Had lunch at Brick Lane with Jacobie, Angus and Steve. Brick Lane is the Indian and Bangladeshi dining boulevard. Kind of like Chinatown, where you are invited/harassed into restaurants as you stroll down the street. We were shuffled into one and despite the surly waiter, had a yummy filling Indian feast.
As Brick Lane is in the 'real' London city, that is- the financial district, it was very close to Lawrence’s workplace at the Royal Bank of Scotland near Liverpool station, so we met briefly for a drink at a snazzy bar called Jamie’s.
In the evening, I saw a production of Athol Fugards “Sizwe Banzi is Dead” at the Barbican. This play is famous and has been touring with it’s original performer-creators for 20 years. Unfortunately I just missed that ‘original’ production in season at the National last month, but this was a version directed by Peter Brook in French language with projected subtitles. It was a beautifully simple show (as Brook is renowned for) and very moving. There was lots of humour despite the apartheid subject matter: Sizwe Banzi “dies” when he takes a identity pass with a permit to work in town from the body of a dead man in order that he can stay and work in the town to earn money for his family – he throws his own id away). I found moments a little slow in pace, and wondered if it was deliberate to assist with the subtitling. But the performers were quite extraordinary – very detailed and very refined at the same time. Highly physical and expressive. Magnificently observed characterizations. Of course, now I’m longing to see the original version.

Friday night in London! I met up with Jacobie and friends at the groovy Alphabet bar in Soho. Apparently there is a map of London painted on the bar floor, but I only read of this after, and had neglected to look down while I was there. When it closed –at only 11pm!!- we moved on to the immense waiting queue for Fabric nightclub. Never before have I seen such a line, not even for a rave at the showgrounds in Brisbane. It was even segmented off so that cars could still turn down streets that passed through the waiting throngs (of teenagers mostly). It was a freezing windy night. Somehow Steve wheeled and dealed and we got to jump the queue, the lady on door-duty making a significant profit on our ticket price. I won’t reveal how much we paid to get in in Australian dollars as it is embarrassingly excessive. The club was huge and the music quite good, lots of drum and bass rooms, but very crowded and smoky. We had a great boogie nevertheless, the highlight being several drum and bass remixes of ACDC, and I arrived home at 2pm to be greeted by my concerned big brother bearing freshly cooked haloumi. Odd. But somehow perfect.