This scary character was waiting for us in the grotto at the centre of leeds castle’s maze.

very random chair
Originally uploaded by dps.

This chair has just turned up in the alley next to our flat (there is a bin here) but it looks so bizarre next to the blank wall, especially since someone has draped a jumper over it!

On Monday night we went to see David Hare’s latest play “Stuff Happens” at the Olivier theatre. It’s a gripping narrative of the period leading up to the Iraq war - the characters are the real life members of George Bush’s administration, Tony Blair’s cabinet, UN ambassadors not to mention (the rather comical, somehow) Hans Blix. The play itself is a rather damning indictment of the Bush administration - Bush, Rumsfeld, Powell and Rice speak often in their own real-life words but the scenes of Hare’s conjecture are equally convincing. The performances of the actors were ,without exception, brilliant - they all managed to capture the attitudes, idiosyncracies (and accents!) of their characters well. This was perhaps not surprising given that most of these characters appear on our TV screens most nights of the week. Indeed, the fact that this is a “history play” about a period of history that has only just passed (and virtually none of the issues raised here are yet resolved) was the subject of many conversations I overhead as we left the theatre - one lady was heard to say “it’s just too soon for this”. On reflection, I don’t agree - the fact that the auditorium was absolutley packed shows that now of all times is when people want to (and should) see this kind of retrospective - we still have some chance to open the debate and perhaps change the ending of this episode in history.

Wow - I just found out about this underground cinema (Guardian) from an old posting on Hanna’s blog - can’t believe I missed it at the time. Anyway, having started to read London under London which Iain lent me (amuzingly one of the authors is none other than Richard Trench!) I’m becoming enthralled by all these underground goings-on. Now I really want to explore the forbidden parts of the sub-terranean citiscape parisien!

a bit like the hives
Originally uploaded by dps.

Here is a person from Antony Gormley’s excellent Domain Field exhibit at the Baltic Gallery in Gateshead.

A prize* to the first person who comments explaining the relevance of the title of this post!

chillies
Originally uploaded by dps.

We found these chillies hanging outside a fruit and vegetable shop on the road from St Agnello to Sorrento. The colours were so striking, I had to take a photograph!