Diary

We've had Philip's account - everyone's fault except the founders. Then Eve's account - everyone's fault except the founders. And now there's Michael's account - everyone's fault including the founder's! Wow, an objective (and not to mention entertaining) account!

Philip was describing how cool it would be to have a koi pond suspended from the ceiling of the atrium, so you could see the fish swimming from beneath and from all sides. Brian Stein replied, "You know what would be even better? A solid-gold trash can, burning cash 24/7." I don't think we would have laughed so long and hard if Brian had not struck a chord

After a serious friday night out lasting well into the small hours of the evening, what better thing to do on a Saturday, than a casual outing to the theatre. The play in question was "The Hanging Man" at The Lyric theatre in Hammersmith. Being in Hammersmith, the evening had to start out with a drink & meal at The Dove, which for a sunny Saturday evening, was surprisingly quiet. Go figure.

As hinted to by the title, the plot revolves around an Architect who decides to hang himself after the realisation that the cathedral he's building is destined to be a failure. And so the entertainment begins....you see he strings up the noose, puts it round his neck, kicks away the chair....and nothing...he just can't die. It turns out that Death (a ~4'6" woman!) is a little put out by how people take her for granted & wants to get to know him before taking him on to the afterlife. So put out is Death, that she stops taking people altogether.

At first this may seem like bliss - everlasting lasting life & all that. By it soon becomes clear that life without death is meaningless. A french general sums it up, half the soldiers hurl themselves into the most ridiculous battles knowing they can't die, the other half refuse to fight for fear of being maimed & having to live with it for all eternity.

Enough of the plot. Perhaps even more impressive than the laugh out loud performance, was the quality of the stage design. The main stage was slanted at a 20 degree angle towards the audience, giving a slightly peturbing feel to the set. Numerous trap doors in the floor were used to their full comic potential. And lets not forget the poor actor hanging by the neck (well from a harness, thank god) for the duration of the performance.

Its playing for a couple more weeks yet, so there is still time to pay it a visit. It'll be one of the more amuzing performances you'll see this year.

Last week's travel opportunity was a short venture to The States of Guernsey. Previous visitors had provided positive reports so Count von Stein & I were expecting an interesting trip. We were not to be dissappointed, even taking into account the exceedingly low standards set by week long trip to Coventry last month - the saying 'Sending you to Coventry' is very well founded.

Of course first we had to get there - a quick flight over the channel in a turbo prop puddle jumper - never a task to be taken lightly. Travelling across the tarmac to our plane, the bus screeches to a halt narrowly missing an oncoming truck that turn right across our path. Everyone without a firm grip was thrown to the ground. Woah. The driver, evidently still a little shocked, makes to continue but quickly slams on the brakes again as a regional jet crosses our path! Sweet Jesus get me out of here! Oh & did I mention that from picking up boarding passes at the self-service checkin, to passing through the boarding gate, not a sole asked to see any ID? Oh well, who cares about keeping London safe anyway.

For an island a mere 25 km square, with around 30 billion GBP in turnover, the first impressions given by Guernsey Airport are not really in keeping with the image of the Island as a whole. Someone else has obviously noticed this discrepancy & a major construction project is underway for a new terminal. But even this is odd, given that tourist numbers visiting the island have been cut by 90% from their peak & their increase is apparently not encouraged by residents. Of course, first impressions are notoriously misleadingly, and our 10 minute cab ride to St. Peters Port showed what life's really about. In spite of a national 35 mph speed limit, the entire road system is chock full of flash cars - ferraris, beamers, aston's & pretty much any other sports car of note.

After a day's (not so hard) work & with beer-o-clock fast approaching we headed out into the town. This can best be described as like walking into a time warp - the main street can't have changed a bit since the early 70's. After a bite to eat we settled into a cosy Irish pub for a pint (or 6) of Guiness. Not so smart, since we'd been away since 5-ish, no hangover mind - just a little trouble waking up.

Our sloth-like start to the day was to be short lived, however, since we discovered the (unthinkable for a londoner) island's dark secret - a complete lack of taxis. A two hour wait on an island you could circumnavigate in little more than 30 minutes. Not to worry, "turn right out of the hotel gate, walk to the pub, turn left up the hill taking the right hand fork in the road, branch off for a jaunt through the park & you'll be there in 10 minutes" said the helpful conceirge. We even had a little map.

Another day's work & and that was it, back on a plane to Gatwick (with a ID check this time)...