Architecture A few days ago I talked up the Pevsner Guide To Liverpool, rewritten by my old friend Joseph Sharples. Catherine Jones of the Liverpool Echo took Joseph for a walk around some of the buildings mentioned in the book, including the old Royal & Sun Alliance Building:

"Sharples has a sneaking admiration for the concrete lines of the Royal & Sun Alliance building in Old Hall Street ... at pavement level "its blank walls give little pleasure, but from a distance - and especially from the river - its rugged bulk and distinctive silhouette contribute greatly to the skyline. As a monumentally selfimportant head office of a local insurance company, it follows worthily in the tradition of the Royal Liver Building." But, over a cup of tea after our blustery, rain-splashed walk around the Canning Street conservation area, Joseph says: "Oh dear, does that sound critical? It's not meant to be."

Its alway odd when you read quotes from people you used to know well in print because often they don't sound like themselves at all. On this occasion II can here the man say the words and can't wait to bump into him at Lime Street Station or on a bus (as I usually do) and congratulate him on what is a really great read.

Life The local postal service has finally imploded in on itself. Having reduced the service to one delivery a day, we don't seem to be even getting a weekend post either. There is always the sneaky suspicion that some post isn't getting through at all and First Class items are sometimes taking a day or so so be delivered. It's hit my ScreenSelect deliveries pretty hard. Where once I used to glory in six discs a week now I'm lucky to get five; last week what with the bank holiday I received two. This is reducing my value for money, goddamnit. Spokespeople for the Post Office say that its just slight teething problems during the transition into a new way of working. But surely if everything had been planned correctly there wouldn't be teething and their business and our service wouldn't be effect....

TV What already? Big Brother V starts 28th May and I won't be watching. Far too many other things I could be doing. Then again I said that last year and look what happened. So we'll see....

Shakespeare Extensive interview Adrian Noble, the former artistic director of The Royal Shakespeare Company: "Of course, there were things that went dreadfully wrong at the RSC, and I deeply regret them. The principal mistake was announcing everything at the same time. We should have got the company's structure sorted out first, and moved on to the redevelopment later. As it was, opposition to one aspect of the project rebounded on to the others, so that nothing got considered on its own terms. People wanted a scapegoat, and as I'd been based at the RSC for 23 years, I was an easy person to pick on. But now I'm out of it, I'm not bitter. [French actor/director] Jean-Louis Barrault said, 'You must feel passion for everything but cling to nothing' - quite right. Festering is not in my nature. I have to move on."

Shakespeare Is still not colour blind, as eyebrows raised over the casting of a black African-American as the villainous Don John in new production: "Bob Devin Jones thinks questions he has gotten about being the only black actor in the cast and playing Don John are perhaps more telling about the general state of theater casting than they might seem. "In a way, even the most informed people, by saying, "Why are you playing the villain?' tacitly are referencing that it would be an automatic choice that the African-American would play the villain," he said. "If you scattered us throughout any particular play, it wouldn't come up."

Shakespeare New performance appears as matinee at the Shakespeare on Avon Festival.

Shakespeare Some notable performances in productions of Will's plays crop up in the new Tony nominations: "As expected, one of the toughest categories to predict will be that of leading actor in a play. Kevin Kline and Christopher Plummer, who respectively played Shakespeare's Falstaff and King Lear, are competing against Frank Langella's bravura performance in Match, Simon Russell Beale's triumph in the National Theatre's production of Tom Stoppard's Jumpers and Jefferson Mays' juggling of 35 roles in Doug Wright's Pulitzer Prize-winning I Am My Own Wife."

Shakespeare In Korean: "It takes place in a world of Korean fairies such as Kyunwoo (herding boy) and Jiknyo (weaving girl) in ancient times in Korea. It is a love story that takes place one summer night in which reality and illusion are mixed together."

Shakespeare Don Pedro hits the streets: "And I'm pretty sure there wasn't any hip-hop trio called Super Dope Posse in Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing." This would be Shakespeare's loss. There is such an aggregation in Mosaic Youth Theatre's "Everybody's Talkin,' " an original musical based on "Much Ado," and its members nearly steal the show as they wax poetic on subjects like potato chips (crunch! crunch!) and SpongeBob SquarePants."

Music Knock Alanis Morissette all you want you unintiated masses but she can write a catchy chorus. Granted I'm singing in her choir but I've already got her new single trying to break out of the edges of my brain and it was only released yesterday. Everything, taken from her soon to be new album So-Called Chaos is yet another development of a style which has slowly flittered onwards since the mid-ninities -- a middle ground between the rock and ethnic sounds she's been experimenting with for the past few albums. Not that the singer has cut back on the verbage. Only Alanis could make a lyric like 'I blame everyone else not my own partaking / my passive aggressive-ness can be devastating', put music behind it, make it scan and make it beautiful. Really positive about the album now and happy that we might be able to put Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie behind us.

Avil Lavigne also released yesterday with a piece which flirts with trying to be Alanis by numbers. Regular readers will know about my love/hate relationship with the new pixie -- I'm probably far too old for her and I know intrinsically she's been plucked and developed to appeal for the markets Britney, Christina and Norah can't bust into. But like all of those there is a certain currency in having easy music -- something you can just listen and yes sing along to. So here I am with the other single I bought yesterday. Don't Tell Me is basically more of the same -- not at all surprising -- verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus fade to end. Lacks the emotional intensity of 'I'm With You' but not a total loss. What niggles is that it feels like an album track -- something from the middle to pass over time between singles. But this is the single which suggests that the new album may have issues. We'll see. The b-side, an acoustic version of the same song feels better to me, less produced, less vocally perfect -- and Avril can sing better live than ever. Perhaps a miagi style mentor has been getting to practice.

Shakespeare for no reason I can write about here I thought I'd offer this bit of four hundred year old poetry which is a perfect examples of why men know nothing about women. It's the final speech from The Duke at the end of the play.

For those not familiar, in brief, The Duke has spent much of the thing running around in disguise tidying up after he left his deputy in charge of his city in an attempt to clean up the city -- while The Duke wants to tidy up the people's attitude Angelo brings in some far more draconian laws than he was expecting. In one sub-plot Isabella, a nun, watches as her brother Claudio is condemned to death for making his girlfriend pregnant out of wedlock. The deputy, Angelo, offers to set the brother free if Isabella will sleep with him. The Duke manipulates the action so that Angelo sleeps with one of his ex-girlfriends and the brother is freed. Now see what he does here:


THE DUKE:
She, Claudio, that you wrong'd, look you restore.
Joy to you, Mariana! Love her, Angelo:
I have confess'd her and I know her virtue.
Thanks, good friend Escalus, for thy much goodness:
There's more behind that is more gratulate.
Thanks, provost, for thy care and secrecy:
We shill employ thee in a worthier place.
Forgive him, Angelo, that brought you home
The head of Ragozine for Claudio's:
The offence pardons itself. Dear Isabel,
I have a motion much imports your good;
Whereto if you'll a willing ear incline,
What's mine is yours and what is yours is mine.
So, bring us to our palace; where we'll show
What's yet behind, that's meet you all should know.

So basically, The Duke having saved Isabella from sleeping with Angelo and breaking her holy orders and beliefs (the real issue at hand) offers her the same thing, grinning as he does so. In no production that I've seen has he had his way with her. At least she dashed off the stage. The best reaction was a slap across the face and a push of the throne, which is about what he deserves.

Site News Unsurprisingly I spent my writing hour tonight getting used to Blogger's new interface and implementing the new comments system. Do me a favour and leave a message so that I know this thing is working and we'll talk some more tomorrow.

Shakespeare The Charles Knight version of the canon rendered online: "This website presents 38 engravings from the Imperial Edition of William Shakespeare's Complete Works by the Victorian publisher Charles Knight. You can view accompanying texts in English and in Dutch, and, for thirteen texts, hear them enacted in English."

Shakespeare "'To buy?' not the question...": "Wealthy Shakespeare fans had a rare opportunity April 14, when Christie's New York offered at auction a third-quarto edition of Shakespeare's "Hamlet." Published in 1611, it was expected to sell for $2 million. In 2001, a first-folio edition sold for $6.2 million, more than double Christie's highest estimate. The price set a record for Shakespeare at auction, as well as a world auction record for a 17th-century book."

[Later: Hamlet fails to sell at auction]

Shakespeare More on Will's food, this time what he might have been eating at dinner time: "It is impossible to say exactly what Shakespeare ate, but one can make educated guesses. Excavations around the site of the old Globe have uncovered mounds of oyster shells, Ms. Segan said. Oysters were served both at taverns as a pretheater snack and inside the theater itself, the Elizabethan equivalent of ballpark franks. Shakespeare's frequent mention of them ("love may transform me to an oyster," says Benedict in "Much Ado About Nothing") makes it all but certain that he slurped on oysters or ate oyster pie during long days at the theater."

[Related: Francine Segan, Shakespeare's Kitchen: Renaissance Recipes for the Contemporary Cook]

Shakespeare With RADA celebrating its centenary this year, BBC News provide an overview of some of its most famous sons and daughters: "Steve McFadden is best known as bad boy Phil Mitchell in BBC One soap EastEnders. He attended Rada in his mid-20s for two years. Previous jobs before joining the Academy ranged from carrot picking and street trading to plumbing and working with the disabled."

Shakespeare An overview of Ontario's forthcoming Stratford Festival: "The perfect selection to open the season in summer is "A Midsummer Night's Dream," one of three plays this season rated G, great for families. Instead of an English wood, the scene is Brazil, where Hippolyta, Amazon queen, reigns. Mischievous Puck plays court jester while other spirits toy with the emotions of Man, tradesmen try to master acting, and the magic of a summer's eve in the Amazon rain forest plays tricks on lovers who chase each other by night. All's well that ends well, so to speak."

Shakespeare Or in fact Hamlet! The Musical: "The show includes a slew of Nashville stage veterans and is done, mind you, with ''full respect'' for the original Shakespearean work. Its cast of characters has everything from an all-too-egotistical thespian to a Ted Nugent-like rock singer, with a theater co-owner who ''hawks beauty products at the ticket counter'' in between."

Shakespeare Shakespeare - the Musical: "a play about the Bard with excerpts from his plays and poems, with words and music by Cenarth Fox, proved to be a memorable spectacle. Under the able guidance of Ms Caroline Pullicino and Ms Clarissa Fleri Soler, who produced and directed the play, over 100 fourth form students gave an excellent performance of music, dance, song and drama. It was a joy to watch these beaming teenage girls on stage as they were obviously enjoying themselves. Maybe it was the subject matter, very dear to my own sensibility, but surely the verve and confidence which all and sundry showed on stage, that made me wish the spectacle would never come to a close."

Life I think I have a clock hidden in one of the walls of my room, or under my bed or in a drawer. Every now and then when its particularly quiet I can hear the ticking sound. I'm 89% certain it isn't a bomb, and I know it isn't any of the other clocks in my room -- all but one of those is digital and I have the other in my sights). But there it is again, that damn ticking sound. The trouble is whenever I try and follow the sound, it gets swamped with the crunching of me standing up or walking. I'll keep you posted with any major updates on this important story.