……drumroll……spotlight……
I can’t properly relate the UK trip without ranting about their visa requirements. However, to keep the mood light for now, I’ve decided to relegate my rant to the end of the blog, among my reflections.
For me, the lead up to a holiday is almost as fun as the actual trip. I love surfing the net to find flights at good prices, discounted trains and cheaper ways to ride a ferry. It’s exciting to scour websites that identify interesting, unexpected or quintessential experiences. I spend hours zooming into destinations on Google Maps, plotting local places of interest. On YouTube, a wealth of travelers and guides give up their secrets free and gratis. As such, I had over planned for this trip. There was no way I’d experience everything that titillated my senses, so I saved my discoveries and decided that I’d get to what I’d get to. There were secret little bars behind apparent fridge doors, very old music houses, castle restaurants, manor houses and a miniature reproduction of the renowned Old London Bridge. I only got to a fraction of what I’d planned and, despite what I’ll say in my reflections at the end of this blog, there remains in me a desire to go back and see more. Theatrically, Cabaret was not going to stand alone on a playbill, was it? Oh no; I planned a veritable cultural smorgasbord. Of the seven (eight, in the end) performances I’d booked, some were hit, some a little miss.
Among the plans, there would be a visit to
Hampton Court Palace, playground of megalomaniacal Henry VIII. Based on a fleeting comment she’d made on a
previous trip, I’d decided that Kathy, who’d be meeting me in London, would not
want to see it, and so I booked a single ticket for my second day. However, to accommodate a culinary experience
in the Cornish countryside, my HCP visit had to make way for a train ride to Penzance.
There’d be no refund. Increasing my order would make it easier to
change the date, so I contacted Kathy.
She did actually want to go, and we’d go on the Saturday.
I had to wait on the call for 40
minutes before speaking to an operator.
(This is something we don’t deal with in Taiwan – it’s easy to reach
someone who can help, though one does sometimes have to navigate recorded messages
in Chinese.) Thank heavens for
Skype! (Two decades ago, I’d been so
excited by the advent of Skype with its affordable way to contact my family and
friends in South Africa, Australia and Europe.
As technology changed, Whatsapp, Line and Messenger slowly replaced this
dated software. Now, though, ringing a
landline across the globe, I was thankful that I’d kept my Skype account, and
that there was still some credit on it.
Once my turn came around, the attendant was pleasant, and an adjustment charge
was waived because of the second ticket.
These tickets would be changed again. Kathy was expecting a new passport, issued by the Dutch authorities, having gone to the lengthy effort of acquiring that citizenship following the UK’s Brexit vote. This required her to return to Amsterdam on that very Saturday. I gave her the number, and she was able to reschedule five days earlier.
Another early arrangement was with a ferry company. I wanted to visit some smaller isles around the main island of Great Britain, which necessitated marine transportation. On the day of my outbound flight, as I slowly readied for my 23:30 departure, I got an email. The Isles of Scilly, which form the southwestern most point of England, were experiencing storms.
The Scillonian might not sail. I got on Skype once more, this time queuing for 20 minutes. It was not yet necessary to cancel, but they’d keep me informed. Later on the same day, it was confirmed that day trippers would not be taken on the vessel: a delayed departure would leave no time on Scilly before a punctual return. (This harked back to the canceled boat trip in Oman. Oh, man!) My payment was refunded. (I had considered getting accommodation on the Isles of Scilly, but it was considerably more expensive than in Penzance.) Ah, well!
I’d booked several performances for my stay in
London, which would be in the second week on the isles. However, I would land in the capital first,
of course, and I soon found something for that very first night. This ticket led me to do something I’ve never
done before. Let me paint a picture.
I cannot sleep on flights; I’ve never been
able to. The only exception was when I
flew to Switzerland for 4 days in 2017 to attend my sister’s wedding. Obviously, planning a show for the day of
arrival after two 8-ish hour flights with a 4-ish hour layover is an exercise
in the absurd. It would make sense to
try and get some sleep, at the very least, on the flight. This is how, then, I justified upgrading my
outbound flight to a business class seat.
I watched the price daily, torturing myself about it for a month before
finally taking the plunge.
The intercontinental flight was with
Emirates. I was able to arrange diabetic
meals on all four flights, due to an unhappy diagnosis several weeks before
departure. It took some effort to put
aside my dislike of seafood, since this was the offered option. It was great to get my meal ahead of everyone
else, but the cabin crew then simply forgot to offer me an alcoholic beverage
(or indeed any beverage) while they served the rest of the travelers. This happened each time, twice on each leg,
eight times in total.
I had no neighbour on the first leg from Taipei
to Dubai. This was great because,
business class on this Boeing required the passenger at the window to climb
across the bed of the passenger on the aisle if he wished to get up for any
reason. This joy was slightly mitigated
by the fact that the seat didn’t seem to recline entirely flat, and the whole
thing was somewhat knobby. On the other
hand, the food was thoughtfully healthy, but way too much to finish.
At Dubai, we parked at a remote gate. Fortunately, business class passengers didn’t
have to wait for the riff-raff – we were bused to the terminal in a vehicle
that had seats! That was the first time
ever I’d been able to sit on a bus on the apron of an airport. The layover was long enough to require
several laps of the shopping area. There
were some great restaurants, but I didn’t want to eat. There were cigarettes, but I’ve quit. There was alcohol and an array of sweet and
salty snacks, but the doctor says “No.”
There were clothes, sports gear, jewelry and bags, but who decides to
afford airport prices?
Reaching the gate for the next leg to London, all passengers were asked to show their passports. There’s another rant coming, and again, I’ve decided to relegate it to my reflections. The second leg was on an Airbus A380, and the business class seats were both more private and more comfortable. This one did recline all the way, and was smooth, if a little narrow.
Getting to the UK (and back), I enjoyed the complete first season of Romantic Getaway, a whacky British comedy starring Johnny Vegas, Katherine Ryan and Ramesh Ranganathan. Another short series I got to see was Agatha Christie: Lucy Worsley on the Mystery Queen.
I arrived in London at 12:45pm. I’d booked my train with Southern Rail from
the airport to London Bridge, so that was easy, but I couldn’t figure out how
to get to the train station. I walked
this way, then that way, then back again.
Finally I noticed a shuttle train, and I asked someone how to pay for
it. It was free! Awesome!
This took me to the station where I could get the train I’d already
booked. Arriving at London Bridge, I
ummed and ahhed about using the Underground or taking a taxi. I walked this way, then that way, then back
again. Finally, I decided to take the
Underground. Now I had to look for a
ticket office. I’d researched the weekly
ticket I used when I lived here more than two decades ago, and it seemed to
still be available, but what certainly wasn’t available was a manned ticket
booth. More stress. Eventually I went to the attendant at the
turnstile to express my need. He said
that weekly tickets are so expensive and that I should simply tap my credit
card to enter and exit the system. This
was cheaper because there was a daily cap, and once that was reached, the card
would not be charged for additional rides.
“But my card is foreign.” That
will work too.
By 3:30pm, I’d checked into the hotel near Paddington Station. By 7:30pm, I’d walked all the way to Arts Theatre on Great Newport Street, stopping en route first for dinner, then for a Middle Eastern snack. I passed an unexpected number of buskers belting Arabic tunes. Also en route, I got to see one of London’s blue plaques, which adorn buildings in which notable men and women from the past lived or worked.
Choir of Man was described as such:
It’s a great night at your local pub brought to glorious musical life on stage. Nine
talented performers deliver reinventions of your favorite chart-topping
classics, with songs by Adele, Guns'N'Roses, Sia, and Paul Simon among the
disparate numbers, all brought to roaring life.
Fresh
harmonies mean you'll hear classic songs like you've never heard them before,
mixed with meditations on community and resilience delivered in-between
rip-roaring musical numbers. It's like no pub concert you've ever seen before.
The show's
set also includes a working bar. The
Choir of Man London audiences are welcome on stage to grab a pint and
meet the boys before the show begins. A few lucky audience members might even
be pulled up on stage during the show to experience a number up close. Wherever
you are sitting, the musical's tap dancing and exuberant stomping is
choreography like nothing you've experienced on the West End.
I had some idea what I was going to see, but
hadn’t seen this previous paragraph, so when I arrived, the scene was rather
chaotic. I knew that it was set in a
pub, but couldn’t have known that access to Arts Theatre was through an actual
pub, in the back, downstairs. The stage
was itself a functioning bar, above which was a platform where the drummer, a
guitarist and one other instrumentalist sat.
I didn’t see the drummer come down at all, but both of the others were
up and down, sometimes on stage, sometimes on the bar counter and sometimes on
the platform above with the drummer. My
seat was number R1 in Circle Slips Right.
This was a single row of seats in a gallery, above the main body of
audience, overlooking the stage from a height.
Across from me was Circle Slips Left, an identical row above and to the
left of the stage. This left me too far
away from the stage-bar to want to go and get a drink. I abstained.
I really loved Choir of Man. The tale was of what the pub means to its regulars, how they share their lives, their joys, their losses with each other, while also sharing bubbles. The actor-singer-instrumentalists rocked the house. It was all quite engrossing. My favorites were, naturally, the ones which showed real musical talent. These were 1) a brilliant harmonisation of Somebody to Love by Queen, and 2) the pièce de rèsistance, a magnificent harmonisation of Chandelier by Sia. This was a great way to start the trip.
Willkommen!
Bienvenue! Welcome!
I returned to my hotel, the gorgeously named Orchard Hotel. Unlike an orchard, the rooms were pokey. Bending down to brush my teeth, my bum knocked the opposite wall and prevented my face from getting close enough to the basin. Showering, I felt like an octopus forcing itself through a narrow tube.
In the morning, before making my way to Paddington Station, I had breakfast on the ground floor. The woman who helped me had a Slavic accent, starting a theme for the trip. The meal was not worth mentioning here, and that’s what you get for choosing one of the cheapest hotels in the area.