Rudders at Home

They’ve found a bomb in East London. No, not the kind you’re thinking of. They’ve found an unexploded World War II bomb in a place called Bromley-by-Bow. (No, this is nowhere near where I live, folks – closer to where I work!) This has, of course, disrupted travel in the city. And, in true London style, the news isn’t about the fact that a 60+ year old bomb has been found, but about the fact that travel has been disrupted.

Tonight, they’re trying to difuse the thing – which seems to be a good thing because reports say that it’s been ticking.  “They” are the Royal Engineers. Apparently, they seem to have a bit of experience with this sort of thing. There seem to be any number of left over unexploded bombs in London. It’s good to keep in mind that some of those on that list have been taken care of since it was produced, so it isn’t definitive. So, why are these bombs all over London? Well, they are all a consequence of The Blitz.

When you start to think about this, you begin to realize that there’s a bit more to the reason why people are constantly bringing up “The War.” Somehow, it doesn’t seem quite so out of touch to me now.

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So, this past weekend Paul and I took a day and spent it in London. I wanted to show him my new work neighborhood, known more formally as the “City of London .” Also, I wanted to explore the area a bit without any pressure to get anywhere within an hour, like I would have to do during lunch.

I took the camera along, and shot this picture of the Gherkin. I get to see it every day now.

The Lloyd’s building, as in, Lloyd’s of London, is right behind me where I’m taking this photo.

We also wandered around Leadenhall Market , which was closed. I took some pictures of Leadenhall Market, but I’ll publish those later – I wouldn’t want to spoil you, after all.

Afterwards, we headed back to London Bridge and relaxed for a while in a pub there. We hadn’t been out in London for a while, so it was a nice afternoon.

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I never did tell you guys what we did for Paul’s birthday. I took him to Voluptè for cabaret and burlesque. Essentially dinner theater – we had a nice meal and caught the nightly show. And to top it off, we saw this girl pop balloons off her body with a metal skewer and then eat fire!

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I used to see Big Ben every day on the train into London. It’s just a link. Very disappointing, I’m sure. For some INSANE reason, I don’t seem to have a decent picture in my gallery. You would think after almost five years I would have a solid collection of digital images of one of the most popular structures in London. But I don’t. I’m off this weekend to take some. With my new camera. At least, that’s the plan.

Anyway, enough about that.

Now, I see this:

Kinda gray at the moment, but it’s not a bad change, really.

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We went into London tonight to the theater and a nice dinner. We saw the Blue Man Group and then after had dinner at Sofra’s in Covent Garden. The Blue Man Group was fabulous, Sofra’s, this time round, not so good…
The Blue Man Group was fabulous. Going in you’re not sure what to expect. Only knowing them from the old Intel commercials in 2000 or so, the only thing you really know on the surface is that the show has three guys in it and they’re blue. It’s so much more than that, really. There’s paint, there’s music, there’s humor, there’s audience involvement – tons and tons of things to keep your attention. It was definitely one of the most entertaining shows that we’ve seen yet. It was so cool and a really good show.

Sofra’s was a bit disappointing this time round. Usually it’s so good, food and service-wise, but the service tonight was really bad, and I think it will be a while before we go back to it. Such a shame.

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