London Calling

Just got back from a week in London to attend the wedding of our son’s first girlfriend last Friday. Not that he was holding a torch, mind you. Dan and Tash, after all, were just months shy of their third birthdays when their budding romance was laid asunder by none other than media magnate Rupert Murdoch. The tycoon shipped Tash’s family back to England so her dad could be a top editor on The Sun, a tabloid newspaper even more racy than The New York Post where he had toiled for Murdoch for 18 months. While Dan and Tash bonded, both sets of parents developed a now 35-year friendship. Dave and Gemma Banks lived around the corner from us on Parkview Court in White Plains. Indeed, the edges of our back yards touched. We met when our first borns were about 18 months old.

I’ve previously written about Dave (http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/search?q=dave+banks) so this posting will be about our visit to my favorite foreign city, and not just because I can usually discern what the natives are saying.

I’ve been to London almost a dozen times, for business and pleasure. It is one of the most walkable cities, with each district providing a unique experience. This time we stayed in a hotel in Islington, a borough in the northeast quadrant of London. Islington is undergoing gentrification. Along its High Street (the term used for the major retail avenue of most communities), restaurants and shops abound, though they have to compete for space with real estate offices proffering apartments and homes that, given the usual small size of English residences, would make an observer gasp at the prices. Million, even multi-million, dollar homes were the norm.

Now that I no longer publish or edit a retail industry magazine, I am under no obligation to dart in and out of stores. Yet, England has been said to be a country of shopkeepers, so the pleasure of being served proved alluring. Service levels were extraordinary. In the major department stores of Selfridge’s, House of Frasier and the like, one had to walk through a phalanx of eager sales people, and not just on the ground floor. Even in small shops, like the Ben Sherman outlet in Islington, the two salesmen were engaging and friendly, commenting about the sad state of the NY Knicks but optimistic that Phil Jackson could turn the team around (I said they were engaging and friendly, not sports mavens). 

London traffic is worse than New York City’s. However, during our week-long stay we never observed a single double-parked car. 

Using public transportation to get around London is a pleasure. An Oyster Card allows unlimited hopping on and off the Underground and extensive bus network. Most convenient were digital signs at bus and train stops advising wait times for desired conveyances. Each Underground and bus stop was preceded by discernible public address messages that often included mentions of nearby tourist attractions. 

All seats on the London subway have armrests which struck me as a form of collective weight control. We didn’t see any obese people in London, especially not on the Underground. Maybe the weight-challenged know they would be restricted to seats just 24 inches or so wide. 

I did observe one interesting and perplexing advertisement in the first Underground ride we took. A picture of some businessmen horrified by the prospect of a terrorist attack advocated avoiding trouble by using a teleconference service for their next meeting. Not the most desirable commentary on the safety of London.

Perhaps as a carryover from the days of IRA bombings, I noticed most pubs had no trash bins in their bathrooms. No paper towels, just electronic dryers. 

One other strange pub occurrence. In the pub hosting the pre-wedding get-together for out of town guests the single TV screen featured a show on dogs. Now I know the British love their pooches, but I would have thought a soccer game or cricket match would have been the favored screen fare.

By the way, English beer is chilled, not cold, and not really carbonated, so you don’t fill up as quickly as in American bars.

Here’s another comparison between the Old and New Worlds—security personnel in London were numerous and for the most part seemed to be from the India-Pakistan subcontinent. We were embarrassed by how few American passport control agents handled our flight at JFK. What a poor show of efficiency to the hundreds of foreigners waiting to enter our country. Moreover, the mostly Hispanic agents talked Spanish among themselves. Gilda opined that it would seem to be a violation to speak in a language not understood by the public as the guards could be commenting about people in an inappropriate manner without their knowledge.

Finally, back to the reason for our trip to London. Unlike the outdoor weddings of our two children, nuptial ceremonies in England must be held indoors, with a roof overhead. Tash and Ali exchanged vows in the council chamber of Islington town hall. No religious readings are permitted in the ceremony, nor is the mother of the bride included in the procession. Dave, however, circumvented tradition as best he could. When asked who gives away the bride, he replied, “I do, as does her mother.”

Tash and Ali are a most adorable couple. Like her father, Tash is an accomplished journalist, recently promoted to a lead position for the science section of The Guardian’s Web site. Alister is a makeup artist chosen to be part of the two-man team to create the beast in Disney’s soon to be filmed Beauty and the Beast, to be played by Downton Abbey alumnus Dan Stevens (Matthew Crawley, Lady Mary’s husband). Born in Scotland, Alister wore a kilt. The last time I saw a groom dressed in a kilt was at Charlotte’s wedding to Trey MacDougal on Sex and the City. 

Sex and the City (Politic), Curse of the Cursive, Summer Memories

I blame the Yankees. 

You might have noticed I'm blogging less often these days. It's not for lack of something to say, but rather because I'm spending hours watching NY Yankees baseball games. I had every intention of blogging Sunday afternoon but wound up hooked on the Yankees-Orioles game. After Mariano Rivera blew his second save of the season by giving up a two-run homer to Adam Jones in the top of the ninth, I was too depressed to write. 

That explains Sunday. What about the rest of the week? Well, most Yankees games are in the evening, so I while away (some would say, waste away) my time staring at the TV screen. I better finish this blog and post it before the first pitch this evening. ...

Sex and the City: Now that Eliot Spitzer has declared his candidacy for comptroller of New York City on the heels (stiletto heels?) of Anthony Weiner’s bid to become mayor, it is not too presumptuous to say the Big Apple has a taste for scandal-plagued politicians. I don’t mean that disrespectfully. I never really followed Weiner’s rise (pun intended) to stardom, but I was a fan of the former governor. Two years ago when Spitzer appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher and began writing Op-Ed pieces I foresaw his return to politics. You might not agree with his zeal or holier-than-thou attitude (not really tempered since his fall from grace), but one cannot deny that his positions are progressive and that he voices noble sentiment for the masses not often heard from most politicians.  

Will Weiner’s and Spitzer’s sexual indiscretions hamper their electability? Doubtful. Even in socially conservative areas like South Carolina and Georgia voters supported Mark Sanford and Newt Gingrich despite their failure to live up to their wedding vows. And many New Yorkers still like Rudy Giuliani despite his less than faithful allegiance to his former wife. 

Bottom line—As long as their campaign platforms don’t undermine their name recognition advantage, Weiner and Spitzer are in strong positions to win their contests.

Curse of the Cursive: When I went off to journalism graduate school at Syracuse University back in the late summer of 1971, I took along for hanging on my apartment wall a copy of the Declaration of Independence reprinted on the full back page of the first section of the July 4th edition of The New York Times. (Time out for a short history lesson: for those who might not be aware of it, the Declaration was not in fact signed on July 4, 1776. Independence was voted on and declared on July 2. The text of the Declaration was adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4. Most of the signatures were affixed on August 2. And that famous picture of the delegates signing the document, which hangs in the rotunda of the Capitol—never happened. A figment of the artist’s imagination.)

Back to the point at hand. It was, admittedly, not easy reading the text of the Declaration. Written in script common to the colonial era—a large lower case “f” where an “s” would normally be, and other oddities of the day—the document is dense reading, in its appearance and content. When I left Syracuse the following June with my diploma I didn’t take the Declaration with me. No matter. Each July 4 The Times would reprint a copy. Sometimes at Independence Day barbecues my friends and I would read the text out loud, haltingly, to be sure, as we struggled to decipher the cursive writing. 

I’m not sure if this was the first year The Times did it, but it was the first time I noticed the newspaper no longer reprints the Declaration in its original form across the full back page of the first section. Instead, the reproduction is an inset while the text is printed in regular type. Sure, it’s easier to read, but is The Times sending a subtle message that our population’s script-reading skills have deteriorated to the point where a majority of us cannot read cursive writing? For a look at some of the debate on the value of cursive writing, check out these articles and opinion pieces: http://query.nytimes.com/search/sitesearch/#/cursive+handwriting/365days/

Summer Memories: While we’re on the subject of the Fourth of July, I was reminded that for 15 years I attended summer camp but cannot recall with any clarity any celebration of our nation’s birthday. True, these were Jewish, Zionist, sleepaway camps in the 1950s and 1960s, but we did raise the American flag every day and pledged allegiance. 

What I do vividly recall is another commemoration, more somber. Tisha B’Av. The ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av, the day attributed to many calamities that befell the Jewish people through the ages, including the destruction of the First and Second Temples in, respectively, 586 BCE and 70 CE. 

Tisha B’Av is a fast day, and since Jewish days begin at sunset, we’d eat dinner early. After the meal the staff would rearrange the dining hall, turning benches over on their sides. Lights were shut off. On top of every bench, four to a bench, candles inside scooped out potatoes, were placed, to provide light by which we sang the Book of Lamentations. You can imagine the first impression this austere ceremony had on a boy of seven, and my subsequent years at camp. The fireworks of the Fourth of July did not hold a candle to the evocative sorrow of Tisha B’Av. Tisha B’Av will begin next Monday night.