An American Bull in London

Hi hi hi everybody! Or p'raps I should say, hullo hullo hullo, as I have returned to one of my favorite places in the world...the American Airlines terminal at John F. Kennedy Airport! Naw, i'm just kidding. (That's not even in the top ten.) Nosiree (and nomissees), I am actually in London!



Naw, that's kinda cheating, because that's a photo from one of my previous trips to London. See that stuff in the backgrpund? That's London stuff.

What I really did today is arrive at beautiful and busy Heathrow Airport, which is neither a heath nor is in a row. I took a car (I had to give it back, the police constable said) to my lovely and comfortable hotel by the strangely twenty-first century moniker of base2stay. It is known as one of the greenest hotels in London! Funny, looks white to me. Maybe they must not have painted it green yet.



Upon entering the base2stay and entering my spaciously furbished room (big screen TV! Kitchenette! Lots of extra rolls of toilet tissue, or as I call it while i'm here, bog paper)! But the best part of it all was the big soft comfortable bed, where I slept for some of the afternoon...okay, most of the afternoon...to wear off my jet lag. Darn you, jet lag! I'm in London and there's time-a-wastin', or, as the famous French painter of the Folies Bergere was known, No Time Toulouse!

One of the best things about being in the UK and at a hotel, or, as I now like to call it, a base, is the free wireless internet, which certainly beats all those motor lodges with hand-cranked AOL access or the internet which runs on slices of American processed cheese. Here: all the free internet you can eat. Plus, thanks to base2stay's handy UK ISP...free access to the BBC iPlayer! And what's more, legal access to iPlayer for once! There are many, many fine episodes of Doctor Who that I have only watched sixteen or seventeen times before, so I'm looking forward to catching up while basing out here where I have come 2 stay.

After my mid-afternoon nap, I was as hungry as one of those furry animals they train to sit on top of a Royal Guardsman's head, so I headed down to Earl's Court Road for my usual and traditional first night dinner at Pizza Express! Pizza Express: the restaurant where you can order a pizza as big as their logo.



There are so many fine menu items at Pizza Express it took me quite some time to read them all! (And me without my reading glasses.) I don't think the waiter minded that it took me about forty-five minutes to read the menu...but it may have been a mistake to stop halfway through to finished reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Boy, that book's long!



I was so hungry I coulda ate a horse! Sadly, the pizza d'cheval was off the menu, so I settled for some of my favorite Pizza Express menu items. First, a brisk refreshing salad:



(Well, how was I s'posed to know it was just there for decoration?)

Then, for second starts, a proper salad of rocket (funny, they don't look at all like the toy rockets I have at home) and grileld chicken. Yum! Even better when drizzled with the dressing, as shown on left, which turned out to be delicious Hershey's Chocolate Sauce. Two great sensations that taste great together!



Then, to follow my flower and salad, why not a lovely salad? Me 'n' the waiter had a little trouble when I ordered this one, because he kept telling me that they didn't have tomatoes. But they did have something he called "to-mahhh-toes." They were pretty good too, especially sandwiched with delicious cheese, but it's really not the same as a good old fashioned American tomato and mozzarella salad.



Of course, when in Pizza Express, do try the pizza...I highly recommend the spicy hot Diavolo, which is brought straight to my table by Lucifer himself before he disappears in a puff of flame and smoke while cackling sinisterly. With its hot peppers, hot sausage, hot ground beef and hot Tabasco sauce topping, I thought it was pretty good. Coulda been a little more spicy for my tastes, tho'.



And after that, eight or ten cold Coca-Colas are often nice. or necessary.



But by far the most exciting discovery of the night? The Pizza Express's rest room loo has one of those new-fangled Dyson hoof dryers! Wow, my hoofs were dry in ten seconds! And I barely even washed them!

Happy and burping from my exceptional first-night meal, I went up Earl's Court Road to wander briefly along my old stomping grounds of Kensington High Street, only to find that stomping is no longer allowed as it keeps the residents awake. Whoops, sorry, folks. I tip-hooved into the Tesco Express to pick up snacks and the week's Time Out London, and headed back home2base 2have a midnight snack before retiring. Nothing like a fresh Tesco toffee ice cream knickerbocker and an ice-cold bottle of the best soda pop in the world, Lilt!



Suitably stuffed, I am now crawling into bed...I'm sorry, in2bed to have happy dreams and 2wake up 2morrow 2see what I can go look4 in London. They are playing one of my favorite tunes: "Sailing By," on Radio 4, which always means it's time to go to bed whether you're a little stuffed bull or indeed even the Queen.

(But I bet the Queen didn't have a nice toffee sundae before bedtime!)

Good night and cheers, folks! See you 2morrow!

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!

I'll be back...you can count on it.

Sigh. That is the sound a little stuffed bull makes when his holiday in London is so very nearly over. Oh yes, we may actually be still be in London technically as I type this up on my little atomic-powered bull-sized laptop in the International Departures Lounge at Heathrow Airport, but we'll be on our way home very very soon. Sigh.

Which is not to say today has been a sad and slow day, oh no sir, no siree bob's your uncle. To avoid the possible Tube Strike we were up and about, bags packed and checked at the front desk of the Copthorne Tara, our last complimentary breakfast of ham and buns and hot sweet tea under our belts (note: I do not personally wear a belt), and we were out into the bright clear morning, so much clearer and crisper than yesterday's soggy day. Our target: one of my favorite museums of all (and that includes everywhere, not just in London): The Victoria and Albert Museum.

There's a clever little "sneaky way" to get into the museum from the Underground tunnel, and we emerged towards the back of the museum, so even though our original intent was the gift shop, we were able to wander through a large portion of the V&A as we made our way to the front. I have a special fondness for the V&A that I probably can't do justice to in mere words; really, you ought to go there yourself! Go to see the amazing room of art forgeries that would probably impress even Lovejoy, or the extensive collection of fashions through the ages (Marshall was especially entranced by the moddy, Mrs. Peel-esque Mary Quant designs!).

But by far my personal favorite part of the V&A is the mind-bogglingly immense hall that houses the famous Raphael Cartoons. No, silly, these are not his drawings of Garfield and Blondie, but the fantastically huge full-scale designs for a set of Papal tapestries. I know very little about Papal things (except, perhaps, the Papal Bull), but I know what I like. You can stand in this cavernous room and gaze up at the billboard-sized art for hours; it's an illuminating and exhilarating experience. I highly recommend it.

As I do the V&A gift shop, which is almost as illuminating and exhilarating! Honestly, this is one of the best museum gift shops in London (second in my view only to the London Transport Museum gift shop), and whether you're in the market for designer jewelry based on famous pieces in the V&A collection or (on a little stuffed bull's budget) an amazing selection of postcards, you'll find wonderful souvenirs for yourself and gifts for friends back home here. There's a lot of replica Victoriana for sale here, and my favorite purchase today was a small pocket-sized set of picture cards which, when laid edge to edge, create a continuous and connected country scene no matter which order you put the cards in. I will be all the rage at home when I return with my Victorian picture cards...everyone will be jealous of me! Whee! But yes, I will let everyone play with them. Except for The Other Camilla, because she will steal or bend or eat them. (Shudder.)

John's endless worrying about if we might get trapped at the V&A due to the tube strike was completely foundless, and we returned to High Street Kensington in plenty of time to walk through the back streets of Kensington towards a familiar and favorite restaurant: like our first meal in London, our last meal would be at always-delicious, always-dependable Pizza Express. In celebration of the season we split the delectable Christmas Pizza, with hot sausage and savory herbs. I think I may have found a suitable replacement for turkey dinner on December 25th next year! Naw, on second thought I'd hate to give up turkey...so I will campaign to have them both.

We wander back along Kensington High Street, peeking in the windows and down the alley mews for the last time this trip: Look, there's Waterstone's! One more glance at W. H. Smith's! Oh, I will miss you, Boots the Chemists! And then the shuttlebus is there to pick us and our massive lumps of luggage up, and we're swept away, down the expressway towards Heathrow, and I stare out the back window at the receding silhouette of London and sniffle, just a little bit.

So I sit here now in the International Departures lounge, and that's not altogether a bad place to be: chock-a-block full of wonderful shops for last-minute souvenir buying, I at last empty my little change purse of the final few pound coins and buy some more presents for friends back home. And when I look longingly at the giant Toblerone bar in the duty-free shop and check my empty purse fretfully, John smiles at me and plucks up the chocolate, places it on the counter and pulls out a fiver. "This one's on me, Bully," he tells me, and the trip ends the way it began, but even better: with a yummy, yummy Toblerone, but better yet, with wonderful, joyful memories of a fantastic and fun holiday.

They'll be calling us to board our plan soon, and then the next time I set foot on the ground it will be in New York, and no one will be speaking in British accents anymore, and the soda pop will be Coke and not Lilt, and the subway announcements will say "Stand clear of the closing doors" instead of "Mind the gap," and I will be home, and London will still be in my thoughts and dreams, but not outside my window.

At the end of one of the Paddington books—an excellent series of stories about an intelligent and clever animal that goes to live with a friendly family—one of the characters comments quietly as Paddington leaves for distant shores: "He'll be back. You can count on it." And yes indeed, in the very next book he was back, and adventures continued, full of fun and excitement and delight. That's the way I look at London. I've been here before, and I'll be here again. I can't wait, of course, but sometimes the waiting, and the thinking, and the planning, and the dreaming are all fun too.

So cheers, London! I'll see you again someday. I'll be back....you can count on it.

London! London! London!

Hooray! We have arrived in London and are having a wonderful, Londerful time! I still have a little jetlag from sleeping in the overhead compartment of the airplane (which is not the best place from which to see the in-flight movie!), so we did not do anything too amazing today (but isn't just being in London amazing enough on its own? Yes! Yes, it is!)

Our hotel is very nice and crammed to the gills to Japanese beauty school students. They are very giggly (the girls) or too mod and cool to giggle (the boys). John and I took a walk via the famous "sneaky way" in back of the High Street Kensington tube station (I cannot wait to ride on the Underground!). We went to Boots and got mayonnaisey sandwiches and crisps and Lilt and Cadbury bars for lunch and then took a nap which I did not think I needed but boy howdy! Did I! I was very sleepy. Marshall said later that I was really sawing some logs! When we woke up it was time for dinner and we went to Pizza Express where I had a whole pizza all by myself! (You wouldn't guess it, but pizza tastes so much better in London!)

I have not had a chance to take any photos yet so I haven't really started my proper photoblogging, but I hope to take lots of photos tomorrow. We are going shopping in Covent Garden! I have brought all my pounds and pence for English Christmas gifts so I hope that everything is not sold out already. Do you hear that, people of London? Save some prezzies for me to buy!



In the meantime, enjoy this fine photo (above) of the last time I came to London. This photo contains 1) me and 2) pigeons in Trafalgar Square. I am not wearing my mackintosh only because of the pigeons...but it didn't hurt.

Blog at you tomorrow, London and Bully fans!