Rolf Harris

Last Tuesday we took the boys to see Rolf Harris. This is highly likely to be the last time he tours Australia - he's 78 and only came on the basis of a personal invitation from a director at the Opera House. Crash and I both saw him when we were kids, so the decision was at least partly nostalgia driven.

It was a good show - he's been entertaining so long, I doubt he could fail to entertain. He presented the show as the story of his life, with the music punctuating the tale. It was funny and interesting, although I had heard a lot of it in other places (like the Denton interview, which was awesome). From our point of view, though, it was too much talking for the little ones.

Without doubt, Jake the Peg was the biggest hit. Both boys sat bolt upright and stared and laughed. Ben kept asking how he had three legs, and when I told him one was fake he couldn't work out which one it was.

Charlie liked all the music, but it took 2 packets of Maltesers to get them through the second half of the show.

From my point of view, the music was mostly great - some of it nostalgic, some of it just very good and a wee bit just a little dull. Highlights were Jake the Peg, Sun Arise, Stairway to Heaven and a version of Vincent inspired by his time doing Rolf on Art.

He told a fantastic story about his father deliberately setting off roosters at midnight, complete, of course, with sound effects.

The boys made it through, and we even scored a compliment from one of the people sitting near us for their behaviour. The night had a less than wonderful end though, because the trains were running so badly and infrequently that we would have had to wait more than half an hour for a train - which we just weren't going to survive. We had to get a cab, to the tune of "I want to go on the train" (repeat) from Charlie. Poor little man, the train was the highlight of his night.