12-9-05 Up to Central London

Last night our friends Mark and Jill took us to Bethnal Green in North London to see The Vibrants. This was excellent. The club reminded me a lot of the places I used to play in my late teens and early 20’s, lots of beer and lots of smoke. No agro thank God. Sam and Gilles from The Vibrants personally greeted us and made us feel like their Number One Fans, it was awesome. The Vibrants are going to be big, mark my words. If you think Oasis is good, these guys are way better and way nicer. They even took the time to sign my CD, and I will hang on to that one. We watched a couple of other bands, but none were as good as The Vibrants, so we decided to leave. On the way home, Mark was nice enough to give us a special tour of the city, and we were amazed at 11:30 at night, the streets were full of people, lots of office workers getting out from Christmas parties, quite amazing.

Today we decided to get up quite a bit early so we could cram a whole day of touristy stuff in Central London. Grabbed some grub in the kitchen then headed for the train station. Took the wrong train, but it didn’t matter, from London Bridge we were able to tube to Kensington Palace for a tour. Kensington Palace was the official home of Princess Diana before her death in 1997. We noticed a muted tribute to her in the exhibit, it was almost as if they wanted to suppress her presence even in death. There was no photography allowed, but I could not resist taking one picture without flash of her dresses.

In the first room of the Diana part, we saw about 8 giant poster size photos from an un-published shoot, mostly color, some black and white and let me tell you, this was the most beautiful I have ever seen Princess Diana. She had minimal makeup, no jewelry, a nice silver white dress, hair was just combed back carefree. The photographer took the first picture sitting next to her on the couch. He wanted the shoot to feel as if you were sitting next to her and he captured that essence perfectly. I secretly loved Diana as did many thousand, possibly millions of people. I found it hard to accept her death, and remember the night it occurred. Stephani and I were staying in San Diego in the Four Seasons where I was doing a tradeshow, and from bed we saw the news and went to sleep hours later in disbelief. The grief didn’t leave for a long time. I guess I felt she lived such a sad life, for a Woman who had access to everything. And she was so close to happiness in the end. So, seeing her up close today, it brought back a lot of sad memories of that time, and I found it hard to walk from her exhibit to the other vintage parts of the Palace. Even got a little peeved when we were told other members of the royal family live in the apartment she once lived in.

From there we went down to Embankment for a lovely Fish & Chip lunch in, where else the “Princess of Wales”, no beer this time, just lovely cups of tea and fantastic Fish & Chips. Then we went on a chilly narrated riverboat tour and got some good photos. Then it was time to head over to Oxford Street. We are in search of a pair of boots. These are no ordinary boots, and after today, I am convinced they are no longer made. We used to call them dealer boots. They are brown or black leather, leather sole, ankle style with elastic on each side of the ankle. The toe is stitched in an almost rectangular shape. We found lots of similar styles, but not the ones I remembered from long ago. I guess it is unreasonable to expect to find something like this 15-20 years later. I believe they are called Jodper boots, used for horse riding. Well, they used to look bloody cool with faded Levi’s and I’m still on the hunt for them.

We went up and down Oxford Street, and were quite sore and tired by 7pm so we went to our favorite little restaurant, Garfunkels, on Argyle Street next to the Palladium for some dessert and a cup of tea. Then we came home. We are resting up for another day of sight seeing tomorrow. We plan on visiting the Tower of London, Buckingham Palace and Harrods, although, with Christmas season in full gear, we are likely to get beaten back by the throngs of shoppers.

London is a beautiful place, much nicer than how I remember it. Lots of Christmas lights and everyone has the Christmas spirit. We have yet to experience a bad meal here. It will be tough to leave.