When the rain falls down...

Have a couple of topics to close out the week as well as a few pictures as well. One of the doorway to Westminster and one of the Victoria Memorial crowded with people for a reason I was never quite able to fathom. Somewhere in my files I have pictures of this same memorial covered with flowers after Princess Di’s funeral. It’s amazing some of the things that I have seen in my life.

(And thanks to those who read my piece from yesterday. I try to keep this blog light and humorous but sometimes I just have to write what is on my mind. Yesterday wasn’t a time for frivolity, no matter how much I wish it was. A few minutes I thought about how to sum up all that was going on in my head and I think I got it. Some of you may recognize the name Warren Zevon given that he recorded the song Werewolves of London. He died of cancer a few years back and on his last appearance on The Late Show David Letterman asked him what he had learned from life and his experience in battling terminal cancer. His answer? “Enjoy every sandwich.” And I am really questioning whether I am doing that at this point in my life.)

On to the topics and a return to the normal trivia…

Topic # 1: Speaking of trivia, I have to state that Sharon was able to stump me on a pro-wrestling question tonight. I have to say, it was one of the toughest ones that I have heard in ages. It was who faced Adorable Adrian Adonis at Wrestlemania 2? I was stumped. I knew who he fought at Wrestlemania 3 (Roddy Piper), I knew who was his partner when he was a tag champ (Dick Murdoch), and I knew how he died (car accident in Canada) but I couldn’t for the life of me remember his opponent. I think I could name every other match on the card. It was Uncle Elmer, of all people. As usual, I am impressed and embarrassed by my knowledge and/or lack of it.

Topic # 2: As I mentioned before, I landed in London the same day as the London marathon. I didn’t plan that and I certainly didn’t plan to have the marathon end almost directly outside my hotel. There were a couple interesting aspects of this marathon. First, it is massive with something like 50,000 runners. A couple of celebrities in the British sense of the term (Gordon Ramsey, the cast of Eastenders, etc.) Many of the runners raise money for charity, often by running in costume. I can understand racing as Superman (though since it was in the 80’s that would have sucked) but it is the guys dressed in full mascot costumes that amaze me. I actually saw the last guy finish as it took him 22 hours given that he was dressed as Indiana Jones and was dragging a 200 pound boulder behind him. I’m not making this up. The same guy once did the marathon in an old school diving rig and it took him six days to finish the race, which is the world record for slowest marathon.

But what hit me when I walked pack the finishers is that while you saw a lot of people who were definitely hurting you would occasionally pass an old guy who looked like he hadn’t even broken a sweat yet. And by old I mean in his sixties. Half the time the guys had a beer in their hand already. It was incredibly impressive and I have to say, made me think about wanting to run a marathon at some point in the future. Of course, my orthopedist and cardiologist both just screamed at the concept but I don’t know, it just sounds like an ultimate challenge. Maybe I’ll just run a 5K instead, given that I want to see how fast I can run. Writing two books in one year is enough of an ultimate challenge for the time being.

Topic # 3: While leaving work this week I found myself behind a car that had a bumper sticker that read “I Love My Wife.” I really think that those should come with a secondary bumper sticker that read “No really, I do.” Does it strike anyone else that if you need to proclaim the fact that you love your wife on a bumper sticker odds are you really don’t care for her very much? Wouldn’t you hope that loving your wife is a given in life? I know that I’ve shied away from commitment in life but when I do say I do it will be forever. And I don’t think I need to plaster that on my car for the world to see.

Topic # 4: For those of you who get my monthly report, you’ll notice that I didn’t include an “Album you don’t own but should” section. That’s because while I had bought the latest Cowboy Junkies disc I hadn’t actually listened to it yet. Seriously, you need to hear “The End of Paths Taken” now. Especially the song “Follower 2”, which is just sitting on repeat for me right now. I’ve been following this band for years and this is their best disc in a decade (Lay It Down being their last great one). My only reaction to it is “Wow.”

Where doing a lap is literally doing a lap

Ok, this has nothing to do with London but I do have to mention that I picked up the Green Lion Edition of Voltron on DVD this week and I know of no better way to celebrate than by posting a picture of the lion that I will pilot as part of my dream job. While the Green Lion does not carry with it the leadership qualities of the Red Lion, nor the serenity of the Blue Lion, nor the overall awesomeness of the Black Lion it is easily the most environmentally conscious of the five lions and that is really hip right now. Plus, it is so much cooler than the Yellow Lion, which they might as well repaint given how silly it looks. Seriously, who would want to pilot a Yellow Lion? The only reason they keep it around is because they for some reason need it to form Voltron.

(Of course, just to upset me this is apparently the Pidge edition of the collection as well. Because apparently it is a law that the elite galactic fighting force have a whiny kid as a part of the team.)

Ok, time to finish off the London stories, though I may post a few more pictures later this week. One of the things that I had been meaning to mention is that just walking through London is a completely different experience than I usually have. Partly it is the fact that there is just this mass of people that never seems to go away. I think that spending the past few years in Kansas City has made me forget what crowds are like. I worked in downtown Chicago for years so I know what it is like to be in the midst of thousands of people walking in the same direction. Still, there just seems to be so many more people in London, all seemingly dressed in the latest fashions. Even if they by no right should be wearing them. You tend to go, “Wow, that woman is beautiful…ow my eyes! The goggles, they do nothing!”

The other point is just the sheer number of languages you hear as you walk down the street. That’s something you just don’t experience while trapped in Middle America. Here, if someone isn’t speaking English you have a horrible tendency to want to turn around and go “What the hell is your problem.” There is just something cool about hearing the languages of the world while you are making your way to the train.

And finally, after much delay, the longest bar story. While checking out the information in my hotel room (because when you don’t have any luggage you have to find ways to amuse yourself) I discovered that my hotel housed The Longest Bar in England. They were very proud of this fact. So I’m sitting in my hotel room thinking to myself, “I guess that I have to go down and have a drink. How many people can say that they’ve had a beer at The Longest Bar in England?”

To which I replied…

“Probably a lot of people. The bar is quite long.”

(Sadly, due to budget cuts I was by myself and therefore had to provide both sides of the witty conversation. And it does continue my trustworthy habit of being incredibly funny when there is no one around to appreciate it.)

So I make my way down to the bar and they aren’t kidding, it is a freaking long bar. Like a good forty yards long. There are about five people sitting at the bar, all at one end next to all of the staff. I look at the situation and I have to say that I was tempted to sit at the exact middle of the bar and be a good sixty feet away from the nearest patron and bartender in the process. Part of me thought that would look anti-social and cool, part of me thought that it would result in a bottle being thrown at my head by a bartender who didn’t want to walk that far.

In the end I sat down next to everyone else, thus showing that having The Longest Bar in England is rather inefficient. All told, we were taking up less space than The Backer. I also discovered that The Longest Bar in England does not have any beer on tap, which just astounds me. You pay to put in a bar, measure it to ensure that it has a greater length than any other establishment in the country, and you can’t be bothered to install a friggin tap? In a country that prides itself on ales and lagers? I ordered a Guinness and had it poured out of a can, which is something that I did not need to go to The Longest Bar in England to enjoy. I guess it’s true what they all say; size really doesn’t matter.

Abbey Road

Despite the fact that my trip was for business I did find myself with one hour for sightseeing. Before someone at work complains and questions why I wasn’t checking my email at the time, it was ten in the morning on Monday which was four in the morning in KC. There wouldn’t have been any email to check. And one hour of free time meant that I had just enough time to sprint through Westminster Abbey, which is pictured above just before I attempted to see how fast one can traverse one of the greatest historical sites in the world.

Basically, I couldn’t stay at a hotel a few minutes walk from the Abbey and not make an attempt to tour it. It’s such a strange place. It’s a combination church, cemetery, hall of fame, and cultural touchstone. Kings were crowned there and then were buried there. You can’t turn around without running into a famous grave. Or a tourist with one of those headphone wands that cause them to wander around blindly listening to a bad description of what they could see if they just opened their eyes. Sorry but it was tough having to fight through the crowds and tour groups so that I could experience the space.

And it is an amazing place. If you have any sense of history the place just knocks the breath out of you. Over there is the grave of Edward the Confessor. There is Elizabeth I. Here is Henry V, whose grave doesn’t get nearly the attention that I feel it deserves. It’s almost as if it is in a discarded corner and that doesn’t seem right for my favorite Shakespeare character. Every step you take brings you in contact with history. As well as with some lesser known people. Such as the inventor of the Penny Postage, who had a small statue in one corner. It’s nice to know that the guy who invented the stamp gets to be buried amongst kings. As was Sir Edward Earle Bulwer-Lytton who will always be remembered as the guy who started a novel with the sentence “It was a dark and stormy night.” Maybe it isn’t that tough to get into Westminster after all.

Two other sights that deserve mentioning. The Coronation Chair is one of those historical artifacts that leaves you dumbfounded. Here is the chair that the rulers of England have been crowned on for centuries and it is sitting out in the open with no one guarding it. And to be honest, it doesn’t look like that comfortable of a chair. It is sorely lacking in the area of lower back support. Plus, you can see how generations of people have carved their initials into the chair. Talk about finding your way into immortality.

The other is one of my favorite places in the world, Poets Corner. I have to love any country that dedicates a place of honor to its writers. I just seem to find myself standing there, looking down at the names, and just being blown away by who is buried around me. From Chaucer to Olivier, they are all in this one corner of the church. And they all have tourists stomping over their graves with absolutely no regard to who they are. Now I know that part of this is just the nature of the building, when you bury people in the floor people have to walk over their graves. It’s just that Poets Corner houses the last resting place of some of my idols and it’s tough to stand there and watching people not treat the place with the respect and reverence that I feel it deserves.

(While I do appreciate the fact that the tour guides were pointing out the grave of the 152 year old man. How can you go to London and not see the grave of the 152 year old man?)

Longest bar story tomorrow. Well, not longest in terms of words. More like length. It’ll make sense when I explain it.

Yet another fine mess...

As always, there is a reason as to why I wasn’t updating the blog last week, besides just the usual laziness and a surprising lack of Lindsay Lohan news. As the above picture indicates, I happened to find myself in London where everything, including internet access, is insanely expensive. So even though I was a witness to the whole “Hugh Grant throwing a can of baked beans” incident I haven’t had a chance to write about it until recently. (I have two things to say about that whole chain of events. 1) I would never had expected Hugh to be a consumer of baked beans and 2) He has a surprisingly good arm.)

The trip itself was one of my usual excellent adventures. It was a work excursion (yes, my job has me crossing the pond pretty regularly and no, I have no idea how I lucked into this position) that I wasn’t told about until two weeks ahead of time. This was a slight problem as my passport expires in June and you can’t travel into the UK on a passport that is expiring in the next ninety days. Which brings the whole “Expiration Date” concept into question. Wouldn’t that mean that my passport had already expired since I couldn’t travel on it? Anyway, I was able to get my passport renewed in less than a week and flew overseas. In the middle seat in a packed plane. I have to thank my parents for getting me an MP3 player for Christmas as I basically put my collection of New Pornographers songs on shuffle mode for eight hours. It made it a slightly bearable experience.

So we land and I make my way through Heathrow as I have on many occasions and wait at the baggage carousel. My boss (who had the exact same flights as me) gets his bag and I wait. And wait. And wait. To no avail. Yep, my luggage had disappeared somewhere between O’Hare and Heathrow and the nice airline employee told me that if it appeared they would let me know. Pissed as hell I head to the hotel, check in, find out that my room wasn’t ready yet, and drop off my backpack with the concierge so I can go shopping since I didn’t carry any clothes in my backpack and I had meetings in the morning.

Head out of the hotel to discover that a) the hotel was right next to Buckingham Palace and b) the London Marathon was finishing at Buckingham Palace. (By the way, for some reason I was referring to Buckingham Palace as “Buckminster” for the whole trip. Partly this was my combining Buckingham and Westminster, partly it was the fact that I feel that Buckminster Fuller deserves a palace named in his honor). So I fight the crowds and it dawns on me that at this moment I am overseas and am literally down to the clothes on my back. I don’t even have my backpack anymore. And I freak out because I really can’t handle that type of situation.

Of course, at times like this I ask myself “What would Ivey do right now?” And I put myself in his snowshoes and thought “Ivey would say ‘There’s nothing I can do aboot this so I might as well find a pub with a hockey game on.’” I do him one better and find a Gap and am able to buy slacks and a dress shirt, which cost more than I even want to think about. This after I went past all of those top end clothing places I read about where I could have bought a five hundred dollar shirt that would have been lost on my way back to the states.

Anyway, so I was happy that I at least had clothes for my meetings in the morning and wouldn’t be talking to clients in jeans and a Notre Dame football shirt. Head back to the hotel to get my key and officially check in. Get to the reception desk and I see Stephanie the desk clerk. Who was about six foot four, blonde, and vaguely eastern European. And regardless of the fact that I hadn’t slept in a day and a half, she was the most beautiful woman that I had seen in ages. Which led to the following conversation.

“Is there anything else that I can do for you?”
“Yes, when do you get off work and can I buy you a drink? And how interested would you be in obtaining a visa to the States?”

Ok, that conversation technically didn’t happen but I really did think about asking it. I showed restraint because a) I had been wearing the same clothes for 30 straight hours and I must have looked like hell and b) I’m chickenshit in these situations. However, I did spend the rest of the trip contemplating things I could break in my hotel room just so I could head down to reception.

My luggage did finally show up the next day, which meant that my running around wasn’t for naught but at least it wasn’t a world ender. It wasn’t as if I was entirely concerned about my luggage since all I had in it was clothes. Just that I had my favorite dress shirt in there, my favorite Notre Dame shirt, and my Notre Dame hockey shirt. And how can you run around London without proclaiming your support for a college hockey team?

More stories tomorrow including England’s longest bar, foreign languages, and yet another trek through Westminster

The five random CDs for the week:
1) The Neville Brothers “Family Groove”
2) The Police “Message in a Box” (Four disc set, so that adds up to five for the week)