alison

12 years old? Didn't I see him in the Evening Standard (I guess - I don't see anyone else's) gossip column as "dating" someone else, or am I getting my Beckham boys confused? Anyway, I thought Burberry was a "grown-up" brand. Why use a 12-year-old?

I had a quick look at this at the weekend while I was up there, and found it rather unclear, and difficult to envisage where everything was (and I'm someone who's not exactly unused to deciphering technical drawings). What *did* strike me quite forcefully was the various references to increased retail and restauration (I think that's the English word?) opportunities, which are clearly quite a major consideration. A few things which remain in my memory: the Linbury to be upgraded (presumably retaining its flexibility, although that isn't made clear, but then the exhibition doesn't really go into detail about much (apart from the get-in and get-out and other arrangements during the building works, which - together with the briefness of the duration of the exhibition - makes me think it's more aimed at local residents who can just pop in and have a look, rather than ROH regulars who might well not be there for the couple of weeks it's on). The Linbury is to have seating installed in the slips, by the looks of things, although there's no indication about what will happen to the standing places. The amphitheatre terrace will be largely blocked off and glazed over, apart from a small section right at the far end, and the restaurant will be extended into it. The mention of lowering the parapets makes it sound as though the glazing must be permanent and non-openable, because otherwise there would surely be a serious safety risk? There will be a new balcony provided at the Bow Street end of the Floral Hall, but I'd guess that would probably only be about as wide as the one at the Festival Hall, and wouldn't be able to take seating. Actually, several of the drawings to me looked more like the lower regions of the Festival Hall than anything else, which was slightly disconcerting. If the plans aren't online anywhere, then I think that's a real shame: after all, many of the ROH's patrons probably take more than a couple of weeks between visits, and I'm sure they would appreciate their chance to have a say, too.

Not necessarily. If it's registered, I believe you should be able to get the card disabled, so that nobody else can get at the money you have on it. (Plus of course you can set up auto-topup, which is incredibly useful).

Looking at the nominees for Best Male Dancer, I get a strange feeling of déjà vu Lovely to see Francesca Hayward already getting nominated up there among some greats. Congratulations to all the nominees: from what I've seen of them, they all seem to have considerable merits.

And not even then, really, although you do get extra benefits from doing so. I have to register mine so I can keep a record of travelling expenses, but it's not obligatory.

Are you getting the No. 11 from Victoria or Liverpool Street? I imagine you'd have problems, because a lot of the route is directly along the Lord Mayor's Show route, so it might be cheaper to use the Tube - provided it's working. Oyster cards now "cost" £5, I think. It's a refundable deposit, but it's still an upfront expense, and then you have to add money to it on top of that, I think. If you have a "Contactless" payment card, you can just touch that on the Oyster reader and pay that way, which would be cheaper for just 2 bus trips of £1.45 each. I believe it should now cap at £4.40 per day just as an Oystercard does, but I haven't yet needed to try this. Assuming you're coming from outside the Oyster area, you *can* get a one-day Travelcard added to your rail ticket, although I'm not sure this would prove cost-effective for two bus journeys. If you're within the Oyster area (I suspect you aren't), on the other hand, I should point out that - double-check this with TfL's Fare Finder, although I think it works - a combined rail-and-tube journey should only cost you about £1.50 more than the single rail fare on Oyster. From the point of view of practicalities, bus and tram journeys are a fixed price, so you just "touch in" when you get on. Trains, tubes and DLR aren't, so you have to touch in at your departure station and touch out again at your arrival station so the card "knows" how much to charge you. If you forget to touch out, you automatically get charged the maximum fare! If there's anything else you need to know, just ask. We're probably a lot more helpful than TfL's website, which is even more garbage than it used to be since they relaunched it

In which case, she could just link to the ABT dictionary, presumably?

It's an attractive-looking book, certainly: rather a shame that it's aimed at children, though I had a quick flip through in the ROH Shop yesterday: did I really see that there was a "becoming a ballerina" section but not an equivalent one for boys? If so, that's very disappointing in this day and age.

Thanks, Katherine.

While perusing the dance magazines in the ROH Shop today, I noticed that there's actually a book out (or due to be out shortly) about Xander. Does anyone have any more details?

Southern are currently showing engineering works up to the end of January here: http://www.southernrailway.com/your-journey/plan-your-journey/improvement-works/ Obviously that's no guarantee that something more urgent won't crop up in the meantime, but it's probably a useful basis.

Quite. Nobody's going to expect a carbon copy of 50 years ago, but at the same time the style of a piece needs to be respected. For me, that would include extensions at closer to 90 than 180 degrees in Sleeping Beauty I agree with Floss: the first time I saw the Royal do Sleeping Beauty was in the 1989 run, and I'm pretty certain we had at least two of the Fairies danced by principals (Viviana Durante and Karen Paisey would be my guess). Admittedly, that was in the days when the RB had a much greater abundance of principals than they do now, but even so they have quite a few under-used principals now. Nowadays, those roles often seem to go to aspiring junior dancers. I see the point, in that they're short solos, but as discussed above they are not infrequently under-cast.

Wimbledon New Theatre: Exclusive £20* band A & B tickets. Quote 'RUSSIA' (Thu & Fri only) 13th-14th November

Ooh, lovely. Wish they showed some of this on free-to-air TV.

There are various versions around: I saw one probably in a gala recently, and then there's the one Calvin Richardson created recently, which the RB seems to have been plugging like mad. BTW, impressive to see that mid-morning on a Friday you'd already clocked up 5 views within 5 minutes!

Good to hear such positive reports. Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to see her in the role since ... I think it may have been when Rojo was first in the company? ... but it's good to know she's still as good as ever.

Thanks. Loads of time to kill tomorrow, then.

If they had been filming, I'm pretty certain it would have been stated in the booking brochure "Scenes" and "Brahms Waltzes", at least, are already available on DVD.

Thank you for bumping this, sarahw: I'd completely forgotten that I'd started it! Yes, it was prompted by my hearing reports of what Alex Beard had said about the terrace being underused, which didn't seem to tally with my experiences when I'm out there, so I was curious and thought I might keep a tally. Unfortunately, I don't get to go very often, so if anyone else feels like contributing, please feel free!

Yes indeed.

This made me think of the old "LiveJournal cut", a feature on LJ which allowed you effectively to "cut out" a piece of your text and, I think, hide it behind a link which you had to click on if you wanted to read more. Presumably blogging software has something similar?

If the plans are on the wall opposite the ROH Shop, then what's happened to Black History Month? That *is* this month, isn't it?

HAven't they got some just coming up? Or just past, or something?

Not to mention Alexandra Ansanelli and Wendy Whelan, as I was surprised to find out the other day. (What is it about NYCB???!!!)

Didn't realise this hadn't posted this morning! I'd assumed from that interview, wherever it was, that he was working permanently for ENB? Angela, you're the native speaker of course, but are you sure that "rude" is actually the best translation of "rüde"? I'd have thought something like "abrasive" might have been nearer the mark.