ELECTION DAY PLAYLIST

 ELECTION DAY PLAYLIST (on Amazon Music)  

RAY CHARLES -- "America The Beautiful" 

JOHN LENNON --     "Power To The People" 

ARETHA FRANKLIN -- "Think"

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN -- "Wrecking Ball" 

BOB MARLEY -- "One Love/People Get Ready" 

GREEN DAY -- "American Idiot" 

DOLLY PARTON -- "9 to 5" 

MANU CHAO -- "Clandestino" 

PUBLIC ENEMY -- "Fight The Power" 

BRAD PAISLEY -- "American Saturday Night" 

JONI MITCHELL -- "Big Yellow Taxi" 

TRACY CHAPMAN -- "Talkin' Bout A Revolution" 

JOHN MELLENCAMP -- "Small Town" (acoustic) 

THE BEATLES -- "All You Need Is Love"  

LOS LOBOS -- "Will The Wolf Survive?" 

BILLY BRAGG AND WILCO --     "All You Fascists" 

BEYONCÉ -- "Run The World (Girls)" 

NEIL DIAMOND -- "America" 

LONDON CALLING: THEATER, MUSEUMS, PINTS, JAM SANDWICHES BUT NO PADDINGTON

MICHAEL IN LONDON

THEATER 

101 Dalmatians The Musical – at Regent’s Park Open Air * out of ****

Jack Absolute Flies Again at the National (team behind One Man, Two Guvnors) *** 1/2 out of ****

Kathryn Hunter’s last day doing King Lear at the Globe -- had to leave early, but solid

The Southbury Child (Alex Jennings at the Bridge) ***

Tom, Dick and Harry at Alexandra Palace (stage version of the true story behind The Great Escape **

At the Tower of London: immersive event with actors and VR: The Gunpowder Plot w Tom Felton of Harry Potter fame (Draco Malfoy) typecast as  Guy Fawkes **

Patriots at the Almeida (opens in West End next May w Tom Hollander and Will Keen w Lukie Thallon as Abramovich *** (but fades quickly from the mind)

Life Of Pi at the Wyndham ** 1/2 (great puppetry)

Dennis Severs’ House tour *** 1/2

Punchdrunk’s The Burnt City – telling of The Iliad. ***1/2

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe *** (if you are into TLTWATW)

 

Back To The Future in West End ** 1/2 (a tad generous)

Can NOT get ABBA tickets!

MUSEUMS

TATE MODERN -- Beyond Surrealism -- two or three really great pieces in this good exhibit, including a nine meter scroll lots of artists contributed to and a Magritte with a train coming out of a fireplace that was gorgeous and clearly shows his influence on Chris Van Allsburg

TATE BRITAIN --

Walter Sickert career retrospective *** 1/2

Cornelia Parker -- some great showstoppers *** 1/2

Hew Locke: The Procession *** 1/2 (parade down main hallway, fantastic)

HAYWARD  – In The Black Fantastic – first major UK exhibit devoted to artists of the African diaspora. 

Nick Cave (forearms gripping one another floor to ceiling sculpture) called Chain Reaction 

Kara Walker (short using silhouettes etc to do animation) 

Some very good multimedia installations 

ROYAL ACADEMY OF ARTS – summer exhibition. Bursting with some very cool stuff by young talent. Lots of climate crisis art. 

COURTAULD GALLERY – akin to the Frick. Great permanent collection. First two floors heavy on religious art and rather boring (another entombment, another crucifixion) but third floor has great stuff esp Impressionists Degas Renoir Monet Manet. Lots of good stuff. 

Exhibit was on Edvard Munch. Solid if not revelatory. 

SERPENTINE GALLERY --

Black Chapel ***

Brian Eno installation!!!! *** 1/2

Climate Crisis exhibits -- felt a bit collegiate, actually. Posters slapped on walls, some random bits along the floor. **

MARKETS 

BOROUGH MARKET – great cheeses and olives and the like. (one stall had very good looking cottage pies). Very food oriented. (Afternoon tea at Roast. -- Views better at spill-over area when you walk in rather than main seating area with buildings on all three sides)

SPITALFIELDS MARKET – bad food luck but otherwise another typical street fair w stalls of stuff ranging from nice to junk. 

PORTOBELLO ROAD MARKET – huge and sprawling but mostly junk. Like a NYC street fair. Wildly overpriced books at the main book stall. 

COAL DROPS YARD – outdoor mall w very upscale fashion stores, some stalls, and events all around, w people sunning themselves, picnicking etc. Lovely canal nearby with barges on them, including Word On The Water - a barge bookstore. 

FOOD 

THE ROAST– had afternoon tea about 35 pounds each. Fine. But view of market and streets was actually preferable on the side when you enter rather than the main dining area, which is closed in by buildings so the view is less good. 

NEAL'S YARD DAIRY – bought some cheese at an offshoot of Neal’s Yard Dairy, a major purveyor of cheeses. Delicious.

MIDDLE EASTERN CART OUTSIDE NATIONAL THEATRE – Yummy hummus and fried cheese (Halloumi) 

OTTOLENGHI near Almeida – great meal w broccoli, figs and cheese the best but all good. Dessert were cookies and a flourless muffin like dessert w chocolate ganache. Very moist. Got more cookies at another Ottolenghi two days later. 

THE LAMB — proper pub. Went at 6, so not busy yet. Before a show. Solid food and beer but mostly just felt like a real local w pub food done well. Waiter very charming. 

GOLDEN UNION – sustainable delicious fish and chips. Looks like a chain and certainly not fish and chips in a rolled up newspaper but very tasty. Waiter very fun, insisted if we wanted REAL fish and chips we needed to go three hours away to a seaside town and go out on the pier and get fish and chips in a rolled up newspaper. Wearing ring of Molljnir (Thor's Hammer).

THE ENGLISH – another pub, this one near Dennis Severs House. Food was actually a titch pricier and fancier than pub food. Tomato soup was great. Cheese toasties had a fancy name and also very taste. Risotto was good. Perhaps not pub enough or posh enough but was good. 

ST. JOHN BREAD AND WINE – wanted to go to dinner there, very hearty traditional English fare but they had a party of 30 coming and couldn't accommodate. But came back to get fresh madeleines to go, which takes at least 15 minutes because always made fresh. Had a drink at tiny bar (which is an uncomfortable height)and waited and chatted with friendly staff then watched an giant roast pig come out for big party and was carved up in front of all. So, not a place for vegetarians. The madeleines were warm and wonderful. 

FISH! around Borough Market -- fine fish and chips

SOHO HOUSE -- on 40 Greek Street. Mac n cheese comfort food. Too much!

JOHN LEWIS --

BARS

Duke Of Wellington

Old Comptons

SITES/STUFF  

ST. PAUL’S CATHEDRAL – did the whole shebang including tour of the Triforium. Turned out to be the “attic” where lots of storage and restoration takes place, along with working offices. Guide was nice if not gripping. Lots of things we walked by went unexplained and I expected more views down into St. Paul’s interior but the walkways up high are very narrow so you get near an interior view. Highlight was The Great Model, a room housing the model Christopher Wren of what he wanted to build. Huge and impressive and rejected. As a bonus, you’re a third way up to the top so after tour you just keep walking up to get to walkway and exterior of dome w great views. (Mostly obstructed so taking a photo means risking you drop it if you want to avoid being blocked by a bar or the like when snapping.) Then back down and wandered around interior for a while and then crypts. (Filled with elaborate monuments and plaques to this and that General and poets and a man who died “gloriously” in battle and so on. Then in one corner you have just the head of the explorer and a card that says simply “Lawrence of Arabia.” Mic drop. Puts the others to shame. In church itself its VERY tricky to see Adam and Eve mosaics discussed in tour; had to ask and wouldnt recognize if hadnt been on tour but just at center of church as it turns into Victorian gaudiness you stand on left side of main aisle headed to altar right by major column and peer up about two-thirds to spot Eve and even harder to do the same for Adam on the other side. 

ORIGINAL SITE CHRIST’S HOSPITAL/GREYFRIARS GARDEN/POSTMANS PARK/MEMORIAL TO HEROIC SACRIFICE/ST. MARY-LE-BOW CHURCH – Wandered around after St. Paul’s. Saw the original site of Christ’s Hospital marked by an ok sculpture of kids but now contains what looks like the bombed out remains of a church and a very curious but lovely wild garden may be called Greyfriar’s Garden. 

Then wander a few blocks to Postman’s Park, a pocket park people sat n having lunch on break. At one side along a wall is the odd Memorial To Heroic Sacrifice. Just an open wooden structure with a roof over a wall area  containing tiles, each one commemorating an ordinary everyday person who lost their lives saving or trying to save someone else from drowning, fire and the like. Finally went to St. Mary-le-Bow Church which I thought contained a memorial to journalists who died during WW II but couldn’t spot it. (I was looking for St Bride’s Church but got to the wrong one.) It does have a memorial to Norwegians in the Resistance, an underground cafe and an underground area of worship. If you’re born/live within the sound of the Bow Bells, you’re a Cockney. Also built by Wren. The Bells long used by the BBC radio to intro news. 

ROYAL ALBERT HALL TOUR -- Jonquil, tour guide whose first show at Royal Albert Hall was Siouxsie and the Banshees! Fun.

WORDS ON THE WATER --  a barge bookstore which I kept calling Books On The Boat. In "little Venice." 

THE SHARD -- better than the Eye? Yes!

DOUBLE DECKER BUS TOUR

TRAFALGAR SQUARE/ WORLD'S SMALLEST POLICE STATION/FORMER PRISONER HOLDING CELL -- w ice cream sundae being dismantled; found world's smallest police station, prob remnant of jail cell name-checked in Aubrey/Maturin novels

ADMIRALTY ARCH -- tried to find nose but construction blocking it off