Since I spent the better part of the day in the deep rich heart of the British Empire--Oxford Street stores and the Tate Gallery--I figure I will talk in the royal We today.
We had never been to the Tate Gallery, so after we bought our transport tickets and a return ticket for Winchester at Waterloo, We went to the Tate. We skipped the Jackson Pollack exhibit and went to the British art rooms, 1-20. The final exhibit We went to, before the Turner canvases, was a full-room installation entitled "Scrapheap Services." A large trash compactor processes a pile of human-shaped metal figures from soda cans and mannequins seem to sweep them up whilst a vid monitor play a tape about getting rid of people who are "social garbage." A searing endictment of how we live today, and how we treat people we don't like.
Sort of reminds Us of a lot of Our dates this past year...
London is currently initiating a campaign about informing the public how to report racist hate crimes, after the police bungled two racially motivated killings' investigations. In a recent case, a black man was set afire in North London and the police tried to fob it off as part of his history of mental illness. His family persisted in pursuing justice, and two years later, the police are suddenly able to locate and arrest a subject. We are happy to see this, in light of NYC Mayor Giuliani's obstinate stance in defending the cops. My police, right or wrong, eh Rudy? We are not amused.
After all that art, We went shopping. We were on queue a lot of the day. We forgot to use our 10%-off voucher from Virgin Atlantic when we went to the Virgin Megastore. So we waited a good long time on the customer service line. Then they returned all the CDs and rung them up anew at the discount. We thanked the clerk and he said, "Right, cheers, thanks a lot."
We then went up and down Charing Cross Road buying books. We also went to Marchmont Street to visit Gay's the Word, London's gay bookstore. Possibly the only one in the nation. A lot of gay men told us how having a gay bookstore was not completely essential as book store chains like Dillon's, Waterstones, and Blackwell's have a gay and lesbian section. But this is not completely true. We looked around some of those stores and we did not always find these sections. We also noticed that many popular gay and lesbian authors were not on the shelves. Picano, Rodi, and even Leavitt were not readily available. The importance of a gay bookstore devoted to making the whole spectrum of GL lit available, especially from smaller presses, is absolutely vital. Major bookstores only cater to what is a likely seller. They simply don't have the same mission a gay bookstore would. (They also don't carry pornography.)
We had a lovely dinner of Lamb Balti at an Indian restaurant across the street. Quite wonderful, although We cannot quite describe to you all what Balti is. But We liked it.
We then moved on to the Underground. When We got to the platform We realized that We left Our book in a phone box up on the street. We went back and two women squeezed into the booth handed it back to Us. Later, We met Danny and Susie at the Curzon Soho to see Niagara Niagara.. It is a plush place with a coffee bar up top and a bar bar downstairs. Reserved seating. Carpet everywhere. Just five pounds for a weekday showing. We are saving money and that pleases Us. We read a headline in the Daily Mail that said the Queen Mother has a four-million-pound debt. She lives a life of luxury. And why shouldn't she? She was the Duchess of York, the Queen Consort, and now, the Queen Mother. Heck, she's 98 years old. Imagine how much worse the debt would be without her senior discount?
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