Gin. Again.

Regular readers of these pages will need no introduction to my favourite poison.

I'm not much of a gin expert, though.  To rectify this, one sweltering Sunday Alice and I went on a mission of gin-education.  We attended an event run by The Drinking Classes, called G and Teatime.

 

We weren't quite sure what to expect, but what we got was this:  We were greeted with a glass of an absolutely delicious punch, which had been made, bizarrely but to great effect, with chai tea.  Our host explained to us that proper punch has a specific ratio of sweet and sour. (Alice wrote it down, I was too busy drinking)

 

 

 

What followed was a history lesson about the origins and rise and fall of gin throughout the centuries, which came with some very interesting nuggets of info, such as how the phrase 'Dutch courage' came into being.  We were given samples of three different gins to taste (neat!!)  That was pretty painful (I love gin, but I like my G&Ts nice and tonic-y), but after the first sip has blown your head open, you can actually drink it much more easily and discern the different flavours. 

 

 

 

We drank tiny gin martinis, designed our own G&Ts (I put apple and mint in mine - delicious!) and ate sandwiches and cakes from the afternoon tea cake stands.

 

 

 

Afterwards, we wobbled home, not really drunk but feeling very relaxed, sun-drenched and happy, and neither of us went to our rehearsals that night!

 

 

Mother's Ruin

Eh up.

In the absence of anything noteworthy appearing on these pages (in the absence of anything noteworthy appearing in my life), here is a photograph that I snapped because I was wearing an idiotic hair ribbon.

Don't bother with poisoned apples; Snow White likes GIN.

But I have decided instead to turn this toast post into an homage to one of my favourite Christmas presents.

Photographed hanging out with its pal, Gordon, here is a vintage china decanter label, which was given to my auntie for her 21st birthday, and now resides on a chain around my neck.

It's Saturday night, why stop at one?  Bottoms up!

 

Always drink responsibly, kids.

 

My Glamorous Showbiz Life

Viewers, I don't underbloodystand Instagram.

So, most of these photographs are uplopaded from my new telephone the old-fashioned way, with a USB cable.  I lose at the future.

1. Self, in coral.  I like coral these days.  If I were a proper fashion blogger I might do a Polyvore-heavy post about coral, but in reality I'm useless and lazy so I won't.
2. An E-NOR-MOUS apple cake.  The heaviest thing I've ever baked!
3.  Bicycle sporting this season's on-trend florals.
4.  Simon beat me at Scrabble, and I wasn't pleased.

5. The view from my chair in the staff room. First photo on new telephone.
6. A little plastic swallow swooping in my hair.
7. Actual arty-farty hipster Instagram picture!!
8. Gin and tonic inna can.

 
Maybe by my next boring, information-less blog post I will have learned how to use instagram, and then my snapshots will be prettier.  Here are some more scenic photos, showing my fun weekend in York.  I went down on the Friday night train with Matt, Laura and Phil, to catch the opening night of The Merry Wives of Windsor, performed al fresco in the park, and starring our very own Kayleigh. 

Ok, I've just checked, and I didn't actually take any nice photos.  Instead, here are a pair of snaps of us in the audience (bonus Pimms-in-shoes, if you look hard enough), followed by an arty-farty blogger picture of some spices in a spices shop the following day.

Here are three questions that have been plaguing me lately.  All to do with high-street brands, as it happens - perhaps I should post them on Twitter instead and get sent e-vouchers and freebies in return...?

1.  Why are my two different shades of @MaxFactor Colour Adapt foundation such completely different textures?  One is thick liquid, the other a mousse...

2.  My pretty @Clarksshoes Henderson Sky brogues are beginning to fade.  Where can one obtain hyacinth blue shoe polish??

3.  Are @Aussie_Hair_UK shampoos notorious for stripping colour?  I noticed the bubbles coming off my head were grey (shamp is yellowy out of the bottle), and it's a good few weeks since I last dyed my hair...

Get in touch if you know any of the answers!

This is what Half-Terms are for.

How I Spent My Half-Term Holiday

by Bette, aged 25 and a quarter

Friday

On Friday afternoon I skipped away from school, changed my clothes and ate some toast, and drove with Philip and Simon to Sunderland, whereupon I put on a pretty mediaeval frock and a pointy hat and took to the stage as Lady Angela in Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience.  I felt that Friday was the best night of the run, and it all went splendidly.  After the curtain fell I retired to the pub, as is traditional.

Saturday

A long-awaited lie-in, some house-cleaning and soon it was time to go back to Sunderland for the fifth and final performance of Patience.  Laura said to me, as we were sipping our secret backstage fizzy wine, "If you cry tonight, I'll punch you in the face.", so I kept the weeping at bay, and after we had performed the house down, packed up our costumes, taken down the set ("Heads on stage!") and enjoyed tea, cake and speeches, we tootled off to Laura's flat for wine and karaoke. (You haven't heard 'A Whole New World' until you've heard it in Mackem accents), finally flopping into bed sometime in the morning.

Bloody brilliant.  Thanks for having me, St Andrews.

Sunday

Far earlier than my aching head would have preferred, Phil and I carefully on tiptoe stole out of the flat, leaving Jen, Seann and Laura sleeping, and returned to our side of the river.  I put down my Patience costume bag, picked up my Pirates costume bag and headed out for a looong rehearsal.  Not gonna lie, at that point performing in Pirates was the last thing I wanted to do.  In fact, Phil and I were secretly planning to just do Patience again.  I mean, once we were on stage they couldn't stop us, could they?  Surprise!  Anyway, after a somewhat chaotic run-through, I returned home and played host to the mother and the aunt, who have come North to see my shows.

Monday
The first and only day of the fortnight that did not involve any sort of rehearsal or performance.  The mother and aunt and I went to Fenwicks and the Tyneside and the Laing art gallery and the Baltic (to be perfectly honest I mutinied and stayed in the Baltic gift shop and cafe), and narrowly avoided the Biscuit Factory, and then back to the Tyneside to see the Artist and then to Zizzi's.  Calzon'Pizza (Silly name.  I would have called it a Pizzazone.) is possibly the greatest invention of the century.

Tuesday

I couldn't cope with any more culture, so I waved the mother and aunt off to Durham and Simon and I sat around watching useless rubbish, which is what, I think you'll find, half-terms are FOR.  Soon it was rehearsal time again, only this time we had Pub Plans.  (Pubs are also what half-terms are for.) After a fairly successful run-through, Simon and I marched over to the Men's Bar (which, in the new refurbished Union Society Students' Union, goes by the silly name 'MENSBAR'.  Probably 'MENSBAR @ Students' Union.  Why do so many things have silly names nowadays?) for Diesel and crisps.  When they called last orders we convinced our GBFs Phil and Chris to come to the Goose for some more drinks and gossip, and when we got kicked out of there we went to some bar until actual last last orders (FYI, blackcurrant sours (or 'sars', if you're Northern Irish) enrich our lives.) THEN a dirty takeaway and then home, for pyjamas, tea and after-show party mischief plotting.

As far as chronology is concerned, this photograph is a lie, but it sums us up pretty well.

Wednesday

I was up and at 'em on Wednesday, despite Tuesday night's over-indulgence, with a trek into town on the hunt for various bits and bobs and secret birthday accessories.  Mission.  All day it seemed completely improbable that it was dress rehearsal day, but nonetheless, I rocked up at the RGS at 6, installed myself as chief make-up Nazi artist ("No no, singing men, you need LASHINGS more eyeliner.") and then boom, we were on!  Dress rehearsals are always a bit hectic, but this one was relatively successful, and I enjoyed the beginning of my stint as naughty Isabel! And then we went to the pub.  And then pyjamas, tea and Big Fat Gypsy Weddings.

Thursday

I decided that the thing my Isabel costume was missing was a large hair ribbon, because nobody else had a hair ribbon and I like to make the audience look at me even when it's not my turn for the limelight (I am a total bastard to direct, and Simon is worse.  I pity anyone who has ever had to direct the both of us.), so I went and purchased myself a bonny blue ribbon, and, more excitingly, welcomed off the train my dear chum and partner in mischief Little Hannah, who comes to live with us a couple of times per year.  Hannah had brought a bottle of home-made sloe gin and Alice brought maple syrup and pecan cakes, and we celebrated Hannah's birthday most satisfactorily!  Then it was Opening Night!  The mother and aunt had returned to be in the audience, and we put on a jolly good show.  I was rubbish and kept doing things wrong (AND the poxy hair ribbon fell off, which I suppose was my comeuppance for being a diva), but on the whole it was grand.  And then we went to the pub. And THEN the core cool people decided that after last orders it would be a brilliant idea to all pile into Laura's little car and decamp to Casa Bette/Simon (via the chip shop, which had technically closed half an hour earlier - it was a case of "What have you got left?" "Two portions of chips and a sausage." "We'll take them!") to drink wine and watch the DVD of our last performance, HMS Pinafore: The War Years: Buxton Edition .  Hannah fell asleep on the sofa but the rest of us had a splendid time, and accidently stayed up until ridiculous o'clock again.  What half-terms are for.

Naughty Isabel terrifying poor little Frederic.

Friday



We languished in bed with sore heads for a while, and then sent Little Hannah out for sausage sandwiches.  We caught up with some more trashy tv (Geordie Shore AND Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents!) and then headed off to a(nother) pub to meet Rory and Hull people, before returning to Pirateville.  The second night's performance went much better than the first, and afterwards we went to the pub.  At last orders time some tipsy idiot (Simon) had the brainwave of going round the corner to Mr Lynch's for cocktails.  Whoops, another very late night and sore head!

Saturday
Too lazy to go out and find actual food, we had birthday cake for breakfast, and managed to bring ourselves to life just in time to attend the 60th Anniversary Reunion celebration for members and alumni (I sneakily manage to be both!) of Newcastle University Gilbert and Sullivan Society, my beloved NUGSS.  It was fascinating to meet people who had been in the society in the '50s, '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s and '00s, and you can imagine my glee at the moment when the whole room became an impromptu Pirates singalong.  Tarantara! 
After a quick shopping trip for after-show party supplies (bread, bacon, birthday badges) and a very quick turnaround, it was back to Jesmond for the final performance.  Three shows always seems such a flash-in-the-pan, especially after my five-night run of Patience.  Still, "Nothing lasts forever in the theatre.  Whatever it is, it's here, it flares up, burns hot, and then it's gone."  (All About Eve, the film version of my life)  Surpise pirate candles, handkerchiefs and Queen Victorias abounded, and we had the best audience of the week.  While the more conscientious members of the cast helped with the get-out, Simon and I went to the pub.  After last orders, it was party time!  Every NUGSS after-show party I've been to (Twelve, in all) has gone down in society history for some reason or other, and while this one may not have been the most scandal-filled, we all had a blooming good time.  I fell back on my usual after-show party routine of drinking gin, demanding everyone tell me who they fancy in the cast, and flirting with any passing baritone, while Simon licked people's faces and talked about our fellow cast members in code.  We hi-jacked the party and made everyone celebrate Simon's birthday, and bundled our blotto selves into a taxicab at 4.30, and retired.



Sunday

Sunday was spent, in time-honoured tradition, on the sofa in our pyjamas, watching Facebook explode with show photos.  Poor Simon slept through most of his birthday, I spent a great deal of it worrying about my lost phone and purse, and we had to say goodbye to Laura and our little housemate Hannah.  The idea was an early night, but post-show bereavement gives me insomnia, and it was after relatively little sleep that I dragged my despairing self out of bed, into clothes and up the hill to work this morning.  That's that, then.

Boring Outfit Post. Yawn.

 

Morning, campers! (Two minutes to twelve as I type this, technically still morning!)  Stresstastic week, bookended by bouts of impressive drunkenness.  Good start to September!

Oh Joy, Oh Rapture Unforeseen

This is a random moment of vanity depicting me doing my hair in my dressing room some time in 1946, because I can't think of a good opening sentence for this Toast Post.

I have been to Buxton.

Buxton is a beautiful town in Derbyshire (and I'm not really one for admiring natural scenery, but Buxton was incredibly pretty), famous for spring water and an annual Gilbert and Sullivan festival.  Just to warn you, this post will be about the latter, so fans of spring water may wish to leave now.

Have we just got G&S enthusiasts left in the room now?  Excellent.

I was there to perform a special edition of HMS Pinafore: The War Years, which we first put on back in May (Remember?)

You've seen my synopsis and pictures of the first show, so I'll not bore you with the same thing again.

(Lies - when have I ever neglected an opportunity to publish photographs of myself?  Pictures will be in abundance!)  We returned late on Thursday, and I spent Friday in a state of utter despondency, which got me thinking about the nature of pre-show excitement, post-show bereavement and everything in between.  I have never known any experience that is so much of an emotional rollercoaster as putting on a show.

G&S face interpretation of 'happy' and 'sad' :op

My chum Kayleigh always likens the post-show blues to a messy break-up.  The whole thing IS rather like a crazy whirlwind love affair.  You can't sleep, you can't eat (doesn't seem to stop me drinking though...), it occupies your thoughts so completely that you neither notice nor care that you haven't been anywhere but rehearsal, spoken to your other friends, cooked a meal or watched a minute of tv all week.  You delight in in-jokes, you sing in the street without a thought to how silly you look to those who don't understand, and even though you know, you know it's going to come to an end soon, on that awful morning when it's finally over, you desire nothing more than to hurl your poor, hungover, heartbroken self into the nearest river.

Drunk and grumpy, post-after-show-party

So why do we do it?  Why do we put ourselves through the grief, to say nothing of the pre-show stress and exhaustion, all for two hours in the limelight?  Because it's FUCKING BRILLIANT, that's why.

 

In the past week I've been recognised in the street by audience members (DEFINITE high point!), wept tears of frustration at my own persistent out-of-tunefulness (low point), been lifted up in the air like Buzz Lightyear, spent inordinate amounts of money in public houses, been on a cross-country road trip, drunk more cups of tea than I normally do in a month, lost half a stone, made wonderful new friends, been treated to charming stories about being catheterised, indulged my vanity by watching myself on tv twice, soothed ruffled feathers, had my own feathers ruffled, been bitten by the Buxton bug, laughed myself into coughing fits, killed a few brain cells with hairspray fumes, sung, danced, acted made faces to dialogue, had a wonderful time and took the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival BY STORM!

Bring on next year.

To Infinity and Beyond!

(Photographs stolen without asking first from the talented Liffy Wood.  Oh, and Matt.)

The intoxication of being a public spectacle

Lazy Sunday, still suffering the post-show blues, and nothing to do (except Mount St. Washing-Up, but the less said about that the better...) so I thought I'd amuse myself with a nostalgic retrospective of my six years in the Gilbert and Sullivan society.  This will be of interest to no-one, I'm sure, but I'll try and keep the cliquey anecdotes and plot summaries to a minimum!

2006 - The Gondoliers
The Gondoliers, like many G&S plotlines, involves secret love affairs and babies being mixed up at birth. Also kings, dukes, gondoliers, contadine and gratuitous bits of Italian lyrics.  I was a fresh-faced fresher and had never heard of Messrs Gilbert and Sullivan, had never sung in parts, couldn't read music and was generally bewildered throughout rehearsals.  Our production suffered a change of director mid-way through, we performed in a conference room with no stage, no lighting, no wings, no set and no dressing rooms, one of the leading ladies got pneumonia and couldn't go on, I mimed the whole way through and was too shy to squeak a word to any of the principals, and me and my fellow first-years had the time of our lives, became Gilbert and Sullivan geeks from that day on, and never looked back.

I'm on the end of the row, and I must have known the notes for that bit, or else I'm miming rather convincingly!

Here's a snap from my first G&S after-show party (also the first time I drank gin - another case of never looking back!).  The neighbours complained, the police threw us out at 5am, and I sobbed all the way home for reasons I no longer remember.  Good times!

2007 - The Sorcerer and Dracula Unhinged
Unsurprisingly, The Sorcerer's about a sorcerer.  Also disastrous love potions.  Very silly and lots of fun.  Onstage...

I am on the table in the middle, about to fall out of my top by the looks of it.

Offstage...

Slept on the party hostesses' living room floor that night, and three of us got a taxi home the following morning - looking like the above photograph.  I'll say this for stage make-up - you can pass out on the living room floor in it, and wake up looking more or less the same as you did 16 hours earlier, when the curtain first rose!

This was the year we began doing second shows in the summer term, and our first one was an original script and G&S songs with new lyrics.  It was about vampires, accountants, gravediggers and PhDs.  The chorus were zombie newspaper reporters.

With cat-like tread, beneath our graves we're found.  We're all quite dead, but still we move around.

Here I am, dancing at the after-party. Pretty dress (I still wear that from time to time!), chubby knees and totally demented hair!  Looking more like a zombie than I did on stage, actually!

2008 - The Mikado and Sherlock Holmes and the House of Almost Certain Death
Blah blah, usual G&S nonsense, but set in Japan this time.  If our society had a budget for costumes we may have worn kimonos.  But it hasn't, so we didn't.

I am kneeling, behind the Three Little Maids.

This after-show party was held at my house, as I was on the committee that year. (Fulfilling the role of totally inefficient Treasurer.)  Following tradition, we upset the neighbours (I don't understand why some people just don't appreciate acapella, top-of-our-voices drunk renditions of classic G&S choons in the small hours of the morning, I really don't...) and Mrs Nosy Next Door came and let herself into my house in her dressing gown and bedroom slippers to shout at me.  Whoops.

Our summer show that year was a new adventure for everybody's favourite consultant detective and his sidekick.  I played a jealous, broken-hearted housekeeper (with lines to say and songs to sing!), but there are no pictures of that, so here's a rehearsal snap of my Act Two cameo as a lady of ill-repute:

The Sherlock after-show party:

Bored, Simon?

2009 - Patience and How to Marry an Aristocrat

Patience.  Milkmaids, aesthetes and thwarted love affairs.  Here I am as Lady Saphir (demonstrating what Simon calls my Miss Babs face...)  Offstage, I am now a postgrad, but unprepared to bury myself in the library, talk about postmodernism and wear sweatshirts, as it seems is customary amongst some of the postgraduate section of the School of English.  I loathed my Masters Degree and lived for Tuesday night rehearsals and my theatrical pals.

Matt is amused by mine and Simon's camera faces.  I'll have you know that's the finest acting NUGSS has to offer, young man!

A few months later, in How to Marry an Aristocrat, I was Cacophony Hicksville, a brash, mercenary American heiress with a blonde wig, cowboy boots and an accent that kept flip-flopping between southern belle and gangster's moll.

I remember this as a pretty good cast party, but judging from this photo it must have been rather dull!

2010 - HMS Pinafore and A Tale of Liquor and Dice
It's 2010 and I'm a real grown-up with a job and lots of student debt, but still I cling on to my student days and G&S, because all the Gilbert and Sullivan alto parts are old ladies, and the only way a 23-year-old who still gets asked for ID in bars can get away with playing an old lady is in a student society where everybody else is nineteen...  HMS Pinafore is my favourite G&S operetta (the babies-mixed-up-at-birth plotline is back, you'll be pleased to note) and I played poor, crushed Cousin Hebe.

I love this picture from after the show.  No idea how I got my face to go like that.  I assume gin was involved.

The chap in the hat next to me in the Pinafore photo (my friend Matt, the only person other than me whose name appears on the cast lists for every single NUGSS show since we came to university!) wrote our next summer show, which was about gambling and gangsters in the 1920s.  Proving my earlier point about altos and old ladies, I played the role of Lily de Leazes, an elderly zoo owner, whose feckless son had gambled away her pride and joy.  Apparently one of my friends' parents, seeing me flitting around in the bar post-show, asked "Who's that? She wasn't in the show, was she?"  I enjoy how the real me is totally unrecognisable from my character!  To illustrate, here's demure, stately Lily: (vintage dress that used to belong to my great-great-aunt, vintage kid gloves, vintage shoes, and totally fake plastic pearls!)

And, er, showing my true colours a few hours later!

2011 - The Grand Duke

By popular opinion, our best production yet.  It's one of the lesser-performed shows (because its plot MAKES NO SENSE!) and not very famous, but I think because of that, everyone involved worked extra hard to make it funny and entertaining, and I think it turned out to be a real crowd-pleaser.  I hope everyone was very proud of their efforts.

Me being a bad-tempered costumier in Act Two - all my own clothes!

The after-show party was a hoot, as usual.  I'll spare you the photos of me getting progressively drunker and more embarrassing, but here's a nice one of me and my friend Hannah, another old-timer from the Gondoliers days.

My theatrical friends are the main reason I haven't yet managed to grow up and leave NUGSS.  The Gossip and Scandal society (or Gin and Sore heads society...) is the way we met and the glue that holds us together, spread all across the country as we are now - where would we be without the mischief and rumour-mongering that goes with putting on a show?  The actual performances are just an added bonus!

What's next?  Another production of HMS Pinafore, but set in the 1940s/WW2 this time (It's going to be SWELL, I can't wait!) in May, and after that, who knows?  I heard a whisper of The Pirates of Penzance...  Maybe soon I'll bite the bullet and join one of the other G&S societies in the area and leave NUGSS to the real students.  I suppose it's got to happen sooner or later, and my clinging on to my lost youth is getting a little bit ridiculous!  In the meantime, there's no business like show business!

(Anyone who is remotely interested in the things I have wittered on about today may visit the NUGSS website, since Matt spends so much time making it splendid!  I promise to be less geeky in future and post more pictures of clothes (Although - really the clothes pictured in this toast post are way more interesting than the usual day-to-day outfits that you guys flock (Yes. Flock. In hoardes.) to my blog to see!) Now, suppose I'd better go and scale that washing-up mountain I was talking about!)