This past weekend, my sister Norah and her husband Hugo made a ridiculously quick visit to London. Hugo had to come over to hopefully finish wrapping up his brother’s estate. Robert was a Jesuit minister who died about a year ago while teaching at Roehampton University. Because this was the first anniversary of his death, his parents wanted to come to visit his grave, etc. (The ended up having to fly standby from Uganda, so Hugo spent the first day when he was here checking on which airport they were in and whether they were going to get on a plane.) Since Hugo and his parents was going to be here, Norah decided to come along, even though she needed to get back to work after the holidays. It was wonderful to have them here. Hugo’s parents came to our flat for a visit. Their visit was a bit of a production, since they were staying somewhere southwest of London and Hugo’s mother doesn’t get around well . But they got a ride, we ordered Indian food from Cinnamon on Brick Lane and really had a nice visit. Some pictures of Norah, Hugo and Hugo’s father follow:

  

As I noted, Hugo had a hard time getting his parents to London from Uganda. British Airways used to have a direct flight, but they recently abandoned it when Turkish Airways undercut them in price. So now, to get to Uganda, you apparently have to fly via Istanbul or Dubai. It is all a part of the general difficulty of flying in Africa. You can’t fly directly within the continent in most cases and, instead, usually have to go to somewhere in Europe (generally based on colonial history) and then fly back. So to get from Nairobi to Dakar, for example, one would have to fly all the way to Paris (Probably on a British airline) and then fly to Senegal (on a French airline). This lack of the basic travel infrastructure that we take for granted has got to be a severe drag on African economies.

A Day of Theater: On Saturday, we went to both a matinee and an evening show, something we used to do fairly when we were younger. For the matinee, I saw that “Mr. Foote’s Other Leg” was on half-price and recommended it (and then decided to see it agin myself). It really is a wonderful play and a great production. As an added bonus, it had moved from Hampstead Theatre to Haymarket Theatre in the West End, which was the theatre that the real Foote performed in. (I won’t repeat what I wrote about the play back when we saw it in September. You can always go back and read it if you  are curious.) I hope it makes it to NYC. I could definitely picture it at BAM.

In the evening, we went to see “Guys and Dolls”. That musical is a Lewis family favorite, but Hugo had never seen it (not even the Sinatra and Brando movie version). It is such a great show, with a series of memorable songs and a wonderful, funny book, that it is impossible not to have fun watching it. The guy who played Sky Masterson was very good, as was the Nicely-Nicely actor (although I’m not positive that I approve of changing “Sit Down You’re Rocking the Boat” into a big production number). The actor playing Sister Sara Brown was good, although her voice needed to be bigger for at least one of her songs. I was not crazy about the way Adelaide was played. The actor never got Adelaide’s accent right (which is an important part of the humor) and hammed it up too much. She didn’t spoil the part, because it is so inherently funny that you can’t, but she could have been so much better. (In general, the British actors had trouble capturing the Runyanese of the book.) All in all, it was a competent, high-energy production, with some really good performances and we enjoyed it thoroughly.

New Painting: Im not entirely sure I’m finished with this one, but I’ve been fiddling with it and I’m getting sick of it and I’m not sure that I can actually improve on it, so I’m calling it done, at least for now. If you have been to our place in the Catskills, you will hopefully recognize is as a painting of the pond (a.k.a. Lake Jim). I’m thinking that I need to do something in a different style next. Anyway, here it is: