Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park

With the Olympics now well over, the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park is now open to the public - actually it opened last week, but I was doing something else then.

The park is quite near Westfield in Stratford, and that is where I got the train to.   Unless you know your way around - which I don't really - it is quite difficult to find.   But I found it, and walked through to the actual park, passing the swimming pool and other leftovers from the Olympics on the way.

At the moment, the Queen Elizabeth Park is far from finished - the most one can say is that the idea is there, but there;s still a lot of work to be done before it's finished.   But enough has been done to show that it will be a fantastic place and a real asset the the local area and all the families that live there.   Even in it's unfinished state, it was full of people, including stacks of children.   Admittedly, it was a nice day, but even so, it was really alive.

The site itself is interesting, with little hills and valleys.   Gardens and trees have been planted, but there is still piles of open space for children to play.   There's a cafe - a bit pricey I thought - and a children's playground (not yet finished); a river and canal, a climbing wall.   And, of course, a general feeling of being a nice place.

I wandered the whole length of the park, having a good look at everything - it's definitely one of the successes that has sprung from the Olympics.

St. Matthew's Passion

A wonderful performance - as one would expect - by the BBC singers and musicians at St. Simon's Church in Rockley Road.   The performance was in aid of a charity which they support for poor children in South America, and the Vicar, Cameron Collington, gave an impassioned talk about the work they do and of course asked everyone to be generous when they took up a collection at the end.  

I hadn't realised just how long St. Matthew's Passion is!    I sang in it a very long time ago, but can't remember it being excessively long, but then when you're singing, you're not thinking about time.  

It was also interesting to hear it as a member of an audience - I remembered the soprano parts, but the others hand't really registered.   When you're singing, it's your own part that's important, and ensuring you come in at the right time.

One really nice touch was having the words all displayed on screens high up on each side, so you could follow all the words as they were singing.

During the interval, there were rather delicious "eats", with children, including Cameron Collington's, acting as waiters and waitresses.

Altogether a lovely evening.

Present Laughter

Another production by the Ladbroke Players at St. Peter;s, Kensington Park Road - Noel Coward's "Present Laughter".  Excellently cast - as usual - with some new members of the society taking part, including Alison du Cane's daughter.  A light comedy, bordering on farce, with never a dull moment.  Set in the world of travelling theatre, it lurches from one drama to the next, as the characters move from one impossible situation to the next.   Nothing too serious, just light entertainment which leaves you feeling good at the end.

Water, Water Everywhere

Another lecture at the Chemistry Society - this time on water.    A fascinating talk about the difficulties of monitoring water quality, when anything more sophisticated than the simplest of sensors in prohibitively expensive and therefore impractical.   Professor Dermot Diamond is a good lecturer, with an excellent speaking voice, and his talk was very much aimed at the laymen, rather than the expert.   He started the lecture with a story about a burst water main, and then went on to talk about the importance of good water supplies throughout history, and also the problems involved in ensuring the quality.

One small interesting snippet - in Dublin, they can judge the cocaine consumption in the city from measuring the drugs in the sewage!