The Butt Ugly Weblog

Random encounters

After a meeting ended up earlier than I was expecting, I managed to slip to town and see the Lord of the Rings musical. Being a sucker for all things Tolkien, it was a bit of a must-see.

But... as with so many things that get lost in their own excellence, something was missing. It's certainly a wonderful show, and the set decoration and lighting and props are without fail and bloody impressive, but I think the simplifications necessary for it to be squashed in three hours just took its toll. People have criticized Jackson's movies for running breathlessly from one place to another, and the musical only has a third of the time. I don't care too much about the stuff which was dropped out, what was important what they kept in. The producers had chosen to play up the general feeling of loss in the book - everyone loses something, and the world is transformed - but that just makes it a very sad road movie with no real sense of doom.

Anyhoo, today was some nice high tea in V&A, and a visit to Picocon. After the disappointment of the London Comic Con, this was a totally refreshing small convention with the right amount of extremely geeky and silly stuff (like the Fish Fight). The ICSF library is also rather impressive: 9000 volumes in total. It's probably one of the largest Scifi libraries in the world, and made my geek heart weep with envy. Big thanks to Cory and Shuri for getting me there!