Quick Quintet: You Make Me Feel Like Dancing

There is a lot of music that I love and a lot of bands that have shaped my life. We all have an inner soundtrack and The Jam, The Pogues, The Smiths, The Damned, The Cure, Pulp, Blur and Oasis all feature highly on mine. 

You know how it is - there are certain songs that no matter where you are or what you're doing, or how tired you are, you just have to get up and dance. They may not even be your favourites, but they have a certain rhythm or connotations that cannot be ignored. I blame other people for most of them...

5 Songs I Have to Dance to:

1. Debaser - The Pixies; Manchester Academy and anywhere in Manchester when I was a student with the Essex Girl - those were the days, my friend...
2. Baggy Trousers - Madness; doesn't everyone our age? It's guaranteed to turn any do into a flashback to the primary school disco
3. Groove is in the Heart - Deee-Lite; Thermal Girl is entirely to blame for this one
4. White Riot - The Clash; not played very often, but for years this was my Friday-night-going-out-song. It's fast, furious, frenetic and gets me every time
5. Sweet Child O' Mine - Guns N' Roses; partly the fault of Our Man in London, I remember a particular gig in 1987, and it fires up my inner rock-chick

Quick Quintet: books

I've been very busy recently with various shows, but always manage to squeeze some time in for reading. Some of it is decent (what I believe is called) literary fiction, and some of it is light relief:

5 Most Recent Books Read:

1. Dolci de Love - Sarah-Kate Lynch
2. The Cat's Table - Michael Ondaatje
3. Painting Ruby Tuesday - Jane Yardley
4. The Imperfectionists - Tom Rachman
5. On Canaan's Side - Sebastian Barry

Quick Quintet: Jewellery

Collectors, screen buffs and jewellery lovers were all of a flutter recently when it was revealed that Elizabeth Taylor's magnificent jewellery collection was going to be sold at auction in New York by Christie's in December (what a lot of prepositions in that sentence - does that make it preposterous?).

She was certainly a beautiful woman (who incidentally reminds me of my mother in some shots) and she wore it well. The collection consists of 300 pieces (many of them amassed from the multiple marriages, including two-time husband Richard Burton) and is valued at approx USD 30 million. Naturally I have nothing like that, but we all have little bits of 'bling' that are important to us. Here are some of mine:

5 Favourite Pieces of Jewellery:

1. My wedding ring - obviously - designed by local jeweller Juerg P Muff and incorporating gold washed down from the hills in the floods of 1999, which left us homeless
2. A rose gold charm bracelet, made from the chain of my grandfather's fob-watch
3. A greenstone triple twist bought for me by Him Outdoors - greenstone can only traditionally be worn if given to you by someone else, and the triple twist represents, 'the joining together of two people, two peoples, two cultures for eternity even though they experience highs and lows of life they remain bonded by friendship and loyalty for life' - so that seems just about perfect then
4. A cute black dolphin with diamante eye necklace brought back from Fiji by a friend
5. A garnet and opal nose stud bought as a replacement for the one lost at the Leeds Festival while watching Chumbawamba

Quick Quintet: Morning routine

Because I am a creature of habit, and I am not particularly good in the mornings, I have a checklist of things that I do each morning before I leave the house. It includes, but is certainly not limited to:

5 Things I Do Every Morning:

1. Get up
2. Brush my teeth
3. Make the bed
4. Have a cup of tea
5. Feed the cat

Look-i-like-i: Martin Johnson/ Sam the Eagle

I actually find Martin Johnson curiously attractive, which is particularly inexplicable considering he looks a bit like a muppet.

Martin Johnson

Sam the Eagle

Introducing the Quick Quintet

I thought I would kick off the month with the 'Quick Qunitet' - it's basically a list (how strange for a Libran to come up with a list!) of five things on whatever random topic I happen to be musing. I'll try and post one a day and I invite you all to join in - answer the question in the comments.

Five Sounds That Make Me Happy:

1. Pop, glug glug - the first pour of a good wine (or beer) on a Friday evening
2. The Kop Choir in full voice singing 'You'll Never Walk Alone'
3. My cat purring in contentment
4. Birdsong - specifically the wood pigeons or whatever they are that roost in my parents' garden
5. Someone saying 'I love you' and meaning it

I welcome your suggestions for topics. There's been a lot of bad news and negativity around recently, so let's stay away from the bad stuff!

When communication counts

One of the things I enjoy about theatre and performing or directing is the way all the elements come together. Sometimes these blend almost seamlessly, and at other times they are more awkward.

We are currently in 'black week' for the Alexandra Musical Society's production of The Full Monty. This is the term given to the week before the performance where the actors, having been the focus for the past three months of rehearsal, are no longer centre-stage. Instead the director turns his or her attention to aspects of sound, lighting, cotumes, hair and make-up, the band and traffic.

This show uses 'trucks' or set pieces on wheels which must be rolled into position and then removed from stage for various scenes. We have to negotiate urinals, pianos, police sergeant's desks, sofas and coffins: the stage-crew are busy. There are very quick changes: the costume department are very busy. Microphones have to be attached and removed in a rapid time-frame; meanwhile lighting and sound cues are crucial to the actors and the band.

It's all coming together and it will be a wonderful show. Many people are learning a lot and learning it fast. Our director, Bryan Aitken, is a good teacher - he spells things out clearly and concisely. The most important lesson he teaches is, "It's not just about you. Make sure you communicate". The stage manager calls the show - he or she makes sure that the actors are ready; the sound and lighting technicians know when their cues are; the band are tuned up and focussed in the pit.

No one component can start without the other. It is a giant dramatic jigsaw puzzle and each piece fits in exactly the right place - if it doesn't, then the picture will be subtly (or radically) altered. Clear forms of communication are necessary between departments, which may mean that not everybody has to pipe up at the same time and create a chaotic cacophony.

Meanwhile the rest of the nation is embroiled in the throes of the Rugby World Cup. The media here is still harping on about the mess of the 'party central' when lots more inebriated rugby fans, and other folk, turned up to the Auckland waterfront than were expected so all public transport was thrown into turmoil, even though this was routinely advertised as 'the place to be'.

Ignoring the sideshow, the players have been out and about mingling with the public and attempting to foster good PR networks. You may have noticed that I went along to meet some of the England team when they visited the local school. Other team members (including top trump Jonny Wilkinson) went to Wakatipu High School for a skills sessionwith the young players.

Asked for advice, Jonny Wilkinson (OBE) said the most important aspect of any team sport was to communicate clearly with your team so everyone was aware of what the others were doing all the time. It's all very well to be the Flash Harry, but for the sake of cohesive teamwork and ensemble performance, it's better to be Johnny-on-the-spot.