First Night Last Night
Wow – thank you any of you who were there last night. I really appreciate your comments, and am delighted you enjoyed it. It went well, and we were all very happy afterwards. The little changes all seemed to work, and it looks like one new bit in particular will be fine… we were worried it might not pay off. Saying nothing more.
Have spent the day discussing a new idea for a TV special which I think could be very exciting.
The Monster Munch are arriving… I have been requested to remind you all that Roast Beef is the preferred flavour, so the prize for leaving the most, I’m told, will only apply in cases where that particular flavour has been left. Although I imagine that after a couple of months they’re going to be sick of Roast Beef and will start asking for Pickled Onion. Either way, for those of you daft and generous enough to bother buying and bringing these maize snacks for my presumptuous team-members, don’t forget to leave your details if you’re aiming to win the prize. (They’ll decide on what the prize is as we go along. It’ll be a good one, apparently).
Second nights famously take extra effort. It’s a curious theatre rule. A good first night usually means a poor second, and vice versa. The reason is, that it’s easy to relax if you do really well the first night and then, without the concentration that comes from first-night adrenalin and nerves, you slip up or drop energy on the second. Likewise, if you have a terrible first night, you put in extra effort for the second, correct any problems, and do much better. So for us, there’s always particular attention paid on a second night to make sure it’s at least as good as the first.
We shall see. Certainly it should be a lot of fun.
TTFNx
New Telescope Captures Dazzling Image of Orion Nebula
“You’ve undoubtedly seen the smudge of the Orion Nebula hanging just below his belt thousands of times, but the most beautiful image yet of the celestial body was just released Wednesday.
The European Southern Observatory’s new VISTA telescope’s enormous field of view allows it to image the entire nebula at once. It’s been designed to capture near-infrared light. The longer wavelengths of light in that part of the spectrum allow rays to pass through dusty space without being scattering.
The Orion Nebula is located about 1,350 light-years from Earth. The cloud of gas and dust is a nursery for young stars. The red blobs in the features near the center of the image are young, growing stars that are hidden by dust in visible light.
VISTA was just placed into service late last year, so we can expect many more beautiful near-infrared images as it conducts its survey of the sky.”
Read more at Wired (Thanks SonOfSam)
Chinese Herbal Medicine Gave Woman Cancer
“A civil servant suffered cancer and kidney failure after taking pills sold by a Chinese herbal shop to clear up spots on her face, a court heard today. Patricia Booth took the medicine bought at a shop in Chelmsford, Essex, for five and a half years, a jury was told.
The Chinese Herbal Medical Centre advertised its products as “safe and natural and without side effects”, the Old Bailey heard. Mrs Booth was taken ill months after she stopped taking the pills, and they were found to contain a banned substance, aristolochic acid, the court was told. Mrs Booth’s health deteriorated to such an extent that her kidneys were “destroyed”, she had cancer, and suffered a heart attack. She now has to go to hospital three times a week for dialysis and would be unable to come to court, instead giving evidence via videolink, jurors heard.
Julian Christopher, prosecuting, said Wu was employed as a “Chinese doctor” at the shop, which was in business from late 1996 until August 2003. He said: “The case is concerned with pills which the prosecution allege were given by Susan Wu to one particular patient to take every day to clear up spots on her face and which the patient continued to take for five and a half years. “They did indeed clear up her skin but turned out to have disastrous consequences. They completely destroyed her kidneys and gave her cancer.” ”
Read more at The Independent (Thanks Nick P)
Man’s internal organs all back-to-front
“An Indian man has ben told by doctors that all his internal organs are back-to-front in what is thought to be the only living case of “situs inversus”. Doctors believe that the 64-year-old could be the only man in the world whose internal organs are in the mirror opposite position of where they should be.
Ashok Shivnani was about to have surgery to remove a tumour on his kidney in Mumbai when doctors realised most of his chest and abdominal organs and many blood vessels were on the opposite side of his body. The condition is known as “situs inversus”. In Mr Shivnani’s case, they discovered the aorta and inferior vena cava, which pump clean blood in and impure blood from the heart were reversed. He also has two livers. “While operating we were supposed to know the exact location of everything that we are going to touch. But in this case we were not sure which veins were entering where,” Dr Prakash Sanzgiri told the Times of India.
Surgeons also found he had no small intestine and three vessels supplying blood to his infected kidney. More surprising is the fact that Mr Shivnani had survived two hernia operations and been examined for chronic lung disease without learning of his unique anatomy. “Never in my life did I know that my body was different,” he said. ”
Here we go!
Sat in our Swansea hotel, on the morning of this tour’s first show. Last night we had a tech run of the show, and all was good, save a couple of issues relating to the few bits we’ve tinkered with. Today we’ll get them ironed out before the performance.
Our crew are all very excited to be back on the road. It’s been seven months or so since we closed in the West End with this show, but once we’re all hanging about in the very familiar backstage area of a theatre, that gap closes rapidly. We have a new member of the group – Jonas – whom we all like very much indeed. And we’re missing Andy, last year’s tech genius, who isn’t with us this time. This year we also have the pleasure of a driver and huge lorry to haul our set and props from venue to venue, which takes much of the strain off our team. On previous years, Simon (our stage manager), Coops, Jennie and Iain have had to arrive in the morning, unload the set from the vans, build the show, set up the lighting and sound, then in the case of a one-nighter, dismantle the whole thing and then heave it all into tiny vans afterwards before driving it to the next venue for early morning. It’s gruelling. This year has very few one-night shows, and the job of unloading, loading and driving is left to a nice man with a big truck. Get in. And get out.
We are a tight-knit family. Coops, of course, is my much-treasured PA the rest of the year, and Jennie and Iain have the more delicate jobs of being my make-up and co-writer friends respectively when we’re not on the road. Touring with such close friends is a huge treat. And we all adore Simon, our touring stage manager, who feels like the grown-up of the group.
There is also, of course, the immense pleasure of performing the show. Each of the four shows has had its own flavour, and have felt different to do. Enigma and Evening of Wonders have been particular pleasures, but I think the current one just takes the lead for me. It’s enormous fun to do. For those that wonder how repeating the same two hours night after night can possibly be so enjoyable, I see your point. But as a performer, if I may appear so revolting, my job is to try to re-create it rather than repeat it: the difference being that I must be sure to remain ‘present’ and ‘in’ it and so on, from moment to moment, so that I am always interested in and engaged with what I’m doing. On a few occasions I have found myself distracted and realised that I have switched to auto-pilot, which is a terrible thing: the equivalent of reading pages of a book without taking anything in. It can also lead to problems: if you are simply saying script without feeling it, it’s all too easy to miss out a chunk or worse, repeat yourself. So each night it feels fresh and fun for me, and the idea is that this affects the way that the show communicates to the audience.
Also, I get to enjoy several months – five this time! – without the constant frustrations of television imposing. My yearly television output takes eight months to conceive, write, film and edit, with all those elements overlapping each other. Budgets are understandably never high enough, and ideas are constantly having to be compromised, or new ones found before horrendous deadlines. The initial joy that comes from finding the ‘hook’ of the show is too often drained by these unavoidable concerns as the months roll on. With the touring, however, we have only the pressure to write and rehearse the show in time, and then ten days or so of of letting it settle in and making any major changes. After that, there is only the pleasure of finding, night after night, little improvements to include for the next show. No demands are made, no pressures added: all the work is done.
There is still much to do: in the days I am finishing a book on which I have been working piecemeal for some time, and on my days off there is TV writing and filming to be done. But having the afternoons free to quietly book edit (or noisily, sat in some cafe) is the one of the greatest pleasures I can think of, and somehow the tour experience – despite it being physically tiring and relentless – feels like enough of a holiday to refresh me enough for the other bits of work.
It’s also always fun to say hello to some of you after the show who are kind enough to wait around in often hugely unfavourable conditions. Forgive me in advance when time permits only a very rushed greeting or, on very rare occasions, no hello at all, but I shall always do my best. Above all, thank you for coming, booking tickets, giving them as gifts, dressing up, travelling some distance to see the show, or doing any one of a number of very flattering things on my account.
Right. Must see what this place does for lunch, and get on top of a few lines for tonight. Eek!
x
Software photo-doctor fixes up bad photos
“It may seem crude to reduce aesthetics to number crunching, but software can now manipulate an amateur’s photographs to make them more pleasing to the eye.
Algorithms score a photo’s aesthetics using simple composition rules widely used to guide budding photographers. The image is then automatically cropped, or parts of it moved and resized, to boost its score.
Developed by Daniel Cohen-Or and Lior Wolf at Tel-Aviv University, Israel, with colleagues at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China, the software identifies the key features of an image based on their colour and shape. The positioning of those elements is used to judge a photo, then tweaked to improve it, says Wolf (see video).”
Read more at New Scientist
A HD Video Tour of the International Space Station
“If you’re a huge space buff, you might not be surprised by anything in this video tour of the International Space Station. But it’s still great to just get a simple walkthrough of this incredible project and all its corners.”
Via Gizmodo
Man Jailed 97 Times In 29 Years
“”You’ve been to jail 97 times?” the reporter inquired on a recent morning.
“Oh, probably more than that, ma’am,” replied the man on the other end of the line, William Bradley Bankston.
In fact, the 47-year-old has been booked into Mobile County Metro Jail on freshly filed charges more times than anyone else in the modern era of record-keeping there.
He’s passed through the Canal Street jail on at least 97 occasions in 29 years. At least three-quarters if those bookings followed drinking bouts and public displays of drunkenness, records reflect.”
Read more at al.com
Sword swallower claims world record
“Some people call Chayne Hultgren the Space Cowboy for good reason, the Byron Bay street peformer has dared to go where no man had before – swallowing 18 razor sharp swords. The professional sword swallower set the new Guinness World Record in Sydney today by swallowing all of the 72 centimetres long swords at the same time.
The 31-year-old beat his own previous record of 17 swords, which he set in 2008. But for all those wannabe sword swallowers out there Mr Hultgren warned the stunt has taken years to perfect. “It’s amazing,” Mr Hultgren said. “I’ve been preparing for this since I was 16.” “It is definitely one of my greatest achievements so far.”
Hultgren began practising the art of sword swallowing at the age of 16 when he swallowed his first hose. A few years later he upped the ante and began using stainless steel blades. He swears his latest feat is not dangerous, but the cheeky entertainer conceded that “it wasn’t recommended by my doctor”. “It’s educated risk,” he said. “I don’t just straight away grab 18 blades and shove them down my throat – you’ve got to practise a lot and build up to it. “So I stretch my throat with hoses and use a few different techniques to basically enable me to do what, until now, has been impossible.”
Hultgren beat his own previous record of swallowing 17 swords – also a Guinness World Record, which he set in 2008. He is the only person in the world to down more than 13 blades simultaneously, he said.”
Read more at The Daily Telegraph
Fossils Show Earliest Animal Trails
“Trails found in rocks dating back 565 million years are thought to be the earliest evidence of animal locomotion ever found.
The newly-discovered fossils, from rocks in Newfoundland in Canada, were analysed by an international team led by Oxford University scientists. They identified over 70 fossilised trails indicating that some ancient creatures moved, in a similar way to modern sea anemones, across the seafloors of the Ediacaran Period.
The team publish a report of their research in the February edition of the journal Geology.
‘The markings we’ve found clearly indicate that these organisms could exert some sort of muscular control during locomotion,’ said Alex Liu of Oxford University’s Department of Earth Sciences, an author of the paper. ‘This is exciting because it is the first evidence that creatures from this early period of Earth’s history had muscles to allow them to move around – enabling them to hunt for food or escape adverse local conditions and, importantly, indicating that they were probably animals.’”
Read more at Physorg.com (Thanks SuZi)
