Sorry, Jennifer, but making excuses for a bad performance, sick or not, is the height of amateurism. I get so turned off by it, in auditions particularly. You're supposed to be a professional; unless you're at death's door, the show must go on...People paid their money you're supposed to give them a performance, not an apology or an excuse. As Simon said last night, if they audience had paid to be there last night, they would have been cheated. If you're sick, if your performance was less than stellar because of it, keep it to yourself...nobody cares. I've gone out on stage before suffering colds, croaking with laryngitis...It doesn't matter. One of my most treasured theatrical memories was a school play outing, going to see Margaret O'Brien all grown up in
BAREFOOT IN THE PARK. It was obvious that the lady was suffering from a dreadful head cold, but she was out there onstage valiantly giving the audience the best performance she could muster under the circumstances.
My feeling is if you're too sick, don't perform; but if you're sick and you decide to perform, don't make excuses for your performances. Like John Wayne says in THE SEARCHERS: "Never apologize, mister, it's a sign of weakness." Of course, the girl last night wasn't even apologizing, she was just whining and feeling sorry for herself. Well, boo-hoo-hoo...
Ben, thanks for the Radio 3 link; it's now bookmarked with my favourites. I love the "listen again" feature on BBC, so you can hear these shows anytime you want.
Hyde Park's nice, but I'm a St. James Park, man, myself. A little smaller and just prettier what with Buckingham Palace in the background and the Horse Guard trooping by occasionally. Of course, it has always been the one I've been situated closest to. When I was first there in '82, doing my Sherlock films, they initially put me up in the Duke's Hotel, right between Picadilly and the Pall Mall. Then moved me over to a tower apartment on Buckingham Gate and Victoria. I could view the St. James Park and see the changing of the Guard at the Palace from my window. And every late night you'd hear the comforting sounds of the mounted police's horse clip-clopping on the cobblestone street below.
The lovely wife has an almost daily ritual of going to St. James to feed the ducks and squirrels. The squirrels, particularly. She's even gotten to know a couple of delightful old geezers who are expert squirrel-feeders and from them has learned the tricks of the trade as to what feed to get and how to get them to crawl right up your arm for it (the squirrels, not the geezers). We have more pictures of us, sitting on park benches with squirrels perched beside us or on our shoulders, eating nuts out of our hands. And, unlike LA squirrels, there's no possiblility of rabies.
We did take our skates one trip though and went roller-skating in Hyde Park along the Serpentine. Very nice.
RLP...you're not the only one who has done a trial run to figure out how to get someplace. I've been known to do it, especially when I know I'm going to have car full of people and concentration might be distracted.
I also agree with your comments on American Idol...footballer, even though not his best performances, was still heads and shoulders above most, if not all, last night. He was assured and confident and hit his notes. He just should have picked a better song. And, as I've said, Hawaiian girl a mystery...not a good performance.
I love both Brook Benton and Dinah Washington and love their two duets together, Baby, You've Got What It Takes and That's a Rocking Good Way where Brook goofs up and Dinah chastises him on the record. They were supposed to do a whole album together, but Dinah, who apparently was something of a crotchedy diva, was really pissed at Brook when he came in at the wrong spot and didn't have much tolerance for him and Brook was intimidated and didn't like being read the riot act by her. So I think on the album, they only sing four songs together and the rest are solos by one or the other. It is a disappointing album and it's shame. If they both had been a little more patient with one another, it might have been great. The song with the mistakes was released because they couldn't get the two back together to do it right. Apparently, Brook was upset the producer released it. Maybe the royalties mollified him later.
No one does September in the Rain better for me than Dinah. I also like This Bitter Earth. She also has a song on one of her early albums called Long John, which is one of the filthiest innuendo songs I've ever heard.
I love tons of Brook Benton...notably Shadrach, Fools Rush In, Kiddio, Walk On the Wild Side, A House is Not A Home, Rainy Night In Georgia.
On one of my Benton albums, I have an interesting cut of him doing a demo of the Clyde McPhatter hit, It's A Lover's Question...a song which Benton co-wrote.