The Wooden O

After the Tate Modern, we wandered a few doors down to check out The Globe, Bill Shakeschaffe's (there are spies everywhere, even still) old fixerupper. Okay, so it's a cracker, but we didn't do the tour, or a show, as it was nearly 10 quid, and we wanted to do some other things - also, I thought I could wait till Em gets over.

Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel

After checking out the Globe, Liam and I walked across the Millenium Bridge to St. Paul's, certainly the most impressive building I've seen close up (though as I write this in Rome, it's recently been trumped by a couple of others!... more on that later). Then it was down Fleet Street in search of the former house of one Dr. Johnson.

We found the alleyway fairly easily, and ducked into a courtyard. It was quite obvious which was his place, four (or was it five) storeys worth of apartment (which, incidentally, he left to his black servant, Frank). So this was where much of the first English dictionary was written. It was here too that I was reminded (given the recent furor over the Aussie flag at the Sydney BDO, which was just as I was leaving Aus) of one of his many great pithy maxims - which I've used for the title of this post.

(below: Dr. Johnson's stairwell)

Then it was off through Grey's Inn, to the former house of one Chuck Dickens. We eventually found the place, but by the time we got there (as with Freud's place - see earlier post) it was shut. There were people moving in next door, and I wondered aloud whether they liked the idea of moving next door to Dickens' old place. "Maybe they hate Dickens," said Liam. I think he was getting tired of all this jaunting about.

(Liam outside Dickens' former house)

We were going to have a beer back home, but I convinced Liam to have one at a pub in the West End called The Fitzroy, which I'd recently read in the Time Out guide to West End pubs was, yes, you guessed it, once a writers' haunt. A red bus later and we were there, ordering a pint with the ghosts of Georgey Orwell, Dylan Thommo, Bernie Shaw & Ginnie Wolf.

(Pint at The Fitzroy.)

Covent Garden: Lamb & Flag

Int. Covent Garden. On the Saturday evening, after visiting the National Portrait Gallery, Liam and Katie took me for a beer at the Lamb and Flag, one-time favourite watering hole of Charles Dickens', and, long before him, John Dryden's... can't get enough of this.

(at the Lamb & Flag)

Now it might seem that these 'literary' pubs are everywhere, but they're not. It takes a bit of energy find these places, and I know I'm starting to wear Liam out - which is exactly what I expect him to do to me when he gets to Rome!

5 Observations from the National Portraiture Gallery

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Essentials: Westminster to Trafalgar Square

Canterbury, NZ

Thought I'd put this one up for my sweetheart... Canterbury Province is where Emma is from, where her family lives and where we stayed when in NZ over Christmas. It is also, of course, the home of undoubtedly the strongest Super 14 team since the competition started, the Canterbury Crusaders!

Flogged in Notting Hill

Int. A bar in West London, Notting Hill. Saturday night, and it just happened to be Rod and his partner BK's going away. Rod, an old mate of Liam's, had been in London for four or so years and was leaving on the following Tuesday. Liam and I had agreed to a 'quiet one' given I was about as jetlagged as one could be (having not slept much my first night), but of course this just wasn't going to happen.

After the first couple of pints Liam decided to show me a few of the different beers: we started with a Fruli, a strawberry Belgian beer, which was very drinkable, and though it seemed a bit girlie, there seemed to be no shame in a bloke drinking it. Then we had some banana, vanilla and something-else, which they had on tap, another belgian - more straightforward but with a hint of the other flavours. Fanfuckintastic.

When midnight came around, Rod suggested we go to a nearby club. Again, can't remember the name, but it was (I found out later) pretty much the true West London experience, a funky, fairly small basement beneath a cocktail lounge, filled with heaps of happening mofos, nymerous 'trustafarians' (apparently the term for rastafarians with a trust fund) and other types who could probably afford it more than me, but who also had more street cred than me. The place was R&B/Hip-Hop with a dash of Old-skool for good measure, and it pretty much went off. Liam and I both agreed it was better not to have had a quiet one after all.

(I might add that on this, my second night in London, I also had my first, real 'it's a small world' moment... not jawdropping, but authentic nevertheless. So, was chatting with an expat named Davey and he asked if I liked cricket; I mentioned I played in a comp back at home, and when he found out it was the Brisbane Bands Comp (hey all you Apes) - well, there were celebrations all round. It turns out he played in the same comp about 7 years ago, and is the brother of a guy named Liam, one of the absolute guns of the comp (I know him more by reputation). So there you go.)

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar...

After visiting Keats' House, Liam and I went to check out Dr. Freud's former abode... it so happened that I had a packet of cheap Cuban cigars in my bag, that I'd picked up in Changi airport. Since the house was closed (we'd spent some time at Keats's) we decided to light up at Freud's old gate, joking about the famous quote attributed to him (but unsubstantiated).

In this case though, the cigar wasn't just a cigar... but neither was it a phallus! It was, in fact, an homage to the much maligned old doc who made it possible for us all to talk about the 'unconscious' mind, and the significance of our dreams, and not be laughed at. (Detractors tend to forget this part, and focus on his shortcomings - though nobody, it seems, harps nearly as much on the fact that Hemmingway was a thug, or that Shakespeare left his wife and young children to join the Queen's Men.)

John Keats' House

Okay, so this was one of the first stops for me. Liam had saved it, and while the exhibts weren't exhilarating as such, just being there certainly was for me. His bedroom in particular was haunting, this is where he coughed blood the first time, before heading to Rome to convalesce. I'll be there soon! And one of the first stops, of course, will be the Keats-Shelley House, by the Piazza di Spagna... where he coughed blood for the last time.

RIP Karl Marx

Int. Clapham North. Saturday. First up for the day is a trip to Highgate Cemetery to see Karl Marx's grave...

Australia Day 2007

Int. Heathrow 6: 30 am. Didn't sleep much on the flight from Changi, so when I stepped out into the 1 degree C air in London, I almost didn't feel it - until I did. Brrrr. Didn't sleep at Liam's due to sheer excitement, so had a shower and headed straight for the famous British Museum...


The very first thing I bumped into was the Rosetta Stone - you know, that chunk of rock with two Egyptian and one Greek script that provided the key to translating Egyptian texts, and which has become a symbol of the importance of translation between languages. Interestingly, it was moved from the museum from 1917-19 to protect it from possible bombing raids during WWI. How times have changed (considering the countless US tanks rolling over pristine archeological sites in once-ancient Babylon).

(Homer, Hesiod)

(Foreground: Hesiod. Background, l-r: Plato, Antisthenes, Chrysippus, Epicurus)