England

I live in Brent. Now some of you are probably saying, “wait, Greg, I thought you lived in London.” I live in London as well, at least in the Greater London administrative region. London, as most of us would think of it, is in fact one of 33 different cities, Royal Boroughs and Boroughs that make up the Great London area. The “City of London” is just one of these, a smallish bit near the river which contains about half of the interesting touristy-stuff, the other half with the interesting touristy bits being in the city of Westminster.

So my saying I live in Brent and I live in London is a little like how someone from New York can claim to live in Manhattan and in New York. Well, perhaps not Manhattan, given Brent’s outer borough status - maybe it would be more like someone saying they live in Staten Island and New York City.

As a “marketing professional” (at least in my previous job), I do take some interest in marketing stories when they appear in the news, doubly so if they are about something of interest to me. I am always interested in marketing stories that deal with travel and tourism, given my love of travel.

That’s why I was interested to read recently that the Brent Council is thinking of changing the name of the borough. Brent is named after the Brent River which runs through the borough, but the council feels that there is a more important landmark that the place should be named after.

This thing:

That thing is Wembley Stadium.

Wembley is a 90,000 seat stadium, which means that in my New York analogy I would probably be better off saying that I live in Rutherford, home to Giants Stadium, home of both the NY Jet and NY Giant's football teams.

The Giants, last year's Superbowl Champion, who played in Wembley during week 8 game of the 2007 season, facing off and winning against the Miami Dolphins. The Giants went on to win the Superbowl (the ultimate trophy in American football).

2008 sees the NFL returning to Wembley, with the New Orleans Saints set to take on the San Diego Chargers. San Diego is right now at 8 to 1 to win the Superbowl, behind only the New England Patriots, Indiana Colts and Dallas Cowboys, so it looks like the gambling world has picked up on something - teams that play and win and Wembley are likely to win the Superbowl. Hey, so far it's 1 for 1.

(Note, this is based on one online book at time of writing, odds change all the time and it depends on who you bet with, so don't take anything here as advice or anything else that could, in some way, wind me up being libel for your gambling losses).

Wembley is around the 20th largest stadium in the world. May Day Stadium in North Korea is in first place, by the way, with a reported seating capacity of 150,000. But unlike Wembley which sells tickets to willing participants, the North Koreans probably don't have a choice when they come out to watch Kim Jong-il's Karoke Night of Stars!

Wembley is best known here in England as the home of the English national football team, and the stadium (not this specific incarnation of the stadium, but the previous one) was the site for England's only World Cup victory back in 1966, lead by captain Bobby Moore, who is immortalized outside the stadium with a statue.

For those from outside England, Wembley is probably best known as a concert venue. It held one of the many Live Earth concerts in 2007, twining it with the previous Wembley Stadium, which was one of the venues for 1985's Live Aid Concert.

Wembley is probably the most famous thing in Brent, and according to this news report, “In a recent newsletter by Brent Council's Chief Executive, Gareth Daniel, it is revealed the borough could be renamed to capitalise on the world renowned 'Wembley' brand.”

Why risk the anger of the residents of the borough on the expense of changing all the street signs and potentially alienating residents in areas not in the area of Wembley? To increase overnight visitors and tourist share of wallet, of course. Tourism is huge business now, and places are always looking for any edge get people to come a little sooner, spend a little more and stay a little longer.

I’m neither for or against the move. I see the potential of a tourism pitch from the council of Wembley to come to the Borough of Wembley, but think they could probably accomplish that without having to spend millions of pounds to change all the street signs.

What this story did do, though, is got me thinking about how cities which do get a lot of visitors, like Paris, New York or Tokyo probably didn’t take into account overnight visitors or share of wallet when naming there cities.

Imagine, if you will, the founding of Rome with the additional drama of having to attract tourist dollars...

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Stupid Dream Sequence / Historical Flashback With Highly Fictionalize Pieces Starts Here

B.C. 753. Romulus is standing atop Palatine hill, watching the work unfold on his grand city. His brother, Remus, enraged and saddened that Romulus is to be king, leaps over a trench meant to fortify the city, embarrassing Romulus by suggesting that his city is easily breached. Romulus, enraged slays his twin brother, declaring , “So perish every one that shall hereafter leap over my wall!” Sadly from Roman citizens some 800 years later, this incantation didn’t apply to the Visigoths, but that’s still a ways away.

Romulus looks over the scene, wipes his brother’s blood off his sandals by dragging them along the grass and declares, “I shall call this city Roma!”

Romulus heard a voice from behind him. “Sir, if I may interject something here.”

Romulus turned to see Innuo and Acquiesco, the two “marketing gurus” his brother Remus had made them hire. Romulus rolled his eyes. “What it is?” he asked.

Innuo spoke up, “Roma? Rome? You think that’s a good idea?”

Romulus would have slew them on the spot if it wasn’t for the fact they had an iron-clad contract that paid them double in the event that they were run through with a Gladius while on the job. There lawyer, Lex Legis was famous for his posthumous contract clauses.

Romulus puffed out his chest, “Of course I think it is a good idea! Why would naming your city after your king be a bad idea?”

Acquieso stepped forward, “Ah yes, you are a very great and powerful man, sir. But it’s just that Rome didn’t play well with the focus groups.”

“Focus groups?” stormed Romulus.

“Yes, yes,” said Innuo. “Rome sounds exactly like roam, which makes people think of leaving the city. It’s not at all good for increasing overnight visits. We want people to come and spend their aes graves here in Rome, and not somewhere else...”

“...like with the Sabines,” Acquieso proffered, scrunching up his face to show distaste.

Innuo nodded, “Exactly. We want visitors money flowing into the city, not leaving because they are thinking of ‘roaming.’”

Romulus sighed, staring at the heavens. “Is this some kind of revenge, brother? Are you already among the gods toying with my fate?” he thought.

Acquieso continued, “in addition, though Obviously I think...”

“...we think,” corrected Innuo.

“Yes, yes! Though obviously we think...” said Acquieso, nodding and smiling at Innuo. “...that you are great and powerful and deserving of a city to be named after you, the focus groups found it... umm, what was the exact words they used, Innuo?”

Innuo looked down at a sheet of parchment, and read out the results of the focus groups, “arrogant, unwelcoming, and uninviting.”

“Unwelcoming?” asked Romulus.

“Yes, they find feel that a city named after the King will be more focused on the King’s needs, and not so much on theirs as potential citizens or visitors,” said Innuo.

Acquieso nodded and agreed. He seemed to do that a lot. “Yes, exactly. I believe one lady said she felt that she would rather go to Padua, who apparently put on a very nice horse show for the guests and have excellent market selling woolen goods.”

Innuo cited another example from the focus groups, “there was a man who said he’d rather take a nice Mediterranean cruise instead.”

Acquieso smiled, “Ah yes, that nice man Ulysses. Fine chap.”

Innuo frowned, “Acquieso, remember the focus groups are meant to be anonymous.”

Acquieso shook his head and splayed out his arms in a sign of forgiveness, “sorry, sorry. Anyway, with that feedback, Innuo and I did some brainstorming last night, and came up with some suggestions. Instead of Roam, what about Stay.”

Innuo smiled, “Yes, what says ‘increase overnight visitors’ more than a town named after what overnight visitors do, stay?”

Romulus started to pull out his sword. Innuo put up his hands, “hey, we are brainstorming here. There are no bad ideas. Criticism, especially of the fatal kind, is not allowed in brainstorming sessions.” Romulus, confused, let his sword slip back into it’s sheath.

Acequieso continued, “well, if you don’t like Stay, how about naming it after a colour. People like Yellow, how about Yellow?”

Romulus rubbed his head, “the only colour I can see right now is red!”

Innuo frowned, “No, I think red is to aggressive. We need something calming, like a light blue or pastel peach.”

Romulus, Innuo and Acquieso brainstormed late into the night, and that my friends is how the the Eternal City of Comfortio, now capitol of Italy was founded.

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If you are interested in touring Wembley Stadium, information can be found at the majestically named Venue of Legends website. For £15 you'll get to see the the door leading to David Beckman's box, what the view looks like from the top level, the dressing rooms, the pitch, the royal box and you'll get to snap a picture with this replica of the FA cup.

If no interesting events are going on while you are visiting, you might even get to see them re-seeding the grass of the pitch.

For information on tours of Wembley Stadium and to find out what the borough of Brent has to offer to the tourist beyond Wembley stadium, please see:

http://www.brent.gov.uk/tourism

They do have the largest Hindu temple outside of India (I should check that out) and a ton of curry restaurants.

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Update: 2008 06 30

The Londonist blog has an entry on the story of The Borough of Brent's possible name change, along with a link to a news report stating that Boris Johnson, Mayor of London is contemplating unearthing a number of rivers that have been buried underground, including Brent. So, on one had we have the council of the Borough moving to new offices near Wembley Stadium in the town of Wembley, and on the other hand we have the re-emergence of the Brent River from it's underground concrete path. Hmmm, interesting times!

"You know, London is really expensive."

I can't count the number of times people told me that when I said I was moving to London. In fact, I did already know that.

Just to back up the assertion, a March 2008 survey by Swiss bank UBS found that it is, in fact, the most expensive city in the World, outpacing such outrageously expensive competitors as Oslo, Dublin, Copenhagen and New York.

Despite knowing that, I am planning on writing about how expensive things are. In fact, I came up with the clever title "A £ of Flesh," and seeing as I am probably going to write about how expensive things are in the world's most expensive city a lot, I have already decided that this post will be first in what will probably be an excruciatingly dull, navel gazing and self-indulgent series of blog posts.

So, in the future if you see the title "A £ of Flesh" and don't wish to hear about me gripe about the price of stuff, you can just skip it and wait for something more interesting.

First, though, some good news, which is that things aren't as expensive as I had feared. This is due to two things, both based on my past visit to London in August of 2007. First, as I am in the "outer boroughs" of London and not right in the heart, things aren't priced for tourists and rich bankers, but rather for regular folks. Secondly, in 2007 it took 2 and a half Canadian dollars to buy a Pound Sterling. That has now dropped to 2 Canadian dollars for a Pound Sterling. The nightly news talks about Britain's slow decline and the devaluation of the pound against international currencies, but I am loving it.

Anyway, I have found that some things are priced around the same as Canadian prices, like Coke in 2L bottles and pints of beer in bars. Some things seem to be about 2 times the going Canadian rate, which sadly includes housing. But I was expecting that.

I got my first real shock today when I went to wash my dirty clothes.

£3.40 for a wash?!? In Canada the most I paid was $2.00 for a wash, which works out to somewhere around £1.00. Even a £1.50 I would have put up with, but when the price of laundry is THREE-AND-A-HALF TIMES the Canadian rate, I had to balk.

Unfortunately, all the walking I've been doing meant that my clothes were... umm... ripe, so not doing Laundry was not an option. So I sucked it up and did a wash. I did something, though, that I haven't done on purpose since I first learned to do laundry, and had only done once before by accident, an accident that resulted in all my white shirts turning a light pale colour of pink. I washed my whites and colours together and crossed my fingers that nothing would bleed.

Luckily nothing did.

Crisis averted and fresh laundry put away, but I am still in shock at the price. Maybe I am going to have to start washing my clothes in the kitchen sink...

We humans love to split things. Disney may tell us it’s a small world, but that doesn’t stop us from cleaving it up into ever smaller pieces. Whether it be the borders of the continents, countries, provinces, states, counties or cities, we love to draw lines on a map. There is probably even a few lines in your home town that you won’t find on any map.

In Toronto, Yonge street runs from the southern most point at Lake Ontario all the way through the city and beyond, providing a nice little line to split the city into two pieces. I always lived right close to Yonge Street when I lived there, and I admit that I found something vague distrustful about those that lived east of Yonge (even though I lived east of Yonge street, though only by a few blocks). People in the east end seemed to be more hippy-dippy, granola eating folks, whereas those in the west end always seemed more conservative, traditional, roast-on-Sundays types.

Taking it a step further was London, Ontario (I’ve lived in two different Londons in my life). One of the prime north-south streets was Adelaide Street. For those of us living west of Adelaide, crossing Adelaide was going over to the “other side of the tracks.” There was even a shorthand for it - EOA. If you said someone was EOA that’s all you needed to say. It implied they were backwards and trashy.

Of course, those are examples are completely stereotyping and wrong, so now that I have told them to you, promptly forget them as being nothing more than outdated, politically incorrect labelling.

Sometimes, though, cutting up the world into lines makes a lot of sense. This is especially true for those that set sail into the dark waters of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Long ago we figured out how to divide the world into a east-west running grid called Latitude that would give on their position north or south of the equator. Latitude lines run parallel, which means there is always the same amount of distance between them, no matter where you are on the earth. Defining Latitude was easy, as there is a really obvious point to start with, or rather two points, the north and south pole. One could easily measure there Latitude, as a navigator could determine his latitude by observing the height of the sun during the day and the North Star at night.

Longitude was more tricky, though, because there is no obvious reference points, nor any obvious astrological signs to go by. Lines of longitude run from pole-to-pole, so the distance between them widens as you get close to the equator. To measure how far you’ve travelled east-west, you needed two things - a really good watch and an agreement on where 0 degrees should be (i.e. where to start measuring from).

In 1884 the International Meridian Conference met in Washington, D.C. and decided to use the Meridian that the British Royal Navy had been using on their maps, which just happened to run right through the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England.

The Royal Observatory is now part of Greenwich Park, which includes parts of the old Naval College which is now part of the University of Greenwich and the London Maritime Museum as well.

I wandered down to Greenwich on a typically sunny English day (seriously, I think this whole rain thing is just something they said to keep the tourist away. They are now saying that it’ll not rain at all for the next two weeks, which is important for England as it is Wimbledon time - more on that in a future entry, though).

From the Cutty Sark Docklands Light Rail stop, Greenwich Park is just a few steps away. The Cutty Sark clipper ship is also on display there, thus explaining the name of the rail station, however it is currently under repairs until 2009 so all you can see is a big, white tent. I guess if you use your imagination, you could pretend that you are looking at the Cutty Sark with her sails draped over her deck to dry them out, obscuring your view.

Anyway, leaving my imagination and back to reality, the buildings closest to the water are old Naval College buildings and a sailors’ hospital.

Today the buildings are used mostly as halls for the University of Greenwich. This courtyard is in the music department, so standing here I was treated to piano, cello and violin music wafting out of open windows.

Two of the buildings of interest to tourists are the Painted Hall and the Chapel. The Painted Hall is called such because of the big hall which has a big mural on the ceiling. I’m surprise more people don’t fall down the stairs when walking out, as it’s hard not to walk around without your head tilted all the way back to take in the mural.

The Chapel is a church, and as such has dead people buried in it.

Heading south you come to the Maritime Museum, which has a number of exhibits of sailing and such, including an interesting one sponsored by P&O Cruise lines on the “golden age” of trans-Atlantic journeys by boat.

It also has the actual coat that Lord Nelson was wearing when he got shot.

The coat is blue, which sadly makes one of my favourite sailor jokes untrue...

Standing on the deck of HMS Victory, Lord Nelson glanced up at a lookout high in the rigging and called, "Keep a keen eye out for Spanish sail, my lad. For today, I feel like a fight." Soon, the lookout cried, "Sail ho, off the starboard bow!"

Nelson pointed his spyglass in the direction indicated, and - sure enough - there were two Spanish frigates off the starboard bow. Realising that his ship was in for a tough fight, Lord Nelson turned to a young officer. "Ensign, fetch my red coat!"

A few minutes later, the Ensign returned with the coat. As he held it out for his Admiral to wear, he said, "Begging your pardon, My Lord, but why do you need your red coat?"

Nelson smiled grimly. "There'll be much blood spilled today, Son. And some of it might well be mine. If it should happen that I am wounded, my red coat will hide the blood. Then, our own men will take heart from seeing their commander apparently untouched, and our enemies will fear my invincibility."

The Ensign nodded, seeing at once the wisdom of the Admiral's reasoning. The battle was long and difficult, but Nelson eventually won the day.

A few days later, a lookout shouted down, "Sail ho, off the port beam!"

Nelson pointed his spyglass in the direction indicated, and found himself staring at the entire Spanish Armada. Hundreds of ships bearing down on his lone ship like angels of death.

Anticipating his Admiral's next order, the young Ensign said, "Shall I fetch your red coat, Sir?"

Nelson nodded. "Do that, Son. And while you're at it, fetch me my brown trousers!"

Behind the museum is this statue of two frolicking dolphins that also acts as a sundial.

It works to, I checked it against my watch. I said so long to the dolphins, to which they replied “So long, and thanks for all the fish,” and then I made my way up a long hill to the Royal Observatory.

The Royal Observatory was commissioned in 1675 by Charles the Second, who also said it shouldn’t cost more than £500 to build, so they built it using stone from the Tower of London and from Duke Humphrey's Tower. The first Royal Astronomer was John Flamsteed, who set up a telescope and started mapping the heavens. The point where he set up his telescope became the meridian he used on all his star maps.

As new Astronomers came in (and out) of the position and the Observatory grew, telescopes were located in different locations, each time changing the spot of the meridian. Finally, in 1851 Sir George Airy establish the “Prime Meridian,” that went on to be adopted world-wide in 1884. Well, except for France and Brazil, but eventually they caved. Can’t keep a good idea down for long.

Also at this conference, Sir Sanford Fleming, the Scottish-born Canadian who was the primary engineer on the Canadian Pacific Railroad proposed that the world adopt “Standard Time” and time zones. The resolution wasn’t passed, in fact it wasn’t even voted on, but like the prime meridian, it was a good idea and eventually was adopted. And that led to the invention of my cool Eco-drive watch with built in time-zones, so I’m happy about that.

The Observatory has a time ball on top of it’s roof. It’s the big red ball in the photo below. After the eventual adoption of time zones, to help others synchronise their clocks to GMT, this time ball was installed by Astronomer John Pond in 1833. It was easily viewed from the River Thames, and would allow sailors to synchronise their watch to GMT when the ball dropped every day at 1 p.m., as it still does today.

Here’s the obligatory shot of me standing on the Prime Meridian. I had to line up for 20 minutes to get this damn shot, but I would have kicked myself if I didn’t.

Here’s a shot that I didn’t have to line up for at all, I just had to lie down. Nice shot, but it does make my face look really fat. This shot and my fat face would prompt me to walk a fair bit today, so it probably did something good for my cardio-vascular system if nothing else.

You know, it’s interesting how we in the “Western World” call it that when really, a fair chunk of it is in the east. Most of Europe is east of 0 degrees. It’s almost like we in the “Western World” wanted to squeeze out the rest of the world, so we didn’t even give them half the planet. This is probably one of those things like being EOA that I mentioned at the start of this entry, us on one side of an imaginary line trying to put down those on the other side.

Those of you with Google Earth or who have been to the site of the Royal Observatory with a GPS unit may be wondering why the Prime Meridian line doesn’t line up with 0 degrees. There’s a nice little explanation on the Google Earth blog about it, but the basic reason is that when GPS was created they created a mapping system called World Geodetic System 1984. GPS uses triangulation from three satellites to determine your position. Because the earth is not a perfect sphere, however, so the WGS84 uses a “best fit” approach, shoe-horning you in where it can. Unfortunately, one of these best fit scenarios wound up placing the GPS’s Prime Meridian 100 metres off of the Royal Observatory line.

Anyway, there is apparently nothing to mark the GPS84 meridian on the site except a garbage can on a footpath, so it’s much better to take your pictures on the nice, metal line in the cobblestones at the Royal Observatory.

Here’s an arty shot I took of one of the newer buildings on the Royal Observatory grounds. I liked the way that the sun was reflecting back at me.

Heading east from the Royal Observatory and the Prime Meridian (does that mean I am in the Orient now?), I came across Queen Elizabeth’s Oak. It is called as such because the folklore is that Henry VIII sported with Anne Boleyn under its branches and their child, the future Queen Elizabeth used to play in the tree. The tree fell down a few years ago, so the current Queen Elizabeth (number 2 of a yet undetermined set) planted a new oak tree.

After taking a gander at the royal oak, I went and saw something which was tantalisingly described as “Roman Ruins” but ended up just being a small rise in the grass. It was fenced in, though, which means all you could do was look at the small rise in the grass, you couldn’t even walk up it.

From there, I headed back downhill to the River Thames. I had two choices, one to take a pedestrian footpath under the river, which I must admit really intrigued me, or head along the Thames Path eastward. I chose, for reasons that mostly had to do with the fact that I was already east of the tunnel under the Thames, to continue farther east.

The Thames Path, for those that don’t know, is a 294 km path that follows the banks of the River Thames from its start in the Cotswolds to the Thames River barrier in London. It is for the most part a lovely place to stroll.

After passing through a little lovely bit that includes this nice view of the Trinity Church...

...you get into some really derelict and industrial areas. This is not the most idyllic part of the River Thames.

At one point, I had to wait for a crane operator who was unloaded gravel to move his crane across the path to let me pass. The giant shovel was raining little, round pebbles of gravel onto the path, which is why it is wise to wait for him to signal. I picked up one of the pieces of gravel and it (along with all the other’s split onto the path were almost perfectly round, like marbles. I wonder where perfectly round gravel comes from?

There is, though, a kind of beautiful charm to the rusty stuff, and a few bits of nice, if somewhat weedy and overgrown, nature along the trail.

After getting glimpses of it as I was walking, I finally arrived at The O2. The O2, originally commissioned as the Millennium Dome but renamed after a mobile company sponsored the place is a multi-purpose entertainment venue and shopping plaza.

My first memories of seeing the place were last year when the NHL hosted two regular season games in England, trying to spread the appeal of the game to a worldwide audience. I remember thinking that it looked very industrial, but after walking along the Thames Path towards the dome, it started to make a lot of sense. It fits very well into the area, like some sort of futuristic cargo terminal.

Arriving from the tube or DLR, though, and you wouldn’t see how the industrial beauty of The O2 fits into the surroundings, as the entry plaza from the tube station into The O2 is quite impressive.

Inside there are a number of shops and restaurants, as well as two entertainment venues and an exhibition space.

I had some chicken wings at the American Bar & Grill and contemplated my next move. Part of me wanted to walk on to see the Thames Barrier, a giant floodgate that can close and protect the cities from floods, and while my mind seemed up to the mile and a half walk, my legs were not.

I could have easily got on the tube at the O2, as the Jubilee line which my flat is on (all the way on the other end of the city, and in the “west”), but decided to splash out £4 and take a fast ferry back. The Thames Clippers run along the Thames from Woolwich in the east to Embankment in the West. It’s not really a tourist boat though, so space outside is limited and instead there’s lots of comfy seats inside.

You do get some nice views of the London, and I took a few snapshots, but the windows were really dirty so they didn’t turn out that great.

And of course, when you travel on the Thames, every once and a while you have to pass a garbage scow. That’s when you’ll be happy you’re inside.

After yesterday's rain, I woke up to a gloriously sunny and warm day, Ganesh be praised. For while it was raining on the Formula one drivers in France and the hikers in Scotland (though, of course as he have already discussed, they are probably loving that), it was sunny here in London for the 40th version of the Rath Yatra parade.

Ratha Yatra is a major Hindu festival. The deities Jagannath (Krishna), Baladeva and Subhadra are taken on the day of the Rath festival through the streets so that everyone can have the fortune of seeing them. Three richly decorated chariots, resembling temple structures, are pulled through the streets. You can find out gobs more about the festival, if you are interested, by following this link: Ratha Jatra, the Festival of Chariots

The parade in London runs from Hyde Park to Trafalgar Square, and has been a fixture in London since 1969. I was surprised by the number of white people there dressed up to celebrate the Hindu gods, but then I remembered that the UK has a long connection with India, back to the days of the Raj, through to when the Beatles travelled to India and learned to play the sitar, and finally today when there is a large population of Hindu immigrants from India living, mixing, marrying and having babies with the white population. It should be no surprise then that some of the local (previously Christian) population has moved allegiances to the Hindu gods.

Here is a video that I put together of the day. It's my first attempt at video editing using iMovie. The audio isn't quite what I wanted it to be, but it'll have to do. Please enjoy.

Update Thursday, August 7, 2008:

A Youtube user named CopyCutNPaste put together a montage of a number of different videos of the Rathayatra parade, including some shots from mine (with my permission, of course). He calls me a devotee in the credits, which I am not, just an interested observer.

Anyway, if you want to check it out, there is about 10 minutes of footage there, only about 20 seconds or so of mine, so it's MOSTLY NEW CONTENT! (For those who are focused on me, like I am, my clips run from 4:58 to 5:35 (or so)).

Follow this link to Youtube to see the video of the 40th Rathayatra celebration in London.