Euro   I'm looking forward to the Euro next year. You probably know it's been operating for a year and a half in participating countries in everything but cash, such as bank accounts, stock trading, credit cards. A few bills we got in Ireland showed two totals, in Irish pounds (punts) as well as in Euros. But the cash appears this New Year's. I saw posted in Ireland a set of pictures of what the money will look like. I see that the Euros will be divided into cents. The paper and coins will be in the same demonations as dollars, with the obvious addition of a two-Euro bill and two-cent coin. I think the one Euro will be a coin, maybe both a bill and coin, I'm not sure. The front of everything will be the same, but the back will be national symbols. The caption tried to make clear that even if an Irishman came back from Spain with Euro coins with the Spanish king's head on the back instead of the Irish harp, they will be just as valid in Ireland. It reminds me of the US quarters that have been coming out in recent years with the front the same but with different states' symbols on the back. They're all valid everywhere too!

GB   Even though Britain won't be involved (yet) with the Euro, I'm glad to say I've finally seen a few British license plates with the blue strip on one end and EU circle of stars and GB below. Britain must be phasing these in more slowly than other EU countries.

Marmite   Years ago in Britain we got hooked on Marmite. Its a spread for toast made from yeast. It looks like dark brown molasses and is a bit salty, and quite rich. A thin layer on toast goes a long way. We used to buy it periodically, but hadn't had it in years. At a breakfast buffet in Bath they had little tubs of it, and it was fun to try it again.

Internationalism, Again   It seems almost all products are now international. At breakfast buffets you can get Kellogg's Corn Flakes and Wheaties. I was glad to see a local cereal, Wheatabix, also commonly available. Larry King Live was on TV announcing his next interview. Will and Grace just started here last week. It goes on and on. Of course we do have B[ritish] P[etroleum] gas stations in the US and NatWest (National Westminster) Bank. So it works both ways. The best interview show ever is Parkinson, which we see occasionally at home on BBC America. But the last time we saw Michael Parkinson's show in New York, he was interviewing Dolly Parton.

Place Names   We're staying in Mayfair, where they used to have a horse fair every May. Those huge lace collars the Elizabethans used to wear were called pickadills. A merchant who made his fortune making pickadills built a mansion called Pickadill House. When the land was later developed the street names appeared as Piccadilly, where our hotel is, and Piccadilly Circus. A minster is another name for a cathedral (also note, German Münster), as in the York Minster. Here, St. Paul's was considered the East Minster, and the Abbey in the West was the West Minster, which is the name that stuck as Westminster Abbey.

Historical Developments   I always wondered why the area known as the Temple was where lawyers worked. Originally the land was built by the Knights Templar who were involved with the Crusades. When religious properties were secularized, the lawyers from the Inns of Court who had been leasing working space in the Temple were allowed to buy the properties, so the Temple is today a center for lawyers. I was half hoping to see Horace Rumpole show up, either there or when we stopped by the Old Bailey.

I had known that Lloyd's of London had started out as a group of businessmen meeting at a coffee house in the 1700's called Lloyd's, who eventually took over the coffee house and became an insurance company. Now I found out that the original men's clubs, of which there once were 300 and now are 80, many in St James's, all started out as friends meeting in a coffee house, which were important gathering places in the 1700's, and eventually meeting so frequently that they took over the coffee house and hired the previous owner as club manager, eventually moving to more lush quarters. Starbuck's, there's hope for you yet!

Dubya   George W. Bush came to town while we were here. When we drove by Buckingham Palace I was aware that he had just had tea with the Queen, and when we were in Regent's Park and passed by the American ambassador's residence it struck me that I had heard that he had been staying there. The London Times reprinted a cartoon from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer: The President has tea with the Queen. She's sitting there with a big crown on her head saying "...of course, I just read the speeches they give me ... someone else exercises all the power ... after all, I only have this job because of who my father was." And Dubya's sitting there thinking: "Hmmm ... that sounds oddly familiar!"

The Hex   In Tampa we had a favorite restaurant called La Maison Basque. When we went there one evening in March, the owner told me that he was taking over another location and that that was the very last evening at the old location. On Saturday we went to Zaika, an Indian restaurant in South Kensington. I got talking with the owner and he said we wouldn't have so far to go in the future, since he'd be opening a branch in New York shortly. But the London location would be moving from South Kensington to Kensington, and that evening was ... the very last evening at the old location. Now is this a hex I have or what?

A Loin in the Pivement   We had never been to Greenwich downstream on the Thames before and enjoyed it. We stopped at the park on the north bank with the view south across the Thames of the Royal Naval College buildings and the hill in the background with the Royal Observatory on it, and then went over to see the town. They're making the RNC buildings over to be the University of Greenwich now. Then we went up the hill to the observatory. You go up the back of the hill and then come forward in a park down a long allée of chestnut trees. I didn't think the view north over the Thames (Photo by Bill Bertram)-(Click to enlarge) would be as nice as it was, but its known as one of the best panoramic views of London. Off to the left in the distance you could see the dome of St. Paul's, not as far away as I had thought, and it all looked nice in the late afternoon light, even if the Canary Wharf skyscrapers in the Docklands development area were visible, as well as the ugly Millenium Dome to the right. Oddly enough, the next day at the Tate Gallery, I was amazed to find a painting by JMW Turner called "London from Greenwich Park" which showed the same view, with St. Paul's, but in 1809, and with MUCH more green landscape in between.

[And as for things happening in twos: The day we arrived off the boat we stopped in Salisbury since I liked the view of the cathedral, but we couldn't drive up close enough to see much of it, just a view across a large park. But today in the National Gallery I came across a picture by Constable from 1823 called Salisbury Cathedral from the Bishop's Garden, which was of course more bucolic than what we saw, but at least we had gotten one of the nicest views.]

Anyway, back to Greenwich. The Observatory was just about to close, but we didn't want to tour it anyway, just see where they had indicated the Zero Meridian (Photo by Maksym Kozlenko) on the ground, where you could straddle it (Photo by InSapphoWeTrust). We assumed the line would be accessible outside the building, but were surprised to find that the marking is just behind a fence and a short distance away. They'd already closed the gate, so everyone who hadn't gotten in yet was looking at it through the fence. Still, I spoke to a guard, who spoke the thickest Cockney I’d ever heard, more pronounced than any theatrical Cockney accent I'd heard. He was very nice and said that "since your lidy is in the chair" he'd like to let us in, but then everyone else would want to get in. But he told me where, back down in the town, next to the Feathers Pub, the "loin is mawked roight in the pivement". And when we got there, mawked it was, roight in the pivement and at an angle to the street. I walked Beverly from the car over to the loin and we both stood with one foot on either side, one foot in the Eastern Hemisphere and one in the Western. Nonsense, but fun nonsense.

London Eye   It's just been a year and a half that the London Eye (Photo by Swgreed) has been up. It’s a huge ferris wheel, 40 stories tall, suspended just over the river bank across from Parliament and Big Ben (Photo by Gregg M. Erickson [Farwestern]). In this 360° view, Charing Cross Station and Waterloo Station are also visible. It's an engineering marvel. It's made of white tubular steel. Instead of the hub resting on a support on each side, the whole structure is set up like an electric fan with all support on the inland side, a white tubular upside-down V supported by cables. And the wheel itself is like a bicycle wheel with nothing but spokes connecting the rim to the hub, so it gives a very open look. There are about thirty cars shaped like eggs, holding 28 people, or 23 with a wheelchair present. The cars are largely see-through, and you walk around or can sit on the bench in the middle. You make one revolution, and it takes about 35 minutes. It runs slowly virtually constantly, with people walking off a slowly moving car while the previous one is filling up. Of course for the wheelchair they paused it for just a moment. The ride offers a great view of London. Bev was charged a full (senior) ticket; I got a free ticket as the companion. Yet at Blenheim Palace (Photo by Magnus Manske) recently in the West of England, the 18C home of the Dukes of Marlborough, where Winston Churchill was born, she got the free ticket and I paid. Reverse philosophy.

Rules   We were sitting in Covent Garden, the former market, watching the street performers, not far from Covent Garden Opera House, when I decided we should go to Rules Restaurant, the oldest one in London (1788), which is in Maiden Lane, only a block away. So we celebrated our last dinner before we sailed in that charming place. We had roast beef and Yorkshire pudding--what else--and complemented it with a nice bottle of Veuve Cliquot Yellow Label. Lovely.

Tipperary Redux   Walking back from dinner to our car we walked through Leicester Square, the entertainment center, and as I said, our hotel is in Piccadilly. Well since the song says:

it was perfectly appropriate that we both should give a (quiet) rendition in both locations. The song was written in 1912 and became an anthem of World War I. Here’s a vintage recording from 1915 on YouTube: Albert Farrington: It’s a Long Way to Tipperary

We drive 87 miles to Southampton tomorrow to sail at 5 PM. On this trip we go over to France for a one-day stop in Le Havre, so it'll be seven days total on the ship. We remembered that years ago the Southampton-Le Havre-New York connection was the standard route.