Touring London

[pensnest]

My Beast kindly woke me with a cup of tea this morning... at half past seven.

Hmm.

Well. Yesterday was a quest to stuff ninjetti75's head with information, sundry, about London. I really don't get into Town often enough, it took me a while to reorient myself and figure out where we needed to go. Anway, we found our way to one of the tour buses, and did the first half of the tour - a pretty good route, I thought - before disembarking for lunch and the river cruise/tour that was included with the bus ticket. Slight bewilderment caused by the Emergency, this is an Emergency! Please leave the Building! announcement, which was roundly ignored by all the staff for several minutes (and thus, by the customers also), but which eventually prompted them to prod the customers outside. Had they sprung into action and shepherded everyone out the instant the alarm started, I'd have been rather more impressed. I thought at the time there might have been a bomb scare, but in retrospect it's more likely that a smoke alarm went off, as they let us back inside pretty quickly.

After a bit of a false start we found ourselves a boat trip, downriver as far as Tower Bridge and back again. I do like river tours, there is so much history to be had alongside the Thames, from Cleopatra's needle to the Gherkin. After that it was back to the bus for the City half of the tour, for which we managed to find a seat on the top deck that was under the half-roof, so we didn't get blown about as we had in the first half. The weather was pretty good though, not nearly as blowy as when we were in Wiltshire, and nice bright sunshine all day.

It seemed an awful waste of London to go home at five, when the tour finished, so we pootled along to the half-price ticket booth in Leicester Square, and plumped for something billed as a mix of comedy and martial arts, called 'Jump'. I'd forgotten that the Peacock Theatre is an outpost of Sadler's Wells, until we had ice-cream in the interval (can't miss that, it's a Tradition, at least as far as I'm concerned, and they don't sell ice-creams in the interval in the US, as far as I know). Anyway, Jump was terrific fun, a very clever show and not really like anything I'd ever seen before. A comic story set to martial arts-style dance. With slow-motion bits, and fast-rewind, and a young lad who was transformed into Mighty Hero when he removed his glasses (and who ripped off his shirt with great glee), and all kinds of fun. It wasn't something I'd have considered going to see, but I enjoyed it enormously.

Today I am casting my house guest adrift in London on his own. I don't think he'll be short of things to do!

Meanwhile I have been ejected from the lantis_lims contest, not at all to my surprise. I had many second thoughts about whether to enter one of my alternates, but in the end decided that hell, I liked this one.

It did stick out like the proverbial sore thumb, though!

Comments

[hsw.livejournal.com]

We went to see Jump last year and liked it so much we are going again. It's fab. I don't know many people who wouldn't be cheered up by seeing it.

H

[pensnest]

I think I'll have to take my family, if I have the chance. Most enjoyable!

[turloughishere.livejournal.com]

From where did you take the boat tour? I've never been on one and it sounds like the kind of thing I might do if the weather is nice on Thursday.

[pensnest]

The short tour, which we did, leaves from the Westminster Pier (just a little downriver of Westminster Bridge, on the northern bank). There are also longer tours, which go as far as Greenwich - the Royal Observatory (I think that's its title) at Greenwich is well worth a visit, but there's quite a bit of walking involved. Anyway, those tours leave from the pier right next to the London Eye.

I hope the weather stays nice for you - Josh has been lucky.