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◄ Aberystwyth, Mon Amour... how distant art thou...
This is, as ever, being written some not inconsiderable time after events. Practically eons, in fact. And I should really be doing something else, which also isn't new. So, I'll run with a brief account of events that I can remember and leave the rest to telepathy.
Things were pretty hectic, but fun. The period of a week including a theatre visit to Captain Corelli's Mandolin, a visit to Oh, What A Lovely War, a sixth-form camp-out in the drama hall and an evening of A-level exam performances. The first of these was, for my money, the best stage entertainment I've seen in a very long while. It consisted of one man and two musicians, a handful of props and painted boards, and pure story-telling. For over an hour; he talked, we listened. Well, apart from the entire rest of our party breaking down into hysterics every time the stomach of the man sitting behind us rumbled... ;) Oh, What A Lovely War, I'll admit, I was principally interested in because my Dad apparently walked out of a performance of it. I can certainly see how it might have been more politically sensitive a while ago, but the performance we saw certainly did anything but trivialise the events it depicted. Plus, I suppose it's more generally accepted these days that Kitchener's strategy of attrition killed far more Allied soldiers than anything which German military leaders came up with. It was a sobering reminder that wars might be all but extinct if command elements were required to be on the frontline rather than the poor sods they conscripted. Anyway, before I go off on one... the sleepover. You couldn't really call it camping, being as it was indoors, with sleeping-bag, heating, films to watch and snacks and breakfast thoughtfully provided by Fiona. Basically, there was much running around, people hitting each other with pillows, various games, we watched The Ninth Gate and I dozed off during the end of the film. Good laugh, and I think everyone enjoyed it. :) The performance evening (hmmm, this is turning into a very long run-on paragraph, isn't it?) went swimmingly, and I didn't screw up the sound effects I was doing for one group, thank fuck. Doing technical stuff for gigs and other such collaborative efforts is far more guaranteed to sicken me to the pit of my stomach with worry than anything teaching is likely to throw at me... Anyway (and yes, I am aware of just how reliant I am upon the word 'anyway' as a catch-all thought linker), the performances were superb, all script deviations were covered magnificently, everyone watching or otherwise involved seemed to have a great time, and I will now stop gushing before I'm accused of basking in reflected glory. It went well, okay?
In other news, the latest Winamp2 (2.9) comes with an official media library plug-in, :) neatly integrated with the main application. It's great that Nullsoft are still supporting and upgrading this alongside Winamp3—freeform skinning and a radically different coding architecture come with a system resource overhead, whereas Winamp2 is fantastic for those of us who just want to play music. Go grab the update! winamp.com
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