Today is whatever I want it to mean

Today is whatever I want it to mean, sings Beth Orton on my headphones as I step off the Circle Line train at Embankment station and head up the long escalator and out into the bluest, brightest, warmest sky London has had to offer since I arrived. Is this where memories are made? Well, dreams do come true. she sings, and I smile to myself as I step up the stairs to the Hungerford Bridge, heading for the South Bank, happy with my decision about what to do today: I'm going to explore the Queen's Walk, the footpath that runs all along the South Bank of the Thames, from the Hungerford Bridge to Tower Bridge and back. Some of this trek I've never hoofed, but there's stretches of this path I've wandered on many, many times before, and that includes the Hungerford Bridge. I notice for the first time the spider-spun suspension of the "new" Hungerford Bridge I mentioned before actually is on both sides of the railway bridge leading into Charing Cross Station; I was wrong before when I said they moved Hungerford from one side to the other—they've simply put it on both sides. You can get a beautiful view of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament from the other side, so I vow to remember to walk back on the other side for more photo opportunities. For the moment I lean against the railing and look City-wards, towards St. Paul's and the Swiss Re Tower on the city skyline, and I sigh in content and take a bajillion photos.

I sat in my hotel room last night and looked at my notes and guidebooks. What to do on Thursday, I'd wondered, What to do? I'm down to two and a half days left in London and I have so many more things I want to do and see. I'd thought about going to Dover one day, but that seems unlikely now. There's a London Walks in my hotel neighborhood this afternoon, strolling up and down the streets of Kensington; wouldn't it be fun to learn about my base of operations? How about that exhibit of maps at the British Library, or wandering over to the BBC Shop, or seeing if there are any Thursday matinees on the West End? I even, for a very brief moment, crazily contemplate the idea of going to Hay-on-Wye, the famous bookselling village in Wales. A few moment's internet research instantly pops that balloon: it's four hours away by train and even so, there's no train station in Hay-on-Wye; the train stops 22 miles away and you then need to take a bus in. Sounds like an overnight visit at least, so not this trip. (And there's a lot of disparaging comments about the multitude of bookstores in the town. I'm not one to let Internet reviews sway my opinion—heck, I read comic books, if I paid attention to what the Internet says about 'em I'd never read any of 'em.) But the idea of finding a treasure trove of used books perks my interest. I've done the used bookstores in Bloomsbury and on the lower end of Charing Cross Road without finding any major treasures: I'm just lookin' for some cool retro 1940s and 50s Penguin paperbacks. A link on one of the Hay-on-Wye sites leads me to a list of secondhand booksellers in London, and suddenly I spot a reference to the Waterloo Bridge Book Fair. Oh ho, a ha! I've been there before and found some lovely and affordable paperbacks. Perfect! And it starts to come together: I've also wanted to go to the Tate Modern and the Design Museum, and both are located along the South Bank, although the Design Museum is quite a hike away. But what more fun way is there to spend a day than wandering along the Thames?

Seriously, if you're only in London for a few days, the best place to get picture-postcard photos is to walk across the Thames to the South Bank and wander up and down. If you turn right coming off Hungerford Bridge you're in a magnificent vantage point to photograph the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. The London Eye is located here. We all know the primary purpose of the London Eye is a transmitter for the Nestene Consciousness, but you can also get some pretty triffic photos from its pods if you want to stand in line for a few hours to ride it. I'm not anti-London Eye: it doesn't disrupt the skyline of London as much as I had originally feared, and actually now it seems to be part of that skyline—I'm just not interested in crowding into a plastic pod with dozens of tourists fighting for photography space. So I wander to the right only far enough to take a few snaps of Big Ben, and notice a series of Gorillaz posters by Jamie Hewlett promoting his award as Designer of the Year and an October event at the South Bank Centre:


...although not without a typical wry comment on the whole concept:


It's a beautiful day for walking the South Bank, the first day the sun is really out in force and the temperature has climbed into the fifties (that's plus-ten in Celsius, as they report it over here). I keep my eyes open and look around, and I'm pleased whenever I spot some little detail that I bet most people don't notice, like it's my own little secret. For example, these colorful long strings of lights around the patios on the South Bank Centre are actually plastic bottles:


There are a lot of people out and about—it's a popular walking district for both Londoners and tourists alike—but it's early yet and not overcrowded. So early, in fact, that when I hit the Waterloo Bridge Book Fair area it's barely even starting up; one vendor is unpacking her wares from the big permanent lockers on the riverside and setting up her folding tables. It's still too soon for them, so I make a mental note to remember to stop by on my way back.

Past the National Theatre, with a quick pop into the bookshop as a detour, and it's off again heading down the river. I'm starting to move into an area I've never walked: I've been along the South Bank between Hungerford Bridge and the National Theatre, and then down by Southwark, but I've never walked the path between those two points, which includes the Oxo Tower—a dandy name for a tower, if you ask this little stuffed bull. One thing I note to my dismay is a large skateboarding area just past the National Theatre; the whole area is covered with tagging graffiti. Not just the skateboarding area, but the buildings, signs, and even trees for quite some distance away. I may sound like an old fuddy-duddy bully when I shake my head at this, but it's ugly and annoying. I've got nothing against skateboarding, and as evidenced by my interest in Banksy a good piece of artful graffiti is always interesting to look at, but I don't see any true skill or art in tagging, and it bothers me that there's spray-painted trees here, so I pick up my hoof-pace and hurry on, muttering like a curmudgeon about those darn kids.

It's forgotten in a few minutes, however, when I discover a section of the South Bank I've never been to or knew existed: Gabriel's Wharf, a small little picturesque village of shops and restaurants. There's a lovely-looking Indian shop called "Ganesha" with fantastic Bollywood-like painted figures on the shopfront, a bicycles-for-hire firm, several arty-looking jewelry and fashion stores...and except for a lone café, they're all closed for Christmas week. It's still fun to wander around and peer in windows.

The design shops in the OXO Tower are closed as well, but it's still impressive to wander past the building that features one of the cleverest loopholes in London architecture history: after buying the building, beef-stock cube magnates Oxo were denied city permission to erect advertising signs on their building. They then had the building redesigned and windows installed on each side of the tall tower: two circles, one X. Not coincidentally, they spell out, in illuminated letters shining across the city: OXO. Hee hee!

Another famous tower on the South Bank is the power station turned into a museum of modern art, and I eagerly trotted up the path by the Millennium Bridge to step into the Tate Modern. It's become one of my favorite art museums in London for a number of reasons: it's one of the best uses of art space in London with an utilitarian but attractive set-up that flows easily from level to level, it constantly has an amazing collection of the best and brightest in modern art straight up to the twenty-first century, they have a dead good pair of gift shops (including an amazing in-depth bookshop downstairs), plus, it's free! For a little stuffed bull who's watching his pounds and pence it's a dandy way to expose myself to art without emptying my pockets—even though there are some fascinating-looking exhibits in the museum that are ticketed, most of it is free. I could happily spend an entire day here, but I examine the "What's on at the Tate" brochure carefully and take in the Media Burn gallery on mass media and the politics of protest. It's all amazing and thrilling and a bit intense and it's nice to calm down in the gift shop after and buy a pencil. As I walk out of the front doors again into the bright afternoon, I notice the absence of the immensely popular artificial snow sledding area they had at this time last year. It's too warm for that today anyway, but I momentarily am filled with regret that I can't step into a rented sled and squeal "wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" as I ride down a big hill in front of the Tate Modern.

Right next door is Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, which I've been to many times before but so dearly love that I can't help but wander through the front courtyard and check out the gift shop. John loves it too to the point of overwhelming joy: he studied Shakespeare in college and grad school and he likes to put it this way: "I've studied the function and layout of this theatre for years, and I never thought I'd actually get to see one for real, much less see a play in one." There's no plays today—they only take place in the summer because the top of the theatre is open to the elements—but it's not without a bit of drama. As I leave the gift shop I'm called by a squeaky, growly voice, and I turn in surprise to see I'm being hailed by a rat:


RAT: Oi! Pretty boy! Where d'you think you're goin' then, eh?
BULLY: ??? Are you talking to me?
RAT: I don't see no one else 'ere, do you?
BULLY: How do you do, Mister Rat? I'm Bully. I'm from America.
RAT: I h'am a rat.
BULLY: Don't you have a name?
RAT: Cheeky lad! Rat's don't 'ave no names. Me mum, she 'ad two million of us. The ol' bird was too shagged out t' give us all names. H'i'm number eighteen thousand 'hand twelve.
BULLY: Golly! That must be a lot of family birthdays to keep track of. Do you live here at the museum?
RAT: I live at the gift shop. H'I'm waitin' fer someone t' take me away from the squalour h'I live in and take me to the squalour they live in.
BULLY: Oh! Oh! Oh! We have lots of stuffed animals living at our house: Snuckles and Blackie and Ox and all the rest. Maybe you could come to live with us. We live in Brooklyn.
RAT: Hmmm! That sounds a bit o' the ol' robin, it does. Is there garbage in Brooklyn?
BULLY: Heaps of it! All over the place!
RAT: Ahhh, luvly. We don' get heaps of garbage like that since the War. You don't think they're been any strife bringin' a plague rat into the States then, do you?
BULLY: Just as long as you don't cough on anyone. I'll get John to buy you!

And that is how a Plague Rat is coming home to live with us. I have wired ahead to Snuckles to stock up on disinfectant.


Our new friend tucked away in John's backpack, where he began gnawing on the Cadbury Fruit and Nut bar I'd been saving for after lunch, we continued on our way down the Queen's Walk. Speaking of lunch, right next door to the Shakespeare Globe, just past the ubiquitous Pizza Express, is a branch of The Real Greek, a delicious souvlaki restaurant we very much enjoyed last year at this time. It's not open yet, so another mental tick of something to do on the way back.

Around Southwark Bridge the Queen's Walk veers up onto bridge level and across the road, and it's an easy place to lose the trail, so it's no shame I did exactly that! Distracted by signs leading me towards Southwark Cathedral (Shakespeare's parish church) and the Golden Hind (a docked replica of Sir Francis Drake's famous ship that always brings out the inner Jack Aubrey in me), I veer off the Queen's Walk by a large angle and find myself wandering parallel to the river but a few blocks inland. And there I come across one of the most serendipitous finds of the day as I wander past Southwark Market and into a little quiet street I recognize instantly even though I've never walked its cobbles: it's the street Bridget Jones lived on in the two Renee Zellweger movies. I'm thrilled and excited to be walking the same pavement as one of my favourite fictional British heroines! Bridget apparently lived above the Globe Pub, which a quick peek inside tells me is fairly unexceptional, and there's no Greek restaurant across the street where Colin Firth and Hugh Grant went barreling through the window: in short, Hollywood dress-up tweaked the real site for the purposes of the script. No surprises there, although I realize with sadness it means Bridget will not pop out of her flat in her jumper and underpants chasing Mark Darcy down the lane. There's a Japanese girl taking the same photos I am, and we smile at each other as we shoot pictures, and she points up at the windows and says "Bridget Jones!" And I laugh and smile back, a lovely shared moment from two fans at a pilgrimage point.

In the books, Bridget lived in Holland Park, not too far from where I wandered on Christmas Day, but as I work my way parallel to the river I see some more of the sites that the movie transplanted her to: here's Southwark Market, where she wandered through dejectedly after discovering cowardly cad Daniel Cleaver with a naked American woman (and the world's biggest book). The market is buzzing even as it approaches noon, but I step through it quickly lest someone take it into their head to start selling some beef.

I start to wander into Bermondsey, home borough of Margaret Thatcher, and while it's not as dodgy as that stretch of Shoreditch High Street I shied away from on Sunday we're definitely getting out of tourist territory. One last gasp is the London Bridge station, where first I spot what must be quite the most brilliant match of advertising product and location:


Perhaps not entirely coincidentally, a few yards down the road you can spot this sign:


The last sputtering gasps of tourism can be spotted in front of London Bridge station where an immense queue (that's "line" to Americans) of tourists stretches down for well over a block and a half to get into the London Dungeon, quite possibly the crappiest tourist attraction in London. And I've been to Madame Tussaud's. Me and the Plague Rat shout derisively at the crowd, who is apparently keen on waiting well over a couple hours to get in, but that doesn't dissuade them. "Bloody berks," mutters the Rat, and ducks back down into the backpack and starts snoring in a few minutes. There's less of a queue down the street at "Winston Churchill's Britain at War Experience," which is another poor excuse to suck pounds out of the pockets of gullible tourists. Seriously, people, if you want to see Churchill at war, head to the completely excellent Cabinet War Rooms and Churchill Museum or the Imperial War Museum, both amazing, intense, and authentic explorations of England and London under the terror of World War II. You may note that I gave you links for those two but not for the London Dungeon or Britain at War. That's because friends don't let friends go to the London Dungeon or Britain at War, and I'm certainly not going to make it easier for you to see crappy rip-off museums. John has done them when he was much younger and foolish; let his poor example serve as a warning to you all.

When we pass by the end of Tower Bridge that no one ever sees (street level from the south end), we're nearly at the Design Museum, which is what seems like miles from the nearest tube stop (even with the Jubilee Line Extension now coming into Southwark and Bermondsey), so it's always a surprise to see how busy it is: a whole gaggle of Japanese students in most of the galleries and a lot of tourists and school groups. It's a wonderful museum that I always enjoy making the extra effort to get to. Running right now is an amazing exhibition of the work of Alan Fletcher, the recently late but always great designer who worked a lot in the book industry (take a look at your favorite Phaidon art book; he probably had a hand in it). There's lot of great commercial and design work on display from his personal archives, and it leaves me buzzing with a sense of a need to create tempered by the fact that I'm a dead rotten artist. There's a lovely gallery of impeccably-designed Swiss books, and the usual history of British design that is always a delight to wander through for a Anglophile like me. And, as always, the gift shop, the rich fudge treat at the end of the cool creamy ice cream of the museum. Those Gorillaz vinyl figures are taunting me, for there they are, posing on a shelf. I settle for buying a beautiful limited edition poster of Noodle celebrating Jamie Hewlett as designer of the year, plus a wonderfully quirky book on the Ten Commandments of Typography. Rule #1 is "never use more than three fonts in a document," which is something I'll have to timidly remind Aunt Carol of, but what's this? Flip the book over and it becomes the Devil's Handbook of Typography, which tells you how to break the ten commandments creatively and effectively. It's a wonderful book for a font-obsessed little bull like me.

My hooves are aching as I make the trek back down the Thames, returning towards Hungerford Bridge. The Queen's Walk is a lot busier now, and I weave in and out of tourists and City folk, hungry and eager for Greek food, pausing only to take several dozen more photographs on the way. You get the best views of St. Paul, the Tower of London, Tower Bridge, and, as you get closer, HMS Belfast, moored permanently in the Thames as a floating museum. I've been on the Belfast before and highly recommend it; it's run by the Imperial War Museum, the same museum that runs the Churchill War Rooms. There's no better trilogy of military exhibitions in London than those three, and I'm pleased to see it doing good tourist business, which at least proves not everyone is fooled by cheap rip-off tat exhibitions by London Bridge.

At last I'm back at the Greek restaurant and it feels lovely to get off my hooves for a while. I've built up the perfect hunger for a souvlaki sandwich, and like last year when I ate at this restaurant, it's absolutely delicious. I know I sometimes get criticism that I rave about chain restaurants when I'm in London, like this and Pizza Express, but I have to point out that one of my London rules is not to eat at restaurants I can eat at in New York (no Pizza Hut, McDonald's or KFC...what a waste of London to eat there!), so any place I eat at is new or different to me. Besides, the lamb is as tender and savory as I remember it last time, and the chips golden and crispy, with delicious creamy tart katiki yoghurt cheese dipping sauce, and oooh, how that pint of Alfa beer goes down smoothly.

Fortified and warm, back out into the sunshine, but moving a little slower now. I'm not certain if it's tired hooves or the beer. I pause to take my umpteenth photo of St. Paul's and have another little serendipitous moment when I discover something I bet most of the passers-by are missing: some wonderful chalk drawings on the pavement by (presumably) schoolchildren, several of them in a row, of St. Paul's Cathedral across the river. Now this is the kind of graffiti I like!:


I imagine it would be a deep disappointment to those children if no one had even noticed their artwork, so here I am to say that at least one little stuffed bull noticed it and was delighted by it, especially this one by (as far as I can read) the artistic Christian Wall. Well done, Christian! I'm hoping some day he Googles himself and is surprised to find that I've preserved his artwork.

The book fair is open when I return, and it's a Persian bazaar for bibliophiles: tables stuffed tightly with used paperbacks and hardcovers (and a nice selection of etchings, engravings, and prints, too) at prices more affordable to a little stuffed budget than the used shops on Charing Cross Road. There're only four dealers open, but their long tables have plenty of delights, and I carefully count out my chunky pound coins for a few classic Penguins in lovingly-worn condition to give them a new home on my bookshelves in Brooklyn. Clutching my purchases to my chest (I'm afraid the Rat will gnaw them if I put them in the backpack), I'm delighted to see, as I pass by the South Bank Centre again, that a couple has noticed and is photographing the lighted plastic bottles strung up over the patio. Today has been a day of found surprises and shared secrets, and I like that it ends the way it began: by noticing something different and delightful.

To the theatre tonight? I wonder, and I actually do brave Leicester Square to check out the Tkts half-price booth, but nothing catches my eye and I'm happy with my decision when I decide to head back to the hotel to relax for the evening. Tonight I get Cornish pasty take-out and nibble on it in the room. There's a special on Morecambe and Wise on ITV tonight, followed by a special on Benny Hill, that one then followed by a special on Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. What a perfect night to stay in, then! And the voice of Beth Orton is still in my head, singing, and I decide on the spot this is my London song of the day, to celebrate a day I didn't plan out but which has wound up being one of the loveliest:

I'll step through brilliant shades,
Every color you bring,
Cause this time, this time, this time,
Is fine just as it is.

And today is whatever I want it to mean,
Today is whatever I want it to mean,
Today, today, is whatever I want it to mean,
Today is whatever I want it to mean.

London Song of the Day: There were angels dining at the Ritz ("A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square")

On my list of London songs, I have lots of favorites, but probably only one true obsession among them: the showtune standard "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square." (It's pronounced "Barkley," by-the-by, not "Berkley.") How obsessed am I with this one song? Well, I've got a dedicated playlist (entitled, tongue-in-cheek, "That Bloody Nightingale") for thirty-one different versions of it on my iPod, and I've only just on this trip discovered a couple more I like (the John Le Mesurier "definitive" version and the smooth silky Ellis Marsalis cover) that I'll be adding to the collection. Why such a fondness for a pleasant little ditty that debuted in a forgotten 1940 West End show (New Faces)? After all, it's a song about falling in love...and what does a little stuffed bull know about love? (Aside from quite fancying nose-kisses from Keira Knightley.)

I think it's less likely that I love this song because it's a love song alone, more that it's a love song set in London, about the transformation that London has on people in love, and vice-versily, the transformation that people in love have on London:

That certain night, the night we met,
There was magic abroad in the air,
There were angels dining at the Ritz,
And a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square.

I first discovered "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" as a tune played by harmonicist Max Geldray on The Goon Show, curiously enough on an episode set in the American West. The Goon Show featured, as was customary in those days, musical numbers one-third and two-thirds of the way through the frenetic comedy action, partly out of following to the British music hall traditional of breaking of comedy acts with music, but mostly to give Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe, and Peter Sellers time to dash backstage for a quick brandy-and-milk before they had to go on again. The Ray Ellington Quartet filled the second musical spot and Geldray the first, and it's a tribute to his skill that I've never felt the need to fast-forward through a musical number to get back to the comedy faster. Geldray's one of my favorite harmonicists of all time: Larry Adler may be better technically, but did Larry Adler ever play straight man to Neddie Seagoon and get to say "ploogee" all the time? No, he did not.. Geldray's version starts out slow and sweet and is butter-smooth all the way through; his playing was the inspiration for me wanting to learn to play the harmonica for many years. Never could, but every time I listen to him play, and this number especially, it still makes me wish I'd learned. Let's take a listen to Max Geldray, shall we?

I next encountered "A Nightingale Sang" on that wonderful John Williams Echoes of London guitar album I told you about on my first day here in London, and like "London by Night" on that record, I still didn't realize that "Nightingale" has lyrics. My first inkling that this wonderful tune had words came from another classic BBC radio comedy: I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again (thank you NPR for broadcasting both these shows heavily when I was just a tiny stuffed bull in Clay, New York!). Sung by comedian and eventual bird-botherer Bill Oddie (lower right of the floating heads of the cast in the picture to the right), here's Oddie's very short but very funny parody of the tune.

Now I can spin the virtual touchwheel of my iPod and listen at whim to dozens of versions of this charmer of a tune, from the soulful Nat "King" Cole version, to Vera Lynn's very-British rendering, a growly re-invented Rod Stewart singing oldies version, the bouncy and festive New Vaudeville Band (they of "Winchester Cathedral") or even the music-hall inspired cover by Robson and Jerome. But force me into a corner and ply with tea and crumpets to get me to tell you my favorite version and I will hem and haw and mull over thirty-one flavors of wonderful but I'll probably tell you my favorite version is by Frank Chacksfield and His Orchestra. Like the first couple versions I encountered of "Nightingale," it's an instrumental, but what an instrumental: a full-fledged, all-out symphonic overture that paints a picture in my little stuffed head of London so dramatic and beautiful that it doesn't matter where I listen to the Chacksfield version playing: whether I'm on the F train in Manhattan or walking through a street in Brooklyn, it's always Berkeley Square to me. Chacksfield's version is to me, the overture to the greatest London movie never made, and of course this movie should be titled A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square. There's already a movie by that name, of course, but it's a 1979 crime/heist thriller, and what I'm picturing is a WWII-era black-and-white romance with an American GI in London (Bing Crosby?) falling in love with a London girl (Vera Lynn?). Arthur Treacher's got to be in there somewhere, and Patricia Roc, and George Formby and "that man again" Tommy Handley, and while the whole darned world seems upside-down in the end the lovers are united as that pesky bird twitters away in the square. Wouldn't you go to see that? I sure would, 'specially if it featured Chacksfield's version of the song as the opening number, bursting into the theaters in glorious full resonance over the titles and shots of London by night. Chacksfield's "Nightingale" starts with that big fanfare, and then smoothly segues into the Westminster chimes (that's the bells of Big Ben to you and me), and a slight detour into the grand old song "London Pride" before the melody of "Nightingale" rises over the opening titles...oh, let's just take a listen to it right now, and you sit back and close your eyes and imagine that opening movie sequence along with me, won't you?

Did you see it in your head? Now tell me this: is that or is that not the best London movie you ever wanted to see in your life that has never been made?

The streets of town were paved with stars;
It was such a romantic affair.
And, as we kissed and said 'goodnight',
A nightingale sang in Berkeley Square.

London Song of the Day: I need Santa beside me ("Christmas is All Around" by Billy Mack)

This one's not a London song "per se," folks, but it comes from one of the great London movies of our time, and I've been listening to it all day on my Brit-Chrit playlist: "Christmas Is All Around" by Billy Mack, as played by the great Bill Nighy in the heartwarming and heartbreaking movie Love Actually.

Love Actually spins several simultaneous plotlines of love and loss together through the course of its couple hours covering the weeks leading up to a Christmas in London. Almost every one of these plotlines is connected with familial and friendship ties: Hugh Grant's Prime Minister subplot ties into Emma Thompson's tempted husband subplot when we find Hugh is Emma's brother, for example. One character that remains separate from each of the others, however, is Bill Nighy's past-his-prime, desperately-trying-to-make-a-comeback rock star Billy Mack. Billy and his long-suffering manager are putting all their hopes on a Mack comeback based on a Christmas single remake of the classic "Love Is All Around," a song that most every character disparages as universally awful (complete with its cheesy, saucy, Robert Palmer-flavored music video), but which is actually a catchy and sentimental tune.

In the UK there's a major race among pop stars to have the "#1 Christmas single": the top-selling record in Christmas week. Billy's comeback shot is running on the hopes that "Christmas Is All Around" will be this year's #1 Christmas single; if it is, he's made it back. If it isn't, he falls back into obscurity, "Christmas Is All Around" no better than a novelty tune. Not every story in Love Actually has a happy upbeat ending, but Billy's does: against all odds his song hits the top, and it's back on the glitter wagon to the pantheon of stars for Billy Mack. But on Christmas Eve, he ducks out of a fabulous party at Elton John's to be with the only person who's stood by him thick and thin: his home-alone manager.

I like Billy's subplot, and I love Bill Nighy's performance as the larger-than-life Billy Mack. If you only know Nighy from his hidden-from-view-by-rubber-makeup role as Davy Jones in the most recent Pirates of the Caribbean movie you owe it to yourself to see him in this or in the sublimely quiet but lovely The Girl in the Cafe. But I've watched the movie dozens of times and while it's always been obvious that Billy's character doesn't intersect with the other major characters personally, it took me a few viewings until I realized that he influences the direction of other plots as well: he inspires young Sam to take up the drums to be closer to his unrequited love, and his video distracts Heathrow officials long enough to let Sam slip past them to say goodbye to that love before she returns to America. His role is, just like Rowan Atkinson's two brief but important scenes, almost like an angel—admittedly a foul-mouthed, cheerfully unrepentant one—that brings other people together and benefits not just himself but the whole cascade of subplots down the line. That's the beauty of Richard Curtis's careful writing and character development on this movie, and that's the wonder of a poppy, hummable Christmas single: it'll inspire you in ways you don't know, and even if it's playing in the background and your co-workers are saying "Oooh, what's that racket?" it—and more important, the good and happy seasonal feeling of joy and love it leaves you with is still part of your life, surrounding you, everywhere. As Hugh Grant narrates: "If you look for it, I've got a sneaky feeling that love, actually, is all around."



And remember kids, don't buy drugs:



Other songs in heavy rotation on my London playlists today (any links will open in iTunes, unless you don't have iTunes, in which case they won't.):

"Father Christmas" by The Kinks, from the album Come Dancing with the Kinks
"Merry Christmas Everyone" by Shakin' Stevens
"Thank God It's Christmas" by Queen, from the album Greatest Hits III
"Do They Know It's Christmas" by Band Aid
"Another Rock and Roll Christmas" by Gary Glitter
"Mistletoe and Wine" by Cliff Richard
"Last Christmas" by Wham!
"December Will Be Magic Again" by Kate Bush
"I Believe In Father Christmas" by Greg Lake
"The Coventry Carol" by Alison Moyet, from the album A Very Special Christmas
"I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday" by Wizzard

Song of the Day: Whatever happened to that old song ("Rainy Night in Soho" by the Pogues)

A couple days ago The Fortress Keeper asked me in the comments

What's your favorite Pogues album, Bully? I like Rum, Sodomy and The Lash myself. (No rude jokes, please. That's the album's title!!)

How to answer that question? At least until the departure of Shane MacGowan, there wasn't to my ears a bad Pogues album. But The Keeper's spot on: Rum, Sodomy and the Lash is one of the great Pogues albums—loud, raucous, Irish punk from smack-dab in the middle of the eighties: back in the heyday of the new British invasion it was the Pogues who showed us Americans that there was more to music of the day from the British Isles than Spandau Balley and Culture Club. It contains the sublime "I'm a Man You Don't Meet Every Day" with Sinéad O'Connor (a song John has said he wants played at his funeral, which better not happen for a long, long time!), the heartbreaking but rollicking "The Sick Bed of Cuchulain," the single best cover of "Waltzing Matilda" by non-Australians (and better than most of those), and another brilliant cover, this time of one of the finest angry city songs of all time, "Dirty Old Town," originally written by folk singer Ewan MacColl (yes, Kirsty's dad) in the immediate post-War depression of industrial Britain's northern towns.

I met my love by the gas works wall
Dreamed a dream by the old canal
Kissed my girl by the factory wall
Dirty old town
Dirty old town
Clouds are drifting across the moon
Cats are prowling on their beat
Spring's a girl from the streets at night
Dirty old town
Dirty old town

What's this got to do with London, you might ask? Aside from being a totally brilliant song, it's a perfect Pogues song for them to cover, as no band in my humble little stuffed opinion has ever capture so fully and passionately—and most important, simultaneously—the romanticism for and the bleak portrayal of a city: in this case Salford in Lancashire, but so very often in the songs of the Pogues, London.

"Lullabye of London" from If I Should Fall from Grace with God; "Misty Morning, Albert Bridge," "White City," and "London You're a Lady," from Peace and Love; "London Girl" from Poguetry in Motion, "Dark Streets of London" and "Transmetropolitan" (the greatest song ever about hopping on the Underground to terrorize the inhabitants of each borough of London in turn) from Red Roses for Me...all beautiful, haunting songs that only Shane MacGowan's gravelly, beer-soaked voice could do true justice to, but none come as close for me to capturing the essence of London's beauty, romance, heartbreak, passion and mystery as "Rainy Night in Soho" from their 1986 EP Poguetry in Motion:

I've been loving you a long time
Down all the years, down all the days
And I've cried for all your troubles
Smiled at your funny little ways
We watched our friends grow up together
And we saw them as they fell
Some of them fell into Heaven
Some of them fell into Hell

I took shelter from a shower
And I stepped into your arms
On a rainy night in Soho
The wind was whistling all its charms
I sang you all my sorrows
You told me all your joys
Whatever happened to that old song
To all those little girls and boys

Sometimes I wake up in the morning
The ginger lady by my bed
Covered in a cloak of silence
I hear you talking in my head
I'm not singing for the future
I'm not dreaming of the past
I'm not talking of the fist time
I never think about the last

Now the song is nearly over
We may never find out what it means
Still there's a light I hold before me
You're the measure of my dreams
The measure of my dreams

Reading it doesn't do it justice, though. Watch and hear Shane sing it, and understand:



I didn't answer The Fortress Keeper's question, by the way. If I Should Fall from Grace with God is my favorite Pogues album. But "Rainy Night in Soho" is, by far, my favorite song of many by the Pogues.



Other songs in heavy rotation on my London playlists today (links will open in iTunes, unless you don't have iTunes, in which case they won't.):

"Dark Streets of London" by The Pogues, from the album Red Roses for Me
"London Girl" by The Pogues, from the album Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash
"Lullabye of London" by The Pogues, from the album If I Should Fall from Grace with God
"Misty Morning, Albert Bridge" by The Pogues, from the album Peace & Love
"Transmetropolitan" by The Pogues, from the album Red Roses for Me

London Song of the Day: You owe me five farthings ("Oranges and Lemons")

I don't only listen to classical guitar and pop music on my iPod. An extensive part of my London playlists are jingles, pick-ups and announcements recorded from the BBC and London's Capital Radio: little introductions or interstitials, some only a few seconds long, that are fun little peanuts in the candied popcorn that is the Cracker Jack of a good playlist. Put your iPod on shuffle and you never know when you get a cheery bouncy Radio 1 jingle or a Kenny Everett announcement.

Many of these I've complied through some excellent websites like Radio Rewind and TV & Radio Bits, some through trading with other collectors, others recorded straight off the radio or internet and digitized into MP3s. Among the many jingles and announcements you'll occasionally find a straight-out actual musical tune, like the BBC World Service's "Lilliburlero" or Radio Four's elaborately patriotic "Radio 4 UK Theme." But by far my favorite is the BBC version of the classic London ballad "Orange and Lemons."

"Oranges and lemons", say the bells of St. Clement's
"You owe me five farthings", say the bells of St. Martin's
"When will you pay me?" say the bells of Old Bailey
"When I grow rich", say the bells of Shoreditch
"When will that be?" say the bells of Stepney
"I do not know", says the great bell of Bow
Here comes a candle to light you to bed
And here comes a chopper to chop off your head!

Instead of a chopper, however, what you were likely to get in your head was the BBC Morning News, because "Oranges and Lemons" was the opening signature tune of the BBC Light Programme, the BBC radio network that spotlighted light music, variety comedy and dramatized plays. If you're a fan of The Goon Show like me, you'll remember that Wallace Greenslade often began the show with the announcement "This is the BBC Light Programme." (depending on the transcribed version of the episode). The song didn't spring full-fledged at the creation of the Light Programme following WWII, of course: it's a traditional song from possibly as far back as the seventeenth century. Its lyrics suggest it has origins as a nursery rhyme (with a macabre ending similar to "Ring Around the Rosy."

But what's all that got to do with London, and what are all those bells the lyrics are talking about? Each of the lines refers to a specific church of its time in the City of London proper, and what the bells are "saying" is supposed to reflect in cadence and rhythm what their church bells sounded like when rung. Truth? Fantasy? Great urban legend? I don't know much more, but I do know this: the song has become so identified with London itself that now the bells of St. Clement Church in Eastcheap (pictured here) actually do play the tune of the entire song. I bet the other churches are green with jealousy.

I have a few versions of "Oranges and Lemons" on my iPod and my London playlists, but my favorite is what seems to be a Novachord synthesizer organ version (I'm less sure about my music history than I am about my BBC awareness). There's a wonderful moment about three-quarters of the way through both segments (the main theme repeats itself) where the music swells and builds and rises, and to me it's the perfect London song that describes the way I feel when I step out into the London streets: great overwhelming joy and orchestral, almost filmic-quality emotion. You could almost see the camera pull back on a wide crane shot as that music builds and you can see a little stuffed bull stretch out his arms and throw back his head and just take in the glory and grandeur of his favorite city in the word. Close your eyes and let's give it a listen, shall we? Oh wait...open your eyes again, click on this link to listen to this version of "Oranges and Lemons," and now close your eyes. (Open 'em again when it's finished, okay? See you then.)

Wasn't that lovely?

Here's a link to a choral version of "Oranges and Lemons" so you can hear the words, and for extra-credit background, here's an excellent article from the BBC's H2G2 wikiwebsite on the history and meaning of the tune.



Other songs in heavy rotation on my London playlists today (links will open in iTunes, unless you don't have iTunes, in which case they won't.):

"Lilliburlero" (signature tune to the BBC World Service)
"Eastenders Theme" from the album BBC World of Sound
"London Loves" by Blur, from the album Parklife
"Someone in London" by Godsmack, from the album Godsmack
"Swinging London" by The Pretenders, from the album Pirate Radio

London Song of the Day: I wouldn't want you to walk across Hungerford Bridge ("London's Brilliant Parade" by Elvis Costello)

Those who know me know I like my music. (If you don't know me that well, you should know this: I like my music.) Even in London, music is an important and vital part of my life. For each and every trip to London I've spent much prep time in the weeks leading up to the holiday compiling the perfect iPod playlist (or, before that, mix tape). The 2006 one has some songs overlapping with the 1999, 1998, 1997, 1992, 1983 playlists, but many of them skew in different directions and reflect the pop and rock sensibilities of not only their times but my mood and frame of mind. I love listening to them all as I walk through the streets and gardens of London: sometimes the new playlist, sometimes older ones. I have hundreds of different songs that either are about London or Britain or at least remind me of it, many dozen BBC and Capital Radio jingles interspersed in between, and even some of Emma Clarke's cheery and concise London Underground tube train announcements.

Don't get me wrong: I don't shelter myself behind headphones every minute of every day in London. Much of the fun in traipsing around the city is the aural delight: the sounds, the voices, the music you hear from the world around you, not just from you iPod. But I do love a soundtrack to my London life, and enjoy plunking on the headphones on some stages of my walks to accompany the panorama unfolding in front of my wandering hooves to the sounds of tunes both classic and obscure. On this holiday I'll take you on a brief tour of "what's on the BullyPod" by featuring a specific London song I deeply love each day. Yesterday's was of course "London by Night" by John Williams. Let's take a step into a different direction—a very colorful and on second or third listen a very cynical direction—with today's London Song of the Day: Elvis Costello's "London's Brilliant Parade."

"London's Brilliant Parade" is a track on Elvis's 1994 CD Brutal Youth one of the post-Attractions nineties Costello albums that most fans bought on instinct rather than need and which probably soon got pushed to the back of the CD collection after a couple listens. (There's a reason, after all, that you can get it for 63¢ on Amazon.) That's a pity in my book, because I think it's one of Elvis's stronger nineties albums, not only because it features the sublime "London's Brilliant Parade."

It's a song that at first listen appears to be celebrating all the joy and color of England's capital

Just look at me
I'm having the time of my life
Or something quite like it
When I'm walking out and about
In London's brilliant parade

But like some of the other pleasantly-tuned but deceptively social tracks about London (likewise Pet Shop Boys...your turn on "London Song of the Day" is coming, to, I'm sure, the delight of Kevin Church), "London's Brilliant Parade" paints a grey picture of life:

I wouldn't want you to walk across Hungerford Bridge
Especially at twilight
Looking through the bolts and the girders
Into the water below
You'll never find your answer there

They sounded the "all-clear" in the occidental bazaar
They used to call Oxford Street
Now the bankrupt souls in the city
Are finally tasting defeat

First time I heard this song, my little floppy ears perked up quickly at the mention of "Hungerford Bridge." It's the footbridge between the South Bank and the Embankment Tube station near Waterloo Bridge. The old Hungerford bridge, the one Elvis is singing about, was a rattly unattractive deathtrap that was eventually replaced with a more modern, Millennium Bridgish affair. Like Elvis, I'm more familiar with the old one than the new one: countless times I passed over it on my way to and from the National Theatre, sometimes at a fast trot to get to the last train from Embankment Station after a late play. (The new one isn't even on the right side!) Don't get me wrong personally, because I have many sentimental and irrationally happy memories of the old Hungerford Bridge, but it's a bridge that you do realize certainly would have been easy to leap over the railing and commit suicide. (No, relax, folks: my thoughts were never on that, just upon "Gotta make the Circle Line train!") Just like Elvis suggests, "you'll never find your answer there." Whoa, that's not a happy London thought. Neither are "bankrupt souls", and later

From the gates of St. Mary's, there were horses in Olympia
And a trolley bus in Fulham Broadway
The lions and the tigers in Regents Park
Couldn't pay their way
And now they're not the only ones

There are plenty of London landmarks and traditions in "London's Brilliant Parade": red Routemaster buses, London taxis, trolley buses, the London Zoo and Hammersmith theatres, but they're all colored with a sad shaking of the head of opportunities lost and glories past, and if Elvis is celebrating London, he's celebrating one that's hard and grey, that's more than just skin deep. There's more, much more, than red buses and bustling shops, and if you look in the faces of the people who make up the actors on the stage that is the city of London, you'll see that the parade is not always that brilliant.

"Brilliant"? Well, that's irony, Elvis. It's not as heavy or immediate a message as the Clash's "London Calling," of course, but then Elvis Costello was always a little sneakier: a little venom in the lyrics mixed in with the sweetness of his melodies is an Elvis trademark, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

So why is this a favorite London song, or more important, the London Song of the Day? "Sounds dreary, Bully," you might say, and that's absolutely not my frame of mind today: I'm deliriously happy to the point of outbursts of giggles all day today. But "London's Brilliant Parade" reminds me there is more to this city than my holiday playground, there is more behind the faces of my fellow riders on the Tube. It's a beautiful city, but it's also grimy. I love the culture, but life here can be tough and hard for those who reside here. And that's why I choose it to listen to today and celebrate not only the excitement of London but the reality—the sometimes sad smoked mirror to the parade.

Outside my window
Not long before sleep arrives
They come with their sirens
And they sweep away all the boys
Busy draining the joy from their lives
They never said their prayers out loud

...

Just look at me
I'm having the time of my life
Or something quite like it
When I'm walking out and about
In London's brilliant parade



Other songs in heavy rotation on my London playlists today (links will open in iTunes, unless you don't have iTunes, in which case they won't.):

"London Rain (Nothing Heals me Like You Do)" by Heather Nova, from the album Siren
"A Foggy Day (In London Town)" by Michael Bublé, from the album It's Time
"Streets of London" by Sinéad O'Connor, from the album Fire on Babylon
"Werewolves of London" by Warren Zevon, from the album Excitable Boy

No, not all the songs I listen to have the word "London" in the title. Like tomorrow's London Song of the Day. Stay "tune"d!

A short but happy first day in London.

I will keep this short, Bully-fans, not only because I had a short day but because I'm starting to run out of energy and will soon be ready to go to bed (or, as they say over here, kip. Funny. I thought that was a fish.) Our big business-classy American Airlines Fresh Air plane set down almost smack on the dot of noon today, and by peering out the window I could see exactly what one of my commentors in a previous post warned me about: it's a real pea-souper out there! Seriously, the fog was thick and heavy, even at mid-day. I've been to London several times and I know enough to scoff when people think it is filled with fog like a Hollywood Sherlock Holmes movie, because except for some morning mist, I've never seen heavy fog in London. Until now! Seriously visibility was down to the ring at the end of my nose. It would not be a good day to visit the London Eye (and luckily I intend no such thing!) I'm very lucky I arrived today, because on the shuttle bus trip in from Heathrow to Kensington I heard a radio news report that British Airways have cancelled all their flights tomorrow because of the fog. I would have been quite angry if I was still stuck in JFK.

Not as angry, however, as the screamy American woman who was yelling at the shuttlebus desk clerk, complaining that although she booked a pair of shuttlebus passes for her and her daughter for transport from Heathrow Terminal 3, the fact that she had come in at Terminal 3 and her daughter was coming in at Terminal 1 should mean that the shuttlebus company needed to fix the problem immediately! The clerk was more polite and calm with her than I would have been, I tell ya. After the yelly woman left, I said to the clerk "I hope you don't think all Americans are that rude!" She said of course she didn't and that I was a very polite little stuffed bull and anyway, she had thought I was Canadian. You see, it's because I'm so polite.

Check-in to the hotel was swift and efficient and I whooshed up to my lovely, spacious room quickly and dropped off my many economically-packed but still startin'-to-get-heavy bags. Tradition kind of takes over at this point, because what I usually do when I arrive in the daytime after a night flight from America is head up the little garden path that runs behind Wrights Lane ("The Sneaky Way") to the High Street Kensington Tube Station, which also hosts a lot of lovely little shops. My goal was Boots the Chemist and/or Pret a Manger, to get sandwiches, crisps, the delicious pineapple-grapefruit soda called Lilt (seriously, the best soft drink ever), and then head back to the hotel for a quick brisk lunch followed by a catch-up nap. But my eagerness and excitement at being in London led me instead straight through the shopping centre to the High Street, where I burst into an ear-to-ear grin and a swelling in my heart as I whispered to myself "I'm in London." And I couldn't help it; the need for a nap was forgotten as I strolled out across the zebra crossing onto the Christmas-decorated High Street Kensington. First stop: the area W. H. Smith, where I picked up this week's Radio Times (featuring a free Doctor Who audio CD, whoo hoo! I love how many free prizes you get with British magazines!) and Time Out London. Both were special year-end double-issues which were very good value for money: not only because of the free CD but also because both cover all the time I'm going to be in London in single big fat holiday issues. I'm sure I will find many more exciting things to do and watch in their glossy pages. Down to the basement of W. H. Smith to peer at the books and Christmas games and toys (including the still-intriguing-to-me Ant or Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway Board Game). Pity so many of the cool games are DVD-oriented: UK DVDs don't run on US players. I really must get an all-regions DVD player; I'm going to especially feel that need if I walk into the BBC store this trip and see all the wonderful DVDs that haven't yet been released in the US.

Out of W. H. Smith, but not before I hear a cranky and possibly bonkers British woman complain to the salesclerk about something going on outside that the police must stop. The clerk, like I, am baffled by the fact that she never explains what it is, just that the police need to be called. I peer out cautiously as I exit W. H. Smith. Aside from a woman wearing white shoes at the bus stop to Chelsea, there's no signs of criminal activity.

Back across the street I pop into Japanese design store Muji to see if they have a new or different version of last year's favorite London gift item, "London in a Bag". Sadly, they don't, so it's a wander down the busy Christmas-shopping street to Waterstone's, one of my fave London chain bookstores. I can usually spend hours in a bookstore but now the weariness and jet lag is running smack-dab over the adrenaline and excitement, and I start to feel tired and detached, so I wander slowly back to Boots, where I buy a lunch of Lilt (as I said, the best soft drink ever), an All-Day-Breakfast sandwich (the best sandwich ever!) and some amusingly flavoured crisps (no, Bully fans, I don't get the roast ox flavour!) Plus, no meal is complete in London without a sweet, so it's a delicious, crumply Cadbury Flake bar, the light alternative to a heavy chocolate bar but with all the taste. I fall asleep on my hotel bed in an all-day-breakfast haze, and nap for a couple hours dreaming of London.

It's dark and cold outside when I wake up and head out for dinner. It's definitely colder this year that it was at this point here last year, and I'm glad I brought my snug cap and warm gloves to keep my horns and hooves from getting frosty. (The driver on the shuttle bus told me earlier that last year's weather was the exception at this time of year.) I stroll back down High Street Kensington, now filled with post-work shoppers, listening to London playlists on my iPod, and turn left down Earl's Court Road, heading for my traditional first-night dinner: Pizza Express. Sure, they're a chain, but I love 'em: utterly predictable but slightly upscale gourmet pizza and Italian food that just always hits the spot perfectly, plus they're well within a little stuffed bull's budget. More to the point, I've been making a Pizza Express meal my first-night-in-London tradition on the past six trips I've had here, and who am I to break a tradition? Not me!

After a spicy saucy Diavolo pizza (hot peppers and spicy sausage), a creamy Caesar salad (hooray, a place that actually puts anchovies on their Caesar!) and a glass of hearty Shiraz (yes, we're in Europe, so a little stuffed bull is allowed to have a little wine), the walk home seems much less cold than before, and I do a little more window-shopping on the way home, stopping and wandering through the Waitrose grocery store at the corner of High Street and Earl's Court (and wishing I had a microwave in my otherwise lovely hotel room so I could buy the make-it-yourself sticky toffee pudding), and then a return visit to Waterstone's, where I still don't buy anything. In the words of Blackie, you'd be a mug to buy before Christmas if you don't need to get presents: so many things in Waterstone's and other British shops go on sale for half price or less on Boxing Day after Christmas. I especially have my eye on some of the British pop and comic annuals; last year they had 'em at 99p the day after Christmas. And while I would dearly love that big new Spike Milligan book, at £18.99, it's nearly forty bucks in American money and even if it is marked down after Christmas, it'll probably still be cheaper to order it from Amazon.co.uk when I'm back home. Yet another triumph of the internet over the High Street.

So I wander back to the hotel, enjoying the night streets. There are some many different times of day that I dearly love in London, and although twilight/dusk is my favorite (and I'll probably talk about it at some point this week, the wonderfully warm feeling the first onset of twilight brings me), London at night is a close second. Even though so much closes early by comparison with America, it's definitely a town that has a thriving nightlife, yes, but that's not the attraction of it to me: I am not a wine bar or clubbing kind of bull. No, I love to walk the side streets after dark and see the lights (especially if there are Christmas trees) behind the gauze curtains of those big old flats, and see people heading for home, their breathes frosty on the night air, with parcels and bags of Christmas presents. I like the quiet and the stillness of London by night, where you can stand in a side street or mews for many minutes and not hear a sound, so well insulated they are from the main street's traffic. I like the sound of a tube train pulling into Kensington High Street Underground station as I walk back along the pathway to the hotel. I like the low but warm glow of the lights of the city on the horizon: not as orange and sharp as Manhattan, but vibrant and romantic. One of my favorite CDs, not only in London but all the time, is John Williams's (not the Star Wars composer, but a classical guitarist by the same name) album Echoes of London. Again, that CD is probably something I'll talk about a bit later this week, because I want to devote a piece or two to favorite soundtrack moments on my iPod for London, but for now I'll mention that one of my favorite tracks is a slow and gentle instrumental melody called...you guessed it..."London by Night," a song composed by Noel Coward. Hearing it, whether I'm here right now or away in America most of them time, transports me immediately to the quiet gentle grace of London after dark that I so love. I've listened to it so many, many times in the John Williams version that I never knew considered their were lyrics to it (makes sense if you consider Noel Coward wrote it!) One of the famous covers is by Mister Frank Sinatra, and I guess I'll have to get that track on my iPod at some point, although it probably will never make me feel the same way the guitar version does. A quick glance at the useful, handy internet provides the lyrics, and gosh-darn if a song that I never knew had words actually does have lyrics that are absolutely pitch-perfect with the way I feel in my heart about London:

London by night is a wonderful sight
There is magic abroad in the air
I'm often told that the streets turn to gold
When the moon shines on Circus and Square.

Back in the hotel, I blog to you, my faithful Bully-backers, while watching a nature documentary on Channel Four about a whale that beached itself in the Thames near Albert Bridge earlier this year. Like the tale of Togo the Penguin last year, it's not a story that has a happy ending, and there's actually quiet a lot of gruesome shots of whale autopsy as they determine how the whale went so far off target in its migration to wind up dying in the center of London. It's a sad cautionary tale about how our pollution of the ocean, both chemical and sound, led to the whale's death. It's fascinating but in the end a bit of a downer, so I switch over to LondonTV and learn about many interesting touristy things to do, including a punk rock karaoke bar in Islington. It sounds like a lot of fun, but a quick look at the web tells me the club is currently closed. Way to be up to date, London TV!

I said i was going to keep this short. Well, so much for that idea: get me started on London and I'll talk and talk and talk s'more until you all wish I'd just come back home and talk about comic books, I bet! But the end for today is near; I'm all blogged out. So instead I'll relax a wee bit and then, and so to bed, as my mate Samuel Pepys would say (he pronounced it "Peeps," by the way, but no relation to the delicious, delicious yellow sponge marshmallow treat). I will look out the window at the foggy night sky and hum Noel Coward's "London by Night" to myself, and climb into my soft hotel bed and dream of all the exciting adventures I'll have tomorrow. Cheers then!