TGV   I've already mentioned that high-speed trains are sorely lacking in the US. The best we have is the new Acela between Boston, New York, and Washington, and that goes pretty fast, but it's on regular tracks and doesn't have its own right-of-way. France is a leader in this with its TGV system. From Marseille to Paris takes three hours. That's the equivalent of New York to North Carolina. Let me give you my take on the logic of land transportation.

Originally, roads were subservient to towns, and just served to connect them. Over the centuries, if you wanted to go from town A to C, and B was in between, you took the road from A to B, then from B to C. When railroads became extensive in the mid 1800's, they followed this same philosophy, and still boast that railroad service is from town center to town center.

Big changes came after WW2, especially in the 1950's. Aside from the so-called "move to the suburbs", which can be another topic of discussion, the most significant transportation development to my way of thinking was the development of the bypass. For the first time, you could drive from A to C, bypassing B. (This was considered significant to lessen traffic in B, up to the point where business in B started drying up and malls moved to the bypass, but that, too, is another discussion.) With towns being bypassed, the tables were turned, and roads were no longer subservient to towns, but took on a (long-distance) life of their own. You could drive cross-country bypassing, and not having to be slowed down by, towns.

The next logical development after this was the superhighway, which offered limited access, but consisted essentially of nothing but bypasses. Do realize that superhighways usually don't go to places, they go near places; you usually exit and take a local road into town.

Traditional roads were followed by traditional railroads. So these "bypass" superhighways will be followed by what kind of railroad? Well, that's what trains like France's TGV are all about, and why Amtrak's Acela is just a faster old-style train.

TGVs have their own right-of-way with NO grade crossings. The roadbed is built like a superhighway. Also, although the end terminals are downtown, such as in Marseille and Paris, intermediate stations are not in cities, but near them, so there'll be no interference with other railroads. For instance, we had to go out to the edge of down in Avignon to get the TGV, not to the regular station downtown. It's the superhighway philosophy brought over to railroads. It's step four in what I've been describing, and North America has none of it yet.

La Veuve   Many people that we've dined out with know I like Veuve Clicquot Champagne, since we've shared it with them in restaurants. We made rail connections to Reims in northern France, did stop to see Reims cathedral again (Photo by Traveler100), but mostly to have a tour of the Veuve Clicquot (Photo by Walter Nissen) champagne cellars. You have to do it by appointment only, so I planned it online, making sure there was an elevator for the wheelchair. We ended up with a private tour. I asked for it to be in French.

The house was founded in 1792 and the Widow (Veuve) was the daughter-in-law of the founder. She was responsible for major developments in the making of champagne. She was also known for supplying all the royal houses, and for getting champagne to the tsar, even during the Napoleonic wars. If you think of it as mainly a French product, do realize that 85% of the production is exported, the biggest client being the US and the second, Italy. Local French consumption of it is way down on the list. At the end of the "visite" you get a glass to drink.

London   We got to London on the Eurostar TGV thru the Chunnel. We're making a more relaxed time of it these couple of days. Since we don't have a car, I got us a centrally located hotel that's walkable to the several places we wanted to go to. Today we walked down past St Paul's and over the new Millenium footbridge over the Thames. I had ordered theater tickets for both evenings (for disabled seating I couldn't do it online and had to phone both theaters in London from New York before we left). This evening we walked over for dinner again to Rules restaurant that I mentioned last year, dating from 1798 the oldest restaurant in London, very traditionally British. Fortunately, it had been saved from demolition back in the 1970's when the Covent Garden area was being redeveloped.

The Mikado   We then saw The Mikado in the same Savoy Theater where it had been presented when Gilbert and Sullivan wrote it in the 1880's. The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company has been reconstituted as well to present it in the refurbished theater. Here’s the opening on YouTube by another company: The Mikado: Gentlemen of Japan

I am reminded about the wonderful movie in 1999 called "Topsy-Turvy", which is beautifully filmed, beautifully costumed, and about the collaberation of Gilbert & Sullivan, their work with Richard d'Oyly Carte in the Savoy Theatre, and specifically about the writing of The Mikado, where they took inspiration from a Japanese exhibition that was going on in London at the time. It specifically shows them inviting in some young non-English-speaking Japanese women to demonstrate how women acted in that era. From that they constructed “Three Little Maids”. This footage of the song is actually from “Topsy-Turvy”, which presented it just as it was on the opening night of the Mikado: The Mikado: Three Little Maids

My Fair Lady   Bev and I have had a long-standing interest in My Fair Lady, but a very odd history with it. Neither of us ever saw the original productions in New York or London in the 1950's with Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison.

Our first actual contact, as with most people, was with Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison in the film version in 1964. The peculiarity is that we saw it on our one and only trip to the Middle East. It came out while we were in Israel, and we saw it in Tel Aviv.
It was the first time we saw an English-language film with subtitles in another language.
It was the first time we saw a film with subtitles in two other languages at once.
It was the only time we ever saw a film with subtitles in both Hebrew and Arabic.
Imagine watching this quintessentially English film, which deals with the English language, and seeing the bottom third of the screen, not only with subtitles, but with squarish Hebrew writing and roundish Arabic writing, both running from right to left. It was other-worldly.

We finally did see a live, stage production of My Fair Lady in the 1970's and it was wonderful, and this version has remained in our minds ever since. The peculiarity here is, however, that we saw this performance in Berlin, in the Theater des Westens, and it was, of course, in German. It was delightful.

Let me give the background for those that are unfamiliar with it. George Bernard Shaw wrote the play "Pygmalion" about a language professor, Henry Higgins, who teaches a Cockney woman, Eliza Doolittle, to speak and act like a lady. The play was filmed in 1938 with Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller, later Dame Wendy. [She also filmed Shaw's "Major Barbara" at that time, and was later, as I mentioned, in "Murder on the Orient Express".] Lerner and Loewe then wrote the musical version, based primarily on the film, and renamed it "My Fair Lady". It opened in New York in 1956 and in London in 1958.

There is a body of thought that says that an adaption into a new form can improve the original, and such seems to be the case here. As the program notes point out, it's a shock to find out that the original does not have any elocution lessons, no moment of celebration when Eliza's "got it", no visit to Ascot, no triumph at the Ball, and more.

The London production was at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, which is where it had played in 1958. The Drury Lane is the oldest theater in the world still in continuous use as a playhouse, dating from 1663 with the current building dating from 1812. It was a delight after the show to walk maybe 20 steps from the corner of the building to be able to look down Russell Street to Covent Garden, where Eliza had sold her flowers, and then up Bow Street to the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, where the opening scene of the story actually takes place. You just can't be more in the middle of things than that, and I was enthralled.

However, we will never forget the German version. Remember, the story deals with our field, language teaching. They used Berlinerisch, which is the rather unique Berlin dialect, to correspond to Eliza's Cockney.

In the English version Higgins famously says:

and Eliza repeats:

In the German version it's:

and Eliza counters with:

Let me try and explain a certain phenomenon this way. If for years you'd been singing:

and suddenly someone suggested the group sing the standard English translation as "Are you sleeping, Brother John?, you might make it through in English for a bit, but after a while your head will start generating:

In other words, it's hard to keep them apart.

So you now might be able to appreciate that the whole evening at the Drury Lane I was hearing things like:

When we got on the ship there was the oddest coincidence. I turned on the TV in the cabin and on the classics channel I caught the last quarter of the 1938 Pygmalion. It still holds up very well. But it proved one thing that I thought was excellent about the Drury Lane production.

The ending of the story has always been problematic. Shaw was a cynic, and when Eliza shows up in the last scene, Higgins turns away and famously says: Eliza, where the devil are my slippers? This cynical ending has been standard in all productions. But the Drury Lane production, without changing a word of dialog, was directed to end with this body language: Eliza comes in. Higgins realizes she's there, puts on his cynical face, says "Eliza, where the devil are my slippers?", and stands up. She then pulls herself up to her full height and slowly folds her arms with a smirk on her face. He then slowly folds his arms with a smirk on his face. And then both characters absolutely break up. It's a beautiful ending. I'd be ready to go see it again tomorrow.

Boat Trains   The era of the boat train is gone. Almost. When transatlantic liners were less expensive than flying and were the more common way to go, whenever the French Line steamers (or others) docked in Cherbourg or Le Havre, there would be a train waiting right on the dock to take you to Gare St Lazare in Paris. The same held for Cunard ships coming into Southampton. The boat train rolled right up on the dock next to the ship so you could walk right over, and would bring you to (or from) Victoria Station in London. All this was at additional charge, of course.

Now, you can have a rental car waiting, which we've done. Or, you can take a taxi over to Southampton Central Station to take a train to Victoria, which we've done. But what Cunard actually offers (for a charge) is--a bus! This bus, as I understand it, takes considerably longer to connect to London, and is subject to highway delays, and takes you to--Victoria Station! Am I missing something here? I remember looking longingly at the still-existing train tracks along the pier.

So we signed up for the only boat train that still exists. It turns out it's the British Pullmans, the same train that they served us lunch on on the way to the Channel to connect to the Orient Express. So tomorrow (Saturday) afternoon we'll have another pleasant dinner for three hours on the train, arrive in Southampton, and--pull up on the dock right next to the QE2.