Malahide

After two days in Dublin, Kari and I were ready for a slight change in scenery. Luckily my Frommer's Guide was kind enough to recommend a few day trip itineraries. We opted to go to Malahide, partly because it has a cool name and partly because it has a castle. While we had learned already that sometimes Frommer lies, the whopper was that trains to Malahide ran every half hour on Sundays. They only run one per hour, and so we got to chill at Tara Street station breathing in passing train exhaust for about 50 minutes.

Once in Malahide, we just followed everyone else from the train as we didn't really know where we were going. Luckily everyone was headed towards the castle, which was our intended destination as well. After walking for what seemed like days through a thick forest, we finally came across the castle, as seen above. The castle was the home to the Talbot family for about 800 years until 1975, starting as a Norman keep and gradually expanding into the castle you see today. We waited for the guided tour to start, then we were let through to go up stairs with about 8 other people. After many minutes of waiting at the top of the stairs, someone went back down to ask what was going on. The guy at the bottom of the stairs seemed confused by our presence and told us that the next tour wouldn't start for five more minutes, so we had to go back out and wait. It was all very odd.

Anyways, the tour actually involved walking through a number of rooms while listening to recorded audio commentary about the history of the room, the decorations, and bits about the family. You go through a number of sitting/drawing rooms, some bedrooms, a hallway/staircase and then the big dining room that's all Tudor in its stylings. All in all it was pleasant enough and not too crowded. I'd place it above Ham House but below Blenheim Palace in terms of coolness.

After hiking back through the woods, we walked down to the village, which is cute and little and near the sea. We therefore continued down to the water and did some walking and some sitting (it's good to balance these things, otherwise you get too worn out!). Frommer recommended a pub in town called Gibney's, so opted to check it out before heading back to Dublin and ultimately the airport. The pub was deceptively large, just room after room of pub, plus a beer garden. What was interesting was that the rooms managed to be quite different; there were a couple traditional pub rooms, a brightly lit room for the old folks (I say this as there were about 4 people in there and they all looked over 70), and the room at the back had a bit of a sports bar vibe with a bunch of tv screens. As it was a nice day, we loitered for two hours standing in the beer garden. All of our attempts at getting seats were foiled by those faster than ourselves. It was extremely good people watching and I think we were both quite sad to leave! All in all, I quite liked Malahide, it was a nice contrast to Dublin and big cities in general, with what I thought was a nice balance of castle, village, waterfront, and pub!

Dublin!

I went to Dublin this weekend with Kari. Mark didn’t go. He’d been twice and therefore had seen it all before. Before delving into the details of my weekend itinerary, I shall sum up my general impression of the city. Dublin is an odd little city with little discernable division between residential, commercial and industrial areas. While parts of the city centre are lively and full of people, there are plenty of other areas on the tourist path where very little seems to be going on. The pubs have plenty of beer on tap, and not all of it is Guinness (thank goodness!). While I had limited interaction with locals, for the most part servers were friendly, there was just a limited incident in which a passing chav randomly yelled in Kari’s ear.

We flew to Dublin on Friday morning. After hearing how Dublin had essentially been given up for gone after being inundated with English stag and hen parties, I found it somewhat amusing that there were two hen parties on our not too full flight. One had matching t-shirts with individual nicknames on the back, the others just had matching headbands with glittery clovers on springs (the bride had a giant leprechaun hat). Throughout the weekend we relied on matching shirts, sashes and the presence of blow-up dolls to spot other hen parties (we spotted a total of 14). Oddly enough, we saw no stag parties. One can only conclude that Dublin has been given up to the ladies.

So once in Dublin, my navigational skills immediately failed us and so it took a little longer than necessary to find our hotel. We then began the two-day of ordeal of seeing what the fine people of Frommer’s recommended we see, more or less in the order they advised we see it. On day one this meant wandering across the river, going to Trinity College (home of the book of Kells, I have no idea what this is but apparently it’s in demand), the National Library, the archaeological branch of the National Museum (I recommend giving the bog bodies a miss), then there was a highly recommended ‘moment’ involving having a coffee and a scone on the 3rd floor of an old café on the main shopping street (this involved spending a considerable amount of time watching the winged wizard, an elaborately costumed human statue type). At this point it was getting a little late to complete the day one itinerary, as many things apparently closed around 5pm, so we borrowed something from day two and went to the Guinness Storehouse at St James Gate.

Now I’m pretty sure that the Guinness Storehouse is in the top two for most visited sites in Dublin, along with Trinity College. You could tell it was set up for the receiving of vast quantities of people, luckily when you show up at 5:15 there are no lines and you have your choice of people from which to buy your ticket. I found this odd as this seems like the ideal time to transition from day-time activities that generally don’t involve beer to evening activities that generally do involve beer. Alas, apparently this only makes sense to me. Anyways, you can tell by the smell on the surrounding streets that they still actually make Guinness at this facility. It’s an interesting set up, where you learn about the brewing process, the history of the company, and see old ads while slowly moving upwards in the building. It’s all very architectural and a neat building in general terms. At the very top you get to enjoy your free pint of Guinness in the Sky Bar, which has panoramic views of pretty much all of Dublin. We didn’t finish our pints, free or not, it’s still Guinness.

After this we were desperate for food, which generally ensures you will never find any. Alas, we ended up dining at a bar called Toddy’s attached to a hotel. The highlight came when they only charged us for one of our drinks. We then hit the bar near our hotel for a nightcap. This was a vast improvement on Toddy’s as there was a lively ambience, centering on the live Irish music.

Day two started with a trip to see the statue of Oscar Wilde. Dublin has more than it’s fair share of life-size statues, but this one was by far the highlight. Not only was it reclining on a rock ‘gazing wistfully’ (according to my guide book) towards his childhood home, but he was also in color. Oooh. Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband was being put on at a theatre in town and was being heavily advertised, so Oscar was on the mind. This was followed by the National Gallery, a nice park, lunch at a place called Lemon that served crepes and waffles, Dublin Castle (which didn’t open until 2!), the Chester Beatty Library (where we saw really old books and learned about different religious traditions, and as it’s free, earns my recommendation), St Patrick’s Cathedral, and another deviation from the schedule in the form of a trip to the Jamesson Distillery.

I must say the Distillery was overall a more enjoyable experience than the Guinness Storehouse. While they no longer make Irish whiskey at the Distillery, they did up until 1971. Which I think is a long time ago, but whatever. Your tour starts out with a video on the history of the company, and you then get a guided tour where you learn how the whiskey is made, and how this process differs from American whiskey (aka, Jack Daniels) and Scotch whiskey. Apparently the primary different is the triple distilling, versus only single or double for the other folk. The tour ended with a tasting in the bar for a few select volunteers (including me!) of the three different types of whiskey, and a free drink (with mixer, thank goodness). For taking part, I was given my very own certificate with my name on it. And a tube to safely take it home in. Again, we had kept the alcohol portion of the tourist day to the late afternoon. Good call, us!

For dinner we made a late reservation at what seemed to be the only Boxty restaurant in town, located in the midst of Temple Bar, Dublin’s most infamous street. It’s basically just lined with bars and a few restaurants, and everything becomes packed once the evening rolls around. We were glad to be observing from the boxty restaurant instead of being stuck in the midst of it all! After dinner we again had a quick nightcap at the local. The next day we opted to head out of town and go to the alluringly named Malahide, but that will have to be another entry!

Urban Wildlife

I have now seen two, yes, TWO foxes in London. Not really attractive people, mind you, but the little animal. The first time I saw a fox was in north London last winter, in a residential area around 11pm. It was crossing the street, heading towards a row of terraced houses. I was near a substantial park, so I just assumed the fox had wandered from there. Mainly, I was just surprised to actually see such an animal. A raccoon, sure, but not a fox!

Last week I saw my second fox. This time on my very own street! It was again quite late, and I was about to turn the corner to go down my street I saw what I thought was a Siamese cat peaking around and then running away at the site of me. When I turned the corner I saw that I was mistaken, as about 15 feet standing in the middle of the sidewalk was a fox with a black-tipped tale. Again upon seeing that I had tracked him down, it jumped up on a fence and over a garage that started my own row of terraced houses.

Having now seen two of these animals in very different parts of London, I have come to terms with the fact that they must be quite widespread! After all, I'm not some sort of night-person regularly returning home in the middle of the night, and this seems to be when they are out and about. They are clearly smarter than say, opossums, as you don't find fox roadkill. Come to think of it, I'm not sure if they have opossums in these parts. Or raccoons, for that matter. But hedgehogs, yes.

Along with their ability to generally steer clear of most forms of natural disasters (save floods!), the English will sometimes add the general ability to avoid being maimed by deadly wildlife as a perk to life on this little island. Foxes, while technically predators, are generally hunted by groups of dogs and men on horses in red jackets, and do not bite back. They are only a threat to farmers attempting to keep chickens. What's missing are bears, coyotes, large cats of any kind, and deadly spiders. While in many ways this seems a bit boring, it's still exciting to think that my next fox sighting could come at any time!

Team GB

I'm sure many of you have noticed that the Olympics are going on. However, I'm not sure how much attention has been paid stateside to which little country is in third place in the medals table. Go on, fathom a guess. That's right, it's the UK! Or as they are commonly referred to 'team GB' (don't get my started on the UK/GB situation, it constantly perplexes me that they don't know the name of their own, um, land).

This little team GB has managed to amass 16 gold medals, the most in apparently a century, and an additional 10 silvers and 10 bronzes or so (the tally is constantly changing mind you). While they haven't pulled a Phelps and the most golds that can be attributed to one person is 3 (I think, maybe 2), they are certainly specialized in a small number of categories. These categories are cycling, sailing, rowing, and a bit of swimming and track & field. The Australians, who are bitter about being behind UK in the medals table, like to point out that team GB only wins when they are sitting down. I say heck, can you blame them? Why stand when you can sit? Now I think the UK also is historically quite strong in equestrian events (sitting!), but don't think they're squeezed a gold out of it this year. Let's blame Zara Phillips, who pulled out after her horsey got a boo-boo.

Speaking of female types, I must say that an overwhelming percentage of team GB golds have been won by women. Becky Addlington won two swimming gold medals (to everyone's surprise), they won the gold in the women's 400m run, plus they managed to pull in some cycling and sailing golds for good measure. Good for you, British women!

The word on the street is that the UK government has been pumping extra money into Olympic sports, to try and ensure they don't make fools of themselves when hosting the games in 2012. For example, a British source tells me they spent £1 million developing a tire that would let the cyclists go just a weeny bit faster. How this is a legitimate use of such a sum is beyond me, but they certainly have been cleaning up in cycling events so apparently it's working.

So things are looking good for 2012! There's been limited speculation about how they're going to try and top Beijing's opening ceremony. My favorite suggestion so far has been to have 2,000 Morris dancers. And after consulting to find out what exactly Morris dancing involves (it involves sticks!!), I must say I'm all for their inclusion.

Bespoke

Bespoke is a new word to me, but like so many new words, it now manages to pop up all over the place.

The concept of bespoke was apparently originally reserved for suits made by Saville Row tailors. More specifically, made to measure suits. Perhaps one might call them bespoke tailors. But apparently people like the ring of the word, over the blah alternatives of 'made-to-order' or 'custom made', and it is now applied to a wide variety of items.

Example 1: Development Site Masterplan
I've received today an updated copy of a masterplan for a site I'm working on. In the notes it advertises that there will be an 'arrangement of bespoke townhouses' at the entrance to the site. This seems a slightly odd application of the term, as I'm pretty sure there's no generic townhouse factory in Lincolnshire pumping out identical homes, but I suppose we'll have to roll with it.

Example 2: Grand Designs
They've used the word bespoke several times on the tv show Grand Designs, which features a guy who really likes houses following around people building ambitiously designed houses (which I'm sure are bespoke in their own right). It's used in relation to things such as kitchens and handrails. But the Grand Design man likes to use a rich vocabulary to describe things, and bespoke just fits in with his narratives.

Example 3: New Guy
We've got a new guy at my work (well, a month now) who is a bit higher up. His first day after lunch he began complaining heavily of the lack of food options at Notting Hill Gate (which is so ridiculous that it's not even debatable) as there was no place featuring bespoke salads. I refrained from suggesting he walk ten minutes down the road to Whole Foods, which features what must be the largest salad bar in London, as I sort of get the impression he would expect someone else to make the salad while he points at things. The lack of choices means he must bring his lunch in to work with him.

Example 4: Me!
I'm going to start using the word bespoke as much as possible. For example, I like to think that I make bespoke dinners, my showers are generally bespoke (I do pick the general order, although I do stick with the general rule of shampoo then conditioner), my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are certainly bespoke (hand-crafted! catered to individual tastes!), and as with many people, my pile of papers all over my desk is certainly bespoke. However, I must admit that I will not be having a bespoke sandwich or salad for lunch today. And I'm sure I will suffer greatly as a result.

BBC Proms

Mark and I went to see the Proms last night. Not prom, mind you, promS. I assure you the difference is considerable. To sum it up, every year BBC sponsors a month of constant concerts, generally classical with a few jazz tossed in for good measure. Each night's concert is different, with different pieces being performed by different people. The performances take place at Royal Albert Hall and the whole series ends in the somewhat famous 'last night of the Proms', where the so called best performers (not sure if its the BBC Philharmonic, some sort of Royal ensemble or national ensemble) play patriotic songs and fireworks go off and such.

Last night's performance did not include any explosions. After leafing through about a gazillion different performance possibilities, we (and I mean me, Mark was getting his haircut at the time) picked a performance of a Rachmaninov symphony and an excerpt from a Puccini opera, to be performed by the BBC Philharmonic (because who doesn't like their harmonies nicely 'phil'ed?). Given the sheer number of concerts in the series, you can get tickets for relatively cheap, ours were carefully chosen in the last row, facing straight down the stairs so Mark could have unlimited leg room. Tickets were £10.

We got there a little over half an hour before the performance started, fresh from dinner at Whole Foods. We climbed up three flights of stairs, took a peak inside, went 'oooh', then spent about ten minutes figuring out if we wanted to get anything to drink as we didn't have any cash and there was a £10 minimum for using card, then we finally ordered drinks for then as well as intermission. It worked out nicely. I must say that while very cool, Royal Albert Hall wasn't quite as big nor as fancy as I was expecting it to be. The center of the main floor area had a fountain in the middle of it and no seats, like the mosh pit at a rock concert. A lot of people seemed to be on board with this idea and the area was relatively full. You could also stand at the very top in the gallery to watch.

I must say I thought the symphony portion quite good. It was a tune I hadn't heard before and while of course not whole-heartedly captivating, enjoyable over all. The opera bit was a little odd. Being of course, not an opera, there was no staging of any kind. The singers came out to the front of the stage, exited and entered the stage as their characters would, and stood and sat down as apparently necessary. However, this is what got me at least, we had no idea what was going on. If you spent extra money on the program you were able to follow along what they were saying word for word. This seems a bit of a cop out to me, like charging extra for subtitles when you go to a foreign film. As a result, I found it a little boring and was a bit relieved when it finally ended! Overall I was quite pleased with my first Proms and Royal Albert Hall experience. As an extra note, I was also pleased with my burrito bar experience at Whole Foods, there were black beans, chipotle chicken and guacamole!

Buckingham Palace

So on Saturday Margo and I went to the palace of Buckingham (another ham!) anyways it was raining so ended up being quite a good thing to do on a wet day. What was annoying was that it had been quite a humid week and outside for lunch weather but then the weekend came and it all changed!

Off track there anyways it was Margo, me and a lot of tourists! now i wasn't quite in tourist mode when i arrived so it took me a while to adjust when i saw the queue! what some of the people didnt quite get though was that the palace is basically not a tourist attraction and is a working home! it was only opened to pay for the reconstruction of Windsor Castle after the fire in the 90s i guess though margo would probably know more about that??? (though basically was designed to mean the British taxpayer wouldn't pay for Windsor and the many tourists that London get would! anyways that basically meant that it didnt have purpose built tourist facilities including toilets etc - this was annoying some of the visitors when we were kept in a holding tent for about 20 minutes before we went through the metal detectors...was quite amusing - made me want to say something but i think margo would of disowned me!

Anyways we got through after Margo's bag was examined in more detail than a airport and then were given a free audio guide. We went in and normally when i walk into these places like that im like ok this is cool but... - but walking into this place was completly different - it was quite something! walking up the grand staircase and through some of the rooms into the banquet hall where the room was fully set up for a state visit banquet. it was quite something - although as margo pointed out the chairs (apart from the queens) were a little small and uncomfortable looking! everything was lined up though (glasses - one long line down both sides of the table). Well worth the $30 entrance in my opinion!

anyways at the end we got to walk through the garden to the exit! where there were toilets and gift shops in the normal marquees you get at these temporary events!

anyways apart from the rain in the garden it was a good time! if you visit london in the august/september time frame i would definately recommend - especially as you dont really know how long the public will be allowed in like that!

Anglo Mango's Guide to Ham Pronunciation

So English people like to pronounce things in strange ways completely unrelated to the way in which they are spelled, and then laugh at you when you then pronounce the word phonetically. Like somehow they've managed to trick you and you've given a clear display of inferior American intelect. But alas I have come to realize that we should just be laughing at them for their clear inability to know exactly what to do with the word ham.

Ham as a meat is basically the same. 'Hello, I'd like a ham sandwich' is a equally understood universal phrase. Then things get tricky. While the big-based lunch meat is the same, I have yet to see anything resembling a honey-baked ham style, um, ham. The Anglos love their pork, so it's clearly consumed, but I've come to the conclusion that they refer to this sort of ham as gammon steak. This may be something else entirely, but let's just roll with that for now.

Ham is also an extremely common inclusion in place names. From my limited understanding, this comes from the shortening of the word 'hamlet'. So perhaps Hamlet of Hurling becomes Hurlingham. And again while the ham in hamlet is fair play to all, if you ask someone how to get to Hurling-ham they'll likely either laugh at you, shake their head in disgust, or slap you (maybe not). After all, it is OBVIOUSLY pronounced Hurling-um. And Fulham is pronounced Ful-um. Fair enough, some consistency there.

So there you, when ham is at the front a word, it's ham ('Hamp-sure'), when it's at the back of a word it's um. In the middle you would generally have ham again, ('South-hamp-tun'). And while we're at it, shire is indeed pretty consistently 'sure'. And let's just cut to the chase - Liecester is lester, Liecestershire is lester-sure. But I think that's just because nobody can think of a better way to pronounce Liecester.

Hurlingham

It's pretty clear that effort has been made into making the Thames riverfront an accessible place to everyone. Throughout London, you've got all these random little signs pointing you towards Thames Walks and Jubilee Walks and there's that whole South Bank situation. In my neck of the woods this plan of attack runs into two big glitches: Craven Cottage and the Hurlingham Club.

Craven Cottage isn't a cottage. It's a football stadium, home of the Fulham Football Club, and it essentially abuts the river. So you don't really blame them. Plus they've been there for over a hundred years.

Hurlingham has also been in its present location for over a hundred years but they're just being snobby. They just don't want to let you walk through their land because a) they're better than you and b) the members have paid good money and waited a long time to get access to that land for themselves. To back track momentarily, the Hurlingham Club is a 'sports' club for people with too much money who are willing to be placed on a waiting list for 15 years before being allowed membership.

To back track even more, the club was founded in the latter half of the 19th century as a place to shoot pigeons. Don't ask me how this can be considered a sport, you just drop some bread crumbs and they come flocking. Or perhaps these were smarter pigeons? One of the early patrons was a Prince of Wales (later Edward VII), which generally means they can charge more money for membership. The club later evolved to include polo, and Hurlingham was apparently the 'home' of polo (meaning they got to make up the rules) up until the second world war. In their effort to provide a home for every soldier, the local council, um, requisitioned the polo ground and put up some ugly council housing. Alas, no more polo at Hurlingham. However, they do still play bowls and have both indoor and outdoor swimming pools on their 42 acre spread. There are rumors of a fancy club house in there somewhere, but you can't see it from the street!

So if you find yourself casually strolling along the river in Fulham, be prepared to come across a giant walled-off hurdle. And thanks to the quick thinking of the council, to get back to the river on the other side you get to walk by some ugly now ex-council houses.

Ham House

Yesterday was a somewhat miserable rainy Sunday/my birthday. To celebrate both of these things, I opted to go to a stately home near my own non-stately home, the fabulously named Ham House near Richmond. It was built in the early 1600s along the river Thames, at one point belonged to one of the King Charles' (I or II, I don't know) whipping boys, then became the home of a family with a silly name (let's go with Tollemache, they might have been Earls) for 100s of years before passing to the National Trust in 1948.

To get to aforementioned stately home, we took the district line out to Richmond, dined on some delicious train station pasties, and started walking through town. It was my first time in Richmond and my general knowledge of the place was that it was on the river and very expensive to live there. Now we can add 'has good shopping' to the list. We popped into a few stores, but this was mainly to avoid the rain. Ham House is a little less than 2 miles down the road, along a river front path. The paved part was very nice, but then things just became a gravelly mess ridden with puddles that was quite uncomfortable to walk on.

We eventually reached stately home, but then we got side-tracked when Mark spotted some horses off to our left. There was a polo game! I'd never seen actual real live polo so we went over to take a peak. After about two minutes I thought : sucks for the horses, not too bad for the people.

It was an interesting stately home. It wasn't as big as Blenheim Palace, and there wasn't any ham. There seemed to be an awful lot of sitting rooms. Like I couldn't figure out how anyone could need so many. I can understand one for morning and one for afternoon in the days before electricity, but there were like 10. Some had tapestries! All in all it was quite intriguing. And I'm trying to think of what stately home I shall visit next! Actually, I'm not sure if it's technically a stately home, but Mark has gotten us tickets to go see the state rooms at Buckingham Palace this Saturday!