your evening. However, I sincerely hope they don't pick it for any more talks.
Having said that, the talk itself was interesting - allowing for the breaks our poor speaker had to take, to mop the sweat from his brow or have a drink. I've always been interested in sleep and in dreams - did a project on it in school, in fact. Things I learned tonight included how, in dreams, we lose all meta-awareness: the capacity to know why we do the things we do. So, we end up behaving in the oddest manner in our dreams. Which also have a tendency to be bizarre. Other than that, he didn't have a lot that was new to me - dreams occur in REM sleep, which occupies maybe 2 to 3 hours of our nightly sleep. Interestingly, if we're sleep-deprived, and catching up on sleep, REM doesn't occur - the body spends its time in the sleep state that repairs the body, instead, characterised by deeper, slower brain waves. He also mentioned how REM helps with the learning and retention process, and how the most effective therapy for PTSD is to prescribe drugs that prevent REM sleep..
He mentioned Freud, Jung, and Adler, with their various dream theories, applying the theory of each to one of his own dreams, to illustrate. (Freud won, with the most sensible analysis.) But, as he pointed out, no-one has produced a complete theory, and he completely rubbished "dream dictionaries". As we came to the Q+A at the end, he warned that most questions would lead to the answer "We don't know".. The only inappropriate question of the night came from a lady behind me, who asked him about predictive dreams. Don't get me wrong - I have a scientific background, and am well aware of the difficulties in proving these things are real: but I have had dreams that were undeniably precognitive, and had I collected evidence at the time, I could have proved the phenomenon. However, I doubt most people could say the same - and what was he supposed to say, in this setting? Wrong person to direct her question at.
Tomorrow, back with the London European Club, for a concert of Greek music at Sands Films. Looking forward to that - I love the venue, but haven't fancied the last couple of concerts they've had there.
On Thursday, I was booked for free comedy in Hammersmith (!) with Free Comedy Nights in Hammersmith, Wimbledon and Greenwich, Random London, London Live Comedy, Hammersmith & Fulham Friends, and Discover LDN.UK. Did you think I'd actually go? ;-) Well, I'm not - but the reason is an unusual one. My new company is very nice indeed - and they have an annual volunteering day: gardening. I hate gardening. And it's that day. For the whole day, they're at it. And yesterday week, the office manager kindly informed us that it was compulsory unless we were on holiday. Huh! Well now, I hate being told what to do. So I've suddenly decided to be on holiday that day - and as it's a Thursday, the next too. Helen has suggested we get last-minute, half-price, day tickets for Death of a Salesman at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre on Friday - sounds like a plan!
Then comes a weekend I've been looking forward to for a while. Long-anticipated, the European leg of U2's 30th anniversary tour of The Joshua Tree kicks off in Twickenham on Saturday and Sunday. 'Mare of a place to see them - after I saw them there in 2005, I swore - never again. Happily, I now know someone living down that direction! :-) Helen is also coming with me to the first concert, and I'm staying with her for the weekend (now starting on Thursday, as she kindly offered). Which sorts transport for the first night - she'll drive. The second night, I'll head back by bus - the train is an absolute nightmare. Anyway, this would have been a weekend in Ireland - hence the trips back two weekends in a row, preceding it.
On Monday, nothing had been appealing - until I tried the Meetup app again, and came across a Meetup group called, attractively, Let's Do This! Quite new - anyway, they have organised a trip to see La Voix Humaine, a 40-minute solo opera, performed in English by Opera Up Close. It's in King's Place, which I love. I'd already found it by the time the Man with the Hat took us there, but it was with him I went the last two times: so this'll be bittersweet. Lordy if I didn't then discover that it's co-run by a couple of the Man with the Hat's old members! So of course I'm going. Great to see the Man with the Hat has left a classical legacy - there are very few Meetup groups doing this sort of thing. And at a discount, yet! Unsure, at this point, whether they're marketing it as a dating site, what with age restrictions, and an insistence that members post their photos and full names. We shall see..
Next Tuesday started out with yet more free comedy in Hammersmith - the same five groups. But then Funzing (the same two groups) rocked up and saved me, with a talk on Blitzed - Drugs in Nazi Germany. Has to be better, frankly.
The 12th, I'm currently still looking at free comedy in Greenwich, with London Live Comedy, Free Comedy Nights in Hammersmith, Wimbledon and Greenwich, and Random London.
The 13th, more of the same - in Hammersmith - with the Famous Five (aforementioned) groups - Discover LDN.UK twice, as before. At least the headliner that night is John Hastings, who's guaranteed to be good - and it's a lovely, small venue to see him in. Then it's back to Ireland for the weekend.
On the 17th, more comedy - for £3.60, this time. Tez Ilyas is performing at the Pleasaunce, and I know he's good - saw him in Top Secret once, for free..
The 18th, the U2 tour continues - I fly to Barcelona that day, to see them that night! One of their crazy, one-night-only appearances, on what is a very limited tour. Turns out I'm seeing them at half of all their European concerts for the year!
I fly back on the 19th, and that night am - provisionally - booked for more free comedy (quelle surprise). Greenwich, the above three groups. There are some interesting Funzing talks that night, but I've already seen them.
The 20th, I booked another Funzing talk (the above two groups). This is a talk about serial killers, as given by a forensic psychologist (Jennifer Rees) that works with the police, and who also gives terrific talks about psychopaths. Highly recommended! She's a terrifically engaging speaker, and looks far too young to be working in such a murky area. Unfortunately, now I've had to cancel - turns out that the much-anticipated first Meetup of the Man with the Hat's other ex-members' group, Love London for Less, is happening that night, so of course I'm headed to that - we're going to the Icebar, where I've never been. Should be interesting. Just a pity the only other instance of that talk I'm missing is sold out - I've added myself to the watchlist.
Then I'm back to Ireland for a long weekend - first to Dublin (from London City airport, a first for me), for U2's (one-and-only!) concert there.. then down to see my mother for a couple of days, flying back on Tuesday.
On the 26th, I had booked free comedy in Greenwich - same groups as before. Then Funzing rode to the rescue, and instead I'm now headed to a Funzing talk entitled "Politics - WTF!" Appropriate, no? Anyway, I booked them on a once-only code "iwantfunzingagain". Or you could try "Funzing30" - both give 30% off, but are time-limited.
On the 27th, free comedy in Hammersmith again. So far.
I fly back on the 31st, and just saw an interesting Funzing talk for that night - "Are We Living in the Matrix?" Well, I'm well overdue a free talk, with all of them that I've booked (every fourth free), so I've contacted them to get a code to get this for free.
And on the 1st, I finally get to see Jennifer Rees again, when she's giving a talk on The Psychology of Criminals. With dim sum, great! (Had to stick with a 10% discount for this one - Fun_Day10 or Fun_Week10 are the ones you want for that.) And it's walking distance from me for once, in Covent Garden. Excellent..
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