Please pardon typos, as I'm now using French keyboards!

(May 23 journal entry)

Gone With the Wind: The Musical last night on the West End. How bizarre, GWTW a musical, which really is why I went: shock value. A flame can never be held up to the novel's & film's melodrama, but for what it was, enjoyable. And I wasn't sure I'd actually see a show on the West End (as much as I wished), but I did! Jim Gandolfo, wherever you may be, think of arrogantly & pathetically looking down upon a fourteen-year-old student of yours, thinking, "He knows nothing of theatre." Saying "Gone With the Wind will never be produced on stage." Who saw it? Who's still directing high school performances (if lucky!)?

During intermission, I couldn't help overhearing a man, in the row behind me, a teacher, elaborate on why he felt Americans are incapable of proper English, why their accents damage professional opportunities. Don't great minds, great artists, come from the US? Of course they do. How closed-minded! Ignorant! Complaining Americans can never properly do My Fair Lady, but please, sir, don't confused it with Pygmalion: My Fair Lady is American; Musicals, as a tradition in theatre, are American. I've a working mind, always questioning, always criticizing & you are only teaching children's grammar.

Disappointed with the Tate Modern (though they own Uncertainty of the Poet), but after a glimpse of St. Paul's, I split off & wandered in company of Michelangelo, da Vinci, Botticelli, Caravaggio & van Eyck in the National Gallery -- by far, England's greatest collection. Again, so large one must run through the first time around, focus on the "it pieces" (they're famous for good reason) & ignore the crowds, but there is Botticelli, Madonna on the Rocks & Arnolfini Wedding staring you down -- it takes every ounce of strength not to pull them from their places and run.

On my way, I happened upon Twinings (in my haste, I never did check its address prior to leaving home), picked up various individual tea sachets & was interviewed on the Strand (outside the Royal Courts of Justice) on my opinion of rising airfares for the BBC!