Goodbye to Craig Sterling

 On the one hand, there has been some very good news today, with the announcement of a second season of Good Omens by Neil Gaiman.

On the other hand, Stuart Damon has died.  He was, of course, one of The Champions. 

Here they are in the title sequence, supposedly in Geneva where Nemesis headquarters was (it was actually an office block in a place called Whetstone, in the UK).  He did some of his best acting in the episode The Interrogation, where Craig is questioned because his special powers have made him too successful as a secret agent.

Hanging around Euston

Here's Matthew Flinders and his cat Trim, outside Euston Station.  He was the first person to map the coast of Australia (which is what he's doing here). 

Looking up the statue, I found that it's quite recent - it was unveiled at Australia House in 1914, by Prince William, later moved inside the concourse of Euston Station, and now it's here in the open air.

I was quite pleased not to see the big silver blocky thing that I used to pass in previous years when using the station (apparently it's called Piscator, by Eduardo Paolozzi), but it may have been behind the scaffolding from some construction work that's going on near the taxi rank.

In the background is the takeaway place where the Young Man bought sushi for lunch.  I tend not to eat  much when I'm travelling, and the breakfast we'd had at the Wimpy bar was quite enough for me, so the Young Man said he felt he could eat sushi in front of me without feeling guilty!  I'm not a sushi fan.

I was quite happy to head for the Euston Tap as soon as it opened, to have a farewell drink, though - a light golden ale called Trinity from Redemption Brewery in Tottenham.

Damaris Hayman, the White Witch of Devil's End

 I was sorry to see the obituary of Damaris Hayman, who has died at the age of 91, in the Guardian today.  It was written by Toby Hadoke, so mentioned her appearance as Miss Hawthorne, the white witch of Devil's End in The Daemons, one of the most fun Doctor Who stories from the Jon Pertwee era:

In later years, she also starred in a series of short stories on DVD about the character, collected as The Daemons of Devil's End.

There was a lot more to her career than that, of course - from British films of the 1950s right through to TV comedy in the 1980s.  Here she is looking glamorous with Les Dawson:

Sunday Pub Lunch

 I don't really remember when I last went out for a pub lunch!

This one was special because I was meeting all of my Young Man's family for the first time since before the lockdowns.  We went to The Star at Sidcup Place:

Looking at the brickwork, I think the central portion is the oldest part, and they claim to go back to the 1700s, with a previous manor house on the site, surrounded by grounds which are now a public park.

There's also a Community Walled Garden, which is absolutely beautiful, and run by volunteers:

The meal was very good, and plenty of it, and it was lovely to see the Young Man's family again.

Whovian Day

 Of course, this was the one day of my holiday when it rained all day!

The plan was to go into the city for the day, ending up at UNIT HQ in South Moulton Street for Doctor Who: Time Fracture, so I spent the day cosplaying the 13th Doctor.  (This was why I had my hair cut!).

It's fortunate that the coat is functional, and at least shower-proof, though I did get a bit damp.

We were going to start off at the Museum of London, but we couldn't get a time-slot early enough in the day so we moved straight on to a spending spree at Forbidden Planet.

I regret nothing.

We had lunch at Ippudo, which serves Japanese food.  I had the best noodle soup I had ever tasted, with some good green tea.  I would definitely go back again.

Then, despite the rain, we wandered round Soho for a bit, looking for the locations of AZ Fell & Co., Aziraphale's bookshop from Good Omens.  My Young Man also pointed out the place where the exhibition had taken place when the series first came out.  He went to it, and took a lot of photos of the costumes, and the Bentley parked outside.

I've written some fan fiction on AO3 in which Crowley wakes up in Aziraphale's bookshop, recovering from being drugged, which includes memory loss - so he escapes from this weird angel who he thinks has captured him, and gets as far as the hut in Soho Square Gardens before he passes out.  So I had to go and see the hut:

The story is called Confused Serpent, and I'm Eigon on AO3.

We were booked into Mr Foggs' Society of Exploration in the afternoon, for cocktails.  As part of the track and trace system, we had our temperatures taken at the door, the first time I've had that done in the pandemic.

Downstairs, the bar was warm and cosy - we were seated in the 'railway carriage' at one end.  With some advice from the waiter, the Young Man chose a Guano Point, described in the menu as "short, warming and rich" and made with 12 year old Dewar's whisky.  I chose the Spicy Rupee, described as "spicy, aromatic, exotic" and made with vodka and elderflower.  Both of them were absolutely delicious, and well worth the rather high prices.  We rather liked the music there, too - quite mellow swing.

We hadn't quite managed to leave enough time for another meal, so we got a sandwich to eat on the go again, but arrived at UNIT HQ early enough to have a lemonade in The Lucky Bar just round the corner.  Each table had a D10 in a tray, and if you rolled a 7 you didn't have to pay for your drinks!

Then we headed into Time Fracture, ready to save the Universe!

It wasn't quite as easy as it had been in The War of the Worlds to maintain social distancing - this wasn't one linear story we were following.  We all started and finished in the same place, but between that there was a lot of mixing of groups as different people followed alternative paths through the storyline.

We started in the UNIT lab, and I even got to type on one of the consoles as we tried to work out why strange things were happening all round the world.

Then we went through the Time Fracture itself, to the Court of Queen Elizabeth I, and an alien market place, an intergalactic space liner (with two very good alien cabaret singers) which was diverted to Gallifrey, and finally to Gallifrey itself, where we became part of the Prydonian Chapter!

At one point the actors leading us from place to place made very sure that no-one would be badly affected by strobe lighting before we headed into a dark tunnel full of shop dummies.

We met Davros!  And the Young Man had to negotiate with him for assistance!

There was a Sister, and a Brother, of Karn, and an alien auction, and a Kerblam stall.  We were told to look for Brian the Ood, who we saw in the distance but never got to meet.  We ran down corridors.  There were Cybermen and Daleks and Weeping Angels and an early version of Torchwood - and at the end of it all, we saved the Universe!  (and we got a Tshirt and a poster!).

It was all a huge amount of fun!

The Aldgate Pump

 On the way home from War of the Worlds, we came across the Aldgate Pump at the end of Leadenhall Street:

I got terribly excited, because I mistook it for another famous pump.

This one had been in use as a water source since at least the time of King John, and was the source of what came to be known as the Aldgate Pump Epidemic - the water supply passed through several cemeteries in Victorian times, and picked up all manner of nasty things to poison the water.

I was mixing it up with the Broad Street pump in Soho, source of the cholera outbreak there in 1854, when local Doctor John Snow removed the pump handle to stop people from drinking the water and proved that cholera was spread through the water rather than by miasma, or bad air.

Next time I'm in Soho, I'll have to visit that pump.

"The Chances of Anything Coming from Mars...."

 Groups going through the immersive experience of War of the Worlds gathered first in the bar at the entrance.  We were in the purple group, and were told to gather when the purple smoke billowed out of the Martian war machine that loomed over the bar.  

The organisers, Layered Reality, were very careful about Covid prevention.  Everyone in the group was masked (the actors were not masked), and the first actor to introduce us to the proceedings handed out eye masks so our skin did not directly touch the virtual reality goggles we had to put on at various stages in the proceedings.

Participants in the show have to have a certain level of fitness - there was a very tightly curved spiral staircase at one point, and a slide.  The various rooms we were led to were on two levels, and there was also a rope and wooden slat bridge at one point.

Also, we were led by a soldier to a house where we could take cover from the Martian war machines, and had to climb through a window.  As I hitched up my long skirts, I said: "I hope you're not looking at my ankles!"

I think my favourite part was as we escaped by boat, starting on a canal bordered by autumn trees, which led to the Thames with war machines looming on either side, and then out to the North Sea for the Thunderchild episode, all the time with Jeff Wayne's soundtrack in our ears.  I was singing along quite loudly.

After that, we were taken to a survivors' reception centre which was also the interval bar, where we could catch our breaths and drink our Red Weed cocktails (previously paid for) before we went on to further perils.

The visuals for the city underground were dizzying - we were sitting down and looking up to where it was all projected onto a domed ceiling at that point.

There's a photo opportunity at the end, and then we staggered out back to the bar, to applause from everyone who was there because we had survived!

And then there was the gift shop, and a quiet drink before we headed home (Trumans IPA).

It was all great fun, in the way that mild peril can be, and we thoroughly enjoyed it.

On the Way to the War of the Worlds

 

Here I am outside the War of the Worlds Immersive Experience in Leadenhall Street, in vaguely Victorian dress to look the part of someone fleeing from the Martian war machines.

It had been a quite fraught journey to get to this point.

We left in plenty of time to get something to eat before the show, but disaster struck as I got onto the train at Woolwich Arsenal.  I have a little blood blister next to my nose, and it had chosen that moment to start bleeding.  It was still bleeding by the time we got to London Bridge, where my Young Man found the first aider on duty.  He was lovely.  He got me a chair, and then took me to the first aid post and gave me sterilised swabs to mop up the blood.  The only thing I could do was to sit there quietly until the blood stopped flowing, keeping pressure on it all the time.  It turned out that the first aider had gone to school in Cardiff, and we had quite a pleasant chat with him.

When I stopped bleeding, he pointed us in the direction of the station's Boots to get some ointment to put on.

Boots was useless.  No Germoline, or Savlon, or even Vaseline, or any other sort of ointment to put on cuts.  It was self-service, so there was no member of staff behind a counter (there was no counter!) but there was a member of staff sort of lurking around the place, who suggested we try teething gel.  

We did not try teething gel.

The Young Man decided to try WH Smiths on the off-chance they had something, and we found a little tin of Vaseline there.

By this time there was no time to get a meal, so we ate sandwiches outside the station, and took a taxi to Leadenhall Street - where we had a few minutes before we were due to go in to look around.

Across the road is St Katherine Cree church.  According to Wikipedia, it was first built in 1280, but was rebuilt in 1628, making it the only Jacobean church in London.  It is now a Guild church rather than a parish church.

Round the corner, we found that we were very close to the Gherkin:

and on the corner of a nearby building was an interesting plaque:

This was the corner of Holland House, also nearby:

Adventures in London

 I've written on my other blog about my problems with the buses from Hay at the beginning of my holiday.  I missed my train by a whisker so I went to the ticket office to ask what I should do.

"Do you still want to travel?" he asked.

Here I am, standing with my suitcase: "Well, yeah!  I've got someone meeting me at Euston!"

"So, do you want the quickest route or the cheapest?"

I went for the quickest, which got me into Euston an hour later than I was expected.  It's at times like these that I think it might possibly be useful to have a mobile phone - I had no way to tell my Young Man that I was running late.

It didn't help that the station cafe is closed for the duration, and I took one look at the vending machine and decided I did not have the mental energy to work out how to make it give me a bottle of water.

I had enough time between trains at Birmingham New Street to grab a coffee and find a quiet corner where I could take off my mask to drink it and eat the sandwich I'd brought with me.

I saw the Young Man almost as soon as I stepped off the platform at Euston - he'd had a station announcement put out, thinking he'd missed me and I'd gone wandering off into London and he'd never find me again!

He was going to take me to Cafe Rouge for lunch, which would probably have been nice if they were open.  By this time I was really quite hungry, and thirsty - the only way to access the buffet service on the train was by an app, which in my case I had not got.

Next door to Cafe Rouge is Nando's.  "Chicken?" he asked.

By this time I would have eaten greasy cardboard.  Chicken sounded fine.

To get into Nando's the Young Man had to point his phone at the track and trace symbol, and order by app.  He couldn't work out how to do that, so eventually we managed to get a paper menu, and a girl came to the table to take our order.  "The pitta's got coleslaw in it," she said.

I hate coleslaw.  I didn't care.  I'd eat it.

"What is there to drink?" we asked.

They had no tea, or coffee.  Juice was only for babies.

"Look, I just need something liquid!  What have you got?"

"Coke?"

"That'll do!"

I hate coke.  The last time I bought coke I used it as a drain cleaner, which in my opinion is all it is fit for.  I didn't care.  I drank it.

So, that meal was simultaneously the worst I've ever had, and exactly what I needed at that precise moment.  I will never willingly set foot in a Nando's again.

When we left, I was at least feeling a bit more human, so we went round to the Euston Tap for a half of Oyster Stout to take the taste away before we headed back to the Young Man's flat.  The beer was delicious.