Today’s automatic cloud backup of these words is brought to you by Dunkin’. America runs on Dunkin! No, this is not a paid ad. I’m just using their wifi and giving them a nod seems the decent thing to do. I had a small Americano, and it will be the last cup of coffee I have until, oh, 2 AM. Then I am POUNDING that stuff, inasmuch as you can pound a hot beverage.
I am at my accustomed place at the airport, and you might wonder - who has an accustomed place? It’s a nice area in the main concourse.
I mean literally nice.
There are outlets galore and sofas. I can watch the Food Court video with the tumbling krinkle-cuts, and my friends, you may count yourself a level 5 Bleatnik if you remember the matter of the tumbling crinkle-cuts, and the subsequent discovery at a Mexican canal-side bar that the crinkle-cuts are made from inferior potatoes. I have had a roast-beef sandwich, smallish, to hold me over until dinner is served, somewhere over . . . New England? I don’t know. But I do know that I am rarely as happy as when I am tucked in a window seat with my phone on its little stand, dinner before me, a glass of red in hand. Of course I will be awakened after an interval of thin jerky sleep and breakfast will be thrust upon me, and I’ll eat it, even though I expended not a single calorie since I finished the brownie. But you eat it right up.
Maybe I should have a donut.
Or maybe I won't.
If I recall correctly, this guy had a hipster donut shop in Dinkytown. Looks like some VCs thought they had a thing here. Good for him, hope it all works, despite the excessively sibilant name, but . . .
Ugh. AND USE AN APOSTROPHE
Security was long - not slow, but long. They’ve eliminated the requirement to remove your laptops and electronics, and that speeds everything along. It also means that people like me who are have a laptop, an iPad, batteries, drone batteries, and a portable speaker (Lithium battery) and a remarkable array of cords, well, we’re going to get special treatment.
I have an hour and a half to kill. I could write a Substack. The Bleat is finished for the Hiatal week. The other projects are on the side burner and the gas has been turned off. Maybe I’ll have a glass of wine and sit and watch the planes take off into the clouds.
LATER That is exactly what I did. Very restful. I even bought a snack, thinking “I am so confident of my immediate financial future that I bought cashews at an airport.”
OVER THE ATLANTIC There was a brownie. A white truffle brownie. The chicken was nothing special, once I got it out of my lap. Yes, I was carving it up, and the tray was unbalanced, and it went into my lap. If I’d had the manicott there would have been sauce all over.
I slept a few hours. Good and solid, too, I think, although everyone fools themselves about how much sleep they get. Woke and called for a cup of coffee. Now I am sitting in a chair hurtling through the air, watching football. Every so often I open the shade to see if there’s sun out there. No. Two hours to go.
Arrived in the dark, in the rain. Having my coffee in the terminal, as is my way. Couldn't remember where the coffee place is, as is my way. Every time I take the lift down to the transit platforms, and remember: no, it's inside the terminal. I think I've finally soldered that fact in place.
Nothing like arriving in a foreign country and you're texting the people you're supposed to meet and no one is replying. Well, I'm sure they're around. Busy or phone's dead or something.
The next step is to take the Elizabeth Line, or the Lizzie Whizzer, 30 minutes into London to Tottenham Court Road, and then either find my way down to Hampstead to meet everyone at Jesus’ house, or take the tube north and connect there. Feeling very much like an old London hand, inasmuch as I have a general idea of where I am going and how to get there.
LATER Well. Took the Whizzer as planned. Was asked on the platform by a group of ACTUAL ENGLISH PEOPLE where this train went, and I was able to tell them. Old London hand that I am, you see. The instructions I had from Astrid were basic - Whizzer to Tot Court Road, then the Northern Line to Belsize. I get to the Northern Line, and to my horror the line splits at one point, with one train going where I want, the other line going elsewhere. The boards do not show the train I need. There’s a guy on the platform in official tube garb with portable speaker, saying something about a station being closed; I asked him when the train for Edgeward is due since I don’t see it on the board.
“As I just said,” he says, “you have to take this line to Camden Town and change for Belsize. There is no direct line.”
Okay mate sorry. I text this to Astrid, who is prowling around in a car in the rain, and she texts WHAT. So I figure I will end up in Whitechapel in a bedsit with my guts pulled out. Or, trust the map. I make it just fine.
And I did. Belsize station.
Of course it has its own Wikipedia page, which notes:
The station was opened on 22 June 1907 by the Charing Cross, Euston & Hampstead Railway as an intermediate station on its line from Charing Cross to Golders Green. It is served by three lifts which descend 33.2 metres (109 ft) to the platforms. The platforms can also be reached by stairs; there are 219 steps according to the sign in the station, which is equivalent to a 15 story building.
Yikes. With a suitcase, no less.
Over to the Powell’s for coffee and pastries. Astrid and Denis had been down to London for a memorial for a director friend, and Denis had done a number with Roger Allam, a number from one of Denis’ musicals. (Small world: Allam is half of the married duo in a BBC radio comedy written by Walbers residence Jan Etherington, with whom we are having dinner at the Anchor this week.) Lots of luminaries. Jonathan Pryce in the corner, looking a bit condescendingly at everything.
Now, the last time I was at the Powells’ I was asking him about being Jesus As Written by Anthony Burgess, but this time I just have to ask about the other movie, because when I was a young man I was thrilled beyond measure to learn there was a biopic of my favorite composer, and then it turned into this thing where he was haunted by Nazi Nuns on Crosses, or something. I mean, the man was GUSTAV FREAKING MAHLER.
Well, it is Ken Russell.
We have a delightful conversation about that before moving on to American politics. I have had two hours of sleep. It is about 4 AM by my body.
In the car to head up to Walbers. I fall asleep and dream I am on the plane, which made for a frightening moment when they stopped for gas and I thought the plane had stopped. Once we got back, I hit the hay in the Huut for another two solid hours, and this brought me back to baseline for the rest of the night.
Dinner at the Anchor, with Mabel in her place on the corner cushion.
The server smiled and welcomed me back: it is the American! Ghost Ship ale and fish, then back to the house for a whisky and merry conversation with the usual stories: the time Dorothy Lamour came to one of Peg’s last convention appearances. Hadn’t heard that one. A report from Palin’s appearance up in Norwich.
Couldn’t be a more perfect first day. Starting in chill and damp, ending with clear skies and a high moon caught in the trees. As ever, the same immediate emotions: this is, in so many ways, the Other Home.
And now, with the aid of a small half-pill, I hope to sleep until 7. If I wake at 4 AM to the sound of pigeons, well, I’ve survived that before, and I’ll survive it again.
