French
Au clair de la lune, mon ami Pierrot
Prête-moi ta lume,* pour écrire un mot.
Ma chandelle est morte, je n'ai plus de feu.
Ouvre-moi ta porte, pour l'amour de Dieu.

Au clair de la lune, Pierrot répondit
Je n'ai pas de lume, je suis dans mon lit.
Va chez la voisine, je crois qu'elle y est
Car dans sa cuisine, on bat le briquet.

Au clair de la lune, l'aimable Lubin
Frappe chez la brune, elle répond soudain
"Qui frappe de la sorte ? ", il dit à son tour
"Ouvrez votre porte pour le Dieu d'Amour"

Au clair de la lune, on n'y voit qu'un peu
On chercha la lume, on chercha du feu
En cherchant d'la sorte je n'sais c'qu'on trouva
Mais je sais qu'la porte sur eux se ferma.

English
Under the moonlight, my friend Pierrot,
Lend me your light, so I could write a word.
My candle is out, I've no more light.
Open your door for me, for the love of God.

Under the moonlight, Pierrot replied,
I've no light; I'm in my bed.
Go next door, I believe that she is in,
For in the kitchen, someone lit a match.

Under the moonlight, friendly Lubin
Knocks at the brunette's door, she suddenly replies
"Who's knocking this way", he says in his turn
"Open your door, for the god of love."

Under the moonlight, little can be seen
The light was looked for, fire was looked for
Searching this way, I don't know what was found
But I do know that the door, on them was shut.

*In modern versions, this word is "plume", meaning pen. "Lume" is derived from "lumière", meaning "light".
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Au_clair_de_la_lune

As I'm spending this evening in a hotel room, I thought I'd take some time to write about my trip to London, so far. I'm here to see Hamlet and Twelfth Night. On arriving Wednesday morning, my main goal was to make sure I was rested enough to enjoy the performance of Hamlet last night. Fortunately, even though I arrived at the hotel hours before their normal check-in time, they had a room for me and I was able to take a nap. I have to say that I didn't do much else on Wednesday - just wandered around central London on foot (everything is so close that I wouldn't have bothered with the Tube in the past had I known), had dinner, and stopped in at a Waterstone's Book Shop to get a copy of Twelfth Night. I had plans to read it before I saw the performance, as it's been more than 15 years since I read it. (Although the Royal Shakespeare Company's Manifesto on learning Shakespeare emphasizes active involvement in the plays, either acting or watching, which I don't dispute is a good thing, I personally learn better by reading than I do by hearing. Given the rapidity of speech from good actors, the accents, and the difficulty of this older version of English, I'd like to make sure I understand it.) However, I haven't yet started reading it...I felt too tired for Shakespeare Wednesday night, so I just read a bit further in A Game of Thrones by George RR Martin, which jaderabbit and her husband gave me to borrow when I visited them in November. (I'd have gotten to it sooner, but I was reading The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie and was very busy with the holidays. So, I'm about 150 pages into it and was interested to see that lunas_ceiling just posted her thoughts on it. I don't want to read what she wrote until I'm finished with it, though. Unlike cynodd, I never skip to the end! *lol*)

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Yesterday, I spent the day doing mindless work on my computer, catching up on signing all the notes I didn't have time to sign while I was rounding on the inpatient service. It literally took me all day and well into the evening. I took a break during BBC America's reruns of Doctor Who (from series 2) from 6-8 pm. And, when that was over, I left the TV on, but didn't pay much attention and continued to sign my notes. I briefly looked up from time to time during the 2 episodes of Robin Hood that were on from 8-10 pm. I haven't really gotten into that show, which is surprising, since it seems like it would be just my thing...cynodd and I were always really fascinated by Robin Hood stories. That was in high school, but it might as well have been only yesterday.

There was no new Doctor Who on this week for us over here in the US, but I think I heard the essential part of the cliffhanger from "The Stolen Earth" that made fullmoon_dreams say, "OMG-OMG-OMG," last week. So, with no spoilers, a question for her: were you happy with the outcome in last night's episode? It's taking all my willpower not to try finding the rest of the series on YouTube to watch it all right now, since I don't want to wait until I get back from the UK in August to find out what happens! I really hope they have Doctor Who available for download on iTunes over there.

Anyway, I finally finished signing everything I could sign sometime after 10 pm last night. And, as I'd left the TV on after Doctor Who, it was The Graham Norton Show that happened to be on at that time. I've seen this show once or twice before, though the only time I made a specific effort to watch it was when David Tennant appeared as a guest. They used to have a little clip at the beginning of the show explaining how to turn on the closed captioning for those of us Americans who couldn't understand the heavy accents. *lol* They don't appear to be doing that anymore - perhaps people were offended? I mean, chances are people who can't understand British accents aren't going to be watching BBC America anyway.

So, one of Graham Norton's guests last night was Nigella Lawson of cookbook and cooking show fame. Apparently, they thought it would be really funny to have a member of the audience make a dish, as if they were on a cooking show, with some truly disgusting food. They chose surströmming, which is some kind of fermented herring in a can that is eaten in Sweden. As demonstrated on the show, the stench of it is overpowering. They also had, in the audience, the guy from this video who demonstrated what it's like to actually eat* surströmming:


I'm very suggestible and have a weak stomach for this sort of thing, so I seriously can't watch this video without gagging along, but it's also kind of funny. At the end of the video, the guy announces that he doesn't even like fish. What would possess a person who doesn't like fish to eat a fermented herring, I have no idea! I hate seafood, too, and would you ever catch me eating something like that? I don't think so!

*That's a deliberate split infinitive. *geek*