Good Lord's

Michael, the tour guide at this little known cricket stadium (I think they call it the Mecca of cricket or something like that) did turn out to be quite an entertaining fellow as he shepherded the group of 12 people crazy enough to take this tour on a bloody cold day, while the ground was covered with snow. The small museum that houses old snaps of cricketers and a few hand painted ones of later day famous ones also houses the original urn ‘Ashes’. The story is that in 1882, Australians defeated Englishmen in their home ground, and a sports writer wrote a scathing eulogy for English cricket. In the article he mentioned that the English cricket was dead and burned and Australians had taken the Ashes home with them. The public made some hue and cry asking the ashes to be brought back. Some time later, when the English were touring Aussies, they played a friendly game. After the game, one of the Australian cricketer’s wives decided to pull a small prank. She burnt one of the bails from the game played and presented it to the English captain as a gift, saying ‘ here are some ashes’. The fellow sportingly took them back with him to England and the urn remained with him till his death. The sports article is still kept there as well as the original urn in a glass case. The Ashes trophy presented nowadays is a replica of this one, as this does not leave its glass case.

The main tour takes us first into the famous long room in the main pavilion building. On a game day, the main table and the chairs around it are replaced completely with chairs on which the members of the club sit and enjoy the game. Having the capacity to seat about 2K people at a time, the club has a membership of around 18K, which poses a problem of sorts. Sometimes the members line up outside the main gate as early as 5 hours before the gates are opened to avail of the first come first seated rule. When the gates do open 2 hours before the game is to begin at 11 in the morning, there’s a mad scramble to get to the seats. Imagine a race where the average age of the sprinters is over 60, and all of them dressed in immaculately ironed suits, and well, you get the drift.

One of the doors in the in the long room leads to the bar, and according to the guide most players pass through here as well, and here was where Flintoff used to be confused as to which door to go through.

Next up is the home team’s dressing room, sadly no photography allowed. The seats all lined up along the four walls, with a big cube table in the middle. You have to be there to witness the stories that the guide narrates of numerous players’ escapades in that room, or how Matt prior broke the window, the area Pietersen keeps for his gloves and ego. Standing at the balcony right out this room, one can get a nice look of the entire field, which is covered with a thin layer of snow right now. Sadly, the visitors’ dressing room wasn’t accessible this time, so couldn’t see Dravid’s name on the wall boards there.

They also have a small ‘real tennis’ court in the ground premises, played with a small racquet, almost like squash, but has 2 sides like lawn tennis, but one can use the walls, I know, sounds weird! Next we move on to the spectator area, the Grand Stand, the white seats all folded up, and here finally thankfully, photography is allowed. On one side you can see the pavilion, and right opposite on the other end is the oval shaped JP Morgan media center, and between them is the big clock keeping time, so that the exhausted cricketers can break off for a cool one at the end of the day. So close to the green grass, yet can’t even walk on it, its completely forbidden. The pitch is completely covered in green grass, hard to believe that this is where the brown surface would be pounded on normally. On to the press center, which has been built using boat building technology, and stands right opposite to the pavilion. The story is, that when the plans for the weird oval structure of the center was shown to builders, most of them called it too crazy to be built, so they hired a shipbuilder to fashion the nice structure.

The tour ends , quite coincidentally ( in the tour guide’s words) at the gift shop, where you can buy some memorabilia, or just pose with one of the Lord’s hats, and call it a good day.

London 2012 - Part deux

After a quick McD burger, the first stop was made at the BoE. I know, I know, could’ve given them some help to deal with the European crisis, but I was there just to visit the museum they have there. Small one, but quite informative. There’s also a 400 ounce solid gold bar which is their bullion reserve standard. You can weight test the heavy thing, apart from the weight, and access to it only through a solid glass case with a hole for your arm, the guards at the front gate, there’s also the added measure of a CCTV camera aimed straight at your face. The monitor is also in front, as if to remind you not to make a run for it, and possibly to shave once in a while and do something about acne. But, we digress, the museum houses a lot of facts about the development of their currency, inflation, interest rates, the salient features of the new notes, YAWN….I know, they did try to make it interesting with some games, small documentaries, and what not, but in the end its still a bit boring. So Out I strutted after spending 30 minutes there. Did pass by St Paul's Cathedral, where some peopl had put up tents and were protesting.

Decided that the bare minimum pounds that I had wouldn’t last too long (this city is bloody costly, god save the Queen and all that), entered a Thomas Cook shop. Apparently the lady sitting there was too attached to her Pounds, quoting me a hefty $1.77 for a Pound. It turns out, I was equally attached to the nice Greenbacks, and ended up parting up with it only for $1.63 to a Pound (later in the day somewhere else). Their day tours for Stonehenge, Salisbury, Scotland were all booked for the week, so that too was out of the question, probably should’ve done some research before coming to this country methinks.

So here I was, out walking in the cold, along the river, enjoying the ‘Thames Walk’, they have in fact made a nice path alongside all the buildings next to the river, and you can walk on it up to the Cathedral. Onto the Millennium Bridge, and you leave St Paul’s Cathedral behind and exit on the other side at TATE. Now I’m not one to shy away from artwork, but there are way too many places to see outside. So on I went past the London eye and then Big Ben onto St. James Park. The ice cover on the small pond has thawed a bit, and there are plenty of ducks and pelicans enjoying the grub passer-bys are throwing to them. People would seriously do anything to stay in shape, running in shorts here in sub zero weather. I for one, consider Round to be a figure pleasing to the eye, then again I do live in a fantasy world with my imaginary friends.

Well, off to see the famous Buckingham Palace, would you believe it, I had walked right past it the night before and had not even realized it that it was there. Back home I have seen more grand and definitely bigger buildings, and not all of them are called a Palace. Nevertheless, the ‘Tourists’ were busy taking their snaps in front of the ‘Palace’, so not to make them feel left out, I took a few snaps as well. Now I don’t know how It got into my head that Harrod’s is one of the famous auction houses (Even after seeing that its not I am not going to leave my search for the elusive Harrod’s auction house), because I was really looking forward to see it, and that’s where I was headed. On the way chanced upon a small Ferrari showroom, and quite shamelessly asked the receptionist to buzz me in the door, and take a few snaps of the prancing horses. Well, had a “buy a Ferrari Spyder” on my bucket list, guess this comes close enough, so one thing crossed off (I’m not very ambitious as you can see, neither am I quite honest).

I did reach Harrod’s and well, it turned out to be a high end shopping mall. Roamed into the big store assuming the look of an interested buyer, while avoiding eye contact with all the store salespeople. Out once more, and onto the busy shopping district of Oxford street, where I ended up spending some more time wasting before trudging into the hot shower at the hotel and into the comfort of the warm bed.

London 2012

Day 1 –


Even with the heavy snow in the morning, the baggage delay was only over an hour, not bad. After leaving the nice DC weather, the snow covered roads were a sight to behold. At 9 in the morning, the hotel staff lets me know that the check in time is 2 pm, and no rooms are vacant yet, so much for the ‘hospitality’ sector, and planning ahead. With the baggage dumped at the hotel, and a jet lag, and fog spewing forth from the mouth, I’m out. The friendly Indian guy at the hotel bar let me know how to get the hang of the public transport. So after a short tube ride (for the uninitiated, let the 2 minute old ‘wise one’ educate you, they call the city train as ‘tube’, what we call the metro), I board the double Decker # 15 bus for a nice ride of the city.

Turned out to be one of the handful of people out on this cold Sunday, but I was in the front seat of the upper level of the double Decker, and I did enjoy t a lot. The bus takes a nice round route, thankfully not many people out on the roads today, passed the Tower of London, quite a nice view, sitting right next to Thames. The bus also passes next to St Paul’s Cathedral, beautiful structure, thankfully seems to have survived the years of mankind, and the heavy snow as well!

Got down at some street, I have a very poor memory (maybe it was Piccadilly), just remembered that there was the ‘East India Company’ office there as well, heh! Maybe I'm responsible for the lock on the front door?

I think I’m still a bit tired from all that cold and walking, since I can just remember some tall spires, the snow covered cars parked on the streets, and the red telephone booths. Roamed around the entire day, catching the Westminster Abbey, and the London Eye in the evening. Ended up at the Trafalgar square where they have the Olympic countdown clock erected, and it does look nice in the back of the surroundings. The frozen water at the sides of the fountain there looks quite splendid indeed in the green and orange light. Too tired to do anything, just rested away the rest of the day at the hotel.