It is hard to put into words how phenomenal it is to know someone who lives in an expensive city. I woke up today, not in an overpriced London hotel or in a hostel bunk bed, but in a vacant room in Lisa and Niel’s flat. Although they neglected to offer me a traditional English breakfast – generally bacon, eggs, beans, toast, and a tomato – they were nonetheless very gracious hosts, providing me with an empty bed, sheets, and a large glass of water the night before. They also filled me in on the chaos of Wimbledon, the oldest tennis tournament in the world (it began in 1877) and the only Grand Slam played on grass, which was taking place over the weekend and which I was contemplating attending. The details I gathered – long lines, no guarantees of entry, expensive beer - led me down the path to my backup plan: Greenwich, a district located in the south-east of London and lying at zero degrees longitude, birthplace of the Greenwich Meridian and hence the origin of Greenwich Mean Time, or GMT, the time zone from which all others throughout the world are measured. They have a clock there to make sure you know. Why would I go see a meridian when I’m in London? Ask a bird why it flies, or a fish why it swims. Because they can.
Google Maps calculates a trip from the Hammersmith tube stop to Greenwich at about eleven miles, and with London traffic that’s about a thirty-five minute commitment. I, sans car, was at the mercy of the London Underground, and today it exacted its revenge for any past, present, or future barbs I have made, or may make, toward it. Initially expecting to take the Hammersmith and City line and transfer perhaps one time, here’s the path that I ended up with:
- Hammersmith and City line to the East London line.
- East London line to the Docklands line.
- Get off at Canary Wharf tube stop and find the Canary Wharf Pier.
- Ride a big cool boat and get off at the Greenwich Pier ferry stop.
- Walk up a giant hill through Greenwhich Park and arrive, out of breath, at a big clock.
Was it worth it? Absolutely. In fact, I was even more impressed by everything because it was such a mess to get to. If I would have had to just hop off a train to see the thing, I very well may have been disappointed. But during the two hour journey to the Royal Observatory where the GMT clock is located, my imaginatiion ran wild and I thought about how incredible it would be to stand on zero longitude. And, maybe it was because there was a sausage place called “The Honest Sausage” right next to the Royal Observatory, or maybe it’s because I like seemingly unimportant and slightly ridiculous things, but unlike the Mona Lisa or Rome’s Coliseum this did not disappoint.
What is even better than the Meridian during the daylight hours is the Meridian at night. Allegedly, they flip on a green laser that goes shooting out from the Royal Observatory and across Greenwich Park, following the Meridian line. If I had more time in London I would have been fine settling down in the park until twilight just to see it. Celebrating longitude with lasers is exactly my style, and I applaud the borough of Greenwich from devising such a spectacle.
I celebrated my achievement with a Task Force 25 ale at the nearby Trafalgar Pub – it was a difficult selection, I was quite smitten by the name of another beer, the Cat o’ Nine Tails – but when in such a situation one must trust the opinion of the bar staff…who also told me never to live in the Canary Wharf area of London should I ever move here. Soon enough I was back aboard my boat – the Typhoon Clipper, which is quite a name for a boat sailing up and down the relative calm of the Thames – and headed in the direction of Central London. I had decided that despite seeing Big Ben, Parliament, and the Westminster Abbey on a previous trip to London, no London experience can actually be complete without stopping by. Think of them as old friends from college or high school who you don’t really need to see when you’re back home, but you feel compelled to call up anyway. Besides, Westminster Abbey is crammed so full of history and exudes such grandeur that it’s foolish not to go see it. What history, you ask? The coronation of William the Conqueror in 1066, and nearly all subsequent English kings! The tombs of monarchs! Poet’s Corner, with its final resting places for Chaucer, Dickens, Tennyson, and Kipling! And of course - Dan Brown broke out some vivid prose in setting a scene in the ol’ Abbey back in 2003’s The Da Vinci Code.
Sadly all I got out of Westminster today was a view of the exterior. I had arrived too late to get inside, which just means that I’ll have to come 
back again some day. So, it was on to my next item of the day – tracking down a pub which I thought I remembered the name of from one of the best books I have read in a long while. Entertaining writing, brilliant message. The book is Yes Man, by Danny Wallce, and I thought it would be fantastic to get a photo inside the pub saying to a pint glass or giving a jubilant thumbs up. One is safe performing a thumbs up in England, but in parts of Italy and the Middle East it is actually seen as a disrespectful gesture, much to the tune of telling someone to go have sex with themselves, repeatedly and unpleasantly. The Roman origin of the thumbs up – as in, “Hey gladiator, don’t slay the man you have pinned under your sandal. Shake his hand instead of decapitating him.” – is considered to be exaggerated at best, likely a mistranslation by careless Latin scholars of centuries past. The latest hypothesis is that it was popularized throughout Europe by American soldiers of World War II, who witnessed the gesture while in Asia. There it means, “You, sir, are number one.” The name of the Yes Man pub, as best I remembered, was called the Horse and Groom and was located in west London. This is all the information I had, but damned if I wouldn’t do my best to find it!
Believe it or not, asking a dozen taxi drivers if they have heard of a pub named the Horse and Groom is not as fun as it may sound. Neither is barging into hotels to ask concierges, or stopping elderly women on the street who happen to be walking very small dogs. Several bartenders, perhaps offended that I chose to ask them where a particular bar was rather than drink in theirs, tossed phonebooks at me. Not in a trying to hit me way, mind you, but in an exasperated, “you are an idiot” kind of way. I can’t blame them. The day had turned very warm and I was sweating profusely, and my eyes conveyed a touch of casual franticness, what with appearing on their doorstep demanding to know where a bar - for which I had no directions, phone number, and in fact may or may not exist – was located. Plus, my hair was absurdly spikey. Lisa B, being a stylist and all, was to cut my hair later today and I had been growing it out for some time in preparation of the event. No, I can’t say I blame the bartenders at all for their behavior.
But for all that I lack in the world – a remembrance of calculus, proper dance moves, a tuxedo, a decent joke to open a toast, appreciation of fine upholstery – perseverence is one thing I do have. I tracked down the Horse and Groom, eventually, on a street appropriately named Groom Place. It was a couple blocks down from Buckingham Palace Gardens, just off of Chapel Street in case you would ever like to visit. But plan carefully, because the Horse and Groom is not open on Saturday. I repeat…not open on Saturdays. This was a clue that perhaps I had the wrong pub. Danny Wallace does not strike me as a man who would speak highly of a pub which shutters its doors on Saturdays. Saturday! Having a drink on an early Saturday afternoon is like having a beer on Christmas…part of you may ask “Should I be in a room discussing 12 step programs?” while the other part answers “A refreshing pint makes all the things in the world seem right, just like the Care Bears would have wanted.” High hopes dashed, my dreams crumbled, I found a tube stop and returned to Hammersmith.
It was about forty-five minute later and I was engaged in yet another search operation. The reward was slightly different this time around. While I wanted a photo and a simple beer at the Horse and Groom, I was now looking for my first ever Lisa provided haircut. This required bus hopping around west London, as if I do not get lost enough on the English trains. I had been told to look for a barn, which would be the signal to debus. As one would imagine there was in fact no barn and I eventually found myself walking into Lisa’s place of business entirely by accident. This is how things generally work out for me during trips. Best intentions turn into getting lost which most of the time turns into getting lucky and finding what I was looking for in the first place, albeit much later than expected. In this instance, I arrived so late that most customers had left and the employees were finishing up the final haircuts, sweeping up piles of hair, cleaning scissors, and leaving for the day. It was only out of the benevolent nature of Lisa’s boss that we were able to stay alone in an empty salon and address the pile of hair growing recklessly atop my head.
Despite the year being 2008, well past the age when *NSYNC walked the earth, giving Lisa free reign over my hair resulted in receiving blond highlights. Agreeing to highlights is like noticing a ten car pileup on the highway and then steering directly into it. They are both senseless acts, and ones which will inevitably hurt you, whether it be by whiplash or ridicule. I began to question what it exactly was that they were teaching these days at the Vidal Sassoon school, then realized I had been rockin’ the same hairstyle for eight years. This means I don’t get to question anyone in the hair care industry, including the girls at Great Clips when they trim off a portion of hair I had been expecting to keep.
Eventually, after the two hour highlighting-and-a-cut experience followed up with a honey lager enjoyed on the banks of the Thames, a small consortium of us shuttled off to the Tiroler Hut, an Austrian restaurant in the Notting Hill neighborhood that has been in operation since 1967. After leaving the restaurant you will understand why it has been able to stay in business for over forty years:
- Singing, including yodelling, accompanied by saxaphones, keyboards, accordions, and an awesome cow bell cabaret.
- Boisterous crowds! On this particular night the Tiroler Hut was hosting a group of people dressed in animal costumes. For example, two guys were dressed in full cow uniform. Later, the downstairs dining area where we were sitting erupted in chaotic dancing.
- Beer is available in pint glasses, yes…but also liter glasses! For those of us who may shun the metric system, a liter is slightly over two pints. So not only is the liter double the normal fun, but it also provides for superior cheers-ing performance.
- The hauptspeisen, or main courses. Austrian and Germon food is rife with schnitzel and sausages and all things pork. My choice off the menu was the Holzplatte für Zwei, which translates to “Wooden plate for two.” The description of the item reads: Lots of Meat, etc. for two. Our Speciality – Only for the Very Hungry!
The brew that filled our liter mugs has an interesting history. The Tiroler Hut servers Dortmunder (sometimes call Dortmunder Export), a lager which originated in the city of Dortmund, Germany in 1873. For reference, Budweiser was introduced to the American public in 1876. Your typical Dortmunder drinker was a coal miner or a steel worker, and the beer is meant to reflect the rough and tumble nature of these follks by way of maltiness, a decent touch of bitterness, and a 5.5% alcohol punch. Dortmund was an industrial town, and the brewers wanted their beer to have a “restorative” effect. Those same brewers had banded together in the 1800’s to form the Dortmunder Union Brewery, Germany’s largest at one point, and their creation became the most popular beer in Germany from World War II until the 1970’s. Nowadays the Dortmund style accounts for only about one tenth of beer sales in Germany.
We made such an attempt to increase Dortmunder’s beer sales that dancing ensued and every joke miraculously turned hilarious. Lisa also began making outlandish comments, such as we had abandoned her next to the bathrooms when in fact none of us had realized that she had gotten up from the table. Ultimately, having limited experience in coal mining, Lisa had to leave the Dortmunder several hours and liters later and take refuge on the sidewalk. This particular act caused a good five minutes of searching the Tiroler Hut before finally finding her outside.
With Lisa and Niel in a taxi back to their flat Dave and I headed next door for a cigarette and a last drink. Fate dictated that two girls of Eastern European descent – Russian, I think – were doing the same, and the next hour was spent discussing where the middle finger gesture came from while Dave tried to get one of the girl’s phone numbers.
A tip of the cap here is needed, because Dave in fact did end up with the Russian’s number. It just happened to be several hours later back in the basement of the Tiroler Hut, which was the only place in the area that was open late. No one seemed to mind, given that the music was louder than it was before and it was another opportunity for a liter of Dortmunder. Between 2 a.m. sips I placed a few calls back to Paris, attempting to establish credence to the claim that the middle finger was used by the victorious English to taunt the French during the 100 Years War (specifically the Battle of Agincourt in 1415). Allegedly the French had proposed to cut off the middle finger of all captured English bowmen, the reason being the middle finger was used to draw back the English bowstrings. As I discovered later this story is likely an urban (feudal?) legend, as the middle finger insult is referenced in ancient Roman texts. Another claim is that the middle finger represents a guy’s reproductive junk.
Mercifully the London taxis are a bit more prevalent than those in Paris, and we found one some time later while purchasing biscuits from a little convenience shop. Early morning taxis in London are infinitely more important than in Paris: London is an estimated 123 square miles, while Paris is a mere forty…and with that distance to cover on foot there is no way that I would have been able to play DragonForce’s “Through the Fire and Flame” for Niel and Lisa at 2 a.m.
