Let's Get Physical #2

Thanks to the joy of South West Trains and their uselessness over the weekend, I arrived in Angel considerably late. But late for what? Some wonderfully charming friends of mine in their final year at university have their own dance collective called DRA. Already in demand for film premieres, music videos and unique club nights, their spectacular branch of contemporary dance with its 1960's rockabilly flair is certainly very much on the rise. DRA is a major player behind an intriguing new concept: getting fit while at the pub. This might raise eye-brows, but it truly worked.

I arrived at The Lexington on the Pentonville Road, quickly changed into some incredibly attractive red lycra trousers featuring stirrups and side panels of red and white horizontal stripes; and jumped onto the dance floor in time for the tail end of the warm up. It was such a fun and interesting experience. Imagine your local pub, preferably one with a medium sized dance floor (possibly upstairs), the dance floor lighting to which one is accustomed, and also that instantly recognisable smell of stale alcohol that you find in public houses when they first open; plus aerobics! The juxtaposition and the exercise in the semi-darkness were almost too fab for me after the simple pot of Nettle tea I had from Orange Pekoe in Barnes only the hour previously.

Almost, but I managed to control my excitement, for the break was upon us all too soon. Now imagine a lot of warmed-up bodies in lycra, half heading for the bar, the other half heading outdoors for a replenishing cigarette - instructors included, of course. It was just too funny, and of course it felt very London and supremely cool. Part Two was the feature, the highlight. After another re-warm up, we were introduced to the main thrust of the event: learning a routine to Madonna's Holiday. Oh the excitement that filled the room! This might have just been myself, as I do have a habit of filling rooms. Off we went. It was here I rediscovered my two left feet, but perseverance and determination saw me passably reproduce the movements of our instructors. Effectively, act and think like Madonna and one is three quarters of the way there. The practice culminated in the class being divided into two, so each group could perform for the other and we could see how the thing looked en masse. Rounds of applause and ta-da! actual exercise completed. Some people changed, others merely draped a jacket or jumper over their wonderfully sweaty lycra before heading to the bar for their well deserved post-"gym session" drink.

The next event is scheduled for March 20th, and at £5 it is incredibly good value. A sort of aerobics-lite for those of us who are more likely to go drinking than to the gym, it combines the two in a safe, un-scary manner and I wish it all the success.

Photo courtesy DRA Dance Collective. 

Utter TEFL

Boring absence. Apologies.

I'm sitting here - having just politely declined an invitation to go out - completely devoid of any analytical thought. My brain is utterly dead and has refused to engage all day. Most annoying and inconvenient. I can excuse it, but only just. It spent the weekend on a very intensive training course, and I know it was intensive because it required movement before 8 o'clock on a Saturday. AND on a Sunday. The whole thing lasted 20 hours and in theory qualifies me to teach English abroad. Or to immigrants/asylum seekers. It was long, arduous, fun, bewildering, maddening, humorous, enlightening and baffling.

The majority of the class were very cut-glass and boarding school, which surprised me greatly. And pleased me in equal measure, a sort of confirmation and reinforcement of the worthiness of being there, I suppose. Most of them were planning to volunteer selflessly in Africa and Asia, all in an effort to gain "life experience". All this sort of thing does look so very good in a CV, and it is a wonderful thing to tell at dinner parties. I rather meanly wonder how genuine people are with these things, especially as now post(ish)-recession, employers want that little something more in their prospective employees. It is after all, their market. I try to imagine myself doing the same, but the image will not fit. Somehow, I feel that being anywhere like the poorest parts of Africa will affect me terribly, and so will leave it all to the lovely friends I made. To whom I offer my support wholeheartedly, and thank ceaselessly that it isn't me.

One such lovely lass, who shall henceforth be known as Miss Aquitaine of Kent, was supremely fun (PS they were all females as well, brilliant!!). A fellow actor and nabber of jobs in post-production in Hollywood, we hit it off from the beginning. I think that anybody suddenly confronted with an hour's immersion in a completely foreign language will find their nearest fellow for support. The Slovenian was quite daunting, yet the purpose was glaringly obvious: How one can teach with no common language. And make it enjoyable, productive and successful. We were also united by our dislike of another would-be teacher. Oh she was painful. Insufferable. I find trusting people with bad skin difficult, it is horribly shallow of me and I usually overcome it, but I cannot help mentally applying cosmetics with a spatula. Anyway anyway, this character also had a hint of the insane about her. I adore eccentrics, as I suspect does Miss Kent, but Silence of the Lambs mentalism? We thought no. It was mainly the off-topic comments that grated. After a perfectly harmless opinion about a cafe in Fulham (Flahm as I now call it), she asks how I could sound "so posh when you're from Barnes when I've lived in Fulham all my life?" I think that one, after a pause, was very much a saved by a bell moment. It was then at morning tea that the most peculiar little piece of information was served up to us. We were discussing directors, and she made some comments (borderline slander) on James Cameron. All fine. Then proceeded to inform us all about decapitations to be found on YouTube. So very charming. In a sense, "Flahm" was perfectly nice, but oh to be stuck working with her, to be taught by her... I pity the Koreans.

The Sunday was, as anybody within earshot of Western media will attest, St Valentine's Day. Hurrah etc. Miss Aquitaine and I got to chatting on the whole thing, and we concluded that we ought to have an anti-Valentine's lunch. I'm not remotely bitter, and not really single, but 'tis more fun to join in and get the actor's juices flowing. We decided we must make a good effort of it, and eschew anything heart-shaped. Silly to wander into Fortnum & Mason for lunch then! But oh it was fab. We wandered around making up silliness about suffrage, submission, loss of identity, all very GCSE English essay. The only thing to do when "down" is to elevate oneself back up again. One must never admit defeat nor lose face. This is how Britain has carried on for the last century. The loss of an empire should wipe away all the smugness, the superiority. Gladly, the opposite is true and the subconscious belief in self and country and status quo keeps the mill turning.

We had our lunch of saumon en croute, roasted English vegetables and chocolate and honeycomb mousse, washed down with an elderflower drink and planned our lesson. And it was fun. The chance to meet new people, the opportunity to throw oneself in at the deep-end should not be turned down. It should be entirely embraced, because whosoever could say what will happen next?

January 24th

I planned to do pieces in retrospect. Opening up my diary randomly, I came to the 23rd and the 24th of January 2009. I cannot decode my notes from the 23rd (a total of 5 supposedly significant words) so naturally that left only the particularly cold winter Saturday.


The birthday of my Swedish friend Nina, it was unusually busy. Some time beforehand I volunteered to help Lucinda with Kit4Kids at one of the halls in Barnes. The early morning was unfortunate, but other than that it was a simple matter of manning one of the clothing stalls. My retail experience was blatantly obvious, and I thoroughly enjoyed charming all the yummy Barnes mummies. At the height of the credit crunch, I think they were expecting a much stronger showing, at least a more useful politician:citizen ratio. Thanks awfully Lib Dems. An enormous help, I am sure.

My brownie points won, I got on with the rest of the day. Mainly costume choosing for the evening. I don't recall the theme (I invariably bend them), but it led me to white everything bar a llama wool waistcoat of interesting colours. Visible in fact, in my profile picture. . A-ha! I found it in Memories of Mortlake a very sweet shop run by a German lady, trying to sell a very bizarre accumulation of "pieces". One's rubbish is another's etc. Certainly helps satiate one's inner voyeur.

Being my friend's birthday, her choice of dinner venue. She is vegetarian, an ism I follow part-time, though less and less of late. So therefore the cuisine is something I enjoy, but being me I know where it is reliably good, inexpensive and in a good area (IMHO of course). She chose Blah Blah Blah of Shepherd's Bush. A rather serious mistake, but there's only so far one's influence stretches! While pleasantly decorated, the service was PAINfully slow. Despite being the only people there, the staff seemed entirely uninterested. From memory we ordered at 7pm-ish. Fine, though we had been there almost an hour already. Naturally by that time + wine, people are hungry, and getting irritable. Of course we are all adults and able to control ourselves, but as time went by, things deteriorated.

It turned out that half the people there weren't really friends of Nina's, but more people that had gathered together through friends and had asked to come along. Most of the people there, she disliked immensely, but with mutual friends and in the hope of avoiding awkwardness, the poor thing graciously allowed all these effective strangers to her dinner. I didn't help by bringing along my best friend whom Nina hadn't met, though I am assured we were the most welcome there by far. Here's hoping.

Finally at about 9.30pm our food arrived. Passable, but after two and a half hours of hunger pains anything will do. Certainly NOT worth such a weight. And too late to avoid outbreaks of rather emphatic debates. The worst began with a flippant comment about whisky. I had said something along the lines of:

"Good whisky should be enjoyed with a very slight splash of water," or something similarly pretentious.
This prompted some backlash, followed by ferocious support from the BFF. Then an incredibly nasal, Australian voice rang out:
"I like my Jack Daniel's with coke."
"Oh my god, what a classless individual!" blurts out the BFF.

Oh dear. The classless individual in question stormed off, pausing at the stairs to shout "Are any of you classless individuals coming with me?!" before disappearing. The stunned silence was punctured suddenly by half the table reluctantly deciding to follow her. This left four of us: Nina, her boyfriend, BFF and myself. Bless the birthday girl, she laughed and said how relieved she was most of them had gone. Mollifying my mortified friend, a little at least. Left with all the wine, we carried on merrily.

Having caused enough trouble for one evening, the BFF departed en taxi, while we headed East for Electrotherapy IV. A new-ish charity night begun by a friend of mine and still going strong, though in a new location at Elephant & Castle, I believe. We didn't stay long. Just long enough to dance a little, but my music tastes had moved on, I must say.

During said dance, this friend came up to me and unbuttoned my shirt, telling me it looked frigid and that I would never get a boyfriend if I carried on like that. Well! What presumptuousness. Firstly, who is to say I don't already?! And secondly, boyfriend... You can't just assume these things! It's as offensive to a man as the assumed pregnancy of a woman without child. Well so I assume, anyway. Possibly this put me in less of a mood for the evening, and we cut things short, Nina and her then boyfriend heading to Canary Wharf and myself to seek bagels and then the night bus to Stratford.

Have I now learnt anything? Ayo Gorkhali.