Friday, November 21, 1997
True confession: I am one of those people who worries about little things like whether I left the car lights on or whether I left the tap running. Because of this, I always have to plan vacation departures with military precision - and yet, I always forget something. On my trip out to the airport, I'd gotten as far as Kingston Road and Coxwell before I realized: what about the windows? I may have left a window open! Brisk winter winds could be whistling through my apartment for an entire week! Yikes! I went back, and bent my front door key re-entering my apartment. One false start later, I was off. I was not having fun yet.
Terminal 3 at Toronto's Pearson International Airport, also known as Trillium, proudly boasts that it is Canada's first privately owned terminal. (These are the 90's - privatization is in fashion, like hula hoops or mood rings.) It's ugly. Brightly lit, garish and tacky, no hint of extravagance or comfort. As in all airport terminals, public or private, the lineup for baggage checkin is enormous. (If you're not in da long line, you're in da wrong line, bro.) The man in front of me, according to the label on his luggage, was planning on sending a Weed Eater to Beirut. A testimony to the incurable optimism of the human spirit.
Just as I was checking in my luggage, a distraught man barged in front of the line and informed the checkin attendant that he wanted his luggage taken off the plane, as he had decided not to board the flight. Was this a premonition? As it turned out, no.
According to a headline in a tabloid magazine, Burt and Liz are now a couple. Burt and Liz?
The flight took off at 10:00 p.m. Initially, I expected a night without sleep. (When I last took an overnight flight, it was a Canada 3000 charter, and the flight attendants kept waking everybody up to bring the duty- free cart by yet again.) However, this flight was lightly loaded, and I was able to commandeer an entire row of the plane for myself, grab two pillows and a blanket, and drift off to sleep, missing the entire in- flight movie. What joy!
Awoke to an episode of a Candid Camera-like show that featured muffins that moved about on a plate. Just the thing to show to disoriented travellers. Excuse me, miss: are my eyeballs working?
Saturday, November 22, 1997
I arrived at 10:00 a.m. London time. It was too early to check into my hotel, so I stowed my luggage somewhere safe and immediately scurried off to buy an extremely large number of books. The place to do this in London is Charing Cross Road, which has more bookstores per square foot than anywhere else I've ever seen. There's Foyle's, Whetstone's, Blackwell's, Sportspages, Books Inc., and several more - and that's not even including the used book stores. I bought zillions of soccer books, plus Bill Bryson's new book, A Walk In The Woods, which isn't available in North America yet.
In the afternoon, I went off in search of a soccer match to watch. The only Premier League match in town is Wimbledon at Manchester United, which was sold out (and would likely be a one-sided slaughter, at any event). So I went to Loftus Road stadium to see Queen's Park Rangers playing host to Huddersfield. Loftus Road, like most British soccer grounds, is quite old, and was built back when people were much smaller than they are now. (George Orwell, who was born in 1903 and was my height, 6' 2 1/2", described himself as "abnormally tall.") Consequently, there isn't enough room between rows for my legs to fit comfortably. The only way I can sit without having my knee sliced open by the sharp edge of a chair back is to position Mr. Bryson's aforementioned book between my knee and the chair. Literature has its practical uses as well.
After the game, I checked into my hotel, the Royal National in Bloomsbury. This is a huge budget hotel, large enough to hold thousands of weary travellers. It's well-used, and the carpets look like they're older than disco, but everything's clean, and everything works as it's supposed to. Thanks to an unfavourable exchange rate (the pound is up, and the Canadian dollar, as usual, is way down), even a budget hotel costs upward of $140 a night - and this is off-season!
After dinner, I trundled off to Leicester Square, where most of London appears to gravitate. The buskers have their performances down to an exact science: one or two of them even have throat mikes. One busker managed to lead an entire crowd of people in a rendition of Bob Marley's "No Woman, No Cry". I believe this qualifies as A Moment.
Sign on movie theatre marquee:
FULL CONTACT ROMEO AND JULIET
I'm intrigued, until I realize that this is advertising two separate movies.
Back in my room, I tried to stay awake long enough to watch the Match Of The Day soccer highlights, but failed. Nighty night, everybody.
Sunday, November 23, 1997
My hotel provides a free "continental breakfast", which basically means there's a man in a waiter's uniform standing by ready to dispense rolls, inedible bread, and jam to hungry guests. Fortunately, the breakfast room provides a virtually unlimited supply of orange juice. So I started today, as I start the entire week, with a meal of two rolls and four glasses of orange juice. (By the third day, I started slipping a pair of pants and sweater over my pyjamas, staggering half-awake to the breakfast room, loading up a tray with rolls and orange juice, and staggering back. Not sure whether this qualifies as breakfast in bed.)
My seven-day London Travelcard allows me all the bus and tube rides I want anywhere in London, so I decided to head south. The Thames is large and placid, its tranquillity only disturbed by the gentle purr of an occasional outboard motor and the shriek of an occasional bungee jumper.
Adrenalin Village gives the daring Londoner the opportunity to bungee-jump into the Thames or, preferably, almost into the Thames. Why anyone would want to bungee-jump in late November is beyond me, but then I've always lacked a sense of adventure. The crane operator running the jump is one of the largest men I have ever seen - he barely fits into the crane. No bungee cord in the world could hold him if he chose to go for the long drop.
A sign on a nearby telephone pole shows transit ID cards of funny-looking students, along with the caption: "The Child Rate Photocard. Gives you a saving. Gives us all a laugh."
In London, it gets dark early this time of year - by 3:00, the sun is already starting to fade. My plan for the late afternoon was to find a pub showing the Leeds United versus West Ham soccer match on satellite television. (You may have guessed by now that I'm a serious soccer fan. You would be right.) I thought this might be a difficult task. Ha. The third public-house I looked into, the Hobgoblin in Fulham Broadway, was showing the game. Yay, especially since Leeds are my favourite British team. (My favourite team, period, is the Canadian national soccer team, and I don't want to talk about it, thank you.)
The pub is clearly the local neighbourhood hangout - two groups of families with children are sitting about happily, and the sound system is playing lots of old New Wave faves like "Love Shack", "Feels Like Heaven", and that song about Christmas in New York by the Pogues that always nearly makes me cry when I hear it. (I'm a sentimental retro kind of guy.) Three or four West Ham fans are in the pub; when Leeds score three times at the end of the match, each goal is greeted with a terse "fuck off". I am secretly quite pleased (which I sensibly don't acknowledge at this point). I'd be upset if Canadian Craig Forrest were playing goal for West Ham today, but he's not.
On my way back to the hotel, I passed a set of apartment blocks named after famous English writers and artists. Noel Coward House is to be expected, but who would have expected a building to be named after Aubrey Beardsley? Cool.
Monday, November 24, 1997
I slept better than I expected - the loud people across the hall, shouting joyfully in many tongues, were unable to disturb me, no matter how diligent their efforts. Score one for pre-planning and ear plugs.
The most prominent feature of Russell Square, besides the British Museum, is tourists. My hotel is one of several hotels in the vicinity: as far as I can tell, no one in the immediate area is actually from this city.
Before starting my morning journey, I toddled off to a park bench in Russell Square to bask in the all-too- infrequent sunshine. For me, a Canadian, sitting outdoors in November without risking hypothermia is an unimaginable luxury. And the grass is still green, too. Britain's relatively pleasant climate is due entirely to the Gulf Stream, which is at risk of relocation due to global warming. As sober commentators point out, without the heat-bearing waters of the North Atlantic, Britain's climate would be identical to northern Norway's.
For some reason, all the phones have been removed from the phone booths in Russell Square, and someone has tucked a construction pylon under the arm of the statue of some famous general or other (my memory tells me it was Bedford Forrest). This statue is relatively new by British standards, which means it's only slightly older than, say, Canada.
Travelled south to the Victoria Embankment Gardens, which featured a statue of Sir Arthur Sullivan, of Gilbert and Sullivan fame. The statue serves as a memorial, and features a weeping Muse collapsed at his feet, presumably distraught over his passing. Oh, those wacky Victorians.
From there, it was off to the Tate Gallery, which featured an exhibit by Mondrian. This exhibit showed the evolution of his painting from stuff we understand (trees) to stuff we don't understand (the compositional structure extracted from a tree) back to stuff we understand again (rectangles). It managed to provide artistically illiterate people such as myself with an insight into how a great artist's mind works.
There was also an exhibit of Victorian symbolist painting, featuring renditions of such themes as Cupid vainly struggling to bar the door of Life against the onrush of inevitable Death. Lots more Muses, of course, and a lovely painting by Arthur Moore, all pale colours, of a beautiful young girl.
From there, it was off to the vicinity of Westminster Abbey. A nearby sign for the Houses of Parliament exhibition had the following sticker affixed to it:
ALL POLITICIANS ARE TWO-FACED BASTARDS VOTING CHANGES NOTHING
Westminster Abbey features lots of graves of famous dead Britishers, including Mary Queen of Scots, Queen Elizabeth I, various Henrys, and lots of ex-literary types (located in Poet's Corner). Many of the major caskets were located in out-of-the-way nooks, along with signs saying "No Lecturing." I'm not sure whether this was meant for tour guides or obnoxious bores. ("Now, Martha, I've told you all about the Duke of Buckingham and his role in the plots and intrigues of the 14th century...") The inscription that touched my heart was the message on the tomb of Frances, Countess of Sussex, who died in 1589:
COME LORDE JESUS COME QUICKLYE.
Hang in there, Frances (as if she has a choice).
I felt sorry for the famous personages of the 18th and 19th century who were once highly-regarded enough to merit burial in Westminster Abbey, but who now aren't famous enough to rate having their tombstones preserved. We tourists are invited to walk freely over the graves of various people named Thomas, Duke of illegible, and their wives (invariably named Anne), who died in 17-something-or-other, and whose epitaphs are slowly being eroded by dozens and dozens of pairs of Nikes.
Some of the ancient inscriptions are still well-maintained, though, including this one:
DEAN STANLEY RECORDS THAT BENEATH THIS STONE ARE INTERRED TWENTY-SIX MONKS OF WESTMINSTER WHO DIED OF THE BLACK DEATH IN 1348
The sitting-stones on the far wall still bear holes from a sticks-and-stones game the monks used to play back in the 15th century or so. And the concrete steps are sagging from the imprints of thousands of feet over hundreds of years.
The quietest, most peaceful spot in the Abbey is the Little Cloister, which is mostly closed off to us tourists, and looks out over a soothing patch of garden complete with babbling brook. An inscription on a wall of the entranceway to the Cloister reads as follows:
In Memory of Mr. Tho. Smith of Elmly Clovet, in ye county of Worcester and Bachelor of Arts, late of Ch. Ch. Oxford, who through ye spotted vaile of the Small-Pox, rendred a Pure & Unspotted Soul to God, Expecting but not fearing Death; which ended his dayes, March the 10th Anno Dom 1663/64 Autatis SVAE 27. The Virtues which in his short life were shown have equalld been by few, surpassed by none.
How many of us are likely to be so praised when we die, or thought of by a passing tourist more than 300 years later?
After dinner, I wandered through the low-rent part of Soho. Lots of interesting record shops, clothing stores, and holes-in-the-wall offering sex videos and poppers. The adult stores, or adult sections of otherwise respectable establishments, are invariably entered through curtains of glass beads. I didn't go into any such places, as I quickly recognized that my limited streetwise skills would not be anywhere near enough to keep me out of trouble in this district. (I also ignored the man who addressed me as "Hey, Captain." I'm reasonably sure I didn't want to hear what he had to say.)
Went to a pub in North London to watch Crystal Palace versus Tottenham on satellite. In London, solitary men with books and/or newspapers sitting down with a pint to watch the match are not uncommon. There were at least four of us, plus a few groups of supporters of both teams. Despite the mixed lots of supporters, there was no trouble, either here or elsewhere. (I have never actually seen any soccer hooliganism, and I'm told, thankfully, that there's very little of it now. In fact, thanks to Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch among others, soccer is actually trendy among certain groups of upscale types.)
Tuesday, November 25, 1997
Lately, I've been concerned about my physical fitness, and before going away, I wondered whether I'd be able to stay in shape while in London. Ha. I've been walking about so much that I need to eat four meals a day to keep up, and I'm still losing flab. There's so much to see that I wind up walking miles and miles and miles. For people who like old buildings, London is eye candy.
One of the things I wanted to do while here was just wander about aimlessly on buses. (I've been here before, so I've done a lot of the standard tourist things already.) It was nice to have a day where I had absolutely nothing planned, and nowhere I had to be. I toured the suburban parts of West London, and made it all the way to West Acton, which is as far west as the public transit system went. I sat in a park and read until I started shivering uncontrollably. The day was fun, but unfortunately for you, dear reader, not very interesting to describe.
Travel tip: if you're going to London, don't bother with any street guide other than the London A-Z guide. Most of the guides you can buy in Toronto are completely useless, as they only give you a map of the centre of the city. The London A-Z guide makes it possible to travel to the outskirts without getting lost.
Graffiti on wall: SID I WARNED YOU.
Went out to eat in a restaurant in Covent Garden. Everybody in the restaurant was younger, trendier and cuter than I am. Sigh.
Spent the evening reading in my room. The television had a soccer match on between Steauea Bucharest and Aston Villa, which was being played in Romania on a field that consisted mostly of mud. The ball went sploosh instead of bouncing, which made the game less interesting for casual spectators such as myself. I turned it off, and went to sleep. Yes, I admit it - I'm boring.
Wednesday, November 26, 1997
Went out in the morning to the Museum of the Moving Image, located on the south bank of the Thames near Waterloo Station. I looked around warily as I walked along, trying to remember exactly where it was I nearly got mugged the last time I was in London. (Travel tip: avoid the Waterloo Station underpasses.) The MOMI was interesting - lots of bits of old movies, including a nice silent Chaplin, plus lots of advertisements, programs, posters, newsreel films and other fun stuff.
Sprinkled throughout the museum are employees wearing period costumes and speaking in well-rehearsed American accents. I was startled to walk into one exhibit and hear a woman dressed like Gloria Swanson say "Welcome to Hollywood!" in an accent which she probably didn't realize was pure Brooklyn. Oh, well - it's the thought that counts.
Fascinating facts from the MOMI:
When the British Board of Film Censors started operation in 1913, it had only two rules: no nudity, and no depiction of Christ.
As the years passed, more and more rules were added. By 1937, Lord Tyrell, the head Censor at the time, said, "We may take pride in observing that there is not a single film showing in London today which deals with any of the burning issues of the day."
I would have lingered at the MOMI, but I had an incentive to hurry: right behind me was a party of obnoxious schoolchildren in uniforms, who were being shepherded by a woman dressed in period costume, presumably a museum guide. She had the most grating accent I've ever heard. Think of Mary Poppins crossed with fingernails on a chalkboard, and you get the general idea.
Spent some time after this staring at the Thames, and checking out a reproduction of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. (I could only look at it from the outside, as you couldn't tour it unless you were part of a tour group, which I was not.) The view looking towards St.Paul's was much like it was in Queen Victoria's Day. A lot of people have stood where I was currently standing.
Then, it was off for an unstructured bus tour of the East End, which included passing by the approximate neighbourhood where Jack the Ripper did his work. All the bodies have since been moved. Was startled by the difference in accents among different parts of London. A former co-worker from West London once told me that he could pinpoint a person's neighbourhood of origin within a couple of miles after listening to them speak. I believe it.
My plans for the evening included yet another soccer game: this time, it was off to Stamford Bridge, home of trendy Chelsea, who were playing struggling Everton. My seat was in the temporary West Stand, which was not enclosed. This meant I was exposed to the elements, of which there were a few. The way into the stand was controlled by policemen on horses, who were used to channel hundreds of fans into the mere four ticket-takers on duty. One horse got over-excited, and we all had to make room to let it and its rider out. As a result of all of this, hundreds of us missed the opening kickoff.
Stamford Bridge is currently under reconstruction, as the club is building a new leisure centre on the site. The spiffy new club shop is already open, giving the eager supporter the opportunity to buy almost anything imaginable with a Chelsea logo on it. The ground features video scoreboards, which aren't normally found in soccer grounds. These scoreboards are woefully underused: they are used to display the score, messages such as SUPER CHELSEA, and the last names of home players who had just done something good on the field. Examples of the latter were WISEY for Dennis Wise and VIALLI for Gianluca Vialli. In case you'd forgotten that Chelsea was a cosmopolitan team, each praised player's name was helpfully displayed in the colours of the flag of the player's home country. A bit tacky, in my considered opinion, like trailer park inhabitants who'd just won the lottery.
Chelsea are famous for having spent large sums of money on expensive imported players, including Vialli, DiMatteo and Zola from Italy, LeBoeuf ("The Beef") from France, and various goalkeepers from assorted European nations. Despite this, they're not playing any better than Everton, whose sole offensive force is front man Duncan Ferguson, the World's Largest Scotsman. Ferguson looks like something out of A Clockwork Orange, and there's no way I'd want to meet him in a dark alley.
The West Stand is fairly quiet, perhaps because we're all shivering and slowly getting wet from the drizzle that is falling. Some loud young lads behind me start chanting, "We're all sitting in the library," referring to the lack of noise in our immediate vicinity. When not doing this, the lads are calling all and sundry "wankers" (English slang meaning people excessively fond of masturbation), and speaking to one another in Deputy Dawg voices. This all amuses the German couple standing next to me, who speak virtually no English and seem more cultivated than anyone else here. They look like they're more at home sampling brie than standing in the rain at a football match. They, and one other pair of fans in front of me, are the only ones (besides me) who don't leap to their feet and cheer when Chelsea are awarded a questionable penalty late in the game. I suspect the people in front of me are secretly supporting Everton.
On returning back to the hotel, I discover a lineup to pick up room keys. In British hotels (at least, the ones I've been in), they don't let you take your room key with you when you go out, for fear it might be lost or stolen or something. Instead, you have to leave your key at the desk when you leave your room, and then line up at the checkin counter to get your key back when you return. Because this is a large hotel, it employs a man whose sole job is to retrieve room keys from a large revolving drum and hand them to guests. No fun for anyone concerned, but I guess it saves money. I guess.
Thursday, November 27, 1997
Today, I decided to take a day-trip by rail to Manchester, just because I wanted to go somewhere outside of London, and I happen to like large cities. Got to Euston Station just before 10. Discovered that the trains left every hour on the hour. I would have gotten my ticket in time to make the 10:00 train, except that the person in front of me was trying to pay by bank card. The ticket clerk tried three times to swipe the card and failed, and was then forced to type the numbers in, laboriously, by hand. By the time he'd run off the ticket and the receipt, it was far too late. At least two of us in the line missed the train because of this. So much for modern technology. I took the 11:00 train.
The countryside on the way up can be described in one word: green. Lots of green fields, mostly containing sheep. I amuse myself by searching for black sheep. Each flock normally has one, just as the stereotype tells you.
Manchester is ideally designed for the casual railway traveller, as all the really interesting stuff is within walking distance of the station. There's the old Town Hall buildings, a bunch of dark, satanic-looking factories suitable for Romantic brooding, and a lot of hole-in-the-wall nightclubs. You can also walk to Little Peter Street, which is where Factory Records is located, and where Joy Division used to rehearse. (For many of us, this is a holy shrine.) It looks like there's lots of ways to have a good time in this city, especially if you're about 20 years old.
A park near the station featured a travelling carnival, including the opportunity to ride a mechanical bronco bull. This ride featured the following warning:
YOU MAY CONSIDER FOR YOUR SAFETY NOT RIDING IF YOU SUFFER FROM - MOTION SICKNESS - HEART CONDITION - DIZZINESS - LIGAMENT DISSORDERS [sic] - LACK OF MUSCLE CONTROL
If that doesn't attract the kiddies, I don't know what would.
Made it back to my room in time to watch, ironically, Manchester United playing FC Kosice in the European Champions League. I don't like Man United, but I have to admit they're very good: they're beating the Czech champions without really trying hard.
Friday, November 28, 1997
My hotel is filled with South African rugby supporters (as the Springboks are scheduled to play England on the weekend). Rugby fans are normally approximately the same size as rugby players, and about as loud and boisterous. And, today, they're everywhere.
Off in the morning to the National Portrait Gallery, featuring - oh, you guessed it - portraits. Lots of pictures of Victorian artists, statesmen and thinkers, very few of which are particularly well-known today, plus two special exhibits, one by Raeburn and one by Bruce Weber. These special exhibits cost money; I first thought of trying to pay for an admission ticket by travellers' cheque, but was told, "I haven't been told anything about that, and it's probably easier not to." That's refreshing honesty for you! (I paid by cash, meekly.)
Sir Henry Raeburn was an early 19th-century Scottish portrait painter, best known for his then- revolutionary use of shadow in his portraits. At the time, portrait painters painted the whole face in bright light - taking care, of course, to leave out such undesirable features as warts, zits and smallpox scars. Raeburn took the then-revolutionary step of actually showing shadows where parts of the face were obscured (by a hat, for instance). One small step forward for art.
Bruce Weber is a contemporary American photographer. His exhibit displays photos of Vietnam, photos of the American West, photos of the late River Phoenix, excerpts from a photo-book on a young man who runs a boxing club, and a short film based on his celebrity scrapbook. The film was so good that I saw it twice - especially because it shows footage of Saskatchewan. Sometimes, one needs a glimpse of one's home country.
Decided I couldn't spend a week in London without seeing at least one West End show, so I went off to the Half Price ticket booth, located in Leicester Square. This booth sells expensive seats for same-day popular shows at half price. I bought a ticket for Ben Elton's "Popcorn".
When I got to the theatre, I overheard a discussion between an usher and the man behind me, who was a middle-aged theatre buff from Pittsburgh. He travels to London several times a year, seeing at least one show a day when doing so. He equated Pittsburgh with London, saying that both were a city of neighbourhoods. Having never been to Pittsburgh, I have no idea whether this is a ludicrous example of Amerocentrism or the literal truth. He seemed like a nice enough guy, so I didn't really care much either way.
The show is about a couple whose principal hobby is robbing and murdering, and whose role model is a fictional couple created by an Oscar-winning director. As an act of homage, they break into the director's house, take him and his wife hostage, and demand a live network feed of their situation. I think it was meant to be symbolic of the decay in the American moral fabric, or their obsession with television, or something. The camera crew, played by the male and female understudies, appear on stage in their underwear (to ensure that they're not carrying concealed weapons, and to give the theatre patrons some buff bods to stare at). I was impressed by the ability of the actors on stage to more or less accurately reproduce American accents. They sounded more convincing than the one real American in the cast.
In West End theatres, the (invariably female) ushers double as ice-cream salespersons during the intermission. The vanilla and chocolate ice creams go fast, whereas the "Magnus" orange-chocolate bars don't move at all. I have a pleasant chat with the cute usher in my section, who talks about the joys of having a roommate with the same clothes size, and tells me about Nellie the imaginary elephant, usually located just over the opposite entrance. I suppose you had to be there; fortunately, I was.
Saturday, November 29, 1997
Headed south of the Thames in the morning, for no particular reason. Found out I was merely blocks away from the Imperial War Museum, so I went there. It was better than I expected: it had lots of relics, diaries and posters from both world wars, including a simulated reproduction of a WW I trench. My back cramped up at this point, perhaps in sympathetic response. My favourite sign was one posted in a front- line trench that read: DO NOT STAND HERE: IF YOU AREN'T SHOT, SOMEONE ELSE WILL BE. It was full of bullet holes, which I guess proved the writer's point. Most frightening poster: a German poster from the 1930's bearing the message "We will follow you, Our Fuhrer!" Did they ever.
If you're ever at the War Museum, check out the mile post outside: it was erected during the reign of King George III.
In the afternoon, I was off to Selhurst Park in south London to see Crystal Palace play Newcastle. Selhurst Park is almost impossibly difficult to get to, as the tube doesn't go anywhere near there. Confidently, I examined the bus route map and determined that the 322 bus would be a good choice. Wrong. It was the milk run, twisting this way and that. Worse still, it took a detour through Brixton market, where the traffic was bumper-to-bumper. After more than an hour on the bus, I was still three miles from the stadium - and less than an hour away from kickoff time. It took some brisk walking to get to the ground, collect my ticket, walk to the other side of the ground where my seat was located, and get inside just before kickoff, but I managed it.
The Arthur Wait Stand, where I was sitting, was the first non-segregated seating arrangement I had ever seen in a British football stadium. Crystal Palace and Newcastle supporters were mixed freely, but no one caused any trouble of any sort. The game wasn't too bad, and there were people shouting support for both sides, which gave the place a bit of atmosphere, though not a lot. Palace, the home side, lost, which is apparently not unusual: they haven't won at home all year.
After the game, I walked three miles to a centrally located bus point, and caught a bus all the way north to Westminster. Tried to take the tube from there, but discovered that my travelcard had actually expired today, not tomorrow as I expected. This meant that basically I had been cadging free bus rides off unobservant drivers all day. Sorry about that, everybody.
Armed with a legitimate tube ticket, I proceeded to go to the Stockpot in Soho and eat most of their menu. (Well, the items mentioned on the menu, not the menu itself - for God's sake, readers, don't be so freaking literal-minded.) The Stockpot provides home-style meals (such as stew or chicken casserole) for outrageously low prices; during the week, I've been here so often that some of the wait staff recognize me.
Then, it was off to my room to watch the Match of the Day highlights, and then to sleep, soundly and blissfully. This despite the efforts of a Liverpool supporter staying in the hotel, who was singing "You'll Never Walk Alone", the Liverpool supporters' anthem, at top volume.
Sunday, November 30, 1997
Went off in the morning to Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park. This has basically turned into a tourist attraction and nothing more. The crowd wandered from speaker to speaker like a bored couch-potato flipping from channel to channel on his remote, looking for something exotic and entertaining. There weren't many speakers while I was there, which didn't help.
One little old lady had the sort of fixed smile only serious religious fanatics use, and was assuring her listeners that God was not merciful, no sir. She competed for the religious niche with two men with an Israeli flag, who took turns lecturing their audience on the importance of surrendering your soul to Christ.
The biggest crowd-pleaser was a loud man wearing a hat with a pink feather in it. He, among other things, equated masturbation with murder, and pointed out that the Jewish religion was not particularly nice to women. The only other speaker there was a retired man whose subject was the idea that humans were much smarter than computers: humans can know that they know, whereas computers, no matter how fast they are, can't. This wasn't really news to the listening audience, who slowly drifted away.
The Hyde Park underground passageway is home to several homeless people. Sadly, I am from Toronto, so seeing homeless people is nothing new for me. In fact, there seem to be fewer homeless in London than in Toronto, and there are definitely fewer people asking me for spare change. (In Toronto, if you walk down Yonge Street from Bloor south to the lake, you will be asked for change by at least half a dozen unfortunate souls.) I blame it all on the present Tory government, of course.
After this, it was time to pack everything up and leave. Cleverly, I had brought an extra suitcase just for the books I knew I would buy. Not so cleverly, I only now realized that I would have to carry this extremely heavy suitcase everywhere I went, along with everything else I brought overseas. It's several hundred yards from my hotel to Russell Square tube stop; I travelled it a few feet at a time, trying to get my new possessions safely into the Underground without throwing out my back. I succeeded.
Is there a luggage cart anywhere in the world that travels in a straight line? I've never seen one. Luggage carts are normally dragged, kicking and screaming, to their destinations.
The in-flight movie on the way back to Toronto was G.I. Jane, which featured a whole lot of violence. I guess people will watch any movie in the air, no matter how gross, as long as there are no airplane crashes and nobody has any sex. (That kind of describes my life: no sex, and no airplane crashes. You have to take the bad with the good, I suppose.)
Arrived home safely and successfully re-entered my apartment, despite my bent key. That's basically it. Thanks for reading this far.