A few weeks ago, Ingrid and I went to see The Threepenny Opera at the National Theatre. The Threepenny Opera was written by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, based on Elisabeth Hauptmann’s German translation of John Gay’s “A Beggar’s Opera”. It was first performed in Weimar Berlin in 1928 and has evolved over time through many adaptations, including several film and off-Broadway versions. It’s a work with very powerful musical overtones and, despite avowals otherwise throughout by the narrator, it has a powerful moral message.

We went to see Prom 47, an afternoon prom at the Royal Albert Hall in London. The bill included a brand new work by Piers Hellawell, along with a Cello concerto by Haydn and a symphony by Tchaikovsky. These were all performed by the Ulster Orchestra. The conductor was Rafael Payare. The tickets were an affordable £17 each which isn’t bad at all given that we were sat in the second row of the circle.

Peter Ackroyd’s “Hawksmoor” was first published in 1985. I bought a recent reissue that forms part of Penguin’s decades collection whilst on a spree in Waterstone’s. It appealed to me as I recently realised that despite growing up in the eighties and nineties, I had read very novels that were either written or set in the eighties. Happily “Hawksmoor” is both of these, sort of. It also appealed to me because it is (again, sort of) a detective story and I’ve found myself getting into those lately.

Tonight, despite feeling a bit under the weather, I went to Stevenage to watch Portsmouth play a League One game at the Lamex Stadium. In addition, I met a “person off the internet” for the second time in a week – this time Tom, a friend of a friend from Facebook: our shared passions being Portsmouth FC and really cool music. We met at King’s Cross and caught a packed train to Stevenage, a non-descript dormitory town that was even more non-descript than I remember St Albans being.

Dreams Of A Life is a documentary about Joyce Vincent, a woman who was found in her flat three years after her death surrounded by wrapped christmas presents and with the TV still on. £2400 in arrears on her rent, she was discovered by bailiffs who forced the door down. The film attempts to work out happened to Joyce by interviewing people who knew her. In two other strands that unfold in parallel, various events from her life are re-enacted along with the clearing of her flat by forensics officers.