British International Motor Show - Excel Centre

I've just had a lovely day out at the Motor Show - it only comes to the Excel

Centre in East London only two years. Now I'm not normally a fan of cars (or 'motors' as my Essex compatriots would say), but the Motor Show really is something else. I was entranced by the motor homes - vast houses on wheels, some costing more than my flat! I fell in love with the yachts and motor cruisers (the Excel is adjacent to the old Royal Albert Dock) and I was impressed by the commitment the motor trade seems to have developed to investigating the potential of alternative fuels. I'm not entirely certain that riding around with quantities of hydrogen gas in the boot will ever catch on - I have visions of that famous sequence featuring the destruction of The Hindenberg! There were so many prototypes and products in development on show that maybe there is a future for road transport when the oil runs out.
Despite not being a fan of vehicles this was a really great day out - everything well displayed, lots of activities, things to see and do, and I'd rate it 9/10 as an experience

The Proms - Number 16

The first of the Proms series of concerts I'd been to in years - the Royal Albert Hall was packed for this collection of popular classics - the first half British, the second German. The Halle Orchestra under the baton of Mark Elder were on good form beginning with a rare performance of Butterworth's orchestral rhapsody A Shropshire Lad. The work was introduced and ended with the poem by A E Housman that inspired this work by a composer who died in the First World War. Vaughan Williams' Eighth Symphony is full of soaring strings and bears all the trademarks of this craftsman of twentieth century music. Janine Jansen the Dutch violinist was excellent as the soloist in Bruch's Violin Concerto No 1. I know this is ever so romantic and regularly appears at the top of 'favourite music' charts - but there is a reason for that - it has the ability to move and push all the emotional buttons, especially when performed by a violinist of Ms Jansen's calibre - I feel the tears welling up at a particular point in the first movement when the strings are rushing headlong higher and higher, with the soloist soaring alongside and above them. The performance culminated with Richard Strauss' quirky Till Eulenspiegel - performed with excellent good humour by this first rate orchestra. The only drawback to the evening was the Royal Albert Hall's notorious echo - which detracted from the reading of Housman's poem using radio mikes. Concert rating: 8/10

A Midsummer Night's Dream

An open air production by the Chapterhouse Theatre Company. With actors taking on multiple roles they really played this for laughs. Shakespeare can be very dull and high brow but this was excellent - really going for the humour and entertaining an audience with lots of children.

Doing open air productions in the English summer is risky, and although it was cold it didn't rain. We were glad that this went at a realyy fast pace and kept us all entralled. The cast were all excellent and projected well so that all could be heard. Rating 8/10.