Sunday, July 11, 2004

sightseeing in London, once again

I spent my first day in London walking in a wide circle around most of the major sites near the hotel. I was with a colleague from New York who hadn't been to London in about thirty years, so I took him past Big Ben, Parliament, the south bank of the Thames, Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, and the theater district. I've seen all of these tourist haunts before, but not in several years, and it gave us both a chance to stretch our legs after sitting for six hours on the way here. I didn't have the opportunity to get to Madame Tussaud's, and I probably won't see it on this trip either. But I'm still hoping to see the Tate Gallery later in the week.

Random observation from the President's Club lounge at Newark airport: Gentlemen, if you're going to wear a blazer over your polo shirt, please, for the love of God, wear slacks, not shorts. The blazer over polo shirt with shorts and loafers look doesn't work for anyone regardless of how much money you have.

VH1 UK is showing videos from '80s movie soundtracks right now. I had forgotten how bad some of the videos could be, especially the ones that showed the movie stars jamming with or otherwise appearing in the video with the artists. Of particular sad note is the video for "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" from Mannequin, which features Andrew McCarthy wearing a long duster, sunglasses, duck walking and pretending to play the guitar while Grace Slick becomes a mannequin herself. While the video for "St. Elmo's Fire" also puts the cast of the movie into the video (and none of them look like they want John Parr singing to them) I have to cut it some slack because it's such a good song.

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