Billy Elliot and the International Air Guitar Star

It's been a long time since I blogged. I'm a bad person.

I realised the other day that I don't know who won the the State of Origin. What a bad Australian. I better go find out.

Oh it was Queensland. Shame.

So I think I have to talk about the weekend. I can do that.

Friday

Jo and I headed into London. We're getting very good at all this train business. We pay through our noses and get to sit on an uncomfortable train for a while. Yay!

Anyway, we went to visit the TATE Modern which wasn't too bad. I'm getting better at the whole art thing this trip. There's lots of art that doesn't really excited me, like cubism, I skipped through that room pretty darn quick. But other things I liked. I enjoyed the Pop Art a bit, and the photography. I always like the photography. I'm so cultured now. I do art galleries.

We were going to go to the British Museum but we were stick of walking around big buildings and staring at things so we decided to give up. I went to the movies because I was craving movies. I saw an piece at the TATE that was a montage on four big screens of lots of different little bits from movies of people making music. It was pretty cool but it made me crave the cinema. So I went. So sat in a park I think.

I went and saw Thank You for Smoking at the Odeon in Leichester. The cinema was cool. It was skinny 4 level building with 5 skinny little theatres stacked on top of each other.

The movie was a bit of fun. Politically incorrect satire. Just me stuff.

After the movie I met Jo and we wandered down...

(I'm starting to get bored now, so if you're not reading this, I understand)
...to the Victoria Palace to see Billy Elliot the Musical. Apparently it's the musical to see in this town. And we had tickets, we're so special.

And it was pretty damn good. The kid who played Billy was fantastic. He could dance the socks off a dancing sock. He was great. It was worth seeing the show just for him. And the other kids were good too. The kids made the show.

Other than that it wasn't great. The whole musical bit, like the songs (music and lyrics) were rather forgettable. But that's no worries. You didn't really notice that.

If Billy comes to Australia go see it.

Saturday

Anne and I went to a big old house called Knole. It was big and old and full of old things and old people who would tell you about the old things. But it was fun.

Then we came home and sat around for a while, had dinner, then watch Billy Elliot on TV. Hooray! BBC 2 was having some kinda dance fever thing going so Billy the movie was on. I'm pretty much all Billyed up now.

Sunday

Went to church with Anne in the morning we did. She goes to a little local church in a big church building, with about 25 old people who sit near the back. There are usually more people there, but I was told not many people came that morning because the preacher is boring.

After the service we met some older men (one of whom was the preacher) who wanted to tell Jo and I jokes about Australians, New Zealanders and Jews. They weren't very funny, but we were polite enough to smile painfully.

One of the men also got on his hobby horse to talk about how terrible he feels that the colonies (Australia, New Zealand and Canada) have been left out of the EU. I can't say I'm too cut up about it myself, but I think he wanted to be able to eat New Zealand lamb.

We met a very fun Nigerian family there too. They had an eleven-year old daughter who I told about my connections to people on Home and Away and she got so excited she started fanning herself and said "Wait till I tell my friends!"

In the afternoon we went to the birthday party of some funny distant cousins who gave me Diet Coke and Mineral Water to drink. They were, well English. All the women sat inside and talked about wall paper, caravans and Cornwall and exclaimed "Marvelous" and "Delightful" about everything. The male host sat outside got a little bit sloshed and as he did he regaled the gathered guests with the wonders he discovered in Australia when he came to visit, namely drive through bottle shops and Leagues Clubs. Definitely the pride of Australia.

Once we escaped the clutches of these blood relations, we headed off to Watford to visit Soul Survivor.

Once we got to the station we caught a cab. We made the cab drop us at the top of the street, because me in my insecurity didn't want to be seen getting out of a cab out the front of the church because I thought people might judge me and laugh at me. You can never tell when these Christians are going to turn on you and attack you. And they're especially thingy about people and taxis. Better to be safe than sorry I say.

Church was good. I got to shake hands with the fellow Sydney-ites that were there. And it was good to sing songs that I knew rather than have to try and mumble out strange hymns which I have been doing for the past month.

When we walked in Mike was up the front saying "Hello" and my heart sank a bit. For some reason I thought Mike was going to be away. But he wasn't. Don't get me wrong. I love Mike, I just had the feeling that if Mike knew I was at his Church he might do something to me. A chance to embarrass Donny Jaffa on home territory. And, well, he did.

He asked if there were any visitors from far away. And well funnily enough there were. There was a guy from Nobbijukistan or something and some Australians in the corner, and "Oh my..is it?...It can't be...It's Donny Jaffa! I didn't know you were going to be here, come up the front."

So I had to go up the front and talk about what I was doing there (Tour of distant relatives), why is bacon a vegetable (Because I live with 5 vegetarians and I'm asserting my meat eating nature - that got a cheer) and what I do for a living (I'm a youth minister).

Then he said "Now something about you is that you're famous for playing the guitar aren't you?"

And so Mike got the band up and made me do an impromptu air guitar performance in front of the whole church.

He's a mean man. I had to jump around the stage and play the air guitar with my teeth, and I didn't even have my Donny suit. It was a difficult experience.

Afterwards Mike asked me if I knew Layton Hewitt to which I said "We had a falling out. I stole his girlfriend" and some how I managed to tell the whole church that I engaged in adultery with Bec Cartright be cause has kids and I like kids. It was a bad moment of being put on the spot and not having planned a joke out.

Oh well. I survived. I think Mike won that one though.

The rest of the service was good. It was like going to Soul Survivor only a little smaller. I liked it. I did enjoy being at church that felt like home.

Monday

Today Jo and I are spending our last here in London. We went to the British Museum. I thought it would be fun because it's famous, but it turned out to be a big building full of really old things. It wasn't all that interesting. But I probably needed to know my history a bit better to appreciate it. Oh well. At least I can say I've done it. And I liked seeing the Rosetta stone because at least I know what that is.

Jo is now wandering around markets and I'm at a internet cafe. Tomorrow we fly out at 6:30am. Hoi! It's going to hurt. Oh well.

Farewell fair England. You've been good.