In Which Our Hero Loses His Shirt, Regains His Vertigo and Goes North

Much to tell, but as I'm returning to Dundee via Edinburgh today I'm going to have to truncate.

Had a pretty interesting weekend last week. Friday was the Casino Night where once more bedecked in national dress I went to a casino and discovered the dress code was a little more lax than we were expecting. With a whiff of sleaze, smoke and desperation the place was interesting, and the meal we had was very American. I also lost money as usual which put me in a little bit of a foul mood - all too foul for the smart-witted cab driver on the way home who remarked on my kilt. Overall, good night, but I have crap luck even at Blackjack.

On Saturday I went to Stratford-upon-Avon is really nice. Terribly touristy, but very nice. We were shown round Shakespeare's House (pictured). Claudia went round the exhibit at a decent pace while we slow coaches were eventually prompted to go from the exhibit to the actual house by the security man who told us we had 15 minutes left to actually see the real attractions.



Inside the house we fell victim to the eager-guide. All the other guides, realising the lateness of the hour, looked at their watches and gave us minimal information on our surrounding, while eager-guide was all too eager to wax lyrical on the many subtleties of the house. This was great for us, but Claudia, now trapped in the house's gift shop while waiting on us overheard the rest of the staff grumbling about how we'd never leave because eager-guide was talking to us.

After that it was on to the RSC and their vertigo inducing balcony for a most excellent performance of Coriolanus, which was excellent and is very action packed in the first half for one of the Bard's wordy witticisms. It's the first Shakespeare play I've ever seen live and I really enjoyed it.



The rest of the week was equally manic. Work has been excessively hellish this week - it seems to be impossible to get anything done without someone banging on the door and one student even demanded to know my holiday plans so as to know my exact location and availability throughout their 5 week holiday. Needless to say I was not impressed! However I got through it all, though I would describe my mood as ratty at best by the end of it. I need a holiday.

Which is precisely what I will have. I'm off to Edinburgh for the Student Roleplaying Nationals. It's a misnomer as hardly anyone there is a student and I am allegedly represting DeMontfort University even though I am not a member of their society and I think I know exactly 3 people in my team. However the good and great of DURPS will be there, and I guess those loud weirdos from Stirling will be trying to attract as much attention as they can. In previous years it's been fun (though clearly in 2004 I was in a bad mood, thesis writing and no sleep y'know).

More excitement soon I promise!

Home on the Fringe

When last we left our hero he left Leicester a day late and drove himself and parent back to the sanity of Dundee, Scotland, making very good time and convincing said parent his 8 hour route was much better than the 11 hour one they had used in previous times.

After spending the week not really doing much other than mooching around, watching Hornblower, drinking at the local and generally not achieving much I went to the Edinburgh Fringe, which was fun. Last year I was irked when no sooner had I moved to Leicester than Serenity had its world premiere in the Edinburgh Festival and Mirrormask was also shown. This year there wasn't anything quite so "you must see me!" but Steve and I took in a couple of shows.

The first of these was Alice Through the Lookinglass in the suitably "ghetto" Bedlam Theatre. This was actually pretty good, with a young Alice and proved to be a suitably artsy production - I forgot how damn surreal the story was.

Back to the Futon was suitable fodder for the inner geek that I struggle to keep so well hidden. A stand-up comedy show with a scarily effective Christopher Lloyd look-alike and a funny comedian who may have made one too many Parkinson's jokes. We were slightly late in making it to the even more ghettoesque venue aptly named the Smirnoff Underbelly so we missed out on the raffle for the free ride in the Delorean.

Add in a smattering of Swedish magicians, acrobats and mime artist, a pizza buffet and London-expensive beer on the Royal Mile and it was an all round good day. Pictures may follow.

The Merchant of Venice

Just watched the Al Pacino/Jeremy Irons version of Merchant of Venice. Very good stuff, though it was clear Hollywood is owned by Jews - Shylock was clearly portrayed in an excessively sympathetic light. Note I said excessively there.

The original comedy/romance A plot was less emphasised than the whole caffuffle with Portia, the rings and the whole romance.

They went out of their way to make Shylock more sympathetic - showing him spat upon by Antonio in the beginning (and spat on in most of his other scenes by the supporting cast) and generally reviled by the populace of Venice. Personally I didn't see the need to do this - it's not in the play written by Shakespeare (though there are references to this sort of thing, and yes it did happen) and the play is already very morally ambigious at the outset anyway. As a boy reading the play in school I felt Shylock was royally shafted in the conclusion of the play.

He's already a sympathetic character to me because:-

1. His daughter runs off with one of Antonio's cronies, taking a lot of his cash and even pawning the family heirlooms. This suggests to me his initial proposal of taking Antonio's pound of flesh was more a whimsy - perhaps he was building bridges with an interest free loan, but after this violation of his trust (and daughter) he decides an Antonio steak would make a fine cold dish of vengeance.


2. The crowd at the court pretty much assumes Shylock will dismiss the debt.


3. The legal grounds for the debt being made illegal is that the contract does not mention any loss of blood. Umm... how else was he supposed to get it? Scraping off Antonio's feet for the next 10 years? Talk about setting a bad legal precedent - I expect a few people present at the court ran off and got some of these "no pay, no problem" pound of flesh loans. That's the kind of judicial logic I'd expect in the USA these days.


4. Once it is made clear Shylock cannot have his lb of flesh he is not allowed to choose the 6,000 ducats. Errr... what? Where was it mentioned this was the limited time offer.


5. And of course there's his forced conversion to Christianity, which plain sucks even if it was "good" in Shakespeare's day.


6. Antonio, the debtor, is rewarded for his failed high risk trading by taking half of his creditor's estate. Is that any way to reward poor financial acumen? This point is most disturbing because of the arbiter's credentials...


7. Anyone catch Bassanio and Antonio bribing the lawyers after the trial? They offered them the 6,000 ducats as a token of their gratitude. Fixed trial anyone?


8. These lawyers turned out to be women (which I'm guessing meant you couldn't be a judge in those days) so surely their rulings should be overturned?


9. Worse than that Bassanio is married to the judge, and it was Shylock's loan that allowed him the means to marry her. Can anyone smell a rat or is it just me?

Yours in a thoughtful mood, nit-picking Shakespare.