London: We Got The Funk

London’s a great place for celebrating birthdays. I’ve even worked out a birthday route of sorts. I got to help organise two separate birthdays in the space of about a week. As of this moment, I am at least fifty per cent cake. Mmm.

Alice’s birthday first, then! Maddie and I arrived at Alice’s house in the morning and serenaded the birthday girl mid-shower. Maddie had to go off to uni for a couple of hours, so it was up to me to guide Alice through the first of the activities that we’d planned for the day. We got lost, of course. But it was okay, because in getting lost we arrived somewhere much more exciting: the Black Books shop!

A particular highlight was our discovery of a book called In Defence of Beards.

We then made our way to the University College of London, which, incidentally, looks much like I’d imagined King’s would. The campus is basically beautiful, set right in the heart of Bloomsbury with marble facades and grass and Jeremy Bentham’s corpse, which was obviously the reason we’d come. Jeremy Bentham was some loony English social reformer and the ‘spiritual founder’ of UCL. His will stipulated that he was to be stuffed and mounted on display in UCL, much like Lenin and Mao. Unlike Lenin and Mao, his head was pinched by a bunch of King’s students at one stage and booted around as a makeshift football. It now resides in a locked case in the UCL basement.

In retaliation, some UCL students stole the King’s mascot lion and buried him in cement save for his tail – but I don’t think the lion’s on display.

Apparently the UCL staff wheel Jeremy out on formal occasions and set him a place at dinner. Amazing, these Brits.

After the Bentham birthday adventure, we headed into Covent Garden and met Maddie at a nifty vegetarian restaurant for lunch. We then wandered through Soho, found a great comics shop, did coffee in a place with vaulting equipment instead of tables, and then ended the day at a charming sort of cocktail pub.

And then it was Maddie’s birthday. Once we’d wandered through Bloomsbury to this really nice French patisserie, I reworked my Alice-birthday steps and took her to the Black Books shop in the next street and then to Jeremy Bentham. I think we’ve established a birthday tradition of paying one’s respects to the crazy headless dead guy at UCL.

We then caught a bus to Piccadilly Circus, where we visited St James Church and eventually met Alice at the foot of the Eros statue. Having dropped them off at a rather fancy restaurant for lunch, I headed over to King’s for a criminology lecture. See, Mum, I haven’t completely forgotten my studies!

We met up again in Hampstead at this fantastic café that served the most delicious chilli hot chocolate in London [she says with limited experience]. I got a free umbrella out of it, and Maddie and Alice almost got free coffees as they forgot to pay, and had to dash back from the tube station to do so.

Next we took the tube to Soho for steamed buns in Chinatown, which weren’t nearly as good as Box Hill pork buns. Then we wandered over to Ain’t Nothing But, this squashy, fabulous blues bar, where we saw a band of the following description:

"Robert Hokum is 'a funky spanking of the blues'."

Yes. He was.

So in short, those were two of the best days I’ve had in London. And if your birthday’s coming up and you’re in London, Jeremy Bentham and I will show you a funky spanking time.

Bath, Somerset

I’ve become absolutely rubbish at putting up blog entries, so I thought I should try to play catch-up before I go off to Ireland next week. So here’s Bath, where I spent one wonderful Saturday a couple of weeks ago. I went with three lovely American exchange students, Paula, Allison and Ashley – all Austen fans, of course.

We headed off to the Victoria Coach Station at some obscenely early hour of the morning, clambering aboard our bus at the last minute. After a three-hour journey, we arrived in Bath and found ourselves at the start of a gorgeous sunny day.

Having sorted out our priorities in advance, our first stop was the Jane Austen Museum on Gay Street, where the great author lived – and loathed Bath – at one stage of her life. We all posed with Jane and then entered the cramped little exhibition inside.

There was some fascinating stuff in there. And the obligatory photos of Colin Firth-Darcy. I left with an ‘I [heart] Mr Darcy' bag.

We then made our way over to the beautiful Royal Crescent. It was luscious and green and flecked all over with sunbathers.

There was even a hot air balloon. Perfect photo opportunity.

Afterwards we hurried down to the town centre for a spot of tea and scones. The scones were really dry and kind of awful, but apparently they were similar enough to an American-style biscuit to please my travel companions. We all downed an incredible amount of tea. Personally, I’m not yet converted to milky tea, but I gave it my best shot.

Next we walked the short distance to the Bath Abbey, a beautiful building next to the Roman baths. Inside we found an organ recital! What amazing luck.

After a great impromptu concert, we left and found ourselves a pub, and a tipsy, talkative nuisance of a middle-aged admirer. I tried the local cider: ginger flavoured, and horrible. The others were staying overnight, but alas, I had to leave – but what a fantastic day! I’m pretty desperate to go back and explore more of the pokey little shops. Such a perfect holiday spot.

Brighton, East Sussex

Brighton! Or ‘London by the sea’ as the locals call it. It was a bit scungy and sleazy on the pier, but the beach was fun and the shops were fab. Just the place to run off with Mr Wickham. I had a fabulous time – though honestly, it had more to do with the calibre of my companions, Maddie and Alice, than it did with the location.

The trains were playing up – as always – so we arrived in Brighton around about late morning. It was Pasty Time for Alice and I, and we munched as we wandered down into the Lanes from the station. The Lanes are full of quirky little shops.

There was one shop that particularly stood out due to its Alice-suited exterior.

And I found a little something-something for that smorgeous dog of mine:

We finally stumbled out onto the pebbled beach and reverted to toddler-hood, building pebble-castles and making pebble-angels and leaping into the air for Toyota poses.

It was great. Whoever said that pebbled beaches are depressing for Australians was severely lacking in imagination, or clung too hard to their dignity.

Next we went and visited the Royal Pavilion – a very Aladdin-looking building in the middle of a park. It was visually unexpected. We ducked inside, saw the museum entry prices and ducked out – but not before I’d completely embarrassed myself by loudly admiring the museum worker’s accent, only to discover him standing directly behind me with a Cheshire-cat grin.

We ran away to sit on the lawn and admire the building some more.

We then headed back to the beach and got delicious ice creams which we ate on the pier. As mentioned above, it was a shoddy sort of pier. The highlight was watching some teenage boy being repeatedly bucked off a mechanical bull. That and climbing into kiddie rides.

Once we’d gotten all nice and frostbitten, we hurried back up the main streets in search of a good Brighton chippie. Like Mary and Joseph on Christmas Eve, our hunt for a good pub was fruitless until we finally stumbled across something of a miracle: a really incredible vegetarian pub. This pleased us all immensely, even me with my fish-and-chips appetite, and we had a great feed.

It was a really fun day. I wouldn’t say Brighton is a must-see, but it was good to briefly experience the British seaside.

London: Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese

The heatwave has come and gone. London’s right back to its usual behaviour according to the locals. Still, it hasn’t rained much and it’s not quite coat weather yet, so I’m still fairly impressed with outdoor conditions so far. Haven’t invested in a snuggie or onesie yet but I’m tempted.

The first highlight of the week came when I met up with Lauren MacDonald for a movie in Kensington. It was great – Jane Eyre started about half an hour after the advertised time, so we didn’t miss anything despite getting there late.

Lauren gave me heaps of advice about where to travel, leading directly to my booking a trip to Ireland at the start of November! Fiddle-dee-dee!

I enjoyed one final picnic before the heatwave ended – a five-hour affair in Russell Square, with lovely people and masses of food and lots of conversation. Russell Square is one of my favourite London squares. It has these beautiful flowers and arch-covered pathways, and it’s really close to the ominously towering library that Orwell based his Ministry of Truth on. Apparently as a King’s student I could join that library. Tempting.

Russell Square is also very near the British Museum, which I still haven’t got around to visiting. I’ve also neglected the National Gallery, the Tower of London, the Museum of London and the entirety of East London. There’s just too much to do! I’ll have to clear out a few weekends.

Friday night was heaps of fun. A bunch of us – including Christina, fresh from France – went out to Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, the best-named pub on Fleet Street. It was rebuilt in 1667 post-Great Fire.

Christina and I struggled to find the others when we first got there. We went upstairs, downstairs, and downstairs again, in and out of little rabbit-warren-type spaces, until I finally got my phone out and called. It was a fabulous night of Steves and Scottish-Scotts, of dead dogs and mojitos on the kitchen floor.

Saturday was great, what with a free tour of St Paul’s Cathedral and meeting up with Christina and Leila in Soho. It was fantastic spending time and eating pudding with those two.

Mmm… pudding.

Note to self: learn how to make summer pudding.

London: Much Ado About Everything

Week Two saw the start of my classes. Well, some of them. Human Rights doesn’t start for a couple of weeks; and as for Criminology, the lecturer didn’t bother to turn up to the lecture. It was all right, though – while waiting, I bonded with my classmates in collective frustration.

Moral Philosophy is possibly the most interesting subject I’ve ever taken. We spent the first seminar discussing the concept of blame, and whether you can morally blame anyone for anything. I completely disagreed with the philosopher in question, but it really made me think. And the tutor is hilarious, all flighty and easily distracted, with a brilliant ‘Mum’-type sense of humour.

I went along to the MedSoc Choir, just to see what it was like, and was vaguely disappointed. Not sure I’ll be returning. Luckily enough, I’ve found something else more musically exciting: the Gilbert and Sullivan Society! Gilbert actually studied at King’s, which is slightly cool. This year the G&S Soc is putting on Iolanthe, a musical about fairies and the House of Lords. I don’t know much more about it, but the song we sang through was as silly and hilarious as any good G&S song should be. And I met some really lovely people – read: Who fans – so I can’t wait for the next rehearsal.

The free Indian buffet after rehearsal was a nice bonus. Finally: real food. Someone send me recipe ideas, please! I’m full of beans.

Back when writing lists of Things To Do In London, ‘seeing a play at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre’ featured prominently. Despite arriving in London barely a fortnight before the end of the Globe season and after all tickets had sold out, I managed to see not one but two shows. For a grand total of five pounds.

Yeah.

I saw Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus on Tuesday. It was fantastic – lots of creepy deals with the devil and funny audience interaction. Oh, and Rory from Doctor Who played an incredibly intriguing Mestophales. That was an unexpected highlight. On Saturday, we went back and saw Much Ado About Nothing. Brilliant. Hilarious. Quite a lot of violence against women, but I suppose I’m not in Australia anymore.

It was really great how we got to see both shows. The trick is to show up at the theatre an hour or two early, line up behind twenty other people in the ‘return tickets’ line, and eventually get free tickets from school teachers with absent pupils. Win.

I’ve done a lot of other stuff this week as well. There was a pub quiz on Wednesday night run by the History Society, the Doctor Who Experience with the lovely Zoe on Thursday (we meant to see the Dickens Museum, but alas, it was closed), my first of several trips to the overflowing oddity warehouse that is the V&A Museum, and an absolutely lovely picnic on Primrose Hill with Polly and my new friends, the Jane Austen girls.

An excellent week! Full of friends and ridiculously hot weather and Shakespeare. I’m falling a bit more in love with London every day.