Monthly culture: December 2019

06DEC19: Arcadi Volodos in recital, Barbican
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07DEC19: Tutankhamun exhibition, Saatchi Gallery
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12DEC19: Monteverdi 'Vespers' (Barts Choir, Trafalgar Baroque Ensemble), Cadogan Hall

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15DEC19: Bill Bailey's Cutty Sark Spectacular, Cutty Sark
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17DEC19: The Sixteen at Christmas, Cadogan Hall
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20DEC19: The Rise of Skywalker, Odeon Luxe
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26DEC19: Cats, Greenwich Picturehouse

Please note venue. This is a cinema which allows you to take in a bottle of wine. This really helped. Also I think we saw the version with the updated CGI.
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30DEC19: The Moon, National Maritime Museum
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31DEC19: The Ocean at the End of the Lane, National Theatre
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2019: Year in Review (going out)

copied and pasted from last year's apart from the numbers / faves

A quick review of my cultural outings in 2019. Everything is reviewed! (Sometimes rather cursorily.) Check out my monthlyculture tag.

Bracketed figures show range over the last 16 years [see year-in-summary tag for my Cultural History since 2004].

Film: 16 (4-20). Best three = The Favourite, Captain Marvel, The Aeronauts.

Theatre: 13 (1-26). Best three = Tartuffe, Noises Off, Ocean at the End of the Lane

Concerts (classical): 9 (2-22). Best three = Monteverdi Vespers, Mahler 2 [because I was in the choir, and it made me understand the music better], Tallis Scholars

Opera: 3 (0-10). Best three = all of them :) though I was in the choir for La Belle Helene, my debut! and immense fun, though exhausting.

Gigs: 1 (0-9)

Art: 10 [Hmm, I don't seem to have tracked this before ...]

Books: 136. Separate post coming eventually: reviews here (ongoing: am behind on reviewing).

Also in 2019: visited Ireland; two conventions.

2019: Year in Review (staying in, a.k.a. Books Read)

* 136 books: 132 fiction, 4 non-fiction
* 106 by women, 29 by men, 1 by a non-binary writer.
* 9 rereads
* 64 fantasy, 19 SF, 21 historical (but I no longer trust my 'historical' tag)

Best five, excluding rereads:
* The Absolute Book -- Elizabeth Knox
* Amberlough -- Lara Elena Donnelly
* Sing for the Coming of the Longest Night -- Katherine Fabian and Iona Datt Sharma
* The Loney -- Andrew Michael Hurley
* Underland -- Robert Macfarlane

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