Hawaiian Entertainment

Here's something to remind people of sunshine and palm trees in a wet and windy Welsh February.
Haydloniant's latest show features the Hula Bluebirds, men in Hawaiian shirts with leis round their necks, playing ukulele and guitar and songs like Honolulu Baby and The Hawaiian War Chant. There will also be balloon modelling and cabaret magic. It sounds like a show on a cruise ship! There's also a bar, and the Parish Hall has disabled access.
The show is at the Parish Hall on Saturday 1st February at 7.30pm.
Tickets are £8 with £5 concessions, and can be obtained from Eighteen Rabbits and Green Ink Booksellers.

It's completely different from the last Haydloniant show I went to, which featured madrigals and harpsichord!

Lightbulbs are Really Interesting

If I was asked to imagine a title for the most boring talk ever, I might possibly suggest a talk about lightbulbs.
This was the subject of this month's Science Café - and it was actually fascinating.
There was a lot of interest in the subject - we only just fitted into the room next to the front door of the Swan, and we may re-locate to the bigger room at the back if there's as much interest in future talks.
The speaker was Barry, who is an electrical engineer, and his knowledge was broad. He started off with some background information before we got anywhere near lightbulbs, on the visible spectrum of light, and the wavelengths to either side of what we can see - down into infra-red and radio waves, and up through ultraviolet to X-rays and gamma rays.
There's a mast in Droitwich that transmits the BBC World Service all around the world! Mobile phones are higher up the wave-lengths, and typically need to be within 3 to 5 miles of a mast, and 5G will mean a phone has to be even closer to a mast, because of all the extra information the signals are carrying. There was enough interest, and enough information, for a whole talk on mobile phones, but after a short digression we were back on the track of light bulbs.
Incandescent bulbs have a tungsten filament inside, and at the moment there's a fashion for these to look quite "retro" - like the new lights in Kilverts that hang from little pulleys.
Eventually, though, the filaments evaporate, and a lightbulb was passed around that had black marks on the inside of the bulb where this had happened.
To increase efficiency, halogen bulbs were invented - the bulb is filled with a halogen gas, (the halogen family of elements is Fluorine, Chlorine, Bromine, Iodine). These re-deposit the tungsten on the filament, thus extending its life. Halogen bulbs are used for all sorts of purposes because they are cheap and reliable. They are also good because they provide a broad spectrum of light. The incandescent bulbs and LEDs fool our eyes into thinking they are shining with a white light, but its usually really blue and yellow with gaps in the spectrum.
Neither of these types of lightbulb are very efficient at producing light - it's about 2% light and 98% heat, which is why you get lightbulbs to keep eggs and chicks warm in poultry farming. There was also some discussion of car headlights and the shape of the beams - and why LED headlights can be so blinding!
LEDs are a completely different form of light source. They are made from a very pure crystal that does not occur in nature, and this is where we get into semi-conductor territory. The machines that make these crystals are immensely expensive, and only about half a dozen companies in the world can make them - then sending the crystals on to China to be assembled into the actual lights. Each light, though, only needs a tiny crystal, which needs to be embedded in plastic with wires added to it for the electrical current. He passed a box around with examples, some of which were like dust particles. He also passed around a long strip with LED lights every inch or so along it - each being a cluster of red, green and blue lights, so when they were all on together they produced white light, and then each colour could be switched on individually to make red, green or blue light. I liked that bit - the colours were pretty.
The name stands for Light Emitting Diodes, and they are very energy efficient and very long lasting. However, Barry said that when councils started replacing their street lights with LEDs en masse, this was a mistake, because they were not quite as efficient as the manufacturers claimed - they are improving all the time, though.
One chap in the audience was particularly interested in the best light for use in photography - and such a light does not exist commercially, though Barry brought along one he had made himself. He also demonstrated, with some clever equipment, how lights switch themselves on and off too fast for the eye to see, because of Alternating Current in the electricity supply. However, we are subconsciously aware of it, which is why some people are sensitive to fluorescent lights and get headaches.
It was an excellent talk, and I really enjoyed it - and I learned a lot!

The next Science Café is on Monday 24th February, and is about Refrigeration and the Quest for Absolute Zero.

Stylish New Wardrobe, and Planting Trees

My Marks and Spencers radar was working well when I went round the charity clothes swap. I found a woollen sweater dress and a tunic top. I've also got a rather lovely Laura Ashley soft velvet jacket, and a green shirt.
Refreshments were also on offer, and the chocolate cake was awesome! I warned the girl who was serving that I was going to end up like a three year old, with chocolate plastered across my face, but I was actually fairly civilised, and used a fork.
There were flyers with information about the Size of Herefordshire charity. This winter they are asking people to sponsor a tree. They are planting a three acre woodland in Herefordshire, and each tree can be sponsored for £20. £15 of that goes to the area of the Peruvian Amazon that they are protecting, the rest being for planting the sapling and maintaining it. Sponsors also get a limited edition, named certificate designed by a local artist.

Real Ale Vouchers

My membership renewal for CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale, came through the other day.
For the past few years, included in the package have been a number of vouchers that give a discount in Wetherspoons. I haven't been using them, because I refuse to set foot in Wetherspoons.
This year, though, the format has changed, and the vouchers can be used more widely.
I looked it up on the CAMRA website, and sadly, no pubs in Hay are included in the scheme - nor are they included in the discount scheme where you show your CAMRA membership card.
In Hereford, however, I can now use my vouchers at the Imperial in the middle of town. I sometimes go in there already for a swift half while I'm shopping, so I'll certainly be using my vouchers in there this year.
[Updated to add: I went into the Imperial with my beer vouchers the last time I was in Hereford, and none of the bar staff knew anything about the scheme - so I'll have to find somewhere else to use them]
On the edge of Hereford just outside the ring road the Beer in Hand is part of the membership card discount scheme, and I've occasionally been in there when I'm at that end of town.
If I ever go into Brecon, there are two pubs that take the vouchers. One is the George, sadly now a Wetherspoons, so I won't be going in there, and the other is the Wellington. However, a friend has suggested that the best pubs to try in Brecon are the Brecon Tap and the Sarah Siddons. I've been in the Brecon Tap before, and liked it, so I must try the Sarah Siddons on this recommendation next time I head for Brecon.

Glass Milk Bottles

I was pleased to see that Hay Wholefoods are now also selling glass milk bottles, which are returnable in the same way as the ones on sale at Pughs/Londis.

Hay in Bloom

Trudy Stedman has announced, over on the Hay Community Facebook page, and the Hay in Bloom Facebook page, that the Hay in Bloom group wants to take part in the Wales in Bloom competition this year. To that end, they are having a meeting in the downstairs room in the Council building on Wednesday 29th January, at 6pm.
The Hay in Bloom group has now merged with the Woodland Group, as many of their aims are similar, and they would welcome more volunteers.
Trudy stresses that all ages are welcome, and no previous gardening experience is required!

Charity Clothes Swap

A good opportunity to refresh one's wardrobe!
The idea is that you take along some clothes you don't want, and come away with some clothes that you do want!
This will be happening from 12noon to 3pm at the Parish Hall on Saturday 25th January. Entrance fee is £3, and the charity is The Size of Herefordshire, which is raising money to protect an area of Amazon rainforest the size of Herefordshire.
Tea, coffee and cake will also be available!

I have a couple of very 1970s angel sleeved blouses which I love, but which I can no longer quite fit into (I bought them originally from the vintage clothes stall in the Cheesemarket), so this seems like a good opportunity to find something different.

Science Cafe - Light and Cold for the New Year

The Science Café will be meeting on Monday 27th January at 7pm at the Swan. Admission is free. Barry Dawson will be Shining a Light on LEDs and talking about how to choose the best lightbulb - practical science!
And on Monday February 24th John Tyler will be talking about refrigeration and the quest to reach absolute zero.

Refugee Day at Hay School

Hay School is hosting another Refugee Day on Sunday 26th January. Anyone who would like to pop in to say hello will be welcome from 11am to 3.30pm.
There will be lantern making workshops and sewing activities for the children, and the community and school choir will be singing in the afternoon.
If anyone would like to donate fruit, cake or biscuits, they will be gratefully received!

Owls and Flowers

It's not a very good picture, but here are the two new owl sculptures along the Riverside Path, along with the pigeon and sparrowhawk that were installed fairly recently.
Meanwhile down by the church, I came across this mass of winter heliotrope:

The End of the Hedge

The Hedge is a small, occasional local magazine which has been around for five years now. I hadn't realised it had been so long, and I usually pick up a copy when I see one, usually from the Wholefood shop.
The idea behind the magazine was to share ideas and encourage co-operation and regeneration in response to the ecological and climate crisis. It's certainly pointed me towards lots of interesting websites that I'd never have found otherwise. Sales of the magazine have also supported local charities.
Issue 11, though, which I picked up last week, will be the last issue of the Hedge. The editors, Nada Meredith and Petra Cramsie, want to concentrate their efforts on what's happening in their own locality. They will still be producing a newsletter called the Golden Valley Grape Vine.

The proceeds of this issue will be going to The Size of Herefordshire, a local charity which raises money to protect an area of the Amazon rainforest which is the size of Herefordshire. There is also a group called The Size of Wales which does the same thing. The area they are supporting is in Peru, and is the home of two tribes, the Awajun and the Wampis. The Amazon rainforests were in the news last year, of course, because of the devastating fires in countries all across the Amazon basin.
The article in the Hedge, by Jeremy Bugler, the co-ordinator of the project, says that local volunteers have been to the area to make a film about the pressures the tribes are under from loggers, miners and oil-drillers. Money from The Size of Herefordshire goes to the Forest Peoples Programme, which helps the indigenous peoples to get legal title to their land and fight law suits against the miners, oil-drillers etc. At the moment they are about a quarter of the way towards their target, with the help of The Size of Wales, which is match funding all the donations.
They are finding that it is the small landowners, the people with allotments and gardens, who are most supportive, rather than the big landowners of the county.
They have a website at www.sizeofherefordshire.org

Also in this last issue are articles by Green County Councillors Diana Toynbee and Toni Fagan. There's also information about various local groups, like the Verging On Wild group that has been formed to protect roadside verges and improve their biodiversity, the Woodland Trust and the Herefordshire Green Network. The problem of the Hereford Bypass still rumbles on, and there's an article from Wye Ruin It? about the story so far - their website is www.wyeruinit.org. There's information about the Degrowth movement (www.degrowth.info/en), articles on self sufficiency, an extract from Climate: A New Story by Charles Eisenstein, and advice on how to encourage insects in the garden. There's some fascinating history on herbalism, information about pasture fed livestock, and an article about the IPCC Report on climate change. There's also poetry and artwork. All this for £3!

Photographic Exhibitions

A new exhibition opens at Thru the Lens with a private viewing at 6pm today.
Men Open Up is a collection of photos collected together by Billie Charity, on the theme of men's mental health. It's in support of a charity called CALM, Campaign Against Living Miserably. The men in the photos are local, and Billie has also made use of the notes of Hereford-based psychotherapist and photographer Clive Oxford, who supplied notes about some of his clients, carefully made anonymous.
Also in the exhibition are the photos of Abergavenny-based photographer Glenn Dene, which are self-portraits he took while recovering from a breakdown.
London-based photographer Darren Russell has also provided pictures from a touring exhibition called "My Mate", which was motivated by the story of Billie Charity's brother Stan. Sadly, Stan took his own life three years ago, after living with mental illness.
So the exhibition has been put together in the hope that it will encourage men to talk about their mental health and seek therapy if they need it.

Meanwhile in Brecon, Richard Greatrex is also putting on an exhibition. This one begins on 29th January with a private viewing from 6.30pm, at Found Gallery on the Bulwark. The title of the exhibition is Cuba Noticed, and it is a part of the gallery's main exhibition Vibrant Finds in Winter. Richard Greatrex was a cinematographer for many years, with an impressive CV, and he uses that experience in his photography now.

Herefordshire Life Through a Lens

Cusop History Group are having their first meeting of the year tomorrow evening (Friday) at 7pm, at Cusop Village Hall. They'll be showing the film Carousel, from Herefordshire Life Through a Lens. Cost is £3 for members, £5 for non-members. It's based on the Derek Evans photographic archive from the 1950s to 1970s - he took photos of all sorts of local events around Herefordshire.

Woodland Management on the Riverside Path

Recently I saw a letter (to the B&R? Or was it Hereford Times?) saying what a pity it was that a tree had been cut down to make a base for one of the new wooden sculptures that have been put in along the Riverside Path.
Just before that, Hay Town Council and the Hay Community Woodland Group put out a joint statement, available via the Hay Town Council website.
Having read the statement, I'm happy to report that no trees were cut down just in order to put a sculpture up. The sculptures are sited on the bases of trees that were already going to be cut down because they were either dead or diseased.
Some of the trees have a blue X marked on the trunk - these marks were put there by an arborist called Huw Morris in 2017, to identify which trees needed to be removed. A / in blue denotes trees that require some pruning. So far, none of the trees marked have been felled, but some have been pruned.
The trees are mostly growing on quite a steep bank, and they are monitored regularly - if they are at an angle, they may be at risk of uprooting in high winds (such as we've been having for the last couple of days).
The trees with orange marks have Dutch Elm disease, and are dead - and there's one case of Ash Die-back as well.
When trees are felled, a good length of trunk is always left in situ, to help maintain the stability of the bank. The larger logs are taken away to be used as firewood, while smaller logs and brushwood are used to provide habitat for wildlife.
The Community Woodland Group do a lot of good work along the riverbank. Volunteers meet on the second Sunday of each month, and can be contacted on haycwg1@gmail.com

New Website for Library Supporters

We're still waiting to hear what the budget will be for Powys County Council this year - but the chances are that libraries will once again be threatened with closure or shorter hours or fewer staff.
Because of the constant uncertainty, it was agreed at a HOWLS meeting last year to set up a CIC - a Community Interest Company, to safeguard the future of Hay Library as much as it is possible to do.
The website is now live, and can be found at HayPublicLibrary.org
The first objectives of the CIC are to negotiate a binding five year contract with Powys County Council and obtain security of tenure for Hay Library for those five years, up to 2025.
The County Council has already scheduled meetings for those negotiations to take place, and have said that they are seeking to forge partnerships, so this is a good start, but it has to happen this month, before the new budget comes out in February.
There is a new Facebook page called Hay Public Library CIC as well, and the organisers are urging everyone who is interested in continuing to have a library in Hay to sign up to their mailing list (yes, there was a mailing list for HOWLS, but they have to start from scratch - they can't just move people over from one list to the new one).

Mae Mari Lwyd Yma!

I wasn't really sure what to expect when I turned up at the Clock Tower just before 6pm on a wet and windy evening - but soon the musicians started to appear. Thomasin and the Speedgums were there, and someone with a violin, and a clarinet, and a chap with a stringed instrument I couldn't identify - not a guitar, and I don't think it was a mandolin? Justin had wrapped his guitar in a plastic bag, and found that he could play through the bag!
And along came Mari Lwyd, snapping the jaws of the horse's skull, wrapped in a white sheet.
We were given song sheets. There I am in the background, singing in Welsh! Catherine Kramer took the photo:

I said to her later that this was the Welshest thing I'd ever done in Hay!*

There was a song for when the Mari Lwyd arrives at the door of a house - or pub - demanding beer. There was Calon Lan and Sospan Fach, and a couple of hymns (the words Iesu and Calvari were a dead give away, and I also recognised some of the tunes).
We sang at the Clock Tower first, then headed for the Three Tuns, where we sang three songs, took a break for drinks, and then gathered round the piano to sing some of the hymns.
Then it was onwards to Tomatitos, but first we stopped outside the Bookshop Cinema, where Haydn was working behind the bar, so he could come out and listen to us sing (and join in!). Haydn is running Welsh classes at the Three Tuns, and he has about thirty people interested so far. I'd like to learn Welsh properly, but at the moment it would take more time and effort than I am able to commit to.
We sang three songs at Tomatitos, and then headed to Kilverts - where there was only one person in the bar! We soon filled it, and sang, and bought beer - the Wadworths Swordfish is infused with rum, so perfect for a wet and windy night (the name refers to the biplane, not an actual fish). There was much conversation in Welsh, some of which I understood, and I found myself explaining the Mari Lwyd tradition to a visitor from London, who had come with a lady from Abergavenny (I think it was). There was also a lady there who wanted to join a choir - she'd recently moved to Hay, and wanted something to take her out of the house in the evenings, so I pointed her in the direction of Catherine Kramer.
The whole evening was brilliant fun, and I hope they do it again next year - I'll take my tambourine along! Catherine also said something about organising some singing for St David's Day, but she wasn't sure about a venue for it.

*It's not the Welshest thing I've ever done - that would be a trip to Corwen in North Wales with the Welsh chapel from Rhosllanerchrugog that my gran belonged to (she didn't speak Welsh, but loved the singing). It was the first time I'd been to an event which was entirely in Welsh, and I knew that I was privileged to be there, because it was something that most English people in the 1970s would never have experienced.

Immigration in Hay

At the Baskie last Wednesday, I got into a discussion with a chap at the bar before the music began. He was very worried about "all these foreign immigrants" (is there another kind?). He worried about the rise in homelessness and the overcrowding in NHS hospitals, and thought it was because foreign immigrants were coming to the UK, when the country was already full up.
I have to say I was a bit sharp with him, because the rise in homelessness and the overcrowding in NHS hospitals has nothing to do with foreign immigrants coming to this country, and everything to do with Tory spending cuts.
Poor chap was really quite bemused by it all, and when I was leaving the bar I heard him ask a couple of other musicians if they thought there were too many immigrants in the country - to which they replied: "Nah!"
The acoustic session at the Baskie is actually a brilliant example to show how immigrants benefit the group they join. Ellie started coming along quite recently, and she has enhanced the group immensely, singing duets with Bob and introducing us to music we would otherwise never have come across, like the children's song in a strong Afrikaans accent - Ellie is South African.

Then I got to thinking about foreign immigrants who have come to Hay - and every one of them has enhanced the life of the town.
Norman Florence, who had the original idea for Hay Festival (now run by his son Peter), came from South Africa. Hay would have been very different if he had decided to live somewhere else.
Kitty is from Ireland, a journalist who has worked for the Festival, and interviewed guests on stage.
Sean is also from Ireland, and is a leading light in the Hay, Brecon and Talgarth Sanctuary for Refugees group and the Re-wilding, Biodiversity and Sustaining the Countryside group.
Marva is Canadian, and has organised arts events, and runs g-riots arts. Her daughter is a talented writer.
Mr Lee and his family have been in Hay longer than I have, running the Chinese takeaway. When his daughter Bic was a little girl, she used to walk my dog for me.
Mr Nagshbandi is a dentist - and we were in dire need of more dentists locally when he arrived in Hay.
Eklim is from Birmingham, but some of his staff at Red Indigo restaurant are from India and Bangladesh. How far would we have to go to find Indian food if they weren't here?
On the subject of food, there are also Gurkhas locally who have retired from the British Army and now make amazing Nepalese food.
There used to be a couple of young men from Thailand who cooked at the Blue Boar.
There was a French chef at the Globe for a while.
Françoise and Pierre are French, and Françoise has done a lot of work with local schoolchildren with art to appreciate nature. They have also put on cultural events in Hay.
Antoine and Juliette are also French - Antoine does something clever with computers and Juliette is a translator.
There was a Brazilian young man who was the boyfriend of a local girl, and did something connected to a puppet theatre.
There was a Dutchman who was involved in the book trade - Ivo?
And Elizabeth who now owns Booths Books and is very much involved in the renovation of the Castle, is American.

I'm sure there are more people who have come to Hay from other countries, that I'm not aware of (or have forgotten - this list is off the top of my head, and not definitive!).
My belief is that immigrants enhance the place they come to, and are a positive asset, and I think this is borne out by the evidence. Years ago Michael Portillo, himself the son of Spanish immigrants, made the same point in a Radio 4 series that looked at every group of immigrants that have come to the UK over a thousand years. Every single group brought positive benefits to this country.

Mari Llwyd in Hay

Or so it appears from the posters!
There will be a procession tomorrow evening (Saturday), starting from the Clock Tower at 6pm and visiting The Three Tuns, Tomatitos and finally Kilverts.
There will be Welsh songs!

Camera Club Open Evening

I had a lovely evening at the Camera Club.
I was impressed with how organised they were - everyone was given name badges as they came in. It was also nice to see Sara, who I know from the Baskie and Stitch and Bitch - she'd come along to see if she could get some help with the technical side of photography. She knows how to use a dark room, but computers confuse her! A couple of the members suggested a program called Lightroom (I think), but they also do regular "Ask the Panel" sessions for questions like that. The next one is next week, on January 14th, at the Masonic Hall from 7.30pm.
There's a lot going on - the present programme of events runs until the end of February, with something going on every week. Non-members are charged £5 entry - and there's always home made cake! There are also competitions. I might go back for the Members Night on 4th February, when one of the members is talking about a trip he did around Northern Spain in an old sports car.
Set up in one corner was a laptop showing a slideshow of members' photos on a screen. There was a wide variety, including still life, action shots of surfers, horses galloping through water in the Camargue, Buddhist priests in Nepal, landscapes....
Members come from quite a wide area, too. I met people who had come from Knighton, Llangorse and Talgarth, as well as Hay. And they are interesting people, too - one chap has a daughter who is something important in Twitter, another used to work for Oxfam, and I got into some fascinating conversations, including one about politics in Estonia and Latvia - one of the members has Latvian grandparents. He said his name means "oak tree", apparently a common surname in Latvia.
Another lady (there are a few more men than women in the club at the moment) was also singing the praises of what she called the Walking Wounded walking group. It's a group that meets at the bus shelter in Hay on Mondays at 2pm, for people who have health or mobility problems to have a gentle walk together, and who couldn't manage the route marches that the Hay Walkers go on. Some of them have had strokes, for instance. One of their walks soon will be starting from Llyswen, up a side road that is little used, so they'll be forming a convoy of cars to get there.
In the interests of full disclosure, I have to admit that I was given two After Eight mints when I mentioned I'd be writing about the Camera Club in this blog!

Money for Oz

The Doll's House Shop on Brecon Road are making a collection to send to Australia, to help the people and animals affected by the bushfires. They're asking for cash only, which will be sent directly out there.

More Shopping in Hereford

Still taking advantage of the sales, and the free Saturday bus, but this time my mission was to buy a new phone handset. While I was looking after my neighbour's cat she got a claw entangled in my tablecloth and pulled everything to the floor. It wasn't her fault (and she spent some time afterwards hiding under the bed), and I thought I'd got away without any damage until someone phoned me. When I picked the receiver up, it rattled.
It was a very old phone, and I'd been thinking I'd have to replace it soon anyway.
The only thing to do seemed to be to make the long trek out to PC World again. In the large area they have devoted to mobile phones, I found precisely 3 handsets, one of which had extra big buttons for partially sighted people. At least a phone is a lot lighter to carry round than a printer.
Back in the town centre, I managed to look past all the black trousers in Marks and Spencers, and spent my gift cards on a linen shirt in "dusted lilac" and a pale tan pair of trousers.
I also picked up a nice pair of teal corduroy trousers from the Edinburgh Woolen Mill in their sale, which was very convenient for a pot of Oolong tea at the Antique Tea Room, as a brief break from retail therapy.
My next purchases were pure frivolity - I went in The Entertainer toy shop, where they had some Star Wars figures on special offer. I came away with Rose Tico in her First Order disguise, in a box with BB-8 and the black First Order droid, Poe Dameron in his X-wing flight suit and Princess Leia in her costume from The Empire Strikes Back, on the Hoth ice planet. This made me very happy.

Camera Club

A lovely man came into the shop today to invite me to the first Camera Club meeting of the year. It'll be on Tuesday at 7.30pm at the Masonic Hall, and there will be drinks and nibbles.
I'm considering it - it would be nice to be able to improve my minimal photographic skills.

Australia is On Fire

Hay may be a small town on the Welsh Borders, but it's far from isolated - the people who live here have links all over the world.
I was talking to one lady who has relatives in Australia. They are safe, but they told her about what had happened to one of their neighbours in the bush fires that are still going on. He's a farmer, and he's been forced to abandon his 10,000 head of cattle to fend for themselves. The family were able to evacuate, but his farm house has burned down (fortunately he has another house the family can move into).
So that's just one small snapshot of what's happening in the bush fires, which now cover such a huge area that the plume of smoke has reached New Zealand, over 2,500 miles away.

The Rise of Skywalker (with Spoilers)

I went to the first showing of The Rise of Skywalker this afternoon, at the Bookshop Cinema. As I said to Haydn behind the bar, I was there for the very first Star Wars film, and here I was for the last of the nine films. So I was slightly apprehensive - this was something I'd loved since I was 16. Could they really bring it to a satisfactory conclusion?
The cinema was about half full, and the first couple of rows were pretty much all kids - who were very quiet. At one point, I found myself saying a line along with a character, and realised the rest of the audience were completely silent....
There was a lot to pack in to this movie, to finish off the latest trilogy, and also all 9 of the main Star Wars films, so it hit the ground running and didn't slow down.
It was also supposed to be the farewell to Carrie Fisher, but they couldn't do that after her untimely death, so we just got a few scenes written around footage of her that they already had.
I knew Lando Calrissian turned up, having seen him in the trailers, but I wasn't expecting Han or Luke. It was nice to see them again, really for the last time - but the sort-of-redemption of Kylo Ren seemed to happen much too easily. And I choose to believe that he and the Emperor were lying to Rey about her ancestry. It was also a great pity that Rose Tico got so little to do.
I did like the explanation for the cavalry charge (well, they were supposed to be something other than horses, but still....), and I laughed when Chewie finally got his medal - and the blowing up of the transporter was a clear tip of the fedora to the first Indiana Jones movie, where Indy thought Marion had been killed.
So, I thought it was a good film, with a lot of work to do to tie up all the loose ends, and I also think it missed the target some of the time.
When I came out, there were already people queuing for the second showing.

Singing in the New Year

I don't normally mention the acoustic music sessions at Baskerville Hall, because I go nearly every week and saying that I enjoyed the music would get a bit repetitive (because I always do enjoy the music).
But this week's session was actually on New Year's Day, and we started the year as we mean to go on, with a mix of older popular music, folk, poetry, guitars, autoharp, bagpipes and a variety of percussion. We were in the Music Room, which is a lovely venue.
I'm still keeping my TV Theme of the Week going, mostly by commemorating someone in show business who has died recently - this week I sang Up on the Roof in honour of Kenny Lynch, who was on TV a lot in the 60s and 70s, singing and doing comedy.
There was a new chap who sang a song in Geordie dialect, while being given a critical stare by Brian, who actually grew up in Wallsend - but he said he'd be back with his guitar. There were old favourites like the Asteroid Song from Bob's new album (he brought along a stuffed brontosaurus for it, one of his Christmas presents), and the ultimate Everyone-Join-In song, House of the Rising Sun, as well as Nigel singing Delia and Les Coveney's Bones of Tom Paine. There were new songs, too - I don't think we've ever had Dark Side of the Moon before.
There was also a couple who are about to get married and go off on a honeymoon cruise - she sang a heartbreaking song about horses that were killed at the end of the First World War because they were going to be abandoned while the men were shipped home. He sang less traumatic traditional songs including the Creole girl from Pontchartrain.
The chips at 9pm were very good, as usual, though I had to make do with the Shipyard beer, since the two cask ales (they serve Butty Bach and Wye Valley from the Wye Valley Brewery) had run out.
I'm looking forward to a lot more good music and good company in the New Year.