I don't do resolutions as they are a set-up for failure. Here are this year's guidelines, however:

1. No using the interweb in the lunch hour
2. Finish short stories started last year and sub them
3. Start posting more on design etc rather than waffle about cats, shoes and miscellany, although:
   • Shoes are allowed if it's about the design of them
   • The same goes for handbags

I did fulfil a long cherished shoe dream this weekend, by getting a pair of heels from L. K. Bennett. Ever since I started to wear shoes again, after years in combat or biker boots, I wanted a pair of L K Bennett shoes. I finally have a pair! Lilac suede with brown leather edging and toe caps, round toes and 2" dark brown wood heels (narrow but not stiletto). For special events only but I adore them.

My other sale purchase was a pair of contrasting brown leather shoes from Accessorize, with a 1/2" Victorian heel, round toes and a strap across the foot. I look suspciously like I'm about to dance a foxtrot in them, especially when worn with socks, but they were an emergency buy due to the zip in a boot buggering up. That was embarassing, in part because it happened whilst in the front row of the Novello.

We went, after much pitiful "Can we, huh? Huh? Pleeeeease?" pleading from me, to see the RSC's production of Much Ado About Nothing in its London run. This was based on the fact a) it had Tamsin Grieg as Beatrice, b) it was set in pre-revolutionay Cuba and c) it is my favourite Shakespearian play and the only one I quote from extensively. As always, the allegedly comic scenes involving Dogberry suffer when played to a modern crowd, but the remainder of the production sizzled.

There were readings of lines which hadn't occured to me (noteably Don Pedro's proposal to Beatrice which was played straight by him without her realising). There was exquisite comic timing both verbally, including an ad-lib when someone in the front row got in the way of Benedict, and physically. The relocation worked very well, turning Balthasar into a female Blues singer in a bar who spoke her lines with a patois accent, and making Don John a guerilla fighter at the end. Even Hero and Claudio, the rather wet romantics who contrast with the merrily warring Beatrice and Benedict, came over as plausible and sweet. The whole was painfully funny and moving.

The run ends on the 6th of January and if you can get tickets (we got front row returns by major luck), I recommend it thoroughly.

Labels: shoes, shopping, the play's the thing