Blood & Tears

Tonight I attended a Blood & Tears guided walking tour, which despite its gruesome informativeness, was quite fun. I learned a lot. None of the information was useful, but, well, now I know considerably more about serial killers than I did before. (also, I'm really sorry about the spacing of this post, but the editor thingie won't let me fix it, so you're going to have to struggle with it. I apologize)

See the tunnel those people are walking in front of?

Of course you do, because I've just posted a photo of it. Upon beginning construction to build that tunnel (and the buildings around it, presumably) the workers were lucky enough to find human bones buried. Hundreds of bodies. And you can thank Queen Mary, and her Catholic tirade against Protestantism. That's how she earned the name Bloody Mary, and, well, now you know where she put the bodies.


This lovely and solemn stone is a tribute to some of the first to die under Queen Mary's reign. John Rodgers was born Catholic and was a firm believer in the faith ... until he had a change of heart and became a firm believer in Protestantism. Just as Queen Mary took the throne. Lucky for him. As they were burning him at the stake (in 1555), people stood in awe of him.

Why?

Because he refused to make a sound. And as people watched him burn to his death, they realized that he was washing his hands in the flames, purifying them (and himself) as he died.

Cheerful, huh?

This plaque, a few feet down from the one pictured above, is a tribute to William Wallace.

Don't remember who William Wallace was?

Shame on you.

Think blue and white face paint... and Mel Gibson .... and lots of shouting.

Yup... William Wallace was Braveheart (and apparently he was quite a bit shorter than Mel Gibson. People in general were much shorter back then. Who knew?)



Mel Gibson.... ooops, I mean William Wallace was put to death near this spot on August 23, 1305. He was hung, drawn and quartered, which is a very neat way of describing a very messy process.



Mr. Wallace was hung ... first.



And then they cut him down before he was dead.



.... and cut out his stomach and other various innards.



..... and then they tied each of his limbs to four separate horses and had the horses run in four separate directions until Mr. Wallace was in four seperate pieces.



In case you hadn't noticed, definitely not a fun way to die. Although come to think of it, there really isn't a fun way to die (unless maybe you pass away while you're on your way down a waterslide or something, but even that's not very fun).

That chubby little cherub is so cute, isn't he?

Well, not exactly.

You see, that chubby little golden cherub is chubby because he represents greed. What you're looking at is a memorial to the Great Fire of 1666. This spot basically marks the edge of the area the fire affected. It started in a bakehouse in Pudding Lane, and this street, where it finally stopped, also had some sort of dessert name (I can't remember it, sorry. My mind fails me in my old age). In any case, the fire burned down 80% of London. And it killed 9 people, including the maid in the bakehouse where the fire started. The moral of the story is ..... don't trust bakers (just kidding) and don't build your city out of wood. The street (you can see the street sign in the photo, but it's blurry), is no longer aptly named after a dessert, but is now called Cock Street (go ahead, laugh it up).

The people thought that the fire was a punishment from God because the city had become too greedy and immoral. Thus, the chubby little cherub up there is a constant reminder of what happens when you eat that extra slice of cake.

This lovely photo (I know, I'm an artist, aren't I?) is part of the facade of the Central Criminal Court, one of the most famous courthouses in the world... and formerly Newgate Prison.

This is the current courthouse. It's almost beautiful, in its own grim, forbidding kind of way. Back when it was a prison, it housed (several times) a burglar by the name of Jack Sheppard. Mr. Sheppard, who entirely has my respect for his valiant attempts, escaped three times. The prison walls were, at this time, about two feet thick, and the final time he escaped, he was in a solitary chamber, with no windows. Besides this, his hands were chained, his feet were chained to the floor, and the chains between his hands and his feet were chained together. Not an easy situation to get out of, but he did it. You see, Mr. Sheppard was sentenced to die the following day, and he didn't quite feel ready to meet his maker.

Mr. Sheppard, being rather smaller than the average guy, managed to slip his hands through the manacles, apparently with much scraping and blood and effort. Then, being extraordinarily innovative, he found a point in the chains that held his feet where the chain was a quarter of the thickness of the rest, a weak link, proverbially and literally. And he smashed at it until he broke through the chain.

Now he's unchained. How did he get out of a windowless room you ask?

He climbed up the 20 foot tall chimney.

Apparently, the builders of the prison had thought that prisoners might attempt to escape this way (and they were right) because the chimney was blocked off with iron bars. Where you or I would have given up, Mr. Sheppard persevered, sawing at the bars with his chains until one of them broke off, breaking off as many as he could and then slipping out.

He made it up to the next level and eventually out to the roof, where he expected to jump to safety. But, alas, there was nowhere for him to jump to.

So he went back down several levels, back through the chimney to his room, to make a rope out of his bedsheets, before repeating the escape process all over again and finally making it out.

Unfortunately, his escape didn't do him much good, since, despite his ingenuity and apparent talent, the man was not too bright. He stayed in London, and celebrated his escape by having a pint at his local bar, in the neighborhood he'd grown up in.... which was across the street from the prison. The dude passed out drunk, they arrested him and he got the death sentence he'd fought so hard to escape.

By the way, he'd only stolen 10 pounds.

Crime doesn't pay.

This is the church across the street from the now-court/former-prison and there's an underground tunnel leading between the two. Before you start thinking of insidious plots, I assure you, the use of the passageway was quite practical.

Every Sunday night at midnight, a priest would walk the passageway ringing a bell (and timing his journey) to let all of the condemned prisoners on the other side know that their end was nigh. You see, prisoners were executed at 8 a.m. Monday morning, and it was the priest's rather ominous words (there's a whole speech written out, but I can't remember it. I think it rhymed) and the clanging of the bell, that let them know they were going to die in exactly 8 hours.


This picture isn't anything special (I'm sure you agree) and really, the only reason I'm including it is that several hundred years ago, were I standing on the exact same spot from which I took the photo (and if I were alive several hundred years ago, which would probably make me the Highlander. That would be really cool, I've always wanted my own sword), I would probably be drowning. This street follows the course that the Fleet River once took (and technically still takes). The Fleet River, once the second major river running through London, became so smelly and disgusting (London's biggest slaughterhouse is nearby, and while you can't see very well from the photo, I'm standing at the foot of a hill, and all of the refuse and dirt and general nasty stuff ran downhill and into the river) that they forced it 20 feet underground, where it remains.

I am sure, glancing at this amazing and fabulous photo, that you are just dying to know all of the horrendous and violent things that occurred on this very spot.

Well, I'm going to have to disappoint you, because there are none. In fact, this is just a copy shop, where the workers stand around all day and make photocopies for people who aren't willing to do it themselves. It is, in fact, a quite old copy shop.

It is also where a 21-year-old David Bowie worked before getting his big break.

See, you're not the only one whose job sucks.

I'd love to tell you some gruesome tales about this spot as well, except for there aren't any. This is, however, the oldest functioning shop in London. It was not always a 'curiosity' shop, our tour guide pointed out, and it certainly wasn't the one endoresed by Dickens, but it is the oldest functioning shop.

While we did see the residences of renowned serial killers, I failed to take photos of them, so you're just going to have to take my word for it.

We saw the location of the shop where Sweeney Todd (you know, Johnny Depp, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street) had his barber shop (which is now some sort of office supplies store, so I didn't really think it was worth taking a picture of. I mean, you guys know what a post-it looks like). And we also saw the alley where he committed his first murder (1785, I believe, although I might have gotten my dates confused), which I must say, is rather creepy, and significantly colder than the surrounding area. The way leading into the alley is also mirrored now, so you can see if there's anyone following you ...

Sweeney Todd killed approximately 160 people over a number of years (9 years, I think), and he had two tunnels underneath his shop. One led to the vaults of the church a few doors down and the other led to his sweetheart's mince pie shop, where she cheerfully served up his victims in pie form to the lawyer's and businessmen of Fleet Street. It was only when the church vaults began to smell that people caught on.

We also visited (briefly) the haunts of Jack the Ripper. Despite his enormous reputation, Jack the Ripper only killed 5 women, 4 of them in the streets of Whitehall and one of them in her room. His reputation is based very much on the ways in which he killed them but I'll spare you the gory details. We also stood on the street outside the residence where Montague John Druitt lived. Many believe that Druitt was the Ripper.

He was a lawyer who lived not far from Fleet Street, was good-looking (you can google him) and intelligent. In short, he was exactly the kind of guy you'd trust and exactly what a prostitute would look for in a customer: rich, handsome, and very trustworthy-looking. Druitt also had a year of medical schooling before he took up his law degree and his father was a doctor, which explains the .... treatment of the bodies. He also killed himself shortly after the fifth death (died December 31, 1888), which would explain why the Ripper stopped so suddenly. There really isn't much evidence to link him to the murders, but then again, these things did happen well over 100 years ago.

I'm sure I've written enough to creep you out for a while, and while we saw other stuff, I'm not going into detail. But I really did enjoy the walking tour and I definitely think I'll take another one (maybe a Shakespeare one next time, so I can regale you with some less bloody details). I hope you found this one as interesting and .... informative as I did.

Final Assignments for creative writing class

Hey guys,
These are the ones that I turned in for final projects for my Writing London class. They're not brilliant, but they're not terrible. One is a short story and the other is a small drama piece. Hope you like them,

- Lena

The Puddle


“This sucks!” she yelled into the small plastic thing she held by her ear, much to the dismay of the people surrounding her.


She was always self-conscious in public. She felt as though people were glaring at her disapprovingly, and she was right a majority of the time.

‘She must be American,’ she heard them whisper, but continued shouting into the phone anyway.

“I HATE this place! It’s always raining. And if it’s NOT raining, then it’s still wet as FUCK! EVERYTHING’S expensive. I’m cold ALL the time, and I can’t FRIGGIN find ANY Ranch dressing!”

She waited for a response from her friend on the other end, hoping for comforting words, or a promise to express-ship some Ranch dressing and galoshes pronto, but the connection was none too good, so all she got was a crinkly static.

Feeling the tears form, she gulped, and continued her tirade in the absence of a response.

“All we EVER see when they take us on tours are these PILES of old rocks! I don’t even CARE about history, but if I did, it’s not worth freezing my ASS off to see some broken-down old castle!”

She was just starting to calm down, even without a pep-talk from the voice on the other end, which was still rustling with static, when her feet hit something cold and wet.

She had just enough time to shout something fabulously original, like “Ewww, I stepped in a puddle!!” before the panic hit her.

That single instant was all that it took this clever girl to realize that the cobblestones beneath her feet had given way. Now she was no longer mired in a puddle, but, rather she was sinking. To her horror, she was descending swiftly, and soon she was up to her knees in the shivering wet puddle. By the time she’d found her voice again and started shrieking for help, the water had reached mid-thigh.

The same passers-by who had looked on disapprovingly a minute ago seemed to have forgotten that she existed. Regardless of how loud she screamed, no one so much as looked at her. However, she did not scream for very long, because in the course of thirty seconds the water had reached her mouth and the screech became a gurgle.

As she fought for air, she felt water fill her ears, sensed her hair floating around her head in multitudinous tentacles. Fear filled her lungs as she gasped, inhaling water, choking on it.

Suddenly, she inhaled air. Shocked, she opened her eyes, and found herself on the street again, only it wasn’t the same street. While she was still in London, she was not in the same one. The shop windows were different, with a record shop instead of the Wasabi she’d been passing, and a restaurant where the HMV used to be. Even more telling, it was sunny, and not the cloudy day she’d been putting up with earlier. Oddly enough, her feet were still in the puddle that she’d stepped in a minute ago. Breathing a sigh of relief, she took another look around and began to worry once more.

Try as she might, she could not liberate her feet from the goo in which she was standing, and more disconcerting were the tremor she was beginning to feel in the ground.

‘They don’t have earthquakes in London,’ she told herself.

And as four mop-topped boys ran by, she knew what was coming.

The tremor in the ground got increasingly stronger, until she saw them, the horde of teenage girls flying towards her, feet stamping along the pavement, running with all of their strength. She tried to jump out of the way as the stampede approached but it was no use. Her feet were firmly trapped in the puddle, so she had to bear the brunt of it. Flying elbows hit her in every possible place, and she got bruises in places that she didn’t know were possible. Hair of every imaginable shade whipped her face, and she found herself wishing that more people had showered during the sixties. Her feet were in the puddle, but that didn’t protect them, and her tender toes suffered the stamp and stomp of every heel and boot.

As the thudding in the ground passed onward and the last of the flying hair smacked her face, she took stock of bruises and scratches. This day is getting worse by the second, she thought to herself, and the thought was confirmed as she began sinking into the puddle once more.

“Shit! Shit! Shit!” were the only words that managed to escape from her mouth before she went under, but no one heard them anyway.

This time, when she arose from the depths of the damp, she found herself in darkness. It was undoubtedly the same city, as she recognized the cobblestones and the street signs, but now she found herself in blackness. It was nighttime, and, for the first time in the several weeks she’d spent in London, all of the windows were shuttered, with black curtains, and, oddly enough, there were no street lights on.

Her mind began working, and as the possibility of where, or when, she might be entered her mind, she shuddered.

The silence was broken by a mechanical roar, and her heart began to pound as she heard an eerie whistle through the darkness. She could see the airplanes above her, smaller versions of the ones she was accustomed to, inky cutouts against the black sky.

The whistle stopped, culminating in a deafening crash somewhere in the city. She couldn’t see what it had hit, but she could see the blaze of light in the distance, and shuddered again, wondering what poor soul had died in the explosion. After another minute of darkness, the now-familiar whistle rang in her ears again, followed by another explosion, this time down the street from where she stood, and she could see the blazing buildings, orange against the black of the night.

Hearing the whistling noise once more, she looked up to see a bomb swiftly descending upon the street where she was standing. As she desperately tried to pull her legs from the puddle and failed, she began to notice that she was sinking again, and prayed to descend faster, closing her eyes and listening to the thud of her heart beat. She felt the impact of explosion just before her head disappeared beneath the water, doing its damage with just enough time for a broken piece of glass to scratch her cheek as it flew by.

She took deep breaths as the darkness of the puddle fell away and tried to calm herself again. Suppressing tears, she looked around.

She might’ve still been in London, but it wasn’t one that she recognized. Green fields and rolling hills spread as far as she could see and a sparkling river flowed a short distance in front of her. Standing along the riverbank was a small stone fortress, complete with walls and a keep.

Looking around, she saw that she stood in a valley, poised between two hills. Her eyes widened as she looked at the hilltop to her right, seeing a battalion of warriors in Roman gear, armed with spears, swords and shields. What scared her more was the glowering rage on their faces as they looked across the valley to their counterparts, dressed in rough-looking animal furs and leathers. They had shields and spears also, but theirs, she noticed, looked like more of a home-made variety.

Just as she’d finished observing, the warring parties began to roar, casting war cries into the air as they rushed the valley. Cringing, she realized that she was at the center of their battlefield.
Clasping her arms over her head as she saw the sharpened ends of the spears coming at her, she let out a shriek and felt herself sinking into the puddle once more. As the water reached her head, she could feel the first spear swipe, and heard the screech of pain as it made contact.

Feeling the water recede, she looked around and found herself on the same familiar street, and people were giving her dirty looks again, because she was still shrieking. She stopped screaming as she realized where she was.

The voice on the other end came into focus.

“Oh, my God!! Are you ok?!?”

The concern in her friend’s voice was painfully evident, so she pulled it together for an answer.

“It’s … okay,” she responded slowly. “I just …. I …. stepped in a puddle.”

She knew that no one would believe her if she told the truth, so lying seemed like the best option.

“Oh, then you didn’t need to scream like that. I mean, it was just a puddle.”

“But … my feet are all wet now,” she stammered.

“And as to what you were saying, it can’t be that bad. It could be worse. Think about it, London’s amazing, with all that history …”

“Umm… yeah … history,” she repeated. “Could be …. worse. Listen … I gotta go. I’ll call you later.”

She snapped the phone shut and smiled as she squelched along the sidewalk. After all, things could be a lot worse.

****************************

The Mouse
Scene opens on an underground station, sometime after eleven o’clock at night. It’s practically abandoned, with only one person waiting for the train. It’s a young woman, in her early twenties. She’s wearing a party dress with black sequins, and carrying a matching black beaded bag. She’s also wearing high heels, and she’s obviously a bit tipsy, judging by the way that she is mildly stumbling along the platform. We will call her Tina.

T makes her way unsteadily over to the seats at the edge of the platform, and collapses suddenly into one of them. She lays her bag down next to her. She surreptitiously looks around, making sure that she is alone on the platform before taking her face into her hands and beginning to cry. It starts off quietly, as she tries to control the volume in an echoey train station, but soon the sobs and sniffles start to resound. She pulls a tissue out of her bag and blows her nose quite loudly.

A: Wotcha’ snifflin’ about?

T (without looking up): I happen to have (sniff) had a bad night.

(looks up, and eyes widen)

Who said that?

A: I did.

T (looking confused and somewhat worried, swipes across her eyes with the back of her hand to wipe away tears): Who are you? Where are you? I don’t see anybody.

(Gets up and wanders around the platform a bit, trying to see if there really is someone she missed but the platform is abandoned)

A: Typical ‘uman. Don’t see nothin’ but whot’s in front of ya, and ya don’ even see that very well.

T: Who are you?

A: Look down, sweetheart.

T (glances around quickly. Says this somewhat angrily): Ok, what are you playing at? I don’t see anyone here

(looks down)

… except …

(looks more pointedly at the ground by her feet, yelps and jumps away several feet from where she was standing. She lands badly, wobbling and almost twisting her ankle before she plops into a seat that is directly behind her on the platform)

A: Well, if yer gonna react like that, then maybe I don’t want to talk to you no more.

T (blinking away tears): But you’re a … a … a

A: mouse? Yup. I am. Squalling about it won’t do ya no good.

T: But … but … I didn’t know you guys could talk …

A: We can. We just generly don’t, seein’ as folk’ tend to react like you did.

T: Well, then. I just …. Well…. Ok.

A: You, my young friend, are clearly not ok.

T: Excuse me?

A: People who sit at tube stations cryin’ in the middle of the night ain’t usually ok, at least not in my experience.

T (vehemently): Oh, and you’ve got so much experience with people crying in tube stations?

A: Oh, yeah. I hang out on these tracks all the time. You’d be surprised what people will do when they think they’re alone.

T (still sniffling, but curious): Yeah, like what?

A: Young thing, like you, I don’t think I oughtta tell you. I mean, yer gonna discover life’s mysteries soon enough, without me jadin’ yer ears.

(Albert lets a few seconds pass while twiddling his whiskers)

I wouldn’ sit in that chair if I was you, by the way. Certainly not after I knew what went on it.

(T leaps up, stares wide-eyed at the seat she was sitting in, although there’s nothing visibly wrong with it, and starts frantically brushing off her bottom)

A (chuckling): I’m sure yer fine. Ya can stop brushin’ yer bottom, unless that’s somethin’ you folk like to do fer fun, in which case, go ahead.

T (giving her hands a final swipe down her dress before straightening, looks a little shamefaced): Yes, well, thank you. And it’s not something we do normally, not most of us, anyway.

(Silence settles as the girl examines the mouse, and mouse stares back at the girl.)

A: My name’s Albert, by the way.

T: Well, it’s nice to meet you, I guess. I’m Tina.

A: Can I ask you somethin’, Tina?

T (sarcastically): Since I’m already talking to a mouse, I don’t suppose things can get any weirder. Go ahead.

A: Why was ya cryin’?

T (her eyes start to well up again and she sniffles before she speaks): Oh, my boyfriend broke up with me tonight.

A: Ah, that’s all? That ain’t nothin’ to cry over. A pretty little thing like you’ll find another one, a better one, soon enuff. Plenny of fish in the sea, as they say.

T: But (lets out a sob) he’s the …. He’s the …. (dissolves into tears again)

A (gently): He’s the what, darlin’?

T (shakily, wiping off her running nose): He’s the reason I came to London. He’s the only person I know here. And tonight … he told me I wasn’t good enough for him anymore.

A: If yer don’ mind me sayin’, Miss, he sounds like a giant dimwit.

T: What?

A: Ya heard me. If he could talk to you that way, he don’ deserve you.

T (still sniffling): I suppose you’re right. I am better off without him.

A (speaking with authority): Ya shouldn’ give up on yer life just because some idiot bloke broke up with ya. (slightly under his breath now) An idiot ya shouldn’ta been with to begin with.

T (somewhat sullenly, but quietly): Well, how would you know?

A (sagely): Oh, we know more than ya think, us mice do. We see ya. We see the couples kissing on the platforms, feel the beat poundin’ through the ground when the musicians play for coins. We see the mothers, leading sticky-fingered children through these underground tunnels. We see the homeless, the ignored, the happy, the sad, the angry. We see it all, much more than you do, with yer noses stuck in yer newspapers, music dinnin’ in yer ears through yer headphones.

T (surprised, and a little awed by his impassioned speech): I’m sorry. I just .. I just thought it was an underground station.

A: It is. That’s the only way you ‘umans see it. Just a way to get from here to there. Not caring what you miss along the way. Ya come in with yer nose glued ta the ground, and ya walk out the same way. Ya don’ feel the breeze of the trains rushin’ by on yer whiskers. Ya don’ feel the joy of findin’ unexpected crumbs of cookie. Ya don’ hear the joyful squeaks of the children when their pa brings dinner home.

T: Well, I haven’t got whiskers, and human children don’t squeak, but I see your point.

A: More’s the pity about the whiskers. I think ya’d look charming with a nice set of ‘em. But there is more to life than cryin’ over some silly bloke who can’t pull his head out of his arse long enough to know how lovely you are.

T (smiling, for the first time): Thank you. You really are a very sweet little mouse.

A: Yer welcome. It’s a pity to see someone so sad, when there’s so much in front of ya, so much world to see.

T: Yes, I understand. You’ve really been very kind to me.

A: Not a problem at all, Miss.

(T perks up, listening to a sound in the distance)

T: The train is coming. Hadn’t you better hide?

A: This time of night …. There shouldn’ be very many people to notice me, and the condition they’re usually in… they wouldn’ notice a wall in front of their faces half the time. But I do have ta get back to me wife. Me little ones are waitin’ up fer me to get home, waitin’ fer dinner. You haven’t got anything, have ya?

T (digs through bag, pulls out small chunk of cookie): Huh, I didn’t realize I had that, but you can have it now, if you like.

A: Thank ya, miss, the little ones will appreciate it. They like the chocolate chippies best.

T: It was very nice meeting you, and, although I doubt I will, I would very much like to see you again.

A: It was a pleasure meetin’ you too, miss. And I do help you’ll think of me every so often, when yer explorin’ this grand ol’ city.

T: I’m sure I will.

A: Good night, Miss.

T: Good night, Albert.

T smiles down at the little mouse and steps onto the train, which has at this point arrived and the doors have opened. She gets in and sits down and the train pulls away. After the roar of the train is gone, we hear the click-clack of little mousey feet and some happy squeaking as Albert journeys on his way home.

Cat Conversations

This is something I wrote when I was trying to write something else. I was trying to come up with a better piece of drama for my writing class than I had initially written (which didn't pan out, apparently, I'm out of ideas when it comes to play-writing). But anyway, I still think it's a cute little piece of dialogue, which is why I'm posting it. It's not really going to go anywhere; it's just an amusing snippet. It's about a lost girl, who happens to start talking to a cat. Let's call the girl Anna. The cat doesn't have a name, so you can call him whatever you want. He's a black cat, by the way, if that stirs your imagination any.

C: Girl, why are you crying?

A: Who said that?

C: I did.

(cat slinks out of shadows)

A (looking around): Where are you?

C: Down here! Rowr!

(cat swipes at her leg, leaving a long shallow scratch down her calf)

A: Ouch! Stupid cat!

C: I am not stupid. I was merely attempting to get your attention.

A: Well, then, I’m sorry?

C: That’s better.

A: But it still hurts!

C: But you’ve stopped crying.

A: Yes, I have.

(wipes nose with back of hand)

C: Why were you crying?

A: Because I don’t know where I am, and I’ve lost my map.

C: And crying helps you find a map?

A (vehemently): No.

C: Well then, I can see you were working really hard to solve your problem. If you can even call it a problem.

A: Of course it’s a problem. Why, isn’t being completely and utterly lost a problem for you?

C: Being lost is an issue of …. perspective.

A (sarcastically): Yeah, how’s that?

C: You’re only lost if you’re not where you want to be.

A: But I’m not where I want to be.

C: Oh, well, then you are lost.

(pause)

Are you very far from where you want to be?

A: If I knew how far I was from where I’m supposed to be, then I would know where I am, and I wouldn’t be lost.

C: You mean you don’t know where you are?

A: Of course I don’t know where I am. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you this whole time.

C: I can help you with that.

A: You can?

C (licking a paw): Of course I can. That's easy.

A: Where am I?

C: You’re sitting on a curb, on the side of the street.

A: That wasn’t any help at all.

C: Wasn’t it?

(pause)

Do you mean I’m wrong? Because, if I am wrong, then I’m very lost indeed, and then we’re both in trouble.

A: No, you’re not wrong. It’s just that I know I’m in the middle of a street. That’s not the problem. The problem is, how do I get from this street to the street where I live?

C: That seems like such a bother. Why don’t you just live on this street? Then you can stay here and pet me.

A (sarcastically): That’s a very kind offer, but I think I’ll find my own way home anyway.

(Begins stroking the cat’s fur absentmindedly, cat begins purring)

C (still purring): Oh, keep doing that. It feels sooo nice. I don’t see why you’d want to go away to some dreary old street far away when you could stay here and pet me forever.

A: It’s my home, with all my things. My books and shoes and clothes.

C: What do you need clothes for when you’ve got fur?

A: I need clothes because I haven’t got fur.

C: Oh, well, that’s different.

A (scratching him between the ears, and purring intensifies): Maybe you could come home with me.

C: That doesn’t seem likely. You don’t even know where it is.

A: I’ll get there anyway. It’ll just take a little longer. Would you like to come with me?

C: What’s your home like?

A: It’s warm and bright, and I always have milk in the fridge.

C: That’s good enough for me.

(hops into her arms)

A cuddles him for a second, primarily to get a better grip on him, and then walks off down the street.

Harrods

Yesterday, I made my first visit to Harrods. Ok, so it wasn't exactly my first visit. I saw it several years ago when we stopped for three days in London, but all I remember from that particular visit was that we saw some overpriced blankets. Harrods is basically where you go if you've got lots and lots of money and wish to be rid of it.

In exploring the store, I discovered my dream bed. Yup, folks, this is the bed that I want when I grow up (and for those who say I am up, well, you're wrong). Except I want crimson sheets instead of the darker ones they've got on it, although I want the same gold pattern. The picture doesn't do it justice. It's beautiful in person, really. In fact, I think I might just go back to the store to visit it. And yes, I know that it costs £4,000. But alas, a girl can dream, just not in the bed she wants.

I was highly amused by this. They don't just have toilets, they have "Luxury Washrooms." I was quite thoroughly prepared to be cynical about this. After all, how 'luxury' could a public washroom really be? But again, I was forced to eat my words. There's actually a bathroom attendant, and a selection of fine perfumes/lotions available for your use after the deed. And actually, since there was a bottle of Chanel No. 5, and I had never actually smelled Chanel No. 5 before, I sprayed a little on. And then, feeling bad for not tipping the attendant (because standing in a bathroom all day can't be very much fun, no matter how nice the bathroom is), I left her a pound .... and she covered my entire coat in Chanel No. 5, which was really sweet of her, I think.

So now I smell really, really expensive wherever I go (seriously, my coat still smells like it). The moral of the story here?

Tip your bathroom attendants, boys and girls, because after all, they have to listen to you pee.

I took this photo because I loved that there was a room entirely devoted to writing. You can't see inside, but this room is loaded with extraordinarily expensive pens, as well as inkpots and other such silver/golden utensils that normal people don't really use anymore. Really, I saw a £2,000 pen. I'm sure it was a fabulous pen, but I think that even if I had the money to spare, I wouldn't buy one. I'd never use it, just because it was a £2,000 pen. I'd just pull it out to show people and keep saying things like "Would you believe this pen cost £2,000?" and I'm sure that would get annoying quickly.

There aren't actually any books in the writing room, although there is a separate stationery room (where, I was pleased to see, they sell Moleskine, among other things, including some journals I've also seen at Borders). If you feel the need to purchase a book with writing already in there for you, there's also a Waterstones inside of Harrods (which for you guys who don't know is a chain bookstore, like Borders or Barnes and Noble). Need something new to listen to while you're spending massive amounts of money? They've also got an HMV (which is a CD/DVD store) inside of Harrods.

By the way, I have to say that Harrods, out of all the stores I've been to, plays the weirdest mish-mosh of music I've heard in a while. I heard Bob Marley (Stir it up, I think), Britney Spears (a medley of her early work, for those who are curious), as well as that weird stupid techno that most stores insist on playing. Also, if you pay attention, the music is different in almost every room.

This is a sculpture in the seafood/meat area of the food halls. You can buy practically anything you can think of to eat. There's a Charcuterie, Fromagerie and Traiteur (still not exactly sure what those words mean, though), Fruit and Veggies, a Pantry, a Bakery, a Candy Shop, a Tea & Coffee shop, Confectionery & Patisserie, and Meat, Fish and Poultry. These are all in their own individual rooms, which are all beautifully (if somewhat gaudily) decorated, and in addition to the food halls, there are about two dozen restaurants/cafes in Harrods, with at least a few on each level (there are 7 levels).

This is the seafood bar immediately next to the sculpture in the photo before it.

This is the statue in the Egyptian room, which is entire decked out in Egyptian/middle easten designs. This pattern runs along the entire escalator well, also, through all seven levels.

I took this photo primarily to prove that they have a Champagne Bar inside the women's department. I wish we had a bar in the women's department back home. It'd definitely be a comfort when things don't fit (which is, I suspect, why it is so strategically located, so that the larger ladies can drown their sorrows in some Cristal).

This photo is from the pseudo-museum that they've got going on the third floor. There's a lot of lovely crystal/rock/fossil formations, complete with informative placards and obscene price tags. I took a photo of this one primariyly because of the price tag, which for those of you who can't see it, is £ 2,300.

I took this one for no other reason than I thought that the stone was beautiful. The color of the stone, which is Labradorite, comes from lamellar intergrowths within the crystal. The light enters the crystal and then refracts off of the internal layers, which is what makes it so pretty (and expensive).

Again, took this picture because I thought it was cool. This is an actual fossilized flower.

I took this one because of the obscene price tag that comes along with this lovely amethyst rock crystal, which you will see in the photo immediately below.

Ah, priceless memories. This is an actual fossilized lizard, selling for the bargain price of £2,350.

This guy was very nice. I primarily took a photo of him because he was, as you can tell, dressed in all green (you can't see, but his slacks are green too), and he rather reminded me of the guardian at the gates of the emerald city. I thought the image was also particularly appropriate for a doorman at Harrods, which is, I suppose, to many, a sort of Emerald city in itself.

Trees are pretty and I like them

Abbey Road

Ok, it's not officially on Abbey Road, but it's close. It's just outside of the tube stop you get off at to get to Abbey Road (St. John's Wood, by the way).

Actually, it turns out that Abbey Road is a pretty busy intersection, so if you wish to take a photo, you have to wait several minutes for a long enough gap to pass in between cars. By the way, I totally don't even know two of the girls we were crossing the street with, they just volunteered to do that. And I think that guy just happened to cross the street at the time.

It is still an operating music studio. And no, they won't let you in. Not even to pee.

Brighton Beach

We went to Brighton Beach on Saturday, which is about 50 miles away from London and it takes about an hour-and-a-half to get there.

Brighton Beach is London's version of Wisconsin Dells or Coney Island. It's somewhere you can spend the day (or a few days), take the kids, hang out on the beach and eat things you would not normally allow yourself (cotton candy, which is called candy floss here, ice cream cones, doughnuts, fish and chips, etc.).

The 'beach' is the English Channel, which, while it's not technically the ocean, is close enough to suffice, although I'm not sure I'd want to swim in it. A few minutes walk away from the beach are the lanes, which is the only portion of old Brighton Beach that really remains. Initially, Brighton was just a small fishing village, and while the lanes is now a rather cramped and twisty quarter full of small and rather cute shops (expensive shops, mind you. Loads of jewelry stores. If you want to blow some serious cash, it's definitely possible in the lanes), it is really the only portion of Brighton that remains close to what it originally was before Brighton became fashionable.

Brighton became fashionable precisely because it was unfashionable. If this paradox doesn't quite make sense to you, allow me to explain. Brighton Beach was the hide-out of a party boy prince, Prince George, who took up residence there when he was only 21. He chose Brighton because, unlike Bath, where the high and mighty went to take the waters for their health, Brighton was as yet unknown, and as a result, no one knew him there, and he could party to his heart's content.

So Prince George, who would eventually become King George IV, shacked up in a little farmhouse (a pleasing show of frugality from a prince who'd already racked up some hefty debt in London) with his mistress. His mistress was a Catholic widow, which made her doubly inappropriate. Marrying a Catholic was as yet illegal (it actually remained illegal until relatively recently and the royals still can't marry Catholics without having to renounce their claim to the throne) and being a Catholic widow made it ever so much worse. He never could've gotten away with parading the lovely lady around in London, but Brighton Beach was just far enough to prevent the problems of indiscretion.

Brighton became popular as a result of George's residence there, and when it became so, the ramshackle old house were replaced by lovely Victorian-looking big white houses, where the rich and powerful lived. The square where the fishermen used to mend their nets and skin their fish became a lovely little park, and still is to this day.

When Georgie became Regent, not king, but rather ruling in his father's stead, as his father (George III) had been declared insane, he finally had enough power (as well as an unlimited purse) to build his dream palace in Brighton. And so he changed his farmhouse into his Royal Pavillion. The architecture is Indian on the outside (basically what a poor man's version of the Taj Mahal would look like), while the inside is 'Chinese.' I put this in quotes, because it's very much what a British dude who's never been to China would think is Chinese. It's quite pretty but it's also ... quite overdone. There's guilding and bright reds and dragons everywhere, and while it's really interesting in some ways, most of his interiors, the fancier ones anyway, hit you like a hammer. I guess it just goes to show that even royals have bad taste sometimes. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the royal pavillion, so you're just going to have to take my word for it.

The young Queen Victoria, George's cousin, stayed in the Pavillion for a while, and was quite astounded at the "Strange, Chinese" decor. Apparently, she hadn't seen anything like it. She was less than impressed with the view from her window, because she couldn't see the sea, which is, I suppose the point of a seaside palace. It's quite near the water, about a five minute walk, but you really can't see the water from it. After Victoria inherited the throne, she deemed it somewhat less than acceptable as a royal residence, although I don't think she really had that big of a problem with the decor. The primary issue was that she, Prince Albert and their nine children would have scarcely been able to fit into such a small building, much less live there comfortably. So they sold it to the Town of Brighton, and all of the furnishings within the pavillion currently are on loan from the Royal Family.

This is the archway that leads into the garden area surrounding the Palace. You can see bits of palace in the background.

Dmitry, this is for you.

This photo was actually taken on the pier, which has a few fast food restaurants (fish and chips, doughnuts, ice cream, etc.) and a few novelty shops, but primarily it's an arcade. This is basically where you take your kids to play if it's rainy or if they've had enough of the beach. There's an adult arcade behind the kids one, too, complete with slot machines and gambling tables. Overall, it's very cheesy, but I can definitely see how it could be fun.

This is a photo of the old pier. The town had intended to have it restored and built into something interesting, but people kept setting fire to the damn thing. Finally, after a fire last year, the town decided that it was un-restorable, and is planning on building something else interesting to have a replacement attraction (because come burn things usually doesn't attract very many people).

This sign just says "I have great desire. My desire is great." And I thought it was a really odd thing to have written on a wall, so I took a photo of it.

This was the best cupcake ever!!!!!

The beach at Brighton isn't exactly a beach; it's pebbles, almost all the way down to the water, where it's smaller pebbles. It's not really someplace you'd walk barefoot.

This is a picture of my foot after I wasn't fast enough to outrun the wave.