Month: April 2011

My Memaw was the biggest devotee of anything royal – which is odd, given that she and her family were from Hoehnwald, Tennessee via Ecorse, MI – more like the West Midlands of England than Windsor Castle. I still remember her coming over to our house at buttcrack-of-dawn:30 to watch the wedding of Prince Charles and Diana Spencer on our wood console RCA Television.  She brought scones that she said that she had made from scratch, but we all knew she had picked them up at a bakery near her house the afternoon before. Even back then, I seriously wondered what all of the fuss was about – even though at the time, it was one of the largest televised events in history.  The carriage, the pomp and circumstance, the crowns and the crowds.  It represented a level of romanticism that people from her generation needed to get through tough times like the Great Depression and World War II.

In London, unless you’re headless or have been kept hostage in a dark room for the past three months, you know that Prince William is marrying Kate Middleton on April 29.  In a serendipitous landing of public holidays, Easter Weekend is this coming weekend.  Meaning, Good Friday and Easter Monday are public holidays here, then technically there are three days back at work then the Friday for the Royal Wedding and the following Monday as a public holiday.  By taking those three days off between the holidays, you end up getting 11 straight days off while only burning three days of vacation.  People here are starting to call it “The Fortnight” of holidays here, as barely anyone will be working during those three days in between.  I am definitely taking those three days off, as well as another three days post that time, giving me 14 straight days off.

There are a ton of activities planned for tourists here in London – between private street parties and the parade on the day of the wedding, people who are royally obsessed will have their opportunity to party as much as they want.  However, most of the locals here are nonplussed at the interest in the wedding, and disinterested in the media blitz that goes along with it.  Many of my friends are actually leaving town to avoid the bumrush of tourists who will be in town for the event.  Also, everywhere you turn, you can find a souvenir shop that sells every possible commemorative item (including toilet paper). I find it ludicrous, but, there is a market for everything.

That includes me – I am going to Asia to visit friends for two weeks.  I do think my dearly departed Memaw may have me struck by lightning, because she would believe that I am being sacreligious by not being in town for that event.  However, my defense is that every day in London is an event. There are so many things happening here on a daily basis that a wedding between royals is just one of many things that I can choose to attend – or in this case not.  For people who live here, that influx of tourists makes it pretty difficult to make your way around town – to the grocery store, to buy anything.

Rather than find myself killing a tourist in the Lancaster Gate tube station or at the Sainsbury’s by Marble Arch, I’m outta here.  No need to read a headline of “41 year old gay man murders a 60 year old Hello Kitty wearing Japanese tourist in Waitrose – Death by bludgeoning with British Chicken”. It’s just better for all of us.

I love food.  And, I have a confession. In most countries I’ve visited, I have gone to the supermarket – not necessarily to buy anything, but to see the differences in the foods that are relatively available to purchase as part of people’s every day lives.  When I moved here to the UK, I found myself overwhelmed in the full size Sainsbury’s near my temporary housing in Notting Hill.  The choice was about the same, if not a little less than in the States.  Layout was pretty much the same as the Safeway or Metropolitan Market near my home in Seattle.  But, there are some significant differences in the marketing here in the UK.  I figured I would talk about the top five things I have noticed in the supermarket retailing here in London.

1. Many different types and sizes of stores – Mostly segmented by Tesco and Sainsbury’s, there are large, medium, small and mini sizes of stores, depending on the type of location – you see more of the ultra large stores outside of the city center of London, with a couple of exceptions – Tesco calls them Tesco Extra, which are similar to a Super Walmart or a Meijer, including clothes, cards, walls of booze and anything you possibly could want foodwise. The medium sized stores are usually just called Tesco – mostly a grocery store with a significant level of choice in other things like soap, health and beauty, and homewares. The small sized stores are usually neighborhood locations with a very small selection.  And the mini-stores can be as small as 1000 sq. ft. with just the essentials to purchase – think of a local minimart with less of a focus on booze and more of a focus on food.

2. Segmentation by quality level – You can find any type of food retailer – from the extremely high end Harrod’s food halls (which are mostly there to show the opulence of the Qatari royal family former British Empire, to the everything is frozen Iceland.co.uk stores, you have every range.  Marks and Spencer, John Lewis, Selfridges and Debenham’s – High Street Department stores all have food halls as well, but, nothing to the same level as Harrod’s.  Within the next level down, there is Waitrose, which is affiliated with John Lewis, but definitely one level above most of the other competitors, both in quality, choice and price.  The next level is a competition between Tesco and Sainsbury’s – proper middle class grocery stores that are in most middle class neighborhoods.  Then there are the discount retailers where there is a ton of competition: Asda (owned by Walmart), Morrison’s, Aldi and Iceland.  Lots of choice in a very small geography.

3. Ready to prepare meals – Yeah, yeah.  That’s the stereotypical British meal – a TV dinner as it were.  However….. The difference now is that there is a significant focus on the level of quality of those meals. Instead of having an aluminum foil tin filled with unseasoned sliced meat in gravy like you would see in the States, you will see Marks and Spencer’s Gastropub line with Boeuf Bourgignone made with organic, grass fed beef, with sides of a Gratin Dauphinois, and Petit Pois braised with Shallots.  All of which are made fresh, not frozen and have to be sold within two days.  Homemade soups, Fresh pasta, homemade egg noodles – even a significant amount of sliced vegetables for you to throw together a real Asian stirfry in minutes of getting your groceries home.  Often you can get dinner for two and a bottle of wine and dessert for £10.  You can’t really eat out for that, and most of the meals are actually really good.  Not quite as good as home made, but definitely not anywhere close to Salisbury Steak by Banquet.

4. Grab and Go food – It’s actually unbelievable how much the local supermarket is so focused on grab and go sandwiches, hot food, or meal deals – so much so that Boots, the largest pharmacy has gotten in on this deal too.  You can get sandwiches, salads, soups, sides and beverages in normal, non-gargantuan portions ready to eat and in a hurry.  Most of these places have very high quality, with fresh portions made every day.  There are also lots of cooked foods – fried prawns, chicken tikka cubes, dips – all without a deli counter.  Makes it easy to keep things moving in such small spaces.

5. Fresh baked goods, produce and locally grown organic foods – Every grocery store (well, except Aldi and Iceland) have a significant selection or organic or non genetically modified foods that are locally sourced.  The requirements for these designations here in the UK make the USDA rules look significantly weak in even the most casual observer’s eyes.  There’s no High Fructose Corn Syrup, there’s not much in the way of additives and preservatives, even in breads, soups and prepared meals. They are proud of British Beef, British Chicken, Dover Sole, even Irish Lamb.  Baked goods are brought in daily, sometimes even twice a day, with a daily shelf life.  Butter is always European style, duh, but, not outrageously priced and definitely high quality.  Dairy is highly regulated, too and even branded as from Guernsey or Jersey.  It’s magic.

Overall, it’s still overwhelming to shop in some of these environments, because I still don’t have my favorite or regular brands. But, the adventurer in me gets excited about trying new things.  Even if it is the difference between the Sainsbury’s Macaroni Cheese and the Waitrose Macaroni Cheese (Pick the Waitrose one, or the Sainsbury’s one and add a lot of black pepper if it is on sale).  But, steer clear of any of the ready made lasagnae.  Unless you like Bechamel sauce.  Lots and lots of Bechamel sauce. (Blech)

 

One of the things about living here in London, you walk alot.  ALOT.  While being a very mobile city with buses, tubes and rail lines crisscrossing the city, most of the best things and places in London are experienced on foot.  You can walk through part of the East End and *poof* you run into a thousand year old piece of the London Wall. There are many different lanes that are only explored outside of a car or public transportation.  It is really amazing how close everything is, whether it is a different neighborhood, a huge attraction, a historical monument or something architecturally significant.

It is also a very lovely city in which to commute.  My company has an office near Victoria Station – which at the time is UNBEARABLE to enter or exit at any time during the day due to constant refurbishment.  It is a complete disaster during rush hours, so much so, that the Underground station entrances and exits are one way only and you herd down into tiled tubes to overcrowded trains.  As you learn in geometry, the shortest distance between two places is a straight line.  And, as you learn in psychology, the shortest distance between sanity and insanity is unbearable trauma.  Like entering Victoria Underground station to try to board the Victoria Line northbound to Oxford Circus – which is also undergoing refurbishment and takes people with strong constitution to fight their way through clueless tourists who get off a train and stop dead in their tracks while thousands of commuters prepare to throw them into the gap instead of telling them to “mind the gap”. The shortest distance between Victoria and my flat is through three royal parks – St. James Park, Green Park, and Hyde Park.   It’s definitely walkable – 45 minutes on a good day – but enter TFL’s joint venture with Barclay’s – Barclay’s Cycle Hire.

This taxpayer funded scheme is a brilliant idea.  There are bike rental stations peppered throughout the city – close to tube and bus stations, public parks and monuments, tourist attractions, business headquarters, rail stations and shopping centers.  You can be a casual user – £1 for a day, or £5 for a week which you can rent using a debit card at the rental locationor become a member and pay £45 per year for a key that gives you quick access.  Up to 30 minutes is free, any more time has an incremental amount per hour.  For a ride home, or a quick ride to a museum, it’s free.  If you want to take a long bike ride through all of the parks, it is still extremely affordable.  Also, it gets you outside and out of the public transportation or off the roads, which from a socially conscious, greener city like London is a beautiful thing.

Definitely a way to get around if you plan on visiting or living here.

Kylie Minogue. Soap opera star, Actress, Singer, Songwriter. Damned fine performer.

As an American, I never really understood the allure.  She only had a couple hits in the late ’80s, one of which was Locomotion – a cover of a King/Goffin tune from the ’60s.  She never really made it big in the States, but she was HUGE here in the UK and in Australia.  And, I never really understood until I attended her concert with my friend Dan at the O2 this past weekend.  After 36 very hectic hours with work and other volunteer things, I was rushing to get to the venue in time and not really in a great state of mind.

My friend Dan had his friend get me a ticket for the show – standing room on the main floor.

(By the way, I now realize why American concert venues do not do plain standing room – I almost beat the shit out of five overtanned, overplucked, oversteroided mid thirties club queens who pushed their way through the crowd and were more interested in taking their shirts off, cruising for sex on Grindr and talking instead of watching the show. Instead, I made them feel uncomfortable and kept moving towards them until they got so close to the aisle, they left. But I digress….)

The opening group was a terrible new girl group called Ultra Girls. Imagine a desparate version of the Spice Girls/Bananarama type. Terrible lyrics, good voices, overstyled hair.  Painful overall.  But, when Kylie came out, she was absolutely dazzling.  I mean it. Think Madonna without the slutty behavior.  Cher without the camp. Britney without the crazy. Gaga without the meat dress.  The first hour and half was pretty patterned – gorgeous, scantily clad, athletic dancers – both male and female, fountains, water images, columns and lots of amazing dancing.

After that hour and a half, Kylie interacted with the audience, taking requests – singing a couple songs (acapella! Take that Madonna, Britney and Cher. And by herself. with the house lights up and no spectacle – take that,  Gaga)  All of this three years after having breast cancer.  She definitely hit her target audience of gay men and straight women, and is performing multiple shows here in London over the next 10 days.

She definitely won a new fan here, and I’m not a huge fan of Brit-pop music.  Well, unless it’s anything from the 1980’s.  But, more on that later.