Ruth Elleson

It was bad enough when we had bendy buses. I can see why they work on long straight roads built on a grid system, but they weren’t so fabulous on London roads with a tight one-way system at every major interchange or suburb.

(I have a nominal weekly sum allocated to “groceries and general expenditure”. When I identify a potential super-low-spend week I can commit to, I can actively avoid traps like ending up in the pub with colleagues on a Thursday and frittering away £30 in five minutes on a small round of drinks.)

Hmmm. Wonder how little money I can get away with spending this week on general expenses. Fridge is well-stocked, I only have 2 evenings out (one is work, the other is already paid for) and it *should* therefore be possible to survive on absolute minimum and divert the remainder into “fun money”…

Looking at the comparatively few books I own which are opera source texts, and noting that they take up almost half a bookshelf… this is a pretty substantial volume you’re proposing. I think a set of separates with common design and branding is much more practical than a single combined volume!

Oh yes, doesn’t Siegmund say something like “if Sieglinde can’t come to Valhalla with me, let the hordes of Hella take me instead”?

I’d need them translated into my own language…

(I was definitely there - I dug out the programme from my collection as a result of your post!)

I was at the concert performance they did after the recording sessions, and I’m afraid to say I don’t remember a damn thing about it. I think I felt at the time that the material was better than the level of dramatic engagement this principal cast gave it. Maybe it came across better on disc.

Managed to get myself a nice ticket the other day for a repeat visit to the Royal Opera’s Turandot, this time with Arsen Soghomonyan as Calaf (though I’m mainly going because I want to hear the ladies again). Trying to think what I’ve see him in before, other than Opera Rara’s Le villi 🤔

I'm in antifa high command and we run all our clandestine meetings in Melania viewings

friend of mine is an undocumented immigrant and has been hiding in Melania theaters bc he knows people assume no one is in there

Yes, the judgement reads like “if as an organisation you wish to harass trans people, you’re going to have to unite behind an individual rather than visibly piling on as a collective”.

I’m feeling very stuck today. Mildly under the weather physically, and incapable of facing the world mentally. I dare say it’ll pass.

Yes! I’m reading this thread from London, and there is certainly a generally-true point here, but the driving part absolutely doesn’t fit and I was thinking surely it doesn’t in NYC either!

I'm sorry, but the reaction to Brianna Ghey being murdered by people she knew offline *because she was transgender* becoming 'we should stop teenagers from being on social media' rather than 'we should deal with the recent horrifying rise of transphobia in the UK' is unbelievably fucking bullshit.

I did my tax return 3 months before the deadline because I needed an excuse NOT to do the housework.

Christ, this is fucking dystopian.

How about free art classes, language courses, music lessons, sport sessions, further education modules or anything other than this.

This is the antithesis of education it’s a campaign of national brain rot.

Maybe I won’t go to the Royal Ballet School summer matinée. I don’t have a ticket for it yet anyway, and it’s budgeted for, which would help with the cost of the opera ticket 🤔

(Though, to be fair, I can probably find something that can be removed from my diary in exchange for it, which achieves the same desired outcome.)

Update: it’s lasted less than 24 hours 🤣 - not that I’ve actually BOUGHT the extra thing yet, but the clip I’ve just watched of Ruzan Mantashyan singing the letter scene in the Paris Onegin has just made me add the Grange Festival production to my must-see-this-summer list…

As it happens, one of my regular music jobs is with a school, so I’m spending this afternoon working with teenagers anyway…

OH. I did not know this (haven’t been to Grange Festival since Queen of Spades) and I now think I may have to find space in my budget and diary. Thank you!

Have you seen her in other roles? This seems absolutely ideal for her.

Bit late now, and I’m assuming an application by a school to bring a group to a specific matinee is not a guaranteed yes, so it seems like an excessively complicated and non-guaranteed way to try and get into one specific performance! Also, teenagers…

But hey, maybe some of them will be inspired enough to become adults like me who have to maintain an outward appearance of competence and equilibrium while constantly thinking about tragic opera.

Sitting here trying to work, when there is nowhere I’d rather be right now than at the Royal Opera House about to watch La traviata (yes, again) but it’s a Schools Matinee and no amount of love, yearning, insider knowledge or subterfuge was ever going to get me into this one 😭 Lucky schoolchildren…

I enjoyed that! 😍

Trawling the interwebs today (because I get itchy when nobody’s making season announcements…) I discover that New Sussex Opera’s autumn 2026 show will be Charpentier’s David & Jonathan. www.newsussexopera.org

Which is already pretty busy, to be fair.

In practice, I’ll need to book tickets sooner than that for things that take place later than that, which is fine. I’m just making a concerted effort to keep the next 5.5 months no busier than I’ve already allowed for.