Humor, London, Travel

London Day One: Preservation and Piety

“I don’t know what London’s coming to — the higher the buildings the lower the morals.”
― Noël Coward, Collected Sketches and Lyrics

This week the Small Dog team brings you tales of travel, tips for tourists, personal recommendations, show reviews, and lots of pictures of food from our sojourn in London.  Today, our first day in town:

We arrived in the morning and determined to stay up all day, all the better to get on a new sleep cycle, my dear.  Luckily, J. lived just off the Piccadilly Line, which conveniently runs all the way to Heathrow airport, so when we arrived we just hopped on the tube.  After dropping everything off at his place, we jumped back on and headed into central London.

And I managed to take pictures, kittens!  No one is more surprised than me (although looking through them I’m realizing how many more I should have taken).  I’ll never be a photographer.

Our first stop was the Soane Museum which is mere minutes away from LSE and is just one of the hundreds of small, less well known museums in the city.  The entire thing is the private collection of Sir John Soane – one of those glorious Englishmen who stockpiled things that interested him!  Pictures were prohibited, alas, but if you’re ever in town, go and see it.  It’s completely free (but I encourage you to donate any spare change in your pockets to it’s maintenance, as it survives entirely on such charity and government grants), and they only let in small parties at a time.

The whole thing is a magnificent hodgepodge of antiquities: busts, chunks of Grecian reliefs, medieval figurines, the pure alabaster sarcophagus of Seti I, Hogarth’s original Rake’s Progress paintings, and (most hilariously of all), a mausoleum to his wife’s dog with the inscription, “Alas, poor Fanny!”

A print from 1864 showing the sarcophagus room surrounded by other antiquities, all of which are still in the exact same arrangement today.  Minus the people in the funny clothes (although it must be said that some tourists are upholding tradition on that account…)*

Our next stop was St. Paul’s Cathedral since J. had never been there.  There’s been a church on this site for over a thousand years, and this is only the latest incarnation.  Courtesy of Sir Christopher Wren after the Great Fire, it’s massive.  At J.’s insistence, we climbed to the top of thing (heavily jet lagged, please recall), going up more stairs and through narrow passages than I could count.  If you’re up to the physical challenge, it’s well worth the views – both of the surrounding city, and to the cathedral floor several hundred feet below.  J. smacked his head on a few low Restorationist ceilings, clearly not meant for six foot tourists, but other than that, no casualties.

He insisted on documenting me, sans makeup and heavily jetlagged. Jerk.

The views are incredible.  You can take in all the major tourist traps in one go if you walk all the way around the top of the dome:

The Houses of Parliament and the London Eye…
The Tower of London and Tower Bridge…
and Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre.

After climbing the heights, we sunk to the depths and went through the crypts, which are equally interesting for any history nerd.  Both Wellington and Nelson are buried there, as well as many other great British figures.

St. Paul’s isn’t free if you’re doing the tourist bit: it’s £15 for an adult and £5 for a child (although if any of you are going to be in town for the summer, the Olympics seem to be causing a rate lowering!), but it’s well worth the money.  You get an audio/video guide with lots of information on the art, history, construction, and cool stories about the cathedral’s past.  It’s got Queen Victoria, surviving the London Blitz, and up through Charles and Di’s marriage, if that’s your cup of tea.  There are frequent guest performances from choirs that perform during the tourist hours free of charge, one was there when we were visiting, so we plunked down in some seats and enjoyed the show.

If you’d like to go for free, they don’t charge admission for worship services and you can enjoy Evensong for free as well, but you won’t get to wander around the church or see the sights when it’s functioning in its ecclesiastical capacities.  Which is as it should be, quite frankly.

After that, thoroughly exhausted, we stumbled home and collapsed into a single person bed – which made sleeping a ridiculous complicated affair, but hey, we like cuddling.

*The sarcophagus of Seti I at Sir John Soane’s Museum, Illustrated London News, 1864 (obtained from Wikipedia).
** All other photos are my own

Humor, Linkstorm, Travel, Weekend

Friday Links XXIV

“So what are you doing next Friday night?”
“What have you got in mind?”
“We could try hitting each other with cars,” she suggested cheerfully.
– Josephine Angelini, Starcrossed

Just making it through the end of the week, minions, and then it’s off to London next Monday to get J. wrapped up in robes and officially done with grad school!  We’ll try to keep up with updates and pictures, but frankly you know how good the Small Dog clan is at that.  I can’t wait to be back in the city!

It makes me this happy!

In the meantime, well-beloved kittens, here are some links.  Let me know what you’ve been up to this summer!  Has it been crazy like ours, or something more mellow and serene, sitting on porches and drinking iced tea?

Huh.  I snack in my free time, but you know.  Whatever.  Show off.

Go ahead and try to be in a bad mood.  I double dog dare you.

Joanna Goddard, the fabulous blogger over at A Cup of Jo, and a former writer for Glamour magazine (among other publications) has done another work/life balance series about modern working women and motherhood.  There’s some good perspectives there, go check it out.

Dog houses fit for canine royalty.

You may have heard a bit about that  damned elusive (Pimpernel!) Higgs Boson/God Particle this week, here’s a short documentary about the search for it.

I like to think I’d last a couple days, but deep in my heart, I know that dropped into the desert I’m a goner.  Unlike this gentleman.

Here is a fabulous podcast that traces a creative lineage from Dickens to Geico.  Don’t believe me?  Check it out.

Alright, can we all just agree that these are great?

I am a good bad influence friend, ducklings, and I found you another place to spend money.  Lots of things are cute in this shop but I particularly love the Alice in Wonderland themed racks and hanger-hooks and currently covet them exceedingly.  And I’d be lying if the Napoleon key rack didn’t call to something deep and primal in my soul.

On the momentous day of July 4th, 1776 George Washington did what?

The weekly sheep.  I’m fairly positive your brain just shorted out with cuteness.

Holidays, Humor, Work

Guns, Booze, and Steel

“An inherent cultural passion for things that went boom, perhaps.”
– Louis McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign

I’m at work today kittens, this is one of our busiest days of the year on account of the parades, local events, and stadium fireworks show.

If we judge by history, at least one police officer will be hit by a car this evening – due to the fact that people turn into jerks when told they can’t jump the line to get out of the parking lot ahead of the fifteen thousand other cars.  Seventeen people will try to bring their firearms into the stadium and throw a fit when they are turned away.  Five thousand mothers will try to bring outside food in and their children will throw fits when we tell them they cannot.  Four fistfights will breakout twixt fans of different sports team persuasions.  Twenty five people will be arrest for public intoxication.  Three small fire will be started from poorly monitored firecrackers.

And a partridge in a pear tree.

Actually, I love July 4th.  I like picnics with friends, getting out in the summer sun, the local fairs and parades that spring up everywhere, getting to a park early to claim a comfy spot of grass with blankets, and watching fireworks.  But I’d be lying if I said that July 4th didn’t bring out some unfortunate behavior that I wish didn’t get slathered with a veneer of patriotism.  Drunk and disorderly is still drunk and disorderly, and slurring, “You carn arressssst muh, ‘s a frey country!” is not a legal defense.

On a more practical note, be careful with the fireworks, kittens.  Half the country is already on fire.

Humor, Life

Scene of the Crimes

“I solemnly swear I am up to no good.”
– Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

It’s been a busy day prepping for the Fourth tomorrow, so here are a few smidgins of evidence that we’re alive, kicking and living it up. Yeah, I know.  I’m shocked I thought to take pictures too…

The other groomsmen and myself from Flyboy’s wedding. My dress was still too big after alterations, but tis the life of the petite female. It wasn’t my wedding, so who cared about my dress! Weddings are a lot less stressful when they aren’t your own.  Those guys were charming, by the way.  Flyboy clearly knows how to collect good friends (*wink).

We live in a notorious marriage mart of a town, but clearly things didn’t work out typically for this gentleman…  And apparently he has very cruel friends or relationships.  Snagged this sad gem in a local parking lot.
Heading out to my car for work this morning, I was startled by a roaring sound above my head. It turned out to be a low drifting balloon from a local July 4th festival (which apparently happened on the 3rd). Believe it or not it was much lower to start with, I had to scrambled in my purse for the camera a bit and the balloon had risen by the time I fished it out. These were all over the sky this morning.
That’s, um, not a cloud. Half of the country is on fire, in case you hadn’t noticed, and apparently so is the city a bit up from us. We’ll keep an eye on this one, I think.