Monday through Thursday

Well, I'm back in London now, but not without incident. Let me backtrack.

Monday we went shopping yet again. Got the usual (razor blades, Irish Spring soap) and unusual (Puma trainers for £7.50, underwear) at BJ's in Danvers. We also went to Best Buy and I ogled the new Ipods, but decided against, as I would have trouble with the War Department (aka HWMBO) if I bought yet another one.

Then I went to Boston to dine at Scollay Square restaurant with my Boston friends. Bob and Margaret are friends from Luti; Margaret is "co-owner". And, from Live Journal and soc.motss, jwg and rsc. The restaurant is named after the former "red light" district of Boston, where numerous sailors used to come to drink and "socialise". In the late '50s the city fathers decided to raze it to the ground and erect Government Centre, that soulless plaza with City Hall in the centre of it. The restaurant is somewhat pretentious, as a look at their menu might show. So, first off, here is The Wedge salad.



It was tasty but a bit, well, unsatisfying. Then came the entrée, All-Natural Prime Hanger Steak:



The potatoes are hidden under the steak, which is itself hidden under potato sticks. I didn't bother to take pictures of the sorbet, which was my dessert. One difficulty we all had was the ubiquitous serving staff. Years ago, a great restaurant could be differentiated from a mere greasy spoon by the suavity of its staff. If you had a problem or a question, there were right there to help you. When you didn't need them, and were in the middle of a conversation, they did not come up and ask you whether everything was all right. These days the waiter (Taylor, a very bouncy young lady) and the manager, whose name we did not catch, both asked us (at separate times) whether everything was OK. We lost the thread of our conversation each time. Worse than that, Taylor cleared plates somewhat assiduously, managing to remove Margaret's plate before she was finished eating. This is maddening. At a Chinese restaurant, you expect to have your plate removed as soon as (but no sooner than) you have finished eating. However, at a "premium" restaurant, plates should not be cleared before everyone at the table has finished. As no one smokes at table any more (as it's illegal) there are no cigarette butt-smeared plates any more, simply plates that once harboured your meal and now do not. They can wait until all are finished before clearing.

We were amused by three separate sounds of crashing, smashing crockery during our dinner. All in all, a tasty but ultimately unsatisfactory experience, tempered by the wonderful company:



In order, Margaret, jwg, me, Bob, and rsc. A lovely time was had by all.

I forgot to mention in my Sunday entry that instead of buying the memory for my uncle's computer from a shop, I decided to order from Crucial and have it delivered overnight, so that I would be sure to have it in time to install it before I returned to London. On Tuesday afternoon the memory duly arrived, and I installed it. It worked a treat--my uncle was amazed at how much faster the computer had become (going from 1GB to 2.5GB does wonders). My uncle is the last of the older generation of my family (on both sides) and his computer and his music program (Encore) mean the difference between sitting in front of the television watching bad daytime TV and keeping a sharp mind going. Some of the stuff he's done is really fantastic, and the MIDI instrument set he bought with Encore, Garritan is great. It produces really amazing instrumental sounds. Apparently, Wendy Carlos also uses it, so my uncle is in good company.

Tuesday evening was Lodge, and it was, as usual, an interesting night. Now that I'm more clued in to what goes on in a Lodge, I could appreciate the differences and similarities between Massachusetts working and my own home Taylor's working. The essentials are the same (the oath is very similar) but such things as opening and closing the lodge are quite different. Philanthropic is a bit more casual in opening and closing the Lodge than we are at Goliath. One of the candidates was Raised by the Senior Warden (who is not a Past Master), which would be impossible under UGLE rules. I met several people I hadn't seen in years; one of the candidates had been at Star of the Sea Church with me, and also an altar boy. Two others had been in grammar school with me. I shamefully admit that I did not recognise any of the three, although they all recognised me. I do not think this is gathering senility; not having lived in Marblehead for more than 37 years has blurred names and faces to the point that I cannot recall most of them with any accuracy. The dinner was Chinese takeaway buffet, and wasn't particularly good Chinese takeaway at that. Oh, well, Harold paid for my meal ticket, so he can complain with more justification.

Wednesday was interesting, Ruth picked me up at home and we went to Salem to eat lunch. She took me to a place called "Victoria Station" which was a British-Rail-themed restaurant. The menu wasn't very British, and the portions were huge. We both had Chicken Parmigiana (something which I have never seen on a British menu), and I was gobsmacked at the size of the portion:



I could only eat one of the chicken pieces and a few forkfuls of the pasta. We packed the rest for Ruth's lunch and dinner the next day.

Then, on to the barn. On the way we detoured to pass my grandparents' house in South Hamilton. It's been painted dark grey by the new owners and it looks rather grim. I do hope it's nice for them.

In the evening we went to Outback Steakhouse for dinner. My uncle, Harold, Ruth, and Linda (Ruth's best friend) and I waited for more than 1/2 hour for a table, as there were 5 of us. We were finally seated (and promised a free appetiser to make up for the wait) next to a table with three rambunctious children. Thank goodness they were finishing. The menu has changed slightly from last year, with fewer choices, but I managed. I had a prime rib, medium, with mashed potatoes and a salad. No dessert, but a Manhattan. The steak was cooked exactly right, and was delicious, once I'd trimmed off the fat.

The family seated next to us was replaced by another family whose younger son looked like Pugsley from the infamous Addams Family. We sniggered and snapped our fingers surreptitiously.

Back home, and now I was concerned about the weather. The snowstorms that dumped 16" on eastern Massachusetts hadn't melted at all, as it had hardly risen above freezing. The forecast was for more snow Thursday morning, just as I was to travel home. I had packed on Wednesday afternoon, and awoke on Thursday at 4:15 am, got dressed, put the rest of my things in the stuffed suitcase, and Linda picked me up to go to Logan Airport. We got there without much trouble, and I got through check-in and security fairly quickly. Once I got on the plane, however, the fun started. We needed to be de-iced, and were third-in-line for that. Then, once we got into the queue for takeoff, we had to wait as there was only one runway free and it was being used for both takeoffs and landings. We were two hours late taking off. So breakfast became lunch, and snack became dinner. We landed at Heathrow at about 10 pm, and I was home by 11, as the immigration and luggage queues were minimal. Unpacked immediately and then fell into bed. Friday was a washout, as I felt washed-out myself. I'm just starting to perk up now on Saturday morning. To work on Christmas Eve!

( Other travel pictures under the cut to spare your bandwidth )

Tony Blair becomes a minion of the SWB

As predicted, our former Prime Minister, who had been appointing bishops and deans in the Church of England, has become a mackerel-snapper. No better case for disestablishment has ever been presented (except, perhaps, Gordon Brown and Margaret Thatcher, Presbyterian and Methodist). The man who gave us the gutless wimp sitting in Thomas a Becket's seat has flown the coop, leaving us to deal with the messes he has created.

Thanks to cutedwogy, Today's Yule URL

...speaks for itself (just click on it, reader!)