Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays, all...
We are indeed back from our trip to London. I've already punished my Facebook friends and Instagram followers with loads of pics from our week in the U.K., but just to bring you dear Flaming Pablum loyalists up to speed, here's a visual summary.
First, as you'll see above, reports that the red phone boxes are all gone were greatly exaggerated. There aren't as many, of course, and those that do remain seem to act more as makeshift outhouses, but you can still spot them.
Above is Oliver in our flat in Hortensia Road in Chelsea. We did the AirB&B thing, which normally never would have occurred to me. It worked out really well, though. The decor was amusing. Here's another shot of the interior, effects courtesy of some bulbous, mirrored light fixtures...
Our afore-cited street...
Our flat was right across the street from a bizarre little patch of almost vaudevillian morbidity called Brompton Cemetery, easily the most GOTH place on the face of the earth. Most if not all of the graves are in severe states of atmospheric decrepitude and have been artfully grown over with weeds. No one is looking after it at all, it seems.
Oliver enjoying same...
Another gratuitous shot of the kids..
Charlotte catching up on some local literature...
Oliver poses in front of a sign in the Weybridge train station in Surrey. Cue appropriate Fugazi song...
All that remains of the fabled Battersea Power Station, which once loomed ominously over the Thames, famously captured on the cover of Animals by Pink Floyd. This was shot from the interior of a very pricey black cab.
Oliver's going underground...
Truthfully, I had reservations about going on the London Eye, as it seems ridiculously touristy and clogged with people, but when a sunny morning suddenly revealed itself, it seemed like fate. It was still clogged (and cloyingly now called the "Coca-Cola London Eye"), but it is pretty spectacular.
Westminster Bridge between the Embankment where the London Eye stands and the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben across the Thames used to be a manageable bit of real estate, but since the Eye was erected, it's become overrun with tourists. Crossing the bridge can be a major hassle, unless you're fond of dodging flailing selfie-sticks. Here's Oliver replicating a shot of me from 1993.
And here's the original shot in question....
Obligatory Big Ben shot...
History buffs would do really well to check out Churchill's war rooms in Westminster. They provide a richly detailed audio tour. The kids barely got through it, but the wife and I enjoyed it immensely.
After one long day of being insufferable Yank tourists, we stopped into a Westminster pub called The Two Chairmen. Following a roundly robust meal of Sausages & Mash and Fish & Chips, I made my way to the gents and spotted a familiar looking figure. Later, we encountered him outside the pub having a ciggie before mounting his motorcycle. This is Thomas, posing with my Charlotte & Oliver. You may remember him from such films as "Wolf Hall," "Nanny McPhee" or as Liam Neeson's little step-son in " Love Actually." I neglected to mention how absolutely crap I think that film is.
The British take Christmas really fucking seriously...
On Thursday, the wife planned for us to have "festive holiday tea" at Brown's hotel in Piccadilly, complete with cucumber sandwiches and such. With the promise of being let off my leash for the rest of the afternoon, I gamely obliged. Thus, the morning was spent being ridiculously posh...
..and the afternoon was spent being punky, as I repaired to the comparatively rough n' tumble byways of Camden Town to visit my friend Miles' stalwart emporium of all things punk and hardcore, All Ages. Should you ever be in the neighborhood, it is an absolute MUST-VISIT.
Here's the interior. That's our boy Miles on the left. Click to enlarge...
After closing up shop, Miles and I zig-zagged around London looking for just the sort of ridiculous shit that you've come to expect here on Flaming Pablum, like so...
Here's me standing at a doorway in London's SoHo. Today, it's nothing in particular, but circa the early-to-mid 80's, it was the Batcave, launching pad for such bands as The Specimen and Alien Sex Fiend, and frequent hang for folks like Nick Cave, Foetus, Marc Almond and Bauhaus.
Obviously, we had to stake out the Soho location of the Ziggy Stardust cover as well, which we did (it's hidden away on Heddon Street)...
To be honest, it looks nothing like it did in 1973. It's now closed to car traffic, but the lanes are all used up by outside tables for ritzy restaurants and wankery wine bars. That all said, the original phone box on the back cover is indeed still there, its interior now covered with scribbled tributes.
Here's Miles..
The newly-erected gate to Chinatown on Wardour Street (notable -- to me, anyway -- for this).
Oliver on the King's Road
At the Saatchi Gallery
From our final evening at the glorious World's End Distillery on King's Road (just a stone's throw from Malcolm McLaren's fabled Sex shop ... which is frankly nondescript today)..
Believe it or not, that's not ALL the pics, but enough to give one a general idea. We begrudgingly flew back home on Friday to ironically grey and rainy NYC.
MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE!
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