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Post by alece10 on Dec 12, 2020 10:48:12 GMT
Apologies as this could easily turn into a novel
Les Mis yesterday and my niece was coming up from Cornwall to see this with me and stay for the weekend.
First off her train from Cornwall was delayed which meant she missed her connection at Plymouth. Anyway 3 changes of train later she arrives in London 2.5 hours late. This meant that she had to come straight to the theatre and meet me there. Got there at 6.45pm which was our allocated entry time. Next problem is that they wouldn't let us in with her bag. It was a small bag which would have fitted under the seat or next to us which was an empty seat (and, in fact, the e mail from the DMT said not to bring bags but if you do they must fit under the seat). Security told us to take it to Charing Cross left luggage. I explained we would not get there and back in 30 mins due to my disability, I am standing there with a walking stick and had an access ticket to the show, but he was having none of it and told me to stay here and let her go by herself to Charing Cross. She is not from London and doesn't have a clue where Charing Cross is. We were also told that we could go to the box office and see if they can rebook us for another performance - NO, she is visiting for the weekend so that not an option, plus the whole run is sold out!
Anyway we get in a taxi to Charing Cross, find the left luggage and then get told that they close as 9pm so wont be able to pick up the bag after the show. Bear in mind I specifically asked security of it would be open after the show and they confirmed it would. We had no option but to leave her bag there. Go outside to get a taxi back to the theatre but he wont take us as says traffic is bad and wont get there in time so we walk, well she walks and I hobble along with my stick 10 paces behind.
Get to the theatre with about 1 minute to spare. Cant find the e ticket on my phone as I am breathing so heavily that my glasses have got steamed up with wearing the face mask. Find the ticket and we are inside just as Matt Lucas is making the no phones etc announcement. But, no we cant go in as its started!. Have to wait for about 15 minutes before they take us to our seats. Which are aisle and next one in so we are not disturbing anyone.
However I noticed several people leave during the performance to go to the toilet/bar etc and they were let straight back in and not made to wait for a suitable break, some sitting in the middle of rows do disturbing people. So if they are going to allow that why wouldn't they let us in literally as the show was starting and we would not have disturbed anyone due to the aisle seat.
The rest of the evening is great an love the show.
The access ticket I booked via the box office was a dress circle seat and it meant that there were no stairs to get to the dress circle and then just a few up to our row. Great! But at the end of the performance they wouldn't let us go out the same way so had to climb the stairs to the top of the dress circle and then down 2 flights of stairs to the entrance/exit. So what's the point of offering access tickets if you cant have easy access.
Anyway we now have to go back into Charing Cross to pick up the bag, bring it back home and then go out again into town as we have shopping, a meal and Panto booked.
Lets hope the rest of today is less adventerious.
There, I warned you it was a novel!
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Post by kathryn on Dec 12, 2020 17:24:29 GMT
You’d think the staff would employ a bit of discretion in situations like that.
I’m on the train to London now for A Christmas Carol at The Bridge.
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Post by Dr Tom on Dec 13, 2020 15:50:05 GMT
Apologies as this could easily turn into a novel Les Mis yesterday and my niece was coming up from Cornwall to see this with me and stay for the weekend. Please complain. That is horrible treatment for any customer, let alone one with access arrangements. Unfortunately, the theatre isn't a public body so doesn't have the comply with the Equality Act, but I'm sure there are other bodies that you can raise this with if a direct complaint doesn't get anywhere. If nothing else, they need to make sure they have the right processes and staff training in place to make sure that other customers are not disadvantaged. You made the best of the situation, but others may not be as able to. And, regardless if these performances are profitable or not, these tickets are not exactly cheap. |
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Post by TallPaul on Dec 13, 2020 16:30:45 GMT
Should you choose to take this further, alece10, and I think you should, the key phrase you need to use is "reasonable adjustment". Even without all the nonsense with your niece's bag, DMT did not, I would suggest, make a reasonable adjustment and allow someone using a stick to take his seat at the earliest opportunity. Nor did it make a reasonable adjustment when insisting you exit the theatre via two flights of stairs. |
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Post by alece10 on Dec 13, 2020 16:58:20 GMT
Thanks everyone for your comments, much appreciated. Now the weekend is over and my niece has returned happy to Cornwall I think I will put pen to paper, as you suggest, and let DMT know what happened. If nothing else it can be a bit of a training exercise for the future.
You will be pleased to know that the rest of the trip went well with a visit to Fortnums for some Christmas goodies, dinner at Ping Pong and the Palladium Panto which was wonderful.
As a footnote, I did not book any access tickets for the Palladium but we were let in through a side door, lift down to the stalls, met at the lift, shown where the access toilet was and treated wonderfully. Same thing happened when I went to see Songs for a New World a few weeks ago. Just shows how it can be done.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 14, 2020 12:31:21 GMT
It looks like pretty much all of Google's services are down, so half the world has come to a halt. I don't know whether to be annoyed that I can't watch anything on YouTube or hopeful that people may start to realise that they shouldn't be putting all their eggs in one basket, and especially not when that basket is owned by what is basically a supervillain organisation.
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Post by CG on the loose on Dec 14, 2020 13:08:45 GMT
Back up now, it seems.
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Post by peggs on Dec 14, 2020 13:31:34 GMT
I'm not in a work training zoom session having just read a sad thread on twitter about a sheep and now trying to hold it together. That is totally not what I'm doing.
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Post by TallPaul on Dec 15, 2020 17:02:12 GMT
Ever since BurlyBeaR brought them up, when I now see a gennel, I have to walk along it to see where it leads. I've had some right adventures over the last couple of months. Out exploring this afternoon, I found myself having an encounter with a big, hairy, black and white pig. I almost expected Sarah Lancashire or Reece Shearsmith to appear at any moment! You know that look of complete disdain that cats give you? Well imagine that, then double it and add a bit more for good measure. |
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Post by BurlyBeaR on Dec 15, 2020 20:44:50 GMT
Ever since BurlyBeaR brought them up, when I now see a gennel, I have to walk along it to see where it leads. I've had some right adventures over the last couple of months. Out exploring this afternoon, I found myself having an encounter with a big, hairy, black and white pig. I almost expected Sarah Lancashire or Reece Shearsmith to appear at any moment! You know that look of complete disdain that cats give you? Well imagine that, then double it and add a bit more for good measure. Soooo much I could say.. but will 🤐 |
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Post by Forrest on Dec 15, 2020 20:53:00 GMT
You know that look of complete disdain that cats give you? Well imagine that, then double it and add a bit more for good measure. I laughed aloud at this! :D Especially as that look of disdain on cats' faces is so familiar to me... After months of hardly seeing anyone in person, I've just bought a ticket to spend Christmas with friends, and despite the fact that we'll inevitably be in Tier 3 I am so excited about it! Plan for the rest of the evening: wrapping up their Christmas presents! Also, the avalanche of Spotify best-of posts all over social media has made me check my most-played songs and albums in 2020, and, honestly, I don't know who that person is whose lists I am looking at! I mean, I am aware that I am a repeat offender (I'll have a song stuck in my head and I'll listen to it for days, that's *so* typically me, and I hardly ever leave the flat without my headphones so that's a lot of plays), but most of the songs on my top-list are neither my favourites, nor by any of my favourite bands. I think I might have more of a problem than I thought. :) |
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Post by anita on Dec 17, 2020 14:55:01 GMT
Greatest hits radio keep playing Michael Buble singing "Christmas Baby Please Come Home". - Is it just me who thinks this sounds just like "Mamma I'm a Big Girl Now" from "Hairspray"?
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Post by Forrest on Dec 18, 2020 18:28:37 GMT
Is it OK if I use this space to quietly scream into the void about the formatting on this forum?
I cannot understand why sentences keep disappearing from my posts, and the font sizes and appearance keep going from bad to worse.
Is anyone else struggling with it, or is it just me?
Also, after a day I want to forget that was yesterday, today was fine.
I am also officially on holiday for the next two weeks, which is kind of lovely (even if it's in Tier 3).
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Post by peggs on Dec 18, 2020 18:57:17 GMT
Mine seems ok, the terrible spelling and formatting is my own.
Good re today.
Have a whole one work day booked off from now until 8 Jan, am feeling quite sad about that but am on the standby rota and you can't then be on leave or i'd have taken between Christmas and new year off. Am lost with tiers, pretty much everything seems to be open regardless what tier i'm in, the only difference lockdown made was the hairdresser shut. I know there are different people meeting rules but since people seem to ignore them............
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Post by Forrest on Dec 18, 2020 19:09:38 GMT
Mine seems ok, the terrible spelling and formatting is my own. Truth be told, I am probably also to blame, and am being unfair blaming the board. But I spent 10 minutes typing a post in a different thread only for it to come out looking so ghastly awful (enormous font, all in italic, sentences missing), the need to complain was stronger than me. It's probably just a user error of some sort. :) (Also, the post was unnecessarily self-indulgent anyway and I should have just deleted it, but it is what it is now.) I'm so sorry you don't get any time off for the holidays, I can imagine that being particularly hard in a year as stressful as this, especially since everyone in both of my teams at work are on the edge of a burnout, myself included. But - it will pass. Sending a big hug your way. (I have plans for the "Christmas travel window" to see friends, which is fortunate, because these past few days have been my lowest of the low thus far since March. I try really hard to be positive, but I'm just feeling a bit overwhelmed at the moment. However, I keep telling myself the same cliche line, and reminding myself that it's true - It will pass.) |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 18, 2020 19:23:25 GMT
I am also officially on holiday for the next two weeks, which is kind of lovely (even if it's in Tier 3). Same here. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with the time, but it'll be nice to know that I don't have to do anything with it. |
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Post by Dawnstar on Dec 18, 2020 20:07:53 GMT
I confess I'm always rather baffled when people don't know what to do with time off work. I haven't worked since mid-March & I'm fine with that, though admittedly it would be more pleasant if I could go to the theatre. I rarely get bored not doing anything in particular. If I don't want to do anything then & I just think things, usually while lying in bed so I'm in the right place if I doze off! What bores me is having to do things I don't want to do, including going to work.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 18, 2020 21:15:35 GMT
I confess I'm always rather baffled when people don't know what to do with time off work. In my case my working hours have been cut so I have loads of free time anyway, but because I still need to do some work every day I can't do anything during the working week that would take a whole day. I can't go out somewhere, for example. Now I have two weeks off, but the tier three restrictions have just started so everything is closed and I still can't go out so from my point of view it's just more of the same. Without the restrictions I'd find plenty of things to do, but with the restrictions the only things I can do next week are the things I could (and did) do this week. |
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Post by Forrest on Dec 18, 2020 21:25:19 GMT
Dawnstar , I agree: I don't get bored either, and the idea of having two weeks off to do small things I haven't managed to do much of lately (finish the book I'm reading and start the one already lined up, watch a few TV shows I'm behind on, listen to all the albums that have made it onto the "best od 2020" lists that I never got to hear, finally properly kick-start that new hobby I invested in...) makes me really excited! If I'm worried about anything it's that time might slip through my fingers because, although it sounds like a lot, 14 days isn't really that much, and I'm not always the best manager when it comes to my own time. :) But I also really do like going to work (well, going might not be the best word for it at the moment). I like my job (even though I don't exactly save lives for a living) and the daily conundrums that come with it, I really like my colleagues and I enjoy feeling useful, so a part of me is bound to be a tiny bit excited about the idea of returning to work after a while. Admittedly, at the moment, I'm a bit tired - more of the circumstances of work(ing from home) than of the work itself - so I am looking forward to a break. @thematthew , I'm sure you'll make good use of the time, even if that good use means just taking long walks or learning how to cook something new. Enjoy it while it lasts!
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Post by peggs on Dec 18, 2020 22:03:38 GMT
Oh shout away into the void of here about formatting, I do that all day at work.
I used to work in education and didn't realise how lucky i was with holiday break at christmas, we shut so you had to be on leave, i now for one of those open 24/7 organisations so not as simple. Still hopefully it will be quiet and maybe i'll try a couple of days working from bed?
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Post by peggs on Dec 18, 2020 22:07:12 GMT
Sorry started that post several hours back or would have replied in one.
Yes I'm one of those people who there's always something to do, normally on the read, catch up tv, music, tidy sort of things. Somehow still seems less time now even though there's no commute and no theatre or anything. And yes I'd be counting the days and feeling I should be doing something. On weekend now I keep justifying to myself what i've done with my time, over and over again as if just happily doing not a lot isn't ok.
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Post by sfsusan on Dec 19, 2020 12:18:21 GMT
as if just happily doing not a lot isn't ok. You just need to redefine "a lot" -- "Wow, I read a lot of chapters today!" "I watched a LOT of movies!" "I thought lots of very profound thoughts, and expressed them on Facebook!" "Ooops, I made/ate a lot of cookies!" "I made lots of progress on my project to tidy up my computer files!" |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 19, 2020 13:17:01 GMT
I decided I had a lot of chocolate biscuits in my house, so I eradicated them.
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Post by lynette on Dec 19, 2020 16:08:56 GMT
I decided I had a lot of chocolate biscuits in my house, so I eradicated them. Very wise. You never know... |
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Post by peggs on Dec 19, 2020 19:22:35 GMT
as if just happily doing not a lot isn't ok. You just need to redefine "a lot" -- "Wow, I read a lot of chapters today!" "I watched a LOT of movies!" "I thought lots of very profound thoughts, and expressed them on Facebook!" "Ooops, I made/ate a lot of cookies!" "I made lots of progress on my project to tidy up my computer files!" Oh I know and the daft thing is I think reading all day etc is a perfectly sensible way to spend my time but it's like there's always someone on my shoulder I feel the need to justify myself to, I never used to be this way, just got to a point and I realised I was listing what I had done over and over again like some kind of worthiness mantra. Well I'd started wrapping presents but have lost any enthusiasm I had (i'm not a good wrapper) as I now have until at least next year to wrap them. I haven't dared tell my mother about the news, she is going to go mad about the hairdresser shutting again. |
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