Melody

Sounds as though we need to take our pound coins and £5 notes to our local currency exchange and turn them in for dollars, since we aren't planning a trip to the UK this year. Thanks for the heads up! I'd read something about some currency and coins going out of circulation but I didn't know the dates.

It does make sense in a way to have the two roles played by two different dancers. I always thought it made nonsense of the story for the tragedy to happen because Siegfried declares his love for Odile when she's enchanted to look exactly like Odette. You can't blame the guy for choosing the woman he thought he was choosing. If Rothbart set the conditions in the first place, by enchanting Odette until a man made a free-will choice to declare his love, then he's violating his own conditions by cheating like that. It would make more sense to me if there was a scenario like Rothbart killing Odette's father, marrying her mother, having a daughter with her (Odile) and then sending Odette off to be a swan maiden so that Odile, not Odette, would inherit the kingdom. Then the girls would be half-sisters and there'd be some sense in Siegfried getting the two of them confused. Otherwise you either have two girls who are so different that Siegfried had no business confusing them, or an enchantment making them look identical such that Siegfried wasn't making a free choice. That part of the story always bothered me.

Well, after years of drought, the west coast has made up for it this winter, with numerous heavy storms. Reservoirs that were half empty are now full, the snow pack in the Sierras is massive, and the country's tallest dam is close to having a major disaster. The Oroville Dam in a region of northern California that's had almost constant rain for weeks, is close to capacity, and they've been using the spillway to prevent it overtopping. As of last week, the spillway started to disintegrate, and now they're having to evacuate the towns below the dam because if the spillway fails completely and the water starts overtopping the dam, there could be a major disaster. The emergency spillway, which I don't think has been used since the dam was built in the late 1960s, has been used for the first time to take pressure off the damaged spillway, and is showing signs of erosion that could escalate dramatically if it continues to be used. According to the weather forecast there are two or three dry days ahead and then another storm is set to roll through. I hope they manage to do their emergency repairs in time. http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-oroville-dam-how-20170213-story.html https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/13/lake-oroville-dam-california-emergency-repairs-evacuation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co_-hInsSe8

Beautiful, CeliB, thanks for sharing. You must be so proud!

Lithuania: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piri8VeFZVw

Belgium: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUDXxaDA9ks

Portugal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZS66Ra9kQA

Denmark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4KSfracI4k

Germany https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Sq-VPDtNK4

And where one goes, others will follow. Switzerland ("we have the best flag, it's a huge plus..."):

I said, or at least I was trying to say, that I thought it summed up what I saw in the photo set. Which looked exceedingly weird.

I looked at the whole set over at Flickr, and saw one where the set included the words "What's happening?" and I sort of thought that pretty well summed it up. I'm sure it's interesting, but from those photos it looks like a nightmare come to life.

Sometimes you just have to laugh. A Dutch TV station has created a wonderful spoof tourism ad for The Netherlands, written in terms that Donald Trump would understand and appreciate.

I hate the texture of undercooked meat and fish, so I always ask for things to be well done. People over here just expect that Brits want their meat cremated, so nobody seems surprised when I ask for salmon to be well done.

The nearest cinema to me that's showing the Ashton triple bill and Yanowsky's final performance is apparently somewhere in Pennsylvania. Guess I'm going to have to persuade my husband to indulge me in a road trip.

I almost hope a ballet company tries to perform a Harry Potter ballet there. Those clerics would have a cow.

I remember watching their wedding in 1960, and also the controversy that was whipped up in the tabloids when he was hired by the Sunday Times magazine and some rather ungracious sniping about both the Snowdon aviary and his work for the Prince of Wales's investiture. In terms of being a non-royal marrying into the royal family, he was the trailblazer far more than Diana.

Oh, he looks like a real character, Janet.

Oh gosh. It was always a bit of a struggle to remember why we had a dog when ours pulled a stunt like that. I hope she and the carpet are both doing better.

I remember reading an interview where she said she'd found it boring to play Carabosse (or at least, if not boring, then not very interesting) - given that, I sort of can't see her sticking around to play various Queen Mothers in Petipa ballets, although she'd do a brilliant job of it. Hopefully she won't just disappear, though.

She's going to leave quite a gap in the company - I hope she continues to work with them in some capacity but I vaguely remember an interview where she said that as well as wanting to stay involved to an extent, she also wanted to do something completely different. Let's hope she manages to do both.

Just a day after the death of her daughter, Carrie Fisher, Debbie Reynolds apparently suffered a fatal stroke. What an awful double blow to the rest of the family. http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-38455777

It sounds as though the Royal Ballet is enjoying one of its periodic high points - and with largely home-grown dancers too! It's so wonderful to read about all the strength in depth the company is currently experiencing.

There always seems to be at least one awful crash like this around Christmas. So terrible for the loved ones of the victims, especially at this time of year.

Not sure if it's an American thing, but all the versions I'm familiar with have nine ladies dancing. The lords, pipers, and drummers are rather interchangeable though. So however much it costs, it's only 9/11ths of what The Times seems to think it costs.