Tuesday, November 3, 2009. I was having this dream that I was in a church and the church bell kept ringing and ringing. It turns out the bell was the alarm, and that is when Larry woke me up and said "It's 6.30!" The plan was to wake up, get to Westminster by 8am for the small Morning Prayer said in St. Faye's chapel so we get both the experience of having a service there, as well as get into the abbey free before the buss loads of tourists arrive. This didn't happen. I was down to breakfast and finished on time, but beauty takes time and Larry, looking radiant, didn't emerge until it was too late. So I had another cup of coffee at the breakfast table and listened to a man next to me chew with his mouth open for a few minutes longer. When a 16 year old girl joined Mr. GMN at the table behind Larry and started even worse than the man was with the disgusting mouth smacking, I abruptly stood up and announced that I was leaving. I couldn't take any more. People are disgusting. Really, really disgusting.
We made a few stops along the way and made it to the tube onto the circle line to Westminster in a light rain, umbrellas up. Exiting along the embankment and right next to the houses of Parliament at the very base of Big Ben, we walked with the weekday business crowd along the busy intersection toward the cathedral. The church opens for visitors at 9:30am, and we were about 15 minutes early. It was us and only a handful of other people, although the grass outside the church was bustling with people setting up these little teeny wooden crosses each with a red poppy fixed to it, remembering persons who have died in wars past. The whole time we've been here in London, there are these stalls and people selling these little paper red poppy pins you can stick onto your lapel and we have been wondering what they were for. Then they were setting them all up outside of the Abbey.
They opened the doors early, at about 9:22am and we were among the first people in there. I had a hard time keeping from quoting Alan Bennett from The Abbey the whole time we were in there, looking at tombs and telling Larry his stories from the documentary, in my best Alan Bennett voice. I imagine it got old, but that cathedral never, ever gets less amazing. I love that place. 3,000 people are buried in Westminster, and hundreds more are commemorated there. It's quite spectacular. Larry seemed to be enjoying himself, taking his time and sifting through the maze with his audio guide. We were in there and it never really got totally packed- I always get there as soon as they open in preparation for the throngs and usually my punctuality is met with several busloads of tourists most of whom always seem to be Japanese alighting from their massive busses, snapping pictures all the way. Then the fun of jostling with people and pushing one's way into the line and then fighting one's way around the abbey. The later it is when you go, the worse this phenomenon is as the place just gets more and more packed. We had a totally strange day as it was not crowded at all when we got there, and at no point did it seem to catch up to my expectations of business.
The abbey cloisters were open, so in we went which is the only spot in the place you can take any pictures. Things that were open that I'd never seen before were the Chapter House, where the monks would meet for "chapter" meetings, a room that is large and circular with huge, massively tall stained glass windows dominating one end of the room. Also open was the Pyx chamber which is where something was kept in these huge coffers on the right side of the room. I recall that you used to have to pay extra to get into the cloisters and the pyx chamber, but this was included with admission this time. They also opened a little museum in there, with a bunch of monarchs dressed in costume (many of which look al little bit hokey with the plastic jewels) and model heads, most of which were made out of their death masks. In the back farther into the cloisters, today was one of the few lucky days of the week that the college garden was also open- it opens onto this gorgeous huge courtyard where they grow vegetables, and they also have vines for grapes. Larry was excited to see the vines so I have a picture of me with the monastic fruits in the garden. At one end of the garden, through a wrought iron door, the Westminster school kids were out at recess and we observed for a few minutes before going back inside and competing our tour of the abbey. The college garden is this little courtyard that is enclosed in the middle of the dorms were the monks had their cells, also where the infirmary was located, which according to our audio tour guide, Jeremy Irons, they often had to go as there was the unusual problem with monks of eating too much and many of them were obese, and they often overindulged (see vines, above) so had to spend some time in the infirmary.
The weather continued to be unreliable, varying from moments where it seemed like it was going to clear up to a sunny day with some blue skies, then more rain clouds blowing in and drizzling. No hard, driving rain like there was on our first day, but a drizzly mist for much of it. As the rain started up again, we left the Abbey to head back to the hotel so I could take care of some business and we could be off our feet for a bit.
After our mid-afternoon rest, we headed back out again with the plan that we'd go on the Jack the Ripper walk- another thing I've done a number of times, but it's so much fun it keeps you going back. The Original London Walks is still the least expensive and still gives the best walk. They have one guide, Donald, who wrote two books on Jack and is quite the expert and has been giving these walks a long time (I saw him 10 years ago at least once, probably been on his walk twice) and does a great job. They have a bunch of other walks, I remember the haunted london one being very appealing that Lara and I did together, hearing about the old hospital is still something I remember. Before the walk, we had some time to kill, so we went back onto the Tube to Covent Garden. We picked up a couple of cornish pastries at the corner stand before hopping on the tube- this is a wise thing to do with Larry even when hunting for food- he's good when you say "I am hungry, this looks good, I want to eat here." Then he will invariably say "Sure." But in the absence of such assertiveness, the quest for a suitable place to eat usually means checking the menus at every place you pass, and deciding to "keep looking." So a little snack before terminal hunger sets in is a good thing, as terminal hunger often comes with crabbiness. As it turns out, the reminder of the night I would be paying for this street stall pasty..
On the way back, we ended up just walking in a direction I'd never walked before and we found ourselves down a very major thoroughfare, and just when you thought you knew London, it throws a 7 block massive cathedral structure at you that you've never even seen before at you, which was this great surprise. We left Covent Garden and headed down the Strand and came upon the royal courts of London in this absolutely massive gothic whitewashed building the likes of which can take your breath away, right there in the middle of this extremely busy street. We were surrounded by a bunch of judicial types, "Barristers" and judges and people in suits. We kept walking along the busy corridor and ended up walking into Ye Old Cock Pub for some beers and to get out of the rain that had again just begun. We had a couple of pints in there for about half an hour, then walked back down the strand east toward the city, where we once again found ourselves in the footprint of St. Paul's cathedral, so we thought we'd try to see it again. This didn't go quite so well- there was a huge stage with lights and actors and dancers and whatnot on the front steps rehearsing for "A Christmas Carol" which is being advertised all over the place. So we couldn't get in there.
Once
we got out of the rain, we sat down in the Cock's very charming atmosphere and
had a couple of pints. We noticed some really funny things since arriving here:
the pubs all seem to be the same: the same menus, the same beers, the same everything.
It's like all the chinese restaurants in the states: they have the same menus,
with the same pictures, use the same plastic dishes and plates, etc. Only the
pub itself seems to be different. So, we sat down for drinks. They had internet
access at the Cock, so we logged on with Larry's ipod and got onto the net.
He checked some email, I hacked google to look up the "Original London
Walks" since the brochure for one I picked up at the hotel was some other
company. I was glad we checked- we got the guide who wrote those books on Jack
the Ripper, so it was worth it to wait and do his tour instead of the one we
were planning at 6pm.
We had time, as it was only about 4 to get back to the hotel, get into our cool weather evening warmest and head back up to Tower Hill for the walk. Plenty of time. And time to throw in a meal, too. We tubed back to Gloucester Road and took a short walk down Gloucester away from the tube to see what was on our little block there, to find some pretty darn cute places. The Stanhope Arms is our local pub- and we are very familiar with 3 different Stanhopes associated with Samuel Merritt, so the likelihood of running into one was most amusing. We discovered some really expensive steak places- and there was this delicious sounding pasta with goat cheese and two types of tomatoes in the menu but that alone was 16 quid and there was *no* way I was going to pay 30 dollars for farafelle, despite the goat cheese. Across the street was this little falafel bar type place and they had this very appetizing skewer of sliced lamb roasting in the window that had Larry's juices flowing (the man really loves his lammies), so in we went. And it was cheap, cheap for London anyways. I had the roasted potato appetizer which was little chunks of potato with middle eastern spices and bits of peppers which was really delicious. We're talking serious comfort food there. I loaded it with hot sauce and tried to tell myself that it was not, in fact, brunch where you have these types of potatoes, and a wrap with lamb, salad and tahini. It was good, the lam was nicely spiced, but just a tad dry for my taste. Larry got the skewer plate which came with home made chipati-type bread things, three skewers one with beef, one with lamb, and one with chicken, also with some salad and fries. He was only lacking the tabouli in his pitas for it to have been the same as mine. It was good and I'd go there again.
Back at the hotel after our meal, we changed into our warmest things and got ready to take off or the JackWalk after a little downtime and footrest during which I worked on this page and Larry worked on his pictures (apple certainly makes it simple to enhance and edit photos! Not like this photoshop that I've been using 10 years and still can't use to save my life).
The walk was fantastic. Jack the Ripper was a serial killer back in 1886 and managed to slice and dice 4 middle-aged very sorry east london prostitutes who must have lived a very desolate existence indeed. There were over a hundred people at the station when we got there- and I was a bit freaked out that this group was so large there was no way we'd be able to really hear, let alone get the most of this walk or this great guide with this big a crowd. We did it anyways, as the guide didn't seem phased by the size and wasn't turning folks away at all. He was fantastic.
The infernal thing about Jack is that the killer was never apprehended. The police had a few suspects, but not really anybody that seemed like a real winner, and then suddenly a month after the first killing, Jack just stopped. As we know, he would never actually stop, so he either moved, was imprisoned, or died. The witness reports all peg him at 28-29 years old, white, male, and at least 5'3" and at most 5'7". He was possibly educated or had experience in surgery, butchery or something as police theorized that he knew what he was doing and his cutting seemed professional. My thoughts are that he would have had ample time to practice his craft and work up to the types of grisly murder and hacking he did with these women, so I'm not convinced. If we want to say the other things the FBI profilers always add in there, he is above average intelligence, he's organized, he's probably able to charm the women at least a bit into trusting him, he hates women and probably lived with a mother who was very controlling.
Yeah, I got it down, Quantico will be calling me next week..
Anyhow, Jack started with a prostitute named Mary Ann Nichols on August 31, 1888. His M.O. was strangulation followed by moving the head to the left when they were on the ground unconscious, and severing the carotid artery and left neck, then turning the head right and slicing the right side of the neck almost down to the spine. In two of the four cases, there was speculation that he may have been trying to decapitate the women. He used a 6-8inch very sharp knife with a sharp point on the end to do this to these women. Once the throat was cut, he sliced open the guts from vagina up to the sternum, eviscerated them and threw their guts over their right shoulders. He spent 3-5 minutes with his victims and usually picked dark alleys- and apparently knew when the constable's beat was dut to come around again (every 15 minutes) and didn't necessarily shy away from places where he could have been spotted, or heard at all. This all indicates a very brazen killer, taunting the police and the head of a local vigilante group that was hunting him. There was some discussion of him writing letters to the police, although the only thing that can be attributed to Jack himself (the media dubbed him Jack the Ripper- he himself did not) was a bit of one of the victims' kidneys in box he sent with a letter to the head of the vigilantes that was signed "From Hell." Patricia Cornwell reports to have solved the ripper case, but her evidence is largely circumstantial and the "evidence" she says she has in in the way of mitochondrial DNA which was so degraded that the odds of this being the killer were only 1 in 10. OJ got off on odds of 1 in 150,000. So our guide is not convinced at all that her painter is the killer, and neither was Larry. The picture above and left is architecture which is contemporary to the murders, and the Ten Bells pub is one which all 4 victims were known to have frequented, and played a big part in the Johnny Dep movie about Jack. Although they re-created it in Prage, this was the real deal.
After the tour, we bought the book the guide wrote and I had him autograph it for me, then we walked back to the toward the tube station and passed an appetizing loosing bar in which I spied martini glasses. I asked Larry if he wanted to stop in for a drink, which is almost unnecessary since the answer will always be in the affirmative. In we went to the B@1.
In the B@1 we met a really, really enthusiastic and energetic super young bartender who eventually we came to know as Marco who was from a very little town in northern Italy between Lake Como and Milan who served us our first cocktails. Larry ordered a Jamison double up, and I got a vodka martini. Marco took a very long time to make my vodka martini and it was all done with this great ceremony, so when the drink finally arrived after all this excessive stirring and mixing and dumping and icing, it really was one of the very best martinis I have ever been able to recall having. Larry and I both kept on sipping, and eventually got to order a second round, this time prepared by our equally young, enthusiastic and energetic bartender, Lina from Norway who made the martini much in the same fashion as Marco but faster. Lina was very entertaining, so was Marco, really, but I only understood about 1/4 words, and Lina's english was more natural. We were eventually visited by Alan who was the manager, and he "heard" that there were two martini aficionados at the end of the bar and came and gave us a hell of a show for free- he wanted to make me the "Alan" martini, only for persons who like a a really discriminating cocktail. He went through this very elaborate ceremony with the maritini, which I got dry, a little dirty, vodka and up. It was, hands down bar none, the most precise, amazing and spectacular martini I believe I have ever tasted. I want to believe that it was because I was a discriminating palate at the end of the bar to an aficionado's skill, but part of me wonder how many of those he makes a week for "discriminating" palates who he wants to get into bed, or to drink more because they're already intoxicated. I know I'm cynical. I'm not sure how to cure that disease, but studies show I'm much more realistic in my worldview, so his motives are likely closer to the latter than the former. Larry was enthralled that bartenders in england have to legally doll out no more than the required oz amount appropriated in each cocktail, no more. Not at all like this "free pour" we are used to in SF. Lina even produced the "Exact-o-pour" meter where the bartender pours a specific amount (ie, 4 oz, 2oz, etc) to a second party who is the only one who can see the amount she poured. We had a very good time there, at the E@1 bar, with Larry's favorite rum from Cuba being the house rum, which he found very exciting. He ordered a 7 year old rum that Lina poured for him, sipped it slowly (let me try a sip- it was very, very smooth and I hate rum in general) and he said "The last time I drank this rum it was on a porch in Cuba with the dildo salesman from Canada." Who can come back to that?
Steps to the Alan perfect martini as best as Larry and I can recall them since i was well into my night at that point:
1. Put mound of chipped ice into martini glass
2. Fill pub pint with ice cubes, and splash in a little vermouth
3. Dump out vermouth and ice cubes
4. Fill pub glass with 2 oz pour vodka (or gin), refill glass with ice cubes
5. Fill cocktail shaker with chipped ice, put glass with vodka in there, then
stuff more ice along the sides
6. Stir the vodka with a cocktail spoon. Stir. And stir. No really, keep stirring,
and you do this for a solid 10 minutes
7. After vodka has been sufficiently stirred, dump out ice in martini glass
8. Peel off two peels of lemon, sqeeze the peel juice into the sides of the
glass to emulsify the inside products
9. Add one single spoonful (to taste) of ovlice juice to the cocktail shaker
glass of vodka and stir again for several minutes
10. Pull pint glass out of shaker, chipped ice will have melted it into a block
11. Pour vodka into glass with strainer and always serve the olives on the
side with your martini
I discussed with the gang that I wanted to send a note into Food Network to tell them about Alan and his perfect martini making: I could see a special on cocktails as science or something, we had them write their names down on a piece of paper, and Lina obliged us: The stars of this show were Alan Taylor, Manager, B@1, Lina Borge, 21 year old Norwegian ex-pat and expert precision pourer, and Marco Tagliabug, precision pourer in the making.
We went home eventually, I was four sheets to the wind with all those martinis, precisely poured or otherwise, it did the deed. We slept in and decided to pull the shade and not set the alarm for the morrow, just wake up when we may.