one more post, then, of our (most) recent london adventure. this, so far as i am aware, will be, look you see, the last such post about it, with the intention being to sort of wrap up the remaining straggling best of the (many) pictures what i have taken. or took.
for the most part i would think that this is one of those posts of interest only to friends and family around the world. but, that said, entirely curious and purely random strangers are most welcome here, so long as you are not strange, odd, weirdo types. well, not that of a bad way, i suppose. maybe you are someone that knows me, but for some reason prefer (mild) stalking here rather than speaking to me, which is as fine as it is understandable. anyway, on. oh.
yes, us on the tube. also yes, i will feature in a substantial number of these pictures, around 84% of them, statistic fans. best make this clear now, i guess, for there are some of you who have a curious interest in this blog yet care not to actually see me. curious, but i suppose you can make do with the fact that the 75% of my family you rate higher than me also feature significantly.
the tube, then. should, like us, you be not of london, or any major centre which still has public transport, it is a revelation. for us public transport amounts to a bus which runs but once an hour, monday to saturday, during daylight hours only, if the bus driver remembers to turn through our village. for londoners it is a distress if they miss one tube train, for they have to wait north of two minutes for the next. familiarity breeds complacency i suppose, but no excuse, i do wish londoners would appreciate how excellent it is and not see it as an evil means to an end.
alas, no, we didn't make it to the two tube stations that some of us wished to. for my part i long to return to tottenham court road, for it is the site of one of several iconic scenes in the most smart film an american werewolf in london. meanwhile, James wishes to go to cockfosters station, the reasons for which he has declined to share. perhaps on the next visit.
should, like us, your journey to london take you into the unfortunate realm of burning up time with the really ragged notion that the south african high commission might be efficient (competent) and relatively painlessly quick, then you will soon find that you have several hours of queuing ahead of you. if you are there with others, then they can hold the place in the queue as you stroll around and see nearby sites.
like, for instance, in the above picture i took a stroll to observe trafalagar square and the column of nelson. the latter is sometimes referred to as nelson's column. both are correct. what is it? mostly a statue of admiral nelson. indeed, yes, the statue is placed so that nelson is looking down and in the direction of (towards?) the cape of trafalgar in spain, where he twatted some french and spanish ships to give napoleon something to think about.
in advance of our travels to london we asked the boys what, if anything, they would find agreeable to do whilst there. to this end, William expressed an interest in seeing that downing street place. as it was rather close to the sa high commission, it was agreed to do so.
we did warn William that his ambition, to go up and knock on the door of 10 downing street and run away, so that the resident - boris johnson, i believe - would open the door and be disappointed that no one was there, was unlikely to succeed. he asked why this was, and we explained that due to one or two people (slightly) disagreeing with things spoken and action taken by residents of the address it was so that the coppers, or if you will the constabulary, generally encouraged people not to approach the front door. he was unsure if we were kidding about this, but soon understood that we spoke a truth when we got there.
briefly, yes, he did consider asking the quite well armed police if they might let him in so that he may knock on the door and run away. ultimately he did not, but in retrospect i believe that the officers might have let him do this, as they may well have found it just as amusing. although, at the time of our visit at the least, boris seemed rather busy, so in all probability he would not have actually answered the door himself as such.
a picture, or to use the correct terminology (parlance), of me (moi) by the sign for downing street? sure, why not, since we are here.
quite a few others were milling around, as you can see. well, i suppose it is a tourist attraction of sorts, if not a conventional or obvious one. my understanding is that earlier in the year there were many more hundreds, if not thousands, outside these gates. why? hoping to catch a glimpse of phillip hammond, i suspect, so that they may have said things such as "w@nker", or "tosser", or "toss face" or similar in his general direction. oh, yes, he is probably aware of being such, and more, but i would suspect he would have appreciated this all being reaffirmed for him.
since we were quite (or relatively) close to it, the thing to do after downing street seemed very much to be take a stroll past buckingham palace once more. and yes, the two are fairly close to each other (about a twenty minute walk or a ten minute stretched limo drive), which is handy for instances when the person living at a specific address in downing street needs to go and tell the lady living at buckingham palace that they are, as point of fact, moving out.
my dad was quite taken with the above image. no, not because i am in it, but rather due to the lighting. well, he does a lot of photography and that, so knows his stuff. any effects or appearances in the image are entirely incidental and accidental, but i will take the compliment.
a considerable amount of the lighting effect, i would argue, stems from them grey clouds you can see quite clearly in the sky. there was a formidable unleashing of rain not too long after this images was taken. which meant we did not linger too long to look at the palace once more, instead opting to take shelter and not get so wet. no, they don't open the gates and let the people into the palace when it is raining. although it is fun to tell tourists that this does indeed happen, in particular japanese ones.
what, you want a further image of me with Spiros, since we were down in the london way? sure, this can be done.
it was indeed a pleasure and delight to catch up with my chum. obviously we didn't get to spend as much time as we would have liked with him, what with his busy life of fighting taxi drivers and going off to meet men (frequently in uniform) to form brief but mutually beneficial friendships with in the confines of the last few remaining public lavatories london has to offer. yet we did get to do some things, like visit hammersmith, and watch some classics such as big lebowski and let's go to prison, again.
blimey, i have just had a look at exactly how many pictures i have uploaded here. a usual complaint or gripe of mine, i know, but then it is me who has to come up with the words to go around them.
on the walk, to go slightly non-linear or maybe non non-linear, between downing street and buckingham palace we took something of a shortcut. this is a shortcut which many a politician, prime minister and so forth has taken, you would think, as it takes one straight past the buildings of hm treasury, or where all of our money appears to go.
now i understand the punitive, excessive, out of proportion and decidedly unfair tax that they place on cigarettes here in the uk. it is done so they can maintain and service these dramatic, expensive buildings. by my reckoning, if they moved hm treasury to any of the many empty (derelict but serviceable) office buildings and commercial structures in, for example, hartlepool, they could cut significant costs and therefore reduce the tax burden on those of us what like the fags. of course they will not do this, for they like the london life.
indeed, me down by that thames river, a river which is easily in the top 25% of the top ten most popular rivers to service london. actually, it's probably number one.
the predominant purpose of the above, other that to showcase what the wind has chosen to do with my hair, is to give you a look at that there london eye thing. whereas it is an astonishing bit of design and engineering, i remain unconvinced that it is worth the effort to get on. other than the expense and the requirement to wait for north of three hours to get on, well, the view. a look across london off it would be nice, i suppose, but surely the bold, stark, beautiful architectural historical nature of the place is something better viewed from the ground? maybe that is just me.
and there we are in a quite lovely, very charming cafe place in regent's park. we were there by accident, being both hungry and wishing to keep out of the rain, having exhausted all other options whilst waiting for madame tussaud's to let us in. should you be looking for it, around the corner and a bit down from baker street, on that road what takes you down to where they do the cricket and that, at least they do when it is not raining.
why was i so impressed? they very nearly served us all the food that we ordered, and did indeed bring all when we politely asked. also, the pricing was quite close to real world pricing, and not the excessive "london weighting" prices added virtually everywhere else. down in that there london, look you see, they don't believe in charging anything below double digits for anything. also, the food, in particular the "flatbread" pizzas, were sensational. stunning, perhaps.
if for some reason you are looking for visitor (tourist) advice for london, there is some simple yet vital information for you. money. plan a budget, then take 50% more than that, expect to spend it all and have extra in reserve. wherever possible, eat at well known branded chain places, be it McDonald's, Subway or KFC. they are the only places where the prices remain relatively close to what you would pay for like for like meals in the rest of the uk. oh, and get one of them "london visitor" oyster cards, too, for as nice as the tube is, it will bankrupt you without that capped card thing.
another selfie, then, but i suspect you might have worked that out. indeed, yes, down in westminster once again, with the sight or if you like site of big ben and the palace of westminster in the background.
no, we did not go in to the palace of westminster - where one will find the house of commons and other such stuff - because if you turn up it costs a fortune. despite us taxpayers funding the place. which does mean that we should be able to get in free, and actually you can. if you write to your local mp before you go, and advise them of the dates you will be there, they are obliged to arrange a free tour for you. well, if i remember what i read online correctly.
yes, i suppose some or most of the last paragraph is also tourist or visitor advice. at a push i would say you could just write to "mr fixer", jacob rees-mogg, he of the thug life, and he will arrange free entry for you. nice chap, he seems to be, and i dare say most agreeable to assisting all.
back in regent's park, then, and a rather splendid playpark sort of thing that the boys found. yes, all in or on the playground was very wet indeed due to the rain, but as you can only get wet the once off they went to play for a bit.
just a final bit of tourist like visitor advice - yes, you can go and do "free" stuff in london and have a perfectly agreeable time. one does not (at this stage) have to pay an admittance fee for the roads and streets by famous buildings, or the parks, or the museums. i would make sure you have that visitor oyster card, though, for the bus and tube to get to them all.
one more picture? yes, ok.
now, as you might suspect or indeed expect, various non-disclosure agreements and confidentiality contracts mean i can neither confirm nor deny that i am occasionally invited to be a guest professor at the above institute. or if you like college. this picture is quite handy to have close by, as if anyone should call me a certain crude and rather crass word, i could always just show them this and say "yes, a royal one".
phew. that would be just about all of most of the more interesting elements of our london adventure covered in a few posts then. as indicated above, for family and friends across the planet (around, even), hope you've enjoyed the updates on how we all are and what we are doing!
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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