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Monday 6 February 2012

January News

So, we're truly immersed in the winter of 2012.  February seems to be the month for snow, where January was mild and tame(ish).

I started off the new year by going to bed at about 12:01 having been exhausted by Christmas!  At least I saw the new year in.

Then came the first of my four January reviews for the LondonJazz Blog - I had the pleasure of going to see NYJO first, followed by the Guildhall Jazz Singers, American singer Rachel Gould, and the legend that is Mark Murphy (which hasn't been published yet).

As well as all this writing, I've had a few gigs of my own:
A genuine shriek while trying
to pose for a picture!

A sophisticated evening of jazz with my pianist Rick Simpson at the Archduke, which was a good warm-up to some cold birthday ice-skating the following day.  I did not fall over once.  (For those clever clogs of you out there, no, this doesn't mean that I fell over more than once!)

I was pleased to be invited back to sing at The City Pipe the following Friday, despite it being Friday 13th.  Apparently I was the only singer who wanted to take that date!  The City Pipe has free Friday jazz on every week, and they have just purchased a piano, so it looks like jazz is in their long term plans.  The gig was great - the only downside being that because it was free, I had to compete with a very very very noisy drinks party in the adjacent area.  Shushing them did not help!

I'm back at The City Pipe on April 20th.


Singing with the City Pipe house band.

A crowded City Pipe.

The rest of January was quite quiet, giving me a chance to write some music, do some rehearsing, go on a make-up course, and enjoy a Sunday roast at a lunchtime jazz gig - a beautiful change to running around the country day and night.  Here's to a relaxing February too!

Sunday 5 February 2012

Top Ten Quiz Team Names

Last week we went to a quiz night on a whim... which turned out to be actually quite good.  Interesting questions and well-organised rounds.  (It was at the Grape and Grain in Crystal Palace which incidentally also does a great Sunday lunchtime jazz session.)

One of the rounds was a hoopla for a bottle of wine, which involved 4 seemingly randomly-picked teams.  I asked the quizmaster later how he picked the lucky 4.  "The ones with the best team names," he said.  "But we are called Quizzie Rascal!" I protested, to which he replied, "Yes, I hear that one all the time." .  Oh, ok.  Well then I better get thinking of better ones.  I've only got 5.  Help anyone?

1.  Quzzie Rascal - brilliant although apparently not original enough
2.  The Quizzarss of Oz
3.  Born again quiztians - or should it be "born again quiz-teams"?!
4.  The quiztal maze
5.  Quiz-team Aguilera (I bet he's heard that one before too!)

I'm trying to start a trend with this on Twitter so if you have any good ideas then you could tweet them to me (@Sarehug) using the hash tag #goodquizteamnames if you so desire!