Live viewing of Les Mis, from a seat in Bury.

I've had a fabulous weekend, and it is made better by me having booked a day off work today. I have loads of jobs to catch up on, and have found excuses to avoid them all so far.

The skip, complete with gum

On Saturday the 3 of went to join the other residents of Tottington for a 'Tottington Clear Up'. When I say 'other residents' only about another 6 turned up, but we all got gloved up and collected our bin liners and litter pickers, and set off along the Kirklees Trail. It is amazing how much rubbish we collected in 3 hours, but I am disgusted at how some people obviously think it is OK to drop their litter. H and I started an area close to Island Lodge but we didn't stand a chance. It was full of empty booze bottles and I could only carry so many at a time back to the skip. It would be a great idea for the schools to help one weekend and have a proper clear up down there, but I'm a bit too busy to organise that one at the moment. My other big gripe was the people who clean up after their dog then throw the dog bob bag along the footpath. I think it would be better if they just cleared the mess away so people don't tread in it, and leave that in the bushes to decompose. I'm lucky to have friends in Basel in Switzerland, and I find it amusing that there you can walk along the street there and see dog bob bags in the gutters. Every night they get cleared up so it is clean again in the morning. Tottington is a nice area, but it didn't stop us having a couple of worrying finds. H found a knife, Paul found a gun, and there were a couple of hyperdermic needles found. After we'd cleared the litter Paul went round with his garden blower to clear the leaves away. The end result was something to be proud of, and hopefully we can encourage more people to join us next time.

Kirklees Trail after the clean up

  After our industrious morning we got scrubbed down then went into Manchester to have a look at the Manchester Food and Drink Festival 2010. We had promised H ages ago that we'd take him on the Great Manchester Wheel next time we were there. Since then I've avoided that side of the city, but as it was a clear afternoon (and he'd remembered) we thought we'd have a treat. It was amazing, and I think we have a fantastic city. All the old and the new are intermingled, and the wheel goes round enough times for you to get your bearings and have a good look at what Manchester has to offer.



Manchester Town Hall, GMex, Royal Exchange dome and The Hilton



Manchester Tart flavoured chocolate

The 'hub' of the Food and Drink Festival in Albert Square didn't really have that much there, but it was clearing up time for the chocolate day when we arrived. We did manage to buy some of Ramsbottom's Chocolate Cafe's limited edition chocolate - Manchester Tart flavour - created especially for the festival. We weren't lucky enough to find a golden ticket though. The Oktoberfest was getting going at that time, and it was heaving when we walked past later that night. We finished our outing off with a Chinese at The Peking Court on Princess Street, which once again left us very satisfied without paying out a fortune.

Last night was the 25th Anniversary Celebratory Showing of Les Miserables at the O2 Arena in Greenwich. This year has seen the 25th anniversary revamp of the musical. I've seen this twice this year, at The Palace in Manchester and The Lowry at Salford Quays, and both were wonderful. This year was also special as it is the first time anywhere in the world that 2 productions of the same musical have been on in the same city at the same time - the original production at Queen's Theatre and the 25th anniversary production at The Barbican, where Les Mis started off. The very expensive tickets were sold out very fast, but all was not lost. The production was beamed live to a selection of cinemas throughout the world, and Ms. A managed to book us both VIP seats. It was all very exciting. We each decanted an extremely large sherry into a handy wine bottle that had a glass screwed to the top and set off to our seats. Sat directly behind me was H's headmaster and his wife, but we didn't let that stop us. Our seats were better than any at the O2. We got to see the O2 fill up as people took their seats, then it kicked off. It took a bit to get the lips synced so they moved in time with the music, but it was great. Our audience weren't keen in taking part and not many people clapped with the O2 audience (needless to say, the area around us joined in).

Alfie Boe (full name Alfred Giovanni Roncalli Boe, born in.....Blackpool and brought up in Fleetwood) played a marvelous Jean Valjean. Nick Jonas (a Jonas Brother I believe, brought in to sell the DVD that comes out at Easter I imagine) played Marius, and Matt Lucas was a great Thenardier. Lea Salanga, who is Miss Saigon was Fabtine, and Eponine had an amazing voice (Samantha Barks, who was apparently 3rd in I'd Do Anything). At the end Cameron Mackintosh and the authors came on stage, before the original cast from 1985 and some of the cast from the productions now came on stage and did a couple of numbers. We saw Colm Wilkinson, the original Jean Valjean, Michale Ball who played Marius and Alum Armstrong (Thenardier). It was a brilliant idea to give people the chance to see the production 'live' and I loved it.

Kings College Chapel taken July 1998

I see Frank Field is to lead a dedicated task force aimed at eradicating child poverty in the region (his region - Merseyside) by 2020. This rang bells with me, and he could be perfect for the job as he has been looking at ways to combat this for some years. When I was at Kings College, Cambridge, I participated in a study - 'Changing Social Security Policy: 1948 - 1998 and Beyond'. Frank was the minister in charge of welfare reform and at that time.Is was known that social security spending was rising but levels were inadequate for many and too many people were excluded from the system. Directing resources at education was thought to be an answer. Frank Fields came to give us a lecture on the subject and I was hanging around outside  before the lecture started. A lone figure was walking across what is called 'The Back Lawn'. This is the massive garden, dating from 1772, in front of Kings College Chapel (the famous view of it, see above). There was a cry from a warden of "Get off the grass!" and a red faced Mr Fields trotted off and came to the lecture hall. My doppelganger Harriet Harman also came to give a lecture. What could have been the most memorable lecture I had there was when I put my name down for an evening with Stephen Hawking. I couldn't believe my luck, although I did wonder what his connection with my subject was. I enthusiastically took my seat, imagining how I'd be able to recount the evening for years to come. Alarm bells rang when a man walked onto the stage and started to talk with a normal English accent. The man had a name very similar to Stephen Hawking, but was actually talking about pension provisions for the future. Being at the front going to sleep wasn't an option. Despite that slight error of judgement, I had a great time there!