{"id":662,"date":"2010-03-30T12:56:20","date_gmt":"2010-03-30T17:56:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/debslunch.com\/debslunchblog\/?p=662"},"modified":"2012-05-01T21:14:51","modified_gmt":"2012-05-02T02:14:51","slug":"arriving-in-the-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/debslunch.com\/debslunchblog\/arriving-in-the-uk\/","title":{"rendered":"Arriving in the UK"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We arrived at Heathrow at about 7:30 a.m. Monday, March 29.<\/p>\n<p>We had to shuffle through the passport check, then got our bags, took the train to Paddington, and then a taxi to our apartment in <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/London_Borough_of_Camden\">Camden<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>We got settled then went to the close-by <a href=\"http:\/\/maps.google.com\/maps\/place?cid=13158974720188114899&amp;q=waitrose+camden+london&amp;hl=en&amp;cd=2&amp;ei=G4WyS-yYGImqjAfH0JiaDw&amp;sll=51.535217,-0.174474&amp;sspn=0.103874,0.122011&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;ll=51.592216,-0.333023&amp;spn=0,0&amp;z=12&amp;iwloc=B\">Waitrose<\/a> and bought some food &#8211; cheese, pears, buns, yogurt, strawberries. Then we took a walk to get our bearings &#8211; went to Trafalgar Square, walked around the government buildings, checked out the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.officiallondontheatre.co.uk\/tkts\/leicester_square\/\">Tkts booth<\/a> in Leicester Square &#8211; they were setting up an event for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0800320\/\">Clash of the Titans<\/a>, red carpet and all &#8211; lots of school kids. Gemma Arterton was there, not sure who else famous. We didn&#8217;t stick around to see &#8211; just started walking back and got kinda lost.<\/p>\n<p>For our first night out, we went to see <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thebloomsbury.com\/event\/run\/1422\">Robin Ince&#8217;s School for Gifted Children Holiday Special<\/a>. It was a true variety show, a combo of music &amp; comedy. The scheduled guests were:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Alan_Moore\">Alan Moore<\/a> &#8211; the comic book artist; last on the bill &#8211; he did a rant on religion that was great<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Stewart_Lee\">Stewart Lee<\/a> &#8211; who did a funny bit about moving to the countryside<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.joneary.com\/\">Joanna Neary<\/a> &#8211; who did several funny characters including a sex ed teacher and an arty, Bloomsbury type<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bridgetchristie.co.uk\/index.html\">Bridget Christie<\/a> &#8211; who is married to Stewart Lee, and appeared as Er Ant, or maybe that&#8217;s Ur Ant<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pages\/Kevin-Eldon\/20108330885?v=info\">Kevin Eldon<\/a> &#8211; he sang and did a couple of stand up bits<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.jim-bob.co.uk\/index.shtml\">Jim Bob<\/a> &#8211; we thought his pop songs were the best<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I found a mention on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.robynhitchcock.com\/\">Robyn Hitchcock&#8217;s web site<\/a> that he&#8217;d be there too &#8211; he came on second to last, did a kind deconstructionist set of songs &#8211; messing with the mics and telling the back up band (a horn section and a drummer) what to play. He did <a href=\"http:\/\/www.archive.org\/download\/rhitchcock1999-11-06.flac16\/rhitchcock1999-11-06track20_vbr.mp3\">Antwoman<\/a> for starters, in honor of Ur Ant. Then ironically &#8211; even for Robyn &#8211; he played <em>Kung Fu Fighting<\/em> while talking about how even though it was a song we all think\u00a0 about, it is a song that is somehow disappointing when finally dredged out. Then he brought everyone out for a large ensemble version of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=DJulJAjP9DQ\">Ole Tarantula<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>We had standing only seats &#8211; and were so tired we almost fell asleep standing up. We snagged some real seats for the second half.<\/p>\n<p><a name=\"wakeup\"><\/a>Tuesday morning I waked up at 7:05 London time the first time, and then 8:36 and then 9:11 &#8211; when I finally got up. Robyn&#8217;s opening for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.myspace.com\/drytherivermusic\">some folk rock band<\/a> on Thursday at a club called the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theluminaire.co.uk\/\">Luminaire<\/a> in Kilbourn which evidently is way North London &#8211; it&#8217;s two tube changes away, and that&#8217;s the night we have dinner at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fifteen.net\/restaurants\/fifteenlondon\/Pages\/FifteenLondon.aspx\">Jamie Oliver&#8217;s<\/a>, so I hardly think I&#8217;m dragging the fam to this one.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"gallery\">\n\t<dl class=\"gallery-item gallery-columns-3\">\n\t\t<dt class=\"gallery-icon\"><a href=\"https:\/\/debslunch.com\/debslunchblog\/arriving-in-the-uk\/daffodils\/\" title=\"Daffodils in St. James park\" rel=\"attachment\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/debslunch.com\/debslunchblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/daffodils-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"Daffodils in St. James park\" class=\"gallery-image attachment-thumbnail\" \/><\/a><\/dt>\n\t\t<dd class=\"gallery-caption\">Daffodils in St. James park<\/dd>\n\t<\/dl>\n\t<dl class=\"gallery-item gallery-columns-3\">\n\t\t<dt class=\"gallery-icon\"><a href=\"https:\/\/debslunch.com\/debslunchblog\/arriving-in-the-uk\/waitrosestrawbs\/\" title=\"Waitrose strawberries\" rel=\"attachment\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/debslunch.com\/debslunchblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/waitrosestrawbs-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"Waitrose strawberries\" class=\"gallery-image attachment-thumbnail\" \/><\/a><\/dt>\n\t\t<dd class=\"gallery-caption\">Waitrose strawberries<\/dd>\n\t<\/dl>\n\t<dl class=\"gallery-item gallery-columns-3\">\n\t\t<dt class=\"gallery-icon\"><a href=\"https:\/\/debslunch.com\/debslunchblog\/arriving-in-the-uk\/waitrosestrwbs2\/\" title=\"Waitrose strawberries\" rel=\"attachment\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/debslunch.com\/debslunchblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/waitrosestrwbs2-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"Waitrose strawberries\" class=\"gallery-image attachment-thumbnail\" \/><\/a><\/dt>\n\t\t<dd class=\"gallery-caption\">Waitrose strawberries<\/dd>\n\t<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"gallery\">\n\t<dl class=\"gallery-item gallery-columns-3\">\n\t\t<dt class=\"gallery-icon\"><a href=\"https:\/\/debslunch.com\/debslunchblog\/arriving-in-the-uk\/waitrosestrawbs3\/\" title=\"strawberries from Waitrose \" rel=\"attachment\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/debslunch.com\/debslunchblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/waitrosestrawbs3-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"strawberries from Waitrose \" class=\"gallery-image attachment-thumbnail\" \/><\/a><\/dt>\n\t\t<dd class=\"gallery-caption\">strawberries from Waitrose <\/dd>\n\t<\/dl>\n\t<dl class=\"gallery-item gallery-columns-3\">\n\t\t<dt class=\"gallery-icon\"><a href=\"https:\/\/debslunch.com\/debslunchblog\/arriving-in-the-uk\/lhrceiling\/\" title=\"Mod ceiling at Heathrow, uderwhich we stood for an hour for the passport check\" rel=\"attachment\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/debslunch.com\/debslunchblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/LHRceiling-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"Mod ceiling at Heathrow, uderwhich we stood for an hour for the passport check\" class=\"gallery-image attachment-thumbnail\" \/><\/a><\/dt>\n\t\t<dd class=\"gallery-caption\">Mod ceiling at Heathrow, uderwhich we stood for an hour for the passport check<\/dd>\n\t<\/dl>\n\t<dl class=\"gallery-item gallery-columns-3\">\n\t\t<dt class=\"gallery-icon\"><a href=\"https:\/\/debslunch.com\/debslunchblog\/arriving-in-the-uk\/lhrbench\/\" title=\"Surprisingly stylish bench at Heathrow\" rel=\"attachment\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/debslunch.com\/debslunchblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/LHRbench-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"Surprisingly stylish bench at Heathrow\" class=\"gallery-image attachment-thumbnail\" \/><\/a><\/dt>\n\t\t<dd class=\"gallery-caption\">Surprisingly stylish bench at Heathrow<\/dd>\n\t<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"gallery\">\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We arrived at Heathrow at about 7:30 a.m. Monday, March 29. We had to shuffle through the passport check, then got our bags, took the train to Paddington, and then a taxi to our apartment in Camden. We got settled then went to the close-by Waitrose and bought some food &#8211; cheese, pears, buns, yogurt, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[88,6,33],"class_list":["post-662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-london","tag-robyn-hitchcock","tag-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/debslunch.com\/debslunchblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/debslunch.com\/debslunchblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/debslunch.com\/debslunchblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debslunch.com\/debslunchblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debslunch.com\/debslunchblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=662"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/debslunch.com\/debslunchblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":676,"href":"https:\/\/debslunch.com\/debslunchblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662\/revisions\/676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/debslunch.com\/debslunchblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debslunch.com\/debslunchblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debslunch.com\/debslunchblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}