On Sunday.. Halloween itself.. I finally came up with something to do! One of my cheap ticket groups (CT) finally sent me an email with good suggestions - one of which was the Cloak & Dagger Immersive History Tour (yes, with actors). Starting and ending at The George, and yes, running on Sunday. Sadly, all their ticket allocation had gone - I just booked one direct with the company.
On the same email, they advertised the Unrestricted View Horror Film Festival, at the Hen & Chickens Theatre! I found tickets even cheaper with my other cheap ticket group, TAC, however.. They had three sessions of short films on Sunday, the last of which finished an hour before my walk, giving me time to get there. So I booked the first - but when I tried to book the others, the system wouldn't let me, saying they were too close together! I had to contact the box office direct to book them for me - which they promptly did. So, three 1.5-hour short horror film sessions, lasting all that afternoon, should set me up nicely for the walk, I figured!
So I got up early enough to eat at The Upper Crust, then took a couple of buses - unproblematically - to Highbury Corner. It had rained heavily in the morning - wasn't I lucky it hadn't the night before! but mercifully, it had stopped by now, and the day was beautifully sunny.
As a pedestrian, I love the changes to Highbury Corner - it used to be a square roundabout, one side of which is now pedestrianised. Which makes it so much easier to cross! particularly when the Hen & Chickens was right on the other side from where I was.
It was a bit after 12 when I arrived - and the pub was empty. She assured me that yes, it was open - and so began my day of drinking wine. I also had a packet of the ever-excellent Tyrrell's sweet chilli crisps. Picked a nice booth by the window, and perused one of the programmes, liberally scattered about:
They'd done well with the Hallowe'en decorations:
As I waited for the house to open, eventually people started to arrive - and apparently knew the owner, who came to greet them. I got to eavesdrop on them chatting about the festival, and how they're carrying it on for one extra day afterwards at the Screen on the Green, which he also apparently owns.. he made them feel so comfortable that when the bell rang to announce that the house was open, it was kind of hard to get them off their seats and upstairs! Mind you, despite the sign to the contrary, on this day at least we were ok to bring glasses, and several did, over the course of the day. Oh, and as I had my name checked off, I was asked to pay for membership - £1.50 for life didn't seem too high a price.
Mostly UK films were shown, with a smattering from Ireland, France, Spain, Italy, North America - and Iran and Iraq! This first session started with a film called Smiles, from Spain - earning a round of applause from the audience, it's a funny piece about a guy meeting his girlfriend's family for the first time. And yes, he's wise to be nervous! This was followed by The Stain - a rather sweet piece from Iran about a cinema cleaner who can't seem to remove a stain from the screen - it keeps coming back. No applause for this one, but I liked it. Hangnail had to be the shortest film of the festival - one single theme, it made people laugh. Set in a bathroom, is about all I can say without giving the game away. I did like Stay Alert, a Covid-inspired piece about a young woman who goes jogging in her local cemetery every day, carefully wearing her mask and thinking disparaging thoughts about the people around her who don't. RKLSS was the only animated film of the day - excellent animation, but it isn't really a horror film. My favourite of the session was the UK's Don't Walk, a cute piece centred around a couple who love to hike, but don't appreciate the jeers of the "cooler" hiking group. So they decide to try a new route.. and ending the session was The Lake Parasite, an American offering about which the less said, the better. Think The Blob. In blue.
Down for another glass of wine, and a trip to the loo, and to play my phone game. We had half an hour between sessions, and it was 3pm by the time Session 2 started. First up was Room 217, a time-slip film from Iraq. Good effort, nothing at all new though. Wich is yet another US comedy - better than the last one, well-acted. On Air is a curious little thing, another kind of reality shift, in a recording studio. Sibilum - the Italian offering - is one of those "crying child, but mother's child isn't crying" films - absolutely unoriginal, don't know why they bothered. Fat Camp - gross, some funny scenes. And a couple more films were so forgettable that I can remember nothing about them. All in all, a session I could have skipped - the standout piece for me was the last - The Killer in Cursed Water, a B-movie after which we see a clapping crowd, and realise we've been watching a film within a film. A member of this onscreen audience - obviously, at a film festival - is as unimpressed with the film as I was (and spoke for me, after the session I'd had), and vents about it to her friend. Unfortunately, the filmmakers turn out to be sitting right behind them! What happens next is really funny.. French, excellent.
And downstairs, and play on my phone, and a glass of wine, and upstairs for the last session of the day - and the first where they got a couple of filmmakers from the audience to say a few words! One remarked how difficult it is to make a decent horror film - well yes, obviously, from most of the films I saw that day! Yeah, I know, kudos to them for making the effort - but as I say, in some cases, you'd wonder why they bothered.
Bee-El - well, we know what that stands for, and therefore have a preview of the film's theme. Again, a few films I simply can't remember - but I couldn't forget The Glamorgan Strangler, where a serial killer turns to social media. Standout for the day for me though, and an idea I haven't seen before - can't imagine why - is the UK's Split, where we have a split screen with the killer's POV on one side, the victim's on the other. Simple, but very effective. First up for the day from Ireland was A Short Horror Film, pretty forgettable, I'm afraid. Viola, whose maker was one of those who spoke beforehand, has a good idea, basing the horror around a voice-activated, Alexa-like virtual assistant device.. but the next, What Next?, whose filmmaker also made a little speech, is another quite unoriginal film. She spoke about transforming it into a feature - I don't see where she could really go with it. Prank is decent.
So, a somewhat frustrating festival - not many really good offerings. And off I scuttled for my walk, the bus arriving in good time. Now, I know where The George is - just as well, with my phone battery nearly gone! As I arrived, a fellow in a long, black cloak was stubbing out a cigarette - sure enough, this was our guide, who asked whether I was looking for the walk. Unfortunately, he didn't have a list of participants, so I had to go search for it on my exhausted phone - happily, it lasted long enough for me to find the ticket; I hadn't thought to get it out on the way. So he then sent me to wait with the others, while he waited for the final arrivals - I'd arrived with a few minutes to spare. Which was unfortunate, as it was bitterly cold to be standing around, and indeed I was hopping around to keep warm at every stop! It's really turned cold, suddenly.
Sadly, those are the only photos I got to take - my battery then died, before the walk even started. But it isn't a sightseeing walk anyway - this one is all about the history, and indeed is one of the most historical walks I've ever been on! and with one of the most knowledgeable guides. Keen for questions at every turn, he gave the impression that he could answer anything put to him, and went far beyond every question - indeed, this is the first guided tour in years where I haven't felt that I could have taught the guide something! And I did learn a few things - I found it quite an original tour, which for me is saying something. In fact, it's quite changed my perception of Southwark. We kept a nice, slow pace, for a change. Our charming guide - in costume - is accompanied by a fellow (again, costumed), who pops up at intervals to explain contexts. And when we ended up back in The George - nice and warm, inside - he told us some more curious facts (to the appreciation of a group of drinkers, over the side). The website had advertised a re-enactment, but that didn't happen. But hey, it was a really enjoyable and informative tour! Highly recommended, and a great addition to a scene which, as he said, has lost a lot of small operators during lockdown..
Unfortunately, I couldn't blog that night, having to be up early yesterday - and was then too busy, all day! Mondays usually are. During the day, I made the mistake of eating both a baguette at The Upper Crust, and a chicken katsu curry at Wasabi - way too much, and I couldn't finish the chicken. Last night, back with the Crick Crack Club - at King's Place, this time - for their annual Day of the Dead celebration! Keeping the spooky tradition nicely alive, there. The bus arrived just as I was about to check the schedule. Strangely, Google Maps wanted me to get off a stop early, and meander through backstreets.. rubbish, it was obviously quicker just to get off at King's Cross and go straight up York Way, which is what I did.
And while I did, I had to navigate around yet another cyclist cycling on the pavement! WTF - this has become an epidemic. Thank goodness for the little green "bicycle" light they display, so you know one is coming up behind you - it's at best annoying, and potentially dangerous. The same thing happened to me twice on Friday, and I saw it three times last night - cyclists just treating the pavement like a cycle lane. Someone, please come up with a way to get rid of them..
I arrived just in time, and the place was quite full - but I followed my usual trick of heading around the far side, where sure enough, there were some free seats, at the end, near the front.
In due course, the storytellers came in - Ben Haggarty in front, strewing marigold petals to form a pathway for benevolent spirits, followed by the others, shaking maracas, Tim Ralphs strumming a ukelele - an unseen drummer accompanied them, over the side. TUUP, mind you, was his own orchestra at the side of the stage, with a xylophone, a bongo, and singing bowls.. and kept up the accompaniment all night as the others were performing. And oh, it was magical - truly soul food, the constant rhythm acting like a comfort blanket. Mind you - I can't check now, as the links have been removed - but the lineup was changed, one storyteller unable to attend as her mother died a couple of days ago, from Covid.
Jan Blake made up the trio of storytellers, with Ben as the MC - and all the stories were about death in some way. Lighthearted though, Tim's ukelele coming in handy for his song about earthworms. A couple I'd heard before - but not for a long time, and they were as enjoyable as ever. Tim's other tale sounded Chinese in origin. But as they said, death is one of the few truly universal experiences. At the interval, they encouraged audience members to wrote the names of deceased loved ones on strips of paper that they provided, so that they could be invited to the evening. And we spent most of our time laughing, before being sent out into the cold again. Sadly, I think that'll be my last live storytelling for the year.. their season is short.
Back to the bus stop - and the display said it'd be 23 minutes. You what?! What is it with the buses these days? The same thing happened to me as I was headed to Hampstead Heath on Saturday. Right, I said, I am not waiting around for that long in this cold - I took the Tube, which was only four stops, and nice and warm. Again, it ran too late to blog last night.. but handily, I'm WFH this week, so can do it during the day!
Tonight, I was supposed to be back with Ivan. But my weekly horoscope said that today, a friend might let me down - for example, by cancelling at the last minute. So I messaged him - I hadn't heard from him since we arranged it - and sure enough, he's busy with stuff out of town, and isn't in London at all this week. Says we'll arrange something when he gets back. Well, that leaves me free to join the London European Club for my only Meetup this week. We're off to something called The Night Shift, where the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment is playing classical music - and chatting about it - in The George Tavern. So, delighted I can make it now!
Tomorrow, I'm at the National for The Normal Heart, of which I've heard good reviews.
On Thursday, finally getting to see Tina - The Tina Turner Musical, which I'd booked pre-lockdown and got a refund for! Cheapest tickets, I found, were direct from the Aldwych Theatre. Peculiar website though - I couldn't see my basket without going back into the booking section. And then I'm flying back to Ireland again - a Friday flight, for once! Just for the weekend, this time.
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