At least the Charlie Hebdo attacks cleared up one question: what to do with all those giant pencils we insist on giving each other at Christmas. Which only leaves the enormous playing cards … maybe it needs to be a casino next time, or even better, one of those funfair stalls with the blunt darts and balloons full of sulfur hexa fluoride.
A depressing thought?! Well, you haven’t seen the line-up for this month. It’s a real snoozer: untrue to its name, March is going to crawl by.
I wish I could tell you about something interesting and really mean it – like how the English professional footballers’ union are going to get half a billion pounds from the next TV deal; or how most of the world’s leading sportsmen are sociopaths – but I can’t. This isn’t that sort of column, unfortunately.
Scoops with Gloop
So, where to start? Oh yeah, the Chocolate Festival, perfectly timed to undo two months of hard dieting in the space of an afternoon spent in the mindset of Augustus Gloop.
And then, just two hours after you’ve eaten your own bodyweight in chunky Kit-Kats, there’s the Historical Underwear Show. Although to be fair, the wasp’s waist corset has probably been out of range since your tenth birthday.
Still depressed? Drown your sorrows at 50 Top Wines. That will soak up all the … who are you trying to kid; a 99 flake stays in your system longer than homemade LSD.
Totall recall therapy
So you're feeling bloated, you’ve just bought a corset that was designed for Hattie Jacques and you’re sozzled. Rewind! Rewind! That’s an order.
What you should have done is opt for the Body and Soul Fair. Cunningly timed to start at exactly the same time as the Chocolate Festival, it even offers hypnotherapy. Perfect if you want to erase your mind of the brown stu ff (and Vincent Gallo’s The Brown Bunny and anything ever recorded by Bobby Brown if you like), and even better if hubby wants you to forget he exists so he can hop o ff to Miniature Wargaming.
Interactive opera sounds fun
Sounds a bit his and hers thus far. Well, performancewise, there are no less than two English-language storytelling productions, and also a curious chance to indulge in interactive opera by rewriting the end of a Mozart opera – in this case his classic romp Cosi Fan Tutte.
Will this trend be extended to some of the classics? Might we soon be rewriting Hamlet so the Dane walks o ff the stage at the end to enjoy a Carlsberg? Or an ending in which Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid walk o ff into the sunset? Or a rewrite in which every single one of Tom Cruise’s family in War of the Worlds is so resolved to the impending doom of the human race that they walk o ff a cliff . Oh please make it so!
Marooned indoor mostly
All in all for activities, it’s mostly an indoor a ffair. Cosplay, chess club and re-enactment fighting in a church are your best options if you don’t fancy marathon running.
Music wise, Steel Panther, Simple Minds and Noel Gallagher are among the big names in town, while British artist David Hockney is probably the most famous artist opening an exhibition, although he’s not necessarily the best, according to our resident expert.
Did you know that there’s an eclipse, or at least one in which 84 percent of the sun will disappear, or that Bakken will be opening at the end of the month – to many the hum of the motorbikes that day marks the true advent of spring.
It’s a vaguely comforting thought, which at this time of year is the best you can really hope for.
