A titanic struggle

Omigod. Only three rehearsals left before Christmas, following another limp performance on Thursday, and then we'll start on the staging. With the parts all committed to memory, oh yes. Just as securely and reliably as HMRC's data protection policy.

Well, we've been here before. At this stage last year in Carmen, if anything, things were worse, but there's a LOT more music in Grimes, and it ain't the sort you can busk your way through. Will it still go ahead? Well, it has to, because Tim has signed away all of Goldsmiths' performance budget for the next ten years - no, actually it's more than fifty quid - on the notoriously pricey orchestral parts. So we're committed now.

Our performance is 'good in parts' now, but so was the Titanic's. We're also suffering from the prevailing absence of many principals from rehearsals: no Mario/Grimes yet, hardly any Hamish/Balstrode, only sometimes an Abi/Ellen. Not their fault, they have full time jobs - Mario is doing what surgeons do, ie wielding a knife and forceps on voodoo dolls of account managers; Abigail is a nurse, so is used to being surrounded by bewildered people who've just been told if they don't change their lifestyle they have six months to live. Not sure what Hamish does but it's something of good to the community and I suspect he works harder than John Arne Riise (the over-paid and over-here Liverpool footy player whose payslip famously appeared on the Internet recently) and for less money.

I've made all the rehearsals so far, but luckily I don't have to work. I am employed full-time at the British Library.*

And as for how well I'm doing, er, what's for dinner love, see England have dropped down the FIFA rankings, oh look, there's a fox over there.

Can't really say if I'm optimistic or pessimistic about the production so far. As Chou Enlai is supposed to have said in the 1950s when questioned about the effects on history of the French revolution, it's too early to tell. I feel like a seasick-prone passenger about to embark on a long sea voyage: we'll get there, it might just be a long, long slog with a lot of ups and downs.

Unless we go by that Antarctic cruise ship that sank after hitting the ice of course. At least everyone got rescued. But let's not mention the Titanic again.

*Joke