Friday, 3-20 - Quel Horror! The bloody (awful) London Dungeon and more...

Yes, Charles pretty much sums up nicely our Friday morning in London. Laura will refrain from any "I told you so's" in this blog. That being said the London Dungeon was a major disappointment! As mentioned in the caption to the left, it was overpriced AND lame. We thought at best it would be a cool Disney-esque Haunted Mansion experience recreating historical London nightmares (the Plague, Jack the Ripper, the great fire of 1666, etc.). Instead it made the "haunted asylum" we went to at the Pomona Fairgrounds a couple of years ago seem like high art in comparison.

How can one summarize the lameness you ask? We shall try. In essence the London Dungeon is a creepy, but cheaply done, series of art directed rooms that you walk through with a bunch of other hapless tourists led by Cockney-speaking guides (a new one in each room) describing the horror of the period depicted within. Each room is a different period in "chilling" London history (the Plague, Jack the Ripper, the great fire of 1666, etc.), and in some cases it looked like a lot of detailed set decoration was done but each room is also way too dark to see most of what's inside of it! Thus increasing the cheapness factor (smoke, mirrors, black lights, dim lights, etc.). And to make matters worse, we were stuck with a group of incredibly obnoxious junior high school age French kids! Mon dieu! (no offense to any of our French cousins who are all kind, generous and extremely well-behaved!) One of the more enjoyable aspects of this "amusement" was in observing the British workers' attitudes towards these unruly French lads. If this ride were in the U.S. we have no doubt that a translator and "sensitivity expert" would be present to take these French kids by the hand and give them a private, guided tour. Not with the Brits. You don't want to piss off the Brits, let me tell you! We had trouble enough understanding the thick, Cockney accents and we speak English! The French kids were having trouble (why were they even there?) and kept interrupting the guides. When they yelled out, "we do not understand!" the Brits said, "We don't care!" and "Oi!" when they were doing something they should not be doing. No sensitivity training for these blokes. One fed-up worker even threatened to kick them out when they were being loud and disruptive...you get the picture. ANYWAY, getting back to the distraction, I mean attraction...the event started out with some cool ideas -- one small room filled with LIVE rats crawling around on a plague victim - that's something we haven't seen before. Another large area recreated the final "mirrored room" scene in Bruce Lee's "Enter the Dragon" -- the guides kept changing the panels so you really had no idea where you were going. Unfortunately the stupid French kids decided to start a slam pit and gleefully began pushing each other INTO the mirrors when they couldn't find a way out. Bloody brilliant, lads. Oh, another highlight was Laura being put on trial by a be-wigged judge for carrying on like a witch and "dancing naked in the streets." Said judge asked Laura to demonstrate her evil-doings in front of the group, to which Laura responded "not in front of everyone," hence giving the judge the impression that she would do a private demonstration just for him. Does this warrant a second picture in our blog? Heck, why not?! Well, enough space dedicated to this abomination!

We followed up our London Dungeon experience with a trip to the London Transport Museum. But first we met up with Issy and Maya, who wanted to join us at the museum, for lunch at Covent Garden. (Thankfully they did not join us at the London Dungeon - little Maya would be forever emotionally scarred by the experience; Laura is still trying to recover herself.) We met them in front of St. Paul's Church where they were watching a spectacularly unfunny performer (a mime with a Janet Jackson/Britney Spears-esque head gear/microphone thingy - are mimes supposed to speak???) doing his thing -- the Brits have nothing over us yanks when it comes to street performers, that's for damn sure! Issy made the lunch suggestion of "pasties" to eat. We looked at each other with surprise at this suggestion -- perhaps she was thinking of some kind of kinky, edible underwear place? Just goes to show you what London can do to a Huntington Beach gal -- ha ha -- perhaps not. It seems that pasties are to eat (not to wear):

The traditional Cornish pasty (never, never to be pronounced paisty) is an oval shaped pastry pie containing steak, potato, onion and turnip, which tastes as it looks – absolutely wonderful. They come in three sizes, large, medium and small and cost £2.70, £2.30 and £1.40

We were starving by now so this was the perfect bite to eat. Extremely tasty as well.

The London Transport Museum was just around the corner from where we were. This place had gotten some good reviews but we didn't really know what to expect. Well, as it turned out when it comes to new museums you can't beat the Brits. Like the Churchill /War Rooms we saw on Monday, this was another type of museum that could have been deadly dull in the wrong hands. Fortunately the people behind the exhibits put together some intelligent, creative displays that showcased the history of London mass transit -- from horse and carriage through the early trains, to the light railways to the modern subways and buses they have today. There was even a detailed section on the history of how the modern "Tube" logo came to being, something which piqued Charles' graphic design sensibilities. Several other displays allowed you to walk into the old buses and subway cars themselves. Amazing that so many pieces of transportation were kept in such good condition. They even had mannequins in correct period dress seated in the various buses and subways. After going through the exhibit and spending some cash in their fine gift shop (a very cool "mind the gap" t-shirt and several postcards and fridge magnets) we departed for Issy & Roger's pad to change into our "evening wear" before our evening activities commenced.

The four of us had dinner reservations at Arbutus, located in the Soho district and known for "modern European cooking, straight & true." The food was excellent (Laura had Scottish steak, Charles and Roger the Atlantic Sea bass, Issy the bouillabaisse) and we headed over to the Apollo theater afterward with Roger excitedly telling us that he and Charles "had to try out" the "cod pieces" that would be located outside the pubs later on. We weren't sure what to make of it -- but we weren't really looking forward to it either!

The play were seeing was entitled "Three Days of Rain" starring James McAvoy (of "Narnia" and "Atonement" fame) and is described as such:

Three Days of Rain explores how the private worlds of one generation are reinterpreted by the next. A tender and surprising story of love lies at the heart of a creative conflict which could never have been imagined by these children. The actors play both generations in this warm, funny and touching play about family and the enigma of parenthood.

We were happy to be in this excellent theater which was built in 1901 and was described as the "first West End theatre of the Edwardian period" and which had hosted performances by actors like Peter O'Toole and Laurence Olivier. Since we had a little time to kill before it started we wandered about and decided to grab a quick drink in the cool bar before the show. After getting our drinks the bartender asked if we wanted to "pre-order" for intermission. This was an excellent idea and we accepted his kind offer. He gave Roger a ticket and told us which table our drinks would be at - no waiting around a crowded bar - our drinks would be there the second we got out! (And don't we feel like rubes - a few days later, Laura's father, Frank, told us they've been doing this at the Music Center in downtown L.A. for awhile!)

With the show about to start we went to our (very good) seats. The play was set in New York in the early '60s. The main set piece was the interior of a large architectural office that had not been in use for several years. The art direction, sound and lighting were first rate - you felt like you were in New York at that time. Unfortunately the British actors' American accents were a bit distracting. Only one of them had a passable accent that didn't call attention to it. Their constant shouting at each other didn't help. After intermission, when the actors played the "previous generation" one of them put on a terrible Southern accent which may have sounded authentic to an Englishman but sounded pretty phony to us. It is a shame that they didn't simply change the location to London as there wasn't anything that specific about the plot that would have forced it to be a New York locale.

Here is an excerpt from one rather ghastly review:

For those who admire Greenberg’s play, the first half, set in 1995, in which the three grown-up children of two famous architects gather to learn the details of their inheritance following the death of the last surviving partner is sheer purgatory. There’s no rhythm to the playing, no wit in the delivery, no sense that this is a brother, a sister and a childhood friend and former lover who have known each other all their lives. The male actors appeared to be in a competition to see who could shout the loudest; no one seemed to be listening to anyone else; and the excessive deluge effects seemed more appropriate to a lavish production of Singing in the Rain.

While none of us were in love with this play, we didn't share the reviewer's complete disdain. It was a great theater and it was fun to be in the famous "West End" area. We took a walk around the busy district, avoided the zealous barkers trying to get us to spend our money in their clubs, then wandered into a nearby pub. This was a pretty cool little place (though nothing as nice as "The Cheshire Cheese"!) and we enjoyed another round of drinks. One of the bewildering drawbacks about this great, international city lay in the bizarre closing times of its drinking establishments. We didn't think there could be anything worse than California with it's 2 AM laws but here in London, the pubs without a "late licence" (which means 90% of them) close at 11:00 pm! After being in the pub for only 20 minutes or so we were ushered out by a burly "don't piss me off" bartender because it was the shockingly late time of 10:50! Very odd - but this turned out to be a good thing since the tube stations were closing soon. After walking around a bit we stumbled into the "codpiece" Roger was mentioning earlier. Naturally Charles and Roger had to "try it out" (see photo of them PRETENDING to, uh, utilize it). Here is a description of the "Urilift" from one website:

The two-metre high, stainless steel construction containing three urinals, will be stored underground during the day. It will pop up at 10pm and drop down again at approximatel y 3am every day...A spokesman for Surrey Police said: “We think that the Urilift will be a positive thing for the town centre. “If they’re used properly, they will be of benefit to the community and generally people using the town at night.”

Not too sure on how you can use this thing "improperly" or why bigger "privacy walls" weren't installed. We didn't see anyone using these and hope they will prove useful.

We got on the tube and headed back to our friends' pad, making plans to go to Hampton Court Palace tomorrow for our final day in England...