New issue of the newsletter is out and at:
http://www.chiffandfipple.com/cf11-23-03/cf.htm
Dale
Department of Mira Sorvino?
Very cool trip Dale…looking forward to more memories of Ireland!!
Thanks for sharing!!
Nancy
Hey. That’s the Department of MISS Mira Sorvino, Bub!
A fine issue but now I want to know about that whistle find.
Also, I had me own get-drunk-with-new-English-friends-then-cut-up-on-the-Underground story when I visited back in '85, so I definitely appreciated that bit.
It’s just a fun thing to do. London is my favorite big city to visit, period.
Well, I’m doing the research, but here’s what it looks like now. In England, I met a whistle & flute player from Ireland. She showed me this whistle. It’s beautifully made. It is metal. It has a wooden plug, but it doesn’t actually serve as the fipple because the airway is metal all around. It has little wings on either side of the window, like organ pipes & Copelands. It plays beautifully and the tuning is excellent. It’s very solidly constructed and has no markings on it to suggest it was commercially made. In fact, it looks handmade. The cool thing is that, according to the owner, it was given to her by her grandfather who played it as a youth. The whistle is evidently at least 75 years old and maybe a 100. WAY ahead of its time. I’ll let you all know how this story shapes up.
London is overrated. It’s just a big field full of buildings
and wierd people.
Yes, Martin, but they are different buildings and a different class of wierdos than at home.
Mike
Well, maybe you’re weird (or wierd) but I am not over-rating it. I stayed for two weeks, logged many kilometres on the Tube, enjoyed the British Museum, Museum of London, those Roman ruins somewhere near there, lots of good steaks and wine at Chez Louisette on Baker Street (right below the KFC!), shopped there at Oxford Street, brought home a buncha woolies (made up North but bought there), etc. etc. First week we stayed in a dinky BandB right off Baker Street, second week, we rented a flat near Lancaster Gate, where they built that modern building right into an old church steeple. It was fun playin’ house whilst on vacation. Three weeks inbetween in the country side, from Dover to Torquay to Cornwall to Wales to Northumbria and into Scootland, then down via Yorkshire back to London.
I looked up a guy with my last name (kind of uncommon) and he was the retired owner of a wine importation business in the East End. He thought it was cool that we looked him up, so we got to sample champagne and other white wines, then he took us across the street (with his best drinkin’ buddy) to his favorite pub where we proceeded to drink good whisky the English way (with the little green water jug) until we were all potted. Upon a cheery farewell by “Cousin Harry”, we got onto the Tube and made our way to St. Paul’s. Had to stop at that little shopping center where there is a fresh-grind coffee shop, to attempt sobering up before seeing Wren’s masterpiece. Now that was fun!
It is kind of a flat city compared to American skyscraper towns. The tallest buildings in bulk are those old Victorian fortresses in the City of Westminster (the municipality designation mystifies me). I saw that Postal monstrosity somewhere (did they tear it down yet?)… I have heard of the new giant ferris wheel, which must stick out just as much.
I loved Westminster Abbey and the surrounding area though the Traitor’s Gate was too spooky, and was especially moved by the monument for Handel as well as all those dead kings. That was one of the few guided tours that I really enjoyed (I am too ADD to stick to tours).
I will visit London anytime. I love it. And the people were polite, which is all a tourist really needs or wants. I can get snarled at and rudely treated just about anywhere else in this world, but I found that everywhere I went in England on that five-week vacation, people were hospitable and friendly even though they knew they would likely never see me again. I sure appreciated that!
England has taken a lot of knocks, confessed their many past sins, have their blundering Gothic royalty issue, etc. etc, but I like the people there and (with good advice on where to go) love the pub food and real ale. And Cadbury’s chocolate. Oh yeah…And fried breakfast…and Cumberland sausage…and Yorkshire beef…and strawberry tarts…and cream teas in Devon…game pie and real ale at the Peace and Plenty near Rye on May Day…listening to American country music in North Yorkshire (near Hadrian’s Wall) and eating a huge steak and chips…evensong at Yorkminster. Yup, I had one great vacation of my life that I will never forget.
My son lived in London for about 3 years…he adored it too…big culture change coming back here!! He loved the idea of not having to have a car over there. But he didn’t tell me Cadbury Chocolate was over there!!! (I am a chocololic for sure!)
Glad your trip was awesome..would love to go there someday…AND OF COURSE IRELAND!!
Nancy
Heh Weeks, OK you trumped me!
London is pretty cool. Those of us who live & work here don’t like the pollution (many people have apparent colds that miraculously clear up after a few hours outside the big smoke), but there’s tons of stuff you can see and do, much of it for free, and more history than you can shake a bunch of sticks at.
It’s a little know but nonetheless dull fact that the house I was in at school was named Wren’s, so I have a particular affinity for that fellow and his works. If I’d been in Dryden’s I might have become a poet instead!
I think, for visiting Americans, it’s the sense of history, and continuity, that makes the biggest impression. I love my part of Califonia, but the oldest buildings in the state are a handful of mission churches (built of sun-dried adobe bricks) less than 250 years old.
I don’t feel a lack of history - (One of the biggest peeves I have is European politicians condescending to Americans over our lack of history. We have just as long a history as you do, damnit - and until our ancestors moved over hear, it was the same one. And unless you are, personally, several hundred years old you leaned it just the same way we did, from books.) - but we do have a lack of physical continuity.
Though London abounds in large, well-known monuments, what struck me the hardest was the experience of walking around the city and finding plaques (on otherwise nondescript houses and apartment blocks) identifying the former homes of well-known writers. Given the history of the city, and its original small scale, sites of interest are close together, as are the Underground stations (this last fooled me into thinking the city was much larger than it really is - usually, you can walk from one station to the next in five minutes or so).
I don’t claim to be a travel expert, but of the places outside the US I’ve been lucky enough to visit my two favorite cities are London and Hong Kong.