:: Whatever Happened to Baby Devukha? ::

Nightmare of a week, this. The wheels ahve been falling off every work project in sight and I'm beginning to wonder if I really have taken on too much this time. Four productions in 2 months next year - 3 of them at South London Theatre and another doing lighting for the Dulwich Players. Thank God I've now completed my Christmas shopping...

Still, no rest for the wicked, as I complete my round-up of the week:

It seems that Chris Morris is at last set to return to our screens with the long-awaited Nathan Barley. those turkey-necked bleaters at PopBitch have been blathering on about this for at least two years, and even the Beeb first reported it in April. following so many false starts, the emergence of some production shoot photos seems to confirm that this "self-facilitating media node" will soon be among us.

My word of the week is nonic, although I've been hard pressed to find a decent etymology. It's the shape of the classic British beer glass, so I originally thought it was a mathematical 3D geometrical definition. Well, it seems that the mathematical definition actually concerns an "algebraic surface" (to the ninth degree, obviously). So, my mind wandered a little... does it refer to something which is 9-dimensional, as cubic refers to a 3-dimensional reality. Enlightenment would be much appreciated on this topic, although I fear the beer glass definition is unrelated: it's probably just an acronym or a portmanteau word.

The beloved Routemaster seems to be suffering from a particularly long death knell. For years we Londoners have been told that this paragon of 50s design is to be consigned to the scrap heap because of safety worries (and more lately poor disabled access). The fate of this classic symbol of London seems to be that it will remain an enthusiast's plaything, despite Ken Livingstone's inclinations to save a couple to show off to the tourists. I don't mind admitting that I deliberately took the Number 12 bus home before it morphed into a 24-hour bendy bus service in November. At the other end of the scale, Lava Lamp and I were inadvertantly among the first to use the new Vauxhall Cross interchange, a startling piece of modern construction, sure to be used in the next sequel of the film Speed. Whatever your feelings about this glorified bus-shelter, it's great to see that photovoltaic cells are incorporated into the design to generate power for night lighting.

What else have I missed this week, then... the silly hullabaloo about David Beckham and his skeletal wife appearing in Madame Tussaud's nativity; the Russian man who used the wrong "facilities" in a bathroom showroom; and another great Italin Opera House opened it's doors after a lengthy restoration project.

So shall I take the evening off? I think not! Unenthralled by the prospect of writing olfactorily enhanced Christmas cards to my friends and relation, I'm going to catch up with a friend, to talk about... drama.

Oh dear