221B Baker Street, around the corner from Christopher’s – where Sherlock Holmes lived. A huge line-up outside the door. Thank you, Benedict Cumberpatch.
The Marylebone Register Office across the street – where, be still my beating heart, Paul McCartney got married twice, the last time only a few years ago. He was STANDING RIGHT THERE, where the white billboard announces that they’ve closed for renovations.
The front door of Selfridge’s, the world’s first department store – you can’t see its splendour, giant clock, brass doors so heavy you can hardly push them.
Went to the Photographer’s Gallery, among the great work a sequence by the Irish photographer Richard Mosse, who shoots war zones with an infrared camera. So he turns soldiers and killing fields pink, to amazing effect.
London.
What I will buy for Eli next time I’m in London, from Selfridge’s toy department – a treehouse bed. A mere $2600 pounds.
From the top of a double-decker – Camden High Street on a Friday night. There’s a big market nearby, and the street was impassable. I love the high streets, the way each community in London has its own centre. Here there’s Marylebone High Street, full of shops and places to gather. Parliament Street doesn’t quite have it. Yet.
There’ll always be an England.
Walked along luxurious Bond Street and into the Burlington Arcade, where there’s this lovely glove shop, a place called Linley selling only frames and boxes to keep things in, two sellers of vintage watches, Heming Jewellers “since 1745” and the famous Penhaligon’s, perfumer “since 1870.”
Trafalgar Square. There’s a bright blue rooster there, for some reason.
The thea-tah. When you come in and sit down at “Once,” the show is already on – audience members standing in the pub set on stage, listening to the music played by the multi-talented cast who all play, sing and act. Then the real folks are ushered offstage by the stage manager, and the show begins.
