…possibly one of the most excellent opening lines in literature (kind of spooky and oooh, as Rizzo the Rat says) and one I was very pleased to find on an enamel pin by Laura Crow which I wore to work this week in festive fashion. It is, after all, the season for this sort of thing – currently I am watching The Muppets’ Christmas Carol with GT2, one of my favourite festive films. Coincidentally my second favourite Christmas movie is also an adaptation of the Dickens classic: Scrooged, with Bill Murray. Murray’s ruthless TV exec brought to see the error of his ways by the always bonkers Carol Kane and her toaster (among other spirits) is classic viewing.
This week I’ll be doing my annual listen of Hugh Grant reading the original Dickens version, which was a freebie on Audible a couple of years ago and which is an excellent way to spend a couple of hours. The Muppet version is apparently the version with the most of Dickens’ original text in the script, which is fortunate since the Horde have all had to do the book for GCSE and they’ve been subjected to the film MANY times.
My festive mood has been helped considerably by walking back to Farringdon station via Sekforde Street and Clerkenwell Green. Dickens lived quite close to Clerkenwell – there’s a plaque to him in the gloriously Gothic Waterhouse Square/Prudential Building (Holborn Bars) on High Holborn, and his home on Doughty Street is about ten minutes’ walk away. Clerkenwell, on the edges of the City, still has a lot of Victorian streets and alleyways and at this time of year it’s adorned with wreaths. Even when it’s not Christmas it’s pretty – I love all the doorknockers on Sekforde Street, especially the bear with its cub and the cat with kitten on the old Finsbury Savings Bank (which Dickens actually used, I’ve just this minute discovered).
The denizens of Hatton Garden are a bit less festive, though the cigar-smoking skeleton Santa in the window of one of the offices made me laugh, as did the sign on ScooterTech round the corner.
Continuing this week’s obsession with Mr Dickens’ classic, I took Thing 2 and Thing 2a to see ZooNation’s hiphop version at Sadlers Wells East, Ebony Scrooge. A blend of hiphop, comedy and theatre it was very different to the last show we saw – Quadrophenia – but all of us loved it. It was noisy and joyful and funny, and the audience was encouraged to make noise and enjoy it. There was a short ‘Curtain Raiser’ performance by Boy Blue’s East London Dance School beforehand, called Sinnerman and which made excellent use of Nina Simone. The rapping narrators were great, and the animations were beautifully done and added to the evening. Highly recommended, if you’re after a festive night out with a difference.
Other things making me happy this week
- Dinner at Kung Fu Mama with lovely friend Rhiannon on Wednesday, putting the world to some sort of rights while eating excellent noodles. The place is tiny and has a small street food menu, and it was packed – I had the traditional beef noodle soup which was delicious but messy. Pak choi is really hard to eat with chopsticks.
- A swim on Saturday morning with Jill – it was c-c-c-c-c-cold in the water as we haven’t been often this autumn. We followed up with hot chocolates at Costa and a mooch round Hobbycraft.
My favourite and best thing this week though has been the completion of my very own lair in the attic – thanks to my Beloved who has been building tables and shelves for me, although I did have to assemble my own chairs. The contents of my frivolous shelves from the Shed have migrated upstairs and I had a happy Saturday afternoon pottering about and singing along to Christmas songs, especially Kate Rusby. I have a whole collection of things to go on the ‘walls’ – postcards and prints – and I’ll be able to work without having to put up my folding table, and leave projects out over a weekend. There’s a wide surface for cutting and sticking, space for my ironing board, and other flat surfaces. They may never see me downstairs again. All three of the Things popped up to see me while I was pottering, which was nice!
And that’s it for me for this week – if anyone needs me I’ll be in the attic finishing off some projects….
Kirsty x
What I’ve been reading:
A Better Man/All The Devils Are Here/The Madness of Crowds- Louise Penny
The Secrets of Pain – Phil Rickman (Audible)
What Kirsty did next 