Recently by Sid Langley

I've met Carlos Acosta, the Cuban dance star currently working in England, so I know he's not an overly modest man. Lovely guy, great dancer, but not exactly modest. So when he popped up on the box at the weekend during the Jacksonfest saying that the former resident of Neverland was a much better dancer than him, I took him at his word.

Of course, like anyone with a passing interest in modern music, I didn't need to be told of Michael Jackson's genius. But I'd rather taken the video productions and the choreography for granted.

There aren't many moments during a theatre production which could prompt me to barge my way through the audience (pushing cast members aside as well, incidentally) to see what is going on. But, yes, the prospect of watching fascinating actress Lucy Briers performing solo hardcore porn is one. Purely professional curiosity, you understand.

But I restrained myself. It was happening on a VHS tape being played on a TV at the other side of the, performing area, you see. An extraordinary, unsettling, hilarious, and weirdly moving moment in a show which is all of those things and more from the moment you enter the auditorium of the Royal Theatre at Northampton.

Here's all the proof you need in this link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwAtyyUlM6A&feature=related

Quite by accident, that's the Langley grey hair and checked shirt captured on a random YouTube video on Saturday at the London Uke Fest world record - 851 players plus various non-combatants crammed into Dorchester Square to set a new record for the most ukuleles played at one time - and raise cash for various charities.

Daughter and her two daughters can also be glimpsed (the very blonde head is ten-year-old Jessica). I think the girls set a new record of their own - eating the most complimentary cookies from the jars scattered throughout the rather classy hotel we stayed at just over the road.

We all had to have a number and have our picture taken and then we had to be counted in to the square for the strum-in - it took ages! But, of course, uke players are hugely sociable types and we had a chance to hear the legendary Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, who had their registration numbers to take part in the record as well.

Hester Goodman did her usual brilliant take on Teenage Dirtbag and George Hinchlife did a splendid Steve Vai lead guitar imitation on the smallest uke in the world, as well as the inimitable Yorkshire folk song/modern jazz hybrid version of Wuthering Heights. Ace, by gum.

Dreadful acoustics, one of the worst sound systems I've ever encountered, but nevertheless a great day out. One of our fellow recordbreakers was, like me, an old geezer guitar player from a neighbouring street who didn't know what was happening until he saw hordes of people turning up.

He and wife promptly nipped over to the gig, bought cheap instruments (£20 gets you a perefectly serviceable uke) and had a couple of hours to learn the three-chord song we performed - Sloop John B, of Beach Boys and Kingston Trio fame. While we were filing in past the Guinness World Record adjudicators, he and fellow geezers spent much time discussing obscure versions of Bob Dylan covers. I made my excuses and left.

Kids in Hawaiin fancy dress enjoyed paddling in ornamental ponds near the stage, the MC had his blue suede winklepickers half-inched and some of the support bands were not actually fit to audition for the auditions for Britain's Got Talent. And going to the portable loos was like a ride on a fairground cakewalk.

But overall a genial, laidback and hugely satisfying afternoon. Loads of videos etc on YouTube. One young woman had flown in from Chicago to take part.

We were able to stroll over to the Whitechapel Gallery after the record to check out the tapestry version of Picasso's Guernica and Sunday morning saw us strolling through vile and newly-salubrious parts of the East End to reach the V&A's Museum of Childhood at Bethnal Green - highly recommended.

And so, tired but happy, we were able to enjoy the joys of Sunday engineering work on British rail as we made our leisurely way back to the Midlands. It would have been quicker on the Sloop John B.

The family is slowly getting into the right frame of mind for their (its?) world record attempt. Well, actually, it'll be us and at least 996 others. Pictured is Joe Brown, a great guy, splendid guitarist and champion of the uke who'll be performing on the day, which runs from noon to 6pm. Go here for full details and links to various YouTube goodies.

The basic info is that on June 20 at the London Ukulele Festival there will be an attempt to set a world record for the number of people playing the uke at one time. At the moment 1,000 is the target. The song chosen is the old Kingston Trio and Beach Boys hit Sloop John B in a dead basic three-chord version. There are a couple of others you can throw in if you want to.

Full details on the site and instruction on YouTube.

Joe Brown, incidentally, is credited with the following, a great mantra, I think:

When everything is at its worst
and troubles plague you daily
Just give yourself a little burst
upon your ukulele.

In other important uke news, on July 14 and 15 The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain will be at Lichfield Festival performing "Ukulelescope", a new show with original UOGB music and unusual archive films. It received its debut at the BFI on Saturday and Lichfield is lucky to get it.

Book now, because it is guaranteed to be a sell-out.
Box office: 01543 306270 or go here

How's about this for audience participation? This brilliant family snap of our Rebecca was taken during Saturday's Puppet Extravaganza at Newhampton Arts Centre, just round the corner from the home of the legendary Wolverhampton Wanderers.

The brilliant sunshine was actually outshone by a whole array of superb performers and excellent attractions - workshops, exhibitions and simply fabulous shows. It was a day that ended with a face-ache - it was only when we piled into the Mondeo to head home that we realised we had been grinning and smiling all day!

As Festival Director and ace puppet man Clive Chandler put it over a lifesaving can of Coke - it's great but knackering!

I've recently struggled to the end of an Open University course. It's the first time A363 has been offered, and it needs a bit of sorting out before next year, most of my fellow students agreed. Anyway, one of the brighter spots was listening to Alan Ayckbourn on an OU CD talking about his writing methods and delving into his splendid book, The Craft Art of Playmaking - it's easily available on Amazon and is a great read for anyone vaguely interested in the theatre.

He says he has never consciously decided to write comedy or drama - just 'write a play'. The degree of lightness or darkness involved is often a matter of the theme, he says, and 'the darker the subject the more light you must try to shed on the matter.' Deliberate dramatic ambiguity with that word 'light'.

Hi readers and welcome to a new blog phenomenon. It's called a Zacharanda in honour of Steve, the Birmingham journalist who became a worldwide internet phenomenon by allowing himself to be filmed and broadcast while allegedly filing a report to his newspaper on the US election.

He was simply doing a cut and paste job from the BBC he said, and, on air, as it were, resigned from his staff job. I believe he had already accepted redundancy, but it caused a sensation and made him a hero of reporters everywhere.

So, in that tradition, I've done a cut and paste job, a Zacharanda. Seems utterly pointless me doing a rewrite of a perfectly good report from an efficient press office. The picture up there, by the way, by Robert Day, is of Kim Wall, Dorothy Atkinson and Matthew Cottle on the splendid set of Just Between Ourselves, mentioned below.Here's my Zacharanda:

Yes, I have a problem. But I didn't let it spoil a great holiday weekend.

We made sure we got to the Ikon to see the Thomas Bewick show - now over. The only art exhibition we've been to where we were handed magnifying glasses to look at the work - superb wood engravings by a master who lived from 1753 to 1828. My picture shows the image which is mentioned as frightening Jane Eyre, of Satan's fork pinning down the swag bag of a fleeing thief.

Thazz the way ter do it! ... run a puppet festival, that is.

It seems entirely appropriate to use the famous catchphrase of one of the world's favourite characters (Mr Punch, in case you didn't realise - shame on you) to commend in the highest possible terms Dynamics 09 International.

This, the largest puppet festival in England, runs from this upcoming Saturday (May 23) until July 18 has 18 different shows on offer in more than 30 locations featuring the best UK and international performers in this highly specialised and increasingly popular field. Experience of previous events suggests it will be - not to put too fine a point on it - brilliant

Bob Dylan, said to have taken his name from a certain Welsh poet, once memorably referred to something as not his 'cup of meat'. Fabulous phrase. I know exactly what he means, because that Welsh poet has the same effect on me. Ditto Tolkein. Ditto Star Wars. Ditto Ornette Coleman, The Apprentice, gin, and on and on. We're all like that .Diff'rent strokes and so forth.

I wasn't always like that about Mr Thomas. But the boy once wrapped and wrapt spellbound in the warm, wheeling wonder of the web of words woven wild with bardic brilliancy, grew into an adult of some discernment. So, although I'm now a hardcore vegetarian, I can appreciate fine cuisine of all sorts. I just don't want to eat it.