On The Buses

Another busy day at work. I still have two tricky problems on the go which are preventing me from getting on with project work. One of the problems has already been escalated to Microsoft and I suspect the other may be added to that list today.

We had a Chorus rehearsal last night off Holloway Road and, because the normal route would have involved travelling on the Piccadilly Line which is currently closed, I had to find my way by bus. I have never been fond of buses, primarily because I could never work out which bus I needed or where to get on or off. Yesterday I used the Transport For London journey planner for the first time and was very impressed; It plans the routes for you, across the whole of the London Transport network (Buses, Tubes, Trains) and offers you maps of the bus stops and the surrounding areas so you can find them. I know it sounds simple and fairly obvious, but to me it was a revelation! I may use the buses more in future!

The rehearsal was productive. It was our first full dress rehearsal; we ran the show, pretty much to time and with all the costumes and props. I feel it went very well and it reinforced my belief about how fantastic this show is going to be. Stuart, the Director, reckons we are at about 60% of performance quality (which means he is unhappy because we should be at 90%, but they always seem to say that the week before the gig…) Nevertheless I felt that my game had lifted tremendously even during the rehearsal, as repetition helps fix things in context for me. There are still weak spots I need to work on – they had to change the words to one of the songs because of Copyright issues and I need to relearn them, for example – but I have Saturday planned as a day for working them out, ready for the next full run on Sunday.

There was a downside to bussing it home from the rehearsal though – it took longer. We didn’t get home until 11:30 and the rehearsal finished at 10:15.

Right off to work to again to generate more revenue for Microsoft’s Tech Support!