Posts Tagged chris
Star Wars: A Musical Journey
I forgot to post about this at the time, but myself, Paula and Chris went to see Star Wars: A Musical Journey at the O2 Arena in London on April 10th.
Discussions went back and forth about the best way to get down there, who was going, whether we were staying overnight, who was going to look after Evie, etc, etc. At one point, it was turning into a mini family holiday, with my mum and dad coming with us to look after Evie while we attended the concert, us all stopping in a hotel overnight, then coming back the following day. In the end, Evie stayed at home and my folks looked after her, while Paula, Chris and I went to the concert by car, mainly because that was the easiest and (more importantly) the cheapest option. The 8+ hours of driving weren’t ideal, and we didn’t get back home until around 2:30am, but I coped better than I thought I would. The tiredness that I was expecting didn’t hit me until the following afternoon.
The concert itself was excellent. Anthony Daniels (yes, that Anthony Daniels*) was the narrator, and introduced the various musical sequences. While the orchestra was playing these, clips from the six Star Wars films were shown on a large video screen behind the orchestra. Some of the clips were silent, while others had dialogue and sound effects. Certain sequences worked better than others, but there’s nothing quite like seeing an orchestra and choir in full flow, especially when performing music that you know and love. Oh, and there were frikkin’ laser beams too!
We saw a couple of famous faces there (famous in Star Wars circles, at any rate): Warwick Davies (Wicket the Ewok) and Jeremy Bulloch (the guy in the Boba Fett costume). The only bummer from my point of view was that George Lucas apparently turned-up on the second night, hence we missed him. :O(
* Mr C-3PO, for the uninitiated.
Excuse me while I pop out for a moment…
So Chris fell through the ceiling at the house today. He’s okay, thankfully — no broken bones or anything, just some scrapes and bruises. In fact, considering what could have happened he was very lucky.
The graduate
Our Chris has been taking an Open University degree in Computing for the past few years, and last Friday was his graduation ceremony. Neither myself or my other brother Nick even went to university, let alone graduated, so this was a reasonably big deal for our family. Hence we all got dolled-up and made the trek to Bridgewater Hall in Manchester (home of the Hallé Orchestra, apparently) on a baking-hot June day.
Needless to say, the hall wasn’t air conditioned, so it was kind of uncomfortable. It was also quite a long and boring ceremony (imagine clapping complete strangers for an hour-and-a-half). However, I was very proud to see my bro get up to collect his… well, he wasn’t actually given anything, he just received a handshake from the VIP on the stage. I was a bit surprised he wasn’t handed a scroll or something, but then maybe I’ve been misled by TV and the movies!
(from right to left)
Me, Paula, Dad, Chris, Mum, Nick, Sarah-Jane (Nick’s girlfriend)