Wimble-done

I went to Wimbledon yesterday with my friend D. It isn't that far, a quick 20
minute tube ride and you are right smack in Wimbledon village. Very cute, but truthfully when is the last time you saw an uncute village? There is something about the word that just promises cuteness. If you have an ugly town, you call it a slum, skanky, Brisbane. Cute towns are called villages, hamlets, etc. We meandered through the high street, window shopped and then went on a short walk to see one of big attractions in town. More about that later.

Wimbledon is definitely horse and dog country. Everywhere on the path we saw dogs and more horses than I could count. Apparently there are horse clubs where you and your friends ride horse
through the park. I guess whatever keeps you off the streets. And when you have dogs, you have instructions on how to manage them or not manage them.

We came across this windmill, which I am not sure what the purpose was for originally but now it is a cute little cafe where we stopped for a bite to eat and rest our weary feet. In was in this windmill (?) apparently that Robert Baden Powell, founder of Boy Scouts, wrote part of his book/manual "Scouting for Boys". That is what the little teeny tiny sign says above the door that you can just about make out. And just think, I had a tuna sandwich and sparkling water there almost 100 years later!


After walking about another mile or so, we came to the big
draw in the area, The All
England Lawn & Tennis Club, The AELTC as it is affectionately known. (It is!!! It is on all the iron work surrounding the club.) You can take a tour of the clubs, most days. I emphasize most days because as luck, or non-luck,
would have it, not on the day we went. There is loads of construction going on right now. I am not sure for what, but they don't want to have people traipsing around. We didn't see any tennis players lurking about but I did manage to stick my camera through a part of a fence and get a photo of one of the lawn tennis courts on the outer perimeter. Feast your eyes!

After that we walked back to the tube station and made our way home. It was especially difficult as there was an impromptu walkout by some of the drivers claiming that some of the trains were unsafe and that affected our tube line. Always an adventure. I may go back at some time and take a tour of Wimbledon when all the construction is done but if I don't, I still can watch the matches on TV and say I was there. Even if "there" was out on the sidewalk peeking through the fence!

Shoot the Messenger

Several months ago, I wrote this blog in response to the recent shootings at Virgina Tech. I knew at the time it was my emotional response to a tremendous, national tragedy. I didn’t expect everyone to agree with me; in fact I know there are some members of my family and close, close friends that don’t agree with me. But I was a bit surprised some time later to receive a response from someone I am guessing just happened across my blog and chose to share their viewpoint – that I was wrong, “plain wrong". I immediately sat down and wrote a long, very long, response. However, my kids pointed out to me that this was a family blog and that it wouldn’t remain so, if I kept in all the f-bombs and profane name calling. So then I thought better of it and didn’t publish the entry. I thought about it again this week when I heard about a shooting at a school in Delaware. Then I got to thinking, why is it that I shouldn’t speak my mind about what my “commenter” said. Why should I have to censor myself? I don’t! So here goes albeit without all the f-bombs and other name calling (mostly). Indulge me or come back another time, it is definitely your choice.



Anonymous:

Where to begin?

First, the presence of gun ownership didn’t stop a crime “millions” (your number, not mine) of times any year. Mathematically that just isn’t possible. If you assume that it happened millions as you say, using 2 million times (you used a plural so it must be more than 1, I used 2 but I could have just as easily used 1.25 or 1.5 or even 1.75, all plurals) that would be over 5,475 instances per day. Are you saying that television news isn’t reporting a phenomenon that occurs 5000 times per day? I just don’t believe that but let’s say it is true. Could you blame them? There would be no time to report anything else if they spent entire newscasts reporting the kind of activity you claim happens every day at the volume you claim. Also I would think the kind of story you are talking about, a “good over evil” kind of theme, would be eaten up by the news agencies. Especially in the current climate. “We aren’t going to let the bad guys get us down” kind of mentality.

Secondly, in not one of the instances reported on the website you cited was a crime “prevented”. The crimes had already happened; the appearance of the gun by the civilian just added a new dimension to the already occurring criminal activity. It didn’t stop the crime from happening. The criminals in each case didn’t turn tail and run, most of them were killed. What the civilians did was take the law into their own hands and prevent the criminal justice system from doing its job. Having systems in place to deal with criminal activity is what separates us from the animals, that and the ability to accessorize. In addition, the interjection of guns in this kind of case could just as easily have led to the killing of the civilian or an innocent passerby. How heroic.

This website cites several of these “civilian pulls gun on criminal” stories which it claims were not reported on by the press. I looked up several of them and they were reported in the mainstream media. Certainly you don’t claim that the Baltimore Sun is a fringe publication? Not carried on the national television news? Maybe so but perhaps there is a reason for that. I come from California, close to a city that has loads of criminal activity, murders several times a week. I often heard about these types of cases on the television news or in one of the two different newspapers I read every day. I doubt you heard about any of those specific crimes in your neck of the woods in Texas. Not because they weren’t reported, they just were reported as local news because most of these types of crimes are only of interest to the people in the local area.

Incredibly, the website you refer to tries to bolster its case for a media conspiracy by pointing to decisions made by the television news networks not to air people jumping from the World Trade Center after September 11. It claims that the decision not to show people jumping to their deaths prevented the public from knowing the entire story and somehow lessened the resolve of the American people in the war against the terrorists. Those news agencies did report that people jumped out of the buildings, they chose not to show film of people doing it. That is quite different than not reporting the story at all. I don’t need to see the film to know it happened. I have personal knowledge that it did happen. We all knew it happened, in fact several of the main stream media print outlets did print pictures. I recall several very disturbing pictures in Newseek and Time. I am sure there were others. Perhaps you only get your news from television - broaden your horizons and you might be surprised at what you read.

Additionally, I am not going to comment on your remark about the origin of gun control laws. It is just stupid and trying to bait me into a much different discussion. Actually by including that little tidbit, it gives me a clearer picture of who you actually are and the type of person you are. Pathetic.

Finally, my blog is a place where I recount the happenings of our lives in London and sometimes offer my opinion. It is not political or supposed to be controversial. I am probably as narrow minded on my side of this issue as you are feeble brained on your side. I never said that there were never any instances of citizens protecting themselves with weapons in the face of a criminal activity - that would be a ludicrous statement. What I said was that there weren't an abundance of those stories and I stand by that. When I wrote that entry I wondered how long it would be before someone would put forth the exact arguments you direct me to. I just didn’t realize it would take more than 4 months. What happened? Did you need help with the big words?





Whew!!!! Okay I am done now. (Taking deep breaths) For my regular visitors, thank you for your patience while I indulged myself. And for bonus points, name the movie that gave us the quote: “The only thing that separates us from the animals is our ability to accessorize.”

The Units

Well I dropped the parents off today at the Gatwick Express. Put them on the train and sent them off, with their 4 pieces of luggage and 2 carry-ons.

We had a good time and we covered more ground than I thought was possible. Just ending a 2 week cruise, I thought they might be a bit tired from all that sightseeing. But noooooooo. So in addition to Speakers Corner and the pubs I mentioned before, they saw 2 plays (Wicked & Spamalot), the Royal Observatory (where Greenwich Mean Time starts), The Maritime museum (to see the bullet hole in Horatio Nelson's uniform) Windsor Castle (where we saw the bullet that caused the aforementioned hole therefore closing the circle), the British Museum, Westminster Abbey, Harrods, went to Richmond for a traditional Sunday roast dinner, (and a few other things I think but I am blanking.) They mastered crossing the street and riding the tube and the bus everywhere. Hey! Listen both of those items are tricky. The bus drivers here get points if they knock over seniors pulling away from the curb and we did see the remnants of an accident where a woman was hit IN the crosswalk. They may not have a lot of guns here but they have others ways of killing you!

I am hoping that they had a good time and we didn't wear them out too much. Watch out America, they are heading back.

Papa's Got a Brand New Bag

My parents are visiting us this week. They are on their way back from a Baltic cruise, where they visited Russia, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Germany, and Estonia. They also managed a quick trip to Dover Castle on their way to the boat. They managed to see quite a bit and their pictures are beautiful.

So for the next 10 days they are going to do some British stuff
with us. On theday they arrived, we didn't do much just caught up and talked. Sunday afternoon we took them to Speaker's Corner. I have talked about Speaker's Corner before but in review, Speaker's Corner is a section of Hyde Park where on Sundays anyone get up and speak on any topic they choose. Often the speakers are religious wackos.
A lot of the speakers talk about the war and the US, not in particularly flattering terms. Sometimes I find the speakers humourous, especially when I don't think the humour (UK spelling!) is their intent. I embarassed Kiki by going up and getting a free hug from a group giving them away. Gramma embarassed Kiki by taking a picture of me getting my free hug. It was good today because the speakers weren't all religious wackos although there were a few of those as well.

Chizz was disgusted that Papa and Gramma spent the first 12 hours here on Saturday without going to a pub so he corrected that on Sunday. We went to 3 pubs. With Gramma and Papa. Gramma is not much of a beer drinker, so she had a gin and tonic and some wine. Papa had a beer (or two) at each pub. Damn straight.

The rest of the afternoon was spent watching cricket on the television. Right now they have a tournament going on called the 20/20. It is too difficult to really explain, although I think I have a better understanding of cricket now after watching these games on TV then I did when we went to Lords a few weeks ago. Papa really took to cricket and seemed to get the hang of it pretty quickly. I am not sure if that is because he is sports minded or if it was the beer. Either way, I think he is going to petition ESPN to carry cricket games regularly back in the States. Great that is just what Gramma needs, one more sport for Papa to watch on TV. Sorry.

Borough Market

I went to one of my favorite places in London last week, Borough Market.
To say that Borough Market is a farmer's market is a little like saying Buckingham Palace is a house. Sure in the strict definition, Borough Market is a market place but it is unlike any I have seen. The stalls are only open on Friday and Saturday, the stores surrounding the market are usually open Mon-Saturday. It is extremely crowded on Saturdays, so I like going on Friday mornings before I take quite a few visitors to Borough Market because it is impressive, especially if you are a foodie. Located at the south end of London Bridge, it is a collection of market stalls surrounded by more permanent structures on the outside. The outside buildings house restaraunts, speciality food shops, pubs, etc.

I really like wandering around the different shops. One of my favorite shops is Neal's Yard Dairy. They have like a zillion different cheeses. They seem to hire quite a few Americans, perhaps that is why everyone in there is so friendly. They will let you taste every cheese they have out and it is a good way to try something you haven't had before or compare different brands of the same type of cheese. I always come away with something new there.
This time, in addition to about 4 different cheeses, I brought home a jellied quince thing. It was really like a firm slice of jello. The idea is you have a bit of this to kind of clean your palate a bit in between strong cheeses. I bought two different slices, one very sweet and the other was a little less sweet. I am not sure that it is something I will buy every time, but it was something interesting to try.

While I was at the huge vegie stand, I noticed a bunch of kids (teens) holding clipboards and listening very intently to a man in a suit. I got to talking to the man in the suit and he worked for Jamie Oliver (the Naked Chef) and his 15organization. 15 is a foundation Jamie Oliver set up in the UK to teach underpriviledged youth about food in general but restaraunting (is that a word?) in particular. The hope is that after going through this program, the kids can get jobs in restaraunt kitchens and have a trade. These kids were in the 15 program. The man was teaching them about the different kinds of produce and other different food items. Their assignment was to write down the name of 5 items in different categories (vegetable, fruit, meat, fish etc) that they had never seen before that day. As I was wandering around the stall, a few of them would ask me, what is this called or what is that. Artichoke, cauliflower, red peppers (!). It was fascinating to see some of the vegetables that these kids did not know. As a matter of fact, it was fascinating to see what the man in the suit didn't know. I was talking to two or three of the kids about artichokes, when the man came over. He called the rest of the class over to give them an impromptu lecture on artichokes. He told them it was a vegetable (true). He told them the best way to cook them was to peel off all of the leaves until you got inside to the "smoother, lighter" leaves, then you cook it - steam it or whatever. Then he told them to cut off the bottom stem, and cut off the side of the bottom of the artichoke and save that to use for something else later. And there you have it. I came thisclose to telling the class, that was a bunch of malarkey. You might take off the bottom row of leaves, but leave the others on. Steam the artichoke, serve it with melted butter or mayo for leaf dipping and then cut out the heart when you are all done and eat it there!!! Trust a chef to take something so simple, and make it so complicated.

Some of my other favorite stalls? The fish market, amazing, very fresh seafood, always displayed interestingly.
Monk fish, shark, you name it. It is right next to the fresh game market. Rabbit, venison, game birds, wild turkey (the bird not the drink). I also never miss the olive stand. So
far I have resisted these brownies but I don't think I will be able to dodge this chocolate bullet for much longer.

So if you come visit us, your trip is likely to include a visit to the Borough Market. I promise I won't lecture you on the proper way to prepare an artichoke. Much.

C'Mon England!

The qualifying rounds for the 2008 European Football Championships are currently underway. Chizz came home the other night and suggested we go to a pub and watch the England/Russia soccer match. Yes, we could have watched it at home where the beer is free and no one walks in front of the television, but there is something about watching the game at the pub. Something dangerous that is.

Football (soccer in American) is serious business here. People aren't just passionate about it, they are insane about it. The pubs fill early to watch the game. We went to the Warrington Hotel. It is one of our neighborhood pubs. It has most recently been purchased by Gordon Ramsay of Hell's Kitchen fame. He is refurbishing the pub and restaurant. The pub has remained open, the restaurant is supposed to open sometime in the next few months.

When we walked in, England was up by 1 but there was so much tension in the bar. There were seats brought in so people could watch the huge big screen TV on the wall but no one was really sitting. It was too close a match as far as these spectators were concerned. Any time something happened or didn't happen, the fans in the bar would yell "C'mon England" in sort of a sing-song voice. No one is happy, and we hear the admonition quite a few times.

Chizz got us some drinks and we watched the match. The pub has a great big bar, very typical. Long, dark wood, intricately carved. There were big lamps attached to the bar, that were probably installed in the 1920s or so. They had that kind of look. The shades were actually large white glass bowls, underneath which the light bulbs were located. They cast sort of a glow over the bar area very nice.

But some people don't appreciate a good glow. While we were there, a group of patrons complained that the big lampshade bowls were blocking their view of the huge tv. So out came the screwdrivers and they took off all of the lampshades on the bar. I guess it would have been too much to ask the guy just to move his head over an inch or two.

The tension lifted a bit when another goal was scored and the noise level in the bar rose quite a bit. You could feel the relief. When a third England goal scored, it got downright giddy. Puppies and wives were safe for another night. Until the next game. C'mon England.

Good Lord! It's Cricket!

We live in the shadow of Lord's Cricket Ground. In the cricket world, this place is Mecca, the Wrigley or Lambeau Fields of Cricket. It is huge. Cricket fans come from miles away to see a match here. Bit of historical trivia - this week the first night matches were held, ever, under temporary light structures. It has created sort of a glow in the horizon out our family room window. I am sure the people who live right next door have another name for it.

Lord's Cricket Ground is home to and owned by Marleybone Cricket Club. It is a private members club and until 1993 was the governing body of cricket in England and most of the world. They have 18,000 members but they have a long waiting list for membership. They only allow a few hundred new members per year. Currently the waiting list for new membership is somewhere over 15 years. Membership entitles you to buy seats in certain stands, avail yourself of certain restaurants and bars not opened to the general public. It is very much like buying season tickets, sort of. Now, if you are a member you can't show up just wearing anything. Certain seats require a certain dress code and just about all of the good ones require jacket and tie for the men and dressy casual for women (no jeans, no matter how expensive). But don't worry, there are plenty of signs around to remind you of the proper attire.

Being so close, you can imagine that we have been to many a cricket match. You can imagine it but it just wouldn't be true. We haven't been to one match since we have been here. That is until last week.

We had nothing planned for a Saturday morning, and we had heard there was a match there that day so Chizz walked up to see if he could score some tickets. He could. It was day 4 of a 4 day match. That's right, one match that lasted 4 days. When we walked in, a few minutes late, we noticed that the place was just about empty. I am not talking a few empty seats, I am talking hundreds of empty seats. This picture is taken while play is going on. Apparently for some of these lesser matches, especially ones that take 4 days, people just wander in and out.

I have been struggling with how to describe cricket. It is too simplistic to say it is like baseball. True there are batters, a pitcher (called a bowler in cricket), there are referees. The
referees are interesting. They stand right behind the wicket, behind the batter. They wear jaunty little hats. See? And when the bowler comes up, if he is wearing a sweater and a hat, the referee holds it for him while he throws. It would be like the home plate umpire holding the batter's mitt for him while he bats. You can just about make out the sweater hanging over the arm of the referee.

The bowler throws 6 balls to try and get the batter out. When he is done throwing, he walks to the very far corner of the field to wait for his next turn
to throw. As far as I could tell, he just waits there, although I guess he could field a ball that is hit out there. He puts on his sweater, watches the game and gets ready for his next turn at the ball. One thing I also noticed is that he will sign autographs as well. A number of boys brought up their cricket bats and the bowlers would sign the bats DURING the match.

Other similarities? Guys in the stand keeping score. Other
differences? When the team that is batting is up, the only two players on the field are the batters that take turns. And they can be up there forever or until they get out. To give you an idea, we were there for 2 hours and the same team batted the entire time we were there. We saw two batters get out. When a batter gets out, another one comes from the club house where the team hangs out until it is either their turn to bat or to take the field. They don't hang out in a dugout on the field watching the game. They are in a club house with a balcony, where they can choose to come out and watch the game or not. I didn't see too many of the batting team's guys hanging out on the balcony. I think they have barcaloungers and cable tv in the club house.

We had no clue about cricket when we went to the match and I don't think we have any better understanding but it was fun. We were able to get tickets because I think the teams we saw were like seeing the Milwaukee Brewers and Kansas City Royals play. Only a very select few people would be interested in that game. Just like Saturday.

I like going to sporting events live, even ones I have no clue about. Up next? Maybe rugby, or shinty or the caber toss. Look out!!

Solidarity for the Workers; Stick it to the Man!

Nine of the twelve tube lines are closed today. One of the unions that is responsible for the maintenance of those nine lines has called a three day strike. Talks are ongoing. The walkout is scheduled to be over tomorrow afternoon but they have tentatively called another 3 day walkout starting next Monday. That is what I like about the British, there is no surprise here. They have politely called for a strike for 3 days only. If the talks are fruitful, they will go back to work but they are warning us, another strike on Monday for 3 more days. I am not sure what happens if things aren't resolved. Perhaps a 4 days strike, to be called let's say two weeks from next Tuesday? How does that work for everyone?

Not to say that this strike hasn't been disruptive. Millions (yes, millions) of commuters take the tube to work each day. So people that normally would have say a 45 minute commute, have somewhere near a 2 1/2 hour commute. For some, it is almost impossible to complete their journeys.

So I have been sticking closer to home these days, waiting for the strike to be over so I can do the things I have been putting off. Including updating WTF with the things we did over the weekend. But really I don't think I can blame public transport for my failure to sit down at the computer and dash something off. UNLESS, I point out how I am all about supporting the workers in their fight against the oppressive manipulations of the MAN. Yeah, that's right. That's why I am not doing it.

Wait a minute. For WTF, I am the Man. Well, that's okay. Sometimes I am oppressive and manipulative (don't start!), just usually not with myself. But I don't think I am going to tolerate this 3 days on 3 days off striking thing. I may just lock myself out. Hey, it worked for the Air Traffic Controllers!