God Save The Queen

Because apparently a live-in security service, state of the art systems, guard dogs and a bunch of castles don't make her safe enough...

I've been planning a trip over the big blue ocean and around to the other side of this planet we call home, whilst the Martians refer to it as the “Funny blue marble”. This march, I'm finally getting the opportunity to make good on these plans. The initial driver to travel was to go visit my long-travelling brother over in our ancestral home ground.

Yes, that's right – we are of English heritage, and that is why i burn in direct sunlight. My vampirism has nothing to do with that. My drinking of blood in place of tea IS due to my vampirism, and receives no end of funny looks from my more conservative English family.

Another motivator is that the trip will allow me to get about as far away from work as physically possible. (To literally get to the physical extreme would put me somewhere remote in the middle of the ocean – not so enticing.) Living in this age of high technology, i understand work is only a web browser away, but the distance is a pretty compelling argument for “not being available”. I like the idea of not being able to work for a month. That unproductive idea holds a lot of merit with me.


Further reasons become flippant and border-line stupid.

* I want to hire a V For Vendetta costume, and wander around London, waltzing with the pretty ladies, and asking assorted people the best way to the Old Bailey.
*I want to go to the places on the monopoly board, and get a photo of me and that respective location's card.
*I want to smuggle the Ravens out of the Tower of London. All of them. And then send a postcard from Madrid allegedly posted by the ravens, to the Queen.
*I want to slip into my easily re-adopted accent, and confuse the hell out of tourists.

Lastly, a bit more seriously, I'm going to visit a chinese restaurant in Soho, named Lee Ho Fook's. I can't guarantee the presence of rain, but being England in the early moments of Spring, I'm not stressing it too much. What I can guarantee is an order of a big dish of beef chow-mein. This gorging will be followed by a pina colada at Trader Vic's. The whole time, my hair will be....perfect. HUT!

In case that last paragraph flew past you in a cloud of perplexity, they are multiple references to Warren Zevon's classic 'Werewolves Of London', a track originally conceived to be a bouncy number about the dance craze that was to be named for the track. As it turned out, Mr Zevon and his long-time collaborators were mulling over the project, when they were joined by another friend. “What are you guys up to?” He asked, with complete innocence. “We're writing the Werewolves Of London.” The sardonic songster replied. His friend blinked and said, “you mean, “AWOOOO?”'. The rest is history. Go listen to the song, dammit!

The trip will be more than my attempts to reenact a rock song's grooviest moments, as I'm also planning to see my family (there's a fair few of them over there still, we're the minority in those terms.) My brother and I have tentatively discussed the idea of a whirlwind tour of western europe (there's a rare turn of phrase), with a step and swivel through France as I've always wanted to go to a country where Superman has performed elevator maintenance. Next will be a hop and slide into Germany, the home of bratwurst, many beers and the Panzer tank. After this, we should be able to swing our way back over to Scotland, find ourselves completely thrown by the local dialect, before working our way back through to the ancestral home in Yorkshire. How's that strike you now? More than a silly song to power THIS jaunt!

But if whilst in Mayfair I come across a hairy-handed gent who ran amok in Kent, I won't let him rip my lungs out Jim, rather I'll treat him to a silver bullet. AWOOOO! I'm off to catch a plan. Bye!

Q: What do you see when you turn out the lights? A world without Ringo Starr's nose.
Song For The Day: "Werewolves Of London" by Warren Zevon