Darkness at Noon
No, really, not a metaphor, it’s like so grey it’s dark at noon. It was time to say goodbye to London (Cricklewood) and say hello to London (Heathrow). But AF had cancelled the Thursday flight and bumped me to Friday. …
Stuck Between Hope & Doubt
Super Tuesday. (Not an election post!) Met Simon’s friend Michael in South Ken, who’s a member of several galleries/museums, so he took me (free) as a member’s guest to three different shows. I think most people who walk into the…
Uncle Bill Puts on Uniform
A lovely autumn day. Took the tube south to Kensington Gardens. It’s an obligatory tourist thing. They ask you at immigration upon departure. If you haven’t been to Hyde Park or Kensington Gardens they fine you. I just didn’t want…
The Vista to the Water Not Impaired
Today I headed out to Greenwich. It’s both a wonderful and a manic choice for a Sunday. Families, dog-walkers, couples, locals and tourists throng there. But there’s space, almost 200 acres, it’s spread out, and whether it’s museums, architecture, the…
Victorian Properties
Friday it was time to say goodbye to the comfort of service–the well-to-do families whose children spoke in unequivocally perfect English (they all seemed German) and businessmen with loud, curt voices that seemed to declare authority even when ordering a…
Let the Memory Live Again
Breakfast is included at the hotel. Not a buffet, you order off a menu. I ordered the vegetarian. Jeesh what a lot of food. Those faux meat sausages only took five and a half hours to digest Mid-morning I set…
The Day Today
The Day Today: That’s Armando Iannucci. I wish I had come up with that play on words, because the day today, how brilliant is that, but I didn’t. I put it on par with Bob Loblaw on Arrested Development, and…
English as She is Spoke
Wednesday was stormy upon departure from Cricklewood, sunny upon arrival on the South Bank. In the AM did a quick skinny in the Tate modern, lunch at Wagamama, then a matinee at the Young Vic. The plays, the first a…
Enough Blue Sky to Make a Dutchman’s Breeches
Tuesday was clear. Tuesday was cloudy. It was dry, it was drizzly. There was a breeze, then still. In short, Tuesday was an autumn day in London. In the morning I took the train down to Richmond and walked the…
Raw Material, Finished Article
BA 84 overnight to Britain. Westminster, Elizabeth Tower (aka Big Ben), the Eye. Kensington Gardens, back yard of Buck House, and a plane from Iran; something you don’t see everyday (or, you know, ever in Canada). The fly…