London, Innit

Polish-Mexican restaurant

Spotted this Polish-Mexican restaurant while following the course of the centuries-buried Tyburn river from Baker St to Picadilly. I can curse in both languages: note to self, eat dinner there.

St Paul's Cathedral: the source of DRM

Went walking with Paula today. We climbed the hundreds of steps to the top of the dome at St Paul's Cathedral and got a breathtaking view of London, but my fear of heights kicked in and there was no way I was going to reach into my pocket for my camera. Back inside, I snapped this pic of the root of all DRM.

I love London's newspaper trade

One thing I utterly adore about London is its relationship to the printed word. The city overflows with bookstores and newsagents and supports literally incredible volume of magazines and newspapers -- II mean, it strains my credulity to imaging that all those periodicals are actually sustainable!

The newspaper business is so highly evolved. The newsagents write the day's headline in chisel-tip-market calligraphy -- standardized across thousands of newsagents, many of whom don't have English as a first language -- and prop it outside their shops on sandwich boards. These headlines are exquisitely well-written teasers that demand that you investigate further, almost always appealing to prurience (a lot of London's papers are frankly shit; I've heard liberal intelligensia friends dismiss the "red-top" tabloids in particular).

Unlike Namerica's newspaper-box sales-pitches, the you can't see the front page of the paper without getting right up in the newsagent's face, and, like as not, paying him. All you get is that teaser.

In my nabe, there's a local weekly rag called the Camden Chronicle, which has the most delicious, sensationalistic headlines of all.

Highgate Cemetery

Highgate Cemetery was breathtaking: an amazing, Charles Addams-style boneyard that couldn't have been themed any better if they'd set the Imagineers loose upon it. I didn't get to Marx's grave, but I did queue up for the West Cemetery tour, and saw many wondrous and decrepit crypts, vaults, stones and monuments. The tour guide was fantastic. I shot a ton of pix with the Exilim, and a good quantity came out stunning: check 'em out.