INSANE IN THE BRAIN

I love the film One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest.  I don't identify with the characters (the play takes place in a mental institution, although there are times perhaps I think I should)  but I have met so many Nurse Rachete-types in my life - the butter wouldn't melt women who talk in whispers, all sweetness and light - but have an anger, bitterness and frustration - like an Icelandic volcano that threatens to explode any moment and devastate any one and everyone that gets in their way.  There was a woman at the Air Canada desk several years back that offered to upgrade me from Toronto to London, but when I thanked her and asked politely if I could also have access to the business lounge, she looked at me and smiled 'I have the power to give this to you and the power to take it away'.   There is power and there is madness and there is power madness. 

I saw a Swedish dance group called BOUNCE at the Peacock Theatre this evening which was One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest with hip hop and a bit of disco thrown in for good measure.   Sounds utterly ridiculous and wired but was utterly brilliant.    It managed to entertain, haunt, humor and stun an audience who were transfixed by the skill and cleverness not only of the dance but the production.   Gloriously crazy.  Go see. 

GROWN UP DAY

I was 46 today.  I don't feel or (think) I look older but as Tom was at school today I spent the day doing very grown up things, on what is really, if you think about it, a 'growing up' day.    I will share only some of what I did, one day I'll put it in a novel, but I certainly won't in a blog.

Last year I sky dived over the Oxfordshire countryside.  The guy I went up in the air with told me I wasn't the usual type who does it in their forties because of what he calls a 'midlife crisis urge'.    The type who needs to do everything at once because they realise they suddenly haven't done a lot with the first forty years of their life and now want to do things that had never occurred to them before.    Like sky diving over the Oxfordshire countryside.   It was a wonderful experience and I would do it over and over again.  Unlike bungee jumping and getting married which I would only do once.   This year I did the positively sedate past time of visiting galleries. I have tried to encourage Tom's love of art, but he's still at the stage where unless the artwork is particularly odd or disgusting he would rather be at the computer screen at home or kicking a football about.  I started at the Royal Academy which was interesting mainly because I didn't know Tracey Emin had the nerve to charge what she does for her paintings and people have the stupidity to pay for them.    They deserve each other.  But I bought a print of Quentin Blake because I love the Roald Dahl books and his drawings remind me of those dark and inspired stories.   Then I visited Tate Britain and stared hard at Henry Moore works, a fascinating artist, producing sexy and tortured sculptures and wonderful paintings.   I watched those who were wandering around these galleries.   By coincidence I had watched the film 'Dressed To Kill' the night before, that film with Angie Dickinson and Michael Caine.   There was a scene in an art gallery at the start but hard as  I looked I didn't see any frustrated glamorous housewives looking for a one night stand or cross dressing pyschopathic knife carrying killers.   Galleries aren't what they use to be...