Tag: London

Partey like it’s your birthday

Amy O2 Comments

It actually was my birthday on Saturday, a big one. Lately, they are all big ones. I rarely make a big deal of my birthday because, let’s face it, after a while a person has had a lot of birthdays. However, for this one I treated it like a my 8-year old self would have: I am the center of the universe and no indulgence is too much. We had a family party on the day before we left for London, for which my sister made a beautiful and delicious cake and my kids came home and spent the night.

I treated the whole week in London like carbs don’t count. At all. If I wanted a blueberry brioche for breakfast at Gail’s, which I did almost every day–except the days when I wanted a scone with clotted cream–well, I had it. Yeah, I suspect it might be frowned on to have a scone for breakfast, just like in Italy it’s frowned on to have cappuccino in the afternoon. I have been corrected in Italy for my errors, but no one in England has ever corrected me to my face. I’ve already described the cream beignet I had from Fortitude Bakehouse. Plus I had a big, ol’ Guinness whenever I felt like it. Which was just about every day.

And because it was going to be my birthday on game day and–Champions League excepted–it is easy now to get tickets to Arsenal matches if you’ve put in a ballot, I was excruciatingly picky about where I would sit. No club seats–boring! And why sit in the rafters? I decided I needed to be in the corner or behind the goal in the North Bank, within 6 rows of the field. So that if there was a celebration, I would be right there. I turned up my nose at many a ticket I had in my hand until one finally met all my criteria. My husband held out longer but worked less hard than I did. I ended up finding him a ticket that was even better than mine. His was on the side closest to the substitutes and Mikel Arteta and row 2. When the players would get up to warm up, he’d be right there. Despite how good these tickets sound, these were some of the cheapest seats in the house. They are seats for someone who wants to be in the thick of things. In the thick of things you experience a lot, but you might not see everything.

The day had an inauspicious start. I was awoken at 4 a.m. by someone who was trying to open our hotel room door. When ours would not open, they moved to the one next door and tried that. Then back to our door. This is not really a hotel with a reception area you can call, and I really couldn’t think what to do about this. Meanwhile my husband was sleeping soundly. I let him. Finally, the activities of the person caused an alarm to go off, which did wake up my husband. A bit later we heard the police out in the hallway. What we ultimately heard about what happened is that a guest in the hotel had been “overserved” that night and was having trouble figuring out where her room was. And, using drunk logic, kept trying. After all that excitement, neither my husband nor I could sleep so we started the day.

After the requisite visit to Gail’s which was open quite early in the morning, we found a self-guided walking tour we wanted to do in the neighborhood using Footways. We did the walk from Farringdon station to Angel. There were some cool things to see. London’s only public statute of Henry VIII. He was looking pretty fit at that point. St. John’s Gate. Many lovely gardens, mostly associated with churches. Regent’s Canal. It was meant to be a 26-minute walk. We got lost a lot and it took quite a bit longer.

We had scheduled a tour of the ruins of Billingsgate Roman House and Baths for later in the morning. That was pretty cool. Romans occupied parts of what became London starting in the first century AD. They built homes that ultimately were built on by others, layers and layers of people building over centuries. As people now renovate in London, they sometimes find remnants of Roman life under the surface. This particular archeological find of parts of a Roman home with a Roman bath is under a nondescript office building. We took a guided tour of the site given by City Guides. The bath is largely intact and you can easily visualize the three rooms. So clean and perfect it almost looked fake. I enjoyed the tour very much.

But we were flagging so we took the liberty of having what for me was a fish and chips break at The Hydrant, right next to the monument commemorating the Great Fire of London. We were seating facing the window where the people watching was fabulous. Everyone stopping to take selfies in front of the Monument. The fish and chips were also quite yummy.

From there we decided to take an Uber boat from Embankment to Putney. It was a glorious, sunny and warm day to be on the River. And the scenery was great, until the gentle rocking got the better of me and put me into a deep sleep. I woke up not long before we arrived at Putney Pier. Putney Pier is pretty close to Fulham’s stadium, Craven Cottage. You can see the edge of one of the stands from the Putney stop. From there we walked over to the Tube station and returned to Farringdon.

It was just about time to head over near the Emirates. We were early enough that we decided to visit an Arsenal-friendly pub called The Bank of Friendship. It’s not really a Fuller’s pub but it does have London Pride, my husband’s weakness. The pub was packed with Arsenal fans. We’ve been to this pub before but never before have seen the very nice beer garden. As I walked into the garden I was invited to sit with a group of Arsenal fans. They were a mix of ages, all guys, and I mistook them for a family. But it turned out they were connected by loose friendship and Arsenal kinship to one of the guys. Some of them had only met that day. About that time the lineup for the Arsenal match had come out and we commiserated together about that. As expected, Arteta planned to put out an unusual team, including Thomas Partey at right back, not his best spot. Martin Odegaard, Mikel Merino, and Bukayo Saka were all listed as substitutes. Ben White, only recently returned from a lengthy injury was no where. With our new friends we also had the requisite conversation about Donald Trump.

Our new acquaintances kept saying they needed to leave and then kept going to buy one more beer. I don’t know where they put it all.

At last my husband and I said our goodbyes and walked over to The Emirates. I loved my seats. Although the announcer makes an announcement at the beginning of each match asking fans not to engage in “persistent standing” these were seats for which there is only persistent standing. It’s silly to expect otherwise. People (the ones who remain in their seats and do not go to get beer) do sit down at half-time. I’m pretty short and the rise from one row to the next is not much behind the goal so I had to do a lot of craning and shifting to see stuff over people’s heads. The people around me were spirited and good-natured and it was just fun.

The atmosphere was good, but there was no doubt that everyone in the stadium knew this Premier League match was not the most important focus. And for sure the atmosphere was NOT what it had been for the Real Madrid match on Tuesday. Our position in the Premier League is what it is. We can’t catch Liverpool, not really, and there’s probably very little chance we won’t finish in position to be in the Champion’s League next year. And we do have to be careful. We’ve battled injuries all season, bad ones with long recoveries. We couldn’t afford to lose focus on the upcoming match against Real Madrid at the fearsome stadium Bernabeu. As a fanbase we were for sure hung over from the unbelievable match and unbelievable spirt of the encounter earlier this week with Real Madrid.

I heard a lot of complaining in the press after the Brentford match about how boring it was. I did not encounter it that way. I thought Arsenal played well, and I felt fine about how things were going. Arsenal created plenty of chances to score. Brentford didn’t didn’t accomplish much.

In the second half, Arsenal finally did score. A pretty unusual Arsenal goal, where David Raya created a counterattack by rolling the ball to Declan Rice following a corner kick. Rice came away like a steam engine with three Arsenal players able to spring free and Brentford struggling to get defenders back. Rice passed it to Thomas Partey who rocketed it into the goal right in front of me. And he did celebrate pretty close to me. Arteta made some changes at that point to give some of his stars time to run a bit.

Unfortunately, Brentford, who didn’t do much on the night, did enough to score a goal. I didn’t see much of it live, but after reviewing highlights online afterward, have to say it was a good, opportunistic goal.

Arsenal continued to work hard after that. Our defensive midfielder for the night, Jorginho, who was a starter tonight to give some other folks breathing room, had a serious injury and had to leave the field. Arteta had made all his subs and we have to play about 10 minutes a man down.

We still looked dangerous and it still looked like we could maybe pull off another goal.

We could not. The match ended 1-1. Considering everything, it was good enough.

After the match, my husband showed me the pictures he took from his seat. They were unbelievably good and he loved seeing the details up close, but he said the people around him were very hard to deal with. Everyone was so negative, complaining about very decision Arteta made, every decision the players made. He said Arteta didn’t seem happy all night. It was funny how our experiences were so different just because of people’s attitudes.

It’s been a weird season. We have such a good team but had so much bad luck. Still, we sit in second place, albeit FAR behind Liverpool. We’re still alive in the Champions League, heading to the semifinals against PSG as of this past Wednesday, when we did beat Madrid in their own stadium in addition to beating them at ours. We’ll make a bid for tickets, but if we don’t get them officially, we won’t return to London. I think we learned our lesson this time.

We’re a team on the verge of something awesome, I just know it. But you know me. I always “know” it. And when will the “awesome” happen? No clue.

In my lifetime, if I’m lucky enough to have many more birthdays.

A little work, a little play

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So we were back in London for the week and, as has been the case the last few times, I worked from London. But this time is different because I am retiring at the end of May. My replacement has already been hired and she is a good one, rapidly coming up to speed. So while I did work every day and almost put in a full week, it was also pretty chill. Every day I got up and put in an hour or two of work and then my husband and I had a planned activity. We’d enjoy that, have lunch, and then I’d go back to our room to work until dinner time.

There are a series of “Pub & rooms” in London where a small “hotel” stands above a historic pub. We’ve stayed at one before, The Bull and Hide. This time we tried The One Tun Pub & Rooms near Farringdon station, a pub supposedly patronized, in some earlier version, by Charles Dickens. From the outside, the pub didn’t seem like much and it wasn’t as thronged as other pubs nearby. When I finally saw the inside of it on–I’m ashamed to admit–the last day, it was so awesome. Cozy, fun, with delicious Asian food.

The rooms had a separate door, up some steep stairs. There were 3-4 rooms on our floor and more up a level. Cute and large room with lots of character. We were just above the pub. About 3:30 each day the noise from people gathering both downstairs and in the street outside and music playing would ramp up until about 9 p.m. By 10:30 each night it was pretty quiet.

The location was great. Farringdon station was a block away, so it was easy to get where we wanted to go, and there was a good selection of coffee shops, restaurants, and pubs nearby. This was the first time we visited London where it was more convenient to take the Elizabeth line than the Piccadilly line to and from the airport. Have to say the Elizabeth line is an easy way to travel. New, spacious cars, and there was never a time when we had to schlep our stuff up a bunch of stairs. Hotel excepting. I only packed a carry-on, but a week’s worth of crammed-in stuff is still kind of heavy for a near-retiree.

In the daily “fun hour” we managed the following attractions:

Siena: The rise of painting 1300-1350 at the National Gallery. This exhibit explores the art movement in 14th century Siena, dominated by Christian themes, drama, bright colors, and metallic finishes. That is a big oversimplification from an unsophisticated viewer of art. We sprung for the added mobile audio tour, which I highly recommend especially if you are an occasional art dabbler like me. It helped set the stage and provide details around what to look for, what was unique about the pieces it focused on. We’ve visited the National Gallery before and it has some great works with free admission. We only did a speed walk through the gallery on our way out of the exhibit this time. It felt a bit sinful to walk past Van Gogh’s sunflowers with only a sidelong glance.

War and the mind exhibit at the Imperial War Museum. The Imperial War museum is a great little attraction and it often has interesting exhibits. They are always thoughtfully done and thought-provoking, and this exhibit on “War and the Mind” was no exception. It covered how people become motivated to start and accept (even support) war, the impact war has on the psyche (and the reverse), both for soldiers and civilians, and then how we are motivated to bring war to conclusion, and think about it in the aftermath. There have been no wars on the mainland of America in the lifetime of anyone I’ve known, but things are different in England. Although the exhibit was not just about impact of war on England, the rich examples and artifacts available particularly from the second World War drew you in, made you think about things at a different level than you might normally. Than I might normally. Excellent exhibit, and I highly recommend it.

Giuseppe Penone: Thoughts in the Roots at Serpentine Gallery. The Serpentine gallery is located in the Kensington gardens. The day we went was sunny and springlike and the walk over to the Serpentine gallery was peaceful. Every dog in London seemed to be out for a happy romp among colorful flowers.

It was the perfect precursor to the Penone exhibit focused on the relationship between humans and nature. There were cool installations of fabricated trees just outside the gallery which we enjoyed until the gallery opened. The exhibit inside the gallery was also awesome. I might be guilty of overusing the word peaceful, but that is what I felt while seeing Penone’s works. My favorite exhibit was in a room in which the installation included sections of encased laurel leaves from floor to ceiling. There were also fabricated tree stumps that were probably the main point of the exhibit and they were lovely, but the smell of the Laurel leaves and their appearance, well, it was amazing.

Shopping at Harrods’ food halls. No matter how long you’ve read this blog, never have you ever heard me talking about shopping in London other than at The Emirates. I hate shopping, hate to be in stores. In this case, I took a special trip over to Harrod’s because I’d long heard about the food halls and I was hoping for some Easter candy inspiration. (My husband was on a loftier and more diverse quest elsewhere to London Wetlands, the 24-hour Pianothon at Liverpool Street station, and Traces of Belsen exhibit at Wiener Holocaust Library. Maybe I can convince him to tell us about it here.) The Tube station is right next to Harrod’s and it took some strolling through the departments before I located the Food Halls at the back of the building. If I felt out of place among expensive purses, shoes, scarves, and impeccably-dressed sales people, I clearly was not the only one. Not one person I saw in the store probably had any business shopping there. Anyway, the Food Halls were a special-occasion exception. I visited the room with chocolate, the one with cheeses and meats, and the one with teas, jams, etc. Every thing was so beautiful it was an experience just to look. I ended up buying some chocolate and tea.

Cream beignets at Fortitude Bakehouse. My niece long ago found out about Fortitude bakehouse online and every time for the past year it’s been on my list to get there. This is a bakery that has a famous cream beignet. I understand that people line up for them for hours. They are ready at 11 a.m. and are available until they sell out each day. But somehow I’ve never managed to get there. I made a mental note on my way from Harrod’s that I had to change trains at the station closest to Fortitude, Russell Square. The bakery is only about a block away from the train station. It was my lucky day because I arrived at about 11:30 to find a bunch of people sitting outside the bakery gorging on cream beignets and other yummy- looking pastries. And only a few people in line ahead of me. It appears they make one flavor each day. On the day I was there it was was pistachio and rose, something like that. What I have to say about the hype about the beignets is that it is simply not enough. Flaky, fried dough dipped in granulated sugar, split and coated with jam, then filled with thick, delicious whipped cream, and glazed on top, in this case with pistachio glaze and nuts. One cream beignet was all I could manage for lunch that day. That, and enough tea to wash it down. It occurs to me that I wrote significantly more about cream beignets than about any other activity. This is not an error.

Dear England at the National Theatre. We had intended to attend the play, Three Sisters at Shakespeare’s Globe, but on the day it was supposed to play we received a notice that they had to cancel that evening’s production. We scrambled and found a very different alternative, Dear England, written by James Graham. The play covers the foibles and fortunes (mainly misfortunes) of the real England national soccer team during England’s history and especially Gareth Southgate’s tenure as National Team manager. It’s named after an actual letter that Gareth Southgate wrote during the Covid era before England’s participation in the Euros, the tournament held for only European national teams. How to characterize the real letter? It’s a reflection on the importance of football to the English as well as sort of a plea to take it easy on the very real people who play for the team. The staging was wonderful, the play was interesting, and the characters both lovable and laughable. We thoroughly enjoyed it. The only nit was the poor football technique of the actors. But considering how much of the play focused on England’s misfortunes with penalty kicks, maybe that was intentional?

We went to the play on a beautiful warm night and were able to enjoy lovely scenes along the Thames on our walk back home to the One Tun.

You get what you need

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Declan Rice was preparing to take a long free kick following a foul on Bukayo Saka in front of Real Madrid’s goal when a fan near me asked derisively, “How long has it been since he scored from a free kick?” It was an easy question. As good as Arsenal were scoring on corner kicks earlier this season, I can’t remember a free kick ending in anything except disappointment in recent years. And at 0-0 with only about 30 minutes remaining in the second half, I didn’t have my hopes up.

What happened next seemed like a miracle. Rice hit the ball, it swerved around the wall of Real Madrid players and into the net with one of the best goal keepers in the world, Thibaut Courtois, at full 6′ 7″ stretch, unable to reach it. We were thrilled, and relieved. Arsenal had looked good all match but it still had seemed conceivable up to that point that the match would end at 0-0 and we’d have to meet Real Madrid on their home turf next week with the wind in our faces.

We learned after the match Declan Rice had never scored such a goal.

As you know if you are a regular reader (I see you, fam), I only write while I’m in London. There are two home Arsenal matches this week and although we had tickets for neither when we scheduled our trip we felt that our best chance of scoring tickets for both was to be in London. We were VERY confident we’d be able to get tickets for the Brentford match over the weekend and significantly less confident about getting tickets for the Champions League match against Real Madrid on Tuesday. But still, a little confident.

As small our confidence was, it can now be classified as overconfidence. I must have clicked more than a thousand times for tickets the last week alone. Maybe a thousand in the several weeks before that. Nothing. On the day of the match we hedged our bets by reserving a space at a pub where we could watch the match on TV, hoping fervently we’d be able to cancel it in the end. That did not come to pass. We found ourselves watching from The Hope with other fans who also could not manage to get tickets.

About 10 minutes after Declan Rice scored that beautiful goal, Arsenal found itself again with a long free kick, again following a foul on Bukayo Saka. Declan Rice again teed it up and stroked it through the hole in the stretch of the wall created by Arsenal shirts parting like the red sea. Real Madrid keeper Courtois again stretched across his goal, missing the ball as it struck the top corner of the net.

Having never scored even one such goal, Declan Rice scored two in one night.

I’ve never experienced a celebration anywhere like what happened at The Hope. The goal was so unexpected, maybe even more unexpected than the first goal. There was no “Yeah!” or jumping around or cheering. Everyone just laughed.

We waited only a few minutes more before youngster Myles Lewis-Skelly put a cross in toward our makeshift striker Mikel Merino. There was nothing easy about the shot he had to make but he made it beautiful. In another time and place it would have been the best goal we’d seen in ages.

We ended up beating last year’s Champions League winners 3-0. To prove that there is no team good enough not to be trash-talked while also trashing our fiercest rivals, through the TV we could hear the Arsenal fans singing, “Are you Tottenham? Are you Tottenham? Are you Tottenham in disguise?”

It was hard not to be at The Emirates. The place seemed to be rocking all match and for good reason. We tried to console ourselves that it was just a short walk to our hotel and wasn’t it nice that we didn’t have to wait in a crowd to get on the Tube? But the reality was harder to take. Probably the most exciting match of the season. We were so close, but so far away.

And it makes the away match next week in Madrid even more important to give best efforts to. The match over the weekend against Brentford for which we do now have tickets is likely to be one for which Mikel Arteta keeps our best players on ice. We must take as few chances as possible for additional injuries.

In the end we accept all of it, from a glorious win we could not be present for, to a possibly tedious loss or tie in the Premier League at home over the weekend. If next week’s match against Real Madrid ends the way we want, I lean on brother Mick. You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometime you might find you get what you need.

When you freely dish it out

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It’s been quite a long time since we attended the West Ham match, so let’s dive in.

It was a sunny, nice day to be at the Emirates. Given the previously-referenced Fuller pub crawl, neither my husband nor I were up for a beer upon arriving. We did not arrive especially early and went right to our seats. Our seats were in the Clock End again, pretty typical for a successful ballot.

This time we were as close as we’d ever been to the Away section, unsurprisingly, West Ham this week. And as we know, our job is to drown them out. In this case, they had a lot to chant about having lost Declan Rice to us a few years ago. They are still bitter about it. We acquired him for £100 million, a sum that should have set them up for buying some good players. That hasn’t really happened for them. And, as of today, they are 16th in a league of 20 teams.

Should have been an easy match.

Last season, Rice was so good, £100 million seemed like a complete steal. This season, he’s struggled more. The whole team has struggled more, in large part because it’s been impossible to field our best team, of which Rice is normally an important inclusion. There have been so many injuries in the team this season, I would have told you he is one of few that has not had any. Upon review of that contention, I am reminded that he broke a toe in November and was briefly out of the lineup.

Because of the injuries, our manager Mikel Arteta has had to try out a bunch of stuff, including, in the match prior to this one, against Leicester City, starting Raheem Sterling. Raheem Sterling was formerly one of the top players in the Premier League. He started at Liverpool and was sold to Manchester City. After a lot of early success he found himself on the bench. That’s not a sin at Manchester City. The guys on the bench are better than the starters at most other clubs. Then he was sold to Chelsea, right about the time Chelsea started buying everyone. Chelsea bought some good players but couldn’t field a team that was capable of succeeding for quite some time. When they finally sorted out their best 11, Raheem Sterling again did not make the cut. He was loaned to Arsenal at the beginning of the season.

At the beginning of the season, that seemed like good business from Arsenal. Bukayo Saka is never injured, so having Raheem Sterling available in the off-chance Saka was injured seemed good enough. Over the period Sterling’s been at Arsenal, he’s pretty much only come off the bench to rest others. It’s been clear that he is no longer capable of what he once was.

Well, guess what? Bukayo Saka was injured. He tore his hamstring in December, bad enough to require surgery. That was followed by injuries to Gabriel Jesus (ACL tear and surgery) in January, Gabriel Martinelli (hamstring strain) in February, and Kai Havertz (torn hamstring and surgery) in February. Pretty much our entire preferred starting line-up up top and parts of our next most-preferred lineup.

So in the match prior to West Ham, against Leicester City, Mikel Arteta apparently saw no choice. Raheem Sterling was in the starting lineup. He huffed and puffed around but was not capable of making a difference. Things looked dismal. The match was still scoreless almost 70 minutes in. Then Sterling was replaced with Mikel Merino, a midfielder. Merino is not even a first choice midfielder for Arsenal and had never, until that point, played as a striker. But within 10 minutes of entering the match, he scored a headed goal. Near the end of the match, he scored another. A one-time thwack from a beautiful pass by Leandro Trossard.

So the question going into the West Ham match was what does Arteta do now? Put Sterling in at the start again and let him wear down the opposition, then bring Merino in to make things happen at the end? Or start Merino?

Arteta chose to start Merino.

On game day, The Emirates was subdued. It’s been a long time since we’ve experienced an atmosphere that bad. The main thing we could all get behind was this: Declan Rice takes the corners on the left side. This happens to be the side the visitors are on in the first half. So while the West Ham supporters were lustily booing Rice, the Arsenal supporters were just as lustily standing and cheering for him. The West Ham fans had some choice songs for Rice (which also managed to insult Arsenal overall) and a few for Arteta as well.

West Ham were playing with 5 defenders, which is known to be a good strategy against Arsenal. Idea being to make it hard to have a sight of the goal and then counterattack on any mistake. We dominated but, as Arsene Wenger used to say, it was sterile domination. At near the end of the first half, West Ham’s strategy paid off big time. They got a breakaway and managed to cross into the box, where it was headed beyond our keeper, David Raya. 0 – 1.

The West Ham fans were jubilant and, if we Arsenal fans had been subdued before, we were downright morose during the second half. The rabble rousers in the crowd were unable to mount a response to West Ham’s joy.

With still 20 minutes to play in the match, teenage sensation and Arsenal defender Myles Lewis-Skelly got a yellow card that, after interminable video review, was upgraded to a red card. Still, Arsenal has shown themselves to be pretty resilient after going down to 10 men and I think we still felt some hope.

All hope was lost a short time later. Arteta removed Mikel Merino and replaced him with Raheem Sterling.

That was when Arsenal fans left the stadium in droves.

But my husband and I stayed until the bitter end. And it was bitter. There is nothing worse than being in a stadium with happy opposition, especially so close to us. Hearing them chant in joy for themselves, and in derision for us.

But, if you can freely dish it out (we can and we have) sometimes you have to be able to take it.

We took it.

Devil & God, dirt & light

Amy O3 Comments

Breaking our supposed rule never to see a play on the first night we arrive in London, we located reasonably-priced tickets to Thursday’s production of the musical The Devil Wears Prada. It was easy to break because, as evidenced by even events in the dark on the last night of a trip to London, I still seem to be able to sleep through parts of any production.

I am a complete sucker for the movie and cannot resist watching it when it’s available on a streaming service. Meryl Streep is so deliciously bitchy. I could never tire of her delivery of “That is all….” Now, Meryl Steep is of course not in the musical, but add music by Elton John, how can this not be a load of fun?

Well, it was a load of fun. They liberally used much of the movie (which in turn was probably from the book, which I have not read). The actress playing–I’m just going to call it–Meryl Streep’s character (because she OWNED that role) couldn’t begin to match Meryl but she played it her way and it worked. The music was wonderful, the costumes were great, the actors did a wonderful job.

And, yes, I did doze off some. But I’ve watched the movie dozens of time. I could still follow the plot.

On Friday morning we embarked on an excursion to the The Somerset House where there was an exhibit on Soil. Yes, Soil.

It was unbelievably fascinating. Photos of tiny bacteria blown up huge, video of the sights and sounds of roots growing, a mesmerizing video of the development of a mushroom, including ethereal flows of spores. Information on gardening techniques. Stories of human response to plants, flowers, gardens. Every time I tried to hurry along some new narrative or visual captured my attention. Highly, highly recommend this exhibit.

That afternoon we took a long train ride to a different kind of exhibit, God’s Own Junkyard. This is a museum of neon signs, many created by one artist, Chris Bracey, who sadly passed away in in 2014 due to cancer. You can walk through the museum and see the works of neon art displayed and there’s a little coffee shop to sit and enjoy them while relaxing. It is very cool, and very overwhelming.

One thing that became clear to me seeing the Soil exhibit and this one in one day is the power of narrative. The way Soil was exhibited helped you to notice things you might have glossed over. God’s Own Junkyard had every square inch covered with neon signs and art. It was hard to appreciate each one individually.

But perhaps that is the point.

Later that day we went out to Battersea Power Station to view installations for the Light Festival. Battersea Power Station was formerly a literal source of electrical power for London that had been closed down in 1983 and much later converted to a very fancy mall. The light festival was a little, well, little, eight installations from very awesome to kind of ho-hum. But the mall….I am not a shopper but it was beautiful. I especially loved that they retained the old towers from the original building when they built the mall. It’s also full of old equipment from its past as a power station. There is an unbelievable amount of housing development around the mall. One of the reasons I love visiting London is the juxtaposition of old buildings to new, modern ones. This area was all new, but it was all awesome.

Our final tour was to the Brunel Museum, a museum in Southwark on the site of an engineering marvel of a tunnel under the Thames that was built by a father and son team. The tunnel was intended to allow movement of goods from one side of the Thames to another during a time when heavy boat traffic on the Thames made it very difficult to add bridges. The tunnel was started in 1825 and finished in 1843. It was never used to transport goods and initially was more popular as a tourist attraction for pedestrians. It is now used for train travel, ironically, by the London Overground.

You can enter the original shaft and, in the museum, view exhibits and equipment displaying how the tunnel was built and all the challenges the engineers and construction crew faced. Great little museum.

And close by, nice views of the city on a somewhat dreary London day.

A new hood & Fuller’s pub crawl

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After so many recent stays in Tower Hill, we were ready for a fresh, new place we’d never been. So for this trip, my husband selected a boutique hotel called Ruby Lucy in Lambeth. Lambeth is a neighborhood south of the Thames. It’s situated close to the Waterloo train and underground station, kind of a cool, old station. The station was exceedingly busy at all times, droves of people standing in front of the entrance to the tracks, staring at the board on which their track was to be assigned.

Ruby Lucy was a quirky little hotel with a great lobby and fairly spacious rooms. Each floor has an open tea station just outside the elevators and a communal iron board. Our room had a comfy queen bed and one of those crazy showers that is open-glassed on two sides to the room. It had a curtain on the outside of the shower; i.e., if you’ve failed to plan before you start your shower, the person in the room gets the choice of whether to draw the curtains or not. Good to be well enough acquainted before the trip so the choice made by the person not in the shower creates no drama.

The hotel is located on Lower Marsh Street, which was a real find. Although we were quite close to the London Eye, Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, the neighborhood had the feel of being very far from all of those things. Funky and a bit gritty, the street was closed to all but bike and foot traffic and, during the day, had a great little market with mostly street food. There were so many other food options available that we never partook of the street food, but it was extremely tempting. We went to a nice Thai restaurant, Sino Thai, for dinner on the day we arrived and enjoyed Cuban tapas at Cubano the next night. We had a yummy breakfast at Balance one morning.

One of the cooler things about the neighborhood was an attraction I’d never heard of before, Leake Street Arches. We had been walking down Lower Marsh Street waiting for our hotel room to be made up when I noticed a garden path leading to what looked like an underground tunnel. Inside was a broad arch covered with some of the coolest graffiti I’ve ever seen. According to the web site, “London’s largest legal graffiti wall.” An artist was working on some fresh art with a can of spray paint.

My husband, who you may recall was recovering from a concussion on our last visit and not drinking, was looking forward to visiting all the Fuller’s pubs we could. With three in the immediate neighborhood, we were able to make a good dent in his goal. His favorite beer is a Fuller’s product called London Pride. I bought some for him for Christmas at Binny’s but it’s just not the same as knowing that it is being drawn from a cask in the basement of the pub. Or so I’ve heard. The Fuller’s pubs in our neighborhood were nice but not quite the pub experience we wanted. One day we left our neighborhood for the highly rated The Harp in Covent garden. Great pub with a fun crowd AND the requisite London Pride. But no food, so after one round and a great conversation with some interesting folks, we crossed the street to visit The Admiralty, a place we’d eaten on one of our visits in December. Also a Fuller’s pub. 5 Fuller’s pubs in all; not bad for a trip with boots on the ground for three nights.

Concussed London

Amy OLeave a comment

Because of the concussion my husband experienced the day we left for London, he was pretty well drugged for much of the trip and somewhat limited in what he felt like doing. My work hours could have enabled us to have some morning fun, but that was often not a time when he was moving around. He is normally a much earlier riser than I, but on this trip I was often awake before he was. Many breakfasts alone in lovely cafes. Solitary walks along the Thames. This does not suck.

We were staying at the Apex City of London, which happened to be a place we had stayed in the distant past. I remembered really liking that hotel but couldn’t picture what it was like. Staying at the Apex Temple last month reminded me how much I liked the Apex City of London, so when it came into our price point–a relatively rare event over the past few years–we booked it. It is very nice. Apex Temple seems a bit more recently refreshed and I would say is nicer. But this hotel is also pretty and had everything we needed, including plenty of space in our room and a good, public space to work. Apex City of London is in the Tower Hill area. We’ve stayed in Tower Hill a lot and there are always favorite places in the neighborhood we want to re-visit. It requires a bit of effort to do new things. But, given conditions of the spousal noggin, on this trip we did more of letting the activities present themselves to us.

Furry fandom meet-up. On the day we arrived in London, Saturday, my husband went right to sleep after reaching our hotel. I went out to get coffee at a shop I’d never been to before just up the street, Carter’s cafe. I was sitting at a table with my back to the window when I noticed other people in the shop taking pictures of the window. I turned around to see what I later learned was a gathering of the Furry fandom. They were on their way over to the Trinity Square Gardens so I wandered over to watch them parading into the park.

Music concerts. The hotel is located just next to St. Olave church, as I mentioned in another post. Twice during the week they had lunchtime concerts, one a piano concert and the other a viola concert. My husband went to both and I went only to the viola recital. The church is a bit dreary outside, though with a lovely garden. Inside was very beautiful and, to my very untrained ear, had great acoustics for the music. The violist was Teresa Ferreira and she beautifully played a great selection of music from baroque to contemporary with interesting commentary between each piece. What do I know about music? Not much. But I enjoyed the concert very much.

Medieval Women at the British Library. We visited the The British Library a few years ago to see its excellent exhibit of famous books and documents, including the Magna Carta, original compositions from the Beatles, the Gutenberg Bible, and lots of other amazing treasures. During this visit, we went for a new exhibit, Medieval Women: In Their Own Words. This was a great exhibit culled from collections of books, documents, and artifacts and describing facets of life impacting Medieval women. Yes, the overall message was “life is not so good for us Medieval women, and when it becomes good, bad things happen” but it was a lot richer than that. There were bright spots where women could express themselves with poetry, song, writing, business, power, beauty. We loved the exhibit and recommend it highly.

A tour of All Hallows by-the-Tower. We’ve walked by and seen this old church dozens of times but it never occurred to us to visit until we happened upon the restaurant Byward Kitchen & Bar for breakfast one morning. To get into the restaurant you more or less enter the church hallway, and I think the restaurant might be owned by the church. The ambiance of the restaurant is awesome. So awesome I fully forgave it the good-enough-but-nothing-to-write-home-about food that was served.

After breakfast, we wandered into the All Hallows by-the-Tower church for a tour. It was amazing. The church itself is very old, parts of it older even than the Tower of London. It was repeatedly bombed during WWII and significantly rebuilt after that. There is an interesting area in the basement where remnants of melting lead from the roof flowed down the wall after the bombings. The church contains notable art and exhibits of artifacts. Most interesting to us was tiled floors that were found during a renovation that were clearly remaining from the Roman settlement in place from 40 – 410 A.D. The exhibit also included an interesting diorama of the Roman settlement in London.

A search for Roman era rivers. One day my husband and I were out walking and my husband showed me one of his public art finds from a prior day, Forgotten Streams, a piece by Cristina Iglesias. The piece depicts the ancient River Walbrook which historically started near modern day Shoreditch and emptied into the Thames but is now a sewer, according to the London Museum. It had been a boundary of the early Roman settlement. I couldn’t find a good vantage point to get a decent photo, but it was a pretty cool installation.

That prompted us, along with seeing the diorama and Roman tiled floors at All Hallows, to try to find two lost rivers, the River Walbrook and The Fleet. The Fleet starts near Hampstead Heath and ends at the Thames somewhere near Blackfriar’s station. We found the Walbrook with greater ease than the Fleet. In the end, we concluded that the Fleet might not be able to be seen due to construction on the Blackfriar bridge.

Some very amateur mudlarking. The tide was well out as we were walking along one day so we availed ourselves of some muddy stairs going down to the banks of the Thames to look at shells and other treasures piled up. After our attendance at the Mudlarking Exhibit last year I was curious to what extent it might be possible to recognize ancient objects. I found something that looked like an old pipe, similar to some we had seen at the exhibit, some broken dishes, and an interesting brick. Our finding was all catch-and-release not only because of the rules that govern mudlarking but, let’s face it, I had struggled enough before the trip to fit a week’s worth of clothing into a carry-on bag. I did not need to find room for a brick. Because the mudlarkers we met at the exhibit seemed to enjoy most of all the research into objects they found, I did a little research on the brick I found. According to the internet (yeah, I know, not really deep research), my brick was from a company that existed only for 30 years, and was at least 100 years old.

Helen Chadwick room at the Tate Modern. We arrived at the Tate Modern with limited time and mental capacity so we decided to take in a single room of the museum. The room we choose this time was the room devoted to British artist Helen Chadwick. Chadwick is known for her studies of the human body, early on mostly her own body, but later, on all the things that make a body a body. My favorite part of the exhibit was from her work in an IVF clinic and art she created with photos of fertilized eggs and dandelion seed heads.

And, of course, our week ended at the Arsenal vs. Aston Villa match. This was the only match that we had tickets for when we started our journey. Aston Villa has been tricky for us lately and this match proved no exception. I was seated next to a fun family that included a young boy whose favorite player was Bukayo Saka. His father showed me dozens of picture of the boy with members of the Arsenal team: Saka, Martin Odegaard, Leandro Trossard. On numerous occasions they had stopped by hotels that Arsenal stay at the night before matches and stalked them.

Arsenal played well and scored two goals, both by players who have been a bit short of goals lately, Gabriel Martinelli and Kai Havertz. But somehow Arsenal lost its footing and allowed two goals from Aston Villa. The second goal really knocked the stuffing out of the Arsenal fans and the family next to me went negative. The dad actually changed seats with the kid so he could mutter dark thoughts and feelings in my left ear. I don’t share this level of negativity, but I let him vent.

With the injuries so far this season, there were no great options on the bench to try and turn things around. Despite some excellent efforts from Arsenal (including a goal that was disallowed for a handball) and attempted late heroics, nothing good came of it and the match ended 2-2.

We saw three matches during the week and got all three possible results–a loss, a win, and a draw. Not an ideal week of results but, even limited by spousal concussion, I can’t complain about the week we had. It was awesome.

(En)chant(ed)

Amy OLeave a comment

So I take back what I said before the Tottenham match. Maybe only the Club People have lost their belief. Maybe they never had it, or needed it. Maybe they all just desperately needed cash that day. Or a good night’s sleep. But what I experienced at the match showed fan hope and fervent love for Arsenal. Yes, some momentary despair was in the air at times. And for sure a thing that was in the air was a lot of disdain for our rivals, Tottenham Hotspur.

I’ve been the the North London Derby only once before and, like that experience, this one did not disappoint.

The route to the stadium was unbelievably straightforward. Trains not too crowded, gates running smoothly. We stopped at the Armoury again because we had so much time on our hands after we got to the stadium even though we got a late start. It was almost empty.

All of these things made me double down on my worries about what the atmosphere might be like in the stadium in the so-called-by-me post-belief Arsenal world. The only sign that this was a match a lot of people might care about was the massive police presence outside of the stadium near where the Tottenham fans would come in. We saw what looked like a well-protected group of Tottenham fans being held over one of the bridges into the stadium to guarantee safety as we arrived at our gate on the East side of the stadium.

And then. And then. We got into the stadium. So many people standing in the concourse singing with great passion and energy. It was raucous, so loud. The stadium was full. Even the Club part where all those tickets had been up for sale filled in nicely.

The singing is one of the things that brings me the feeling I understand as collective effervescence that brings me back to the stadium again and again. You just feel like you are being swept up in this crowd of people and becoming one with them. I know it’s over a sport, maybe nothing that will change the world, but when I’m in it I feel goosebumps right into even my brain. Listening to a crowd of 60,000 people singing “North London Forever” gets me. Tears sometimes. But this time, oh my goodness, it was so LOUD I think you could hear it on the moon.

I think both of my visits to the stadium this week reminded me that even though I’ve been a devoted Arsenal supporter for more than 15 years I can never fully understand the history that is in the bodies of these fans. At an FA Cup match there were FA-specific songs, many of them I had never heard before. But huge numbers of fans in the stadium can pick them up and sing them easily just because someone got the inspiration and let the song in their heart OUT of their heart. Each song was just waiting for someone to start it.

And with the Tottenham match, that history came out in a different way. Now, singing is used to inspire the team. “We love you Arsenal, we do,” is an example. It’s also used to reward the team. After a player does something particularly impressive, the fans often reflect that back with a chant. It might be that player’s special song bestowed on them by the fans, like Gabriel Magalhaes song or might be a tune everyone knows that inserts the player’s name. When Ethan Nwaneri, a homegrown 18-year old, does something well, the fans sing, “He’s one of our own, he’s one of our own, Ethan Nwaneri, he’s one of our own,” just inserting his name into a familiar construct everyone knows.

Big Gabi is sung a lot because, lately, he scores a lot. On a corner kick, which Arsenal is recently quite good at, his is the head that usually produces the goal. But it’s more than that. He just delivers a complete performance, like he deeply cares about doing his best. Fans appreciate and notice that.

But chanting is also used to put an opponent in its place. And although I would say the chanting at the Emirates is typically 80% for our team and 20% against the other team, when Arsenal plays Tottenham that balance is substantially changed. Probably 50% of the chants were for Arsenal and 50% were against Tottenham. And let’s face it, don’t we all get more creative when our brains are doing the devil’s work? Some of the anti-Tottenham songs were as choice as could be. And largely unknown by me. It’s not yet in my DNA the way it is for my fellow supporters. I am just a new visitor to the history of this great rivalry.

We were close again to the Tottenham supporters and the job of an Arsenal fan close to the enemy is to make sure they are drowned out. It was a tough challenge. Although Tottenham was abject, they still managed to score first and that really energized their fans and demoralized ours. But even when we could not muster a real song to drown them out, we perfected our booing to cover them up as best as we could.

But Arsenal came good, scoring 2 goals. One from a corner and by Gabriel (although they later gave it as an own goal against a Tottenham player) and a bit later by a shot taken at distance by Leo Trossard. He had kind of a terrible match but he took a shot and the keeper did not stop it.

Then Arsenal managed to keep Tottenham at bay until the full 90 minutes + 5 added were up. I was a wreck for the last 30 minutes along with my compatriots. And so, apparently, was our captain Martin Odegaard, who collapsed on the field when the final whistle blew. So much soccer in so few days. And probably so much relief to ultimately hold on to the win.

And then “North London Forever” once more. Twice as loud as the loudest I’d ever heard it, at the beginning of the match, which was already twice as loud as the loudest I’d ever heard it before Wednesday.

We were happy, relieved, joyful. But we celebrated en masse on our way back to the train with the not-lofty but so familiar call and response:

“What do you think of Tottenham?” (Every Arsenal fan knows the correct answer is “Shit.”)

“What do you think of shit?” (Every Arsenal fan knows the correct answer is “Tottenham.”)

Armoury represents

Amy O2 Comments

The holidays came up with great urgency and I never finished posted after attending the Everton match. I know you’re dying for my thoughts, both of you.

Rarity of rarities, after being lucky in the Arsenal ballot for the Manchester United match and organizing our travel for that trip, we happened to be watching Arsenal play Nottingham Forest on TV when, just after half time, I decided to click on the Arsenal site to see if I could get a ticket for the Everton match. One came up right away, I clicked it, and it was truly available and not snatched up by someone else.

While I stepped away from the match to find my credit card, Arsenal scored. This is the story of my life. I cannot turn my back on the TV during a match without regretting it. But goals can be watched on replay and tickets do not come so easily, so I was satisfied with the tradeoff made. After I’d completed my purchase, I compelled my husband to click on the Arsenal web site to try to get a ticket. He clicked twice and one came up. He clicked it and it was also truly available. Unprecedented.

So we happily planned to come to London for the weekend.

Both of our tickets were Club level tickets which seems to be secret of getting tickets at the Emirates. Don’t get me wrong–the goal is to be in the stadium and Club tickets are awesome. It’s just that it’s a lot more fun to sit somewhere else. People are more into it. The reason Club tickets are so often the first to come available is probably because they are held by people or entities who just don’t care that much to always be present and when present, maybe a tad jaded.

I had hoped to be able to buy a different ticket and then sell this one, but the first opportunity I had to buy a ticket on the Arsenal web site outside of the Club level was on match day. And it became clear that it was not possible to buy a new ticket and then sell the old ticket. The Arsenal web site requires you to sell first and then buy. Too risky.

We started our match day by visiting the Armoury, the large store on site at the Emirates. A person in my life with whom I exchange Christmas gifts had wanted some merch. And there is no place like the Armoury for Arsenal merch. It has just about everything a person could own or use or look at with an Arsenal logo on it.

I mentioned in my post Report this that Arsenal is constantly keeping its finger on the pulse of its fans by surveying them. They had reached out a few weeks ago with a survey about whether I’d ever heard abuse or bad language at an Arsenal match. After the Manchester United match, they reached out with a typical survey about my experience at the Emirates. Was everyone polite? Was everyone helpful? Was the food good? But that was cursory. Once they got that out of the way, what they really seemed interested in was: had I visited the Armoury on that trip?

I had not.

I have to paraphrase what they asked next because, again, it didn’t occur to me I might write about this and I did not take sufficient note. The question was quite odd, so giving it my best shot.

To the best of my recollection they asked me what do I think the Armoury should represent to fans?

WTF?

But I like to be helpful to the club. First I wrote cheerfully, “Weird question!” Then I believe I wrote, “It should be a palace of crass commercialism.” To which I hope the marketing person who reviewed my answer thought to themselves, “Job done. One happy customer!”

Based on the one change we noted in the Armoury, one of my fellow fans who responded to the survey must have said “It should represent a disco,” because now there is a DJ at the Armoury on match day. He was right at the entrance, obstructing the ever-present mannequins of Arsenal players I believe I complimented in my survey. The music was lively, upbeat, optimistic. Danceable.

After looking at everything, and I mean everything, my husband found just the right thing for my Christmas gift recipient and I was whisked through the line to pay for it. My important job done, we went up to the Club level and enjoyed a Camden Hells lager.

My husband and I were not sitting together during the match. My seat was in the Clock end and I was pleasantly surprised that the fans near me were quite enthusiastic. The first half was fine. There was no score by halftime but it looked like Arsenal could get the job done. Everton had very little interest in scoring but a lot of interest in making sure Arsenal did not, either, and they defended stoutly. Martin Odegaard had a hat trick of missed chances and you just knew Arsenal would break through in the second half.

But once the second half started it looked like the wheels had come off for Arsenal. It was the same dynamic, Everton defending and Arsenal possessing the ball, but not very energetically and not with real purpose. With metronomic and hypnotic passing from side to side in front of 11 defenders. I still felt that anything could happen, but 90 minutes ticked down and nothing did.

Perhaps there were actually so many Club tickets available because everyone predicted the Arsenal v. Everton match was going to end in a scoreless draw. As it did.

I didn’t hear this, but my husband said in his section there was some booing at the end.

There haven’t been many times I’ve had to leave an Arsenal match disappointed, which made me decide to put together my personal statistics. I’ve attended 24 matches live. The record for those matches is 17 wins, 5 draws, and 2 losses, an average of 2.33 points per match. Over the same time period, what has been Arsenal’s home record? An average of 2.16 points per match, or so says Microsoft Copilot. It’s AI so it’s got to be legit, right?

I hereby declare my presence at the Emirates to have statistically significant impact on the club. Pretty sure my record is better when I wear the red jersey to the match than when I wear the black jersey, as I did on Saturday. Lesson learned.

After being queried about what the Armoury should represent to fans, I now eagerly await the survey from Arsenal in which I have the opportunity to explain what I represent to Arsenal. They do take action on their surveys and I think I can get behind the action they might take when this information becomes available.

I might wait until I get my stats back up a bit.

Merry, miserable Christmas trees

Amy O1 Comment

Ridiculously, after returning to Chicago for a few days in which we purchased a Christmas tree and put lights on our house and I worked during normal U.S. working hours, my husband and I returned to London for the weekend.

Both of the aforementioned Christmas activities in Chicago involved challenges. We had a lot of burned out lightbulbs on our Christmas tree last year so I threw quite a few strings out. Naturally, I forgot about that so when I went to put lights on our tree this year, the usual selection was not available. I pulled some options from a different box and put them up, only to discover they were flashing lights. We lived with that for a few days until we concluded we felt stressed after turning on our Christmas tree. I ended up removing my first attempt and completing the effort again with newly-purchased options.

The lights for the house also had burned-out sections and my husband spent time–both before and after our trip–trying to find replacement bulbs, seeking suitable replacement light strings, rejecting such replacements, seeking others, and compromising until the exterior of the house was finally decorated to his–probably compromised–satisfaction.

Although our trip to London was brief, it was fully devoted to relaxation and enjoyment. We walked around town, enjoyed the beautiful lights and decorations, visited a pop-up skating rink at Somerset House, and visited a winter festival featuring (for us) choirs performing under a Christmas Tree in Trafalgar Square.

We enjoyed our new hotel neighborhood near the Temple tube stop. Walking from the Tube stop to the hotel, the area felt like no place we had ever stayed in London even though it was relatively close to other areas we’ve stayed in. Every time we were walking around I was hit with the sensation of novelty which would morph into familiarity and back into novelty. Our hotel was the Apex Temple Court, which had a lovely lobby and pretty, spacious, and practical rooms. The hotel was serving mulled wine and tiny mince pies near the reception desk. Mulled wine = fabulous. Mince pie = not my thing. Mince pie was ubiquitous in London. But so was mulled wine.

Our main entertainment, other than the Arsenal match, was a Tour via the London Transport Museum of Jubilee line platforms at Charing Cross Underground station that have been closed to the public for 25+ years. It still has working tracks that can be used for storing trains during slow transit periods, that then can be whisked into service during rush hours. The other use for this part of the station is filming movies and TV shows that have scenes in Tube stations. It was used in Skyfall, The Bourne Ultimatum, and even Paddington. They showed us clips from the movies during our tour. We got to go into construction tunnels and even in a ventilation shaft above train platforms currently in use. Interesting way to experience history and a part of the train system you rarely see.

With regard to relaxation, we visited the historic Gordon’s Wine Bar, one of our favorite places to hang out and have a glass of wine in an outdoor garden under a very functional heating unit. We also visited a ridiculous number of pubs considering we were in town only for a long weekend. I love the pubs in London under normal conditions but during the holiday season they are beacons of warmth and cheer. They are decked to the hilt with lights and candles and garland, have special, fun menus and drinks, and are full of cheerful Londoners in Santa hats and Christmas sweaters and holiday tights. We visited Old Bank of England, Williamson’s Tavern, The Admiralty, and Ye Olde Watling. Old Bank of England is one of the grandest pubs I’ve visited, which I would have said about The Admiralty if the prior day I had not been in Old Bank of England. Williamson’s and Ye Olde Watling were cozy and friendly. My husband declared the Blade of Beef & Ale pie served in Old Bank of England to be the best beef pie in all of London. I think my favorite meal was just a delicious hamburger from The Admiralty. And the Hedgerow Berry Mess was also yummy.

It was all so very lovely, I was surprised upon returning back to Chicago to see an opinion piece in the Washington Post entitled Britain’s merry, miserable Christmas trees. I know this is behind a paywall so let me give you a synopsis. The author, Mark Lasswell, describes a national pastime in Britain of “lashing out at the comically forlorn approximations of holiday trees on public display.” The leading photo is of a tree in Trafalgar Square. A member of Parliament is quoted in the article as saying this tree resembles “a wonky corn on the cob.” It did look a little sad in the photo.

Photo credit: Kristin Wigglesworth/AP as shown in The Washington Post 12/17/2024

Then I realized I had been standing near that very tree only three days ago. How did I not notice it looked like that? What I remembered: everything was so pretty. So festive.

I dug through the photos on my phone to see if that really was the tree in Trafalgar Square. I did not have a photo, but I had a video of a choir performing right next to the tree shown in the Washington Post. It never struck me in the moment as a “comically forlorn approximation” of a holiday tree. But, yes, it’s not the most glorious. The fact checkers for The Washington Post had done their jobs admirably.

I can only guess that the persons decorating the tree at Trafalgar Square said, “Everything else looks so amazing, no one will even notice this tree. Let’s get this over with and make better use our time with mulled wine at The Admiralty.”