Critic Cal

Having read countless books of chivalry of days of yore and having filled his head with errant knights and ladies fair and noble deeds and devious enchanters ... in late middle age it dawns on  Don Quixote  that this is in actual fact his destiny. It is for him, and him alone, to bring knight-errantry and all the glorious feats and romances entailed therein bang-up-to-date for 17th century Spain. So he sallies forth -- accompanied by skeptical but willingly-deluded faithful squire Pancho and scrawny, disobliging noble steed Rocinante, to the great dismay of his housekeeper and his niece and in spite of the best efforts of his friends the barber and the local priest. His desire for adventure overwhelms him to the point where he is bound to find it even (or especially) where it isn't. And so, he battles fearlessly with monstrous giants (windmills), liberates oppressed captives (convicted criminals), triumphs in bloody combat with devious night intruders (hanging wineskins), takes up

As soon as my extremely-slowly-but-finally-surely recovering tendon permits, I plan to dance. Not publicly, nor proficiently -- just enthusiastically around the house when no-one's watching. It is an undertaking from which I expect to derive great delight (ineptitude notwithstanding [1]), and I lament that I did not avail myself of the opportunity more frequently prior to being robbed of it by injury. For now, I must be content to sate my terpsichorean cravings vicariously. And the weekend just gone was the perfect occasion -- ZooNation 's Some Like It Hip-Hop   at the Peacock Theatre in London. OK, so the soundtrack was hardly Jay-Z, and the four of us comprised almost the entirety of the "nearly-30-to-my-mother-in-law-would-probably-rather-I-didn't-say" contingent amidst a slew of excitable 12 year olds, but it was super-fun: I just love watching people being really really good at what they do, especially when 'what they do' is lots of imaginatively ch