Went to see the fabulous Keren Ann at the Arts Theatre in Soho tonight. It's difficult for a performer like her, who is essentially a quiet, un-piercing singer in the tradition of someone like Antonio Carlos Jobim, to get the volume right. Electric instruments always seem to be on the verge of some unseemly blurt.Anyway, we were sitting next to an old colleague. The other side of him were a couple who went to the bar during the encores, leaving their bags behind. She was just tuning up prior to another song when the phone in this bag erupted into a polyphonic ring tone. She didn't hear it but most of the audience did. The innocent guys next to the guilty bag extracted the phone and tried in vain to silence it. Eventually, in the gig-goers' equivalent of flinging yourself on the grenade, one of them got up and took it out, still pumping out its sig tune.
Anyway, you pick your words carefully when enthusing about another female to the GLW.
She's got lovely hair, I offered as we were going down the escalator to the Piccadilly Line. I was swiftly corrected. She's beautiful, apparently. I'd barely noticed.
