posh night out (with speeding fines)

So, in keeping with my status as a ‘Posh Pom’, Jay and I went to the ballet last night.

Yes, ballet.

Lar dee dar.

The West Australian Ballet (http://www.waballet.com.au/) was doing a production of ‘Sleeping Beauty’ at the Burswood Theatre, which is in a giant (and mostly horrible) ‘Entertainment Complex” just outside Perth and Jay had been nagging asking me if we could go to something like that for a while.  I got some good seats and off we went.

Perth is an hour’s drive from the little seaside town where we live but we had plenty of time so just pottered up there.  Pottered that is until 500 meters before the entrance to Burswood where the signs were a little confusing and as the road widened into a 6 lane junction, I looked around for some clear idea of where we had to go.

*flash*

speed camera.

fuck, I took my eyes off the damn speedo for like 5 seconds to look where I was going (having driven up the whole way very diligently at the 60kph limit) and I speeded up slightly without realising and now I’ve almost certainly lost my licence for 3 months and copped a huge fine.

The fines and demerits for speeding in Oz have recently increased to stupid amounts and what with a careless ticket 18 months ago where I didn’t spot a limit change (I was caught 10 meters past the sign doing bang on the previous speed limit – meh!) – I now face a mandatory ban.

I’m really annoyed about it because I actually do stick to the speed limits and drive considerately all the time.  A couple of tiny mistakes and boom, I’m screwed.  Compared to the burnout tyre screaming idiots that live round here and never seem to get caught, I’m like a perfect driver – and yet its me and not them that gets caught.

So yeah, not happy at all.  Fuck the stupid cameras – I have no respect for them, they are catching people like me who do drive responsibly 99% of the time and not V8 driving arses who don’t.

So, onto the ballet.

What a strange collection of people Perth’s ballet fan-base has.

We saw 12 year olds tottering in huge high heels, a woman wearing a massive black cape with a gold lining, another woman in a 1980’s Laura Ashley floral dress, a teenage girl in a really tiny short white skater-like prom dress, an unfortunate ginger haired kid in a pink sparkle party frock with white tights, a woman in black with white high heels and a woman in a white lace dress with huge shoulder pads.

Classy.

The ballet was amazing.  The Burswood Theatre is a very good venue – lots of space and the seating gives a clear view of the stage.   The set was awesome, so detailed and beautifully painted, setting off the costumes, which were stunning.  The graceful dancers, wonderful music and perfect timing made for a very good all round experience.  The somewhat tight male tights were a bit, erm, anatomically revealing in the buttock department – not something that I really needed to see, but there’s no doubting how strong they are – leaping high around the stage with seemingly gravity defying ease.  The lead girls were incredibly graceful and so strong too, holding tortuous poses en pointe. The supporting dancers were very good – all in perfect time to the lead dancers – even the small children, who were very sweet.  The set design was incredible and all the set changes were executed perfectly.  A stunning performance, worthy much more exalted ballet companies.

So a fabulous night, well worth going, even if you’re not a classical dance fan, you can’t fail to be impressed with the detail and ability that goes into making something like that work for 2 1/2 hours of solid dancing.

Thank you, West Australian Ballet, you were awesome!