A Tale of Two Cities and Tea-Towels

Finally did many months of ironing while listening to Sir John Gielgud reading an adaptation of "A Tale of Two Cities", somewhat oddly abridged to fit on two cassettes; much of it was done in great detail, but almost all the events between Darnay's return to France and his condemnation were omitted, of which the most obvious excision was not only Doctor Manette's initial intervention but the entirety of his backstory as revealed at that point, so that we never find out why he was in the Bastille in the first place or why Madame Defarge is so determined on the deaths of Darnay and his whole family! ( Read more... )

The (boiled, ironed and folded) tea-towels will have to take the place of the erstwhile ironing pile, I think, in order to prevent further occurrences of mould. ( Read more... )

Orchestral Phantom

Watch on YouTube

Phantom of the Opera as a 'Symphonic suite' (and not the same as the orchestra arrangement we played).
It's interesting listening to the bits that are *not* the melodies to see what has been added...

But I can't help noting that thanks to the lighting choices the entire orchestra appears to be ginger-haired ;-p