San Francisco Boy

Camden Town Flat

Flat 1, 124 Albert St., just off Parkway, Camden Town, north of Regents Park, west of Primrose Hill. Our London home for two weeks. Minimal decor but sofa and breakfast table for lounging, comfy bed, nice kitchen and cabinet storage, decent bathroom, DSL and cable TV. Downsides: Very dark in the living room—we moved a lamp from a bedroom night stand and insisted management provide another (that teensie light on the table); street noise night and morning, courtesy nearby pubs, drunks and breaking glass during garbage collection. By the way, peeking at us from the living room walls were film saints Audrey Hepburn from Breakfast at Tiffany's and Steve McQueen from The Great Escape.

Primrose Hill in Autumn

One of our favourite London villages is Primrose Hill, north of Regent's Park, west of Camden Town. Climbing or running to the park's summit affords a commanding view south toward The City, but the cold winds blast up there. Cozier is the charming high street below, Regent's Park Road. Local restaurants (like the fine Greek Lemonia), precious cafes and tea shops (we huddled in Seventy-Nine), independent grocers and a fine book store line both sides of the street, giving lucky residents a self-contained neighborhood of services.

11th Anniversary at the Cinnamon Club

The Cinnamon Club, housed in the Old Westminster Library (the upper walls indeed still feature racks of books), not far from Parliament, features the loftiest of high-end Indian cuisine and surely attracts local MPs, finance mavens and other power brokers to its gorgeous setting. Scanning the room, I half expected to see the prime minister, London lord mayor or telly celebrity lunching there (no luck). Because it was our 11th anniversary, we threw caution and our weak American currency to the wind. Goodness gracious me, it was quite fantastic, leagues from normal Indian fare. For example, our selections included delicacies like carpaccio of salmon, saffron prawns, masala potatoes, game mince, fenugreek chicken, swordfish and squid, aubergine crush, black lentil, carrot toffee pudding and pumpkin tart. No chicken tikka masala in sight.

Bus Still Life

I prefer travel by Tube, Andrea by bus, particularly on the upper deck, far forward, first row behind the glass. We had no trouble securing that pole position on this empty coach ferrying us from Westminster, after lunch at the Cinnamon Club, to Waterloo mainline rail station for a train to Windsor. Behind us, an overexposed late afternoon sun is setting behind the Houses of Parliament.

Absurd Person Singular Poster for the Holidays

Conveniently, not one but two train stations flank the heart of Windsor and the Theatre Royal, a stone's throw from the rear walls of Windsor Castle. We arrived at 5:30 p.m. via London Waterloo to Windsor and Eton Riverside Station, criss-crossed the town centre (almost everything was shuttering, even on Friday night), had tea, saw Absurd Person Singular, then dashed to catch an 11 p.m. train to London Paddington via Windsor Central Station, which, amazingly, has an outdoor shopping mall engulfing it on three sides.

Theatre Bookings

4 plays. 3 cities. 2 dramas. 2 comedies. Diana Rigg. Jane Horrocks. Your theatre datebook is always full in England. Off Piccadilly, we saw a '60s farce, Boeing Boeing, about a bachelor juggling air timetables and simultaneous romances with American, Lufthansa and Air Italia stewardesses (uniforms were so much cooler then). Aside from the primary colors, rather Boring Boring. At the famed Old Vic, original home base to Olivier, Gielgud and Richardson, south of the Thames, there was Dame Diana and Eleanor Bron (who starred opposite The Beatles in Help!) in All About My Mother, a racy melodrama based on the film by Pedro Almodovar. Enjoyable, a bit over the top. Train trips to Cambridge and Windsor, respectively, let us delight in Alan Bennett's The History Boys and Alan Ayckbourn's Absurd Person Singlular, the latter starring the amazing, bubbly Ms. Horrocks, John Gordon Sinclair and Jenny Seagrove (incidentally the latter two's credits include Gregory's Girl and Local Hero, two cherished, seminal films from the '80s that often make viewers want to dash off to remote Scottish locations). Of the four, I'd place History Boys at the top, then Absurd. Serendipity? There's certainly magic about a play staged in Cambridge about English school boys being groomed for Cambridge and Oxford.

Oxford Street Congestion

London holiday shoppers, particularly along the perpetually clogged strip of Oxford Street between the eastern tip of Hyde Park and Tottenham Court Road, are best seen (and generally avoided) from the top of a London double-decker bus.

Well-Respected Carnabitians

Now we're on once-upon-a-time-it-was-swinging-in-the-'60s Carnaby Street with our English friends the Bradfords (from left, Suzi, Rob, Di and Michaela) in search of blue suede gloves, RAF target cufflinks and sausage 'n' mash at the retro Mother Mash restaurant, an establishment where they unabashedly adore spuds, evidenced by the following excerpt from the MM website.

Persian Please

England has more closed circuit tv (CCTV) surveillance cameras per capita than any other nation. Now, if you could train the one in the upper left corner inside Patogh's picture window, mounds of fluffy Persian rice flecked with saffron, juicy chicken and lamb kebabs, table-sized bread hot from the oven, shirazi salad and Cokes would fill the picture. Were I asked to pass along one of my best dining secrets, one of my best hole-in-the-wall recommendations slightly off the London beaten path, Patogh, near Edgeware Road, would do nicely.

News of the World

This intersection at Rathbone Place, in London's Fitzrovia, featured prominently in director Michael Powell's macabre Peeping Tom (1960) film. Around the corner at the Newman Arms, another key location, I rendezvoused with Powell expert Steve Crook for lunch (a steak and Guinness pie that scorched the roof of my mouth). Afterward, we traipsed over to Birbeck College for a showing of PT hosted by Professor Ian Christie, another Powell authority. Meanwhile, back at the news agent... Particularly fetching is that Sun headline: "MACCA'S SMACKER WITH A MARRIED CRACKER". Translation: Paul McCartney caught smooching with lovely lass.

London Underground

Top and bottom: Gorgeous cream and burgundy tiling at Chalk Farm tube station, one stop north of our home base of Camden Town, along the Northern Line, also known to some London commuters as the Misery Line. (It generally behaved for us.) Middle: Interior of perhaps a Metropolitan Line or Bakerloo Line train heading west from Baker Street.

Train Crossings

Daytripping to Canterbury to retrace the footsteps of English film director Michael Powell, the genius (with screenwriting partner Emeric Pressburger) behind the epic A Canterbury Tale (1944). To quote a key scene appropriate for disembarking: "Pilgrims for Canterbury, all out and get your blessings." I'm holding a book written about the film by our Canterbury guide, Paul Tritton. More on our tour later.

Meow! Behold the King's Lynn Kitty, keeper of track maintenance at this Norfolk station. Ah, the real attraction of King's Lynn was an evening concert by English rockers Joe Brown and Dave Edmunds at the Corn Exchange.

Greeting at London's Paddington mainline rail station, good for travel to and from Windsor, among other destinations. My guess, purely speculative, is Paddington may have more chances for coffee per square foot than any other London station.

King's Lynn SOS: More Apostrophes, Please!

This rant originally flowered on Rapiers Are Go!

Call me grammatically pedantic, but I don't think I could settle in King's Lynn, the cozy Norfolk town we visited a fortnight ago to catch good-as-gold rockers Joe Brown and Dave Edmunds (see Corn Exchange venue promotional flyer below).

Not because of weather, residents or GPS coordinates.

Nay, it's the hopelessly wandering apostrophe in the name: King's Lynn or Kings Lynn. From the rail station to the high street, B&B to Corn Exchange, it's a crap shoot, 50/50 odds whether the tiny punctuation character leaves its proper mark.

And that drives me A-1 bonkers, elicting a maddening desire from my inner librarian to correct the miscreant signage at every sighting (see fantasy defacing at right). "Help! Help!" I hear the name cry to uncaring passersby. "Where did my apostrophe go?"

O Brother, Where Art Thy Punctuation?

I know dumb-it-down trends in 2007 are to drop possessive apostrophes in proper names like KL (so much simpler, one less rule to remember), turn blind eyes to rampant misuse of (the possessive) its and (the contraction) it's, throw the bloody English rulebook right out the window.

Not here.

Nor in the court of blessed watchdog organizations like the Apostrophe Appreciation Society, nor under the watchful eye of wise grammarian goddess Lynne Truss, one of my patron saints, author of the killer-diller Eats, Shoots and Leaves.

For Christmas, I'm dreaming of FedExing a box of emergency apostrophes to the King's Lynn postmaster, stamped PUNCTUATE WITH CARE!

King's Cross

Andrea and her brother Richard, Andrea and me lingering at the Hogwarts Express platform, London King's Cross mainline rail station. Actually, our Muggles destination, Potters Bar, was far less mystical, but no less magical, for the mighty Rapiers went down a storm there a few hours later.

What's a London Holiday Without a Rapiers Night Out?

And now some rock 'n' roll related narrative from our holiday. Post and pix below originally appeared on my Rapiers Are Go! blog.

A NEW SHADE OF BLUE: Dave Lawes, John Tuck, Colin Pryce-Jones, Nathan J. Hulse

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Time for catch up.

By way of explanation, blame the absolute dearth of early November RAG! posts on a two-week London holiday crammed and jammed with haute cuisine curry fests in Soho and Westminster, daytripping to Canterbury, Cambridge and King's Lynn (Joe Brown and Dave Edmunds rocking the Norfolk night), West End and South Bank theatre (Dame Diana Rigg, anyone?), Northern Line Tube travel, Harrod's chockies, propah fish 'n' chips and late-nite kebabs, CD shopping at Camden Town's mighty Sounds That Swing music shoppe, and an E-X-P-L-O-S-I-V-E Rapiers performance at the Wyllyotts Theatre in Potters Bar, 48 hours ahead of Guy Fawkes Night.

Did our lads look sharp in their luminous new stage clobber, an an fab shade of indigo, supporting Jet Harris and Billie Davis.

But what caught my fancy was a knock-out, eight-song opening solo set—with founding Rapier rhythm guitarist Dave Lawes on the boards for Shadoogie, The Savage, Saturday Night at the Duckpond (that perennial YouTube favourite), See You in My Drums, Buckleshoe Stomp (roaring as ever), I'll Never Get Over You, Green Jeans (a rare outing for the Brit instrumental standard) and Hippy Hippy Shake. If you're keeping score discographically, that's five numbers from various Rapiers recordings, a nice percentage for the partisans.

I'd not seen the ever dapper and congenial Mr. Lawes, who now alternates rhythm guitar with Neil Ainsby, live for a full performance since 1992, a real treat. Cooler still were his tales of early Rapiers escapades, like performing in front of the likes of Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton at a star-studded private party ("Oh, was I nervous strumming The Savage with those guys a few feet away staring at me!").

In the nice timing department, I happily picked a tres bien evening to introduce a relation to Rapiersville, my brother-in-law Richard (beaming between Colin Pryce-Jones and Nathan J. Hulse below), who capped a UK business trip with his first Rapiers-Shadows experience. His verdict? "I loved it!" Smart guy, eh?

RELATIVELY SPEAKING: Sans tie, Sir Richard joins The Rapiers Appreciation Society

YOU MEET THE NICEST PEOPLE: From left, Andrea, Richard, Ralph Gowling, Rob Bradford

Enjoying a Rapier Breakfast at the Ace Cafe

BEST OF BRITISH: Bike, van, scooter or auto, get your motor running down the Ace.

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"Oi!"

Finding two lone Rapiers—Colin Pryce-Jones, John Tuck—in situ on a cold grey weekday morning at North London's Ace Cafe makes so much black-and-white sense. After all, a masterful instrumental ode to this motorbikers' paradise on the Old North Circular, Breakfast at the Ace, appeared on The Rapiers' second longplayer, Return of The Rapiers.

Naturally, owner Mark and Linda Wilsmore's pit stop remains a prime place for a Great British Fry-up, Johnny Kidd and The Pirates tribute night, endless cups of caffeine and daydreams of Rita Tushingham, with a never-ending hum of motor revving in your ear.

And plenty o' Rapier chat 'round the table. Like:

• Making a rock 'n' roll go on the ever-tough, ever-tightening '60s theatre circuit. Colin: "All in all, 2007 wasn't a bad year for us."
• Pondering a Silver Anniversary celebration in 2008. Hint: Save 22 March in Amersham on your event calendar.
• Keeping things fresh at each Shadowmania, despite strict attendee expectations and a stricter playlist format. (On that note, this corner votes to retire Saturday Dance in favour of mid-'60s Beat numbers like My Way or Will You Be There. There, I've said it.)
• Wishin' and hopin' Jet Harris finally acquiesces and adds his stonking B-side Footstomp to his Me and My Shadows stage show.

NB: As for the Ace grounds, well, try to snap a bad picture, even with a laughably outdated 2.1 megapixel camera. You gotta love the clean lines, the racing checkerboard motif, the ubiquitous logo branding every gaze. Ace stuff indeed.

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Cambridge on Wheels

In downtown Cambridge, where we saw the play The History Boys, bikes are the transport of choice, especially for undergraduates. Here are two views of Market Square, first looking left, then looking right down the same line.

Reading Cambridge

Wandering Cambridge, we found scads of tempting book shops (Oxfam to antiquarian), like Haunted Books down a narrow passage off Market Square. As you might guess from the reminder notes stuck to the door, it's an utterly charming business with stacks and stacks of English literature, arranged higgledy-piggledy but lovingly. Fittingly, Andrea picked a mystery, a wee volume of Wilkie Collin's Moonstone.

Inside Canterbury's Westgate

Five minutes from Canterbury West Station looms the imposing West Gate. A Canterbury City Council site tell us:

After the Cathedral, the West Gate is Canterbury's next eye-catching landmark. It has stood for six centuries on guard over the road to and from London. Hundreds of thousands of medieval pilgrims, on their way to visit Saint Thomas Becket's shrine, passed through this gateway into the city.

Impressive, that. We were on another pilgrimage of sorts, inspired by director Michael Powell's A Canterbury Tale (1944), which follows the paths of three pilgrims (American GI John Sweet "Bob", British officer Dennis Price "Peter" and London shop girl Sheila Sim "Alison") bound up by mystery, war and friendship on their way to receive (unbeknownst to them) blessings in Canterbury.

Canterbury Tea

We arrived early in Canterbury, by train from London Charing Cross. While we waited to rendezvous with our Canterbury guide, Andrea and I explored the High Street, stopping for tea and contemplation.

Canterbury Pilgrim

White cotton puffs for clouds make this is one of my favourite images of our holiday, taken on the way to the Cathedral.

Follow the Signs

A Canterbury Tale had its premiere 63 years ago at the Marlowe Theatre, then known as the Friars Cinema. This day, we tried to visit inside. We got only as far as the lobby, which has a plaque noting the Michael Powell connection. "No, we have an event on today," said the attendant. "The Nutcracker... That's a ballet."

Oh.

Time for Canterbury

St. George's Tower, with its restored clock (um, I'm not sure that's the correct time), a key landmark as Alison (Sheila Sim) strolls through a bomb-blasted city centre in A Canterbury Tale, looking for a garage where her caravan (trailer) is being stored during the war. Says Paul Tritton in his book on the film: "The only building seen on [her] walk along St. George's Street that has survived a succession of post-war replacement schemes." That's evident. It stuck out like a jewel in a sea of bland. I could almost hear it scream: "Help! Free me from this faceless mall development!"

Mercery Lane

One narrow path to Canterbury Cathedral, two views. Only thing missing is the distinctive blue-and-white Boots Chemist logo that hung for at least half a century above the Mercery Lane sign. Yep, Boots even made our ACT film, probably an early (albeit accidental) example of product placement.

Where the Cathedral Tea Rooms Once Stood

Shame, England! Who's watching over your heritage? Lashes to those who let Starbucks swallow the premises of the former Cathedral Tea Rooms, adjoining the entrance to Canterbury Cathedral, site of the final blessing bestowed in A Canterbury Tale.

Canterbury Cathedral

Three sides of this magisterial creation on a cold and gray November afternoon. For the record, the context:

The Cathedral's history goes back to 597AD when St Augustine, sent by Pope Gregory the Great as a missionary, established his seat (or 'Cathedra') in Canterbury. In 1170 Archbishop Thomas Becket was murdered in the Cathedral and ever since, the Cathedral has attracted thousands of pilgrims, as told famously in Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.

Canterbury Cathedral Cat

A phenomenal cat to boast such an address, don't you think? And an appreciative one, too, after Andrea rescued it from a young boy's chasing.

Canterbury Students Between Classes

Proof that black is never out of style, even for school uniforms. Taken on the grounds of Canterbury Cathedral.

Canterbury Pilgrims

From left: Paul Tritton, me and fellow Michael Powell fan Richard Fraser. Paul, a native of Kent and Canterbury, served as guide and historian during a five-hour trek through Canterbury, from Canterbury West Station ("Pilgrims for Canterbury, all out and get your blessings!") to Cathedral, taking in the High Street, Marlowe Theatre, the library Powell regularly frequented as a child, a pub lunch ("Never order fish and chips in a pub," Paul advises, I did anyway...) and city centre. Paul's holding a copy of his book A Canterbury Tale: Memories of a Classic Wartime Movie. Mine's in the bag.

The Door to the Oxo Tower

Restaurant, bar, brasserie or outside view deck, whatever your pleasure, the postcard panoramas from the top of the Oxo Tower on London's South Bank simply sparkle and dazzle: stretching out before you are St. Paul's, the Thames, bridges, Westminster.

Reflections on High

Not a double exposure, just the lights and windows of Capital structures (even the London Eye) bouncing off Oxo windows.

Northern Lights and Chocolate

We popped into the Oxo Brasserie for dessert, a pre-show treat 90 minutes before our date with the London Philharmonic Orchestra (on tap: Elgar) at the nearby Royal Festival Hall. Swirling in the Northern Lights martini are vodka, malt whiskey and orange bitters, plus an orange slice. Dancing on the plates are (foreground, for Greg) a chocolate brownie and (rear, for Andrea) a slice of pecan pie. Plus ice cream and double cream for good measure.

O-X-O

I suppose if you added two more spires to the Oxo Tower facade, and bunched them shoulder to shoulder to shoulder, you could play a grand game of Giants' Tic-Tac-Toe.