another snowflake falls on London

Just about enough snow overnight to adjust the plans this morning.

The usual combination of people and things in the wrong place.

That full one centimetre depth might not sound much, it is still enough to disrupt things. Read today's sensationalist newspapers and they are talking about 5 months of Arctic conditions.

Frozen?

I don't think so.

Yesterday's equally loud headlines were about all the people in Europe's largest city with its now record-breaking population.

Surely all those people will cause it to thaw more quickly?

And, that reminds me, anyone for a Frozen flashmob at Waterloo??

a few drinks by the river

A view from the top deck of the routemaster bus today.

This would be the 'going to' picture rather than the 'coming back from'.

We'd all arranged to meet at the Barrow Boy and Banker, and I took a bus and tube to Cannon Street before walking over London Bridge to the pub. Turning into early evening Cannon Street looks something out of a near future sci-fi movie nowadays. Glittering glass and ever more white lighting all around. Like parts of the West End, there's a Day for Night substitution walking around the area.

We'd agreed to start at the Fuller's pub. Predictably rammed it took me a while to work out that I was the first of us to turn up. When the first drinking buddy turned up we made a subtle land grab to acquire a table, where we could watch for other arrivals.

Much later we decided to move on, towards the Borough Market and a selection of other equally busy 'Londoners at play' pubs, mostly of the spill out onto the pavement variety.

We joined throngs standing outside the Wheatsheaf, with its mysterious pipe-works channeling the beer from ceiling mounted storage tanks, across its yard and into the bar.

Even later we'd head back to warmth, this time to the Shard's cocktail bar. A wholly different experience where we could observe London from a hawk's height. A prime position to continue to enjoy good company.

unusually quiet in these parts of town?

It's supposed to be back to normal this week, with full commuter trains, busy tubes and plenty of traffic jams. I'm slightly suspicious that there's a stillness in some of the central area.

There's space on usually busy platforms, and even parts of the normally bustling areas around the South Bank and the London Eye are surprisingly quiet.

These are parts of London that don't usually have seasonal effects, but maybe, just for once, everyone is over-travelled and shopped- out?

spiky start to 2015

We welcomed the New Year from neo-futuristic Shard, which is the tall spiky building in Central London. It's still the tallest building in the European Union and was designed by Renzo Piano.

I should have read the instructions about how to get inside. Forget breweries, I can't find my way to a party in a skyscraper. I took us confidently to what I consider the front door (which is the entrance on the concourse at London Bridge).

Wrong.

It turns out that another entrance on the other side by Joiner Street is the main one for revellers whereas the one I'd gone to was more or less the 'business' entrance.

Into the second entrance, which also turned out to be wrong. There's another one right next to it which houses the express lifts to the right floor and its panoramic views across London.

A useful tip to remember is that there's also a bar area which at other times should be easier to access and for the price of a London cocktail gives fabulous views across London.

And not something I'd normally mention, but the loos have an exceptional outlook too. In my case right across to the Houses of Parliament...

But, of course, we were there to celebrate the start of the year.

Here's to a fine 2015.

Happy New Year.

emergency swimwear and zombies

Another weekend activity involved obtaining emergency swimwear...so that we could use the fancy spa at the Corinthia, obviously.

We tripped around the corner to Lillywhites, which has huge quantities of swimwear on the 6th floor. Now Lillywhites is right by Eros* in Piccadilly Circus. The well-known meeting place for out-of-towners.

So far, so good.

Then I noticed the first one. Corner of eye. A fella who looked as if he'd been in a recent accident, but still seemed mobile enough.

Glance across again to the statue. A slight change in its population. They seemed to be getting more, er, gruesome.

A few moments later one flitted right across my field of vision. Yes this was turning into a full-on zombie attack.

They say you never see the one that gets you.

* I know it's not really Eros - It's Anteros who was Eros brother - note the plumed butterfly wings and long hair.

The Book of Mormon

The cab driver looked slightly quizzical.

"You know what it's like?"

We said we did.

"Only some people really like it and others really hate it"

He sniggered. He was one that liked it.

"It's really raw. really raw."

What wouldn't be fun about the sell-out show about Mormons leaving training camp to go doorbell ringing?

That they advertise the show on buses with the line "Can someone get me a ticket?!" indicates its popularity.

That we were somehow front row circle is still a mystery to me. The safety curtain is a star field, before being transported initially via Disney-esque animatronics to the All-American Prophet Joe from Rochester, New York as he discovers the golden plates of the Third Book.

I won't mention the main plot or setting, because it's better to see it the first time without knowing too much. What I will draw from the liveliness of the audience is the conclusion that most people were the 'likers'.


Slick, multi-dimensional, bawdy, a starkness to contrast the cheesiness of the cheery Salt Lake City. Rather more cultural references than it would seem possible to include. Even the dancing paper coffee cups were in the right place.

The bimodal distribution of the reviews is quite understandable. Most will give a five or a one.

And, yes, having a saying does make it all seem better.

And the real Mormon missionaries outside the theatre afterwards were doing a roaring trade harvesting email addresses.

time portal discovered in London?

I decided to try to get a bit ahead on that novel writing month thing because of work next week. It's made the last couple of days a little bit strange, but as I was a bit cold-ified in any case it meant I could blend Lem-Sip with typing.

I've even printed a google map of the route my characters are taking around part of America in my story. It bears an uncanny resemblance to some of the places I visited a while ago, which will help when I need to fill in some detail later on.

At the moment I'm trying to get the main chunks of plot blocked out and conveniently the characters are all being most helpful in directing the way to solve problems.

So I haven't had to spend time discovering time portals in London or anything similarly improbable to keep on track. And I'm secretly rather pleased that I've managed to get somewhat ahead of the targets.

Although I'm equally sure that when I eventually look back over what I've been doing, there will be some major remediation required.

But so far the need for a time portal lies dormant.

it landed outside City Hall #nanowrimo #nanolondon

I know, it looks like a ready made plot line, but it's not the one for me this year.

I've decided to hang in there with the desert caper which I originally considered for NaNoWriMo a year ago. Not that I did any work on it at the time though.

It didn't make sense for me to attempt it last time and I used the time instead to re-edit some of the work I'd produced previously. There was no point in counting the words at that time, so I quietly dropped out of the NaNoWriMo system after about a day.

This time I have started with a completely blank sheet of paper and a stuttery beginning, but now the story is up and running I can see some of the ways to drive it along.

I'm using the most basic structure ideas based around setup/initial problem/bigger problem/biggest problem/resolution/finale this time and trying to drive out the plot more than the descriptions of weather systems. As was the case the last time I wrote something, the characters all have minds of their own again.

I've genuinely surprised myself so far. Although it may be limping along with a need for many running repairs (like when I changed a character name part way through), it does seem to be stacking up word count.

Because of work commitments I've decided to blitz this first weekend to get as far ahead as I can because of the inevitable slow down as real world kicks in on Monday.

Literary masters may scorn the rapid creation approach, but I think it helps to get the creativity running and I know the subsequent edits may overturn some sizeable chunks of the initial piece. I think Hemingway had a famous quote about first drafts.

And if anyone else is seeking inspiration and wants to borrow the scene from my photograph...well I took it last week and the 'Thing' is still there - right next to London's City Hall.

a weekend at home

We'd sort of agreed that this would be a quiet, stay at home kind of weekend rather than gadding about. It's probably at least 6-7 weeks since we spent the whole time at home and it means a few things can get done around the place.

I realise this means the highlight is more likely to be the delivery of the Ocado groceries than, say, a trip in a cable car, but you should see that organic broccoli.

So it's become an opportunity to watch some of the uplifting Paralympics on telly and be quietly pleased that the coverage has maintained a good quality, albeit with fewer channels now it has moved to Channel 4. Kudos to whoever came up with that canal-boat C4 ident that flows to a view of the stadium.

Like many, I'm not familiar with all the special classifications used and there's some more noticeable differences in the speeds among athletes, but it's still exciting to watch.

The challenge now will be to find a way to bottle the positivity created from both the Olympics and Paralympics and to keep the sentiments flowing forward as we hit September and more normal news returns.

Cabaret opening night

We found ourselves in the Weimar Republic on Thursday evening. Okay, it wasn’t Berlin, we were in Bromley, having traversed about a hundred miles of back-streets to get to the Theatre because of a jammed motorway.

We were along to see the first night of a new production of Cabaret, the dark musical that starts at new year 1931 in pre-Second World War Berlin.

I think I’ve seen three very different versions of the stories by Christopher Isherwood, which is set mainly in apartments and at the KitKat Club during the time when Berlin was a pivot between a hedonistic cabarat world and the terrifying rise of the Nazi party.

I’m guessing most people are familiar with the film version of the story starring Liza Minnelli, Michael York and Joel Grey. There’s many similarities in the stage version although the story lines chosen are different. The film musical is already dark but suffice to say the stage version is even darker with a most ‘un-Hollywood’ ending.

This version follows the story of the struggling American writer Cliff Bradshaw as he arrives in Berlin on New Year’s Eve and befriends Ernst who rapidly introduces him to the ways of Berlin.

He meets nightclub singer Sally Bowles and they share an apartment in a house full of colourful bohemian characters. There’s a parallel doomed love interest - different from the film version but entirely in keeping with the main story themes.

The backdrop of the increasingly violent persecution of Jews in Germany rachets up throughout the action.

The whole story telling is framed by the EmCee, who opens the show and provides narration becoming a sort of cipher for what is happening in Germany.

Will Young plays the chameleon of the EmCee, singing the difficult lyrics with deft Berlin intonation. Equally strong is Michelle Ryan playing a cut glass English Sally Bowles, also strongly singing tremendously well-known songs from the show.

There’s an excellent band who kick up a Kurt Weill-like atmosphere driven from John Kander’s musical score. There’s the additional songs that tell other parts of the story and are sung away from the KitKat Club.

The ensemble dancers and singers provide great energy, decadence and promiscuity both in the club scenes during cabaret performances and also in the various backstage and other moments.

The staging uses mainly black flats, lit to provide atmosphere, as well as plenty of Kabaret style flashing lights.

This being a first night, there were some attempts to involve the audience in parts of the show and I can see that this will develop as the cast get more fully into their roles. This could also be tricky, given the nature of some parts of the show.

I noticed that certain elements from the symbolism of what was happening in Germany had already been dialled down in the performance.

There’s no pictures yet from the show, which hasn’t reached Press Night status yet and it will be interesting to see how it develops as it moves to the London stage in a few weeks.

Not from the show, but clearly a musical influence from the time, I’ve picked this little 1930-ish recording of Lotte Lenya singing Kurt Weill's "Mackie Messer."

reset to London co-ordinates

I suppose there comes a point when I need to post another straightforward London picture. The type with a bus and a taxi in it.

A sort of punctuation that the holiday type gadding around is coming to a close for a while and more normal work type things will resume.

We've actually had a few trips around different parts of London over the last few days. One day I was back on the Air Line - which I discovered others had thought was some sort of hoax, although I can vouch for its authenticity, having made four trips on it now.

I know it is supposed to be a sensible way to cross the Thames, but it is also a good tourist type trip, especially if coupled with a look around the Dome and maybe a trip along the river on one of the fast Clippers.

Suffice to say we've done all of these things over the last few days, including noticing the changes at the Dome for the Paralympics, which was all signposted and had various entry gates ready for use.

Across at Royal Docks there were more gates and systems linked with the ExCel centre, and I must admit at one point to getting confused at a roundabout that had been coned and nearly started to go around it the 'French' way.

Oops. But I do know I am back in London.

Really.

I notice the progressive creep of the pink and blue

I mentioned the pink and blue makeover for London in an earlier post and here's a quick example of it.

Its mainly the new signage that has been turning up in different parts of the central area. Train stations have big extra signs showing the way to key exits and there's been a progressive addition of large scale plastic pop-up signage along some of what will become the key pedestrian routes. A few of the signs are quite hand-wringing in their comment that traffic and access could be quite difficult and to plan alternative routes.

Even as pedestrians we are also getting some areas blocked off, like the whole of the access to St James Park and the Mall. It has been curtained off with steel mesh and consequent black signs showing alternative longer walk-arounds.

I've also started to spot the blue and pink cars with the Olympic logos. I gather that BMW has supplied 4,000 vehicles to ferry VIPs around between the events in the special lanes that are being created. I wonder if there will be a pecking order between the different cars on offer?

It looks as if there's some route testing occurring at the moment, so that the drivers won't get lost in their specially created outside lanes.

at the top of the dial

London's preparations for the various upcoming events continue. Yesterday I was around Waterloo and noticed quite a few people in demonstrable finery (morning suits, top hats, ladies in fine frocks and big hats).

Of course, they were on their way to the races - I suspect that some will not return in quite such composed conditions.

That event neatly precedes the Wimbledon season and then the home stretch towards the Olympics, with the parallel Cultural Olympiad festivities also kicking off right now.

Yesterday's Metro and Stannit both had wrap-around adverts from British Airways saying "don't fly" - which did make me smile. The premise is to stay in London and support the teams during the games.

The trick with all of this will be to figure out how to do it without turning into a tourist. London is a great capital, but there's a need to be careful and not get sucked into the mainstream tourist vortex.

I'll confess this happened to me briefly a few weeks ago, when we'd selected to go to a particular show which turned out to be truly awful. I don't recollect blogging about it at the time. It was not one of my finest decisions and we decided to leave after about 20 minutes.

It's that dilemma about having booked to see a show and then not liking it. Do you stay because you've paid or leave to get the time back? We left and decided that the show in question was a crass money spinner designed to extract cash from the gullible (oops).

So I'm hoping that there are not too many of those type of events in the run up to what will be a peak number of visitors to the capital.

Like many tourist rich cities, there's a sort of two tier economy between those that work and live in the centre vs those that are on a short vacation. I'm equally aware of this when I'm in other countries and don't have time to tune into the right frequencies.

So I guess I'll be just slightly more alert as the city gets remodelled for the next few weeks.

Cycling London Skyride 2011

It's the third London Skyride I've cycled, each year with a slightly different route. This time I arrived quite early (before the official start time) and that meant I could crack around the mainly flat route relatively unimpeded. An addition this time was a short spell south of the river over Westminster Bridge.

By the second loop (Westminster/ Buckingham Palace/ The Mall/ Trafalgar Square/ Whitehall/ Embankment/ Blackfriars/ Tower of London/ Embankment/ Westminster Bridge/ Waterloo/ Parliament) there were a good number of people joining in, but the route was still free-flowing.

Already there were a wide variety of cycles, from super fast carbon fibre machines being spun by Great Britain athletes to trikes and mini-bikes with stabilisers being driven by four-year-olds. Not forgetting the penny-farthings, recumbents and vintage steel frames.

There were also noticeably more of the London cycle scheme bikes being used this time. I guess now they are access for all it makes it a lot easier. Everyone was smiling and I could see proper shadows on the ground.

This was a good moment for a brief stop and a chance to take a few pictures in St. James Park whilst sipping a cup of coffee (free Gatorade for all if preferred) as well as a short listen to the entertaining (don't know name) rock band. See if you can spot the 'friends of the band' in amongst the photos?

On circuit three there were rather a lot of traffic jams caused by the reported 60,000 people attending the day. There were also a few minor spills, which seemed to mainly involve a few tearful younger ones who had slid to the ground. The general spirit was very good-natured with everyone giving way and generally enjoying the views around London.

My cycle helmet and the high viz bib provided helped keep the spots of rain away on my final lap although the sky did look as if it was getting ready for something more significant.

Great fun as London and Great Britain also becomes more bike-friendly.

I noticed my tee-shirt is looking somewhat the worse for wear as I returned home.

I finally read the Rivers of London and have already seen one of the ghosts

I took some books away last week, including one recommended by fellow blogger Nikki-ann.

Well, actually Nikki-ann wrote about the second book in the series but I thought I'd follow her advice and start at the beginning.

'Rivers of London' is by Ben Aaronovitch and a sort of London detective tale, mixed with urban fantasy.

There's parts where the storyline and descriptions are very 21st Century detective and then other parts where it all goes quite wibbly. The main character seems fairly unruffled as he learns about ghosts, mystical rivers and ways to conjure fireballs.

If that stuff is of the heavens, then there's some counterbalance with likably realistic scenes of down-to-earth police processes.

Its also set in the middle of London, with plenty of references to the area around Covent Garden, which should ensure a good number of readers will recognise the venues. Imagine the area between the Punch and Judy pub and the adjacent Actor's church(outside which the jugglers perform for tourists) as the epicentre.

The story clicked into supernatural almost from the start although the expected reactions from the main protagonist were surprisingly restrained considering the alarming and gory events unfolding. Also a revealed plot-line which I then found a tad too predictable - although I guess the point was to speculate how it would be accomplished.

I also found myself studying the dialogue; Aaronovitch writes with a tight style that cracks the pace along nicely. He's written a fair few screenplays and scripts and this shows through in the craft of his writing style.

That created the necessary page turner effect which was very compatible with the beach.

I must admit that when I bought it, the next book was also available as a twoofer so I suspect that the 'Moon over Soho' will be amongst my next reads. Thanks, Nikki-ann, for the suggestion.

And weirdly, when I was in Covent Garden recently, I saw the man in the picture below leaning against the columns, right underneath the Punch and Judy pub and across from St Paul's Church.

Spooky?

Quaglino's

We found ourselves in St James at Quaglino's. There's a few traditional London haunts that one goes back to like le Gavroche any time, Langham's for lunch and Quag's in the evening.

All three have secrets for a Londoner, so when we booked Quag's we decided to opt for the Champagne Menu.

This may sound counter-intuitive but actually the whole three courses with bubbly can be enjoyed for a very reasonable all-inclusive amount.

Quaglino's is something of a London institution, tucked away just around the corner from the Ritz and other bits of the high-life.

Along the years its had updates and revisions but continues to feature the upstairs bar, complete with a jazz band from quite early in the evening, and then down the marble sweeping staircase to the buzzy restaurant.

The food is brasserie style and well-prepared. There's plenty of waiters around and good attention although my blur-vision picture above may not do it much justice. And that was just on the berry smash fruit cocktail.

The team style service worked well and we had an enjoyable evening. It was obvious that the people around us were also enjoying themselves and overall there was that pleasant uplifted happy-vibe from the tables.

A place to be a part of the scene and to watch others similarly engaged.

Cheers.

flare path

After my Isle of Wight post referencing Sienna Miller at Steephill Cove, the least we could do was return the favour and visit her in her current West-End show at the Haymarket.

It's Terence Rattigan's wartime story of a Bomber Command airbase in Lincolnshire and the to-ings and fro-ings based in the adjacent hotel. Rattigan himself was a tail-gunner on bombers, so there's some direct realism to parts of the plotline as well as the central story of the actress played by Sienna.

The main plot is a love triangle handled with 1940's embarrassed manners and massive use of understatement, except for moments when the stress of bottled up emotions are allowed to run riot.

We get a spectrum of English class portrayed within the confines of the hotel suite with riotous off-stage bawdiness in the adjacent lounge bar.

The story's backdrop revolves around the air-crew spending time in the hotel between missions. To the front is the playing out of the scenes between Sienna, her movie-star lover and her bomber pilot husband from a whirlwind wartime romance.

Throw in a perilous overnight mission and there's a full and engaging story for the characters.

A very enjoyable production, a warm-hearted ending and some insights into a very different world of some 70 years ago.

bubble

What a difference a day makes.

The signs of last week's London festivities have rapidly moved, as have the Press who have moved to the next paper filling story.

Truly a Shakespearean weekend of world events but strange to have been in a separate bubble whilst much of it was unfolding.

television selection

I drove to the office this morning, expecting the roads to be clear with everyone taking extra days by way of an extended break between Easter, the Royal Wedding and then Spring Bank Holiday.

But I was wrong about the traffic, with what looked to me to be above average amounts for most of the journey.

Those not at work can play the television game of trying to work out a way to link programmes together to get almost continuous coverage of the upcoming event. Riffling through tonight's television as a quick example, theres:

1800: 178 : London ITV News - including Wedding Coverage preparations
1830: 101 : BBC London News - with Wedding coverage
1900: 109 : Watch : William and Kate Plus 8 Royal
2000: 105 : C5 : William and Kate - The Story So Far
2100: 103 : ITV1: When William met Kate
2100: 116 : BBC4 : Royal Wedding
2220: 116 : BBC4 : The Great British Wedding
2300: 363 : Magic : Royal Wedding Fever - 3 days to go

I haven't checked all of the news channels and quiz shows, nor the plus one channels. And Dave (111) is still playing Top Gear repeats.

Cycling the Royal Wedding Route

We'll be away whilst the Royal Wedding is taking place.

We're joining some friends on a boat which will mean we are in a minority by not being glued to the television on Friday.

To get a sense of the occasion, I took the bicycle around the Royal Wedding route today, which is already in advanced stages of preparation. In some areas around the Palace there's already flags flying, but further out its still flagpoles and some rather impressive looking bright yellow rope.

The Mall is closed to traffic (my bicycle was still alright), the area outside Buckingham Palace has been rigged with a huge number of commentary boxes and many of the television cameras are already in place.

There were random film crews with big camera and cat on a stick microphones wandering around looking for people to interview. All of them dangling many badges and identity.

Slightly funnier was the big press boxes at Westminster Abbey.

They face the main entrance but behind them was a gas-man scene where the road was being dug up and a slight whiff of gas, like there was an urgent need to mend a gas main more or less underneath the main stand. A sort of James Bond/Jason Bourne moment.

Today's weather was idyllic.

Let's hope Friday is as Landau fine.