A Wintry Thursday

Today has been very entertaining. Once we had braved the slushy, semi-icy road down to the station we caught the train into to London and made our way to Earl’s Court for the Destinations Travel show. First we were ready for a coffee, and queued at a wholly inadequate stall, next to a huge bar with at least three beer pumps – what sort of a message does that send! We eventually got our coffee and sat down to plan where we should start. Just by us a seventy-odd year old woman sat with her magnifying glass and a couple of brochures, sipping a glass of white wine as she planned her next holiday. I hope she has a wonderful time, wherever she decides to go.
We started up towards the Americas as I promised to collect brochures for friends about those destinations. This led us to the Nova Scotia stand and the start of a plan to fly to Halifax, hire a car and discover that area. Then we could drive across to New Brunswick – and if we were there at the end of September we could take in the autumn colours before heading into The States to visit friends in New Hampshire. Such plans are the stuff of dreams! Armed with some brochures, we moved on, and conveniently close by was the Jordanian Tourist Board. Here we talked to Dave, who assured us that the trip that was lurking in the back of our minds was easily doable. We could fly into Amman, hire a car and drive ourselves around, taking time for photographs when we wanted, and yet seeing all the treasures that Jordan has to offer. Small guest houses provide excellent local accommodation, and he would even suggest an eleven day itinerary. It sounded great and once again, we left the stand armed with brochures and our heads buzzing with ideas.
On we wandered and soon came across the excellent Wanderlust photo exhibition. Here travellers had submitted their holiday photographs, with some amazing results. There were also several interesting portfolios including one featuring the camel races in Oman – bringing back fond memories. There are not just travel companies at the show, there are also many clothes, gifts and food stalls to visit. The latter are great fun as many offer free titbits of their wares, from sausages to chocolate and fudge. We tasted a few of the samples on our stroll along the avenues of stalls, also filling in some ‘win a holiday’ cards, providing companies with addresses for future mailouts.
Eventually it was time to leave and head back into the centre. We planned to have dinner and then we had tickets for ‘Complicit’ at the Old Vic. We decided to have dinner at Tas, which was delicious, reminding us of our short break in Istanbul last year. We resisted having Raki, the tasty aniseed flavoured Turkish drink, but enjoyed a glass of Anatolian red wine with our meal. The weather remained OK and we walked down to the theatre with time to spare.
For the last production, this and one more, the Old Vic has been converted into a theatre in the round, which is quite impressive. ‘Complicit’ is a story of a journalist (Richard Dreyfuss) who is up before the Grand Jury for publishing secret documents leaked to him by a secret source. These documents refer to torture and rendition by the US government. His dilemma is that he can go to prison for years unless he divulges the source, or so his council (David Suchet) tells him. His wife (Elizabeth McGovern) begs him not to be a hero, for if he is he will destroy their and their family’s lives. In the end he divulges the name, but finds out that the prosecution already knew who it was. We are not certain that he wasn’t set up by his own lawyer either, as he seems to be having meetings with the prosecutor and judge all the time. In the end, the journalist feels he has betrayed everyone for not living up to the ideals he had as one of the generation that protested against the Vietnam war. He berates governments not to be so foolish as, in victory, to become as bad as the enemy destroying their own morality when pursuing that enemy. It was heavy stuff. What was strange was the fact that the programme announced that the play would last some two and a quarter hours including the interval, and we were able to catch the 21.33 train home when the play had started around 19.30! This play hasn’t been well received by the critics, and there were times when it didn’t seem to flow easily, but the subject is a fascinating one and certainly throws up some interesting discussion topics.