'Welcome aboard sir, down the aisle to your right' in a plummy English accent - a shock to the system as for the last 2 months I have virtually only heard Italian spoken all around me.
We take off and the food trolley comes - 'ham and chicken sandwiches, sir' asks the air hostess (that's twice in a couple of hours I've been called sir).
'Is it real chicken?' I ask impertinently. She looks a bit askance and a bit flustered (I'm sure she's never been asked this before but I've given her something to talk about at home - this Australian chap had the gall to ask me if the chicken sandwiches had chicken in them- what barbarians they are) and I explain to her I meant that it's not chicken loaf (or whatever it's called) or processed chicken. She tries to look through the sandwich to see if it's real chicken and says 'I think so, sir, let me know if it's not', so I take it, prise it apart to have a look but can't actually see any chicken. I gingerly bite into it because I'm very hungry and fortunately it's not too bad.
My Aussie neighbour offers me his vegetarian sandwich still in it's sealed plastic wrapper and as I'm still peckish I open it and take a bite but it's filled with some tomatoey paste which I dislike and I leave it. The other half of the sandwich is supposed to be cheese and salad but it has some cheesey goo (cheese spread?) on it so I leave that too. This is not an auspicious start I think - fortunately the drinks trolley comes around and they have wine so I have a gargle with it and clean out my mouth.
I have to tell you one other little thing - in the British Airways safety message at the beginning of the flight they say you must take off your stilletos during emergency evacuation as they might tear the fabric from the escape slide - very sensible, don't you think, and I'm glad they reminded every one just in case and they didn't distinguish between women and men wearing stilletos, which is just as well considering the number of British government ministers caught in flagrante delicto wearing all sorts of funny things.
I arrive in London and my cousin Claude picks me up at the airport in a little van and I have the same reaction I've had several times - disbelief that I'm in this place with someone I know from Melbourne. My late mother was an older sister to Claude´s mother and our families were always visiting each other and we virtually grew up together. In our teens and early 20s we were all doing our own thing and only saw each other at family activities, then Claude left for London and has now been there for 20 years, working as a freelance professional photographer.
We drive to his apartment, looking at each other disbelievingly and talking nonstop, throwing in lots of Sicilian words that our mothers used to say to say to us, mimicking them, and laughing at the memories.
We continue on in the same vein when we get to Claude´s apartment and he gets out every liqueur he has in the house and we drink and talk until 3am, then I curl up on the sofa and have a good sleep.
Claude shows me around a bit over the next few days but he's got to work to do so I wander vast areas of Central London by myself trying to get a feel for the place - I haven't been there for over 25 years and I can't remeber much. The most immediate feelings I have are of it´s vast size and how spread out it all is. There are a number of large parks - Hyde, St James, Greens, (curiously you can rent deckchairs in parks), and where the toilets are called lavatories (not bathrooms as they seem to be everywhere else now, which I dislike - similar to calling a shovel a digging implement) etc, large monumental buildings designed to impress, imposing rows of mansions (often built around parks which only the residents can use), and myriad statues of military figures and heroes etc, but everything is so widely spaced that I become footsore. It is so different to the close, human scale of Italy and South America, where nearly everywhere you turn there is something of interest. London seems to want to impress you that it was the greatest power on earth, which of course it was during the British Empire days. In fact that's the greatest impression I get - of empire and heroes and conquest. It´s a very busy place (in a business-like way) and very cosmopolitan - you hear lots of languages in the street - Slavic, Spanish, German, Italian, etc. It´s obviously a mecca for people - not just tourists, but for many people who move there because it's such a huge financial and business centre.
I pass Harrods one day and go in for a stickybeak (look, for non-Australians) - I walk through all these luxurious looking rooms with luxurious goods and men in formal suits who give directions, then I see a sign for the famous Food Hall and go in. I see a sign for oysters and champagne and think that would be a nice snack to have as it´s around lunchtime so I sidle over to have a look. They have oysters from several different places but they cost between 16-21 pounds ($40-52) for a half dozen (ie between almost $7-9 each), and a glass of champagne starts from about 12 pounds ($30) so I quietly give that idea up. The weird thing is that among all this expensive and exclusive food there is a Krispy Kreme doughnut section. I am shocked - oysters and champagne followed by Krispy Kreme - what are the management at Harrods thinking bringing these debased products into their store.
After that I start looking at menus in restaurant and cafe windows as I would like something to eat or drink, not to see what specialties they have, but to see how expensive it is as I don't want to pay through the nose. This is a forlorn hope because everywhere I look everything is expensive to my eyes used to South American and Sicilian prices. Everything is 3 to 5 times what I'm used to paying and gone are the free and easy days when I bought something when I felt like it - here I will have to plan my purchases strategically and hope the quality is up to par.
Hand-peeled shrimps ... says the menu. I call the waitress over and ask who peeled the shrimps as they are not getting suitable recognition on the menu and I would like to know their name - I am just joking but there's a reasonable chance I would have asked that just to see the reaction - if I could have afforded eating there - I think that dish cost nearly 20 pounds ($45). In nearly every place I looked the descriptions are over the top, the whole dish being explained in great detail for some reason or another, as if the people dining there have no idea what the dish is (possibly correct) - I can imagine fried eggs being described as 'a duo of barn-laid eggs picked by hand, cracked open (by hand) and gently decanted in a wide metal cooking implement with a non-stick coating rubbed with the greeny/gold liquid of the fruit of the mediterranean olive tree, and heated until the white becomes firm and the yellow yolk in the middle remains runny'(sorry, I'm ranting now, but that's the effect these types of descriptions have on me).
I follow the crowd down to Buckingham Palace - large numbers of people standing at the high iron fence watching the guard stand stock still. Every few minutes the guard performs a mysterious routine eg he lifts a knee high, stomps his foot, and changes the rifle from one shoulder to the other (we are all in awe). Every now and then he does another mysterious routine - he turns 90 degrees, then marches to a blank wall 10 metres away, then when he's just about to run into it he wheels around and marches back - all done in a very smooth and polished way, I must say. It's all quite incomprehensible to me but the crowd and I stand there watching this for a while and again I think of cultural differences - if this was Sicily he'd probably have a couple of days of beard growth, a few friends would be hanging around chatting to him, he would have removed his helmet and loosened his collar, and would pop away every now and then for a coffee, asking one of his friends to mind the post while he's away (that's if you could even find anyone to do this job).
I'm also fascinated by what people find fascinating about the changing of guards and the like - I find this fascination with uniforms, weapons, military parades, etc very strange.
Now to the weather (I know I should have started with this as the stereotype is that no conversation in England starts without talking about the weather) - the whole week I am there it's overcast, rain keeps falling on and off, and several times it rains heavily (got caught twice and completely drenched), and even hailed in some areas - so far living up to all the stereotypes about weather (some people even apologise to me for the weather, as if it's their fault - how endearing), but everybody tells me that the winter was extremely mild and fairly dry. I walk around the theatre district, which is huge - lots of large productions and musicals, but also lots of smaller scale and experimental theatre. I watch the film 10 Canoes at a matinee, which I missed out seeing in Australia, and that same evening I see Spamalot, produced by Eric Idle (ex Monty Python). It's an enjoyable, silly musical farce that is a spoof of the Musical Camelot, and manages to have a couple of songs and dances making fun of gays and Jews, but in a way that I'm sure gays and Jews would have laughed along with (well, at least no gay or Jew on the audience walked out or remonstrated - they also did scenes making fun of the French and various others).
One of the wonderful things about London is seeing houses where famous people have lived or stayed - there are plaques on buildings everywhere saying things like - Mozart lived here from X to X and composed X, This is Dame Edith Sitwell's house, etc. You really get a great feeling for history, and how London has traditionally been a place of refuge or exile for revolutionaries, protesters, and other people who needed time out from their countries of birth. I think this is one of the greatest characteristics of London and British people, that they welcomed, or at least tolerated or left in peace these people, who were often troublemakers.
One of my favourite pastimes is reading so I wandered along Charing Cross Road, which is full of new and antiquarian bookstores. I was looking for 84 Charing Cross Road, the name of a book I read 2-3 years ago (given to me by my friend Kristina), but it's now a Pizza Hut (gnashing of teeth - where can I plant the bomb).
There's all sorts of great musicians around - I read the Entertainment Guide of the Guardian and there's pages and pages of stuff - bugger, Lou Reed was on one night and I missed it, and Suzanne Vega (where has she been the last 15-20 years), but I'll be in Iceland. Xavier Rudd and The John Butler Trio, both from Australia, are here in September, and I've recently received an email that The Spooky Men, an Australian Men's Choir (who sing very silly but clever songs with beautiful voices) will be here in late July.
I watch the Concert for Diana on TV - it seems Diana-fever is still alive and well and the concert is a cavalcade of cringeworthy music - sorry to any Diana-lovers out there - I have no beef with Diana, but what is done in her name is sometimes truly execrable.
On virtually my first day in London I go on this huge, long walk past so many well-known names (Chelsea, Kensington, Sloane Square, Pall Mall, Picadilly, Trafalgar Square, Nelson's Column, etc) and finally end up at Gay Pride 2007, comprising a rock concert and tens of thousands of people. A wide variety of British society is there, from the more colourful side, especially transvestites - the best (or most horrifying) I saw was a beefy transvetite wearing a purple skin-hugging one-pice swimsuit (I'm glad it was one-piece, as if it was a bikini the gut would have flowed significantly over the bottom piece, if you know what I mean), stilletos (hope he takes them off if he has to use the emergency chute on an aeroplane :) and, shall we say, thick makeup which contrasted rather colourfully with the swimsuit. Of course, there were the usual over-drinking youths who ranted incoherently and technicolour yodelled on to the footpath.
The night after I arrived I went with Claude and a friend of his to a party in Sussex. We drove through the green and pleasant land (and fog and rain, which lent it a lovely atmospheric quality), got lost, but eventually drove along a country lane to a country house which has been turned into a club and function venue. There were lots of kids, and a number of the guests were musicians (of a high quality) and played until well into the night, and the theme was Cowboys and Cowgirls, so it was fun to see the outfits everybody scraped up.
I'm sorry about this rather rambling and disorganised posting but really it's just a series of impressions, as I found it difficult to write a coherent and chronological account of my short time there. So continuing on ...
There's a very wide variety of clothing worn in London - the Sloane Square and Chelsea girls in their regulation uniform of long blond hair, expensive, long, tight jeans, who eat at tailor-made expensive looking cafes, young guys with jeans being worn below their bum and the crotch around the knees, young guys wearing really tight jeans and clothes which make their weedy, undeveloped bodies look like flexible sticks, 'Essex Girls' who wear stuff which they think is smart and fashionable but looks tacky (like Paris Hilton), sensible businessmen, sometimes with funny twists in their clothing (eg I saw one man in a suit and a waistcoat with lapels) etc, not to metion saris, hijabs, and other assorted things. One of the most bizarre things is gumboots (or Wellingtons, as I think the British call them) as fashionwear - yes, they're even in shop windows.
One day we have coffee with a friend of Claude's who works in Christies and she takes us to the rooms hwere all the items for sale that evening are on display. We are surrounded by hundreds (possibly thousands) of millions of pounds worth of paintings, sculptures and other art works, including a Raphael painting estimated to sell for 10-15 million pounds (we read in the paper next day it went for 18 million). The place is full of quiet, well-heeled types and we two boys of humble provenance (whose joint credit card limit wouldn´t even extend to buying a pair of candlesticks here) wander around looking serious and passing critical comments on the art.
Later Claude takes me to the Sir John Soanes Museum at Lincoln's Inn Fields. This is the personal home of Sir John Soanes, a famous architect of the early 1800s I think. He designed his home to show off his huge range of artworks and it's built over 4 levels. Unlike many homes built in this period it is filled with light from clevely placed windows and he also built ingenious opening panels into walls in some rooms which open up to reveal more paintings, including several paintings from Hogarth's Rake's Progress. We have a guide in the room who explains all the characters and symbolism in the paintings, and really brings to life what they were all about, which enhances our enjoyment immensely.
Although the British complain endlessly about it the public transport is very good, if expensive - trains run continuously all over the city and buses come along every few minutes. You really don't need a car to live in London and there is a stiff fee if you bring one in to the central city area.
The last day I'm in London, before leaving for a week in Barcelona, we go to a cafe which has 'Snob Food' as it says on its menu. Picture this - the whole place is in polished black, there is a central table (in polished black), with modernistic chairs in clear plastic arranged neatly along, with iPods nestled in a little groove in the table and headphones for everybody. There are glass chandeliers and large mirrors. Along one side the food is laid out - basically it's just rolls and sandwiches and salads (very tiny portions of), with names like Provocative Opulence, Undefeated, Surrender, Lovely Day, Design Republic, et al (who on earth thinks up these names, and how can they keep a straight face, when all they are is the usual mix of ham and cheese, salmon, etc. You choose the food and it is brought to your place at the table on a little wooden veneer tray, the sandwiches wrapped in paper and the salads in plastic take-away containers, together with black plastic knife and fork, by a French speaking waiter. Two tiny half rolls, two small salads and two drinks cost over 20 pounds (approx $45).
The whole concept is very surreal - I can just imagine the business plan - we are going to have French waiters serve very tiny portions of food in take-away containers and tissue paper at a high price in a faux glamorous setting, where each client can sit and eat while listening to music on iPod headphones. Maybe that's why I'm not a good businessman, because I would never have thought of such a thing, but apparently it's very popular for a certain class of people and people with aspirations to join that class of people (oh dear, my inner bitch is coming out again).
I am actually quite an Anglophile, as from when I was young I was steeped in British reading material - both at school, but more so from Mrs Darwin next door, who used to buy me British Boy's books for my birthday and Christmas - titles like 'Behind the scrum at Blett's', and the 'Empty Boat Mystery', and I love British films, drama, and comedy.
The other thing I like about London is how so many of the place names are known to me - from books, films, TV series, songs, and Monopoly.
Having been in London for a total of 10 days I now feel very qualified in giving you my in-depth understanding and analysis of life here :), so here goes:
I love the range of cultural pursuits here - theatre, film, music, bookshops. I do find it too big and spread out, and in effect lacking a heart, although I did warm to it a bit after a while (I actually think I'm a bit tired of big cities and the unrelenting commercialness of them). Although there are many differences, in many fundamental ways it's just a larger, more varied, expanded version of Melbourne, so I didn't really feel the excitement of being somewhere different. I think I may need to go to the countryside to see that which I hope to do later.
Ok, that's all for London at the moment - Iceland is next.
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