Doug PollardTravel notes from London
Dodi & Di's Memorial Pt 1
The receptionist at the hotel is from Uruguay: her colleagues are from Spain and Lebanon. The motherly woman who serves us coffee came from Portugal 42 years ago. The shyly flirtatious young man clearing the dishes explains he’s from Moscow.
On the street outside an Irish streetsweeper exchanges chitchat with his Ghanaian colleague. The girl selling newspapers in the station kiosk is Italian.
The first black cab I flag down is driven by a beautiful long haired blonde Polish woman. The next driver is Indian.
In Fleet Street Boots the Chemist, the traditionally-built supervisor has that lovely Caribbean lilt: the one in Marks & Spencers Oxford Street is an out-and-out Essex Girl.
This, I thought, is how you do ‘multicultural’. This is London.
Melbourne – Australia – you haven’t a clue.
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Some places clearly belong to specific cultures: Harrods really does live up to its nickname Harrabs. Dominant among the throngs of shoppers packing the place on a weekday afternoon are faces unchanged since their ancestors were depicted on the tomb walls and sculptures of the Valley of the Kings.
If you are smitten by rich, handsome olive-skinned young men with jet black hair and deepset blue eyes fringed with a camels extravagant lashes, look no further, they are here in hundreds, languidly browsing the aisles, their shrouded mothers a pace or three behind.
Once the high church of English nouveau-riche vulgarity, Harrods has been translated into a temple of matching Arab excesses.
Ride down the Egyptian escalators, a riot of sub-Tut kitsch, to the inner sanctum, the shrine.
The final flight lands you face to face with a Dodi & Diana memorial (pic above): an altar topped with a small acrylic pyramid. This encases a wine glass bearing traces of her lipstick and an engagement ring, surmounted by the twin gilt ovals of a ‘happy couple’ photo frame, as available from the gift department. Turn around and you discover a large golden kneeling pharaoh with a face closely resembling Dodi’s daddy Mohammed, paying homage.
Daddy Pharoah
Lest anyone think this is a coincidence, elsewhere in the escalator hall a bust of Mohammed Al-Fayed as Pharaoh beams down at you. It was unveiled by Mr Al-Fayed himself, dressed in Pharaoh costume.
This is not quite as awful as the statue which awaits you should you ride to the top of the escalator, in which a sopping wet and barefoot Dodi & Di reach for a passing seagull. But it comes close. It is entitled ‘Innocent Victims’.
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The streets of Soho are not what they were. Sure, there’s still a fair bit of sleaze, but your ‘Thai Massage Parlour’ is now more likely to be staffed by boys than girls, and the peep shows offer penises at least as often as pussies.
To my jaded eyes the place didn’t look quite as gay as I remembered it from a few years ago – the novelty has worn off a bit. But there were more than enough same-sex couples holding hands, and slightly older gentlemen corseted in slightly too-young fashions, to let you know this was gaytown.
The style differs markedly from Melbourne: fewer skinny boys in skinny jeans and more homage to the tradie look. And a plethora of George Michael clones. Not George Michael 2011. George Michael as in Wham, complete with fake tan, blond-tipped waves, and half a box of Kleenex in his jeans.
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London has become much more French than I remember. Lots of French accents in the shops and on the streets. And lots of openly French restaurants, too. Alongside Starbucks and Angus Steak House, the other ubiquitous chain is Pret A Manger, who each night donate all their unused food to the poor and homeless.
Pret – as it is in the process of renaming itself – is actually British, and markets itself with all manner of political correctness. Think ethically-sourced, free-range, recycling, organic, this is fast-food for the socially-conscious.
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Who would have thought that the hottest ticket in town would be Shakespeare?
Much Ado About Nothing is so popular that they haven’t anything at the half-price booth. Enquiries at the theatre itself are met by offers to sell you a lottery ticket which might win you a good seat, a return, or a ‘standing room’ spot. The hotel concierge shrugs and gives me a pitying look.
Tickets to Rupert Everett and Diana Rigg in Pygmalion are going begging despite rave reviews. Legally Blonde languishes at the Savoy despite being voted Best New Musical. Cameron Mackintosh’s latest, Betty Blue Eyes, is struggling at the Novello, despite boasting a Melbourne-built audio-animatronic pig voiced by Kylie Minogue.
Say nothing.
Everyone, it seems, is mad for Beatrice and Benedick at Wyndhams. As played by Donna and the Doctor – David Tennant and Catherine Tate.
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The genius of the latest incarnation of the electric candle is that the bulb sits in a depression in the top of the tea-light, altar-candle, or whatever size candle the device is mimicking, exactly as the flame might in a half-burned reality.
And I have to admit the illusion is almost perfect. Pop in a battery, slide a switch, and voila, instant flicker. No fire risk. No soot stains. No health and safety issues. But ..........
Returning to our hotel, we find the chandeliers dimmed, the sconces extinguished. Along the corridors, on the floor, lining the walls, grouped on the hall tables, are hundreds of electric candles, all, short, fat, thin, standing free, inside red glass shades.
In the morning they are gone, only to reappear the next night.
It reminds me of the time we first inspected the house where we now live. The previous owner had closed the bathroom blinds, turned out all the lights, and half-filled the bath with scented water bestrewn with flower petals and floating candles.
Our first thought was ‘what’s she hiding’?
At the hotel I looked up, and saw that the complex brass chandeliers hadn’t been polished for so long they were spotted with verdigris and rust.
Now go out and buy some Brasso and ditch the candles, please. You’ve been rumbled.
