The personal authentic travels of a world-wide drifter, you'll always see pics of me at the locations being described (if the other blogs you're reading don't do that, odds are they were NEVER there, just saying…)
Preamble: Currently, rather than focusing on creating more blog posts of my recent trips (I’ve been to the UK twice since I was fully vaccinated for covid, but have been doing a horrible job of keeping up to date with posting about it), Instead I’ve been mercilessly decimating my photos collection. I realized that had over 64 THOUSAND photos in my cloud storage — the downside of how cheap it is to take and keep digital images compared to the old days of silver one. And when I looked at them, many were not what anyone would call “keepers”. So, first thing I was spent a month or more going through them and deleting stuff not worth saving, and successfully almost halved the total — but that still left around 32 thousand images. Then I started creating photo composites. There were a lot of photos that in and of themselves were sort of “ho hum” but if you combined them, they documented something… the below is an example of that.
Also I’m cropping my images in such a way that they make good TV screen savers, because I realized that while stuck at home, being able to see glimpses of my travels on my TV’s screen actually brought me a lot of joy and decreased my stress levels… so all of them are being edited to fit my wide screen TV — because if they don’t show up on the screen saver I forget I even took them because 32,000 photos is too many to intentionally scroll through … even if you’re showing them to friends.
Anyway, today I put together this compost of three memorials I came across while in London back in the spring of 2022. While there I learned about Noor Inayt Khan, a women I’d never heard of before that. I did so while I was trying to ferret out the memorials of British named women.
Not long ago, 2021 actually, British activists who are trying to obtain parity for women had noticed that while there is no clear list anywhere of all the statues in London of memorializing historical people (not including things like lady justice), it was estimated that of the around 265 statues scattered around London (who weren’t royalty), only 17 were of women!! In fact there were more statues of famous historical PETS in London than of women of note. First time I came across this embarrassing fact, I think was in a Youtube video on the topic made by a women who does “things to see when you’re visiting London videos”, which led me to googling the topic, where I found newspaper articles, etc., talking about how “yup, it’s nutty but true” there are more statues of PETS than women.
As such, there’s been a mad rush to decide which women deserved memorialization, and pressuring the government that any new statues going up had to prioritize THEM and not more men. So while finding those, I came across these statues of Noor Inayt Khan
who was British spy during WWII.
Noor, on top of her personal achievements, was a direct descendant of the Indian Prince Tipu Sultan. During WWII she joined the war effort and because she spoke fluent french was trained as a secret agent/radio transmitter for SOE.
She recently has become a person of some acclaim; she not only became a major supporting character in a film with Keira Knightley about female spies of WWII, but has also had at least 6 books written about her.
Additionally she’s earned herself TWO statues (ostensibly) and a blue plaque (on the wall of her old apartments during WWII) scattered around London. One statue is of her and is near her old neighborhood, while the other is adjacent to the Thames, on the opposite side of it from from and facing Britain’s Parliament/the Big Ben building. This 2nd statue is her standing in as an example of ALL of the British spies who risked their lives inside Nazi held territories during WWII… That said…
Not to be cynical or anything but I’m sure the fact that she ticked off at least THREE boxes of underrepresented citizens (women, Britain’s of color, muslim) had nothing to do with the government choosing to elevate her above all the other female spies of that period. And it didn’t hurt that she a princess, albeit an Indian one, in her own right.
… Let’s add to my cynicism the fact that she was actually HUGELY unsuccessful as a spy.
Proof in point: the Nazi’s caught her pretty quickly (she landed in France on the 16 or 17th of June, the Germans knew of her by June 24th, and in spite of the the British having realized she’d blown her cover almost as soon as she landed and warning her to keep moving and hidden till they could try to get her out, she was arrested by the 13th of October of the same year. On top of that, after the Gestapo caught her she chatted away with her jailers betraying enough about who she was that they were easily able to figure out her real identity pretty quickly. But even that wasn’t enough… in her final hiding place they found her notebooks, and, directly counter to her training, the woman had written down all the messages she’d sent!!! As such, the Nazis were able to figure out her style of transmission and continued to send counter-espionage (as her) for a while after her capture. Not surprisingly, this resulted in the arrests and deaths of the folks the S.O.E. had sent in after her to try to save her;
Is it not me or do folks who screw up this badly normally end up in infamy rather than honored? And might her acclaim might have more to do with her genetics than her achievements?
Having now flown Aer Lingus in both economy and business class seats I strongly suggest that if you’re flying to the UK or Ireland from Chicago, do yourself a favor and avoid Aer Lingus. Sure it’s the cheapest flight available, but it’s also probably one of the worst and most uncomfortable flights I’ve been on in years (and I fly a lot) … let me preface this by saying I’m pretty good at sleeping on planes; I used to live on one coast and work a 5 hour flight away — took the red eye twice a week and slept like a baby on the flights. …. but on Aer Lingus, in economy, I only managed about 2 hours even though the flight was during my normal sleeping hours (so it wasn’t a jet lag issue). Return flight I put in a bid to upgrade my economy return to business class, and I won it (only to find business was half empty and I probably could have gotten the upgrade at 1/2 what I bid for it) and while the seat was much better (it reclined) that one too was very narrow — much narrower than other business seats I’ve sat it… and the food once again — while it looked prettier than in economy — was dreadful to inedible (unless it was packaged processed stuff they bought from a provider rather than made themselves).
View of Chicago over the wing
That said, the puddle jumper from Ireland to the UK and back wasn’t too bad as it was only 2 hours and felt like sitting on a bus. But my trans-Atlantic flights both ways, the LONG flight where comfort matters were both abysmal. Flying from chicago to Dublin, as I said, I went economy and found the seats were incredibly narrow (both in width and depth) so much so that I could barely get my ass in nor stand with any degree of ease (I’m fat, but I’m not THAT fat … in fact side to side I’m not all that big because my frame sans fat is incredibly petite). The rows were the closest I’ve ever experienced — I’m guessing the legal minimum…. which governments are beginning to investigate.
*After the flight I saw a news coverage of how these minimums were initially determined… they filled fake flights only to 30% with young healthy adults, no children, no elderly, no people with any sort of mobility issues and no luggage to boot, not even purses, and then timed how fast they could get out of airplanes with different seat configurations. Surprise, they all got out quickly… Legislators in the US (led by Tammy Duckworth who is a military veteran who lost both her lower legs in the Iraq war) are beginning to investigate, and asking that the tests be redone only that this time they will be forced to include elderly people with normal legs for old people (not the folks who are doing yoga at 95 and still running marathons, but your average human who are a bit overweight, i.e., the american average, probably have type 2 diabetes and are complaining of knee pain), people with babies and children in tow, etc., everyone will have ‘Stuff’ like on a normal flight, and then retime how fast they can get out. I’m willing to bet money the Aer Lingus configuration I suffered will become illegal.One of the things I tend to do is I buy my flights at the last minute so that I can find flights that are still half empty and reserve a seat in an empty row, so that I can stretch out. I got to the plane, my row was empty except for me… and discovered to my horror that inexplicably the armrests in economy didn’t lift!!!! They’re designed so you can’t stretch out even if the seats next to you were empty — which like I said I’d gone to an effort to ensure mine was … Also they don’t lean back much at all (which I guess is because if they did — as a result of how closely the rows are shoved together, you’d be making human sandwiches) … as a result … and in spite of having a window seat where normally I sleep pretty well, resting my head on the window and my feet propped on the adjacent seat …. but on this flight I couldn’t do any of that and only managed about 2 hours of highly interrupted napping.
Add to this the fact that I’d already rotated my body clock to UK time before heading out…so that it was already set so that the planes take off time correlated almost exactly to when I’d been going to sleep (for about the last week) … and you see the problem. My body SHOULD have just nodded right off, but I couldn’t because of how incredibly uncomfortable I was in the seat.
Note the picture… It’s not me, it’s the chairs; my thighs are shoved under the the armrests which hug my hip bones tightly and my knees practically touch the seat in front of me, even though I am a SHORT woman … if I were long legged … I don’t even want to think about it
More worryingly, I’d argue chairs like this are an example of why the feds are starting to get sufficiently upset about airline seating in economy so as to start to consider legislation to put an end to what’s been happening, namely, the rows of seats in economy becoming so close together as to be a survival risk in case of emergency.
My experience — and I am NOT overstating this — was that it actually was extremely difficult for me to stand up (I have mild and very common old age mobility issues, I need to use my hands to get out low chairs and swing my body forward a bit to get momentum — totally average for folks over 60 who live sedentary lifestyles); the chair in front of me was leaning into my space even when its fully erect. As such, I couldn’t actually stand without coming into contact with the chair in front of me which is pushing back at my frame and forcing me to use one arm to keep myself from falling back into the seat when trying to get up. Add to that I have frozen shoulders (again common in the elderly) and it’s a tragic accident waiting to happen.
Had there been an emergency that necessitated my jumping out of my seat quickly to avoid being burned to death, I could not have done it. People on the plane seeing how much difficulty I was in were actually volunteering to help me… which has never been necessary before on any other economy flight.
Inside the plane as we were loading
On top of that discomfort, the food in economy was absolute crap. Honestly the worst airplane meal I’ve had in years — and like I said I fly regularly. There was a girl sitting two seats away from me, and I wish I’d gotten a picture of her expression when she tasted… it was absolutely funny. So much so that I broke into a full belly laugh and we bonded over just how horrible the food was.
It was some sort of chicken and couscous thing that had an odd taste, and made me wonder how many of us we’re gonna be sick later (in fact that next day I had impressively loose bowels when flying internationally usually constipates me a bit).
Then there was some sort of feta and cucumber salad thing, which just tasted odd — like something was just seriously off about it. We were all joking about “how can you screw up chicken and couscous, let alone a feta and cucumber salad?” In fact the ONLY tasty thing on the platter was at all tasty was this chocolate mousse thing.
The breakfast sandwich that they gave us a few hours later had a bizarre texture but a fairly decent taste — some people can really be picky about texture and would have been put off by it, me not so much. It was advertised as an egg and provolone with a sauce, they advertised as a bistro sauce (if you’re unfamiliar it’s usually made with: ketchup, lemon juice, mayonnaise, spicy brown mustard, garlic, horseradish, parsley, Hungarian paprika, cajun seasoning, and Worcestershire sauce) — but to me it just tasted like a combo of a lot of mayo, flavored with Worcestershire and Sriracha.
For my return flight, as I said, I upgraded to business where again I got the window seat. These seats were way more comfortable in that I could actually stand up easily (assuming the seat was not reclined … as they reclined to fully flat, or partially, depending on how you set them). So massive improvement
but that said, they were still impressively narrow… I’m overweight, but not horribly so, but I were a seriously obese person there are in fact NO SEATS anywhere on this airplane that could accommodate me, not even if I were to purchase to adjacent seats in economy because, as I said, the armrests do not lift.
At the start of the flight (Business) free drinks including alcohol were given out, I opted for hard cider — which included this snack pack of cheese flavored crackers with onion dip, which was delicious. I have since researched it and both items are available for purchase, they are NOT things produced by the airline.
A Salmon and beet appetizer with a salad
Once up in the air we were offered a 3 course meal… appetizer, main and dessert.
The Beef option with mashed potatoes and a veg
They don’t ask you which dessert you wanted till the end… I had my heart set on the cheese tray as I’m actually boarder-line diabetic, but was forced to eat a chocolate moose as that was all that was left by the time they got to my seat (which was towards the back of the cabin) was the high sugar option.
I’ll grant you, the meals LOOK good… but it was a lie… in fact the flavors for the stuff in business was actually WORSE than the packaged stuff they had served us back in economy — which was so bad we were laughing about it. The salmon tasted entirely off to the point where it didn’t actually taste like salmon (I’ve flown business and even first, I’ve had salmon on airplanes, it has NOTHING to do with how your palate shifts at altitude, it was what they served that sucked), and the beef distinctly tasted like it had been marinated in disinfectant. The next day, when I was home at my apartment, where the flight to the UK has resulted in loose bowels, after this return flight I suffered a bought of full liquid dysentery. You know of what I speak, straight liquid shooting out of your ass.
In addition to these “lovely” dishes, in business class there was a goodies box in the galley full of cheese and onion crisps, flavored popcorn, KitKat bars, and some other goodies which we were free to take as required. Since all of these were not made by the airline they all tasted good.
This is me, laying on a cold stone floor waiting for the ambulance, to take me to hospital.
My motivation for paying for the upgrade was two fold, firstly I was really dreading the return flight based on how bad the first outbound one, but also… while in the UK I fell down and went boom (once again, if you read my blog regularly you know falling down is kinda my thing). While I didn’t dislocate any bones this time, it was bad enough that I was once again taken to hospital. This time a human who disappeared pretty much as soon as my head hit the floor had accidentally tripped me as I was taking a step backwards in a store that had sold stone floors (I was in the historic town of York, from which Yorkshire gets its name — it was the capital city back when the Vikings ruled a large chunk of Britannia — they called it Jorvik). As such, it was VITALLY important that I be able to rest on the return flight. Although it was more than 10 days after the concussion, I was still suffering post concussive syndrome… in fact I’m still suffering it as I write this, and as being able to rest on the flight was now a doctor mandated medical necessity — I felt justified in shelling out an extra $650 to fly business class.
The blue thing is my carry on bag held securely under the seat on the UK & Irish version of the airport wheelchair
Because of the fall I also ordered wheelchairs for getting around the airports and hats off to the staff of Leeds, Dublin and O’hare airports, none of which dropped the ball. (Although O’hare needs better wheelchairs… theirs has no place to put your carry on luggage and the attendee was forced to carry it for me while also pushing my chair… the UK ones have a little storage area under the seat) Every airport got me where I needed to go, and for the puddle jump flights where you had to climb stairs from the tarmac, they even offered to bring a special elevator to lift me up… but I said wasn’t necessary as long as they carried my bags up for me as all I could manage was my own body, which they graciously did.
That said… while the staff on the commuter flight from the UK to Ireland were helpful, the staff on the Aer LIngus flight from Dublin to Chicago were definitely NOT, to the extent of berating me that it was NOT THEIR JOB to help me overcome my disabilities… and that if I couldn’t manage my two bags on my own (including being forced to put my computer bag into the overhead bin because this version of “Business class” lacked ANY under seat storage that could safety stow a computer sized bag????) then I should have checked my very expensive electronic equipment … SERIOUSLY?
Oh, and the video interface on the plane was ancient. In fact before the flight even took off the stewardess apologized in advance if ours didn’t work and promised to try to move us if that was the case. The one I had in economy sort of did work, but was almost impossible to navigate. Rather than touch screen it had one of those old handsets that you pull out of the armrest … while using it the interface kept either clicking on the item to either side of the thing I clicked on, or freezing up entirely; at one point I got stuck on a song which just kept repeating and refused to allow me to leave it… and that was it, it would not do anything other than play that one song on repeat for the next two hours … The Business class one, mercifully, was a more up to date touch screen, and it did work. This time the flight started at about the time of day I’d be waking up, so sleep wasn’t really possible. Instead I lay in a reclined and relaxed position and watched movies for most of the flight.
Flying out of Chicago’s O’hare
The only good news was they didn’t loose my luggage on either flight…
Not that one was the result of the other, but this time around I bought and installed Apple AirTags into my bags, and was able to watch my luggage follow me though the various airports till it finally rejoined me on the plane and at the carousel. While not necessary, I have to say it was comforting and stress reducing to know in advance that the bag was on my flight. That said, you need to remember to turn OFF airplane mode when changing flights, or app can’t see your bag if it’s stowed at the back of the airplane and you’re sitting in the front.
Answer me this, if its ok for the Cheese Cake factory restaurants to have infinitely large menus with multiple varieties of food, why do the deliver places insist on lying to us and pretending that one kitchen is 30 different restaurants rather than one with a very large menu?
This is kind of mind boggling to me. So I’m back from my travels and in the Chicago area and my body clock is all screwed up (went to sleep at noon and woke at 9pm)
and as such I started looking DoorDash for places that do late night delivery
I was kind of impressed by how many places were listed … most being restaurants that I’d never heard of before … so I started to methodically pull up the addresses of said restaurants (which is kind of hidden on the site, but it’s there) and I’m finding it is IMPRESSIVE just how many of them are all ONE location
— 34 different places!!!! see list below — are actually all coming out of one kitchen
when I googled the address it’s a place called Bacolod Chicken House, a Filipino place on Lincoln ave in Chicago with about 200 good reviews on google …. so I looked at their menu (again on google) and it looks interesting, so then I tried to search DoorDash for delivery of THAT … and it’s NOT THERE… if you’re going to be open late making all this other stuff, why not still make your own stuff?
That said, how can ONE kitchen produce ALL of these different places, and how good could any of it be?
Chicken Shaq
SOUP KITCHEN- Lincoln
Tunisian Fusion
Spaghetti Bowl
Jack’s Fish Market
Ishtar Inn Assyrian Mediterranean Kitchen
FIREWOOD PIZZA- Lincoln
Taylor Street Dogs
Zucci Italiana Pasta & Pizza
Burger Bites – Lincoln
Brazilian Steakhouse
Main Spain
Breakfast Cafe
Olive Branch Express Fine Lebanese Restaurant
Juanito’s Burritos
O.G. Flatbread Pizza
Big Philly Cheese Steaks
Steak House
Pho- Sho 2
Anthony Kings Just Desserts
Fruit Bowl
Fresh Catch
Argentinian Fine Steak – Lincoln
Soup Hot Pot
X-Treme Sandwiches
Big John’s Red Hot’s
Joe Hood Pizzeria & Grill
EGGROLLS
Chef Mony’s Fish Market
Zuzu Wraps
Lily & Nats Breakfast Cafe
Uncle Tuntunji Middle Easter Cuisine
Flamingo Portuguese Cuisine
Paul’s Pierogis
OH, and as I was methodically going through and comparing the addresses I found there’s like a second different single kitchen that is responsible for at least 16 other places that deliver to me… I find this disturbing …. THAT place however has the decency to be somewhat transparent about what they’re doing, in that among the listed restaurants there ONE called “all day kitchens” which lists all the places on one page so you can pick and choose different foods from various well known chicago junk food places around town …. the “actual” places are out of my delivery zone so I have to think those restaurants have agreed to this as a way of expanding their delivery zones and probably get a certain percentage kicked back to them…
I’m looking closer and to DoorDash’s credit for the place with 32 different names (none of which I’d ever heard of before) they have a banner in red at the top of the page saying “This is a virtual brand.” …
When in London, assuming you’re a fan of all things historical and/or literary, green spaces worth exploring on a nice sunny day are her graveyards. One of the most famous of these is Bunhill Fields Cemetery. While this land was “formally designated” by the city leaders to that purpose in 1665, it was believed by them to have been functioning as a common burial ground since the early Roman period, and even possibly before. This is why the area was at that time referred to as “Bone Hill,” and over time became Bunhill, its name today. In 1867 city health officials deemed the cemetery “full” an no more bodies could be buried here. Then, an act of Parliament while deciding its future designated the land as open green space and it has been protected as such ever since.
This “Green space” is located in the section of London known as the Islington, and is listed as Grade I on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. It is a short northeast walk from The Barbican Center, where you can still see remnants of the historic Roman city walls still standing today. This graveyard, as such, was initially outside of “The City” (which is how Londoners refer to the historic fortress protected by the walls on three sides and wide expanse of the Thames River on the fourth), and because it was not consecrated land adjacent to a church, it was where people could bury friends and family who were disdained by that august institution (think poets, writers, actors, and religious non-conformists, etc.). The ground is also less than half a mile, about an 8 minute walk, directly west of where Shakespeare initially hung out, where the Theater and Curtain are located; this was before he moved to the land south of the Thames River, near where the reconstructed Globe theater now sits.
The reason this land was outside of London proper, as laid out by the Romans (the fortified city) … was most likely because it was a type of wetland, a moor, better for feeding livestock and farming than as support for heavy stone buildings. Initially it belonged to the church but in 1315 it was granted to the mayor and the people of London. In 1498 the land was reserved to allow soldiers to practice military exercises and archery. Then, in 1665 the city decided to formally convert the land into a burial ground for people who had died because of the plague, and hence most likely never received last rights, and could not be accommodated by churchyards.
Because the land was unconsecrated — i.e., not attached to a church, [England had already separated from the Catholic Church back in 1534 during the time of King Henry the 8th], the land became popular with “non-conformists” essentially political/religious dissenters, the Protestants (of various alignments) who refused to join the Church of England (the then state religion, led by the monarch rather than the Pope).
[Going out on a bit of a limb here, as the religious history of this period is NOT my strong suit… but, as I understand it… (correct me if I’m wrong)]
For example, among these were the “Separatists” … a group that we in America refer to as the Puritans/Pilgrims (which any historian will tell you are a names they would not have recognized, it wasn’t how they referred to themselves). But, this group was only one of among a whole variety of Protestant sects popping up in the period. This was happening because the bible had been translated into English, and was now being produced cheaply by printing presses instead of painstakingly by priests, so that people had started to read and interpret the book for themselves, rather than relying on priests to tell them what was in it. And some of those began to feel that the church should be HOLY, and that while the Pope was corrupt, Kings (or Queens) weren’t much better. That they were too political and “of this world” to lead their church — that it should be “purified” of government influence and corruptions — hence why we in the US lump them into one big group of “Puritans”. But also among the dissenters were some who were just not aligned to any specific group… although as I understand it, all christians HAD to go to church on Sundays (In 1570 Elizabeth began allowing the first Muslims to legally live in England, and Cromwell in 1657, allowed Jews to resettle in England after they’d been expelled in 1290), so Christians were no longer alone in the country.
This unconsecrated ground consisted of about four acres (1.6 hectares), and London residents were buried here for almost 200 years, between 1665 and 1854 — by which time the city walls were essentially down or absorbed into other buildings (a fact rediscovered during the WWII blitz), and what was considered to be London had expanded well past it. While today only about 2,000 gravestones and monument are still visible, its believed that as many as 123,000 people are interred there before it was considered too full to continue using, as already discussed, in 1867.
At that time, improvements were made, these including the planting of trees and shrubs, and the installing of nice looking gates marking off pathways and open spaces, while protecting the gravestones. After WWII (and the blitz) landscape architects were brought in to maintain and or restore the most historic bit, while also making the park aspect more appealing to locals.
Members of a cricket teams I ran into passing through park
Of course, beyond these places being pleasant green spaces, they are also a tourist destination in part because it’s a chance to pay your respects to famous people who in their lifetimes did something or produced something that has meaning to you today.
In this cemetery you will find among other notables the remains of the great Romantic poet and painter, William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) — or at least a monument point out the general location (I have a feeling the original stone may have been destroyed in the blitz)
While like many of the greats, the value of his work wasn’t fully recognized until after his death…. in fact his contemporaries thought he was a little bit off his rocker. Although he was a committed Christian, many of his poems and paintings are deeply religious in nature, he was none the less equally hostile to the Church of England (actually, organized religion in general — a man of my own heart), which is why he was buried in this graveyard. Blake, who was 19 years old when the American revolution broke out was a man of his time and influenced by the ideals and ambitions of the revolutions that occurred during it, at least at first… when he got older, what happened in France during “the terror” soured him on them. These ideals can be seen in the lyrics of one of his most famous works a song that every school child in the country probably knows by heart, and one that at this point is so closely associated with England that you’ve probably heard it in any number of BBC productions, not to mention the wedding of Prince William to Kate Middleton, the hymn “Jeruselum”
And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England’s mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England’s pleasant pastures seen?
And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark Satanic mills?
Bring me my bow of burning gold:
Bring me my arrows of desire:
Bring me my spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire.
I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England’s green and pleasant land.
In reality, it was a mostly part of a larger works, that until it was set to music in 1916 by sir Hubert Parry, at the behest of the government who wanted a hymn to put into the Church of England that supported WWI (1914-1918), it was mostly obscure. Also, one has to wonder what a man who was so anti the church must have felt to have his words turned into a hymn to be sung within it.
In addition to Jeruselum, back when you were in school you may have learned two of his other poems, “The Tyger” and “The Lamb”, which are often taught together
“The Tyger by William Blake”
Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies.
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp,
Dare its deadly terrors clasp!
When the stars threw down their spears
And water’d heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Tyger Tyger burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
“The Lamb by William Blake”
Little Lamb who made thee
Dost thou know who made thee
Gave thee life & bid thee feed.
By the stream & o’er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing wooly bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice!
Little Lamb who made thee
Dost thou know who made thee
Little Lamb I’ll tell thee,
Little Lamb I’ll tell thee!
He is called by thy name,
For he calls himself a Lamb:
He is meek & he is mild,
He became a little child:
I a child & thou a lamb,
We are called by his name.
Little Lamb God bless thee.
Little Lamb God bless thee.
Another great name from British literature was the Novelist Daniel Defoe. Although he was a prolific writer with as many as 545 titles have ascribed to his name, works that included satirical poems, political and religious pamphlets…. some of which resulted in his being thrown into Prison by Queen Anne (there’s a huge statue of her in front of St Paul’s Cathederal, and Olivia Colman won her Oscer for playing her in the movie The Favorite) for being a dissenter …. today he’s really only known for one thing… namely, for being the author of Robinson Crusoe, published in 1719, and thought to be second most translated work ever written, after the Bible. His second most remembered work is probably the novel “Moll Flanders.
For all that success, it seemed to me fairly obvious from what’s written on Defoe’s grave that he must’ve died poor with only a very basic gravestone marking his body because this grave was paid for through fundraising from the children of Britain
Daniel De-Foe
Born 1661
Died 1731
Author of
Robinson Crusoe
This Monument is the result of an appeal in the Christian World Newspaper to the Boys and Girls of England for funds to place a sutable memorial upon the grave
of
Daniel De-Foe
It represents the united contributions of seventeen hundred Persons
Sept 1970
— in fact according to Wikipedia, I wasn’t totally off the mark, in spite of the fact that the monument was created in 1970… because he died while in hiding from his creditors —
The third famous person to be buried here is John Bunyan, the author of Pilgrim’s Progress. Bunyan was another famous non-conformist who rejected the Church of England, a political/religious stance that landed him in jail for 12 years, during which time he wrote his most famous work. In addition to that seminal work, he had 60 other volumes published, most of them expanded sermons.
If you’re not a familiar with it, while Robinson Crusoe was the 2nd most translated book after the bible, this books is right up there having been translated into 200 languages. And since it was first publish, has NEVER been out of print and became one of the most published books in the English language; by 1938, 250 million copies of the book had been sold and 1,300 editions had been printed — I counted over 25 different editions for sale today on Amazon, and this is 250 years after the author’s death.
The guy who took the picture of me with the tomb was the Chinese guy in the image above, and after he asked why this guy was so important that I wanted the photo take with him. So I told him, “back in the day most people didn’t own a lot of books. If you were a protestant the odds are that unless you were VERY rich you most likely only owned two of them, the first was a copy of the bible, and if you could afford it, your second purchase was a copy Pilgrim’s Progress. Back in the day it was one of the most well read books in countries where Protestants lived. Today while most English speakers have heard of the book, they probably have never read it nor do they know why it was important, unless they studied it for a University course.”
For two centuries Pilgrim’s Progress was the best-read book, after the Bible, in all Christendom, but sadly it is not so today.
When I ask my classes of young and youngish evangelicals, as I often do, who has read Pilgrim’s Progress, not a quarter of the hands go up.
Yet our rapport with fantasy writing, plus our lack of grip on the searching, humbling, edifying truths about spiritual life that the Puritans understood so well, surely mean that the time is ripe for us to dust off Pilgrim’s Progress and start reading it again.
Certainly, it would be great gain for modern Christians if Bunyan’s masterpiece came back into its own in our day.
Yes I’m still in London… been here about a month now…. SO, you MIGHT be asking where are the posts? Well… I’ve decided that rather than spending my days drafting posts I’ll just START to draft said posts, with a quick draft of my personal thoughts, etc, and then when, either the weather turns utterly miserable (so far it hasn’t), or I get back home to chicago I’ll finish said posts and put them up for reading… rather than spending my time in London doing that… makes sense, neh?
The weather in London has been unusually good… You know that song from the musical Camelot where it never rains till after sundown?
Well its been a bit like that… or more to the point the mornings when it does rain are the days I’ve slept till noon and by noon the sun starts peeking out at least intermittently (this is of course England).
SO… please forgive me dear readers while I live a life OUT DOORS and tell you about it once I’m stuck back at home with nothing better to do
This is more for me than anyone… but since I’m staying a friend’s place that sits RIGHT on the thames, a view I seriously doubt I’ll ever enjoy again, I’ve decided to document it.
Every-time it’ll be about the same view of the thames and St. Pauls … what will change is the light and the tides. The Easiest way to register the hight of the low tide is if you look at side to side width of the beach and which buildings it wraps around or doesn’t. For high tides you need to pay attention to how high up it comes (obviously)…
Also, Rather than wait till the end of the trip, I’m just going to add to this as I get more images till I leave this location.
Day I arrived in UK: March 2, 11:29 am
Once upon a time when I was in my late 20’s I lived in a room in a shared SF house — my room was in the basement and only had windows at the very top of the walls to let in some light, no view…. but the living room and patio had the most amazing view ever, so I didn’t care. It was right across the bay from San Francisco with a totally unobstructed panorama from from all the way south to San Jose to Richmond which was on our side of the bay north of us. Every day we watched the smog roll north from San Jose which stung our eyes and throats at 3pm (going from clean air to city air all at once is kind of an eye opener), and in certain seasons we’d watch the fog roll in over SF… sometimes it’d hit us, but not always. And I never thought to visually document it — was too busy living my life and writing my dissertation.
[Note how big the beaches are here…. March 6 9:55 am — I haven’t seen it this low since]
While the changes of the Thames aren’t as drastic as the ones in I enjoyed in SF, I realized I could be watching the variations in the tide…. So like in the video above unbeknownst to me the tide around the time I got here was unusually low because a few days later I finally got to see a high tide where all the beaches were underwater and green algae on the sides of the walls was entirely covered (and I’m kicking myself that I didn’t grab my camera at the time), and then suddenly I became aware of the changing nature of the water and a few days later — when I never spotted it quite that high again, I decided to try to document it …. so that’s what this is.
March 11, 5:50 pm, almost no beach
Anyone who watches enough TV about historic Britain sort of knows this… we’re constantly hearing characters talking about how they have to leave London by ship catching the outgoing tide, or at high tide… or “we need to wait for the tide.”
6am March 13th, Rainy day, beach is exposed but no where near as much as in the video above
You can see from the photos it took me a few days to realize what I wasn’t paying attention to: for you guys, In fast it wasn’t till the 13th of March (two weeks after I arrived) that I really started to pay attention.
This image is the same day, where the one above is 6am this next one is around 9am — in fact I’m doing three from the same day here…
March 13, 9AM, 3 hours later Rains cleared and beach is GONE, but not the highest tide I’ve seen
An hour later, 10am ….
Still March 13, 9:58 am, if you look tide is just a bit higher here
below is STILL march 13, but at 1:51pm… compare this to 6am and you’ll see the tide here is lower that it was when I first snapped it in the morning… the beach extends farther to the left and right
The traditional Black cabs of London are in the process of being converted to all Electric Vehicles (EVs), but it is a change not without its problems. First introduced to London streets in 2018, there was some hesitancy on the part of the cabbies to make the transition; obviously, most wouldn’t be having to buy a new one till their current cab started falling apart; that said initially cabbies had a choice between the new EVs cabs and the older designed gas ones (not yet sold) and some, fearing the change, jumped to replace their cabs with a gas one before the new EVs replaced them in the marketplace, but that’s a choice that is no longer available. If they replace their cabs now it has to be with an electric one, or go without — a point I’ll get back to.
Last time I was in London, in 2019 (pre pandemic) I don’t remember seeing a single electric cabbie nor any charging stations for them. Yesterday I spotted this when walking with an acquaintance through London’s Southwark neighborhood, and it made me very happy.
Anyone who knows anything about Electric Vehicles (EVs) know that this is a BRILLIANT choice and HAS to become the norm in the future, especially for things like cabs, busses and trucks which spend ALL their time on city streets, running more hours than not and polluting the air while burning up non renewable resources.
Add to that the fact the Europe gets most of it’s oil from Russia, and you see the problem. That said, while England does have some of it’s own North Sea Oil sites, they still supplement that with oil from Russia … and with what’s going on right now over in Ukraine….
So let’s talk about why this HAS to happen:
Firstly, electric cabs run entirely clean, which will help reduce the horrible air quality in cities. London has some of the worst air of any city in the world, with 80% of that pollution coming from cars, and 20% of that traffic on London streets is just from the black cabs… so if all the cabs (let alone the busses and trucks) became electric that would be a big improvement in the city’s air quality right there.
And most of the old black cabs ran on diesel, which is even worse for air quality than normal gas. — blech!
Secondly while electric isn’t all that great on highways or really long drives, they are GREAT for short distance travel within limited areas (according to one of the drivers interviewed in the videos below, he recharges his electric cab at night while at home, and only rarely needs to top up at one of the currently rare charging stations around the city.
Thirdly… and this is crucial… stop and go traffic, and the constant repetitive hard breaking that is the bane of crawling through inner city streets actually HELPS EVs to recharge their batteries — without having to pay for a top up at an aforementioned station.
That said, when they cabs were released in 2018 the drivers of black cabs, who tend to be traditionalists had to be convinced. To that end I found the following video from 2019 (While it feels like a news piece its actually an advertisement created by the company that makes the cabs) designed to look like a news piece… This is the sort of PR news submission from companies that lazy news stations will put on air as actual journalism, when they’re not; in it a woman talks about the cabs and interviews a cabbie whose been driving black cabs for 10 years before switching to this new car…
But the first major hurdle to the transition was the price. These new EVs cabs cost the drivers 60K (over $78K) to buy, which is about 25K MORE ($32K) than what they are paying for the old fashioned ones. And in 2018 they are NOT government subsidized, even though you would think they would have been (a problem now fixed by the way).
Also, there are other hidden issues I wasn’t finding in the videos but that showed up in the comments left below said YouTube videos.
So for instance, there’s been some complaints about the quality…
TXE faults reported by owner drivers 2018 — by a guy called Graham Grey (posted in 2020) responding to the previous video on YouTube
10) meter problems were its showing to much or to little
11) excessive tyre ware
12) broken charger plugs
13) unable to unlock centre seat in the back
14) door handles falling off
15) battery completely under performing from day one
16, can not use heater due to excessive battery drain
17) various intercom problems
18) anti roll bar bushes need replacement
19) charging issues
20) back door lock problems
21) fuses blowing if both front windows opened at same time
22) cab surging forward when applying the break (few accidents reported)
Show less
And apparently above the obvious price difference there were also hidden price issues regarding the loans the drivers have to get to be able to afford buying them versus the promised savings to said drivers of the cost of running them:
“What they don’t tell you is the never ending payment plan that you are stuck on. The bubble payment after 5yrs is approx 19 grand, and the warranty on the battery runs out then also. Most of the drivers in London have the petrol range extender running all day, so the savings against diesel are not as good as stated. The idea is good, but with the current state of the trade. Stay well clear.”– Jumbo Mills (2019)
And then drivers found issues regarding the performance of these new EVs cabs:
“The electric cab does not do 80 miles on electric when u have air con and heater on it does 45 mils on electric when u turn on to to petrol u get 45 to the gallon the cost of buying is expensive u lose working time on pluging in for more electric so a lot of cab drivers run it only on petrol which u get 45 to the gallon so where is the savings it misreputation by the makers of the electric cab” — Jeff Rose (late 2021)
I then found a second video, this one from Fifth-gear, a British TV show devoted to cars enthusiasts. He talks first and foremost about the air pollution advantages, but also compares his experience of driving the old cabs, which were loud and uncomfortable especially for the drivers to this one which is quiet and according to him much more comfortable, even roomier in the back than the old cabs, allow customers to charge their phones and such while driving… and easier to drive for the cabbie, etc.
According to him the “London Electric Car Company” which produces is the cab is part of the same company that owns Volvo, and hence the car has a lot of the same interior features. Where the last video had one cabbie talking about it, this one pulls in 3 cabbies who’ve never driven the thing before and take them for test drives in it to get their opinions. At the end 2 of the 3 drivers say they’d make the change with one having actually put in a order for one to replace his aging cab.
So how has the transition been going?
I found a Taxi industry newspaper article from January of this year saying that since 2018, of the around 15,000 black cabs on the road, 5,000 have been replaced with the electric option; this “total number” of black cabs seemed low to me and the answer for why it is true is a bit complicated, but in retrospect it made sense. According to a mid-covid 2020 article from the same industry paper, this number was down radically since 2015 when there had been 22,500 black cabs on London’s roads. There are two major factors at play… firstly over the last few years I’ve read numerous articles talking about how black cabs were losing out to Uber and Lyft in the competition for customers, making it less appealing to young people to jump through all the hoops necessary to qualify to drive a black cab, when they could just go work for Uber or one of the other mini cab companies popping up around London’s suburbs — although all of those must be ordered, and can not legally be hailed on London streets, something that’s becoming less and less important in the modern age. These taxis don’t use the iconic “Black Cabs” but rather look like a normal American one, and tend to be driven by recent immigrants who barely speak English, let alone have the intimate knowledge of London’s city streets for which Black Cabbies are legendary.
For those of you who don’t know, in London, to qualify to drive a black cab you need to pass a test called “The Knowledge” a somewhat legendarily difficult test to pass of all the best ways to get from point A to point B in London’s maze of one way streets, dead ends, and roads that don’t go for more than few blocks. The learning required to pass it isn’t unlike that of becoming a doctor or lawyer, but for a heck of a lot less pay. While this was invaluable in the low tech age, making London cabbies respected, if not well compensated … now, with the invent of GPS, every Uber and Lyft driver has the equivalent information at their finger tips, and as such one can begin to question if it’s still a necessary requirement (although black cab drivers know where they’re going and as such can focus their full attention on the roads while the former are distracted because they have to keep checking their screens. which makes them arguably less safe). As such, there was attrition in the profession as older drivers retired, and younger ones couldn’t see the point when they could just go drive for Uber, which was attracting more customers anyway.
This changed quite recently for a combination of two reasons, government regulation and circumstance. Firstly, those upstart/disrupter companies were forced by the UK government to raise their prices. The finding, on the part of authorities, was that essentially their prices were artificially low (yet profitable to the companies) because the they had been ripping off their workers who didn’t fully understand the TRUE cost of driving their cars all day (wear and tear, taxes, etc). As such, Uber and Lyft were able to charge customers less than it cost to provide the service, and that was making them anticompetitive with black cabs. Now that the price difference has been fixed. After that, the only true competitive advantage other than price that the high tech taxi firms still had over the tradition London cabbie, in my mind at least, also had been leveled — essentially convenience. Black cabs finally got a little bit high tech, and can now be called via an app from customers smartphones, just like they upstart competitors, and with all the similar features of being able to track it’s arrival, etc.
And that’s when Covid happened. Suddenly, the black cabs which have always been designed so that there’s a Plexiglass divide between the driver and the customers, and more than a 6 foot separation if you sit in the forward facing seats at the back, had an advantage that all the of the various taxi services that were using normal cars, suddenly could not compete with… causing the black cabs to have a resurgence in popularity with customers — but at a time when the market was simultaneously shrinking because no one was going anywhere. Additionally, as anyone who has tried to buy a car recently can tell you… You just can’t. Covid has entirely screwed up the supply chain, and the more high tech the car, the harder it is to get your hands on. SO, just as the demand for black cabs was seeing a resurgence, drivers who needed to replace their aging cars couldn’t do it. At the height of the pandemic disheartened drivers were leaving the profession at the rate of 160 cabs a week, which was worse then before the government steps in to punish the likes of uber.
That said, the turnover from gas guzzlers to EVs in the Black Cab industry is a done deal. Only time will tell how well they do going forward.
Edit: April 19th
My black cab heading home was one of the new ones so I took some pictures of the inside…
I think the sunroofs are a brilliant addition
You can pay cash, which the drivers prefer, or with a credit card that does “tap to pay”, or apple pay….
The control on the door is for turning on and off the intercom with the driver and includes a sound level control
Sits 6 people total, all with seatbelts — and the back and front are separated with plexiglass, which makes them way better during Covid
A light switch, in case you’re in the cab at night
The George Inn is the last surviving galleried coaching Inn in London, i.e., think a historic motel for people traveling around England by horse led coaches. These were places travelers could come and spend a night while waiting for a connecting coach to a different location, or just come for a drink.
[Also, as I discuss at the very end of this piece, don’t skip it… Shakespeare and Dickens both frequented this place, and it’s adjacent to a location important to Chaucer]
A panorama shot, the building is straight not curved, that’s just a photo distortion
First established during the Medieval period in 1542, (making the business 480 years old) and then known as “George and Dragon”, after the legend of Saint George and the Dragon — but later becoming known as just The George — the inn had to be rebuilt in 1677 after Great Fire of London, this pub is now a National Trust building, and hence protected from modern re-development of the land.
From my perspective, It’s a bit like walking back in time to Jane Austen’s London.
While not as big as it once was (there’s no room for carriages to turn around anymore, or for horses to be housed), it’s still worthy of a visit.
As the sign above says, in the late 1800’s the north part of the complex was pulled down (what would have been to the opposite side of what is now the outdoor patio area) the building that remains still has its original exteriors, interiors and even a few gas lanterns … something that has almost entirely disappeared from London because well… fire hazard, and as I said it was already rebuilt once after the great fire, they don’t want to have to do it again).
No lightbulb, this is gas powered
Finding it was a bit of a challenge (I walked by it twice) as it’s hidden down what on first glance looked to just be yet another alley…
I actually stopped a local girl in her early 20’s asking her to take this picture for me. I’m standing by it’s front gate just off the street’s sidewalk, and yet she was a little shocked; she told me that she walks down that street multiple times a week and had no idea it was there nor its historic relevance.
Note the name embossed into the paving stone at the edge of the street
Huge outdoor seating area in the area where the horses and carriages used to beThe view from inside the courtyard looking out the narrow alley to the street beyond
After looking around the courtyard area I went into the building itself and walked around exploring the place and taking pictures. At the time I didn’t realize it was a National Trust building and was half expecting someone to give me shit for not buying food or a drink. But their behavior, kind of not taking any issue with my being there, is explained now that I know this. National trust buildings while they might double as businesses or even private homes, are first and foremost historic places owned by the government/Trust. that are open to the public and their structures kept ‘healthy’ by money from the trust.
That said, at a certain point I decided I was getting thirsty and decided to order my first Shandy of this trip to England
Note Tudor exposed beams the undulating floors
Shandy’s are my pub drink of choice; if you’ve never heard of it its British beer watered down with lemonade and it’s how local kids get turned into alcoholics… oops did I say that out-loud? … introduced to alcohol.
Because of covid I was initially going to drink it outside but then I realized the 2nd floor was accessible and I had not seen anyone going up there, and it was more than a bit chilly that day…
So I took my glass upstairs — not the easiest feat for me, I’m not great at stairs under the best of conditions and having to take a very full glass up them without spilling it was a challenge — to happily discover I was all alone up there.
After my drink I got ready to leave and spotted an elderly woman who came into the inn’s yard but with no apparent intention of staying… she was just there to see it and took a few pictures. First I asked her to take a picture for me (see below)
Then we got to talking and she confirmed my suspicions that she, like I, was a history buff. Then she told me her next stop was the recently discovered Roman floor mosaics that I had read about two weeks ago while still in the USA, so I asked if I could join her… and she said “of course.”
Lastly, a thing of note, for people with a literary bent…. it is known that both Shakespeare and Dickens frequented this Inn. Not only that, but Dickens, who had the misfortune to spend some of his life living in Marshalsea Prison, just a block or two away from this location… refers to the Inn in his novel Little Dorrit, a book about a girl born and raised at that same prison (one doesn’t tend to think about this, but most of the time places authors refer to in their novels, particularly ones set in what where then current times, include buildings that readers might recognize, and this was true in the works of Dickens).
Also, while it’s no longer there, just to the right of the George, off of the adjoining road called Talbot yard (see map below) there used to stand another establishment called The Tabard, that today is only memorialized with a single blue plaque (not much to see, it’s kind of sad)
That inn was established in 1307 (so 200 years OLDER than the George), and was also rebuilt after the Great fire of London, but was later torn down in 1873 — it had been there for FIVE HUNDRED AND SIXTY SIX YEARS!!!!! While sadly the building no longer exists, its name should ring a bell for those of you familiar with the works of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer. He referred to it in his seminal work The Canterbury Tales because it famously was where people in the 1380’s, who were making the pilgrimage to the Shrine of Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral, would first spend a night, and as such it is mentioned in his 14th-century literary work. The inn’s proprietor was a man named Harry Bailey
Bifel that in that season on a day,
In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay
Redy to wenden on my pilgrymage
To Caunterbury with ful devout corage,
At nyght was come into that hostelrye
Wel nyne and twenty in a compaignye
Of sondry folk, by aventure yfalle
In felaweshipe, and pilgrimes were they alle,
That toward Caunterbury wolden ryde;
The chambres and the stables weren wyde,
And well we weren esed atte beste;
Walked by this film crew yesterday on my way to the grocery store (Amazon’s high tech one) located south of the Tate Museum of art
Excuse the Panorama distortions….
Apparently its for a TV show. I asked what show it was but they said they were not allowed to tell me as they had signed an NDA (non-disclosure agreement), so then I asked them “can you tell me what channel it is for?”
… and they kind of paused, and looked at each other nervously and said “can we? can we tell her?”, and then finally they whispered to me conspiratorially, “it’s for Disney. But don’t tell anyone we’re the ones who told you” — I talked to more than a few staffers while there so I doubt the Big Black Rat (Disney corporate) will be able to identify which one squealed …
There seem to be a lot of people on roller-skates in brightly colored clothing, and other stuff that looked way more like clothing DisneyWorld cast members might wear rather than anything Londoners actually would … this one poor black woman extra was in an atrocious long fake hair wig (she looked generally miserable), and then there was this one little girl, who was maybe six years old was one of those skateboards with a pole attached to the front type things…. with bright colored streamers attached who kept having to push herself through the scene, but she looked like she was having a good time.
At a few points they kept coming over to me and saying “excuse me you’re not in the cast but your actually in our line of sight …. could you please move?” They were however very nice about it… apologized when it kept happening until the guy finally told me where to go stand … “you can be here, but you know… continuity issues”
Good Morning from the UK!! (I write this at 3am while suffering jet lag)
After being in Illinois where everyone was vaccinated and masked (and even without the mandate most people neurotically continue to wear a mask indoors or in crowded outdoor areas), arriving in the UK was a bit of a shock. NO ONE here seems to wear a mask. Even in places like Borough Market at noon on a weekend, when the place is cheek to jowl with maskless people … most of whom are there because they won’t eat inside a restaurant, and are kidding themselves that because the market is semi exposed and not heated that means it’s safe… Dear lord people, music concerts and sporting events outdoors can be super spreaders… EEK!!!!
Anyway… After a bit of me going on about how I got here and where I’m staying, this blog post is started out intending to be about streaming American TV while in the UK, and do you need VPN? The answer in short is, probably not, but it depends who you’re signed up with back at home. For that bit, jump to the end….
I’m loving the night capabilities of my new iPhone’s camera
After 2 years of being locked down in one place yours truly was starting to suffer the beginnings of depression. Just couldn’t do it anymore. So once the covid numbers dropped enough for me to feel the risk was worth it, I bought myself a plane ticket to the UK (like 2 days before flying — in an attempt to find the emptiest flight possible) and got the hell out of dodge.
With regards to the flight, I found if you buy a one way ticket instead of round trip there was no difference in price if I bought it for a flight this week or in a month from now. And the flight was in fact pretty empty. Ironically (or not), United’s business and economy plus zones were almost completely full. Economy basic was also kind of full, but United now charges an extra fee if you want to sit along the window sides rather than the center isle, and THOSE were almost completely empty. SO I bought a window seat in an isle where there was no one in the rows before or behind me, putting a nice buffer between me and most of the other passengers for the eight or so hours it took to get here, and I was able to lie down — go stuff it business class, which would have cost over a thousand dollars more!
I also found a place to stay with in a friend’s spare room. It’s in a truly stellar location, in fact it’s so central that if it were an Airbnb I’d normally avoid it because anyone with such a home is rightfully going to charge you just shy of what the local hotels would — because they can; and their mortgage payments/rent is probably obscene so they sort of have to. (If they didn’t need help meeting their bills they wouldn’t be offering up space in their homes to tourists.) If I’m going to pay THAT much for a place it’s often just a few dollars more for a hotel room. But this time I got lucky and hit up a friend with a spare room who agreed to let me stay for a few months as long as I chipped in for utilities and didn’t eat his food. … Granted those of you who read my page regularly know I normally stay at airbnb’s, because staying with friends for more than a week or so rarely works out, and when I do rent a place I never pay more than 2k a month if I can avoid it. But, because of Covid I needed someplace in London that was SO incredibly walkable that I could avoid rapid transit almost entirely after I arrived — and THAT you can’t find for less than 5.5k on airbnb. If he hadn’t offered I’d have probably ended up at a nearby hotel that rents out full apartments which was just a few bucks more than the airbnb’s I did find in the location I wanted (easy walking distance to the historic city).
That said, the trip from Heathrow Airport into the center of town via taxi is STUPID expensive, don’t do it unless you’ve got like a whole family you can load in … A few years back I once flew from Tel Aviv to London for LESS than it cost to take the Taxi from Heathrow to where I was staying in north London, which because of highways is a much quicker/cheaper trip than the one into central London I would have had to pay for this time — traffic and infinite traffic lights even in the middle of the night which would have made taking the taxi from Heathrow to here even MORE expensive than the aforementioned flight. At the time I had no choice because the plane arrived really late, like 2am, just after the trains and bus options to Paddington Station had stopped running.
So unless you’re rich, accept that you’ll need to take the train from Heathrow to Paddington. To reduce covid risk I suggest the more expensive direct train, rather than the underground… also it is MUCH easier to get suitcases on and off of that train and there’s way more room to store them, and a significantly lower risk of someone trying to steal your bags… an all around win that makes the extra price worth it.
View from the living room balcony of my friend’s place
That said I found a really choice location with a friend. It’s in a part of town that ironically I have spent almost NO time at all in during my 57 years of coming to the UK on a fairly regular basis (most of my family that I have any interest in staying in touch with lives in the UK so we came here almost yearly till the late ’70’s and I’ve come often since then — used to say I knew my way around London better than I did Chicago). The building (as you can see from the image above) is just on the Queen’s walk (an almost 4 mile promenade, built in honor of the Queen’s Silver Jubilee, the runs along the southern bank of the River Thames between the Lambeth and Tower Bridges). It is also directly just across the river from St. Paul’s Cathedral and right across the street from both the re-creation of Shakespeare’s Globe theater and a bank-side pier where the ferries going up and down the Thames all stop.
Bank-Side pier: Ferries by Uber and Tourist ones with guides stop here
I will write more about these later (once I’ve actually used them) but they’re ferries, that travel up and down the Thames like open air busses…. an ancient highway that during covid has become re-discovered by the city locals as a safer way to commute east to west. Business got so good that Uber bought a stake in one of the companies and you can now pay for it via the Uber App.
From the Pier, my building (left), Globe Theater (center), Tate Museum (smoke stack)
I mean seriously… I’m only about a 30 minute walk from a huge swath of historic London… not the Victorian England side, which is where I’ve spent most of my life in, but rather the Roman/medieval & Tudor parts of London… the walled city part of Shakespeare’s time and before, which during the time of Covid means I for the most part can completely avoid rapid transit and still keep my days full — and it forces me to do a lot of healthy walking …. my weight this week has dropped from 174.5 lbs to 168.9 lbs.
ANYWAY… before I get completely off topic.. when I got here I was of course in Jet lag HELL; I didn’t sleep at all on the plane, and in Chicago my body clock had me falling asleep at around 11am and waking at around 7pm … which meant for the first few days most of my sleep was during daylight hours… (just yesterday I had my first day of being awake while the sun was up, but I then crashed at sunset, around 6pm … slept till about 2am and then started working on this post.
Anyway, this means since I couldn’t go out in the middle of the night I was watching TV on my computer.
This leads me to my discovery which initiated this post….
I’ve noticed that when trying to stream (WITHOUT installing the new VPN software I bought just before jumping on the plane) that I ran up against inconsistencies…
Your NETFLIX account works in the UK!! They just bump you from the US version of the application to the UK one, which means the content is different but overlaps. Pretty much all the Netflix productions on offer are the same, the difference lies in content they didn’t produce … so that’ll offer up new stuff not available in the US along with stuff that is… but some of the shows you might have been in the middle of binging might not be there.
Amazon Prime: basically the same story only they will NOT bump you to UK content. Instead you’ll be able watch their content, stuff they made for their network … I just watched the new ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’ episodes for instance … but not much else. BUT there’s a lot of that, so it’s not like you’re deprived.
HOWEVER, Amazon UK keeps trying to get me to sign up for a free 1 month trial of their prime membership, which I’m sure would widen what’s available there … and could be useful if you want to use Amazon fresh to have your groceries delivered so you can avoid going into grocery stores. You can still use Amazon fresh, or get free shipping from normal Amazon (rather than dragging my supplements I found most of them for sale on the UK Amazon, and when I got to the friend’s place, he’s a very tall guy and he didn’t think to buy any step stools and his closets are uncomfortably tall for me, so I bought a cheap step ladder and a bathroom scale — which is how I know I’m losing weight) without, but the amount of money you need to spend to qualify for free shipping almost doubles.
If I try to watch let’s say to watch Disney+ or HBO directly via their websites or apps I can’t do it, in both cases its says “you’re out of country” and tries to get me to sign up.
Interestingly Disney+ says, if you buy an amazon prime membership for the UK store you qualify for a full year of Disney+ for free… so again, it might be worth grabbing that trial 1 month membership (but read the small print… I have not as yet done it so I can’t tell you).
HOWEVER if I go to my Apple+ TV account, it also knows I’m traveling, but it STILL recognizes some of my other channels that I was watching through it when in the states on my Apple TV… It also allows you to watch shows that are part of Apple+
Even though I can’t watch HBO from HBO’s app, if I open it up via the Apple+ app I can IF its a movie I’ve already started, Ditto for Disney+ (I’m currently watching West Side Story). I was unable to start new movies but if I was 1/3 through or what have you they allowed me to finish. (Odd, I know).
this is NOT however true for HULU shows or Showtime or Paramount… that said, I’m wondering if it’s like on a timer where you get 3 weeks while abroad and then it says, “you’ve been away too long if you want to continue watching these other channels you’ll need to sign up for them in that country”
BUT… if you’re interested in the Paramount shows a lot of them, along with other US tv shows that wouldn’t show on back at home ARE shown in the UK on NETFLIX… so there’s that
ALSO, while here, download the BBC’s iPlayer it will allow you to watch the BBC live stuff plus the stuff they have available for streaming
IF you have VPN, which in this day and age you should (You’re going to want to use in hotels with unsecured networks, etc)… HULU will work… any other services you pay through VIA Hulu, (I have HBO, Starz, etc.) should work… I haven’t tried ALL of mine but so far HBO and Starz have both worked).
HOWEVER, Amazon prime seems to know full well that you are NOT in fact in the USA even if the server you’re connected through is… Hulu doesn’t care, Amazon seems to.
This is more for me than anyone… but since I’m staying a friend’s place that sits RIGHT on the thames, a view I seriously doubt I’ll ever enjoy again, I’ve decided to document it.
Rebecca Radnor's Personal Blog: Consider yourselves warned! 