12 Days of Christmas - Days Two to Five plus a Fic for Me and Information

Day 2 was written for scfrankles who wanted Mouselet and Aemelia, and Christmas and the Bechdel test.  It turns out the two little rodents can find plenty to chat about without mentioning a single male: Of Food and Dresses

Day 3 was for corvidology who requested Life on Mars, Sam/Gene, why Christmas office parties are a bad idea.  This went about as well as might be expected: After The Party's Over

Day 4 was for shallowness who asked for Sanditon (TV), Esther Denham/Lord Babington, the weather outside is frightful...  How could I not give this couple a happy time: Snowy Weather

Day 5 is for st_aurafina who said Person of Interest - John/Harold? Something with warm hands and cold noses? And really, there was only one way to go Lazy Morning

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I received a lovely Hoggywartyxmas poem, based on 'Twas the Night before Christmas 'Twas the Night before Christmas at Hogwarts


And lastly, if you crosspost to LJ, you may well have been having difficulties over the last few days.  I raised a query and received this reply:

Dreamwidth added some new servers to improve services, however for security purposes (after all, Livejournal hadn't 'met' them before!), Livejournal automatically blocked them. The devs are trying to work out a good way to solve the blocking, but it may take a few weeks (security is important and we don't want Livejournal to continue blocking us anymore than you do!). Once it's fixed, there'll be an announcement in dw_maintenance and you can retry any failed cross-posts.

A Christmas Carol

Because The Daughter was working over most of Christmas - and we didn't expect her to drive down to us on Boxing Day, which was when she was off - she arranged to meet us in London and come to the theatre with us that afternoon.  So we began the day with a family lunch in a restaurant exchanging presents, which was fun.

I've been a fan of Antic Disposition (the theatre company) for a few years now, and one of the things I've wanted to see was their production of A Christmas Carol.  They perform it in Middle Temple Hall, in the City of London, so we walked there from Trafalgar Square, SM reminiscing on his time working just off Fleet Street nearly 40 years ago.

Middle Temple Hall was completed in 1573 and is a magnificent building.  It has a long connection with the legal profession, with many portraits of Lord Chief Justices, some of them going back to the seventeenth century on the walls.  There are some photos here and more information here.  The first performance of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night was seen there.

For this performance, the seating is on three sides, with the musicians at one end.  There's no scenery, and the actors bring on the limited props as necessary.  It was an excellent production.  There was plenty of singing, with the words of various carols being rewritten to suit the plot.  Everything flowed and the audience, who went from children to the elderly were all captivated.  David Burt, who played Ebenezer Scrooge was excellent, but didn't dominate the action. 

It was rather a magical experience, sitting in such an old building, watching a story which is timeless in its appeal.