Back from Olympus

In this entry, I was going to try and sum up the last six days. The silly voices. The antics in the pool. The hysterical trip to the bazouki bar/brothel. The joy of performing Greek tragedy in a 2,000-year-old amphitheatre overlooking a moonlit sea.


Then I realised that anything I wrote would be insufficient to describe the Dionysiac pleasures of spending a week doing a great play in sunny Cyprus with a bunch of brilliant, hilarious, like-minded people.


We had fun. Let's leave it at that.

3.8.04 12:30


Smut

While I was over in Cyprus (did I mention that I've been in Cyprus?), Trilby texted to say that he was missing me. This sparked off what turned out to be a very saucy flurry of texts. And when I got back to London at 11pm yesterday he came straight over, bringing me a gift of a pair of lace-top stockings.


He's definitely keen. And pretty damn dirty, too.


Keen and dirty.


Hee hee.


Perfect.


 

3.8.04 13:51


Work ain't so bad

One of the programmers has just breezed past me, pausing only momentarily to deposit an entirely unsought-for but very welcome orange Calippo on my desk.


Bless his cotton-polyester mix socks.

3.8.04 16:16


Would that I were in Cyprus, island of Aphrodite...

This is the Thiasos gang on the steps of the ancient Odeon in Paphos. Can you tell that we're having a nice time?



Back row (left to right)


Sao (Wardrobe Mistress and perpetually worried tiny Portuguese lady); Pete (stage manager, smoker of vile roll-ups, can't swim, dropped his shorts at the cast before we started on the first night); Mick and Jo (lighting bods, married and merged into a single entity); Neil (the louchest man on the planet and heir apparent to Richard E Grant); Lynsey (flautist extraordinaire; burnt to a crisp on the first day and peeled every day thereafter). 


Middle row (left to right)


Sam Peter (also known as The Idiot Child); Fiona (comes from Holland, sounds like a Yank, swears like a trooper); Annette (hippy, always going to the toilet); Chris (the quintessential English gent, perfected the Panama doff); Larry (known to 20six as Geekboy, kept trying to undo the girls' bikini tops).


Front row (left to right)


Elia (flexible Spaniard with an extremely filthy laugh); Branwell (sexy beefcake Irishman - see entries passim); Simon (intense and bald - are the two linked?); Evie (the Flatmate, lost her voice from too much squealing when jumping waves in the sea); Yana (also known as Mother Kybele. The producer, artistic director and the reason we were all there); YAAGers (looking quite glamorous, even if I do say so myself); Glen (choreographer, and contender for the title of Loveliest Man on the Planet); Dan (tiny Israeli who cannot stop talking. Ever); The Lovely Laura (beyootiful laydee).


A nicer bunch of people you couldn't hope to meet.

4.8.04 11:07


Bad Ideas Of Our Time #14

Standing in the middle of the road clapping your hands with glee as lightning splits the sky directly over your head.


 


Thunderstorms bring out a real deathwish in me.

4.8.04 11:31


Brazil via Shoreditch

There's something about sashaying down a sun-drenched Old Street in mini-skirt and wedge sandals, being wolf-whistled by passing white van drivers, that makes me feel like the Girl from Ipenema.


Tall [in relation to an Oompa-Loompa, that is] and tanned [hell, yeah!] and young [well, young-ish]and lovely [*ahem*], the girl from Clerkenwell Towers goes walking...

4.8.04 17:42


Excuses

I have weak ankles. They are always giving way at inopportune moments, catapulting me headfirst into bushes, other people or (as in Cyprus) the sea.


I managed to do the play in Cyprus with the help of a lot of medical tape, one very tight bandage and a couple of ridiculously strong Ibuprofen. But now I'm back in the Smoke and don't have to worry about doing an energetic dance show, I'm not taking such good care of myself.


Last night was a case in point. I went to the opening of my friend Lelo's shop, Ziriguidum. It's an oasis of all things Brazilian in the middle of Camden Lock Market. To celebrate the opening, he'd arranged what turned out to be a pretty big party, with lots of cocktails and a kick-ass samba band. I figured I should get a bit dressed up for the occasion. So I'm wearing skirt and high wedge heels, shaking my funky thing to the samba beats, when I notice that my ankle has swelled to double its size.


YAAGers: Oh crap. I think my ankle is going to burst.


The high wedge heels come off pretty sharpish. My ankle balloons alarmingly. There is no way that I'm going to be able to wear my shoes again that night. How in the name of am I going to get home? If only I'd brought some flip-flops with me...


 


Which is all a long-winded way of explaining why I am now the proud owner of yet another pair of Havaianas.



My ankles are weak, and so am I...

6.8.04 11:24


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