May 19, 2026

Dateline: London, England

It’s the end of a very long day that started about 8 am on Monday the 18th and is just now drawing to a close. Not a whole lot of it took place on the Monday. The morning was spent in leisurely pursuits and in making sure that Patti Steelman got placed in a car headed to the correct airport for her return to Birmingham. Once she had been safely sent on her way, I went downtown a few blocks to Herald Square and to Macy’s. It’s not holiday time so the store wasn’t especially decked out but I do have a Macy’s account and like to exercise it occasionally. My perusal of all six floors of the men’s department ended with me purchasing a polo shirt and a Karl Lagerfeld black and white shirt that I thought was quite comely but which apparently no one else liked as it had been marked down about eight times so I got it for a very reasonable price.

I then had a snack, collected my bags and headed uptown to meet up with David Pohler for our parallel trips across the pond. He was on Virgin and I on Delta but our flights were within a half hour of each other so we thought traveling together was reasonable. He and his other half have a lovely apartment in Harlem (very different now from the images you may have conjured up at that word) and, after a long chat, we hauled our suitcases down to the subway out to Jamaica and transfer to the Sky Train to JFK. Light dinner and cocktails at the Amex lounge (I knew my card was good for something) and then our separate ways for our respective redeyes. Due to various delays, both in take off and landing, we arrived at Heathrow within fifteen minutes of each other and met up again in baggage claim. Can’t say much about the flight. I got some sleep and watched both Mamma Mia movies somewhere over Iceland as they seemed mindless. The second one has grown on me a bunch after a rewatch or two. There’s apparently a third one in production but I can’t imagine that there’s much left in the ABBA catalogue from which they can draw. And i don’t think the world needs the song stylings of a 73 year old Pierce Brosnan,.

David and I, slightly bleary eyed, caught the Lizzie Line of the Underground from Heathrow. I changed trains at Paddington to head to my hotel in South Kensington while he went on to meet his other half Jonathan Uday Ramteke near Tower Bridge. My room was, of course, not ready at 11 am when I arrived so I dropped my bags, had something to eat and headed up the street to the Natural History Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum which are conveniently only a few blocks away. I had not been to the Natural History Museum for many years. It hasn’t changed much, being mainly about getting small children and exhibits about dinosaurs into close proximity. I waved at various fossils, animatronics, taxidermy specimens, and ubiquitous portraits of David Attenborough and then headed next door to the V and A. I have been here several times in recent years but I always find some new corner to explore. This time it was the Theater and Performance galleries which had been closed for renovation pretty much every other visit over the last decade. Costumes from film, period TV series, the West End. Ephemera from theatrical production going back to the Victorians. Models of stage sets. I was in my element.

A quick return to the hotel (The Queens Gate at the corner of Queens Gate and Old Brompton Road) part of the Hilton Curio Collection. I think it’s called that as my room is about the size of a curio cabinet. But as I’m not planning on spending a great deal of time in it, that’s fine. It’s built into a lovely row of Georgian town homes so I feel very Upstairs Downstairs when I pass through the front door. After a nice hot shower and a change of clothes, I headed East to the West End (if you know your London geography, that will make sense) and met up with David to wander Covent Garden and then to meet up with Jonathan. We had some lovely nosh and polished off two bottles of wine together in a very nice wine bar and after, David headed for the musical Hercules while Jonathan and I went highbrow and went to the Royal Opera Covent Garden. (A suitable thing to do on the eve of Eliza Doolittle Day).

Tonight’s opera was Saint-Saens’ Samson et Dalila. It was musically lovely with some powerful voices (other than the tenor playing the Philistine High Priest who sand through his nose all night). It suffered from a bit of European Regietheatre. I want my grand opera to be grand with stunning costumes and huge sets and slightly over the top. The current fashion in Europe, however, is for directors to take the material and strip it down and go for minimalism, often with political overtones. Therefore, the set was serviceable, but uninspired. The costumes, off the rack, and it was all pretty tame until the fourth act. Then things came alive. Dalila appeared in a costume from a provincial tour of Follies with rhinestones everywhere. The Philistine army started Irish step dancing. Dagon, the god of the Philistines, was revealed to be an unkind comment on a certain American president. I enjoyed it. Another wine bar after, and then a tube back to South Kensington where I am catching up on correspondence and putting myself to bed. Tomorrow’s plans are still in flux but I hope to do some things I have never done before in London. And given this is my fourth trip in the last four years and seventh trip in total, that’s saying something.