Gordon Ramsey, The Queen, Josh Hartnett and Jimmey Carr. And Other Stuff

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Wow, 3 months sure is a long time between blogs. So long in fact that since the last post we made we have quit our London jobs, moved out of our London flat and temporarily left the UK on a tour around the northeastern US and Canada. But before we start the series of blogs covering our US trip, there are a few more UK stories to update you on first.

Anna’s parents were over for a visit to London in September and Anna had kindly invited us out to a meal with them at one of Gordon Ramsey’s London restaurants. I bet you’re all thinking ‘how the hell can you afford that?’ Well for 90% of his restaurants we wouldn’t be able to afford it, and probably couldn’t get a booking even if we could. But the restaurant we picked was one called Foxtrot Oscar, and although its located in the plush London suburb of Chelsea its really quite reasonable (about 15 pounds for a main which is a little bit more than you’d pay for a pub meal, but quite reasonable for a restaurant). Ramsey bought the restaurant a while back after he and his chef mates began to frequent it themselves after an evening service, hence why he’s tried to keep reasonably simple and good value. We were not expecting to see Ramsey as we figured he’d be at any one of his other more upper class restaurants in London, or indeed the world. However, upon our arrival to the restaurant Anna had just returned from the bathroom with a beaming smile on her face having bumped into Ramsey in the hallway. Apparently he said hello and asked her how she was doing and was rather pleasant, in complete contrast to how he appears on some of his shows. None of us believed Anna’s story initially but after hearing that he’d been spotted I suddenly twigged that when Emma and I had arrived at the restaurant a gentlemen had turned up on a rather flash looking Harley Davidson Sportster and gone into the restaurant. I had suggested at the time to Emma that maybe it was Ramsey’s bike, not really believing it, but when we asked the waiter he confirmed that Ramsey had indeed turned up 10mins earlier on his Harley that was parked out front, but had since left. Our brief run in with a celebrity was over before it had begun. The meal itself was really, really good for what was essentially glorified pub food and I’d definitely go back there. I had the Game Pie which consisted of veal, venison, pheasant, pigeon and one other (but I can’t remember what). It really was a good as it sounds. Emma had the British classic Bangers and Mash, which she claims was the best she’s ever had.

The day after our exciting brush with celebrity, we headed out in search of another brush with fame, this time with arguably the most recognised and famous pensioner in the world, the Queen. Every summer the State Rooms of Buckingham Palace are opened up to the public and this year included the Banquet Hall set up as it would be for and official State Banquet. The Palace was a looking a little old a run down in parts but there was plenty of gold and royal red throughout, as well as lots of impressive displays of weapons and armour and other antiques. The Thrown Room was very impressive, as were the round Music Room and the Green Room. The banquet set up was quite amazing with everything set out to absolute perfection. For example each place at the massive table had 6 glasses, one for water, one for champagne, one for wine, one toasting glass, one for dessert wine and one for port. Each of these glasses was set a certain distance from all the others and the cutlery etc. If anything wasn’t quite where it should be it would stick out like a saw thumb among all the other perfectly set places. We also got to go out the back of the Palace and into the Queens private garden. It was pretty impressive. It is basically her own private park in the centre of London and despite all the traffic buzzing round on both sides is quite peaceful. Lucky Queen.

Simon and Anna’s flatmates Erin and Brad were due to leave the UK to head home to Australia at the end of November and as a farewell they decided to organise a Monopoly Pub Crawl. I’m sure you’re all very familiar with the original version of the property board game and will be aware that all the locations around the board are based in London. As a result the ‘Monopoly Pub Crawl’ has become a very popular activity for visitors to London who enjoy a drink or two. Basically the idea is that you download a route map from one of the pub crawl websites that gives directions to a pub on each of the streets and stations from the monopoly board. A group of about a dozen or so of Erin and Brad’s mates assembled outside the Elephant & Castle tube station at around 10am one Sunday morning and headed off to commence what was sure to be a very long day of pub hoping and beer swilling. First stop was The George in Old Kent Rd. This pub is first stop on the route map we had downloaded and as such opens earlier every Sunday morning specially to serve Monopoly Pub Crawlers. But unfortunately it wasn’t early enough for us. We had to wait about 15mins before they let us in but we eventually got the first beer under our belt. To cut a long storey short, we hoped from pub to pub for much of the rest of the day and by the time those of us who had work the next day called it a day at about 4 or 5pm we had been to about 8 or 9 pubs in locations from the monopoly board including The Angel Islington, Liverpool Street Station, Fenchurch Street Station, Whitechapel, Northumberland Avenue, Kings Cross Station and Euston Rd. We left the rest of them to carry on to the other 15 or so pubs but I never did find out how far they got. Not far I’m guessing judging by the state of some of them when we left.

A couple of weekends after the pub crawl we decided to have a bit more of a low key weekend so went to Windsor to visit the Queen (again). We took the train from London which only took half an hour or so with a change at Slough (it took a little longer for Si an Anna who forgot to get off their train at Slough and were in Twyford before they realised they had gone too far). Windsor was a nice, chilled out little place and had an Edinburgh type feel to it with the Castle being at the end of the High St looking down on the town. We headed up the hill and into the Castle grounds and State Apartments. Emma and I had already been through Buckingham Palace so had an idea of what to expect, and indeed inside it was all very similar to Buckingham Palace. But having said that its still amazing to see inside any Royal Palace and Windsor is much older and more 'Castle' like than Buckingham Palace. It seemed to have a lot more in the way of the Royal art and antique collections etc including gifts from various foreign countries including a Taiaha from NZ. They also had this amazing dolls house (yes fellas, an amazing dolls house) that had fully functioning electricity and plumbing. It was built for one of the young Princesses a while back and has an amazing level of detail, I’d hate to think what it was worth. There was also an old Citroen pedal car that I think used to be Charles’s which again was very detailed. Another interesting thing about Windsor was the amount of rebuilding work that had been done after the fire in the Castle back in 199whatever. It looks a little newer than the rest of the Castle but if you hadn’t heard about the fire you’d be hard pressed to even know that there was one and that many of the rooms in the State Apartments were completely gutted.

The All Blacks rolled into town at the start of November so we decided to plan a visit to Emma’s sister in Edinburgh to coincide with the test match against Scotland. We took the Friday off work and jumped on the train at Kings Cross for the 4.5 hour trip north. It became quite apparent from as soon as we got off the train that it was a test weekend in Edinburgh and there was lots of black jerseys (and Scottish ones as well) around. We headed up to Amy and Michael’s flat, said gidday then jumped in the car and headed to the base of Arthur’s Seat. Arthur’s Seat is a large hill that overlooks the city and is enjoyed by Edinburites and tourists alike for its stunning vistas. It was hard slog but we battled our way all the way to the top of the hill and enjoyed the views for a few minutes before the wind almost blew us back down. Back down the bottom we went to the Sheepshead Pub, the oldest pub in Edinburgh (1300s), for a kai. Later that evening Si and Anna rolled into town on a late train and after a nice meal we all headed back to the flat for the night. The next morning Anna and Si went through the Castle while Amy and Emma went shopping and I walked around behind them bored out of my brain. Then it was off to the big game. We got there just as Murrayfield was plunged into darkness setting an eerie atmosphere as the players arrived on the field. The stadium wasn’t quite full but it was an awesome atmosphere. We were sitting next to two hilarious English blokes who were there to support the All Blacks and did so quite vocally. After the Haka and anthems there was a minutes silence, ended by a low fly over from a Chinook helicopter as part of the Remembrance Day activities. It was amazing how quiet a crowd of that size could be. The game itself wasn’t quite as good as we’d hoped. The ABs scored a few good tries but never really went on to dominate. The Scots put up a valiant challenge that enabled the crowd to get behind them a bit but never really looked like causing an upset and it kind of fizzled out as a bit of a nothing game. Out of the 4 ABs games I’ve been to it was definitely the least enthralling but being the first game I’ve been to in enemy territory, and at a famous ground like Murrayfield, it was no less memorable. We walked into town after the games with the thousands of other rugby fans but didn’t hang round long as all the pubs were overloaded and didn’t look like much fun. The next day we wandered through town showing Si and Anna the sites and had a pleasant lunch before Si and Anna headed back to London that afternoon. Monday was also a low key day, just taking Cleo out for some much needed exercise before we too headed back to London. It was another pleasant stay in Edinburgh. It really is a very nice city and is a great place to chill out for a while outside of London. We’re definitely looking into making it our temporary home at some time in the future.

So far this year we had only managed to get to one show, Lord of the Rings, which was a good show with impressive effects but wasn’t what you’d consider your quintessential West End theatre experience. So Emma and Anna had decided they had to make better use of their time in London to do a few more shows. Emma had been to Wicked earlier in the year so was keen for more. While Anna’s parents were over they took them to see Lion King which Si and I managed to get out of. By all accounts it was a very good show with amazing costume design and even John (Anna’s dad) claimed to have really enjoyed it. Emma’s old workmate gave up teaching at the end of the last academic year to go and work backstage at Grease so she was able to hook Anna and Emma up with cheap tickets to that. Again they both really enjoyed the show and Emma rates it as her favourite so far. Both girls had constantly been nagging Si and I to go to a show with them and we finally caved in and agreed to go to We Will Rock You. This show was written by the remaining members of Queen and the comedian Ben Elton so we figured we’d at least enjoy the music and hopefully have a bit of a laugh. The story was set in the future so was a bit Si-Fi for our liking but it was a fun story about two characters rebelling against ‘the man’ who had banned musical instruments and banned any freedom of expression through music. Anyway, the two characters are ostracized and embark on a journey of discovery to try and bring back the music. Along the way they stumble across the music of an ancient band of rock gods called Queen. It was pretty amusing and the music was of course very good, all the old Queen hits were included. So with that Si and I could finally say we’d done a proper West End musical and would never have to do it ever again. But Anna and Emma were far from finished. Just two days later they were back in the West End to see The Rain Man, if only for the reason that it was starring Hollywood heartthrob Josh Hartnett. Apparently the show was very good, particularly the part where Mr Hartnett took his shirt off. Not that I mind, Emma has promised me that when we are in NY we can go and see Katie Holmes in her play currently showing on Broadway. Yum!

At the end of November temperatures in London began consistently falling to around freezing or below and so the numerous ice skating rinks around the city began operations. Each of the rinks is set up in or around various London landmarks including the Tower of London, Hampton Court and Kew Gardens. The main one was set up in the courtyard of Somerset House so that was the one we decided to have a go at. We went to the late night skate and had a blast. None of us could remember the last time we’d been on a pair of ice skates but its safe to say its been around maybe 15 years for most of us. Not to worry. Its just like riding a bike, right. Well it was for some of us anyway, others took a little longer to give up the safety of the wall at the side of the rink and venture out in amongst the carnage in the middle of the rink. But, it must be said we all got the hang of it reasonably well and not one of us (and there were 5 of us) fell over the entire hour we were skating. And that’s even more impressive and effort when you consider how many other people were out on the ice at the same time and how many of them had absolutely no idea and were taking other skaters down with them every time they went arse of kite. We were all a little achy at the end of the hour but had had a fantastic time and we’ll definitely be trying to go again before the end of the season, maybe in NY this time.

Some of you maybe familiar with Jimmy Carr, the host of the TV show 'Distraction' that was shown on TV in NZ a couple of years ago. For those of you who are not he is a very popular British comedian and host of a number of popular comedy shows in the UK. He’s quite a weird, nerdy looking dude with a sick and twisted sense of humour who is not afraid of offending anyone, which is precisely why Emma, Anna, Si and I enjoy his work so much. As a surprise birthday present for Simon, Anna had purchased tickets to his show at Brixton Academy so Emma and I decided to tag along. It was our last day in London before we left on our trip so was a nice way to relax and take our mind off our nervousness at the big trip starting the next day. Brixton was a full house, such is Carr’s popularity in the UK, and the material had us laughing so hard it hurt. It never ceases to amaze me how one guy can stand up there on his own in front of thousands of people and make them laugh so much. And he openly encouraged heckling from the audience and swiftly and cruelly retaliated to anyone who did, well and truly putting them back in there place and causing them to sink back into their seats with embarrassment. It was great. Much of his material is inappropriate to be repeated in this particular forum but if you are interested in having a look just go to YouTube and search him and I’m sure you’ll get a taste of how funny this dude is.

Right, so I think that is just about everything brought right up to date until the point that we left the UK. At the time of writing this we are almost a week into our US and Canada trip and have already visited 3 different cities so have a couple of blogs worth of words and pictures for you which we will hopefully post for you in the not too distant future.

Hope your all well.

Cheers
Gareth and Emma

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Photos

Foxtrot Oscars
Emma and Anna happy to have met Gordon Ramsey

Foxtrot Oscar
The restaurant entrance

Buckingham Palace
Soldiers marching outside the Palace

Buckingham Palace
The back of the Palace which is not usually visible to the general public

Buckingham Palace
The Queen's garden

Monopoly Pub Crawl
On the bus to the first pub. Look its raining.

Monopoly Pub Crawl
Not even at the first pub and the shenanigans have started already

Monopoly Pub Crawl
Some of the crew milling around outside the first pub waiting for the doors to open

Monopoly Pub Crawl
The departing couple, Erin and Brad

Monopoly Pub Crawl
Fenchurch St Station

Monopoly Pub Crawl
Northumberland Alley

Monopoly Pub Crawl
Whitechapel

Monopoly Pub Crawl
Liverpool St Station

Monopoly Pub Crawl
There were a few other rules to follow as well such as talking in the third person etc. Punishment was push ups in the middle of the pub. This is Si serving his punishment, not for the first time, or the last.

Monopoly Pub Crawl
Gaz on the tube

Monopoly Pub Crawl
Gaz again

Monopoly Pub Crawl
and again

Monopoly Pub Crawl
and again

Monopoly Pub Crawl
and one more time

Monopoly Pub Crawl
The longest escaltors on the London Underground at Angel Station

Monopoly Pub Crawl
Gaz and Emm having a pint at the pub at Angel, Islington

Comments

[Rach]

Hi Guys
Hey thanks for the update, your blogs are always fab to read, and I am very jealous as to how much awesome stuff you sre fitting into your travels. How long are you guys in the US and Canada for? Where will you be spending christmas? Will carry on now as am about to start the mammoth task of tackling the housework, yuk, would much prefer to be doing what you are doing some days!!! Take Care, Love Rach