A marvellous night out (Oh no it wasn't! OH YES IT WAS!)

So what was the big surprise John had promised us? A night at the theatre!

And not just any old theatre show, oh no no no...John took me and Marshall to see a traditional British stage pantomime!

If you're not familiar with a British pantomime, well, I could either send you off to Wikipedia ("The Encyclopaedia You Can Scribble In") or heck, I'll just tell you briefly myself. A British pantomime is not anything to do with mimes, Marcel Marceau, not talking or imaginary boxes. It's not silent at all; quite the reverse. It's a traditional British Christmas entertainment, mainly for children (like me and Marshall) but also enjoyed by people with great taste and a sense of fun (like me and Marshall): campy, outrageous, flamboyant retellings of famous fairy tales with song, dance, very bad jokes, cross-dressing, and a lot of audience participation. Throughout the performance the kids (and hey, the adults too) are called upon to yell back at the actors to alert them of danger ("He's behind you!") to hiss the baddies ("Boooooo!"), to groan at the bad puns ("Moan!"), and to agree or disagree with characters as needed. ("I'm the King Rat!" "OH NO YOU'RE AREN'T!" "Oh yes I am!" "OH NO YOU AREN'T!") Etc., etc. Check your propreiatry at the door, because a pantomime is very, very silly indeed.

I'm familiar with the tradition and the conventions of pantomime, mainly through listening to the classic BBC radio comedy series I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again!, but I've never been to one. That's why I was delighted when John, still gleefully keeping mum, pulled us off the Underground train at Barbican station and we all marched down to the Barbican Theater. It's no longer the home of the Royal Shakespeare Company, so I actually thought I would never set foot in the place again. John fondly remembers many, many trips in 1983 to see the RSC, and he bored us by wistfully reminiscing about following the painted yellow line on the ground, past Defoe Towers on his way to a show, and dashing down it in reverse direction to catch a train back to Gloucester Terrace. We both stopped him from further discussion; you could tell the next thing he was going to start talking about was Mary Emerton and how cute she was.

The show tonight was Dick Whittington and His Cat, the traditional panto story of the three-time Lord Mayor of London and his very clever cat and their rise to fortune. Plus, a king rat and lots of very bad jokes. The theater lobby was filled with many happy families with charming British children (we were the only little stuffed bull and tiny stuffed cow in attendance, I think), and John bought us colourful show programs and we each got to choose a fancy trinket from the Dick Whittington gift table: I got a flashy plastic sword and Marshall picked a lightup whirling pinwheel. We almost didn't get a chance to sit down: an usher tried to tell John that he was in the wrong theatre twice until another usher interferred and set him correct, and John got to take us to our seats. (We think maybe he couldn't figure out why a big doughy American guy was coming all by himself to a British panto. Maybe he didn't see us running underfoot.

One of the tradiitions of British panto is cross-dressing, so Dick Whittington was played by a very pretty girl (in a short skirt with great legs) and Sarah the Cook was played by an older man. This is normal: you always have a dame or older woman character played by an older man, quite frequently a famous British actor or comedian. Last year there was a big panto that starred Ian McKellan—yes, Gandalf and Magneto—as the Dame! I would have liked to have seen him, but we were in for a treat too, as Sara the Cook was played by Roger Lloyd Pack, from the classic BBC series Only Fools and Horses (he also played Barty Crouch in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire—and he camped it up tremendously. Her, er, his performance and role was completely outrageous, a little scandalous (I'm sure there were many saucy jokes that went over Marshall's head...oh, and mine, most of them.), and totally over the top. It's not for nothing that the Dame is often the stand-out role in a panto.

We were encouraged to shout out and help the characters on stage: to wake up Totally Lazy Jack, to warn of the approach of the evil rats, to boo and hiss the wicked Rat King, and to sing along to the songs. (Some of which were written by Jim Bob of Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine; another one was written by Kit Hesketh-Harvey, a frequent guest on another of my favourite BBC radio panel shows, Just a Minute.) Candy was thrown to the kids in the audience, and the first ten rows got wet when everyone was hosed down with water guns. It was all very silly and nonsensical but a great deal of fun. Towards the end two pairs of children were invited to come on stage to help out singing a song and Marshall and I were one of the pairs! (Editor's note: certain elements of this post only exist in Mister Bull's active imagination. Indulge him, won't you?) We were brought up on stage and Miss Mister Lloyd Pack coached us in singing "The Barbican-can-can" (it was easy because they rang down a curtain with all the words on it like a songsheet) and at the end of it we all got prizes! Mister Lloyd Pack said Marshall was the best and cutest and she got an extra special prize plus a dozen balloons before we returned to our seats. And we had chocolate ice cream and orange drink at the interval! John said it was our special Christmas treat and it was so very exciting!

when we got back to the hotel, I read some reviews in Time Out and some Londony newspapers. Some of the reviewers lambast the Barbican production of Dick Whittington as too glossy and "trying to be too arty," without the low-brow appeal that Christmas pantomimes have evolved into. All I have to say is, the show I saw had hundreds of kids howling and laughing in delight, eagerly waving their lighted pinwheels and swords back and forth and screaming in warning as the King Rat snuck up on our heroes. To heck with reviewers saying it was trying too hard. I'll say the same thing about a theatre show that I do about comics: Pantos Oughta be Fun. And with the dumb jokes and fun costumes and outrageous drag acts and silly songs, this little stuffed bull, and even the big doughy guy who went with him, hereby declares Dick Whittington and His Cat as fun.

C is for Cartoons, Comics, Covent Garden, and Charing Cross Road

It's a chilly day but I'm warmed to the core with the aftereffects, emotional and physical, of my first full day in London.

I always think I won't be able to sleep; like Christmas Day, I look forward so much to diving into London that the excitement overwhelms me. But my tiredness and the comfort of the hotel bed sent me snoring within minutes after turning off the radio last night, and when I wake up it's still pitch black dark out, even though it's seven-thirty in the morning: the sun rises at 8 AM and sets at 4 PM here, making for a short day. So I bound out of bed to brush my horns and polish my hooves, tugging at John's sleeve to get him going. It's London! We're in London! Let's not waste any moment of it!

First up is a fortifying and nutritious continental breakfast in the hotel breakfast room. Continental breakfast usually means a few stale buns and some weak tea, but this is considerably better: a large range of fruits, pastries, cereal, and even ham and cheese. That's not something I normally nosh at before lunchtime at home (well, unless it's inserted in a McMuffin), but here it's part of the treat and I help myself to, as they say here, "a nice slice of gammon" (shh! don't tell Snuckles) and wash it down with bucketloads of hot sweet tea from the baffling do-it-yourself automatic tea machine. Whoops, I think I broke it! Not to worry, says the friendly waitress help, it happens all the time. I leave her a chunky pound coin on the table as a tip for helping out, and for bringing fresh orange juice. Orange juice is essential—I don't wanna waste my London holiday on a cold!

Speaking of cold, it's chilly out, but not as badly as I'd feared. A heavy fleece jacket (plus a natural fur coat) helps keep me warm, and it seems less chill-to-the-bone cold as yesterday. There's still a grey foggy overcast to the sky, and even tho' that's grounded British Air domestic flights at Heathrow, is that going to stop me from getting out and seeing the city? It is not.

A quick stroll through The Sneaky Way brings me to the High Street Kensington Tube station, and warily I pull out my brand-new Oystercard and swipe it over the panel at the entrance to the Underground. It's easier to use than a Metrocard: you don't have to "swipe with attitude," and the gates swing open and I'm stepping down the stairs to the platform before you can say "Hammersmith and City Line."

Within seconds after stepping onto the platform the Circle Line train arrives, and I hop on it and the doors close and we're on our way. I catch my breath and realize with a start my first Underground ride on this London trip has begun; it all happened to fast I barely had a chance to reflect on how exciting it is and how much I love lingering on the Underground platforms. One thing I did notice was that, for the first time since I've started to come to London, there are now trash bins on the Underground platforms. They weren't there for years out of fears of hidden IRA bombs. They're here now—admittedly clear plastic bags hanging in plain sight so you can see what's in them quickly. I reflect as I settle down on the cushy train seat that that's a sign of the sad times: following the London tube and bus bombings in July 2005, perhaps they've realized there are whole other types of terrorist activities to focus on than a bomb in a wastebin.

I change to the Central Line at Notting Hill Gate, and soon we're shooting across London in an eastern direction. I pull my iPod out of my pocket, snap my little recording iTalk onto the bottom and surreptitiously record a few of the wonderfully crisp London Underground recorded announcements. (Later, I discover I forget to bring the right cable with me so I can't transfer them to my laptop until I get home. Ah well, can't think of everything). I hold my iPod in my hoof and hope no one is thinking I'm recording their conversation or worse yet, setting some sort of odd electronic device on the train. I'm not a terrorist, I'm an Underground enthusiast. It's only a step or so up from a trainspotter, but I can't help myself.

Out of the Tube at Tottenham Court Road station and down the New Oxford Street heading towards Bloomsbury. It's starting to turn into a beautiful day, the sun is coming out, the sky is getting blue instead of grey, and I'm filled with a giddy joy at strolling through London. (Also, filled with beans.) Later on I realize I've wandered straight past noted London graffitist Banksy's holiday installation and "holiday shop" just off Charing Cross Road. Ah well, you can't see everything.

What I am on my way to see is The Cartoon Museum in Bloomsbury, London's first museum devoted to the art of comics and cartoons. If you read this blog for the comics content you owe it to yourself to stop in if you ever visit London: it's absolutely amazing. I made the special trek today to see the Museum because they are closed for Christmas holiday for the rest of my stay over here, and I'm extremely glad I did. It's a small but well-designed space split between a permanent exhibition of a history of British comics and cartoons on the top balcony floor, and a temporary exhibition on the main floor on the history of British political and satirical cartooning, with an especial focus on the magazine Private Eye. There's many dozens of original pieces hanging, and unlike many museums, this is one where I actually read all the placards and study each piece intently. You walk out of the museum (much later if you've done it right) with a much deeper understanding and appreciation of British cartooning art, and I actually learned quite a bit. Fun fact I never, never realized: although I knew British comedian Peter Cook was "Lord Gnome", the supposed editor of Private Eye, I never knew comedian Willie Rushton was a cartoonist and satirist for the magazine. I'm familiar with Willie from his running panel appearances on one of my favorite BBC radio shows, I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, and I hadn't a clue at all that Willie was a co-founder and illustrator for Private Eye. Upstairs I spent quite some time admiring and examining the history of British comics, including original art and large repros of comics I'd heard of: Dennis the Menace (the British one, not Hank Ketcham's!), Beryl the Peril, Dan Dare, all the way up to Jamie Hewlett's Tank Girl, 2000AD work by Dave Gibbons, and beautiful pages from V for Vendetta and The Tale of One Bad Rat. All this for a mere three quid! Many museums in London are free, but honestly I would have paid much more to see the Cartoon Museum (and there's a donation box which I happily plunked down a handful of chunky pound coins). See it if you can, and if you can't, here's my photos of the Cartoon Museum.

You'll also see a handful of photos in there from my visit to Gosh!, the best comic book shop in London bar none (I find the Forbidden Planet megastore a great place for toys and vids and less so for comics). The store is tight (two small floors) but crammed full of American, British, and European comics, graphic novels and tie-in-toys (boy oh boy would I love the Gorillaz action figures in their front window!) The staff is pleasant and patient, especially to a little stuffed bull running about the store exclaiming wheeeeeeeeeee in sheer excitement and joy.

I didn't buy any American comics (I can get those when I get home!) but I did pick up a beautiful slipcased edition of The Broons 1939 Annual, a repro of a classic Scottish full-page comic strip that I've heard of but have never seen: 128 pages of beautifully detailed artwork chronicling the adventures of an outlandish Scots family (it reminds me in some ways of Sidney Smith's sublime The Gumps.) If you enjoy classic comic strips you'll like The Broons: the art is wonderfully manic and energetic, the Scots dialect is thickly delightful, and there's a bellylaugh on every page. In other words, in the parlance of this blog, this comic is fun. (US fans: you can mail-order The Broons from Gosh! direct. This is a case where I won't give you the Amazon.co.uk link: please order it from the Best Comic Book Shop in London!)

Popping out of Gosh! (with one last longing lingering look at the Gorillaz figures in the front window) and turning a few steps around the corner takes me to Playin' Games, the best board game and gaming shop in London (well, I certainly think so coz I've never seen another!). I have a specific goal in mind: I'm looking for what surely seems like the best new board game in the universe, On the Underground, which challenges players to create new lines on the London Underground. You know how much I love the Underground. You know how much I love board games. (You might remember my post on the London Underground board game "The London Game" a few weeks back.) Sadly, my Christmas wishes of sitting on the hotel carpet playing this new game is dashed when I find out that although they've had it in stock, they're sold out now. The friendly clerk and I talk a while (about the much-missed but a few-years-gone New York City game shop Game Show), and he offers to order it for me to get it in sometime in the New Year. I sigh aloud I'll be home by then, and he slips me his card and offers to set up a mail order transaction. Whoo hoo! I may get to play this game yet.

I step back out into the bright cold day and momentarily consider heading into the British Museum, right across the street, but I'm not quite in the mood. It seems more like time for a wander and stroll through Bloomsbury, and I have a very pleasant couple hours only vaguely following the path on one of my handy pocket-sized London Walking Tour cards. There's plenty of personal side-trips and wanders off the dotted path, however, which is the best way to take a personal walking tour. I check out some cool used bookstores near the University of London, wander through Russell Square, and jus' generally circle around in the well-turned footsteps of Virginia Woolf. I'm not afraid of her!

In the afternoon I hop onto the Tube again at Russell Square station and zip on the Piccadilly Line down to Leicester Square. I have spent a lot of time in this area in past trips and it gets more and more touristy each time (there is a fun fair set up almost perpetually in the Square), so we don't linger. John busies himself for a few minutes at the Half Price Ticket Booth at the far end of the square but when I ask what he has been doing he just smiles and won't tell me. (Do you think this set-up will pay off later, folks? Hmmm, we'll see.) We then make another circular wander through the back streets towards Covent Garden (interrupted by a welcome pause for a hearty Christmas sandwich luncheon). Yep, Covent Garden is even more touristy than Leicester Square, but it's part of another tradition on my trips to London: I always make a visit here on my first full day, mostly to visit the London Transport Museum Gift Shop. Like last year, the Museum itself is still closed for renovation (it'll be open again in 2007) and the shop is still relegated to a tiny two-story storefront in Covent Garden market itself. Like last year, I'm excited to go on the shop but somewhat disappointed because it's a mere shadow of what it was in the Museum itself. I've described the old shop as The Best Museum Shop in London, which is probably no surprise when you consider what a big little stuffed London Transport fan I am. No, the surprising part is that I actually find very little to spend my pence on in the shop: it's still a very small selection compared to the old big shop, and I pick out a few postcards and a keychain and cross my hooves that the next time I'm in London the new shop will be back to its old glories. I'm tempted, very badly, by a set of beautiful Underground Tube scale models, either in a set of four or available individually. Oh my oh my, wouldn't these look lovely on my shelf next to my Underground book collection? Sticker shock brings me back to reality: each train model is £27.95. That's fifty-six dollars! The whole set is available for a hundred quid (close to two hundred dollars.) Yes, these are clearly models geared for hardcore collectors and enthusiasts (they have several hundred bus models in the same price range). I quickly put them back on the shelf and back away, my little hooves trembling. I loves me the Underground something fierce, but that's a bit pricey, or "dear" as they say over here. And oh dear, that's dear. Ah well, maybe Father Christmas will bring me one.

I do a little Christmas shopping for John and Marshall and thoroughly enjoy it. Covent Garden isn't as crowded as I thought it would be (actually less busy than Leicester Square was), and it's fun to pop in the shops and look at the craft stalls. There's live musicians and jugglers and I love the smells: cooked sausages, cookies, sticky buns are on the air. A shopgirl walks by wearing jingle bells on her shoes and I burst into a wide smile: it's Christmas, Christmas in London. I clutch my little shopping bags and try to keep from giggling in joy out loud, but it's hard to control it.

From Covent Garden I ramble over to nearby Seven Dials and head down Earlham Street, and that is as crowded as I expected Covent Garden to be. My goal is right ahead, though: the amazing design shop Magma, which I discovered last time I was here and bought some brilliant Chrimble gifts as well as some treats for myself. (It's the shop where I was able to complete my collection of the brilliant Simone Lia comic Fluffy, a simultaneously funny and sad comic about a fluffy bunny who lives with a human. Is it any wonder I relate to it?) Magma the store is packed to overflowing, though, and it's tough to see the shelves, even when you're standing on tiphooves. I very nearly buy myself a stuffed Moomintroll and then decide against it, but what's this, mocking me with their Jamie Hewletty presence? Those Gorillaz vinyl figures again! Man, I want those! But the Bully-budget doesn't permit it, and I when the crowd thins for a brief moment I slide sideways out of the shop and resume my window-shopping and wandering.

It's fourish, and you know what that means: the sun is going down and it'll be dark quite soon. Not only that, but my dogs are barkin'...well, if I had dogs instead of hooves, that would be the way I'd describe it. I decide on one last familiar stretch of London to explore: walking up Charing Cross Road, which will give me the chance to pop into a handful of the second-hand and specialist bookstores along the way, culminating in the two great chain superstores at the top of the street: Blackwell's and Foyle's, both of which are like wonderlands for a book-obsessed little stuffed bull. (Ignore the Borders superstore across from Foyle's, if you will: it may be just personal taste, but I've never felt they got the feel and style of a British bookstore "down" since their entrance into the UK market. It's disorganized and unsightly, and like spinach, I say the hell with it. There's a lot more happy fun to be had first in Blackwell's and then in Foyle's, and I discover what surely must be one of the most brilliant yet insidious ways for a publishing company to get out of paying a cover designer: blank-covered Penguin Classics marketed as "Do It Yourself Draw Your Own Cover" editions. It's a brilliantly eccentric idea, one of those "wish I'd thought of it first" concepts, and I probably would have bought one if there had actually been a book in the series I felt an affinity towards (Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray is in fact the only one of the series so far that I've read). With my rudimentary art skills I would be intimidated to send in my result to Penguin anyway: check out a whole slew of the fantastic entries sent by clicking at the link above. In my defense, it's much harder with hooves. Hey Penguin! Do a P. G. Wodehouse book in this series: I can draw a pretty good Empress of Blandings!

Happy and overwhelmed from the day we lift our aching feet and hooves to carry us to the same tube station the adventure of the day began at: Tottenham Court Road station, and the Oystercard comes out again and zip! We're back on the Central Line and heading back to the hotel. A couple entries ago I mentioned how one of my favorite times of a London day is night. What's the favorite? Twilight. I don't know quite why, but I feel a wonderful warm contentment come over me as the sun goes down in London, as dusk falls over the city, even if it's happening at a few minutes past four in the afternoon. Maybe it's that glorious delicious feeling of a wonderful day behind us and relaxation ahead: the promise of a good hot meal, getting off your hooves and looking at the stuff you've bought that day, sliding them out of their plastic carrier bags and cooing over them like treasures. Maybe it's the feeling of coming home in a city that feels like home anyway. In any case, I'm gloriously happy, if not a little worn out, and I close my eyes a couple times on the Underground and almost miss the station to transfer for the last leg home. I'm comfortable here, so comfortable I trust the Tube to take me where I need to be.

Dinner is spicy curry noodles from the Thai restaurant on High Street Kensington, and while it's nothing spectacular it tastes amazing. I'm hungry and eager for something hot and filling, and it fills in all the spaces nicely, especially with a half of lager. So I'm nodding again a little when we return to the hotel, and I'm ready to stretch out on the bed and relax, to get into my little pyjamas and zone out in front of BBC-2, when John rouses me and tells me to wake up, put my coat back on, we're going back out. He has a special treat for me and Marshall tonight, and refuses to tell us what. How exciting! I'm instantly awake and both Marshall and I are pestering John about what the treat is, but he's smiling and refusing to tell, although he says I'm going to like it...and to save my voice for the treat, I'll need it. "?" I think. But no more clues from John.

Off we go, so I'll tell you all about it later!

PS: You can see my photos of today here, and a separate album of the Cartoon Museum photos here.

Holiday snaps!

Busy, exciting, wonderful days means plenty of Londony activity, but less time in front of the Bully laptop than I need to do justice to blogging London the way I want. In plain English, that means: I'm only thirty-six hours into my holiday and I'm already behind on my blogging. Never fear, Bully-boosters: I will blog each and every day, although I may be a day or two or some or more behind at any point. (I hope to be less delayed than last year's London blog, which took almost a year to finish working from my crabby-scrawled hoofwritten notes!) In any case, watch this space, because I will fill in the blanks with rich Londony goodness for each day. It just might not be...ah, the exact day it happens. Yes, I know that in the blogosphere this is considered being a big cheatypants. But I'll get it all up there sooner or later. Good things come to those who wait.

In the meantime, why not check out my London photo sets up at Flickr?
Day 1: 21 December 2006
Day 2: 22 December 2006
My main Flickr page: bookmark this page to check for new photo sets!

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!

You're not allowed to go to bed before the Queen does.

The internet has now made it possible to listen to what previously only those lucky few with fancy fancy shortwave radios used to be able to hear: the BBC. I'm a big fan of BBC Radio, especially Radio 1 (pop music), Radio 4 (news, plays, and arts-related programming) and BBC 7 (rebroadcasts of classic BBC comedy and drama shows). There's not anything in the states quite like it: NPR comes the closest, but with fewer diversity and variety. You gotta love a radio network that runs both Car Talk and A Prairie Home Companion, of course, but for an Anglophile bull like me there's no comparison to the Beeb.

My hotel room comes equipped with a TV that broadcasts radio, so I tune to BBC Radio 4 after midnight as I slip into bed and listen for a while as I fade in and out of consciousness. It takes me a while to realize there's a setting to turn off the picture (a slideshow of the hotel) while you're listening to radio, but at last it's dark and cozy in the room and I slide against my puffy pillows and listen to Book of the Week, which today features screen actor Nigel Havers reading a fifteen-minute installment of his funny and bright autobiography Playing with Fire. Again, I'm not aware of any similar show on NPR (the weekend Selected Shorts is the closest NPR comes to reading literature on the air) and Radio Four especially does several shows like this, including the famous Book at Bedtime, which is working its way through Evelyn Waugh's A Handful of Dust this week. If I weren't so keen on getting up and about and seeing everything that London has to offer, I'd likely to be glued to BBC Radio 4 all day. Tomorrow they are featuring a special on the history of sound effects in British radio, including my fave Britcom of all time, The Goon Show. Luckily I can listen to the show at any point online for seven days after broadcast (and so can you!).

If I may blow my own horn, I'm pretty savvy at how Amazon.com US sales rankings work, but less so on Amazon.co.uk rankings. Right now Playing with Fire ranks at #314 at Amazon.co.uk, which is a respectible selling level. It's a brand-new hardcover and having the author read it on the BBC has got to be a good sales boost for the publisher. I know for a fact that American publishers like Norton would vastly benefit from having an American version of Book of the Week or A Book at Bedtime: you can definitely see the sales increase when an author appears on Fresh Air, so imagine the spike in sales if you could actually hear the book. I know I've never been particularly aware of Nigel Havers one way or another, but the excerpt he's read (on appearing in A Passage to India) is so delightful and funny that I think I'm going to have to buy his book. See? The system works.

Fifteen minutes of Havers is followed by a lullingly placid lengthy Shipping Forecast, one of my favorite shows on the BBC. You might remember my celebration of the Shipping Forecast (and a book devoted to travelling its exotic realms) in a post from last year's London trip, so if you're baffled by mention of the Shipping Forecast check that out to learn why it's a wonderfully calming and relaxing way to send you off into dreamland. At one AM BBC Radio Four shuts down broadcasting for the night, and closes down by playing the national anthem, God Save the Queen. You are supposed to stand whenever they play it in public and I'm not certain if the same is true in your hotel room, but just to stay on the safe side I stand up in bed to attention until the anthem is over. I glance at the clock and see it's one AM. Funny, I would have thought the Queen went to bed earlier than this. Apparently you're not allowed to go to bed in the UK until she does, so it's a bit of a relief to tired tired me when God Save the Queen ends (I can never hit the high notes) and I'm allowed to sink back into my comfy warm bed. The BBC World Service now gets broadcast over the Radio Four frequencies, so if you want you may listen to rich dulcet tones of BBC newsreaders all night long, but I reach for the remote and click off the radio-on-the-TV, and roll over to go to sleep, dreaming of curries and Fair Isle and the Queen's pyjamas.

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!

Bad timing: a bullish obsession

I love bein' in London, and mind you, I'm not complaining that we arrived this morning. But looking at last week's Time Out London makes me go oooooh, I wish we coulda got here Tuesday morning. Why? Because my two favorite bands were playing earlier this week, and I missed 'em by just that much:

Madness! The Pogues! Gosh, how I love 'em. There's no two more quintessential London bands for this little stuffed bull, and you can betcha their music is always in heavy rotation on my iPod. There's nothing, however, to compare with seein' 'em live (after all, Shane MacGowan won't last that much longer—then again, I've been sayin' that for years). I'm not complaining, oh no no. I'm over-the-hill chuffed to be in London at Christmastime just on its own, and I've got a ticket to see something else I've been really looking forward to (Spamalot on Boxing Day, starring Tim Curry!), so no sour grapes from Bully here. After I, I've been lucky enough to see 'em both live over here in the UK: Madness twice (once in 1983 and at the Madstock concert in 1987, The Pogues in 1992). And there's s'posed to be the new Madness single "Sorry" out this month, so I'll definitely be looking for it at HMV on Oxford Street during my sure-to-be-thrilling pilgrimage there later this week. And I have been busily pencilling in so many things to do in London on my holiday calendar that I'm sure I will have more than enough to do this week. But in spirit, at least, if you were at Wembley on Wednesday you heard me singin' along with "It Must Be Love" or at Brixton on Tuesday, swaying back and forth and bellowing out "London You're a Lady." I will drink a pint of ginger beer this week to Messrs. Suggs and MacGowan and company, and hoist a special toast to the memory of Tom McManamon, and I will stumble home from the pub to my warm hotel bed, warbling

So I pray now child that you sleep tonight
When you hear this lullaby
May the wind that blows from haunted graves
Never bring you misery
May the angels bright
Watch you tonight
And keep you while you sleep

(In addition, my kid sister Marshall is sorry we missed this):

The only way to fly

Hullo from London, folks! I'll be telling you about my first day in The Big Smoke in a wee bit, but for the moment, I just gotta rave about flying business class!

Don't get me wrong. I'm not a spendthrift and I am quite careful with my dimes (and pounds). Flying business or first class under normal circumstances can be very expensive and would seriously cut into my regular comic book buying budget. This time around, however, I cashed in some of my miles to upgrade and get a free business-class round trip ticket to London, and boy howdy, am I pleased as punch I did! It's a long enough flight as it is, especially when you do it overnight, and the change in setting from steerage (no pun intended) to business class made it rush by that much faster. Why so surprised that I have miles to cash in? I earned them selling seeds door to door. It was a lot of seeds. (And yes, for the purpose of my pop-culture joke in the last post, I suppose I have miles with Fresh Air.)

Anyway, the delight starts from the very beginning when you step into the busy busy terminal 9 at JFK and get to step directly into the "business class" line to check your bags. Seriously, since our flight was at midnight, there wasn't much of a wait even for coach, but it was a nice treat to immediately be the second in line to check in. A few exchanged pleasantries with the clerk at the check-in counter included the fact that I was entitled to go into the Admiral's Club until departure! Whoo hoo! I have never been in an executive club at an airport before and it was great fun running about helping myself to free fruit. It was quite a disappointment however, that the club was actually outside the security section to the gates, so to give myself plenty of time before the flight I left the cozy confines of the club and waddled, full of fruit, to the sparse and spartan international departures wing, which was about as exciting as a pit of mud.

Seriously, JFK...that was one pretty lousy departures wing. There were no restaurants. There was a bar, at which I bought a bottle of water for the flight ($3.50! Not good value for money.) There was free bottled water in the flight club but you were not allowed to bring it through security. Grrr. I'm remembering how fantastic the Heathrow Departure Lounge is, chock-a-block full of amazing shops for your last-minute souvenirs needs, lovely restaurants, and a relaxing atmosphere. At JFK there are not enough seats for everyone so many people were sitting on the floor, and there were doors slamming every two or three minutes. Once again I have been misled by a Tom Hanks movie into thinking something was better than it actually is: the JFK international lounge in The Terminal is a lovely and elaborate Hollywood set with multi-leveled shops and stores. The real one is a dull grey limbo.

Thankfully all that dismal-osity was soon about to change as soon as we boarded. I am not a little stuffed bull who rushes the podium as soon as they call boarding, but I do enjoy being able to board as swiftly as possible to allow myself time to settle in and relax. Hooray for business class, because you get to board first! Up I sauntered with my e-ticket and onto the plane.

A right turn once in the plane takes you immediately into the business class (ultra-posh first class is to the left. I didn't see it, but I presume there were tame peacocks roaming about and a reflecting pool in the middle of the section). Hooray again!, because business class means you get your own seat and do not have to spend the trip inside the overhead storage bin. The seats are wide and comfortable, and there is so much leg room that even a big tall guy like John couldn't touch the seat in front of him with his toes. Poppy the Friendly Flight Attendant came by immediately after we settled in to bring glasses of wine, champagne, water and orange juice. I wanted to try some champagne (I bet it would tickle my nose!) but I had to settle for orange juice instead. What's better than being offered orange juice pre-flight? When they come by again and you get to have seconds!

The seats were so comfy (and it was quite late) so I kind of kept dropping off a bit before the plane took off, but I made sure to stay awake because we were issued menus. Menus! On a plane! You got to choose your meal out of several gourmet choices. I had a delicious, creamy pasta, but just like a pretty good restaurant (one that flies!) the meal came in several courses: first, a cup of hot nuts! And not just peanut pieces in little vaccum-sealed bags, oh no: an actual little china cup with warmed mixed nuts. Including plenty of cashews. Refills on whatever I wanted to drink (in real glass glasses!) and then a nice Caesar salad and bread, plus a return visit to the bun basket a little later on so I could have an extra roll. Then my pasta, which was gob-smackingly delicious, followed by ice cream with fudge on top. I was starting to fall asleep then so when they came around with chocolate bars after that I actually turned it down. (Can you believe it?)

Before I fell asleep they also brought round Bose noise-reducing headphones, which were simply amazing. You don't get to keep them (they collected them at the end of the flight) but I know it will be hard going back to my cheap Sony headphones while listening to my iPod on a plane after having those. I know they aren't cheap but I will have to save up my dimes to get a pair someday. They were even comfortable when I fell asleep. And if you've ever seen how odd a bull's ears are, that takes some doing.

We'd also been issued a large complimentary spa pack full of all sorts of toiletries and comfort items: earplugs, lip balm, toothbrush, immensely giant socks, eyeshade, and much more. Look at all the cool stuff I got to take away!


Why, it was a lot of stuff in a free pouch that was so huge I could use it as a sleeping bag!:


And that is how I spent one of the nicest flights ever, which was a wonderful start to my holiday. This trip is meant to be a real treat for me, and I'm very chuffed at having used my miles to fly business class, even though (shh! don't tell them) I did not come to London to do business. I've been upgraded from coach to first class a very few times on some short-range flights, mostly New York City to and from Buffalo or Chicago, and aside from a coat-hanging service and early drinks, it wasn't much different than coach. But this was a wonderfully posh experience: I don't normally sleep on flights, but I actually got a few hours shut-eye thanks to the spacious and relaxing suroundings.

I am not an elitist little bull by any means, and I definitely know that aside from the return trip home, it'll be back to coach for me in my journeys. But oh my, what a nice treat to upgrade.

Um, unless any of you want to buy some seeds to help me build up some more miles?

I'm Bully, Fly Me!

Hooray! Hooray! Hooray! My bags are packed and ready to go...to London! Yes, Bully-boosters, this little stuffed bull is on his way to the UK for the holiday (hey, that all kinda rhymed!). Oh yes, John and Marshall are coming too. As I think I have said before, London is my favorite place in the world, and I am very much looking forward to spending Christmas in the city that rocks, the city that never stops...wait a minute, that's a totally different place. Never mind! Anyway, I will be off very soon to the home of Sherlock Holmes and Paddington Bear, James Bond and Brian Braddock, and I'm thrilled as a newt and can barely keep still in my plastic airport lounge waiting chair.

While I am over there, I hope to attend some meetings at The BBC (The British Bull Corporation) so of course I'm very excited to get on the plane. Although I could have travelled just as easily and a lot more cheaply via FedEx, instead promotional consideration and travel is provided by the sassy and spirited Fresh! Airlines, whom I'm flying over to London's swingin' Heathrow Airport. The flight attendants in the waiting lounge are all very pretty, young and saucy, and I am sure there are some shenanigans going on behind the scenes that I'm neither aware or nor would understand, but as long as I am suitably provided with enough complimentary Schweppes Ginger Ale on board I don't mind at all if they are making kissy noises behind the partition. I am of course also looking forward to the in-flight movie. Sometimes you can't see the screen very well when you're riding in the overhead baggage compartment, but I consider this an interesting challenge, and sure hope that nobody minds me hanging out of the compartment overhead, munching on delicious, delicious Corn Nuts and cheering on the movie.

As I often am while travelling, I find the duty-free shops very intriguing and fascinating. I have been wandering up and down the one here at the airport staring up at the many wonderful goods, especially, as usual, the giant Toblerone bar. They seem to have gotten even bigger than usual: as large as a small telephone booth, it seems to me. I am watching my pounds and pence quite carefully though so I have plenty of Christmas shopping money in London, and it seems a shame to splurge now, so I have sadly turned my back on enough chocolate to feed a small army of rats and returned to the waiting lounge, where Poppy the flight attendant seems to have lost her skirt. Perhaps I will go and help her look for it. Oh, she doesn't seem to be very interested in looking for it at all.

Captain Croker, our crusty but friendly pilot, has just walked by, so it must be getting time to board very soon, so I should be going: Marshall needs help picking up all the pieces of Travel Monopoly, and I promised I would help her. But very swiftly, what does this mean for you, the Reader of Comics Oughta Be Fun? Well, for the next ten days you'll get a chance to read my London travelogue and see my London photos, experiencing the city by the Thames through the shiny button eyes of an American stuffed bull. If you only come here for the comics commentary there will still be a little content for ya: on my itinerary are planned visits to the Comics Museum, Gosh!, Forbidden Planet, and Magma, as well as possibly some art-related musings as I wander through many fancy museums. But my blog will definitely be all London and more than just comics until the end of the year, and although I'm not gonna rename it, you may feel free to unofficially call it London Oughta Be Fun! And it is...it is!

Cheers!

A man for all seasons.

Apparently anyone who posts to the internet, or looks at the internet, or bought something on the internet, or has heard about the internet, or has uncomfortably brushed up against the internet in a crowded subway train, is this year's Time Person of the Year. I dunno about that, mainly because if I see a magazine referring back to me, boy howdy, it better include a big semi-gloss mirrored-laminated panel that presents the illusion that I'm looking into a mirror but which is about as reflective as the bottom of a tuna fish can—in other words, the finest reflection technology the greeting card industry can offer.

Sleestak, inspired by The So-Called "Austin Mayor," challenges us, the winners of Time's Person of the Year, to graciously step aside and nominate some other person worthy of this great magazine-marketing honor. Well, when the cover copy reads that the winner controls an Age, and welcomes you to the winner's World, there is, in the words of Mister Harry Chapin, only one choice:



Hmmm.

Well, better him than Bono, I guess.

Bully's Fantastic Christmas, Part 12

Parts 1-11 are here.

Part 12: I heard the bulls on Christmas Day

Bully's eyes opened.

The brilliant sunlight streamed through the gauze curtains of the living room onto Bully's face. He blinked at it and turned over, stretching and yawning, closing his eyes...

...then snapping them open again in shock and surprise. It was Christmas morning! He leaped up, panicked. Where were his drawings? He had to wrap up his comic book presents for everyone! He had to get them under the tree or he would have no Christmas gifts for his friends...but no matter how fast Bully turned and twirled, looking wildly about him, his stack of homemade comic books were nowhere to be found.

Suddenly Blackie was there, rushing into the room in excitement, and Snuckles, and Marshall, and Ox, all yelling and cheering and jumping up and down, and pointing behind Bully wildly...

Bully turned, and stopped, and gaped.

Beneath the tree, so empty last night, now were presents. Dozens of presents, maybe hundreds of presents, ball-shaped and square, big and small, some in fancy rainbow foil wrapping, and some in plain red paper. Together he and his sister and friends ran up to the tree and rushed from package to package, and as John came in, slowly and sleepily, good naturedly complaining about the early hour and noise, Bully and his friends were dragging out boxes into the middle of the floor, reading name tags loudly: "For Snuckles!" "Merry Christmas to Gus!" "For Bully!" "For Marshall! XOXOXO Love, Bully!"

Bully stopped and stared. There, beneath the tree, were his comics...not in the haphazard stack he'd left them in as he fell into sleep on Christmas Eve, but wrapped—each one curled into a tight tube, each one tied with a bright colorful ribbon, each one labeled with a tag.

Bully stood back and chewed on his hoof in complete bafflement for almost a whole minute. Surely he hadn't done all that without remembering...?

Had he?

If he hadn't, who had?

And his eyes fell on the cookie-crumb strewn Spider-Man plate, and the empty glass, sitting on the coffee table.





Bully lay, comfortably relaxing, in a pile of crumpled wrapping paper beneath the Christmas tree. It was only a few hours later, but the gifts were all long opened and admired; thanks had been given and hugs exchanged. Everyone cooed and awed at his bright colorful crayon drawings, declaring them the very best Christmas gifts of all, and Marshall had given him such a hug. Now Marshall lay curled up on the couch, carefully petting her new My Little Pony; Ox was hunkered down behind the couch reading his Western comic aloud in his slow gravelly voice to Pickles the Tribble; Snuckles and Blackie were busy playing a noisy and complicated game of catch with the new Nerf ball Blackie had gotten, and Bully—well, Bully was just plain exhausted.

He sat up with a start. "Oh oh oh!" he exclaimed in sudden shock. "Oh geez. I gotta go talk to Mister Vincent!"

"Chee, Bully!" scoffed Blackie. "What you wanna go do dat fer?"

Bully hung his head in sudden shame. "He gave me some money to buy something for him and I forgot to run the errand and accidentally spent the money."

"I shouldn't worry about Mister Victor anymore," said Marshall brightly from the couch.

They all turned to look at the tiny stuffed cow carefully. "Why do you say that, Marshall?" asked Snuckles.

"'Coz he's not next door anymore," Marshall explained with exaggerated patience. "He's gone away."

"Oh! Oh!" Bully's heart soared with sudden relief. "I bet I know what happened! I bet last night three mysterious ghostly strangers came by and took him around the city and showed him the true meaning of Christmas!"

"There were more than three," Marshall said, combing her purple pony mane carefully. "There were four. I counted them twice to make sure." She beamed proudly at her ability to count. "They came around last evening and took Mister Victor away."

"Four ghosts?" Bully said. He didn't remember the Christmas story happening that way.

"They weren't ghosts, silly." Marshall giggled. "They had blue uniforms. There was a big orange rocky one. And the one that was on fire was so cuuuuute! Anyway, Mister Victor's gone away." She went back to her mane-braiding with great serious intent, barely registering the immense relief Bully radiated at the news.

Bully, Snuckles, and Blackie looked at one another in surprise.

"Golly," said Snuckles. "That's kind of a deus ex..."

"Quiet, pinky," Blackie said good-naturedly, wrapping his arm around his pig friend's thick neck. "Never mind. It's Christmas. Dat kinda thing's allowed on Christmas."

Bully sighed in happy liberation at the news of Mister Victor's departure. He lay back in his nest of papers and a thought came suddenly to him, a memory of Effie saying, as clear as if she were standing underneath the tree alongside him: "This is the best Christmas ever."

"Yeah," Bully said to himself, grinning. "It is." He shifted in his pile of papers, suddenly uncomfortable for no reason he could tell. He reached down underneath his fuzzy tail to pat down the papers, and to his extreme amazement and surprise, poked something hard.

Much to his surprise, when he fished it out of the pile: it was a package.

Even more to his surprise, it was a package for him.

TO BULLY! the tag read. MERRY CHRISTMAS, TRUE BULLIEVER! FROM STANTA! 'NUFF SAID!

Bully tore open the paper with trembling hooves.

From out of the ripped paper fell a large paperback book, thick and heavy, landing on the floor with a satisfyingly heavy plop. Bully stared at the cover for a moment, his mouth open but not making a sound, stunned into speechlessness.



It was Essential Fantastic Four Volume 3.

He flipped through the pages swiftly, scarcely daring to hope. Are they in here? Are they in here? Fantastic Four issue #45, issue #46, 47...

48!

49!

50!

He picked up the book and spun around in excitement and joy, laughing and giggling gleefully and singing loudly "La la la!", hugging the big heavy book full of action and adventure in his arms as he ran off to read the Galactus Trilogy, on a beautiful warm clear sunny Christmas morning.

The End

Merry Christmas!

Bully's Fantastic Christmas, Part 11

I hope you have your Christmas shopping done. Now boil up a pan of milk and make some homemade hot chocolate—not the kind in the little pouch, but real old-fashioned rich creamy hot chocolate with milk and marshmallows. Did you get your big mug full of delicious, creamy hot chocolate? You can have a cookie too. Now you're all ready to settle and read Part Eleven of "Bully's Fantastic Christmas." And if haven't already, you should first read Parts 1-10, right here! Now read on...

Part 11: It's in every one of us to be wise

It was cold in the tunnel, so cold that Effie's breath condensed in the air in front of her, two little steam-spouts huffing out of her snout. Frost formed little crystals on Bully's nose ring as he sat beside her. But the piglets apparently had no trouble keeping warm: while Effie rested, Bea, Dee and Vee bounded around like rubber kangaroos, their springy tails propelling them off of the floor, the walls, each other, and occasionally Bully; but they were so soft and bouncy, almost like little orange rubber balls, that Bully didn't mind at all. Together he and Effie caught their breaths from the long run, and Effie stretched out her legs and sighed in relaxation.

"Santa's coming tonight, Bully!" declared one of the piglets in excitement. "Santa's coming! Santa's coming!"

"Yay!" All three chimed in, and danced around, nearly tipping over Bully.

"Yes, dears," Effie said tiredly but patiently, "but you know that Santa brings nothing to naughty piglets who don't go to bed on time and who dance about all night." Immediately the three piglets stopped bouncing and stared at their mother as if to challenge the very notion that they were the sort to dance about all night. "It's long time you three were in bed. I'll take Bully home and be back before you're awake. And Santa will have been here by the time you get up."

"Awwwwww, Mom!" the three piglets sighed in dismay, but they reluctantly, slowly trotted off to a bare corner of the tunnel and huddled together. Bully watched as they snuggled against one another and Effie kissed them all goodnight.

"I'm c-c-c-cold, Mom!" Bea (or maybe Dee or Vee) said sleepily. "Hush, sweetie," Effie said softly. "Cuddle up by your sisters. They'll keep you warm." Bully watched in silence, and thought about his snug cushy bed in the bucket on the shelf back home, with his soft warm washcloth blanket and puffy marshmallow pillow, and his tiny hot water bottle when he was cold and his little slippers when he wanted to get up in the middle of the night to get a cup of water, and he felt suddenly guilty. He was cold even in his sweater and coat, and the piglets were...well, naked was the kindest word.

But in less time than it takes to tell it, they were snoring away, whistling through their snouts, visions of sugar plums almost visibly hanging over their sleeping little heads.

As he and Effie stood back and watched them sleep, Bully finally asked the question that had been nagging at his mind since he first set foot into the tunnel pig's cave. "But how ever, way down here, does Santa manage to find you?"

And the look Effie gave him, solemn and wise and very sad, answered his question before she even could.

"Santa doesn't go everywhere," Effie said simply.

"He has to!" Bully argued. "Santa is supposed to go everywhere!"

"He doesn't," Effie said quietly, "come into subway tunnels."

Nothing can shock anyone—most of all a little stuffed bull—more than the point-blank admission that someone who is supposed to do everything, simply can't. Effie sighed. "Santa Claus does not come and leave us presents," she said. "It's just the way it is. I imagine he can't be everywhere at once, or maybe he only comes to people who live above ground. Or I heard something once that makes a lot of sense: Santa brings you exactly one gift just one time in your lifetime. But he give it to when at that time in your life when you most need it. I've always liked that thought." Effie fell silent for a long time, staring at her piglets, and Bully stood beside her, sucking on his hoof.

"But you told them Santa was coming." Bully finally said, very quietly. "They believe in him. They believe he's coming."

Effie nodded. "there's nothing more precious than that belief. But what it all means is that I will simply have to go out, as I do each year, and find a present that I can bring home for them. Some gift I might find and tell sweet Bea, and Dee, and Vee, that it came from Santa." She tilted her head sideways at Bully. "Don't be shocked, Bully. Sometimes that's what you have to do for those who you love."

"What can you find at this hour?" Even Bully knew that it was quite late, certainly long past the time when the stores were open.

Effie smiled slightly. "You'd be surprised at what people leave on the subway. Sometimes they drop gifts or food. Last year I found a whole bag of bagels. And the year before that a pretty pink umbrella. My," remembered Effie, her big eyes growing distant as she remembered, "how they loved looking at that umbrella."

"What about something to keep them warm?" Bully asked. "Don't they ever get a blanket, or little coats, or a big soft bed?"

"People don't usually drop bedding," Effie said. She sighed deeply and then turned. "Bully, we had better get you home, dear. It's getting late and I don't want your friends to worry about you. And it'll be quite late before..." She cut herself short and did not finish the sentence, but Bully realized with a gulp and an uncomfortable sense of guilt that if he hadn't taken up Effie's time carrying him home, Effie would have been long since home with a present for her piglets, spending her Christmas Eve as she should have—with her family. He remembered how much he had been looking forward to his Christmas Eve, safe at home in the warm, warm apartment on Eighth Avenue, sipping cold eggnog and gobbling warm cookies, lying on a soft pillow and gazing up at the beautiful tree with its sparkling ornaments, rainbow lights, and wonderful aroma of pine.

What happened then to Bully, he could never quite explain to anyone, even when he had been thinking quite hard about it for minutes at a time. He could never put it into words, but what happened made him almost gasp in realization. He suddenly, almost immediately, stopped feeling so very sorry for himself, and then, almost instantly afterwards, he felt the plastic Jim Hanley's Universe shopping bag he held in his hoof suddenly lessen in weight, as if he were no longer carrying such a heavy burden.

He held out his hoof without hesitation, without regret, without apprehension. "Here," Bully said, offering the Jim Hanley's bag to Effie. "I wish you'd give them this for Christmas. And say it came from Santa."

Effie blinked momentarily at the bag.

Bully opened it, and took out the three comic books in their Mylar bags, and held it them so that Effie could see.

Even in the dim, dull light of cave, the covers of the comics shone in their brilliant seventies Marvel-color. The bags sparkled like diamonds, and Bully turned them towards the gleaming light from the grate above to reflect it against the walls of the tunnel. Across the walls of Effie's and her piglets' home colored lights slid like rainbow fireflies as the covers of Marvel's Greatest Comics #35-37 picked up and magnified the light until it turned a small little pig cave into a magic cavern of light, sparkles, and a big purple Galactus shadow.

"Oh," said Effie, very quietly, her eyes wide. "Oh. Oh, Bully. I think they will enjoy reading these very much."

"Ummm." Bully said. "Well, here's the thing. I think they could be more useful in a diff'rent way." And he held his breath as he carefully unstuck the tape on the back of the bag that held the first comic, slid out Marvel's Greatest Comics #35, and with a short shaking sigh...he tore the comic book in half.

"Bully!" exclaimed Effie in surprise. "Your beautiful comic book..."

Bully trembled as he tore the comic again, the bright soft newsprint shredding in his hooves. Ripppppp. "It's a pretty good comic book," he said. Ripppppppp. "They might like reading them, maybe." Ripppppp. "But I thought maybe..." Rippppppp. "...it might be a little more use as a nest." He held up his arms, now overflowing with long curly strips of shredded four-color comic book. "See, you rip 'em up enough...and they make pretty good soft warm bedding, see?" He began to tuck hoof-fuls of shredded comic around the piglets. "See?"

In her sleep, Vee (or Dee or Bea) stopped shivering and gave a little happy sigh of warm contentment, and snuggled in deeper in the nest of paper as Bully started shredding the second comic. Within a few minutes all three of the piglets were half-buried in a thick warm nest of Jack Kirby, piled up around their little orange bodies, their snorty orange snouts poking out of the pile. "And if there's anything that's better at Mylar for keeping things dry, I don't know what that is!" Bully explained, laying a Mylar bag as a blanket over each of the snoring little pigs. "There." He stood back with Effie to admire his handiwork. "Yeah, comics oughta be fun. But there are jus' some times that comics oughta be something more. "

As he looked at his precious favorite comics in the world ripped up into bedding, he did not feel as if he had lost a thing. In fact, his tired, weary, and guilty heart filled up with something—Bully wasn't sure what—but it was more wonderful than filling his tummy with cookies. He did not understand it—how could losing something he'd dreamed of for so very long make him feel so much better than having it? But even a little stuffed bull could realize that it didn't matter if he understood why it did or not.

It just did.

"Bully." Effie said, smiling, nuzzling his cheek with her snout. "They are so much warmer now. Thank you so much. This is the best Christmas ever."

"Yeah," said Bully softly.





The rest of the trip home flew past even faster than the run to York Street. Effie sprinted like she was a greyhound, and Bully felt so light and airy on her back as he rode that he wondered if maybe Effie could—like reindeer—actually fly him home.

She only spoke to him once during the trip. "Close your eyes, dear," she said, as they left Carroll Street, and Bully obediently squeezed them shut and held on tightly as Effie quickened her pace. A few seconds later a cold wind cut across Bully's face, and he realized that they were outdoors—the subway emerged above ground on elevated tracks several stories above the ground—but he held close to Effie and her warm skin kept him comfortable. He peeked only just for a second—and immediately regretted it, looking down through the open tracks as Effie effortlessly sprinted down the open railway bridge, five stories above the ground, that ran between Smitty-Nine and Fourth Avenue.

Bully gave a quiet squeak of alarm and squeezed his eyes shut again, more tightly than before. But sure-footed Effie did not miss a step, and only a few moments later Bully grew warm again, and even when Effie stopped, quickly but easily, without the screeching, sparking halt to their last run, he didn't open his eyes until he heard her say "Bully?"

He looked up and the first thing he saw was the big black subway sign: 7 AVE.

"Oh!" Bully exclaimed in excitement. "Oh oh oh oh!"

"Oh, yes, Bully," smiled Effie. "You're almost home."

She walked up the long deserted steps with him, around the tight turn in the stairs and emerging onto the corner of Eighth and Ninth near Dizzy's Café. Bully and Effie stood in the entrance to the subway, staring up at the sky. It had finally stopped snowing, and although it was cold, neither one shivered in the winter chill. Above the sky was unclouded and black as velvet, and for once the bright sparkling lights above them were not police helicopters over Brooklyn, but stars—huge shimmering crystal stars shining down on a cold clear Christmas Eve night.

It was very, very quiet. No one was out and about. "Well," said Bully, "I have to go now."

"Goodbye, Bully." Effie smiled.

"Goodbye, Effie." Bully turned and began hopping down the sidewalk towards home. But he had gone barely half a dozen steps before he turned around to see Effie still smiling at him, and with a whirl and a rush he was back beside her again, his sweater-clad fuzzy arms hugging her around the neck. "Thank you," he whispered, holding the tunnel pig tightly.

"Thank you, Bully." Effie smiled, kissing him with her warm moist snout. "Thank you."

"Will I see you again?" Bully asked.

Effie's eyes twinkled. "Next time you're on the subway, and it gets delayed in the station..."

"Yes?" prompted Bully.

"Well, then go to the front and look out the window. And wave hi hi hi to me." She cleared her throat, drawing a long sniffling breath up her snout as if she might be catching a cold in the winter air. "Goodbye, Bully."

Bully turned again. "Merry Christmas, Effie."

"Merry Christmas, Bully."

He walked down the street, and when he turned around one last time, Effie was gone, back down to the subway, back down to the tracks. He shoved his hooves into his jacket pockets to keep them warm...

...and discovered a small slip of paper in one pocket.

He took it out and examined it carefully under the street lamp. It was a small shred of a comic book page that obviously had fallen into his pocket as he made the piglets' bed. It was barely the size of a postage stamp. There wasn't even any pictures on it, just a word balloon in Sam Rosen's bold lettering:

"For here...on this lonely little world...I have found what men call...conscience!"

"Yeah," Bully said quietly.





The rest of the trip home was the easiest part of his journey that day. Though there was snow on the ground deeper than Bully was tall, the footsteps of hundreds of people on the sidewalk had crushed and tamped it down, so that Bully could stroll home with no more difficulty than he had running from the kitchen to the living room. He climbed the long steps of the apartment building and headed up to the second floor. He tiptoed carefully on the landing—he didn't want to run into Mister Victor tonight and tell him his ten dollar bill was gone. There would be time to handle that problem tomorrow. But there was no sign of the next-door neighbor, and by the time he opened the door to Apartment 6 and slipped inside, he was humming gently to himself.

"Bully!" exclaimed Snuckles when Bully slipped quietly into the living room beneath the big Christmas tree. "Where've you been?"

"Chee, kid!" Blackie declared. "We thought you'da bin moidered!"

"I'm home," Bully said simply, and that was all the explanation that his friends needed.

"But where's your Christmas gifts?" Snuckles asked, staring pointedly at Bully. "It's almost Christmas!"

Bully nodded solemnly as he climbed up onto the shelf and began dragging a cardboard box onto the floor. "Yeah, it is. So I don't have much time. I've got to get my Christmas gifts for everyone ready before Santa comes."

"Whatcha gonna do, Bully?" asked Blackie.

Bully just smiled at his friends and opened the box of crayons. "Go to bed, you guys. I'll see you tomorrow."





He worked hard and quickly, his tongue tight against the inside of his cheek as he drew with fierce concentration and fevered inspiration, his crayons sliding against the paper in elaborate, beautiful patterns and designs, as if he had swallowed a Spirograph. With his huge crayon set at his side and a stack of paper before him, he lay on his stomach beneath the Christmas tree and drew comics, in all the colors he could imagine, creating a little comic book for everyone.

For Blackie he wrote and drew the adventures of a tough little guy bear on the mean streets of Brooklyn, and called it Newsbear Legion. Marshall got a pink-and-lavender fantasy comic entitled Magic Pony Adventures. He hummed the theme to The Magnificent Seven as he carefully sketched and colored a gunfighter shootout in a western comic for Ox called Tex Ox, Cuddliest Gun in the West. Walt the Swimming Cow got an adventure of Aquamoo. Snuckles: The Amazing Adventures of a Pig in a Fancy, Fancy, Very Soft Sweater.

He only paused once, on smelling what surely must have been home-baked Christmas sugar cookies. Yes, they were! Bully's tummy growled—until that moment he'd forgotten he'd had nothing to eat since lunchtime.

Alongside a large glass of milk, there were three cookies arranged neatly on the Spider-Man collectible plate, sitting on the corner of the coffee table. Bully stared at the cookies for a few minutes, his nose peeking up over the edge of the table, and at last he decided that Santa, at least the Santa that Bully had seen in pictures and on television, could probably stand to cut down a little on his fat gram intake, and so Bully took one of the cookies and ate at it while he drew, nibbling on it so furiously that it wasn't until he looked up that he realized he had eaten a second cookie as well. He stared with just a little bit of guilt at the solitary cookie left—and with more will power that he had imagined himself capable of, he turned away. He would leave at least one cookie for Santa, he decided. Yummy though they may be.

On his last few homemade comic books his speed and pace slowed, and Bully found himself yawning and rubbing his eyes in between crayon-strokes. Just color in a few more lines, he told himself, then tie them all up with ribbon and label them and put them under the tree. Then I can go to bed. And then Santa can come. But as he finished the last comic, having to concentrate so very hard to try and sleepily remember how to spell "bamf," he decided he could close his eyes for just a few minutes, and then once he'd rested them for just those few minutes, he'd get up and cut up some ribbon and tie up his drawings in just a few minutes, in just a few...

Zzzzzzzz...


Tomorrow: Let's see if Bully can tie up all the loose ends in the conclusion of "Bully's Fantastic Christmas"!

She's got Betty Cooper eyes.

I like Archie Comics just fine, although I'm mainly a fan of the older ones—I haven't picked one up in years. Is Moose still slow? Is Jughead still obsessed with hamburgers? Is Reggie still a jerk? Ah, in the Riverdale of my mind, those things will never change.

What is changing, apparently, is the look of the characters. Following what I guess must be a successful mangazation of Sabrina the Teen-Age Witch (tho' does today's youth recognize Sabrina as anyone other than Clarissa Explains It All former-teen cutie Melissa Joan Hart?), Archie Comics has announced they'll begin changing (as Newsarama reports) "the art towards a more contemporary comic book style, more realistic, and less cartoony....a continuing experiment and exploration with the characters." (Also, here's some early comicsblogosphere commentary and detached amusement from Mike Sterling and Dorian Wright). First up: Betty and Veronica get a makeover, and it ain't just the same ol' competition to see who can be prettier for Archie to take to the Riverdale High Prom with the usual hiliarious results, oh no, there's some serious facialogical rejiggeration goin' on here:



I for one say "Cool!" Even though they're not always successful, it's always interesting to see different experiments with a comics icon or art style to shake up the status quo for the moment. Who knows, it might prove to be ultra-successful and this time next year all the cool kids will be readin' comics. Might fail too—who knows? But it'll be interesting to find out. If we don't like it, we'll at least have sixty years of big-eyed reprints to fall back on.

But for those nay-sayers, those whose heads are spinning, those who scream to the heavens that the new Archie designs are murdering the innocence of their childhood, for those who wet their underpants at the merest sight of a little evolution...well, here ya go. I whipped this up for ya. Enjoy:



See? It doesn't really matter. Big eyes, small eyes: all that matters is that Archie and Jughead will get into some crazy scheme that'll backfire and have them put into detention by the Bee. Oh Archie...will you never learn?