My hour for tea is half-past five, and my buttered toast waits for nobody.

Well, at least that production of Macbeth was ticking all the boxes of my bad production bingo: bare black stage, a wooden chair, a fall of glitter. Check, check and check.

What a pity, and Hugo Weaving was so good, damn good, a magnificent Macbeth, full of sound and fury. If only we could have seen his Macbeth in a more tradtional production, and, hell, a traditional staging really would be radical in this town.

I can see now why our best actors go overseas. They have to. This was...woesome. It was like watching Gandalf bestride Ramsay Street, with glitter. (Yes, I know he played Elrond, but you get the idea, he was playing it big, the others, not so much).

Let down by the production. The whole putting the audience on the stage in the world's most awful plastic chairs just made us gaze yearningly at the comfy chairs that now formed the backdrop. The whole thing was a gimmick, and I've seen it done much better, at Traflagar's Macbeth, fer starters.
( more: and then it got worse )

The biggest worry, for me, of course, was the extreme likihood of me flipping a feminine hygiene product out of my bag and into the lap of the King Slayer as I fumbled and flustered upon approach (I have form in this area, sad to say). Fortunately events conspired to make this scenario impossible. Ah, well.

So that was Sunday, all effed up, and I was so unwell, too. Should have stayed on the couch wrapped up in fluffy dressing gown, with a nice hot cup of tea and a Smash marathon on the telly. In my heart of hearts I knew it was the one true plan for Sunday. Everything else was stuff up city.

Still, it wasn't all bad. I did buy myself a replica leather flying helmet, just like I've always wanted. And I owned all of, what, ten seconds. Then Himself put it on, and it seems I'd bought Himself a replica leather flying helmet (and goggles), just like he's always wanted. Le sigh.

At least Friday was kinda cool. The usual departure lounge cake at work, then I took my time in lieu and bunked off early to the con (who does cons on a work day?) and queued up for ages, but I did see John Barrowman and Stan Lee, both very amusing.

I think the highlights were Stan Lee correcting everyone's grammar (in between being the coolest grandpa you never had) and John's shitty cat story (made perfect by Scott hovering nearby, thus I could turn to see his reaction to everything John said, much pained face palming, tee hee).

John was bouncing all over the place, and yes, Stan Lee's patter was well rehearesed and polished, but as I heard him answer the same question three times in the weekend, never once telling the person he'd already answered that, I can understand why he has his routine down. And yes, there aren't too many people around left to refute Stan's versions of events, but who cares. He was funny, the way old New York guys of a certain era were (we'll never see his like again) and he's body of work is massively impressive, so three cheers for Stan the man. He was sweet, joyful, excited and seemingly happy to tell the origin stories, and I did so love the bitchy asides at editorial or creative decisions by others he's still not happy about. Heh. (Holds a grudge, old Stan).

The queue for autographs was less fun, three very cold and crampy hours. Hey, I wonder if my unused tokens will ever be collector items? I doubt it, but I'm saving them in any case.

I also finally saw, and met, young Jamie Bamber (he of Hornblower fame) and he was really sweet when I told him I'd once seen him on stage in Liverpool, of all places.

Michael Rosenbaum, late of Smallville, and precious little else, was really fun, doing his own thing, wandering amongst the crowd, winding up the con organisers (I think I enjoyed that almost as much as young Rosenbaum did).
( more: boys will be boys )

Angry possums can move really fast. I had the territorial Ms Possum growling and hissing at me through the crawl space in the bathroom, and I told her to rack off. Later, still pitch black, I went out to fill the seed tray for the forever annoyed at me parrots when a very large and growling possum raced across the yard, up the macadamia tree, shaking it like a thing possed, leaping from that to the shed to the house to lean over the gutter and snarl at me, before flicking her furry tail and scuttling off over the laundry.

So, nobody's ever been killed by a possum, right? She really does not like me, especially this week. Been home with the wotsits for a couple of days, real bad, and she's been snarling at me through the bookcase, even when I didn't have the tv on. Does not like me at all (adores Himself though, the coquette).
( warning: contains dairy products and traces of nuts )