| For whom the bell tolls |
[Jul. 19th, 2008|01:36 pm] |
Well, my August job has disappeared (the double bill of a revived Gianni Schicchi and Ravel's L'Enfant et les Sortilèges.) The conductor has sadly been ill and in hospital, so they've had to postpone. A shame-- I was looking forward to being a china cup and a dragonfly...
Last night, however, I did collect a few shiny beer tokens for singing Haydn's Nelson Mass in the Palace of Westminster. I thought of ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) monochrome_girl amid the Pugin splendour. We entered, though, via Westminster Hall, which is splendour of another sort: stark and solemn (except for the gloriously trippy medieval wooden angels looking down from the eaves). I almost lost the rest of the choir because I stopped to read the plaques in the floor that said things like "In this place Sir Thomas More was condemned to death."
In my search for links on the Houses of Parliament, I was intrigued to read that Big Ben [the low-pitched bell that strikes the hour in the Parliament clock tower, for non-UKites] gets its weirdly out-of-tune sound from the fact that it cracked in 1879. Normally when that happens, the bell goes back to the foundry to be recast, but with Big Ben they just patched it up and drilled a couple of holes to stop the crack from spreading-- which is why its tone, originally a low F, sounds about a quarter-tone down. To my ear, the pitch actually appears to bend slightly downwards as the stroke resonates-- but justpolina, with her perfect pitch, can probably describe it more accurately.
(I've just had lunch with my soprano friend Rosie, who already knew about the crack in Big Ben. Maybe it's one of those things you have to be British to know.)
( The bells! The bells! ) |
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| revels eviction |
[Jul. 19th, 2008|01:06 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  cheerful | ] |
help save the coffee
they want you to vote for which revel to evect
as they are doing a new limited edition flavour
http://www.revelseviction.com/
you must have sound on its very funny |
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| Tattoos, Time and the General Lack of It! |
[Jul. 19th, 2008|08:50 am] |
A couple of days before my birthday at the beginning of this month, I had part of the outline done for my new tattoo (pressie from my Gorgeous One). I was supposed to go back this week to have it filled in and the next outline done but guess what? I don't have the time!
Don't get me wrong, it's fantastic that I have so much work on at the moment; Ruth's wedding outfit, two costumes for a burly show, two outifts for a couple of pinup models, plus a new collection that I have to get ready to be photographed....all by the end of this month!
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| Singers |
[Jul. 17th, 2008|04:09 pm] |
With all the vintage machine talk on the forums I remembered I'd taken these pics a while back and hadn't posted them. So here's my vintage machine porn.
First the 28k handcrank I gave away. It wasn't too bad when I got it, just grimy and the case was dull and dirty. I cleaned it up and used the magic wood formula on the case and base and it came up a treat. It's a pretty little thing, dated 1901. However I just could not get it sewing. The vibrating shuttle defeated me. It would either refuse to catch the shuttle thread or bunch and loop terribly. I gave it to A's mum who has a magic touch with these things. She missed the old one she'd given away years ago. She managed to get it working too.
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| KF4 fashion show |
[Jul. 16th, 2008|09:06 pm] |
this is taking so much time and commitment on my part, purely because of the unprofessional attitude of some of the people involved! Oh well, what did I expect.
All the same, Nikki has been a star and is deftly lobbing back the grief away from me, quite the rotweiller in disguise she is!
I am being polite as can be, to make me life easier, when I really want to tell the divas to go shove it!
So, a complete role reversal for us two there! Good job we love each other!
Today I bought a ton of feathers to trim a couple of outfits, P wants a tail for her corset and I am doing one in scarlet too, they will look fabulous!
Evie has designed a gorgeous make up, I am thrilled to bits with it, I know it will look amazing and we have some really good burlesque models signed on to do the show, so that side of things is running like clockwork, all the professionals are being - well, professional, it is the wannabes who are causing the most ruckus!
Someone I had expected better from has pulled a hissy diva strop and issued an ultimatum, (so, I passed it on to Nikki to deal with!)
I am very disappointed in her, but maybe she isn't as professional as she would like to think.
I know that if I get support from the people involved I can produce an amazing show, the like of which the scene hasn't seen! Lol!
All the background work is sound, the tech crew are sound, the models etc, just one or two noisy little flies in the ointment who think they are divas! |
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| nom nom nom |
[Jul. 16th, 2008|01:48 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  busy | ] |
The last week has been a little too eventful for my liking. Thankfully anything I’ve had to deal with seems to have been successfully corrected/sorted out, leaving me free to enjoy a meal with Tom at Sakushi (highly, highly recommended!)yesterday evening. At last a restaurant somewhere in Sheffield has a conveyor belt with raw fish on it! Civilisation arrives.
Work is crazy busy after a very quiet start to the year. I ended up pulling a 12-hour day monday (in office at 8am, back to Sheffield after meeting at 8pm).
Now I need to buy tax for my car and make a start on the new dance I've agreed to learn by sunday (eep). |
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| Pome - The Telephone |
[Jul. 16th, 2008|04:33 am] |
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| Lesson of the day... |
[Jul. 15th, 2008|10:40 am] |
If you have left over foreign currency, exchange it back to pounds in the foreign country. Don't buy back here!
My gran and auntie gave me a fair amount of money. When the cashier told me the difference between selling it here and over there...ugh my head still smarts. The difference was something like £50 pounds.
I mean, I knew it before anyway but I need the money now more than I've needed it before. *Sigh*... |
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| General ramblings |
[Jul. 14th, 2008|12:14 pm] |
My butt hurts. I received my Drills Drills Drills DVD and I'm finally able to do glute isolations (Suhaila doesn't work if your hamstrings aren't up to scratch).
I still want to work my way up to a backbend, my back is very flexible and always has been but I don't have the strength at the moment to do them. I can attempt them but I'm paranoid about injury and I don't know anyone in the area who can actually do them the way I want (straight legs as opposed to bent - I think bent looks unelegant). I think some yoga might be on the cards.
Still really happy about Prague. My sis has been a few times and has some basic books on Czech. I've realised I have to start learning japanese for real at some point, although by watching j-drama almost exclusively you'd be surprised how much my vocab has improved...It's educational, I swear!
OH! And I am so happy! I tried on my skinny jeans yesterday (size 6!!! - US 2) and they fit! They're a bit tight and there's a little bit of muffin top, but not much. A few months ago they refused to even go over my hips. I've lost so much weight and the only "diet" I've been following is regular meals. I found out I have PCOS, so I basically have to lose as much fat as possible and convert a lot of it to muscle, but I'm happy nevertheless. Went into a changing room with a 360 degree mirror and didn't puke at the size of my back!
I'm so psyched. Bring it on! |
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| Baptism of fire (and jingly things) |
[Jul. 12th, 2008|05:17 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | home | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  pleased | ] |
In the last 24 hours I have:
- Danced at Planet Zogg at Plug (1am today/last night) with Boomshanka
- Danced at the Sharrow Festival (1pm today) with Boomshanka
- Danced at the Stannington Carnival (2:40pm today)...with Boomshanka.
So my induction into Boomshanka is pretty much complete, bar a couple of troupe dances I don't yet know (which I'll learn in good time). I'm fairly pleased as I've had just under 2 weeks to learn two of the four dances we did. I've had a stupid ammount of fun and am consequently very, very tired. |
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| I'm going to be in print! |
[Jul. 12th, 2008|10:34 am] |
Well hopefully.
A few months back I was approached through my etsy shop to send in proposals for entry in one of those little how-to project books. it's a publisher that does lots of the little soft back ones. They have a few on Amazon.
So I sent in three proposals and two of them were accepted! The stuff has to be put together and off to them for September with a little bio and then I get paid. Not a massive amount but it's mostly for the good exposure, and it all goes in the new sewing machine fund. The Pfaff Fund! The ones they went for were a garter and a suspender belt (which I've still to work out past the sketch stage). There are still space considerations if they get a lot of good entries, which might bump it to a future edition. But all going well I should be getting my fifteen minutes of fame! Exciting! |
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| saturday morning in the caravan |
[Jul. 12th, 2008|10:26 am] |
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the glories of mobile broadband enable me to post from my bed here int he caravan at the Tewkesbury Medieval Faire ( which is a bit like a scaled down Gasto complete with mud and hippies!!) hope we can get off site on Monday !!! Have a good weekend all you lovely peeps.. pictures and write up of this and Kensal Green /Tea at the Atheneaum to follow |
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hopeful
tired
depressed