Getting recreation and leisure up and running again.

Has anyone booked for museums or galleries yet? I'm planning to go to the Andy Warhol exhibition in August and mulling to go to Titian at the National Gallery as well.

It's confirmed, ALW shows can withstand literally anything, like cockroaches after a nuclear bomb

A theatre in Vienna put on some test performances of Cats with social distancing measures, 250 audience members per show
www.broadwayworld.com/austria/article/BWW-Review-CATS-at-Ronacher-Theater-20200706

Four billion years from now the sun will swell up and scorch the Earth and there'll be nothing left but bare rock and a production of Cats.

I am going to the Army museum with a friend today, booked a time slot online. Something I probably wouldn't have done in normal circumstances but it looks interesting and gets us out the house! Haven't been to central London since February so looking forward to a nice walk.

I've booked for Titian tomorrow after work (the National Gallery are still doing Friday lates). I absolutely cannot wait. This is the one occasion where I hope the exhibition is not too enormous so that I can also go round 'route B' when I've finished. It will be so nice to do something after work that I would usually do and I'll be interested to see what it's like, how good the social distancing really is etc. The annoying person who stands smack bang in front of the picture so no one else can see will be even more annoying now that you have to stand 2m from them!

I'm also excited for their announcement on their Artemisia Gentileschi exhibition which they said on instragram wasn't far off. I've been looking forward to that for a loooong time. 

So do we think the government will give us a £10 discount off theatre tickets once theatre re-opens, alongside a VAT cut? It must be a much smaller cost in comparison to amount hospitality will possibly incur.

To be honest I imagine there’ll be quite a lot of initial discount offers flying around once theatre does reopen, although some of the shows with a larger fanbase might have an initial burst of capacity performances. I wouldn’t be surprised if SOLT run the GILT scheme to coincide with theatre reopening (particularly if some shows aren’t experiencing a flurry of sales that take them to capacity), and I imagine TodayTix will be full of last minute seats.

So the VAT thing I can see working (and let’s be honest, would be a decent discount) but perhaps not a £10 discount. With dynamic pricing taking over across the last few years, it’ll be interesting to see how shows price themselves upon reopening: I’m not sure the ‘price high, discount later’ model will necessarily work.

Yes the odd £10 discount here and there pales in comparison to the £3k refund I should be getting for my train season ticket, which hasn’t arrived yet.

I’d rather they lean on the travel operators to sort that out - a lot of people have struggled to get the refunds they are entitled to for holiday and business travel bookings.

Two vaccines are already at stage three, many more are not far behind them (the Oxford vaccine is one of those furthest along). That means they are likely to be ready much sooner than feared. They may, at this stage, be vaccines that reduce the effect and the high mortality levels rather than eliminate totally but that renders the callous stupidity of Sweden’s choice even more unfathomable. Israel was idiotic in its opening, getting back ‘to normal’. Same with the US. There are countries around the world that have asked their society to change and adapt and they have, and will continue to do so, as a result, they will then be well placed to track, trace and eleminate. The universal use of masks and tight controls will also pay dividends.

What is this country doing? When I look around peole appear to be behaving more like Israel than Korea and that may condemn us. 

And the DFS sale.

Doesn't Cats have quite a lot of contact between actors? They're always rubbing against each other. The kitty orgy mid way through the Jellicle ball will have to go for starters...

Them not running through the auditorium to limit actor/audience contact will be no great loss though. Other than the truly immersive New London version, has always been a gimmick really. 

Have you seen how much fluid sprays off the performers in a dance-heavy show? If there was much more it would start out as dance and end up as synchronised swimming.

Too right. That first bit when they’re all round you and there’s a talking bit about names. Hated it. Creeped me out! 🐈