Ian feeding his alpaca. Photo by David Lansing.

Ian took me around yesterday morning to have a look at some of the other residents on their estate, beginning with several alpacas. Cute little buggers. He made a little whistling sound and a juvenile camelid (alpacas belong to the same family as camels and llamas), newly shorn, mosied over to eat oats out of Ian’s hand.

I asked him about the shorn hair, which is quite valuable, and he said that at the moment it was in a heap in a garbage bag. “We’re not sure what to do with it,” he admitted. “We haven’t quite figured out how one goes about having a sweater or some socks made from alpaca hair. I mean, who do you give it to?”

Good point. I can’t imagine that there are a lot of women in their little village of Wiltshire with a thriving business weaving alpaca fibers. But then again, it can’t be terribly different from weaving wool, can it? Still, who would you give a bag of wool to and expect to get a sweater in return?

After feeding the alpacas, we went up the hill to the stables and Ian opened a rather large lock and pulled back the door. I asked why on earth he needed to lock up the stables way out here in the country. He said that shortly after they’d bought the estate, they’d had some saddles and other gear stolen. Evidently there’s an established band of gypsies in the area that will steal a car in one village then drive to another and just drive up to one country estate or another, stealing whatever is easily accessible. Not long after their saddles had been pilfered, the thieves returned, looking for more loot, and got stuck on the drive by the newly-installed electronic gates. So they just abandoned the car and fled into the woods.

I’ll bet they would have known what to do with a plastic bag full of alpaca hair.

Ian and Liz's little country house in Wiltshire. Photos by David Lansing.

Sunday afternoon I took the First Great Western train from Paddington to Westbury to visit friends at their country house in Wiltshire.

I just love saying that. Taking a train from Paddington to Westbury to visit friends in the country. It sounds so Bloomsbury, so Virginia Woolf-ish. Did she ever take the train from Paddington to Westbury? She must have.

This country house in Wiltshire is owned by two of my favorite people in the world, Ian and Elizabeth. Ian looks a bit like a graying Gene Wilder. He’s a very successful barrister. Remember when the Beatles Apple sued Apple computers for copyright infringement after Apple started selling music through iTunes? He represented Apple computers (and won). Amazingly enough, he was also a British ice skating champion in his youth (there’s a long, wonderful story about his skating career, but that will have to wait for another day).

Anyway, Ian and Liz invited me to spend a couple of days at their country house in Wiltshire, so Sunday I took the train. And when I got to the little station in Westbury, there was Ian, waiting for me. We drove ten or fifteen minutes through the green rolling countryside, not far from Stonehenge, and all the while I was thinking that any minute we were going to pull up to some drafty barn-like structure in a pasture full of sheep. Instead, when we got there, we actually had to pass through an electronic gate meant to keep their 150-plus deer inside their little deer park.

Ian stopped the car so I could take a look at a herd of about 30 or 40 deer rambling up the hill. “They’re mostly Sika deer,” Ian said, “although we’ve also added some red deer recently.”

And then we were coming down the hill and passing between two ponds, shaded with weeping willows, with a little wooden bridge over one of the ponds and a boathouse and a rowing skull and coots and ducks and geese. And up ahead was this “little” white stone, two-story country house that looked like some place Winston Churchill might have holed up to write his memoirs after the rabble threw him out of 10 Downing following the War, and there was Liz at the door in a gossamer summer frock holding a chilled bottle of Montrachet.

“Well, do come in and have a drink,” she said.

So I did. And I don’t think I’m ever going to leave.

Nick, who has a tongue to rival Gene Simmons, just before getting lost in London. Photo by David Lansing.

One last story about Bebe’s party. Actually, this story takes place after the party had ended about 2 a.m. Sunday morning. It seems that a post-party, attended mostly by friends of Hardy and Bebe’s young adult children, took place at their house after the big soiree. One of the attendees was Nick, an extremely intelligent and thoughtful young man who graduated last year from Berkeley and is preparing to go on to graduate school to study marine biology or something. I give you the basic details of his education to let you know that he is an extremely smart kid, the following story not withstanding.

Obviously there was a fair amount of booze consumed at Bebe’s party. And then just a tiny bit more was consumed at the post-party. So when Nick finally decided he needed to head back to his hotel, shortly after three in the morning, he was a bit wobbly. And disoriented. In fact, he had no idea where his hotel was (despite the fact that it was only about a block away from the post-party). So he wandered around for a bit, in his dishdasha and green and gold prayer cap, lost, until he had the somewhat good sense to call his younger sister Anna, who’d long since gone to bed, and ask her how to get to the hotel.

Under normal circumstances, Anna probably would have thrown on some clothes and gone to rescue her brother, but since it was so late and he was only a block away from the hotel, she simply gave him instructions and went back to sleep. Until the phone rang about an hour later. This time there was a London policeman on the other end of the line.

Evidently Nick had been unable to locate his hotel, as close as it was, and so had decided to head back to Hardy and Bebe’s house to ask for assistance. But instead of ringing their doorbell he’d rung that of a neighbor. Who looked out her window and saw a young man in Arab clothing staggering around on her doorstep at three in the morning. Of course, she did the sensible thing and immediately rang up the police who arrived moments later.

When Anna showed up, moments after getting the call from the police, Nick was still trying to explain to everyone why he was wearing a dishdasha and kufi cap and why he’d rung the doorbell of a complete stranger at four in the morning. Anna took over. And amazingly, the two police officers not only believed her story about the Middle Eastern costume party they’d been to that night but also released Nick into her custody with the understanding that she would immediately escort him back to the nearby hotel. Which she did. With the officers trailing close behind in their vehicle.

So everything was fine. Until Nick, for some unknown reason, decided to lift up his dishdasha while standing in the lobby of the hotel and, just as the patrol car was about to depart, started giving the officers a little belly dancing demonstration.

At which point Anna grabbed her brother, blew a kiss to the stunned police officers, and rushed upstairs, dragging her drunk brother behind her. Where, one can assume, Nick spent the rest of what was left of the night blissfully passed out.

Ah, youth.

Photo by David Lansing.

Hardy spent at least six months planning Bebe’s birthday party. And, as these things go, the plans just got bigger and bigger as time went on. He signed off on belly dancers, snake charmers, fortune tellers, and even a harem to give guests massages. At one point he was thinking of getting a couple of camels for the party but it seems London has some sort of strange restrictions on allowing camels on to the grounds of the Banqueting House just because a couple of English kings once lived there. Pity.

So, no camels, but the belly dancers were a hit. They stood on cubes along the entrance into the hall, gyrating like Middle Eastern versions of go-go dancers from the 60s. Everyone was fascinated by them, particularly, it seemed to me, the women. So, of course, everyone wanted to have a photo taken of them with a belly dancer. But the thing was, the belly dancers have their own guild or union or something and, just like the “no camels in London” policy, there are rules for what you can and can’t do with a belly dancer. Evidently one of the big no-no’s is touching the girls. Even if it’s just to take a photo.

Naturally enough, I couldn’t resist trying to get that very shot. So I suggested to Greg G., a buddy who was on last year’s Cuban fishing trip with me, that he hop on the cube and let me snap a pic. He was a little hesitant about it. Until I cleared it with the belly dancer. So, during a break in the music, he got up there with the dancer, although they were about a foot apart. As I was pretending to focus, I encouraged them to get a little closer….closer…closer. Until the dancer really had no choice but to slip an arm around Greg, just to keep her balance.

Click!

Since I didn’t use a flash the shot is a little blurry. But I kind of like it that way. It represents the rather hazy hedonistic tone of the entire evening. And makes the belly dancer looks as mysterious and erotic as she really was.

My Queen of Jordan date surrounded by Ali Baba and his 40 thieves. Photo by David Lansing.

Saturday was big surprise party for Bebe at London’s Banqueting House just down the street from the Prime Minister’s residence. Bebe didn’t know anything about the party; or she knew about it all along. It’s hard to tell which. It was put on by her husband, Hardy, as a way to celebrate both her birthday and their wedding anniversary.

The theme was “Middle Eastern Glam.” Now, if, like me, you are wondering what, exactly that would mean, Hardy included some suggestions, since this was to be a costume party, in the invitation.

They included, but were not limited to: Aladdin, Bogart in Casa Blanca, Mata Hari, Lawrence of Arabia, Rommel, Yasser Arafat, King Fahd, Omar Sharif, Queen Nefertiti, Colonel Gaddafi (or his female bodyguards) and Versace.

I’m not sure how Versace made the list (and I have no idea what the colonel’s female bodyguards might look like, but I like the idea).

The problem is, I don’t really do costumes. For Halloween, when I was a kid, I would almost invariably put on my Little League uniform. So one year I was a Dodger; the next year I was a Met. That was my idea of a costume.

Still, I didn’t want to upset Hardy or Bebe. So I thought long and hard about my costume. Aladdin was obviously out, but Lawrence of Arabia had a certain appeal to it. But where does one go about getting a good Lawrence of Arabia costume in London? I had no idea. Humphrey Bogart seemed like a definitely possibility, but then again, I imagined that every other guy at the party would be dressed in a white tuxedo and we’d all be mistaken for the wait staff (“I say, old fellow, mind fetching me another glass of champagne?”), so that was no good.

Since my date was going as a very fetching Queen Rania of Jordan (definitely Middle Eastern glam), I thought perhaps I could go as her secret service detail. Which would mean wearing a very nice black suit, sunglasses, and an ear-piece. Sort of the non-costume costume. I don’t know if it worked, exactly, but I sure felt more comfortable in my suit than I would have an Ali Baba outfit. And anyway, nobody was looking at me; they were all staring at the Queen of Jordan, as they should have.

Wong Kei, in Chinatown, used to have the rudest waiters in London. Not anymore. Photos by David Lansing.

Just before heading for London I got an e-mail from a reader who is from London but now lives in China. He wrote, “Next time you’re in London be sure to visit Chinatown for two reasons. Firstly, the energy of the place will give you an idea of Canton and secondly eat roast duck noodle soup at the legendary Wonkey Chinese restaurant. It’s a legend of a place that is famous for supercilious very rude waiters. It’s a hoot. They even sell t-shirts bearing the words “upstairs/downstairs” because that is pretty much how they greet you on entry.”

So, with nothing better to do today, I took the Tube to Leicester Square and started walking up and down the back streets of Chinatown. I don’t know what I was thinking. Do you know how many restaurants there are in Chinatown? At least ten thousand. Okay, maybe not that many, but a hell of a lot.

I had no address, no landmarks, nothing. Just “the legendary Wonkey Chinese restaurant,” which, I discovered after asking every produce vendor in the neighborhood is not so legendary because no one had ever heard of it. But you know, it was nice out and as Mike Smith, the reader who sent me the e-mail, said, there was a certain energy to Chinatown that was fun to see, even if it looked like I was going to miss out on the supercilious rude waiters.

And then, just as I came to the end of Wardour, the last street in Chinatown, there it was. Only it wasn’t “Wonkey” it was Wong Kei. Not that that would have made any difference in my search. Even though it was five minutes until noon, there was a big sign blocking the doorway proclaiming that the restaurant was closed. Since a waiter was standing just outside the door smoking a cigarette (I figured it had to be a waiter since he was wearing a black UPSTAIRS/DOWNSTAIRS t-shirt), I asked him how come the restaurant was closed.

Roasted duck noodle soup.

“Not time,” he said, blowing a ring of smoke my way.

Evidently Wong Kei doesn’t open until noon; not five minutes to noon or even one minute to noon, but noon.

Anyway, I have to say I was very disappointed in the service. Not only did they give me a very nice table on the ground floor facing the street, but the waiter was also very attentive and quick. When I ordered a Tsingtao, it was on the table in less than 30 seconds. When I asked the waiter what was good, he actually hunched over the menu and gave me his opinion about three or four dishes. The aromatic duck with pancakes was very good he said.

“That sounds like crap,” I said, trying to make him cranky. It didn’t work; he nodded in agreement. Finally, with a big smile, he offered to have the chef cook up something special for me.

What the hell? Where were the supercilious rude waiters Mike Smith had promised me?

As it was, I ended up getting the roast duck noodle soup, as Mike Smith had suggested, and it was delicious and enough food for two people, and then my waiter brought out a special Singapore seafood noodle dish that was to die for.

“You like?” my waiter asked, grinning at me as I slurped it up. I shrugged with indifference.

I’ve since learned that Wong Kei went through a renovation a few years back and some people say the service just hasn’t been the same. There’s talk on various restaurant bulletin boards of happy waiters and efficient service. They say that you can even get up from the table and go to the bathroom and when you get back, your food will still be there. Something that never would have happened four or five years ago. It’s a shame. It seems that even in London’s Chinatown, you just can’t get lousy help these days.

Photo by David Lansing.

Like I told you, it’s been unusually hot and humid in London this summer. Yesterday as I was walking through Hyde Park, not far from the Princess Diana memorial, I spotted any number of young people splashing about in the torpid waters of the lake despite very British signs not five feet away proclaiming that there was to be absolutely no swimming.

This afternoon while looking for a cool place to spend an hour or so I came across this little paved square tucked in the corner of one of my favorite small London parks, the Victoria Embankment Gardens. Seeing all these hot, sweaty Brits draped over blue- or red-striped sling chairs, well, it gave me a laugh. I mean, there’s nothing really funny about it. They’re just ordinary people taking a breather in a canvas sling chair in the park. Except they don’t put the chairs in the section of the garden where there are flowers and fountains and trees. They put them in a square, secluded from prying eyes with a six-foot-tall hedge, on very hot pavers.

And what were the people doing in these sling chairs? Nothing. Oh, maybe one or two were glancing at one of the tabloids or sending text messages to their friends, but that was about it. For the most part, it was just a couple here, a couple there, sitting on the chairs inches above radiantly hot paving stones, dozing off.

I don’t know why but, really, it gave me a laugh. And when I got over my mirth, I found an empty chair and sat myself down. It was quite pleasant.

The Warhol gallery at the Tate Modern. Photos by David Lansing.

After stalling for a couple of days, I finally made it to the Tate Modern today. Every time I go, I swear it’s the last time. Because it always leaves me feeling depressed. I’ll look at something, like a pile of sticks with some red cloth draped over it or a framed printing that says I AM A MAN, and it not only seems pretentious to call it art but I get this impression of some nervous narcissist out there who is just totally full of themselves in a very unhealthy way. It’s like all the Baby Boomer kids who grew up being told that they were “special” and “gifted” and being given trophies for coming in last place in soccer because “everyone’s a winner” and now they’re making art—or what they think is art—and they want us to look at their very indulgent nonsense and say, “Oh, my, isn’t that wonderful.”

Yes, fine, you're a man, but are you art?

Except it’s not. It’s shit.

When Damien Hirst puts a tiger shark in 224 gallons of formaldehyde and someone buys it for $8 million, that doesn’t make him an artist or the dead shark a piece of art. It makes Mr. Hirst a very good salesman and it makes Charles Saatchi, who bought the first pickled shark, a fool. Until he sells it to some other fool for ten times the amount and then, okay, he’s an even better con man that Damien Hirst.

But then again, what the hell do I know. A lot of people felt the same thing about Andy Warhol when he was doing his soup cans and “Eight Elvises” back in the ‘60s. And I have to say, the only gallery at the Tate that made me smile and want to hang around for awhile was the room filled literally floor to ceiling with Warhols. To see a group of little British school kids sitting on the floor in front of a giant dollar sign drawing cow heads like the ones all around them? Priceless.

Will someone feel that way in forty years about a calf with 18-carat gold horns floating in a tank of formaldehyde? Hmmmmm…..

The fountains in front of Somerset House. Photo by David Lansing.

It’s been hot here in London. Hyde Park is dry and brown and nobody sits on the benches that aren’t shaded. In the Underground they play announcements warning people of dehydration and heat stroke. And everyone seems to know exactly when it last rained (two months ago? Three months?).

I was going to go to the Tate Modern this morning but it was just too damn hot. Instead, I took the Tube to Embankment, walked across the Golden Jubilee Bridge, and strolled along The Queen’s Walk, one of my favorite haunts along the Thames. You buy an ice cream and listen to a busker or watch the punks skateboard in the shadows of the National Theatre and just sort of watch the world go by. A perfect place for a flâneur.

After I decided I wasn’t going to the Tate after all, I crossed back over the river and wandered aimlessly up Riverside Walk, ducking into cool alleys and getting lost in the various warrens off The Strand until I stumbled into the courtyard of King’s College.

I’ve been to London a hundred times and never knew this place existed—a cobblestone quad with fifty or more dancing fountains shooting up into the sky, sometimes just a few feet off the ground and other times into a fire hose. What a great spot for kids to cool off. And there were lots of them here, all being carefully watched over by their mums who sat at black metal tables eating ice cream or munching sandwiches.

I struck up a conversation with one mum whose little tyke sat astride one of the fountains in such a way that it looked as if we were taking an arching 10-foot long pee. He couldn’t have been more than two or three years old—but certainly looked like he knew exactly what he was doing (and was immensely enjoying doing it).

His mother glanced my way, smiled, and said, “Well, yes, boys….” As if that’s all that needed to be said. And I suppose it was.

What does she mean, "Mind the gap"? Photo by David Lansing.

I never know what I think of London. Do I like it? Hmmm….Yeah, sure, it’s okay, I guess, although a whiff of sadness always hangs over the city for me. Those black taxis and “Mind the gap” announcements (is she talking to me? She must be talking to me. She knows) on the tube always take me back to my first visit here, ages ago, when I arrived as some sort of post-collegiate Huck Finn, running away from home and drifting along the Thames with no clue as to where I was headed.

Here’s the compressed story: After graduating from college, I broke off an engagement and decided I was not going to law school, as I’d originally planned. Instead, I sold off everything I owned, including a very nice ivory 1962 Porsche 356 Cabriolet (which, if in good condition, would easily go for $75,000 or more these days, though I think I got less than $3,000 for mine) and got on a charter flight for London with the intention of…well, I had no intentions.

I sat next to a very nice middle-aged German woman, named Krista, and, in answer to all of her questions—Why are you going to London? How long will you be there? Where are you staying—gave her the same reply: I don’t know.

I didn’t know. Like I said, I was just running away. Here’s something I remember: Because our charter flight had been delayed by almost 24 hours by mechanical problems, the flight attendants rolled out the beverage carts into the aisle and announced that it was an open bar. And since the cart was in the row where Krista and I were sitting, we had to do little more than reach over every time we wanted another gin and tonic. So we got slowly plastered.

“Does your mother know where you are?” Krista asked at one point, her maternal radar starting to kick in.

“Of course,” I lied. That fact is, no one knew where I was. Not a single soul.

By the time we landed in London, Krista had decided that I was to come stay with her, for at least a day, in her flat in Knightsbridge. Well, why not? As I said, I had no plan. Other than to eventually make my way to Paris where I would…what? God only knows.

So I stayed at Krista’s flat, sleeping in the basement with its slightly moldy smell, and I learned how to make espresso for her with a stovetop macchinetta and drove her in the afternoons to her clinic appointments for the breast cancer treatment she was undergoing (she would joke about whether she was more likely to die from cancer or my horrid driving) and spent most of my time in London just walking.

I don’t ever recall going to a restaurant or a play or even a museum. I just walked. And sat. To the Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park to listen to the communists or to Trafalgar Square to watch the pigeons flit about the stoic lions. I did not go to Westminster Abbey or the Tower of London or even Buckingham Palace. Why not? Because those were tourist sites and I was not a tourist.

What was I? Or who was I?

That was the question. I was, I guess, just a man walking about London.

I ended up staying at Krista’s for over a month. Until she was admitted to the hospital from which she never left. After which I moved on to Paris.

So. Do I like London? Why would I not?