Fortissimo

Watched Interview with a Vampire and Queen of the Damned in one sitting today. They were both good movies. Interview is more classy and more musing, Queen appeals to the bad and evil person in each of us, although admittedly I have really little of it. And I don't want it to come out if I can help it too.

Reason being I wanted to return my four borrowed DVDs before proceeding to Victoria School for the Evening of Music and Drama concert.

But then Ian and I arranged to meet for dinner before going, so I packed and met him at the library. Soon as he was within hearing range he started bitching about Shakespeare sonnets and how it apparently escapes his comprehension.

Yes well, it escapes most of our comprehension. Not your fault.

Had dinner at Yoshinoya... Ian ordered a beef bowl, but apparently he did not ask for a value meal, and there was no miso soup to go.

Well can I have one then?
Um... ok...

Poor girl serving us was a trainee. He waved a $2 note at her, but she whispered something about 50 cents, so Ian dug into his coins and pulled out 1, 2, 3, 4 10-cent coins.

Err... err... [turn to me] 10 cents 10 cents...
[digging in my coin pocket] If I weren't your friend I would be staring very hard at you right now.

She turned to take a soup bowl and put it below what looked like a coffee machine. A button, and soup came flushing out.

'Ian', I said horrified. 'That is your miso soup...'

He nodded like it was normal for miso soup to come pouring out of a machine pipe.

My Tori Kaage (fried chicken) bowl was still being prepared, and I tasted my miso soup. It was good, but never in my life had I tasted MSG in such great quantity. I could feel my mouth drying the moment I swallowed the soup.

Terriyaki sauce made my meal horrendous. Sweet doesn't often agree with my mealtime palate.

We made it to VS in good time on 31. On the bus we were laughing about 4H... Jeremy Leck putting Farand's watch in his underwear and jumping about (very traumatising, I know), suaning Bryan Tan (Hmmm we need someone stupid...... Eh Bryan! C'mere!). Ah those were the days. Met Daniel Tat Chung Mason and Wenhao shortly after arrival... Then Farand and Jon Sam came... Both as if they had just come out of a top brass meeting. Met Ivan and Daryl Gan too, Jonathan Loh came down to say hi to me, sweet of him. Then Mrs Poon came. We all called to her, and she was all '*gasp* Oh hi!!!' But then a girl we couldn't see walked past and Mrs Poon got into conversation with her. After she had finished she turned around and said, 'Oh I haven't forgotten you boys now...' Haha spoke to her for awhile, and then we went up to find Bertrand and Zixiang there. We bade our gleeful goodbyes to the rest of the gang, for whom Mason only managed to secure balcony seats, and for which he was promptly blamed for. I was alone, it wasn't amusing man I felt Lonely.... I'm so lonely.....

Anyhoo...

First half of the performance went well, Nicholas and Martin's solos were most well received, naturally. Second half, CO screwed up, the Dazzle cast's performance level had not changed one bit since Tuesday. Mason had kindly offered me his seat, which were one of the five empty seats Mason Ian Daniel Wenhao and Jon Ma koped. Mason went up and took his place in the sound room in preparation for the King Arthur play, for which he was doing the sound. I specially glided back to my seat at the other end, going by the back, to watch the performance from a clearer point of view. The couple beside my seat wasn't amused when I promptly bounced up after the play ended. I knew because the guy didn't pull his legs in to make way for me. We enjoyed the piano performance after that, it was more well-received than expected actually, and King Arthur was ok, saved by the funny moments.

After the thank-you's and good-bye's Mr Siow's Jam Band, $34.50, played out the We Will Rock You cheer, some of the spontaniety was lost, but it worked for me. Except for some of us old-timers the music and drums had Victorians hooked by the lips. Man, it was just amazing to see the audience rise, one by one, when the Victorian Anthem was started. And the cheers after that... well let's just say it became senseless yelling after awhile. And after that the band played All the Small Things and we were all hooked and jumping like fishes being fried alive on a pan.

This, my friend, is the Victorian Spirit. Across generations, across cultures, across oceans and continents.

Across time. Nil Sine Labore. And there is no greater irony than a Victorian himself.