britlog

Met up with a friend for Sushi dinner near St. Pauls Cathedral.
I know I’ve seen it a bunch of times now, including just last week, but as it comes to view it still makes me stop in my stop in awe.

Every day this week I’ve seen people reading the new Harry Potter book (Sylvia on the other hand takes the road less chav’elled and hasn’t seen any). With this being the last in the series, it may be the last season of Potter Spotting in England so I’m glad I had a chance to see it.

I saw this one on Thursday:

C’mon man, it’s been 6 days since its release! How slow a reader are you?

It’s not surprising that all the chavs have it. It’s available for only £5 at Tescos*:

* purchase of £50 of groceries required. Who the hell spends £50 at Tescos Express?

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, Harry Potter dies.

The Rosetta Stone in the British Museum:

If you surf on any of the big photography sites you’ll know that photography is a tough business these days. There are more and more places that are banning photography. Usually this is chalked up to the increased threat of terrorism in this post-9/11 world. However my visit to St. Paul’s Cathedral has given me another reason to despise those freedom-hating photographers – respect for religion:

At first I was surprised. Why should they want to limit photographs of St. Paul’s Cathedral. a beautiful work of 17th century architecture? Could the creator of the universe really be concerned with my charge-couple device capturing free photons emitted from the church interior, converting them to electrical impulses and storing them in non-volitile memory? Surely that can’t defy the 2nd commandment? So I ignored the sign and snapped a few nice photos:

(Note: I can’t confirm it, but viewing these pictures may damn your soul for all eternity. You have been warned)

But then I started thinking: maybe the folks at St. Paul’s were right? Did you know that there are absolutely no photographs of Jesus? None! Not even after he went to America after his first resurrection. Of course, you may say, this is because photography wasn’t invented until after Jesus’ death. But let’s face it – Jesus was no ordinary man and was known for his miraculous abilities. While there have been primative pinhold cameras for many centuries, the first usable photography was available in the 1820 after the invention of chemical photography. Contrast this with Jesus, who lived in mortal form from approximately 0AD to approximately 30AD or 33AD. The undeniable fact that we can conclude from this: if Jesus wanted his picture taken he would have invented photography earlier.

So it’s clear that St. Michael’s has a a legitimate reason to believe that Jesus hates photography. However, if you still feel that you absolutely must have some photographs of the interior of St. Paul’s for your collection at home, fret not: there are plenty of photographs available for purchase at the gift shop:

I’m sure these photos are OK though: the photographers were probably ordained ministers and used cameras that were bathed in holy water or something. After all, banning photography to increase gift shop sales whilst claiming publicly that it’s for religious reasons would be blasphemous, and clearly that couldn’t be possible from the bless’ed staff of St. Paul’s.

London’s Tower Bridge, a beautiful summer day:

It’s amazing what good luck you can have.
It’s Thursday, Jason is out with his parents touring around London visting St.Paul’s Cathedral:

me .. I’m at work.
Dinner time rolls around and I suggest to Jason that we take his parents to something somewhat unique to London, a gastropub (high end food, but in a pub). I’d heard that this place called The Pigs Ear was good and it’s in Chelsea near Sloane Square which I thought would be a nice place to take the in-laws. We are after all trying to show them all parts of London, not just the touristy parts.
Well as luck would have it the gastropub happened to be on a very small side street that has nothing but houses … and the only Manolo Blahnik store in London. Actually, in the whole EU there is only two stores, this one and one in Spain.
It seemed a bit odd that I would stumble upon it this way.
But then I noticed a sign in the window: sale.
And a 2 day sale, starting tomorrow! What kind of good luck is this?!

Well that random Thursday night at the Pigs Ear is what brings me back to Chelsea on a Saturday morning:

.. and it was everything I hoped it would be.

Friday lunch.
Like most days, I treat weekday lunchtime to be an exploration into British culinary culture. First thing to note, obsession du jour is sandwiches, actually ready-made sandwiches. Actually, ready-made sandwiches on really shitty cheap bread. My parents told me that 5 years ago when they were visiting, baguettes were all the rage. My best guess is that the dreaded white carbs got a bad name within the last few years and the delicious baguette was pushed aside for seriously, what looks like Wonder bread.
To each their own.

Having already mastered the ready-made take-away sandwich places (Pret a Manger, Eat and M&S) I’ve been venturing into places that bill themselves as ‘cafes’ but really are basic, no frills sandwich bars. At least the lunch is cheap. And the cappuccino’s are decent.

Friday. Coronation Chicken.

I’ve actually never heard of this before, I simply pointed at the bowl of yellow stuff and asked for it on baguette (no Wonder bread for me). The name was announced as it was brought to my table.
I don’t think it gets anymore British than this. Pieces of chicken in a sweet Indian curry sauce with a pompous sounding name.

I could do without the raisins though. I’ve often said I don’t like raisins in my baked goods, I’ve now learned they don’t belong in my cold curry sandwich either.

Hard to believe it’s July 1st, what with all the rain and the freezing cold weather!! It makes me mad that on Canada Day I need to wear a cardigan! But yes, i was warned about the rain. After a nice soak in Notting Hill and my Sunday morning cappucino I jetted across town to Angel to meet Jason and James at Foxtons, the most dreaded of all property agents. ps. everyone in London is named James. 2 people at work (out of 35 that’s impressive), our mortgage broker, and our real estate agent. They’re all around the same mid-30 age. Must have been THE name back in the early 70’s here in england.

Foxtons does a great job of living up to it’s horrible reputation. I called them 2 weeks ago about a flat I saw posted on their site. The guy called back 2 days later, to tell me it was sold. oh ya? No kidding! This is London, flats are sold within hours here. People put more thought into buying a hand bag from the Kate Moss Top Shop line than a fully attached 400 sqft flat. Anyway, my consolation prize with James was an appointment to look at properties… 2 weeks later. sigh.

So today was our big day with Foxtons.
Tuns out we only get an hour slot, and he only had time to show us 2 properties. Of course of that hour we spent about 20 minutes of it trying to find the properties. The guy didn’t know where they were! Seriously. What kind of property agent is this?! Long story short… no sale. We were not impressed with either property, or with Foxtons. Shame that they have the best website, and work the most convenient hours (there are too many agents who don’t work past 6)

So, back to Angel to meet with 2 Canadians for some Sunday roast. Sometime between the gravy and Yorkshire pudding (which by the way is not a pudding at all, it’s more like bread, a gross semantic misrepresentation) the clouds parted. The laws in London meteorology were over ruled, and my long lost friend, the sun, returned. Within minutes we had blue skies, a bounce in our step and a hankering to share some love for Canada. So off to the Covent Garden market we went.

I’ll give the Maple Leaf pub lots of credit, the place packed in more Canadian cliches than I thought possible. Sleemans and Moosehead beers on tap, Tragically Hip and Nelly Furtado coming through the speakers, old hockey games on the telly and poutine on the menu. But it went further. The place was decked out like a giant log cabin with Mountie figurines on the wall.
A giant grizzly in the corner, with a well placed hat:

And the placed was sufficiently packed with a pushy enough crowd that instantly transported you back to your favourite university bar. And in my opinion their crowing achievement was achieving a Canadian smell. Picture a nice hot ripe hockey bag with a splash of the Ridout (or Bruny for you UofT folks). Impressive.

On the way home we noticed that weren’t alone in our love for Canada:

I think might go back on the 4th and see if they show the same love for the USA.

We are as they say, in the market.
After probably far too much analysis we’ve decided that we should be flat owners in London (I’ll spare you the details of my spreadsheets and emotions that lead us to that decision). So we’ve started to look. Kings Cross, as many people know is a ‘diverse’ area to say the least. A shit hole with a sprinkling of gentrification is probably more accurate. It’s also the intersection of 3 different postal codes (N1, NW1, and WC1) and operated by two different city councils (Islington and Camden). This makes Kings Cross have pockets of massive housing diversity. Our area of choice would be in WC1 in one of the gorgeous red brick 1930’s buildings that seem to be well maintained. Of course one look at the floor plans and we quickly decide that a 475sqft 2 bedroom flat will just not work (how you manage to take a space that size and fit in 2 bedrooms is beyond me).
We then found this one pocket of Kings Cross that seemed to have reasonable prices so after looking at a few listings online we decided to see the area for ourselves and this is what we find:

Now I know that when you’re busy thieving and such, morals aren’t too high on your list of priorities, but surely assaulting a poor man in a wheelchair who’s only trying to make a phone call, say to wish his mother a happy birthday, has got to send up some sort of red flags! Christ, he’s in a wheelchair! And might I add, that at 8:40pm it’s broad daylight!

Nice neighbourhood. Seems like some great people live here.
I think we’ll pass on buying a flat here.
And so the search continues.

I started my day today with a fine bit of National Rail nonsense, care of First Capital Connect. I admit that I’m completely insane by living in London and commuting up to Cambridge every day and yesterday was a reminder of that.

King’s Cross. I’m not sure what kind of monkeys run this train station, but they have a wonderful policy of not telling you exactly what platform your train is on until the last possible minute. Sylvia often runs into this when she tries to meet me at the station – they don’t mention what track the arriving train is on until all of the passengers have alighted, walked home, fed the cats, watched three reruns of East Enders, and finished off the latest Harry Potter novel. This morning, however, was really the crowning acheivement of King’s Cross mis-management.

This morning I left at 9AM to make the 9:15 train. Plenty of time. After two failed attemps to get tickets from the machine the third time was a charm but I was getting a bit concerned – it’s was 9:12 and my train was leaving at 9:15. I rushed out of the ticket office and checked the big board – the 9:15 to Cambridge is departing on … they don’t know. 3 minutes to departure and they don’t show the track number. Of course, the train is still listed as “on time.” They don’t know where it is, but by golly it’s going to leave on time. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that space and time are one and the same and you need both to specify a train departure.

A few moments later the board changes – platform 11.

Let me explain something to you about King’s Cross. It’s a pretty damned big station. There are 8 platforms in the main station. If you walk along to about the end of platform 8, turn left, walk outside, pass platform 9 3/4 …

… you’ll eventually arrive at the annex trainshed, which, as you might infer by its name, is a really bloodly long ways away from big board in King’s Cross. In fact, it’s so close to St. Pancras that you’re practically in Paris. This is where the fine aging trains of First Capital Connect are often relegated. They’re like the Ryanair of train travel – sure they say you leave from King’s Cross, but you really leave from the annex trainshed half-way across London.

It was chaos. 2 minutes until the “on time” departure of the train and a wave of people start running towards the trainshed. There were men in nice suits who blew past a woman with a giant suitcase who was left to fend for herself by her travel companion. I was in trainers so I quickly made it near the front of the pack. And who was there to greet me at platform 11? One guy, yes, ONE guy, who was checking everybody’s tickets. Asolute and complete chaos. I flashed my ticket over the heads of some clueless tourists and made it on to the train. A few seconds later the doors closed leaving at least 90% of the passengers still on the platform. An employee of First Capital started waving his hands yelling “Don’t leave! Open the doors!” Absolute chaos.

But by this time I didn’t care as I was comfortably sitting in my seat – the only person in the car. I opened my bag, pulled out my noise cancelling headphones and breathed a sigh of release knowing that I managed to push just enough old ladies out of the way to make it on time. Sadly they did open the doors to let the poorly adapted passengers on and a short 15 minutes later we were on our way.

Thanks First Capital Connect! Remind me to work from home tomorrow.

I probably should have done more research on what the Royal Ascot really is about. It was bigger and fancier than I ever imagined. To get to the Ascot you need to catch a train from Waterloo. I decided I was too embarassed to be prancing around on the tube to Waterloo station with my facinator on, but when we surfaced at Waterloo we found a maze of dressed up people queing for train tickets all in their hats! The amount of guys in top hats is what surprised me the most. I should have worn my little hat thing on the tube too, but I didn’t know. Actually the whole day seemed to be for people who are in the know. The train to Ascot was packed, and we immediately realized that our 10:50 train was BYO-bottle of champagne! If I had only known! It was an hour ride out, and some champagne would have been very nice. Instead we rode to the sound of champagne bottles popping open every 8 or so minutes. We felt like amateurs.

The trained pulled up to the Ascot where there was even more of a crowd! There were police on the platform and even drug-sniffing dogs! (My friends who arrived on a train shortly after ours had the privilege of seeing one bloke get hustled away after a dog sniffed his pocket!).

Jason has decided that if he goes next year, he’s renting the full Ascot outfit:

That by the way, is entirely typical of the people who were there. Aside from the glossy stadium, you really don’t feel like it’s the year 2007.
Jason and I missed breakfast that morning and spent some time perusing the grounds for food. I’d say that the food and beverage stands were 90% booze only (dominated by Pims and Champagne). The other 10% that was food related were fairly high end too! We found lobster & champagne boxed lunches for £38, a restaurant serving a set meal for £60 per head. We happened upon a high end deli shop that served up some ready made over priced sandwiches that we quickly snapped up. Such the Ascot amateurs we are! Turns out we were too close to the Royal Enclosure area:

As soon as we went over to our general admission area we saw a burger kiosk, a curry stop and even some pizza. No lobster and caviar on this side, simple food for the the simple folk.

I suppose the most amusing part of the event is the Royal entrance. They take a horse drawn carriage all the way from Windsor to the Ascot (about 10 miles or so) and then ride in onto the race track before ascending up to their Royal box:

And then the races start. There are only 6 races, the rest of the time is spent waiting in massive lines for more drinks (thanks boys!), placing bets on your horses, and playing spot the crazy hat.

These are some of our favourites:

I particularly like this one because in her pink outfit she’s sorting out her bets on the next race:

Here’s what we wore (Heather I’m sorry to post one with your eyes closed, the other picture I had of the 3 of us my eyes were closed, and well… it’s my blog… and..):

The races were actually quite exciting to watch:

But I can’t stress enough how much of a booze-fest this was:

By the time the last race finishes this group was pretty exhausted:

I’ll give the Brits plenty of credit. They have impressive drinking stamina.
And of course, we’re already planning for next year.

It’s been a hell of a week! Work has been excessively busy, and even included a very last minute trip to Latvia. I landed back in London just this evening and after a massive delay on the Gatwick express due to a fire at some random station, I went straight to Selfridges to pick out my Ascot outfit (I know! A little last minute? But I was planning on shopping every evening this week after work … I just didn’t expect to be on a business trip this week!.. anyway..). I picked out a dress no problem, the hat situation .. well that was an ordeal. I can’t stress my vanity about this enough… I look damn good in hats. The hard part is not finding a hat that looks good, I’ll be honest they all look fabulous on me, the hard part is finding the right one to match my outfit. And p.s. to the sales lady at Selfridges, telling me: “on one hand it really goes, but on the other, it doesn’t” is really not helpful advice!! Either my tangerine jewel encrusted facinator with black veil goes… or it doesn’t!!

After no luck at Selfridges, I dashed into Debenhams relieved to find it open until 10pm and to my surprise ran into a coworker at her wits end over the exact same thing! In the end I we picked a bow-thing that isn’t so much a hat as a hair piece. I’m pleased.
We’ll post some photos tomorrow.

My idea of a fantastic Sunday in London (when husband free):

Sleep in.
Go to the gym for a nice long swim (ignore the screaming kids having lessons 3 lanes over, and the mom&tots in the kiddie pool, and well.. the corresponding diaper-poo smell in the change room)
Take the tube to Nottinghill
Enjoy a chicken wrap, cappuccino and a fresh travel magazine on Kitchen & Pantry’s soft leather couch
Take the tube over to Bond Street
Spend the next several hours getting acquainted with Selfridges and reacquainted with my old friend Marc Jacobs (and the stupidly high exchange rates! This stuff is WAY cheaper in Canada)
Dinner at home with the cats
A pint at the local to help finish off the magazine
and finish with trashy American sitcoms.