h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've had a good weekend. I've caught up with my friends who are living in London, A and J. I lived with A and university and he's living in London, working as a Classics teacher and in a lovely relationship with J. J's one of those young people who was born at the age of 20, because he's now 22 and acts about 40. He's study Theatre Directing at Birkbeck and is doing a work placement at Rada. We caught up in the bar at Rada after the show.

There were cool tables with various newspaper articles about RADA under the perspex, and arty black and white photographs of the final year students on the walls. The coffee was served by three very enthusiastic young people, who I suspect were Rada students. For some reason it took three of them to serve us one coffee, and my it was cheap, £1.20 a cup is cheap for Scotland. In London I'd normally expect to pay about £3. It didn't taste that bad either.

I didn't actually see the play, just gossiped with A and J afterwards as young pretty things from the cast wandered around. They were all very very thin, and looked very very young. I was assured they were all over the age of 18, but I didn't really believe it. I was also amused to find out that RADA offer a service where they will visit your Christmas party, serve drinks and then 'surprise and delight your guests, by bursting into song'. I wondered if this was providing practical training in the service industry for budding young actors, and helping them to get jobs as waiters if acting didn't work out.

A was very excited, he'd found a shop in Bloomsbury that had a massive range of books in the original Greek, the young manager was a PhD student in Classics at UCL and liked to ensure that he didn't have to order them in. We talked about tempting them up to Scotland for Hogmany, and perhaps a joint holiday to Pompei. I've just read Mary Beard's book about Pompei and I really want to go there.

It's lovely seeing my friends happy and doing well in life.

And RADA accepted a Scottish £5 note as well...

That's very impressive - I've just about given up trying to get anywhere in London to take any Norn Irn banknotes

I've been at events like that, where the "staff" turn out to be the undercover entertainers - it works very well

"I wondered if this was providing practical training in the service industry for budding young actors, and helping them to get jobs as waiters if acting didn't work out."

That's the sort of thing they should have done for my undergrad.

We actually have a restaurant in Stockholm that is known for having serving staff that will, later on in the evening, take turns performing on a small stage. Mostly singing, but I've seen a few stand up comedians as well.

They're actually pretty good at it, and I know many established artists who have been 'discovered' in this restaurant by producers.