London Calling

The distinct odor of horse manure hovered over St. John’s Wood this morning, a sign that the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery is afoot.  Barracked and stabled here on and off since the Napoleonic wars, this regiment exists primarily for ceremonial functions.  Their annual calendar includes the Lord Mayor’s Parade, Remembrance Day, and the Queen’s Birthday.  We ocassionally here the echoing boom of their cannon fire from rehearsals over at Hyde Park.

The last three mornings 120 horses in training, some pulling artillery caissons with mounted cannons, have closed down traffic at the busy intersection of Wellington and Grove End.  The quarter mile procession winds its way along Grove End to Abbey Road, turning to cross the famed zebra-striped crosswalk before passing in front of Abbey Road studios and disrupting traffic on into the morning fog.

Where do they go from here?  I guess I’ll have to find out…

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Pitcombe, Kewstoke, Shipham, Cheddar.

Bagborough, Nailsea, Redcliff Bay.

Portishead, Blagdon, Halse, Chew Magna.

Winscombe, Fivehead, Wootton Courtenay.

Axbridge, Shapwick, Huish Episcopi.

Haselbury Plucknett, Weston-Super-Mare.

Ditcheat, Fivehead, Evercreech, Combwich.

Withypool, Nether Stowey, Rorlock Weir.

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Another short and sweet Guardian gem not to be missed, Guy Browning’s “How to…” column.  This week, keeping it simple…

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London is a city flooded with newsprint.  The Times, The Independent, The Guardian, The Mirror, The Daily Mail, The Telegraph, The Financial Times…and this is just a sampling of the major dailies.  There are a host of free dailies, ethnic and foreign language newspapers and neighborhood-specific weeklies that fill the newsstands.  Part of this reflects the fact that most of these papers are National rather than local papers.  They service constituencies based on politics, ethnicity and interest, more than location.  Until recently, geography has prevented the US from having truly national papers, but Britain is a small island and news has always travelled fast.

While most Brits probably look to one paper for their daily dose, many find news and entertainment from a variety of sources.  We’ve fallen into this camp.  The Guardian satisfies our need for British news with a more liberal perspective, The International Herald Tribune provides welcome news and perspective from home and The Mail is a guilty pleasure providing political rumor and celebrity gossip(who’s going knickerless in the news this week).

Some of my Guardian faves(with links to recent writings) include: Jon Ronson, Lucy Mangan and Craig Taylor.

Also Pascal Wyse, whose Wyse Words is a thankfully pithy British answer to William Safire.  See todays…

“Gymnauseum: The pool of envious bile that rises when other people do healthy exercise.  It is especially galling if they do it just before the pub, earning them the kind of beer credits you can only dream of.  Nursing a strong continental lager, you vow to get fit by blinking harder and faster every day.”

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