A Tale of One City

The best day of the trip was by far last Monday—Steven and I did a Charles Dickens walking tour that I had found online.

The great thing about London is that there are all these “secret” nooks and crannies; one moment you are in the heart of the bustling 21st-century city, but then you step through an archway and suddenly you find yourself in a quiet cloister transported back to the 19th century (or earlier). Although many of the locations that Dickens knew are gone, a surprisingly many are still extant. Many of the locations focus on Dickens’ later works, which I have not gotten to yet in my chronological progress through his collected works (I am in the middle of David Copperfield [1849–50], his seventh novel and the one smack in the middle of his bibliography). Steven is a big fan of Great Expectations (1860–61) and Bleak House (1852–53).

Without ripping off the text of the online walking tour too much, here is a brief Dickens biography.

Charles John Huffam Dickens was born in Portsmouth on February 7, 1812. His father, John, was a clerk in the naval pay office, and thus the Dickenseseseses moved about a lot as John was transferred to new posts. In 1815, the family moved to London, and two years after that to Kent, where Dickens spent a very happy childhood romping through the countryside.

The party ended in 1822 when John Dickens was transferred back to London and his income drastically cut. John always tended to live a bit beyond his means and soon found himself heavily into debt. His wife, Elizabeth, tried to help by opening a school for young ladies, but that failed. In 1824, John Dickens was arrested for debt and sent to Marshalsea Prison—where Mr. Pickwick is sent to debtor’s prison in The Pickwick Papers. Elizabeth and the younger children went with him. However, Charles was sent to work at Warren’s Blacking Factory, which were the most miserable years of his life.

His early years are recounted in roman à clef fashion in David Copperfield—Dickens is young David, Mr. Micawber is his father, and Murdstone and Grinby’s wine bottling business is Warren’s Blacking Factory.

Charles had wanted to resume his education, but he was left to wander the streets of London, mixing with the wretched hive of scum and villainy to be found in early 19th-century London, which would later inform his books (especially Oliver Twist).

Dickens’ father was released from prison, as his mother-in-law had died and left him some money. Dickens was sent to school at Wellington House Academy but after only two years, thanks to his father’s debts, he was forced to drop out and go back to work, this time for a firm of solicitors in London’s Gray’s Inn. He learned shorthand, and soon establish himself as a shorthand writer at Doctors’ Commons, near St Paul’s Cathedral in the City.

By 1834 he was working for the Morning Chronicle newspaper and became friends with George Hogarth, the paper’s music critic. In 1835 Hogarth became editor of the Evening Chronicle, and invited Dickens to contribute to the paper. The “sketches” Dickens wrote would later be collected as Sketches by “Boz”. (As for the nickname: one of Dickens’ favorite books as a lad was Oliver Goldsmith’s The Vicar of Wakefield, and, via the character of Moses Primrose—the titular vicar’s son—bestowed the nickname “Moses” on his brother Augustus. For reasons only known to children, “Moses” was pronounced in congested sinus fashion as “Boses” and eventually shorted to just “Boz.” Right. Dickens adopted this nickname himself in 1836.)

Meanwhile, Dickens had also fallen in love with Hogarth’s daughter, Catherine, and on April 2, 1836, the two were married in St Luke’s Church, Chelsea. They honeymooned in Kent, then settled into their first home in Furnival’s Inn, Holborn, which is now where the Prudential Building is located. Soon, the first installments of The Pickwick Papers began appearing and quickly became a bestseller.

In January 1837, Charles and Catherine spawned, and their son Charles was born. The Dickenseseseseses then moved to a larger house in Doughty Street—the site of today’s Dickens House Museum, and the last stop on the walking tour. While living at Doughty Street, he wrote the two books that would cement his reputation: Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby. The family only lived at Doughty Street for a few years, as soon there was no stopping their reproductive proclivities: Dickens would have 10 children. In 1856, he bought the house of his dreams at Gad’s Hill Place in Kent, which would remain his permanent residence for the rest of his life. On June 8, 1870, after a day working on what would be his last, albeit unfinished, novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood (or, perhaps, The Mystery of Edw—) he collapsed at the dinner table and died the next evening. He was 58.

All right—enough yammering; let’s get on with the tour.

The children off to nursery and Amy off to work, Steven and I took the Tube to the Chancery Lane stop. We exited to High Holborn Street and passed the Burger King where young Oliver Twist had a Whopper when first arriving in London, and past the O2 store where David Copperfield bought a mobile phone. We began at the Tudor-style Staple Inn. Originally built in 1576, it was damaged (like so many buildings in London) during World War II and considerable restoration was required. It is named the Staple Inn because at one time it provided lodging for wool-staplers. Oddly, it not a Staples today.

Dickens wrote about the Staple Inn in The Mystery of Edw—, and the walking tour tells us,

To experience how little this secret niche has changed since Dickens wrote those words, go right through the ancient gateway and enter Staple Inn itself. As you do so, note the warning just inside the wall on the left that warns you in no uncertain terms: “The Porter Has Orders to Prevent Old Clothes Men and Others From Calling ‘Articles For Sale’ Also Rude Children Playing and No Horses Allowed Within This Inn.”

Alas, there is just a dark rectangle on the wall where this sign used to be.

Still, the passage leads to a quiet courtyard that really does have an enchanting ambiance and sense of stepping back in time. A little further on is the building that served as the residence of the kindly lawyer Mr. Hiram Grewgious in The Mystery of Edw—. There is a stone above the doorway inscribed “PJT 1747.” Dickens comments on this stone that Mr. Grewgious had never “troubled his head” as to its meaning, “…unless to bethink…that haply it might mean Perhaps John Thomas, or Perhaps Joe Tyler.” Or even “Poultry Jests Thusly.” “Porcupines Just Tickle”?

Anyway.

We continue on past the Staple Inn Buildings into Barnard’s Inn and to another “wonderfully evocative inner sanctum.” Steven was impressed to hear that this was where Pip and Herbert Pocket had chambers in Great Expectations.

We backtrack to Furnival Street and turn into Took’s Court, which was re-named Cook’s Court in Bleak House. Number 15—renamed “Dickens House,” was where Mr. Snagsby lived and worked in Bleak House.

We walk along Cursitor Street, turn onto Chancery Lane and cross to the gatehouse of Lincoln’s Inn, which was where Dickens worked for a firm of solicitors (lawyers) when a teenager.

Lincoln’s Inn is one of London’s four Inns of Court. The redbrick building (the Old Hall) dates back to 1489, and was where the Lord Chancellor’s Court met outside of legal terms. It was also here that Bleak House opens:

Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping, and the waterside pollution of a great (and dirty) city. Fog on the Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish heights. Fog creeping into the cabooses of collier-brigs; fog lying out in the yards, and hovering in the rigging of great ships…

This passage was also the inspiration for John Carpenter’s movie The Fog, which few people realize was a rather loose adaptation of Bleak House. Carpenter took some liberties with the plot; the case of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce became Adrienne Barbeau chased by dead sailors wielding meat hooks. They don’t mention this at all at the Dickens House Museum.

But I digress...
Bleak House continues:

And…in Lincoln’s Inn Hall, at the very heart of the fog, sits the Lord High Chancellor in His High Court of Chancery.

Never can there come fog too thick, never can there come mud and mire too deep, too assort with the groping and floundering condition which this High Court of Chancery, most pestilent of hoary sinners, holds, this day, in the sight of heaven and earth.

There is also a chapel, open from noon to 2:30 pm (we were there before noon). The tour tells us that the chapel’s foundation stone was laid in 1620 by the metaphysical poet John Donne (1571/2–1631), who served as the inn’s preacher between 1616 and 1622. Whenever a member of the inn’s governing body dies, the chapel bell is rung to mark their passing. This death knell thus inspired John Donne to write “Never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.”

Fortunately, it tolled not for us, so we were able to continue the tour., although the directions were a little unclear at this point. Ultimately, we did find New Square, built in 1685 (jeez, how old is Old Square, then?). This Square has changed very little since Dickens day. We pass the gardens and the gardeners shed (known in the inn as “the head gardeners castle”). The green tractor was featured in Bleak House, where Miss “Two Sheds” Flite observes, “A good tractor ‘tis. Vroom vroom!”

We pass through the gates of Lincoln’s Inn and head into Lincoln’s Inn Fields, which is London’s largest square, although Steven was hoping for a triangle and I a trapezoid. It was in this square in Barnaby Rudge (1840–41) that the Gordon Rioters gathered.
The walking tour winds around the square. Did you know that it is London’s largest square? I saw a curious sign; ah, I never will master the difference between British and American English. What we call birds differ from what the Brits call birds. Here, we call them rats. Talk about two nations divided by a common tongue...

But I digress...

The tour includes a stop at the Sir John Soane’s Museum, which both Steven and I have already been to, so we bypassed it and kept on trucking.

Number 65 Lincoln’s Inn Fields bears a blue plaque commemorating the building as the former home of William Marsden (1796–1867) one of the great figures of 19th-century healthcare and founder of the Royal Free and the Royal Marsden hospitals. As the story goes, in 1827, Marsden found a young woman dying on the steps of St. Andrews Church and could not get her admitted to any London hospital without a letter of recommendation. (Damn HMOs.) Ergo, he founded the Free Hospital in Greville Lane in 1828. Queen Victoria became its patron in 1837, and asked that it be known as “The Royal Free Hospital,” and it still remains operating under that name in Hampstead.

Numbers 59 and 60 date back to 1641 and are collectively known as Lindsey House, after its first owner, Robert Bertie, the first Earl of Lindsey, Charles I’s commander-in-chief who was killed at Edgehill in 1642, the first major battle of the English Civil War. A plaque also commemorates Spencer Perceval (1762–1812) the only English Prime Minister to have been assassinated: he was shot in the lobby of the House of Commons by a failed businessman from Liverpool who blamed Perceval for his financial problems. Hmm...now there’s a thought...

The building comprising numbers 57 and 58 dates from the 18th century and the grand porch was designed by nutty Sir John Soane. Dickens’ friend, business adviser, and primary biographer, John Forster (1812 –1865) lived at number 58. Mr. Podsnap in Our Mutual Friend (1864–65) was based on Forster. And the house was also the residence for Mr. Tulkinghorn in Bleak House.

We continue down Portsmouth Street past the curiously named Olde Curiosity Shop. The building dates from 1567 and bears the legend “Immortalized by Charles Dickens.” Well...not really, as Dickens writes at the end of The Old Curiosity Shop (1841) that the shop owned by Little Nell’s rock-stupid grandfather was “long ago pulled down.” Indeed, the walking tour tells us that,

In a letter to The Echo in 1883, a Mr. Charles Tesseyman confessed that his brother, who had dealt in old china, books and paintings from the premises between 1868 and 1877, had added the “Immortalized by” appellation to his shop front for “business purposes.” Following his brother’s death in 1877, the new tenant painted over his name but left the claim displayed on the wall. Around 1881, an American journalist writing about Dickensian landmarks arrived at the shop and “straightaway wrote an article in Scribner’s Monthly … [assuring] …his readers that this was the old original Old Curiosity shop of Dickens.”

Down the street is the George IV pub. Although rebuilt since Dickens’ time, this is thought to have been the original of the Magpie and Stump, where in The Pickwick Papers, some “choice spirit” assembled and Jack Bamber tells Mr. Pickwick some bizarre and gruesome stories of “queer” law clients.

It was before 11:00 am, so there was no stopping at the pub... we do have standards, low though they be.

We backtrack to Lincoln’s Inn Fields and past the Royal College of Surgeons, built by George Dance and James Lewis between 1806 and 1813. In 1835 it was completely rebuilt by Sir Charles Barry.

In Bleak House, Mr. Boythorn says that lawyers should have their “necks wrung and their skulls arranged in Surgeon’s Hall, for the contemplation of the whole profession, in order that its younger members might understand from actual measurement in early life, how thick skulls may become!”

We actually did want to, but alas the museum was closed on Mondays. Doh!

The walking tour then says “Continue ahead back towards the gate of Lincoln’s Inn.” “Ahead back”? What? We walk back (ahead?) through Lincoln’s Inn Field, which, did you know, is London’s largest square?


We walk past the Royal Courts of Justice, which comprise the Civil courts and also the appeal courts, both Civil and Criminal of England. As we walked past, a barrister complete with black robe and wig, ran down the street and into the building, looking remarkably like John Cleese. I wonder if his client would be found “not guilcup.”

Across the street is the Seven Stars Pub, which dates back to 1602, and is named for the seven provinces of the Netherlands. By this time, it was after 11:00, so we stopped in for a pint, saying hello to the friendly pub cat.

By this time, a beautiful sunny morning had given way to “pratt weather” and it started to rain, so we moistly made our way into Bell Yard, which is the title of Chapter 15 in Bleak House.

It has changed dramatically since then (we were told; I don’t recall it myself), but it was here that the four orphaned Neckett children lived in an upper room in Bleak House. By the way, it was also in Bell Yard that Mrs Lovett had her pie shop whose ingredients were provided by Sweeney Todd...

We pass out onto Fleet Street (where I sure as heck was not going to look for a barbershop) and encounter the Temple Bar, a large monument in the middle of the road atop which sits a bronze griffin. This monument marks the boundary between the cities of London and Westminster and is where Fleet Street ends and the Strand begins.

However, this is not the original Temple Bar, which was removed 1878. In Bleak House, Dickens describes it as a “leaden-headed old obstruction, appropriate ornament for the threshold of a leaden-headed old corporation.” Heh. Anyway, in 1888 the monument was exiled to Theobald’s Park in Hertfordshire. In 2004, it was brought back, restored, and now sits next to St Paul’s Cathedral.

We cross the street, avoiding the Demon Traffic of Fleet Street, and take shelter from the rain in the Childs Bank. The building dates from 1878, and its predecessor was featured in A Tale of Two Cities as Tellson’s Bank and is described:

an old-fashioned place even in the year 1780. It was very small, very dark, very ugly, very incommodious. Any one of the partners would have disinherited his son on the question of rebuilding Tellson’s. Thus it had come to pass that Tellson’s was the triumphant perfection of inconvenience.

Well, not entirely inconvenient; Steven took this opportunity to avail himself of the ATM in the lobby. No word on whether the predecessor of this ATM featured in A Tale of Two Cities—or perhaps A Tale of Two Citis, if Citibank were involved.

As soon as one enters the bank, there is glass case on the wall opposite the door in which 10 old guns are exhibited. The bank bought the guns in June 1780 to defend the premises during the anti-Catholic Gordon Riots described by Dickens in Barnaby Rudge.

We backtrack along Fleet Street and head through a gateway into Middle Temple Lane. Charles Lamb once said that “a man would give something to be born in such places.” It is my intention to someday be born here. Anyway this is one of London’s four Inns of Court, where barristers have their chambers. This is yet another “tranquil oasis that has been left untouched by time and progress—which is exactly why I like it so.

Middle Temple Dining Hall was built in the 1570s and is occasionally open to the public (though not when we were there—which worked out because I had neglected to bring my old SU ValiDine card). There is a fountain, which features in Martin Chuzzlewit (1843–44); Ruth Pinch and John Westlock conducted an early part of their romance around this fountain.

“Brilliantly the Temple fountain sparkled in the sun, and laughingly its liquid music played, and merrily the idle drops of water danced and danced, and peeping out in sport among the trees, plunged lightly down to hide themselves.” Well, it was raining, but other than that it’s a fairly accurate description.

Steven was interested to see Garden Court, which was where Pip was living in Great Expectations.
We head into Pump Court, (the fire pumps were once located here). There is a cool sundial high on the left wall, although damned if I can figure out what the heck time it is with it. It bears the legend “Shadows we are and like shadows depart.” There is no truth that the original legend was Groucho Marx’s quote, “Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.”
Through another archway we come to the Temple Church, named for the Knights Templar, the monastic military order founded in 1118 to protect pilgrims on the road to Jerusalem. This was their London citadel. This isn’t an Umberto Eco walking tour, so I shan’t dwell on the Knights Templar. Steven tells me that this church also figured in The Da Vinci Code, but I have shut any recollection of that book out of my mind.

We were eager to see the inside, but the Church didn’t open until noon. So we stayed out of the rain for a bit. Noon came and went, and still the door was locked...until we discovered that the proper entrance was round the other side.

As soon as one enters, one is confronted by the effigies of knights on the floor, which is a tad creepy. Still, it’s a very cool church.
Happily, the rain had stopped, so we left the church and passed Goldsmith’s Buildings and the grave of Oliver Goldsmith (1730–74), who was one of Dickens’ favorite authors. We pass Prince Henry’s Room, dating from 1610 and named after the eldest son of King James I. It was once but is no longer (drat!) a tavern called the Prince’s Arms. In Dickens’s childhood, the building was occupied by Mrs. Salmon’s Waxworks, to which “perspiring Wax Works” David Copperfield was sent.

Back on Fleet Street, we come across St. Dunstan’s Church. We wanted to go into the church, but there was some kind of service taking place, so we decided not to crash the party.

Notably, St. Dunstan’s clock dates from 1671 and is said to have been the first clock in London with a double-sided face, and the first to have the minutes marked on the dial. Every 15 minutes, two stone giants strike the bells alongside the clock. In David Copperfield, David and his eccentric aunt, Betsy Trotwood, make a journey to see the giants strike the bells. The church also plays a major role in Dickens’ Christmas novella The Chimes.
Around back of the church in a little alcove are three of London’s oldest statues, which once stood over Ludgate (or Lud Gate): King Lud and his two sons. Lud was the legendary founder of London.
The next stop on the walking tour sounds inviting: “dive into the grim, dark passageway named Hen and Chickens Court.” We did, and found ourselves in “a chilling, claustrophobic courtyard, where beneath your feet, hefty iron grilles cover precarious drops into mean looking cellars where all manner of horrors might be lurking.” Why are we here? Well, this is the back of 185 Fleet Street where Sweeney Todd—“the Demon Barber of Fleet Street”—had his shop. Sweeney Todd was fictional, of course, but his tales first appeared 1847. The stories centered around his habit of killing his clients and carrying the them via an underground tunnel to Bell Yard, where Mrs. Lovett baked them into meat pies. (When I was a kid, we saw the musical in Boston starring George Hearn and Angela Lansbury—it remains one of the only musicals I can stand. I have not seen the recent movie.)

Oddly, we started getting hungry at this point—a meat pie would go over very well at this point. We headed back out to Fleet Street and pause outside the 17th-century gatehouse of Clifford’s Inn, which features in a passage from Our Mutual Friend. (John Rokesmith, having followed Mr. Boffin along Fleet Street, asks if he would “object to turn aside into this place—I think it is called Clifford’s Inn—where we can hear one another better than in the roaring street?” Mr. Boffin “glanced into the mouldy little plantation, or cat-preserve, of Clifford’s Inn, as it was that day, in search of a suggestion. Sparrows were there, cats were there, dry rot and wet-rot were there, but it was not otherwise a suggestive spot.” How inviting!)

We backtrack to Fleet Street and head into Johnson’s Court (as in Samuel Johnson of the dictionary), whose house is nearby. (We visited there when I was in London in August) This also means that the next stop on the walking tour is my favorite pub in all of London, Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese which, as it turns out, was also a favorite of Dickens’.

The walking tour tells us:

Rebuilt in 1667, this rambling tavern of creaking floors, cosy rooms and snug corners, possesses a timeless ambience that keeps the contemporary world firmly at bay. Portraits of those who have worked and supped here over the centuries gaze fondly down from its dark wooden walls. Dr Johnson, Oliver Goldsmith, Mark Twain, Alfred Tennyson and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle—to name but a few—have all ducked beneath its low beamed ceilings to absorb its 17th-century atmosphere. Dickens, too, was a regular, and the table to the right of the ground floor restaurant’s fireplace is said to have been his favoured place.

We had lunch there, and I got to sit in Dickens’ spot.
We are also told that:

This is believed to have been the pub that Dickens had in mind when, following Charles Darnay’s acquittal on charges of high treason in A Tale of Two Cities, Sydney Carton invites him to dine: “Drawing his arm through his own” Sydney leads him to Fleet Street “up a covered way, into a tavern… where Charles Darnay was soon recruiting his strength with a good plain dinner and good wine.”

I may even have eaten the original Scottish roast beef that Dickens ate.

Fed, beveraged, and de-crypted, we set out for the remainder of the walking tour. We, sadly, leave Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese and head toward Gough Square, behind the statue of Dr. Johnson’s cat. We head onto Printer Street, Little New Street, and onto Shoe Lane toward the Holborn Viaduct. Naturally, we cannot but keep repeating, “Why a duck?” Here is where Fagin’s den of iniquity was located in Oliver Twist. It’s gone now (pity), removed when the Holborn Viaduct—the world’s first flyover—was built in the late 1860’s. Why a duck?

We head back to St. Andrews Street and St. Andrew’s Church. As we exit the church and cross over St Andrew Street, we “paus[e] by the trees to glance back at the church clock, just as Bill Sikes did in Oliver Twist, whilst telling Oliver it was ‘hard upon seven! You must step out.’” Are we complete dorks, or what?
We cross the road and turn onto Holborn to head to Steven’s favorite building in London: the Prudential Building. It was here that Charles Dickens took out a home insurance policy—no, no, no, that’s not true. Actually, the Prudential Building was erected on the site of Furnival’s Inn, where Dickens lived from 1834 to 1837. It was during his tenure here that he began The Pickwick Papers. A bust of Dickens marks the location.
Even without the Dickens connection, the Prudential Building is pretty impressive, one of the last great Gothic revival building (it was built in 1879). Prudential relocated in 2002, for reasons passing understanding. Perhaps the insurance premiums for the building were too steep.
Anyway, we went back to Holborn and continue, as the tour tells us, “until just before you arrive at the Cittie of Yorke Pub (it has a clock outside).” It did not have a clock outside, and to console ourselves over this lack, we thought it best to go in and have a pint.

Refreshed, we turned into Gray’s Inn to South Square. Note that this is not the largest square in London, which is still Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Gray’s Inn Hall (built in 1556) is on the opposite side of South Square. In Pickwick Papers, Dickens writes, “Clerk after clerk hastened into the square by one or other of the entrances, and looking up at the hall clock accelerated or decreased his rate of walking according to the time at which his office hours nominally commenced.” In The Uncommercial Traveller, he writes, “I look upon Gray’s Inn…as one of the most depressing institutions in brick and mortar, known to the children of men.” Jeepers, what a grouch. But then, this is where he was stuck working for lawyers in his youth; Number 1 South Square was the office of Ellis and Blackmore Solicitors. I think we all have similar reactions to the locations of horrible jobs we have had.

And then, finally, we head to Doughty Street where the walking tour ends at the Dickens House Museum. He moved there in March 1837, and by the time he moved out in December 1839, he was world famous.

We tarried in the gift shop, where I picked up a copy of Peter Ackroyd’s Dickens biography—though, for some reason, only the abridged version is still available. (Discussing the writing of A Tale of One City; The Pickwick Paper; Bleak Apartment; Great Expectation; etc.) The woman in the gift shop was nonplused by my suggestion that they sell souvenir Charles Dickens beards.

The walking tour over, Steven and I repaired to a nearby pub, where we got to talking with the Australian barmaid. She had only been in London a short while but found it a bit too “mellow” a city for her liking—but this is exactly why I like it (she was also in her early 20s while I am 40, which could have something to do with it).

It was getting on toward 2:00 pm, and Steven had to go pick up the kiddies, so I continued on, visiting some bookstores (including an excellent science-fiction bookstore on Shaftesbury called Forbidden Planet—but then I think all science-fiction bookstores have that name). I also found a great record store near Charing Cross Road called Fopps where I found some classic British progressive rock for £5 apiece (even at $10, that’s still pretty good). Yeah, I know I can find anything I want online, but I truly enjoy browsing in book and record stores and finding random things that I had been looking for. Alas, even in London, book and record stores are disappearing; things are just getting less and less fun. I stopped at a pub or two to review my loot, then made one last foray to the Apple Store on Regent Street to check e-mail (nothing urgent—quel surprise). Then back to Hackney.

I flew back on Tuesday; another uneventful yet pleasant flight (some turbulence over Nova Scotia was little upsetting, but other than that, nothing horrible). The baggage took a while to make it up to Baggage Claim, and I made it to NJ Transit and then to Amtrak with about three minutes to spare.

Back in Saratoga, the weather for the last three days has been more London-like than it was in London.

Throne for a Loss

On Sunday, we packed Godwin, Bella, and me into the back of Steven’s VW to head to Hampton Court Palace in Surrey. It was at one time where the British Royals hung out from the time of Henry VIII to George II. The drive—only 19.4 miles as the crow flies (says Google Maps)—took several hours.

A word about London traffic: “Ahhhhh!!!!!” Now, I absolutely love London. Of all the cities (predominantly American) I have visited, London is by far my favorite. If I were ever to live in London (and don’t think I haven’t ruled out the possibility), and if I were to have to drive, I would probably jump off the top of the London Eye. London traffic is absolutely brutal. It makes Los Angeles look like...um...a place where there isn’t a lot of traffic (metaphors fail me). Part of the problem is that, unlike U.S. cities, London—or England in general—has no equivalent to the interstate system, or those high-speed bypasses you get in U.S. cities that let you zip around them. So in London, you are always on surface streets, stopping for lights, trying to maneuver around buses and lorries loading and unloading things into shops, and so on. So getting anywhere takes forever.

The story of London’s Congestion Tax is worth mentioning, especially as Mayor Bloomberg attempted to replicate it in New York City. In order to drive into Central London, you need to pay a fee—£6 for a passenger car (SUVs are about £20, although I saw very few SUVs in London). The theory was that this would spur more people to use public transport. A nice idea, except that the money was supposed to have been used to expand public transport, which didn’t happen, so the buses and trains got more and more crowded and less and less reliable—and more and more frustrating. (It also tended to punish those who commuted in from areas outside London that are unreachable by public transport.) In a word: the congestion tax didn’t really help all that much. Or, if it did, I would hate to have tried to drive there before the tax!

By the way, today is the London mayoral election and Ken Livingstone, the incumbent, is the one who had initiated the Congestion Tax and, in many ways, the mayoral race is kind of a referendum on it. (As I look at today’s BBC Web site, Labour—Livingstone’s party—is having a bad time so it doesn’t look good for Livingstone.)

Anyway, back to our journey. We passed over the Blackfriars Bridge south of the river, drove past Waterloo, Elephant & Castle, Clapham Junction (“I never thought it would happen with me and the girl from Clapham...And so it’s my assumption I’m really up the Junction” —Squeeze), Brixton (“You can crush us/You can bruise us/But you’ll have to answer to/Oh, the guns of Brixton” –The Clash), Wimbledon, and, after several hours, we finally arrived in Kingston, a posh suburb, and decamped to Pizza Express for lunch, then headed over to the Palace.
By the way, they did not allow photography inside the palace, so my apologies for the sparsity of pictures.

The earliest buildings that comprise Hampton Court originally belonged to the Knights Hospitallers of St John of Jerusalem, a religious order founded in the 11th century. They acquired the manor of Hampton in 1236 and used it as a storage and administrative center for their various agricultural estates. As it happened, the Hampton estate was located between two royal palaces, and it wasn’t long before royals began dropping in, and Hampton Court soon became a rather posh guest house.

By the early 1400s, though, the royal palace at Byfleet was abandoned, and Hampton Court saw a drop in royal visitation. The Knights Hospitallers started renting out Hampton Court around this time. One of the first tenants was Giles Daubeney, a courtier who rented Hampton Court in 1494. Daubeney would become Lord Chamberlain to King Henry VII, the first Tudor king. Henry VII and the queen visted Daubeney at Hampton Court and soon there was no getting rid of them.

After Daubeney’s tenancy was up, in 1514, the Knights Hostpitallers granted a 99-year lease to Thomas Wolsey, then the Archbishop of York and soon to become a Cardinal and Lord Chancellor of England. He was also a close friend of the new king, Henry VIII, although historians are unsure if it was Cardinal Wolsey who procured giant turkey legs for Henry VIII. (It should be pointed out that Henry VIII was actually quite fastidious in his dining habits and was likely not in the habit of clutching giant turkey legs, as he is usually depicted.) Anyway, Wolsey built a large palace complex at Hampton Court, adding private chambers for himself, as well as for Henry VIII, Queen Katherine of Aragon, and their daughter Princess Mary. Wolsey knew which side his bread was buttered on... He also added a large chapel (well, he was a Cardinal).

Poor Wolsey. Although he was criticized for his lavish lifestyle (the Catholic Church being known for its spartan and humble trappings, of course), he had the bad luck to be a high-ranking Catholic during the wrong reign. We all know the story: by the late 1520s, Henry VIII was eager to divorce his wife, as she seemed unable to provide Henry with a male heir, though not for want of trying (and we’ll let the imagination run wild on that one—better get the airsickness bag...). The Pope didn’t grant the divorce and in 1528 the King broke with the Church and took Hampton Court and York Place from Wolsey.

Henry poured the then-equivalent of millions of pounds into making Hampton Court his palace. The official Web site tells us:

There were tennis courts, bowling alleys and pleasure gardens for recreation, a hunting park of more than 1,100 acres, kitchens covering 36,000 square feet, a fine chapel, a vast communal dining room (the Great Hall) and a multiple garderobe (or lavatory) - known as the Great House of Easement - which could sit 28 people at a time. Water flowed to the palace from Coombe Hill in Kingston, three miles away, through lead pipes.

All of Henry’s six wives came to the palace—though ostensibly not all at the same time, which would have been awkward, especially since some of them had had their heads removed.

In 1547, Henry died. His three surviving children—the 9-year old Prince Edward, and his older sisters Mary and Elizabeth—would each rule England, and would each occupy Hampton Court. Fortunately, Henry had done so much work to the place that the remaining Tudor monarchs had little need to expand on it.

James I was the first Stuart monarch, ascending to the throne in 1603, and was a bit more happy-go-lucky than Elizabeth, which isn’t all that hard I wouldn’t think.

The palace served as a venue for plays, dances, banquets and court masques and amongst the assembled guests was one William Shakespeare. He was booked as one of the newly liveried ‘King’s Men’ to produce his plays in front of a royal audience. The early Stuart court was notorious for increasingly lavish theatrical entertainments: for intoxicating, and occasionally intoxicated, revels.

James’ son Charles (Charles I, who ascended the throne in 1625 and ruled until his reign ended, um, abruptly) revolutionized the royal collection of paintings and sculpture with major acquisitions from Europe. Alas, in 1647, he was deposed by Parliament and brought to Hampton Court as a prisoner. I guess a gilded cage is still a cage. He eventually escaped (why would anyone want to escape from Hampton Court Palace?) but had his head removed in 1649.

Bloody Puritans. They seized the palace in 1645 also removed all the finery from the Chapel Royal. Oliver Cromwell as Lord Protector reserved the palace and some of its principal treasures for his own use and enjoyment.. Of course he did.

In 1660, the monarchy was restored during what was cleverly called the Restoration, and Charles II ascended the throne in 1660. He preferred Windsor Castle, but sometimes deigned to go slumming at Hampton Court. He built a set of lodgings at the south-east corner of the palace for one of his mistresses, Barbara Villiers, and her illegitimate children by him. (No word on whether the builders shopped at Restoration Hardware.)

William III (who became king in 1689) and Queen Mary II (together they were William and Mary, who have won several NCAA championships) commissioned Sir Christopher Wren to rebuild Hampton Court. Jeepers, Christopher Wren must have been the hardest working man in architecture in the seventeenth century. Is there anything he didn’t design?

Wren originally wanted to demolish the entire Tudor palace, except for the Great Hall. Alas, there wasn’t time or money, and Wren had the rest of London to build, so he had to be content with rebuilding the king and queen’s main apartments. William wanted rapid results, as he wanted to have his friends over to watch William and Mary play football on Thanksgiving, but, because of the speed of building and the crappy quality of the mortar used, a large section of the building collapsed, killing two workmen and injuring 11. “The subsequent inquiry deteriorated into bitter squabbles.” I can imagine.

In 1694, Mary died, and William was devastated. (Also, William and Mary had lost the Atlantic 10 championship, which didn’t help). Work on the palace thus stopped, leaving the new buildings as an empty brick shell with bare walls and floors. Finally, in 1697, William rededicated his thoughts and money to palace building, this time with less carnage. And thus Hampton Court was transformed into a Baroque palace.

O, cruel fate: William did not live to enjoy his new palace. After a bad fall from his horse in Hampton Court Park in 1702, he died.

His successor Queen Anne was primarily attracted by the hunting at Hampton Court Palace. Anne, though, preferred Windsor Castle, but she did have work done on Hampton Court for her consort, Prince George.

Anne did have time to introduce some startling new paintings, showing a semi-naked George disporting with sea creatures, into the Queen’s Drawing Room.

OK, then.

Alas, George died in 1708, and work stopped.

The Georgian kings (George I and II) were the last to use Hampton Court as a royal palace, 1737 being the last year that a royal family used the palace.

When George III decided not to avail himself of Hampton Court, everyone said he was mad. Little did they know...

For a while, Hampton Court served as “grace and favor” apartments for people who were in good with the monarchy (well, I guess it beat the Tower of London, which was typically the other alternative...). In 1838, Queen Victoria ordered that Hampton Court Palace “should be thrown open to all her subjects without restriction.” And she was not amused.

Today, “Conservation and restoration of Hampton Court Palace continues. The vast majority of the palace buildings are now either open to the public or used as office space and store-rooms, although a small group of grace-and-favour residencies remain.”
So there.

By this time, it was getting late, and we still had the 19-mile, two-hour drive back home, during which we all slept.

To be continued...

London on Five Pints a Day

On April 22, I ventured back across the Pond to visit Steven, Amy, Godwin, and Bella in London. The trip out was uneventful and, dare I say, fairly pleasant (cue Andrew Bird’s “Fiery Crash”). I do rather like British Airways; being able to check in online and print my own boarding pass saves a ton of time at the airport.

Stupidly, a month or so ago while waiting at the Albany airport for my mother’s delayed flight from Newark, I signed up for a Clear card which prescreens people so they can whiz through special lanes at airport security. Their raison d’être is to “add predictability” to your flight. Something in the back of my mind suspected it was a bad idea, but I tend not to listen to my own brain sometimes. I specifically asked if they had a Clear lane at Newark’s Terminal B (the international terminal) and they said “Yes,” and their literature even mentioned it. Imagine my surprise when I got to Newark airport’s Terminal B and found no Clear lane. So much for predictability. Oh, well. Another lesson learned: never believe anyone who is selling me something.

Anyway, we arrived at Heathrow (happily not Terminal 5, which brings to mind the Monty Python song “I’m So Worried,” which includes the lyrics, “I’m so worried about the baggage retrieval system they’ve got at Heathrow”) on time, although it took some time for the airport to send out a stairway (memories of Arrested Development). I heard on the car radio that it was St. George’s Day, which could explain all the English flags I saw fluttering from windows (not the Union Jack, but rather a red cross on a field of white), although dorky me initially wondered what the deal was with all the Swiss flags. Ahem.

I spent Wednesday hanging about the house and recovering from jet lag (as was Amy, who had just returned from China an hour before I got in). Played with the kids, and Godwin and I bonded in a special way when he threw up on me.

Thursday I had an appointment with the head of the St. Bride Printing Library for some preliminary research I am doing for a potential book on the history of English printing. They had a very fast WiFi network, which let me keep up on e-mail, as I was unable to access any other WiFi network in London (except at the Apple Store on Regent Street). And despite what the woman in the AT&T store in Wilton Mall said, I was not able to use my iPhone in London to make calls. Another lesson learned: never believe anyone who has already sold me something. Still I have to admit that it was extremely peaceful to be completely disconnected. We do become slaves to these damn devices, don’t we?

Anyway, Version 1.0, fresh off the boat from his world cruise, happened to be in town at the same time, so we wandered about London, Covent Garden Market, and got vaguely lost in Mayfair, although I did hear tales from the high seas.

On Friday, S, A, G, B, and I took the bus into the City and had dim sum at a very good restaurant in Chinatown, then wandered down toward Parliament Square. I was hoping to get to tour Westminster Abbey, which I had missed last time, but we arrived too late. We were all rather tired, so we grabbed a cab and headed back to Hackney. (Gotta love London cabs...they don’t reek, they’re clean, and the driver knows where he is going, unlike almost every cab I have ever taken in an American city.) And another mystery solved: there is a sign in the back of the cabs that reads “Red light indicates doors are secured,” which explains the title of an Arctic Monkeys song.

On Saturday, Amy had to work and Steven had to look after the kiddies, so I set out to explore by myself. I had an idea of checking out a presentation at the Royal Observatory’s planetarium on black holes, but I didn’t get there in time, which was just as well, because the weather was perfect, so I was not inclined to sit inside. I had lunch at the Trafalgar Tavern in Greenwich, overlooking the Thames, and had a respectable cheeseburger and a pint of bitter. Pubs.com tells us that The Trafalgar Tavern was built in 1837, the year Queen Victoria came to the throne. In the 19th-century, it was a hangout for senior members of Parliament. The pub was refurbished and re-opened in 1965.

I then decided to walk along the Thames Walk, which veers away from the river and then disappears into a park. It was at that point that I got lost in Lewisham, which seemed like the kind of place one really shouldn’t be lost in. (Then again, this wasn’t the States, so the chances of being randomly stabbed and shot were slim to none; drive-by sarcasm was likely to be the worst I could expect.) Fortunately, I had bought a pocket map of London in Greenwich so it was easy to figure out where I needed to go.

In my wanderings, I came across this road sign. I have no idea what it means, but I think we could all use it at some point:
I ended up at the Surrey Quays, which is a big shopping center just south of the river. Wandering quayside, I came across an inviting pub called the Moby Dick and had a pint of Fuller’s London Pride ale.

My energy cells recharged, I checked my map and found a nearby Tube station on the Jubilee Line. My goal was to take it to Waterloo Station (“Millions of people swarming like flies ’round Waterloo Underground” –The Kinks). However, the Jubilee Line was not running, so I had to take a bus instead. There was a stop at the Tower Bridge Road, so I got off and walked over the Tower Bridge.

The Tower Bridge—often confused with London Bridge (which is thoroughly unremarkable)—was opened in 1894. It is called the Tower Bridge as it is located adjacent to the Tower of London. It spans 800 feet across the Thames, and is a hydraulic drawbridge, and was open as I was crossing it.

Once across, I walked past the Tower of London, then turned west and stopped at a wonderful little pub called the Hung, Drawn, and Quartered and had another pint of Pride.
I continued on, seeing another odd street sign:
“Weak subway”? For a minute, I thought I was in Los Angeles. But I digress...

I continued toward the Monument, which was designed by Christopher Wren to commemorate the Great Fire of 1666. It is 60.6 meters high, said to be the exact distance from its base to where the fire started in Pudding Lane. The monument plays a role in Charles Dickens’ Martin Chuzzlewit and you are allowed to climb to the top. However, it is in the midst of a refurbishment when I got there, and was thus closed, although boasted creative use of large-format graphics.

It was then on toward Blackfriars (where David Copperfield worked for Murdstone and Grinby) but also one of my favorite London pubs, The Blackfriar, which has one of the greatest interiors of any building, let alone a pub.

Blackfriars refers to a region of central London, and the name was first used in 1317, deriving from the black outfit worn by Dominican Friars who moved their priory from Holborn in 1276. The priory was eventually closed in 1538 during Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the monasteries. Later, one of the buildings became the Blackfriars Theatre (which was almost directly opposite Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre across the river). The building was destroyed in the Great Fire of London. The area is now the location of Blackfriars Underground station and the bridge-head for Blackfriars Bridge. And, of course, the Blackfriar pub.
Pubs.com tells us:

This narrow wedge-shaped pub is jammed against the railway line at Blackfriars. It was built in 1875 near the site of a thirteenth century Dominican Priory, which gives the area its name and was the inspiration for the pubs design.

The exterior of the building has jutting wrought iron signs for each bar and the pub's name is proudly displayed in mosaic tiles. A more recent addition is a statue of a large laughing friar above the main door.

Though unusual and pleasing, the exterior does not prepare you for the extraordinary interior. The immediate impression is that of an extravagantly ornate church, or scaled down cathedral, every inch decorated in marble, mosaic or bas-relief sculpture.

The walls, clad in green, red and cream marble, are covered with illustrations of merry monks. Above the fireplace, a large bas-relief bronze depicts frolicking friars singing carols and playing instruments. Another called 'Saturday Afternoon' shows them gathering grapes and harvesting apples.

Three low arches lead into a smaller bar which is like a chapel, this was added after the First World War. Below a beautiful arched mosaic ceiling, are mottos of wisdom, such as, 'finery is foolery' and 'don't advertise, tell a gossip'. The detail here is amazing, even the light fittings are carved wooden monks carrying yokes on their shoulders, from which the lights hang.

The Black Friar’s interior is literally a work of art. It was begun in 1904, with sculptors Nathaniel Hitch, Frederick T. Callcott and Henry Poole contributing to its splendour. This pub is a lasting testament to their skill and craftsmanship. In the 1960's Sir John Betjeman, who later became the Poet Laureate, led a campaign to save the Black Friar from demolition. Thanks to him and his supporters we can still enjoy this delightful pub.

I had a pint of Fox’s Knob, a lovely Highgate brew, and continued down the Victoria Embankment. Across the river, I spied the London Aquarium—bearing the sign “Robot World.”
Oh, no! They’re coming for the fish now!

My next mission was to find—at Vince N.’s instigation—the London home of Number 6 from The Prisoner: Number 1 Buckingham Place (and that’s a hint for all you would-be Prisoner fans).

On the way through St. James Park, I came across someone who was feeding the wildlife and had made quite a lot of little woodland friends. This is a Gary Larson cartoon in the making...

Thanks to my handy pocket map, I found Buckingham Place, which is a very short street near Buckingham Palace. I tried to recall the opening titles of The Prisoner and frame my pictures as best I could. They painted the door...
One block over, directly behind Number 1 Buckingham Place is a small comfortable pub called The Cask and the Glass. Well, I was there...

It was getting on to dinner time and I thought I would a) get to the Apple Store in Regent Street to check e-mail and see if there was anything urgent going on that I should know about and b) try to call Steven and Amy and let them know that I was not going to be home for dinner. No wonder everyone is on mobile phones; I could not find a phone box that a) wasn’t disgusting and b) worked. Either they accepted my coins and then did nothing (meaning I was out 40p), or it accepted my coins and did nothing but complain about not being able to dial the number I had entered, even before I had entered anything, or it just spit my coins right back out at me. Well!

By this time, I needed to visit a crypt (a euphemism for the gents’), so I found another pub called the Glassblower and availed myself of their facilities. And, well, while I was there...

I ended up on Carnaby Street, home of The Kinks’ “Dedicated Follower of Fashion,” and had dinner in a pub called Shakespeare’s Head. I was near Regent Street so I popped into the Apple Store and checked e-mail (as I suspected, nothing urgent). By then it was getting late and starting to rain, so I headed toward the Tube and back to Hackney...

To be continued....

Ay Pee

Greetings from the Washington DC Convention Center, where I am covering the NEXPO conference for WhatTheyThink. While four days of the newspaper industry may be more than flesh can bear, I did have the opportunity to attend the various Associated Press events at which the three Presidential candidates appeared.

Monday morning, I attended the AP annual meeting where Senator John McCain spoke (a basic stump speech) and then fielded some softball questions from AP reporters. While I am certainly not a McCain fan, and at times it seems as if the "Straight Talk Express" was run by Amtrak, he did make some points that I agreed with. For example, he was asked if a McCain Administration would be "more green" than the current administration. (Well, unless he has plans to personally burn down the Amazon rain forest, take up panda hunting, or club manatees, that would not be hard...) and while he is short on specifics (like any other issue, it seems), he did say that a focus on environmental protection, "Even if we're wrong and there is no climate change, the worst that will happen is we leave a cleaner planet to our kids." he also said what I have been saying for years which is why not use environmental issues to encourage
entrepreneurs and investors and drive economic growth through green products and services.

Still, McCain did seem a bit disingenuous when he started his speech by expressing mild annoyance at how the press picks up a line taken out of context and makes a false controversy out of it, then at the end of his speech he chided Obama for the gaffe du jour about the "bitter" remark. Um...what's the difference?

McCain--unlike Obama (see below)--was also conversant about the journalist "shield law" legislation which is currently wending its way through Congress, and this, as you would expect, is a big issue at journalism conventions. When he said he would sign it, he got a big round of applause, although he did say that he was only marginally supporting it as he was opposed to journalists giving away national security secrets to the enemy (what--like al Quaeda had no idea that we were tapping their phones? I think it would be more newsworthy if it turned out that we weren't!)

Anyway, while I can't say that I would ever vote for McCain, he seemed like an affable enough guy.

Shortly thereafter, I got to attend the AP luncheon at which Barack Obama spoke and, I have to say, I was somewhat less than impressed with Obama. His stump speech was less tailored for the event than McCain's, and at times seemed a bit more shrill and "on the attack" than the event really warranted. When asked about the shield law, he answered in very general terms, as if he had no idea that there was pending legislation. His answers to questions, even very simple ones, went on forever. I was reminded often of the Monty Python "travel agent" sketch where Eric Idle starts talking and doesn't stop until he is dragged away ("...and fat German business men forming pyramids, and frightening the children, and if you're not at your table spot at seven you miss your bowl of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup, the first item, on the menu of international cuisine....and bloody Watney's Red Barrel....")

It was like: Q: "Senator Obama, wiould you like a glass of water" A: "I have traveled all iover this country and visited many small towns and in some of these small towns hardworking Americans drink water, but in others, they don't drink water, but they still have the utmost respect for water. I think a glass of water is one of the most fundamental things that binds us together as Americans..." Please stop talking!

Anyway, I guess that's a handy way of limiting the number of questions there is time for.

Still, I do like Obama, and I like his basic approach (but from what I have read of what he specifically plans to do...well, not so much).

What struck me about both these events (and Hillary is speaking in about 2 hours--gotta go queue up for that shortly) is that in a room full of reporters, they asked the lamest-ass questions. ("Senator Obama, how do you feel about the excitement that your campaign has generated?" WTF?) Although 0ne classic gaffe was when the chairman of the Associated Press, who was asking the questions, made a Freudian slip reference to "Obama bin Laden." OK, not a huge issue, but come on... In a conference that has done nothing but extol the virtues of journalists, they certainly didn't put on a very good show.

Off to see Hillary....

Clueless

Wow--a new award winner for cellphone-induced moronity. A couple hors ago, I was in Washington, DC, standing at a corner outside the convention center, waiting to cross the street. The light turned to "walk," but there was a police car barelling up the street with its lights and siren going, so everyone waiting to cross stopped and waited...except for one woman on a cellphone who started across the street, blithely engrossed in her conversation, and not glancing to look at the oncoming police car at all, to the extent that the police car had to stop and wait for the clueless yakker to cross the street. Wow. If I had been he cop, I would have stopped and cited her for "walking while being a clueless f&%$^%$ng moron." With my luck, at some point in the future, I will end up in an ambulance for whatever reason, and will croak because some cellphone idiot was too oblivious to the universe to allow the ambulance to go by. Yep, civilization is doomed. Pity.

The Write Stuff

greetings from the New York Roundtable Writers conference. Blogging is light because the hotel I am staying at charges extortionate rates for crappy access, so I am posting this from my iPhone. Watch this space--and http://mediatrends.typepad.com for notes and commentary.

Album of the Day--April 10, 2008

Mark Knopfler
Sailing to Philadelphia
2000
Warner Bros.
Produced by Chuck Ainlay and Mark Knopfler

I am heading down to NYC this morning and whenever I drive to the Albany-Rensselaer train station, I always play Sailing to Philadelphia. (What--I can't blog and drive at the same time? If all the other dorkwads on the road can text or yak and drive, I can blog and drive.) Anyway, Mark Knopfler was the guitarist, songwriter, and singer for Dire Straits, and he is one of my absolute favorite guitar players ever. This is the best of the five post-Dire Straits Knopfler albums and it is the most "Dire" in sound. I first heard it in 2002 in David G.'s car when I last visited California, and loved it, so immediately went out and picked it up, ripped it to my iPod, and it was played constantly while driving around the Southwest in the fall of 2002. Perhaps for that reason it is always the record I play when heading to the train station. It also lets me know if I am running late; if I hit the Northway and haven't yet heard the title track (a duet featuring James Taylor as Charles Mason to Knopfler's Jeremiah Dixon and about, of all things, the creation of the Mason-Dixon line), or reach Route 7 and haven't yet heard "Do America" (a parody of rock tours), or hit 787 and haven't yet heard "El Macho," then I know I'm running late. Appropriately, I always pull into the train station parking lot as "Wanderlust" comes on. Go figure.

Uh oh--I just realized--I'm not leaving from Albany; I'm leaving from the Saratoga Springs train station. Screech!!

Robot Holocaust: Geriatric Park

Japan seems upsettingly eager to cede the world to robot overlords--this time, they will use them to "take care of" the elderly. Uh huh. Says Engadget:

...the Machine Industry Memorial Foundation may not be too far off with its latest assessment. It's suggesting that the jobs of 3.5 million people in Japan could be filled not with younger folks, but with mechanical creatures by 2025. Currently, Japan's population is declining, and the proportion of those 65-years and up is continually swelling; analysts are asserting that the nation could save around ¥2.1 trillion ($21 billion) in elderly insurance payments by 2025 if it relies on robots (instead of humans) to monitor the health of the geriatric set.

And on a related subject (via the Engadget link), this is just freakish and disturbing:

Japan crowns top robots in lavish Tokyo ceremony

The Robot Awards were set up earlier this year by the Japanese government to "promote research and development in the robotics industry," and just ten creations took home prizes out of the 152 entries. The cream of the crop started with the currently-available My Spoon feeding contraption, which helps the elderly and disabled to eat with a "joystick-controlled swiveling arm." Not far behind was the Paro seal, who rocks a furry, huggable outfit with sensors beneath its whiskers that allows it to "open and close its eyes and move its flippers" when petted and held by folks in hospitals. In another instance of "robots replacing human jobs," a "mammoth, automated vacuum cleaner that uses elevators to travel between floors" was highly praised for its sucky actions.

Goodbye, Kitty

There seems to be a strange fascination with incorporating Hello Kitty characters into morbid settings. My favorite were Hello Kitty Tarot cards; now, we have a Hello Kitty tombstone. Wha?

Links Galore!

So many blogs, so little time!

Over at the Romano's Media Trends blog, Amazon attempts to screw small publishers.

Over at Expert Business Source, April Fool's Day dos and don'ts. (I enjoyed contributing to WhatTheyThink's annual April Fool's Day issue.)

A beta of the official Romano's Media Trends site is up...one of the perils of DIY cross-media development is that I am not as well-versed in, say, Dreamweaver as in any print design program. I miss print... Comments? Suggestions? Flames?

Album of the Day--April 9, 2008

Fountains of Wayne
Utopia Parkway
1999
Atlantic Records
Produced by Adam Schlesinger and Chris Collingwood

It's spring, the sun is out, the temperature is in the high 60s, and that means roll down the car windows and turn Fountains of Wayne up on the iPod. Over the course of 12 years and four albums (OK, so they're not very prolific) the duo of Adam Schlesinger and Chris Collingwood ahve proven that they are the Difford and Tilbrook of their generation--indeed, Fountains of Wayne reminds me a bit of classic Squeeze (but with more humor and less drinking). This is tuneful power pop; these guys have a hard time writing a bad song. They get slagged by critics who think their songs should be more earnest, but I think they're fun and funny--and often quite witty. Utopia Parkway is their second album and I think it remains their best (they are best known for the rent-a-Cars-sounding "Stacey's Mom" from 2003). Their characters are often hapless blokes, like the poor guy who's "fit to be dyed" and tries to impress a girl by getting a tattoo in "Red Dragon Tattoo" ("Will you stop pretending I've never been born/Now I look a little more like that guy from Korn"); the unhappy wife in suburban "Amity Gardens" ("If you knew now what you knew then/You wouldn't want to go to Amity Gardens"); the kids from Long Island going to the "Laser Show" at the Hayden Planetarium ("We're gonna make out way across the galaxy/Then we'll head back home on the L.I.E."). And of course, what town doesn't have a "Valley of Malls" ("And god forgive the passengers if we should fail/To find a penny fountain or a half-off sale/I need a merchant/I just started searching for a holy grail"). What can I say--great record.

Album of the Day--April 8, 2008

Alan Parsons Project
Turn of a Friendly Card
1980
Arista Records
Produced by Alan Parsons

The Alan Parsons Project has often been called "the poor man's Pink Floyd," which I hardly find fair, as there are really no similarities--intended or unintended--between them to speak of. The only tenuous connection is that Parsons was the award-winning engineer of Dark Side of the Moon. The Project was hatched in the mid-1970s as a collaborative venture between Parsons and Eric Woolfson, and it was intended solely as a one-off...well, project (the name "Alan Parsons Project" was simply the term used on record company paperwork and it somehow stuck), namely, a musical tribute to Edgar Allan Poe. The resulting album, Tales of Mystery and Imagination, is one of the classics of progressive rock, and was actually a hit in 1975, to boot. Parsons and Woolfson subsequently decided to keep working, and put together a more or less stable band (which never played live, by the way) and a revolving cast of vocalists. Over the course of 12 years, The Alan Parsons Project would release 10 albums, each of which encompassed a particular theme or cocnept (OK, kind of like Pink Floyd), which included robots (I, Robot), pyramid power (Pyramid), alienation (Ammonia Avenue), mistreatment of women (Eve), etc. 1980's Turn of a Friendly Card tackled gambling, and the album is almost a straightforward narrative. The hit single "Games People Play" (the one with the wobbly keyboard intro) sets up the story of a midlife crisis in the brewing, "Where do we go from here/Now that all of the children have grown up?/And how do we spend our time/When there's no one to lend us a hand?" The character bemoans the passage of "Time" (the other hit single) and decides to go to Vegas and gamble (side 2's "Turn of a Friendly Card" suite). It's a great record, with strong songs and sterling production.

Album of the Day--April 7, 2008

The Kinks
Low Budget
1979
Arista Records
Produced by Raymond Douglas Davies

In tribute to the friends who have lost their jobs or been "made redundant" in recent weeks thanks to large-scale corporate freak-out, I offer up Ray Davies' wry, humorous soundtrack to troubled times, released at the height of stagflation in 1979. When the remastered CD version was released in 1999, it sounded horribly quaint--however, it became relevant again two years later--and is now relevant again, especially "A Gallon of Gas": "I've been waiting for years to buy a brand new Cadillac/But now that I've got one I want to send it right back/I can't afford the gas to fill my luxury limousine..." And let's all sing the title track in unison:

Cheap is small and not too steep
But best of all cheap is cheap
Circumstance has forced my hand
To be a cut-price person in a low budget land
Times are hard but well all survive
I just got to learn to economize

I'm on a low budget
I'm on a low budget
I'm not cheap, you understand
I'm just a cut-price person in a low budget land

Excuse my shoes; they don't quite fit
They're a special offer and they hurt me a bit
Even my trousers are giving me pain
They were reduced in a sale so I shouldn't complain
They squeeze me so tight so I can't take no more
They're size 28 but I take 34

I'm on a low budget (What did you say?)
I'm on a low budget (I thought you said that)
I'm on a low budget
I'm a cut-price person in a low budget land

I'm shopping at Woolworth and low discount stores
I'm dropping my standards so that I can buy more

Low budget sure keeps me on my toes
I count every penny and I watch where it goes
Were all on our uppers were all going skint
I used to smoke cigars but now I suck Polo mints

Art takes time, time is money
Moneys scarce and that ain't funny
Millionaires are things of the past
We're in a low budget film where nothing can last
Money's rare theres none to be found
So don't think I'm tight if I don't buy a round

Night Text

Hmm. Maybe the texts are from Rod Serling:

Dead wife contacts Lancs man via SMS
Texts from the Other Side

A Lancashire man whose house has a chilling reputation for poltergeist activity claims he is being haunted by text messages from his dead wife, the Blackpool Gazette reports.
...
Peace then reigned in Windsor Avenue until five years ago, when Jones suffered a double tragedy - the death of his son Steven, 32, from a brain tumour and wife Sadie, 69, three months later from a heart attack.
...
Jones says his family has since received strange SMS messages which they believe to be from Sadie. He concluded: "She always had a mobile with her. We buried her with her phone. There have been messages with words Sadie would say but there's no number."

I've often wondered how the Twilight Zone episode "Night Call" would translate today, with Caller ID and all that. I mean, if Gladys Cooper heard her phone ring and saw "Dead Fiancé" on the LCD, it really would lack that certain je ne sais quoi.

Going Green...

Soylent Green, that is. Given that the lede says that Ted Turner is a restaurateur, I think I'll avoid his place:

Ted Turner: Global warming could lead to cannibalism

Billionaire environmentalist says world has too many people

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Failure to address global warming will have us all dead or eating each other by mid-century.

So says Ted Turner, the restaurateur, environmentalist and former media mogul whose controversial comments have earned him the nickname "Mouth of the South."

If steps aren't taken to stem global warming, "We'll be eight degrees hotter in 30 or 40 years and basically none of the crops will grow," Turner said during a wide-ranging, hour-long interview with PBS's Charlie Rose that aired Tuesday.

"Most of the people will have died and the rest of us will be cannibals," said Turner, 69.

On the plus side, a warmer planet will at least cook us faster. Questions I have, though: What wine goes with human flesh? Would humans be considered kosher? Would we be considered "the other red meat? Do we taste like chicken? Or do we taste like Colonel Sanders? I gotta know...

Album of the Day--April 4, 2008

IQ
The Wake
1985
Sahara Records
Produced by Mike Holmes and Tim Esau

For reasons I shan’t go into, I was in an IQ mood this morning. Along with Marillion, IQ were part of the mid-1980s “fish out of water” neo-progressive rock movement that was not especially popular at the time, but inspired legions of followers in the 1990s and 2000s. Like Marillion and their forebears, IQ tended toward epic songs with varying movements and recurring themes, changes in time signature, outstanding musicianship, and a cult following. Singer Peter Nicholls sounds a little bit like Peter Gabriel, but that’s about where the Genesis comparisons end. Nicholls was also the lyric writer, and the words are dark and cryptic—one never knows quite what he is on about, but he sings it well. The Wake was their second album, released in 1985, and was a landmark in the annals of progressive rock. It incorporates a variety of 80s sounds (electronic percussion in places, newer keyboards, etc.), but never sounds especially dated. The title track and "The Thousand Days" are more or less straightforward songs that could have been singles, or at least received radio play, but, alas never did. IQ would get better over the years; they are still around, despite a few personnel changes, and their 2004 album Dark Matter was, IMO, their best.

Fare Warning

Air Canada wasn't the first airline that came to mind when I read about this idea:

Air Canada to charge for customer service

Airline adds fee to aid customers when flights delayed or disrupted due to weather, traffic

It was bound to happen eventually: Air Canada now wants you to pay extra for better customer service.

In an era of continued cost-cutting, the country's largest airline yesterday rolled out a new service called "On My Way" that, for a fee, promises to help passengers cope with delays and cancellations beyond the airline's control, including bad weather or airport traffic.

"This is something that many airlines used to do in-house," said Rick Erickson, a Calgary-based airline consultant. "But since the advent of the low-cost carrier, everybody wants cheap fares."

Air Canada said passengers who opt to pay an additional $25 one-way on short-haul flights and an extra $35 one-way on long-haul routes within North America will receive "speedy" access to "specially-trained" customer service agents who will help rebook flights on Air Canada or other airlines, as well as pay for hotel stays and meals, if necessary.

At the risk of using a cliched phrase that I'm not a fan of, it's funny how business is now becoming a race to the bottom. Or it's a brilliant money-making proposition; given how many flights are delayed and screwed up in some way, it's a sure-fire way for airlines to get essentially free money. Of course, for $25 to $35, that customer service better be damn good. I guess it's kind of like a first-class upgrade, or it's based on the same principle: make every other class incredibly cramped and uncomfortable and then charge for comfort. Wait until they figure out that they could probably charge extra for clean air (assuming they don't already).

I have no doubt that this will soon turn up in more and more industries. Better check the fine print on your cellphone bill; I'm pretty sure that's where this idea will end up next.

Album of the Day--April 3, 2008

The Clash
London Calling
1979
Epic Records
Produced by Gus Stevens

Steven H. from London called me yesterday, which naturally got me humming the title song—plus I had to go grocery shopping which inevitably sends “Lost in the Supermarket” coursing through my head. Funny thing about The Clash—their albums have always been literally hit or miss: their first album, The Clash, was really good, but their second one, Give ’Em Enough Rope, was not all that great. Their third album, London Calling, was great, and their fourth, Sandinista!, was so not great (although there is probably a decent single LP’s worth of material on what was, in the age of vinyl, 3 LPs). Their fifth and last album, Combat Rock, was really good. So with the Clash—the odd-numbered records are the ones to listen to. Anyway, London Calling is the best of the lot and even as a double album has no filler on it; every song was really good. It was also the album that showed that The Clash were a lot more than a one-dimensional punk band; London Calling features horns, keyboards, and an unabashed love of all types of music, including classic rock’n’roll and, gasp!, pop. It also shows a respect for the past that was the antithesis of the whole original punk raison d’être. The famous story of the album is that the song that would become the “hit”—“Train in Vain”—was added to the end of the album at the last minute and after the record sleeve had been printed, so on the original album, the song title does not appear. Why Epic saw fit to replicate this mistake on the initial CD issue I have no idea.

Album of the Day--April 2, 2008

Bauhaus
Go Away White
2008
RedEye
Produced by Bauhaus

Although known for being the godfathers (or gothfathers) of so-called “Goth Rock,” in the early 1980s, Britain’s Bauhaus were initially trying to be glam in the tradition of David Bowie and Marc Bolan. Of course, how they got from glam to dressing in black, rising from coffins on stage, and lurching through tracks like “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” and “Stigmata Martyr” remains a mystery. Still, as long as one forgoes the drinking of human blood, musically, the band were quite inventive, although they were never more than a cult band. After four albums, they disbanded in 1983, singer Peter Murphy going on to a respectable solo career (“Cuts You Up” was a minor hit in 1989) and the other three members reformed as Love and Rockets, whom I liked better than Bauhaus. There were a couple of Bauhaus reunion tours in the 1990s, but I was not expecting a new album in 2008, a propos of nothing. Shockingly, it’s actually really good, easily on a par with (or perhaps even better than) their original albums. All the trademarks are there: Daniel Ash’s spiky guitar fills and feedback wails, David J’s nimble bass, Kevin Haskin’s inventive drumming, and of course Peter Murphy’s menacing baritone singing about god-knows-what. This one has been on the iPod since it came out last month. “Endless Summer of the Damned” indeed!

April Come She Will

Over at WhatTheyThink, Dr. Joe, Noel Ward, and myself present this year's April Fool's edition. And (no fooling!), the Romano's Media Trends blog is up and running here. And thanks to mi hermano for the cool logo.

Album of the Day--April 1, 2008

The Kinks
A Soap Opera
1975
RCA Records
Produced by Ray Davies

I also heard The Kinks’ “Everybody’s a Star” in a commercial, sending me back to the original album. A Soap Opera—the full title being The Kinks Present A Soap Opera—came in the midst of their mid-70s “rock opera” phase, a year after the mammoth Preservation albums (Preservation Act 2 was two full LPs of fairly tuneless tracks that comprise an incomprehensible plot involving evil real estate developers). The story of A Soap Opera involves The Starmaker (a celebrity artist who can “turn the most ordinary person in the world into a star) taking on the guise of “Norman,” an ordinary bloke, living his life including boring 9-to-5 job, post-work trips to the boozer, even a holiday dalliance. At the end, it turns out that Norman was himself all along, fantasizing that he was a big star pretending to be him...yeah. As Dave Davies (Ray’s brother and Kinks guitarist) says in the liner notes to the 1999 Velvel reissue, “I thought it was an exercise in Ray disappearing up his own ass.” He’s got a point. It may not work as musical theater, and it would work as a collection of songs if it weren’t for the dialogue interrupting some fairly decent tunes. Still, “Everybody’s a Star” is a good song (and was Ray Davies’ poking fun at his own reputation for his skill at chronicling the lives of everyday folks) and other highlights tend to be scattered throughout, like the “When Work is Over”/”Have Another Drink” section, and the closer “Can’t Stop the Music.” Often, the record just gets too damn silly. Fortunately, the band did an intervention after this one and curtailed Ray's operatic aspirations.