Fate doesn't hang on a wrong or right choice,
Fortune depends on the tone of your voice,
So sing while you have time, let the sun shine down from above
And fill you with songs of love
Songs of Love, The Divine Comedy

Yeah, I know I've quoted it before, but it does remain one of my absolute favourite Divine Comedy songs. We went to the Roundhouse on Thursday night to see them live. The support act were musically competent, but suffered from being a checklist of clichés. The Divine Comedy were, of course, excellent. Hannon is the sort of artist who easily gathers up the audience and plays it like a dream, from his teasing threaten to strip to bringing on a brass section for two songs in the encore. The highlight was The Plough, from Victory for the Comic Muse, where he told a life story in the time it took to smoke a cigarette.

We then spent the Friday afternoon at Kew Gardens, nipping into the Temperate House at one point to warm up from the chilly autumn air:


[all images here]
We tried to get tickets for Late at the Tate but were too, er, late.

Then to Brizzol for the weekend, and PPH's birthday. The SS Great Britain is, indeed, an excellent museum. There's been a conscious effort to remove the barriers between visitor and objects. The route is defined a little, in that you start with the rusting hull, then visit a dockside exhibition which goes backwards through time, before stepping onto the restored mid-Victorian deck of the ship and investing its various quarters. But within that journey back through time, you are given freedom: you can try to steer using a working wheel and pulleys, or wander through the ship in no order. There's an active encouragement to try the doors in the salons, and a turning engine at its heart. And this is before I mention the glass sea... Wonderful. Highly recommended.

Labels: gardens, gigs, kew, museums, the divine comedy, travel