This means I can attend a Stitches and Hos event in Kings Heath, Birmingham next Tuesday 27th January at the Hare and Hounds pub from 7:30pm.

It looks like great fun from the photos on facebook and I like the fact that there are DJ’s there providing tunes to knit by so if it does turn out that I am a terrible knitter I can at least enjoy some music and a vodka cranberry.

If I need to truly distract myself I might continue writing down ideas for a cabaret festival I would like to devise to take place in Moseley this summer, more details to follow. I am going to chat to the Moseley festival committee about it at the 2009 festival launch meeting on Wednesday 28th January at the Java Coffe Lounge opposite the fighting cocks pub garden on King Edward Road in Moseley. Anyone is free to pop along with ideas for the festival and to find out about how to get involved from 7pm. I volunteered in 2006 at the music in the park event for the festival and had a great time. I even took my own ‘poetry tent’

I think the song ‘Heavenly peach banquet’ from Monkey – Journey to the West is amazing and the first Chinese song, even though I do like a few Jolin and A-do Chinese pop songs, that is actually quite easy and not too lengthy to learn. I saw the show at the 02 on Saturday, it is a fascinating piece of theatre – really cleverly put together. The music is excellent all the way through and the whole show is so artistically done. I highly recommend it.

I recently got my chinese beginner level certificate through the post after 6 months of lessons and it seems only right I branch out into singing in mandarin. These are the lyrics to Damon Albarn’s beautiful melody in PinYin and English translation – why not learn a Chinese song too:

WANG MU NIANG NIANG
The Queen Mother of Heaven

ZHONG DE PAN TAO SHU
Has grown a Peach Garden

TAO HUA DUO DUO
Charming, full of buds

WAN RU YAN ZHI
Rosy, blossoming, intoxicating

TAO ZI GE GE
Each peach

YAN RU MEI REN
Looks like a little beauty

FAN REN CHI LE ZHE TAO ER A
Should you eat a peach

CHENG XIAN DE DAO
A long life you’ll lead and The Way you’ll understand

TI JIAN SHEN QING
Your limbs will grow strong, your body light

XIA JU QI FEI
Should you eat one of the ripest ones, you can fly

CHANG SHENG BU LAO
And eternal youth and immortality you’ll enjoy

La la la la la…

I need to document things more as it is never long before things change in this city (Birmingham). I keep meaning to take a photo of the Marilyn Monroe sculpture on the roof of bar Missing on Hurst Street before anything happens to this iconic feature like the removal or lending of Kong which is often mentioned by my relatives at family gatherings.

I’ll put it on my to do list along with ‘purchase limescale remover’.