2 Gigs in a Week, Scrooge and Holes in the Ceiling.

Hello Rants Readers. After my favourite month of October, a little jaunt to Salem for a Halloween Ball, and only just taking the Halloween decorations down, I have definitely been avoiding all talks of that other holiday, creeping up on us, though I think it's been not-so-subtly-stalking us since August. There is a definite Scrooge-like mentality growing within me. I'm sick of it already and it's not even happened. It's all too much for one day. And I know most people will disagree but I'm counting on at least one fellow Scrooge out there. Bah Humbug.

So last week I attended two gigs in a week. I know. It's like I'm twenty all over again. But guess what? I'm not twenty anymore and boy was that exhausting. Two late nights. Ears buzzing from the speakers. Legs and back hurting from standing at Ally Pally to watch Nothing but Thieves. Voice hurting from my usual, must compete with entire band and amplifiers. But it means I've finally seen Florence and the Machine. Wow! Now that is the epitome of a voice filling a room. Amazing! And I've been involved in the unique and crazy atmosphere of Ally Pally. It will likely be the one and only time. Ha ha. But queuing for half an hour to get out of the venue and into the tube, before your 45 minute journey home really puts a downer on the evening. It's up there with returning from the airport after a trip. A grumpy Rants ensues. And I was always too sensible for a mosh pit, so that hasn't changed, I can report. The divide when the band said mosh pit, was hilarious. A group of us melded back into the shadows, whilst the sprightly, brave ones tore forwards to injure themselves and others.

I think today may be the official school trip day of North London. Every single tube was filled with at least two different school's worth of children. Now, I love working with kids, but travelling with them to then teach more of them, is a bit much. Does anyone else deflate a little when they spy a class of teeny, high-vis vest wearing youngsters, trailing into the tube station?

The building work has finally started inside Flat 19 and so far it involves lots of holes in the ceiling. I'm pretty sure I'm going to come home one day and there will be one big hole and I'll be able to wave at the upstairs neighbours. We spent a lot of the weekend, moving and boxing up books and shelving units that would be otherwise in the way. So the bedroom now houses these as well as a make shift work area for me and all the instruments I'll need for classes, so that I don't have to disturb the builders. But living out of one room is tough, especially when you partly work from home. Another annoying thing is that you never know when they're actually going to be there, so I arrived home from class today and no one was there, but the same happened yesterday and just as I settled on the couch to eat my soup and catch up with Strictly, the door bell rang. So who knows when they'll be back today? Still, at least they are keeping everything neat and tidy - at the moment - which is nice.

One more thing before I go. There was a film out a couple of weeks back called: The Hate You Give, based on a book of the same title by Angie Thomas. It is a fantastic novel and the film was so well done. My partner came with me who had no idea what it was about and he loved it. And despite it being based on a YA novel, this is a film for all ages, because the topic is current and necessary and, without giving too much away, we are talking white cop shoots a black teenager for no reason. The cast is phenomenal and I urge you to check it out if it is still on at your local cinema, because I really feel that it was not given enough screen time, especially in London. We had been seeing trailers for it for months, so expected a mass of showings at different cinemas and different times, and after only having been out two days, the film was only showing in the middle of the day and one cinema close to us had one evening showing, which we managed to get ourselves to. But some of the tosh that was on, and that is kept on for weeks on end, yet such an on point and significant film that is actually stupendous in its own right, was hardly given a chance.

I've been meaning to rant about that for a while, because if you look on Rotten Tomatoes, The Hate You Give has 97% and Venom - for instance, which was out at the same time - had about 30%, yet Venom was on for at least a month, with multiple showings a day, in every cinema in central London. I think more space needs to be made for smaller films, indie films and films that are actually good, rather than some of the tosh and massive blockbusters that have no real story and no life to them. Again, this weekend we watched Widows (91%), which is fantastic and has a brilliant female cast, and I know it's been out a couple of weeks, but things like The Crimes of Grindelwald - which is pants - and Robin Hood (17%) - again with very low scores and bad reviews, have so many more showings. I realise it's the way the world works with mass consumption and Hollywood and advertising and all the rest, but I really thing the smaller films don't need to be confined to art house cinemas or put on at silly times, they should be given residence in the central cinema chains, giving the public more of a choice and these films more of a chance.

Okay, I need to get off now. Lunch time approaches and probably the builders. Those holes won't make themselves.

Rants out. Thanks for reading.