Swan Lake - Bolshoi Ballet

I had bought tickets to take my mom to Swan Lake, by the Bolshoi Theatre ballet. The famous Russian ballet troupe was in Amsterdam for the first time in 22 years and we decided to see Tchaikovski's Swan Lake. Unfortunately my mom called to inform me she had the flu so I had to find someone to replace her and to not let the (very expensive) ticket go to waste. RE was happy to take my mom's place and I must say the ballet was very, very nice. The technics of some of the dancers are just incredible, they seem to be able to float in the air. I was also looking at the faces of the dancers, some were visibly stressed while others were able to keep a smile on their faces throughout the performance. RE and I agreed that most of the dancers are not very cute - there is something non-attractive about (many) Russian men. After the ballet we went to Soho where we met MA and had too many beers in a too short time.

So where are you all from?

This blog gets readers from all over the world, it seems.

Inflation worries

All over the world, people are worried about rising prices and life getting more expensive rapidly. Here in the Netherlands, we are still lucky with the lowest inflation in the euro zone (2.3%), but if you live in the USA (5%), or Singapore (7.5%) things are already worse. Just be happy that you don't live in Zimbabwe, where inflation is 2.2.......million %.

Why don't Singaporeans produce children?

A series of public consultation sessions in Singapore has shown that barriers to marriage and parenthood include difficulty in finding suitable partners, owning a home, financial security, work-life balance, and childcare arrangements. Duh. I could have told them. But they forgot the main reason: there are more gay men in Singapore than anywhere else. I don't know why. Maybe because forbidden fruits always taste better?

Real and imaginary crimes

I was reading my book tonight which is about identity theft and terrorism, and was wondering how it would be if someone stole my identity, committed crimes as "me", and basically ruined my life posing as my alter ego. The book seems to suggest that there is almost no defence against identity theft, but the book is only an imaginary story, right?
I heard my Blackberry beep and read an e-mail informing me that two of my colleagues who are on a business trip somewhere in the former Soviet Union have been attacked and are in hospital with serious injuries. Apparently, two guys tried to run them over with a car, and when they failed they got out of their car and started beating them up. My colleagues managed to escape, ran into a police station where they were questioned for two hours while the police refused to call a doctor! The wild East, indeed.

Turkish pizza with shoarma

As it was such a nice evening last night, I decided to honour the happy hour at Soho with my presence. I was the first of our gang to arrive around 7pm, and was surprised to see how crowded it was. Hardly anyone was inside, instead everybody was on the street blocking passage for the few innocent tourists. Soon most of the gang arrived and the evening was merry, gay and happy. After a beer or 6 and half a joint, MA, WI, FR and I crossed the street to eat the best food in the world: Turkish pizza with shoarma. With garlic and spicy sauce. Comfort food for the party crowd. After the food we had more beers and I somehow managed to bike home. One of these days I will be stopped by police for drunk biking.

La Noche de los Girasoles

It was a quiet weekend. I guess I was still very tired from last week (three nights almost without sleep), so when the gang texted yesterday if I was coming out I replied "no, too tired", to which the predictable reply was "old man". Instead, I worked in the garden and read my very good novel / thriller "Cel" by Dutch author Charles den Tex. And today went to an art cinema to watch "La Noche de los Girasoles" (The Night of the Sunflowers), a Spanish thriller, telling the story of the tragic aftermath of an attack on a woman, and set against the backdrop of a dying, depopulated rural town. In the opening episode a vacuum cleaner salesman (sublimely creepy Manuel Moron) rapes Gabi (Judith Diakhate) in an isolated wooded spot as she awaits the arrival of husband Esteban (Carmelo Gomez) and his assistant Pedro (yummie Mariano Alameda), who have traveled to the area to investigate the discovery of a new cave.
Infuriated upon finding Gabi in a state of shock, Esteban and Pedro go in search of the rapist, whom the hysterical Gabi misidentifies as Cecilio (Cesareo Estebanez), one of the two inhabitants of a nearby almost-abandoned village. In a drawn-out scene, Cecilio is accidentally killed.
Tomas (Vicente Romero) is a young civil guard working under Amadeo (Celso Bugallo), to whose daughter Raquel (Nuria Mencia) he is engaged. Desperate to escape the rural future that awaits him, Tomas sees the arrival of the three panicking outsiders as an opportunity. Why deliver justice, he wonders, if nobody is seeking it? But Amadeo smells a rat, and dedicates much of the remainder of the film to unearthing the awful truth.
A good and entertaining movie.