Most flaunted

This evening I have taken the plunge and entered the Tate's 'How We Are Now' photography competition (sort of). Basically the Tate in conjunction with Flickr are running an exhibition which will include ordinary joe public's photographs. One can upload up to 4 pix to the group in the categories Landscape, Portrait, Documentary and Still Life and they will pick the best 40 to be included in the exhibition. All very exciting isn't it. I probably don't stand a chance, there are hundreds of outstanding photos on there. At least I can say I've tried anyway and its nice to be inspired by other folks' art. I'm hoping to enter the Countryfile photography competition this year too. I've been meaning to do it for a while. This year's title/category is 'All Creatures Great and Small' and so far I've taken some very mediocre shots of the deer in Tatton Park and a bee on a flower (which is in my mum's urban garden so doesn't count). It'd be nice to do something original. There is a llama farmer on the other side of Bolton but its not really a rural location and one of the rules is that the pics are of the countryside. Ah well. I've got a few months to get inspired yet.

In other news I participated in more art recently, this time a production of Adrian Mole: The Musical. Sadly I wasn't singing and you could have blinked and missed me but it was all good fun and lots of people said it was the best thing they'd ever seen us do. Fab. Saturday night saw the usual drunken party shenanigans you get after the plays are over. This time a few of us were in there until 5am! Boy, I haven't done that in a long time. I thought I was past it. We were having such deep and meaningful discussions though that we didn't notice the time. Talks about sexuality, paranoia, depression. It was better than it sounds, honest. I came out to one of the other women but it turned out she knew anyway. Someone had blabbed. She was ever so lovely and gave me a big hug. Then got a bit flirty. God I love it when that happens. Midway through the evening we took it upon ourselves to go ghost hunting in the theatre. A few of us have had spooky experiences there and one chap's photos the other week came back with orbs on. I took a few pix but only a couple came out with orbs and there was nothing else untoward on them. We even sat in the dark and called out to the ghost to communicate with us but to no avail.

It was so surreal leaving the theatre to a beautiful, sunny though chilly morning with no-one else in sight. Just the sound of the birds singing. Lovely. Such a far cry from the chav haven it usually is.

Springtime for Hitler

Ooh I should be getting myself ready for bed. Work in the morning...

Went to see The Producers on Friday. Which was fab. Peter Kay was very good - he looked great in that silver dress. I'd been told he was getting very self-indulgent in the show, launching into his own routine, breaking the fourth wall etc. He did a little bit but it wasn't too bad and a couple of the other cast members were joining in too. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I must watch the film now.

Spent a ludicrous amount of money this weekend what with the show tix, hotel room, a ticket for the Who exhibition (which has new exhibits) beer and food and rather too many cds and dvds. I bought;

CDs

Green Day - American Idiot (which I'd already borrowed from my bro once and liked)
The Clash - Singles (which I haven't been grabbed by really apart from the more well-known tracks like I Fought the Law and London Calling)
Muse - Showbiz (ok so far but not falling for it yet)
Hayseed Dixie - Let There Be Rockgrass (not heard it yet)
and a talking book - The Weirdstone of Brisingamen read by Philip Madoc (one of my favourite books of all time).

DVDs;

Abigail's Party (been wanting to see it for ages)
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (damn fine film)
Grease special edition type thing (been after such an item for quite a while now)

Saturday afternoon was spent in the Who exhibition again, this time with friends. Much fun was had having our pics taken with Judoon and the like. Then we went to the pub and pretty much stayed there for the rest of the night. And what an eventful night it was. One particularly clueless lad brought a new friend - a 16 year old boy. Fuckwit. Not a problem shopping and round the exhibition but very definitely a problem in a pub with a bunch of 20 and 30somethings who just want to relax and have a laugh not spend their time babysitting and persuading said child that he really does need to go home, no they won't buy him any alcohol and no he most definitely can't stay over with one of them. Now I wasn't a saint when I was 16 and kids these days no doubt get up to worse but at least when I got up to no good it was with kids my own age not law abiding adults who could potentially get in deep shit for having me with them. Am I overreacting? Maybe. Am I being selfish in worrying about us and our reputations? Probably. Not that I wanted to see anything bad happen to him or for him to get stranded or in trouble or anything. We know we're nice people and responsible and not dodgy paedos or anything but his parents don't know us from Adam and didn't even know he was with us. I'm not a mother but I can imagine what his mum would be thinking. And she's the same age as me apparently. I really resented having to act like a mum and tell him in no uncertain terms that it was time for him to go home and he shouldn't be with us anyway. Thank god someone else volunteered to take him to the train station and then someone else had a little conversation with our 'friend' telling him that hanging around with 16 year olds didn't look very good. Clueless twat.