Whitehall... Oxford Street... Portobello Road...
LONDON seems like a collection of famous roadways.
I hope to grace as many as I can come December.
Park Lane... King's Road... Kensington High Street...
Part of my preparations for London include developing the proper mindset.
I intend to begin some of those particular preparations today, by briefly abandoning "THE ROUGH GUIDE TO LONDON" to read the MONICA ALI novel, BRICK LANE.
Named after a street in the East End heart of London's Bangladeshi community, the novel follows the exploits of Nazneen, a Bangladeshi woman who moves to London at the age of 18 to marry an older man.
How will this help me prepare for London?
I feel the need to get London in my brain and heart.
That's why I am currently listening to EDDY GRANT.
One of the British reggae musician's most famous songs -- reaching No. 2 on the charts on both sides of the Atlantic -- is "ELECTRIC AVENUE."
That's right. It's named after another London street.
Electric Avenue is one of the primary thoroughfares in Brixton. Built in the 1880s, Electric Avenue's early adoption of electric lighting gave the roadway its name.
The street is at the heart of the eclectic Brixton Market, and affirms my contention that London is a collection of famous streets.
My friend Bekah travels later this month to JAMAICA for her honeymoon, so I made her a CD mix of some of my favorite reggae.
I am doing the same for myself, but instead of the Caribbean, I am going to LONDON in December.
Surprised?
Don't be. Tonight, I am reading about June 22, 1948, when the former troopship, "EMPIRE WINDRUSH," arrived at Tilbury Docks from Jamaica, with 482 Caribbeans on board.
Britain was beginning the slow recovery from war in 1948, and Caribbean immigrants provided much of the labor for the efforts.
Shocked by the climate and not welcomed as warmly as possible, most of the Empire Windrush passengers endured, and in doing so, altered the fabric of modern Britain.
The musical scene was altered as well -- Trinidadian calypso star Lord Kitchener serenaded reporters on the dockside with "London is The Place For Me."
See? It makes perfect sense for me to listen to reggae as I prepare to visit London.
Now that I have finally secured "THE ROUGH GUIDE TO LONDON" -- thanks Amazon.com! -- I feel like I can finally begin mental preparations for my DECEMBER trip to the English capital.
So, why am I reading about LONDINIUM?
I decided that before I delved into the various sights and locales of London, I would spend some time investigating its lengthy history.
It was about 50 AD when the ROMANS decided to establish a permanent military camp near a fordable point in the THAMES, and Londinium was born.
Londinium enjoyed its greatest prosperity, the "Rough Guide" authors note, between 80 AD and 120 AD. Londinium grew into the Empire's fifth largest city north of the Alps.
The foundations of a Roman amphitheatre -- dating from about 120 AD -- can be seen near the GUILDHALL ART GALLERY in the City.
I want to try to track it down during my trip. Then, I can say I glimpsed Londinium.
Writing in 1981's "THE SOCCER TRIBE," author DESMOND MORRIS noted the difference between street violence and violence on the FOOTBALL terraces, while arguing that the mistaken public perception of an inherent danger in attending matches:
"Most forms of ordinary street violence occur erratically and without warning, often late at night in dark alleyways. By contrast, trouble on the terraces takes place at set times with a huge crowd watching and under the eyes of both press and police. Nobody would deny that in rare cases there are savagely violent moments, but the way these are sometimes reported makes it sound as though they are a common occurrence."
The irony, in light of last night's mayhem at the WEST HAM v. MILLWALL London derby, is that soccer violence *was* much more common when Morris wrote his book.
British football has fostered such a trouble-free environment, that last night's scenes both shock and recall the vicious scenes of yesteryear.
Neither Morris nor I condoned the violence. The point is to put it into perspective (as I am doing, months from visiting LONDON).
You need look no farther than June 2009 in Los Angeles -- when Lakers fans rioted outside the Staples Center -- to see that sports and violence often intertwine among supporters.
There is no need for knee-jerk reactions or for panic: I simply wish efforts to eradicate such violence will continue -- on both sides of the Atlantic -- so that true sports fans can enjoy themselves.
I have another date to write in the calendar.
Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2009.
My sister and I have tickets to the HACKNEY EMPIRE ("Home of London's No. 1 Pantomime!") production of "ALADDIN."
The show is at 7 p.m., and we will be sitting in Row E, Seats 15 and 16.
PANTOMIME is a musical-comedy theatrical production usually performed during the Christmas-New Year season.
The shows typically include songs and dancing, slapstick comedy and audience participation.
The show will be a great introduction to a traditional English winter!
I have added a link to the right-hand side of the blog.
WILL IT RAIN TODAY? offers real-time, rain radar information from the METEOGROUP, Europe's largest private weather company.
A joke could probably be made that the answer to the Web site's question-based title is probably always "yes."
It is currently raining in CARDIFF, thankfully saving the shell-shocked ENGLAND cricket team from additional embarrassment against AUSTRALIA.
I'll be checking this site in earnest once the departure date of my trip arrives!
Nothing fills this Anglophile's heart with as much glee as listening to CRICKET on the radio.
There is something oddly mesmerizing about this slow-paced game that lasts all day and breaks for lunch and tea.
I first heard cricket on the radio while vacationing in Holland as a lad (as they say).
We were passing one of those canals that sit above the road -- so that all you could see were the sails of the sailboats -- and, after tuning the radio to a language we could understand, we found a cricket broadcast.
Only, it wasn't really a language we could understand.
Bowlers were claiming "lbw" and batsmen were going for four at "deep square leg."
I was immediately and permanently fascinated.
Des Moines-born humorist Bill Bryson provided the following observations on cricket:
"After years of patient study (and with cricket there can be no other kind) I have decided that there is nothing wrong with the game that the introduction of golf carts wouldn't fix in a hurry. It is not true that the English invented cricket as a way of making all other human endeavors look interesting and lively; that was merely an unintended side effect. I don't wish to denigrate a sport that is enjoyed by millions, some of them awake and facing the right way, but it is an odd game. It is the only sport that incorporates meal breaks. It is the only sport that shares its name with an insect. It is the only sport in which spectators burn as many calories as players -- more if they are moderately restless. It is the only competitive activity of any type, other than perhaps baking, in which you can dress in white from head to toe and be as clean at the end of the day as you were at the beginning.
"Imagine a form of baseball in which the pitcher, after each delivery, collects the ball from the catcher and walks slowly with it to center field; and that there, after a minute's pause to collect himself, he turns and runs full tilt toward the pitcher's mound before hurling the ball at the ankles of a man who stands before him wearing a riding hat, heavy gloves of the sort used to to handle radio-active isotopes, and a mattress strapped to each leg. Imagine moreover that if this batsman fails to hit the ball in a way that heartens him sufficiently to try to waddle 40 feet with mattress's strapped to his legs, he is under no formal compunction to run; he may stand there all day, and, as a rule, does. If by some miracle he is coaxed into making a misstroke that leads to his being put out, all the fielders throw up their arms in triumph and have a hug. Then tea is called and every one retires happily to a distant pavilion to fortify for the next siege. Now imagine all this going on for so long that by the time the match concludes autumn has crept in and all your library books are overdue. There you have cricket."
This morning, I have been listening to BBC RADIO'S TEST MATCH SPECIAL online to the first day of the Ashes Test, the biennial series between England and Australia.
Cricket will be a distant memory by the time I arrive in England in December, so I must get my fix while I can.
Now, then, if I could only get my hands on some Pimm's -- tut-tut and all that.
Whitehall... Oxford Street... Portobello Road...
