I'm taking this week off, yay! And Monday and Tuesday were supposed to be film - but tv got in the way. I'll try to catch up. Anyway, yesterday's event was one I had to sign up for, so I actually ended up doing it - London Social Detours (LSD) does a talk every Wednesday afternoon, and as I have the week off, I got to go, for once! This was "Who's Who in Tudor England - Elizabeth's Fixers: Hatton - Gresham & Dr. John Dee!"
Minor panic ensued when the Meetup site wouldn't work - now, the link was for Zoom, but the problem was getting it! I hadn't bothered to copy it to my calendar - luckily, the app was (partly) working - it hasn't displayed notifications for ages, even when you ask it to - and I got the link from that, and typed it carefully into my laptop. Not something I fancy doing often - but it worked, and I joined the chorus of people telling the organiser about the problem, which had apparently just started 15 minutes before the meeting. Meetup later blamed it on AWS.
Anyway, most people seemed to have managed it, and we proceeded. Have to say, I wasn't terribly interested - she seemed to be reading straight from her go-to book about the Tudors, referenced in the title of the talk. Which would be fine, except she hadn't read ahead (said she didn't want to spoil the surprise for herself), and so was equally agog at every little factoid, described in a terribly sensationalist manner. Frankly, the long descriptions of the business of government nearly put me to sleep (again). Decent slideshow, though. I did perk up a bit when the talk got around to John Dee - who, after all, was an occultist, alchemist, and kind of jack-of-all trades. But then there wasn't enough about him. Hey-ho, she's running the same talk tomorrow (Friday), if you're interested - on account of the technical difficulties. And she might remember the correct pronunciations for that one.
The chat afterwards was five-star though - we covered the usual topics: Covid, Brexit - and then on to Scottish independence, and she HAD to ask me, the only non-Brit on the call, what I thought about it. So, you know, I happened to mention that Scotland had voted against Brexit - cue a (small) rant from the pro-Brexit person on the call, about how people shouldn't say that Scotland had voted against it, it was an all-UK vote, and that kind of thing annoyed her. And, by the way - she said - that independence referendum should have been all-UK as well, as it affected them all! Cue a tirade of voices against her. Ah, they say you should never bring politics to a discussion, but it does make things more interesting..
You never know, I might get back to film tomorrow. I now have a backlog of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, on Amazon Prime: The Syrian Bride, new to Sands Films: The Warren, a short film on Reel Palestine: and Snowden, also on Amazon Prime. The last of which I'm most interested in - so naturally, it comes last of the four!
On Saturday evening, Up in the Cheap Seats are doing a couple of things - one is a musical called Fiver, about the journey of a five-pound note through the city. Livestreamed from Southwark Playhouse, so you have to watch it at set times over the next two days. I love a musical, and the story sounds interesting.. of course, I can't do it in the evening, but there is a matinee that day, which I've booked for. Full price, for once, and my ongoing discount doesn't apply, but I'm delighted to help the theatre.
And on Sunday, reliable LSD has another talk. This time, it's one hosted by the host's historian friend, which makes a nice change - and it's about "Death, Disease & the Great Fire of London"!
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