London land of contrasts
Post on: 2011-08-28 By: admin
Max here, in London, soon to depart for Heathrow and a flight home. It's time.
I set this up to post Saturday morning, if all works correctly. I thought I'd pass along a couple more travel snapshots that seemed to cover some of the incredible range of things you find in London. We arrived as the street violence continued, but it's calmer now. The newspapers are full of the aftermath, naturally. Despite what a Dover cabbie told us, the mug shots indicate plenty of "real" English were in the thick of the looting — yobs, thugs, morons and punks were among the labels tossed out by headline writers. Three victims, as it happened, were immigrant stock, innocent bystanders mowed down by a hit-and-run driver. We stayed in Kensington, where it was business as usual, with plenty of people on the streets day and night. The same in the theater district, thronged with people late Thursday night after we saw "War Horse," a hit weeper about a boy and his horse in World War I. (The two-man horses created for the show are wonders of mechanics and choreography.)
I hope to be back at work Sunday, between jet lag and laundry. For now, a tale of two Londons:
* Above is the afternoon tea at a restaurant in the gloriously restored St. Pancras Station, where the chunnel trains arrive and depart. Those are English strawberries, in season now from Kent along with raspberries. They weren't as sweet as the best Arkansas berries, but they tasted like the real thing, not the clods of red cellulose typically shipped from California. We don't have anything to match the clotted cream, however.
* The shot below goes out to state Rep. Tracy Steele, who moved in the last legislative session to ban saggy pants, at least on school property. There's just no holding back fashion, Rep. Steele. Here, the undershorts on display were spotted in a nice gastropub, otherwise filled with suited English office workers at lunch hour, about a block down the street from Buckingham Palace. (Pretty nice digs. We strolled through the public rooms, open for the summer season with the queen off in Scotland or somewhere, as well as the back yard, or garden, as her majesty likes to call it.)
Tags: London, strawberries, Tracy Steele, pants on the ground
Mr. Brantley. It's 2011. New Age Media. You have an iPhone. You're on an epic journey.
Do you CARE about your Razorbabies?
Two measly shots? One of some lovely coastal village and the other of your individual serving of strawberries (is that a lemon and a sprig of mint they plopped on there? What for?) and towering personal dessert étagère with the two honeys in the BG?
Did Mrs. Max get any? Did you grab a shot of HER towering personal dessert étagère?
Technology is your friend.
You couldn't have shared shots of an entrée or two instead of the baggy pants shot, before winging home?
Because one wide ass is another wide ass, nationality notwithstanding.
Do enquiring minds get a full VERBAL report, perhaps? Of your journey's details, insights, and transcendent meaning in your larger existential gestalt or whatever? (Me neither. But it sounds good.)
Or just these three lovely if cheesy iPhone snaps of a village, some strawberries and a fat ass in Kensington?
Razorbabies YEARN to join you on the higher road.
on August 13, 2011 at 4:02 AM
Hey Norma: ever heard of a vacation?
on August 13, 2011 at 4:19 AM
on August 13, 2011 at 4:52 AM
You make me THINK, Spanish for boner!
I guess if one's "work" isn't one's "love" then one needs a "vacation" from it.
To me, my work is my life. My life is my work.
I love my life. I love my work.
I really don't understand the concept.
That's what I mean by, "What's the diff?"
What, exactly, does one take a "vacation" FROM?
on August 13, 2011 at 5:01 AM
Ever have the feeling that you're truly abnormal?
>>(is that a lemon and a sprig of mint they plopped on there? What for?)
What for is what he indicated, "clotted cream." Dianna and Charles popularized it.
Originally said to be from Devon. Superior to butter. Never exported. I once had a dollop
an English gent made in Kansas.
on August 13, 2011 at 7:08 AM
>I set this up to post Saturday morning, if all works correctly.
Right out of the Blue Hog Playbook.
Are you preparing to go to work for the state?
on August 13, 2011 at 10:27 AM
When we win the lottery (it'll have to be a big one) we are moving to London.
Hampstead, hopefully with the heath as out backyard, specially.
on August 13, 2011 at 10:57 AM
"I thought I'd pass along a couple more travel snapshots that seemed to cover some of the incredible range of things you find in London."
Max, that sentence reminded me of a question my sainted mother-in-law asked when told that her daughter and I were going to London to run a marathon and would spend ten days there.Her question was, "Ten days?What are you going to do in London for ten days?"
She lived her entire life in rural-and-small-town Arkansas and never had opportunity or occasion to venture outside the state except to visit kinfolks.Widowed at age 35, she reared three children on income earned cooking in a school cafeteria.I doubt that it ever occured to her that her life was her work and her work was her life, but she brightened her constricted corner with kindness and nurture and duty steadily done.
I'm not sure this has anything to do with the need for vacations and all that, but her question just popped into my mind!
on August 13, 2011 at 11:01 AM
London is just so expensive. I confess to having worked from there while in theory on vacation. I'm like Norma. I don't draw lines between work and play and family. It's all one big jumbled ball called my life.
I've encountered so many people in Arkansas who have no desire to ever visit any place outside the country, even resisting the very concept.
It's ironic to me because those tend to be the very same people who believe the US is the very best at everything. The only way to have such a belief isto have never been anywhere else and argue the point from ignorance.
on August 13, 2011 at 11:22 AM
I'm off to the UK in March, can't wait...snapback, you made a tear come to my eye talking about your momma, maybe she and Norma have something in common.
Max, get home safely, can't wait to hear all about Normandy!
on August 13, 2011 at 12:11 PM
>>Right out of the Blue Hog Playbook.
Are you preparing to go to work for the state?
Proving NormaB's point, Republicans are never funny. Even when they try to be funny, they can't.
Now, list all thethings you PROVED against Blue Hog and the two bloggers?
on August 13, 2011 at 3:32 PM
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