Saturday night live

We went to see Aida at the London Coliseum yesterday. I'm not a great opera fan and this wasn't a great production. (The lukewarm applause at the end suggested I wasn't alone in thinking this.)

Nevertheless I enjoyed the evening. It's a while since I went to the Coliseum. (The first time was for Jonathan Miller's brilliant production of The Mikado with Eric Idle in, I think, 1987.) Opened in 1904, the Coliseum was refurbished five years ago at a cost of £41 million. The auditorium looks great. Like most Victoria and Edwardian theatres, however, the public areas are a bit cramped when the place is full, as it was last night.

(My favourite London venue is still the Barbican. Not the most aesthetically pleasing, but you get an underground car park, acres of space, big bar areas, decent-sized seats and plenty of leg room in the main auditorium. What more do you want?)

However the star attraction last night was London itself. In search of a car park that wasn't full we drove up and down the Embankment, across Westminster and Blackfriars Bridges and around the narrow streets of Covent Garden. Eventually we found one close to the London Eye and the Royal Festival Hall. This meant we had to walk across Hungerford Bridge, which links the South Bank to the West End. It was cold, it was dark, but the views in both directions were spectacular.

It's at moments like this that I really miss living in London. Cambridgeshire, on a Saturday night, just isn't the same.