Nelson's Column
Link To Us Bookmark
July
The Show Ain't Over 'Til the Fat Lady's on Page 3 17th July 2008
The Sun sets on Covent Garden
The first night of a new Royal Opera House season is, traditionally, an occasion when the wives of Russian oligarchs and top City bankers take the chance to show off their jewellery in the bar, sneer at each others’ handbags in the toilets, and then sneak off in the interval, leaving a second-half audience of three octogenarian baronets snoozing in the stalls.

The eagerly-anticipated new production of Don Giovanni (eagerly anticipated by the half-dozen people who actually know anything about opera, anyway) at the Royal Opera House is going to be a little different. The only way to get hold of a ticket is to buy a copy of ‘The Sun’ on 30th July, and enter yourself in the lottery.

That’s ‘The Sun’. Home to Dear Deidre, Desktop Keeley (Google it), Page 3, and such noted opera critics as Jeremy Clarkson and Lorraine Kelly. The current top Arts stories on their website right now are ‘Madonna in Meltdown’, ‘Brooke to Bare All for Playboy’ and ‘Miley May Strip for Film Role’. The most recent mentions of ‘opera’ in the paper have been about Britain’s Got Talent’s Paul Potts (fair enough, but it is a year since he won it), and ‘Pamela Anderson goes bra-less for night out at Opera’.

The theory (based, I suspect, on watching the opera scene in 'Pretty Woman') is that if you get White Van Man and Essex Girl to come and see 'Don Giovanni' just once, they will immediately swap their alcopops for Chateau Lafitte, buy a Hampstead townhouse, take out an annual subscription to the ROH and start reading Gramophone magazine instead of ‘The Sun’. The concept that people might choose not to go to the opera because it’s expensive and a bit boring is obviously not one that has been much considered by Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas DBE and her merry band of trustees.

So when the show opens on 10th September, what can we expect in London’s most magnificent auditorium? There will be lots of journalists from the ‘Guardian’ and the ‘Telegraph’ wandering around frantically looking for interviewees who work in chip shops, and there will be plenty of City gents and oligarchs who bought their tickets on e-bay. There won’t be anyone who wouldn’t normally have turned up, since asking your butler to pick up a copy of ‘The Sun’ is not a challenge that would tax the wit of even the most antique opera-lover.

I suspect, in fact, that this stunt is going to backfire spectacularly. For all its faults (intermittent truth-stretching, obsession with breasts, borderline fascism) ‘The Sun’ is completely compelling reading. I fear that rather than getting a whole new audience for 18th-century Austrian opera, we’re going to see lots of broadsheet readers converted to the tabloids. And from there it’s just a short step to being unable to head out to Opening Nights at Covent Garden because it’s Big Brother Eviction Night on Channel 4.
Today’s Rubbish News, Tomorrow’s News on Rubbish
Here’s a shocker – giving away millions of newspapers in central London is creating loads and loads of paper that’s not being recycled. Commuters, after having the freesheets thrust into their hands (never mind the latte and briefcase!), are not seeking out recycling bins but scattering the newspapers they probably didn’t want in the first place around town. The 70 bins were installed quickly enough when Westminster Council told The London Paper and London Lite that their distribution could be restricted but now it appears they’re expecting them to be filled too.
On Tap
There’s been a definite move to “just a glass of tap water please” in recent times but it now seems we can omit the “just” from that sentence in London restaurants as though we’re apologising for ordering something that’s free; obviously meaning it could never be as good as their glacial fresh-from-the-Schlatenkees bottled water. We snootily snub water, ice even, when we’re in Europe, in case of a “jippy tummy” – it’s as if we’ve always known that London’s tap water is the only type to be trusted but now it’s a fact; according to the people-in-the-know-about-water, it’s the best in the country.
Four Years and Counting...
Word is out that our Ken (Livingstone, lest we forget) is looking for a job... nothing quite so ironic as Tony Blair becoming a Middle East envoy or as predictable as his recent attempt to take over the airwaves. Nope, it seems all he wants is his job in City Hall back. He’ll have to wait till 2012 of course – just in time for the Olympics, so hopefully that’ll take over from the rancour over bendy buses – but it appears Ken has already started an early campaign trail which involves, well, whining about Boris really.
October 2009
26th October
Posties Strike a Chord
26th October
Frieze Still Pleases
September 2009
26th September
A River Runs Through It
23rd September
Blogging is Best
August 2009
26th August
When Saturday comes
22nd August
Bring on the Bikes
July 2009
27th July
Against the Clock
20th July
View for a thrill
June 2009
May 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
18th February
New Photography Laws
12th February
Glitz and the Pitts
January 2009
27th January
Setting the Standard
21st January
Too Much for Posh Nosh?
December 2008
23rd December
January is on the Horizon
20th December
Merry Christmas
November 2008
26th November
All The World's A Stage
20th November
Surviving the Crunch
October 2008
24th October
Boris v Jingjing
17th October
Soaps in Pole Position
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
23rd April
By George
11th April
Back to the 80s
March 2008
February 2008
20th February
Dark, Satanic Turnmills
6th February
A Diamond in the Drink
January 2008
21st January
People Wanted for Plinth
14th January
Boo! Hiss!
December 2007
28th December
Tate That - A Hirst for Art
20th December
Christmas Shopping
November 2007
27th November
Mind the Gap
26th November
London On A Tray
October 2007
26th October
Leaving the Station
14th October
The Sky's the Limit
September 2007
August 2007
24th August
Heathrow under Siege
17th August
Gormless
10th August
Losing Face
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
23rd March
So, Another Magazine
16th March
Avoiding iContact
February 2007
January 2007
December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006
26th May
Curvaceous Border
12th May
Vegging Out
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
20th January
February Sales
20th January
Moby Sick
13th January
Glass Half Full
3rd January
Three Cheers for the Tube Station Workers
December 2005
22nd December
January Bites
16th December
A Remarkable Year
November 2005
October 2005
September 2005
August 2005
July 2005
29th July
Moving On From 7/7
22nd July
Get loaded in the park
15th July
Victoire!!
June 2005
May 2005
April 2005
March 2005
February 2005
January 2005
December 2004
30th December
Party Pooper
23rd December
The Second Battle of Trafalgar
16th December
Sadie's Year
November 2004
28th November
Ripper-Watch
21st November
Kinky Boots
14th November
Smoked out
October 2004
22nd October
Yuppie Meal
15th October
Fines of Fury
8th October
No Twist in the Turner
September 2004
17th September
Battleships, bloodsports and Batman
10th September
Clique Week
3rd September
Return of the Bard
August 2004
July 2004
 
Link to The Show Ain't Over 'Til the Fat Lady's on Page 3
To link to this page from your website use this code.
 
 
The link will appear on your page as:
 
Home | Contact us | Terms & Conditions | Link to us | Marketing | Partners | Subscriptions
Sponsor
Our favourite London hotels
May Fair Hotel
Luxury Hotels
 
In Trafalgar Square
20% off
 
At Liverpool Street
50% off
 
At Green Park
35% off
 
Near Covent Garden
30% off
 
Cavendish Hotel
Mid-range Hotels
 
Near Parliament
35% off
 
Near National Gallery
47% off
 
Near Tower Bridge
35% off
 
In Little Venice
40% off
 
Discounted theatre tickets
Chicago
57% off
 
29% off
 
42% off
 
56% off
 
47% off
 
38% off
 
Diner & Theatre Deals
Oliver
from £24.50
 
from £29.00
 
from £32.50
 
from £42.50
 
from £45.00
 
from £27.50
 
London Sightseeing
London Eye
10% off
 
10% off
 
10% off
 
from £8.50
 
from £25.00
 
10% off
 
LondonTown.com has special discounts every week. The amount of discount will vary depending on the dates you are coming and how far in advance you book. All discounts are subject to availability.
Recently viewed Favourites
Recently viewed