Sights and sounds in the British capital -- plus an excursion into the ‘heartland’
Someone said (something like), “Britain and America are two nations divided by a common language.” (You can go down a deep rabbit hole trying to figure out the source and the wording.) This has always been an exaggeration. We can understand each other fine. But . . .
In the airport, I see a sign that says “Subway.” It does not refer to a metro, or the Tube, or what I call “the subway.” It refers (logically) to a passageway underground.
If you want a round-trip ticket, you buy a “return ticket.” The ticket is not for the trip back, only. It is for both.
At my hotel, I am assigned a room on the first floor. I’m a little groggy. I go looking for my room but can’t find it — in fact, I can’t find any guestrooms, just offices and such.
I have forgotten I’m not in Kansas anymore. The first floor is one floor up. It is not the ground floor.
• When the morning in London is bright and beautiful, I always think of a song: “Who Will Buy?” It is from Oliver!, the movie version of which I must have seen when I was about five. Such things get stuck (pleasantly, you hope).
• Here is a pub in Kensington — a pub among countless ones, but dear to me nonetheless:
• Two weeks ago, I led an Impromptus column with a vexing issue: Do you put covers on Holocaust memorials, to protect them from antisemitic vandalism, in times of antisemitic fervor? Or do you leave them uncovered, to let the vandals do their worst? There are good people on both sides of this question.
In Hyde Park, the Holocaust memorial was covered with a tarp. But I am standing before it now, and it is uncovered, and rather moving, to me:
• The month of May is lilacs time, but the irises are not to be forgotten:
• The horse chestnuts are not to be forgotten either:
• Smack in the middle of London, a pastoral scene:
• I have looked in on these guys for a long time. They never change. Well, the individuals change — the first such guys I saw are now great-grandfathers. But the look, the scene, is constant . . .
• At any given time, you may like the government, you may not. You may be Conservative, Labour, or something else. But the important thing is the system. The way of life. Long live democracy (in all its forms, including constitutional monarchy).
• Here is the Westminster School. I know a few alumni — “Old Westminsters.” Their fellow alumni include Ben Jonson, John Locke, Christopher Wren, Henry Purcell, Charles Wesley, Edward Gibbon . . .
• See this big ol’ Ferris wheel? When it was put in, 25 years ago, I harrumphed. (This is what conservatives do, traditionally: harrumph.) It was an imposition, I thought — a frivolous imposition. But now I like it. It’s part of the furniture.
I also harrumphed 35 years ago, when Paris plunked that pyramid in the main courtyard of the Louvre. Mustache on the Mona Lisa! But I came to regard it as part of the furniture . . .
I was not around in the late 1880s, when the Eiffel Tower went up — but a lot of Parisians harrumphed, and I bet I would have, too.
In any case — that wheel:
• I hear a mother say to her little girl, “Enjoy your bickie!” In other words, her “biscuit” — not the kind you get with Kentucky Fried Chicken, but what we Americans call a “cookie.”
Incidentally, the cookies and other baked goods here in England seem less “healthy” than their American counterparts. They seem more larded or something. More “real.”
I love it.
• Seeing Sloane Square, I have to smile. Because I think of the phrase “Sloane Rangers.” Lady Diana and her friends, back when, were known as “Sloane Rangers.”
• Back to cookies and whatnot. Where I live, in New York, you’re invited — you’re prompted — to tip, when you buy a doughnut or what have you. You are tipping the cashier (it seems to me). Anyway, that does not exist in London, as far as I can tell.
• How much is that doggie in the window?
That, my friends, is a Koenigsegg, I’m pretty sure. Comes from Sweden. A land of pulchritude, Sweden.
• How do you pronounce “Marylebone”? (That is a neighborhood of London.) I get various answers. There are also theories as to the name’s origins. But we need not get tripped up by these questions. We are taking a trip.
From Marylebone Station:
• Inside the station, a young man — a rail employee — notices my cap. It comes from the hockey program of Arizona State University. He is a whiz on hockey teams, this fellow. Knows the NHL cold.
I ask him, “Do you have ice hockey here in Britain?” “Not much,” he says. He himself started life in Slovakia.
Knows more about the Detroit Red Wings than I do — which is embarrassing. (I’m from Michigan.)
A good talk.
• The trains are running on time — but we are to be aware of “industrial action” (meaning strikes and slowdowns and all that).
Ah, “industrial action.” One of the great euphemistic phrases in this culture.
• I am going into the countryside — into the West Midlands. Years ago, I read Orwell’s novel Coming Up for Air and was enchanted by it. I feel in the atmosphere of that novel, somehow.
• You know how we have street signs that tell people to look out for children? Well, here is a sign of the same type:
That sign is in the village of Dorridge.
• This lady’s garden is a sight to see — but I wish you could smell it. I wish you could smell the blooms perfuming the air.
• Behold the range of the Four Ashes Golf Centre — where the great Russell Heritage teaches:
• At the Dorridge station, there is a saying, written onto a window: “Travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer.”
• Could I make a language point? Well, let me show you the sign first:
It is a pleasure — almost a relief — to hear or see the word “alternative” used correctly. Where I live, “alternate” seems to have replaced “alternative” — and the words are not the same.
• No industrial action on this day, on this trip. A clean, orderly train. Comfortable. Sturdy. Sort of purring or whirring. Clear announcements, comprehensible to all.
Why can’t it be this way everywhere always?
• Back in London, I see a street sign I have never noticed before: “Kyiv Road.” I quickly understand: It is across from the Russian embassy. Good.
• When I see blue plaques on houses throughout London — plaques telling you, “So-and-so once lived here” — I think of my late friend John Gross, that outstanding man of letters. He was on the committee that decides on the blue plaques. Perfect assignment for John.
• I’m gonna stick with signs for a while. I like modesty in advertisements. I think it’s effective. This caught my eye:
• Here’s a sad, sad sign (in a pretty sad lot):
• Better watch it, with your refuse and fly tip:
• Benny Hill would have had a field day with this sign (in Marks & Spencer):
• Who is that little guy? He’s Peter Pan, standing in Kensington Gardens.
• A handsome red-brick affair:
• Of a Saturday morning, Holland Park is flooded with little kids and their parents — playing all sorts of games: soccer, tennis, cricket. Competitive juices flow. Laughter rings out. Tears are shed. The whole park pulses with life.
End with a splash, or a spray? Again, wish you could smell them:
See you later.
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