tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6904136138589966562024-02-07T12:36:50.375-08:00Janette Griffiths London Blimey!Janette Griffiths is an award-winning travel writer, novelist, broadcaster and scriptwriter. She's lived in Paris, Florence, Chicago and Vancouver as well as her native London. London is the one place that defeats her. She is bemused by the city - can't decide whether she hates it as much as she thinks she does or is secretly besotted with it. Here she posts her baffled thoughts about the placeJanette Griffithshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15836983801769722555noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-690413613858996656.post-55284490438680789442015-06-11T08:21:00.000-07:002015-06-11T08:21:36.107-07:00150 years of the Lovely Langham Hotel<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Well, it was quite a day yesterday up at Langham Place in London. The very grand (but in a pink floral and friendly sort of a way) Langham Hotel celebrated its 150th birthday.<br />
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Albert Roux oversaw the smoked salmon blinis but modestly stayed in the background of the group picture. The white horses that drew the fairy-tale white carriage got scared by the dozens of pink balloons that were released - and a nice blonde lass with plaits wandered through and got a lot of young folk outside most terribly excited. It really was all go.<br />
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That's the cake in front of her in the right-hand picture. I didn't stay long enough to have a bite but if it was anything like the pumpkin quiche or the mini-benedicts with black truffle, it would have been worth the wait. There again, I'd gotten into the banana daiquiris in the Artesia bar so was approving of just about everything that came my way.<br />
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Grand Hotels need to stay grand. Just lately a lot of them (no names mentioned) are forgetting this and sacrificing beauty and elegance for a trendy designer statement. The Langham never forgets that we need glamour; we need that moment of instant transformation as we step from the grimy, noisy, scratchy city outside, through the revolving doors into elegance, opulence and romance. Yesterday, the Langham's lobby was decorated with huge vases of pink hydrangeas and fragrant roses. Branches of blossom arched over the entrance to the restaurant. So we got romance and glamour without the stuffiness.<br />
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Charles Dickens used to stay here, they tell me - for £14/6 a night including a meal. I'm not sure he'd get more than one banana daiquiri for that sum these days but I think he'd approve of the way the old place has endured and flourished.Janette Griffithshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15836983801769722555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-690413613858996656.post-44159303465311542972014-05-29T05:17:00.000-07:002014-05-29T05:19:49.065-07:00Sleeping at Gatwick - Yotel or an airport bench?<br />
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Leaving London to go by air to anywhere in Europe seems these days to involve getting up at 3 or 4 in the morning to catch one of those obscenely early flights out of Gatwick or Stansted or Luton. Arriving early at your destination may give you extra time but if you are feeling sleep-deprived and half-dead on your feet, I've never seen the advantage. Some people have taken to sleeping on an airport bench and there is even a website devoted to this <a href="http://www.sleepinginairports.net/" target="_blank">http://www.sleepinginairports.net</a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> </span><br />
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If you do opt for a hotel off-site, remember to check that they provide shuttle service. This is not always the case in the UK and the extra cab fare can cancel out any savings you made on the room. When I stayed at the Yotel a few months back, I left my bags in the room, rode the elevator up to the main terminal and went for a leisurely stroll. Without bags to lug, anxiety about check-ins and the like, I discovered that air terminals can be pleasant places to visit. Who knew?</div>
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Janette Griffithshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15836983801769722555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-690413613858996656.post-71384022601006982662014-05-04T00:50:00.000-07:002014-05-04T08:37:29.414-07:00Sunday Morning in the Bluebell Wood<br />
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Wood banks and brakes wash wet like lakes" Poet Gerald Manley Hopkins said of a bluebell wood in his "May Magnificat".<br />
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Bluebell woods can surprise, coming at you from the corner of your eye as you drive down a major highway. That happened to me once in Hampshire. Suddenly a forest floor seemed to be carpeted with blue and I had to stop the car to see what had happened. Bluebells had happened. They happen a lot this time of year. I've stumbled on a bluebell wood behind the "Sun" pub in Dunsfold and a couple of miles from there, I found a quiet country road with tender green leaves shading blue carpets on both sides. My mother was unsteady on her feet at the time so we declared this our 'drive-through' wood, rolled down the windows to catch their fragrance and drove slowly through. Sometimes they share the wood with wild garlic which can confuse the nose but makes for a beautiful combination of blue, speckled with white.<br />
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Last Sunday, <a href="http://www.londongardenstrust.org/features/Perivale.htm">The Selborne Society</a> opened the private Perivale Wood so that locals could enjoy the bluebells. People flocked to this woodland not far from the A40 in such numbers that you could be forgiven for thinking a free concert or even free beer was on offer.<br />
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Once inside the wood, the crowds were somehow drawn into its peace and serenity. Birdsong prevailed, people faded into the sea of flowers, the A40 roared on its way but we no longer knew it, lost as we all were in a moment of English springtime perfection.Janette Griffithshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15836983801769722555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-690413613858996656.post-82280167990968848902014-04-13T15:21:00.000-07:002014-04-13T15:21:44.769-07:00Rubies, diamonds and naked ladies in the sand dunes<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtJufvuQdUb0uMx6y5XlMb65GZ82_lowEkJFi5EU97N00Ma1Gzr5-0P7sWKjkGGgr_zzUywbDiCTl_dtvwKLQGZBc7uc2AN8_zwUS3zm9yIMloORtL_T6JsHn-nmQXrGzC6XuGjS8CPvk/s1600/7ePz4.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtJufvuQdUb0uMx6y5XlMb65GZ82_lowEkJFi5EU97N00Ma1Gzr5-0P7sWKjkGGgr_zzUywbDiCTl_dtvwKLQGZBc7uc2AN8_zwUS3zm9yIMloORtL_T6JsHn-nmQXrGzC6XuGjS8CPvk/s1600/7ePz4.jpeg" /></a>The<a href="http://www.royaloperaarcade.com/"> Royal Opera Arcade</a> is nowhere near the Royal Opera House. Even Londoners are confused when they stumble across this peaceful, beautiful passageway next door to the Sofitel Hotel between Pall Mall and Charles II street in St James - a full 10 minutes walk from the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. Just around the corner on Haymarket is Her Majesty's theatre. This was once the Royal Opera House and, in its new incarnation has, appropriately enough, contracted "The Phantom of the Opera" to play there for, what may well turn out to be, eternity itself. I'll devote a post to this, the oldest shopping arcade in London, next week but for now, here's a quick look at a wonderfully sensuous evening at the <a href="http://www.lagalleria.org/section741536.html">La Galleria Pall Mall</a> last Thursday.<br />
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The Edinburgh auction house,<a href="http://www.lyonandturnbull.com/asp/searchresults.asp?pg=1&ps=25&st=D&sale_no=406++++"> Lyon and Turnbull</a> had brought a private collection of Sir William Russell Flint watercolours to the gallery in advance of their April 30th sale in Edinburgh. For good measure they had thrown in a wonderfully eclectic collection of jewelry and, best of all, they were letting visitors to the opening trying on any piece they chose. Here on the left, is Catriona Macpherson from the Pall Mall Art Advisors wearing a ruby and diamond necklace. And here is my wrist displaying, probably for the first and last time in its life, a bracelet of gold diamonds.<span id="goog_2075235316"></span><br />
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Once I'd stopped playing with the jewelry, I wandered around<br />
Sir William Russell Flint's utterly happy, sunny watercolours of sultry half-naked women on idyllic beaches or bathing in provencal fountains or dipping their feet in an Ardeche stream.<br />
Flint always wore a jacket and tie to paint and sat at his desk. This methodical, rigorous man produced painting after painting filled with the delight of living and glowing with the joys of summer.<br />
<span id="goog_2075235315"></span>Janette Griffithshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15836983801769722555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-690413613858996656.post-80377609937335195042014-04-11T03:25:00.000-07:002014-04-11T03:25:31.457-07:00I jump from great heights at Milbank Tower with SkyscannerI'm at the top of the Milbank tower in London in their Altitude bar. This is the softest of April evenings. Across the river the gardens of Lambeth Palace are frothing with trees just bursting out in that tender green of early spring. Who knew that the Archbish had such vast grounds? The London Eye turns almost imperceptibly, Big Ben tolls 7pm. I don a helmet and when a German voice says "Go to the ledge and jump!" I do just that, and hurtle through space, bumping into the edge of buildings as I go but feeling nothing but a giddying, plummeting sensation. "Get ready to land!" cries the German. Before I can figure out how to do that, he says "Oh dear, you died," and gently removes the helmet.<div>
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The German is Nils Müller, CEO of <a href="http://www.trendone.com/">Trendone</a> who along with <a href="http://www.skyscanner.net/aboutskyscanner.aspx">Skyscanner's</a> Filip Filipov has come to the Altitude to talk to us about the way we will travel in 2024. The helmet, or rather Oculus Rift head-mounted display, was one of several alluring gadgets brought along to illustrate the ways in which the burgeoning field of virtual reality will allow travellers to 'try before they buy.' And no, jumping from a ledge will not necessarily be a routine holiday choice in 2024 but it did show how powerful the virtual experience has become.</div>
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A better example of 'try before you buy' was another display that, when the headset was donned, took the traveller to a Tuscan villa on the Mediterranean. I tried that one and found myself walking through a somewhat stylized, albeit beautiful, Tuscan garden into a villa where a fire burned in the grate. When Nils, from outside the helmet, suggested I go upstairs, I reached, needlessly, for the banister and started lifting my feet up - also unnecessary because I was only going upstairs in my eyes and brain. Once on the balcony I had a breathtaking view of the sea beyond a garden where dozens of butterflies danced. I said I thought the butterflies were a stretch but was assured that this is just a prototype.</div>
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"Try before you buy" will not just be a visual experience. Haptic technology will also allow the user's touch to feel the texture of a hotel bed or warm sand beneath their feet. Skyscanner also foresees the use of "Digital Travel Buddies", an Artificial Intelligence device with, perhaps, the face of a favourite actor, friend, fictional hero or heroine that can appear as a hologram image. It will know our choices, habits, dislikes etc and will be able to assess our mood or emotional reaction and make suggestions accordingly. This digital travel buddy would be always with us (hmmm...) contained inside a watch or a small piece of jewellry. And you thought Aladdin's genie was just a fairy tale???</div>
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And yes, Google Glasses were in evidence. More sophisticated versions will allow a traveller to translate a menu instantly, or interpret what your Turkish taxi driver is saying. And for those of us who thought Google Glasses were a bit scary, the University of Washington is developing contact lenses that serve the same function. Are you ready for Wifi in the eye?</div>
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Janette Griffithshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15836983801769722555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-690413613858996656.post-89475541553425698522014-03-26T06:45:00.004-07:002014-03-26T06:45:41.387-07:00"Chocolate Afternoon Tea" with Paul A. Young at the Grosvenor House HotelAfternoon Tea has run a bit out of control in our city. A couple of decades ago, just a few top hotels offered the 3-tier cake stand with scones, finger sandwiches and cakes. Now every establishment that can cut the crusts off a few sandwiches has muscled in on the ritual. I recently came across a bicycle repair shop offering afternoon tea. Things, it seems, are getting a little silly - and mightily expensive.<br />
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One of those "few top hotels," the Grosvenor House on Park Lane, has come up with a novel and delightful way of making afternoon tea special again. Working with award-winning chocolatier, Paul A.Young, they've introduced a "Chocolate Afternoon Tea" in the Park Room.<br />
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This sounded good to me - chocolate always sounds good - but did it risk being a little cloying?<br />
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All that sugar! I hadn't reckoned with Paul A. Young's wonderfully dark, subtle and original chocolates and pastries. Even before I got to them, the smooth Madagascan cocoa nib tea was marking this afternoon tea as being different. Most leaf teas wind up brewing too long and turning bitter while tea-drinkers eat and talk. <br />"More hot water please" has been the cry for at least a century in grand hotels throughout the world. But to little avail. Once the bitterness has set in there's not much you can do - which is a metaphor for life too come to think of it.<br />
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The Madagascan cocoa nib tea needs no milk, has been brewed to perfection, stays just that way while you tuck into....well just what do you tuck into at a "Chocolate Afternoon Tea"?<br />
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Not too much chocolate for starters. Just the right amount. Stand-outs on our cake stand were Paul A.Young's Earl Grey Tea Chocolate Tart with Salted Lemon Truffle and an Orange, English Honey and Geranium Ganache.<br />
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But the utterly wonderful, ludicrously indulgent moment came when the warm, crusty, fluffy scones were served with clotted cream and Young's award-winning sea salted caramel. Blimey! I mean really, I haven't allowed myself to venture near this sort of pure ambrosia in years. After 3 scones, (yes 3) I was convinced that I would have to pay for this much sweet pleasure. An hour later, I would try for redemption by walking for 3 hours around Mayfair and the West End. Anyone who knows Mayfair, will guess that that nearly got me into an entirely other sort of trouble.... <br />
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Back to the tea. The scones and that marriage of salted caramel and clotted cream were the highlight. And yes, they do serve some good finger sandwiches including a cucumber and Venezuelan chocolate offering as well as the more classic smoked salmon, egg mayonnaise and cress etc. But let's be honest, these are really just a formality to get us to the chocolate,caramel, cream etc.<br />
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This Chocolate Afternoon Tea is served in the serene and lovely Park Room across from Hyde Park, and is priced at £39.50 per person or £49.50 if you add a glass of champagne. I did. It relieved the guilt just a bit.<br />
<br />Janette Griffithshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15836983801769722555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-690413613858996656.post-51890313153157289522013-07-24T22:29:00.000-07:002013-07-24T22:29:50.687-07:00Carpo - Greeks bearing chocolate, coffee, nuts and honey make Piccadilly cosy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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London thoroughfares don’t come much more distinguished than Piccadilly. Home to the Ritz, the Royal Academy, Fortnum and Maison’s and the Burlington Arcade and breaking out at its western edges into the gentle green slopes of Green Park with Buckingham Palace visible through the trees. Piccadilly, the street not the Circus, has always been one of the favoured avenues to walk in the capital.<br /><br />With great hotels, great art, the city’s finest department store and an elegant, historic shopping arcade, Piccadilly seemed to have it all. But, until recently, it could not lay any claim to cosiness or neighbourliness. Until Carpo arrived from Athens. So who or what is Carpo? Well simply put, Carpo sells nuts, chocolate, honey, coffee and dried fruit in their lovely store close to the Meridien Hotel at number 16 Piccadilly. But that dry description does not do this delightful venue justice.<br /><br />Already wildly popular in their home base in the Greek capital, this is Greece and the Mediterranean at its best. This is the place to stop for a coffee or a tea with honey where you can escape the predictability of the coffee and sandwich chains nearby. There’s a toasty smell of roasting nuts wafting from the back of the store. A soundtrack of jazz, Sinatra or Montand fills this big high-ceilinged space with its, slabs of chocolate, sacks of macadamias, walnuts, cashews, almonds and mini-mountains of preserved fruits: figs, dates, confit lemons, goji berries- all reminding us that while Greece is in Europe, part of her will always face east to the Orient. Elegantly decorated, warmly lit and with friendly Greek staff who will remember you after a visit or two, Carpo is a surprising and welcome arrival that brings a human scale to the grand avenue that is Piccadilly. Janette Griffithshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15836983801769722555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-690413613858996656.post-69740351784516959272013-01-23T03:15:00.004-08:002013-01-23T03:15:50.294-08:00HOT CHOCOLATE FOR THESE COLD DAYS<br />
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For years I've believed that Angelina's on the Rue de Rivoli in Paris was the absolute, unbeatable best place for hot chocolate on the planet. The setting under the stone arcades, the view out onto the stark, pollarded trees in the Tuileries gardens, the lights of the whirling "manège" in the winter twilight and the vast, elegant room with its frescoes of a French Riviera that is only a memory in 2013. Then there was the chocolate - thick dark brown served in a jug with a little pot of whipped cream. It remains one of the loveliest places to wile away a cold hour in January.<br />
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I can't say the same of any of the "L'Artisan du Chocolat" venues that
I've visited so far - one in a little nook in Selfridge's, one in
Notting Hill and one at Borough Market. The Notting Hill location on
Westbourne Grove does have comfortable seating and is not unattractive
in a clean, sharp, bright, white sort of a way. But the chocolate - oh
the chocolate! It's fabulous - rich and thick and dark and with a
smooth, very slight hint of vanilla and caramel in the aftertaste. But
it's not sickeningly sweet and cloying. Since I fell for that Parisian
hot chocolate, I've lost my taste for sweets in general so the whole
business of hot chocolate was off <br />
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my radar - until a lovely lady in the Artisan's outlet in Selfridge's offered me a sample. And that was it.....Since then I've taken to wandering through the snows of London, hoping to relive that first experience. And here I am above, in Notting Hill, after a brave trek all the way from Ealing. And there's on the right is the delicious chocolate. In Notting Hill, the cup of chocolate plus 2 chocolates from their selection, will cost you £3. In the little nook in Selfridge's, you can get a good sized paper cup of the stuff for £2.Janette Griffithshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15836983801769722555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-690413613858996656.post-84356914023822345152009-02-17T01:56:00.000-08:002009-02-18T01:34:35.880-08:00Mike Figgis at the ICA - the baffling new world that awaits the moviesHeard Mike Figgis on 'Start the Week' talking about the very different future that awaits movies. He elaborated later that evening at the ICA. After a week of working on loglines, synopses etc for my novel adaptation and finally submitting them to the traditional Hollywood system this weekend, I was not sure that I wanted to hear what he had to say. But Figgis and his ideas turned out to be strangely heartening and quietly inspiring - even if what he had to say about Hollywood was absolutely damning.<br />"Film", said Figgis, "is a very over-rated, shallow medium that humanity has taken to because we worship our own image - and the sight of that image blown-up on a screen is irresistible to us."<br /><br />He recalled his own early experiences of making big money in Hollywood and having the sense that one day he would be 'found out'. And he talked of film studios the size of Bideford "actually owning bricks and mortar to produce the kind of crap they are currently churning out." And of studio execs who, like bankers, had no sense of reality when it came to money - a loss of $200,000,000 barely registering with the head of one major studio.<br /><br />But Figgis is convinced that the era of celluloid is over 'romantic debates about it are a red herring.' Digital film has changed everything -and there is no going back. Soon we will be rethinking everything about our experience of film - its length, where it is shown, who makes them, performs in them and how they are funded. "We are living in sci-fi world right now,' contiinued Figgis. "The cork came of the bottle and the genie popped out so dynamically," that we are all still dealing with the implications.<br /><br />Figgis echoed something that I have been hearing since October. People in the arts are feeling a sense of relief over the financial collapse. We sense (or perhaps just hope) that a cleansing will come about from the sudden lack of money. Bloated industries like Hollywood studios will be forced to change if they are to survive.<br /><br />In the meantime, he advised the rest of us who, thanks to digital photography, can now make a small film to 'get a space - preferably a space that is kind of fun. Run your film for a few showings - get the crits and public in' and let the thing build organically. With the internet there are more and more opportunities to connect and make money.<br /><br />I agreed with everything he said. It felt like a refreshing new way to tell stories. On the tube on the way home, I still felt excited by this new vision. It is, as Michael Rouse, a Canadian film-maker friend says, a matter of learning to let go of the "great producer/distributer/agents/parental guide (mental state) God that even the most ardent atheists and agnostics bow and pray to". My Canadian friend is right. Figgis is right. But this new way will require immense imagination and energy. Back at the house, at midnight, I found myself checking to see if any of the big West Coast agents had reacted to my script.....<br />Rouse, in the meantime is making a movie about jobs in the environmental sector and has struck out on the route advised by Figgis: http://<a href="http://apps.facebook.com/causes/129902">apps.facebook.com/causes/129902</a><a href="http://apps.facebook.com/causes/129902"></a>Janette Griffithshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15836983801769722555noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-690413613858996656.post-58266241811126984442009-02-15T14:34:00.000-08:002009-02-15T14:46:00.670-08:00Sunday -with and without the Sunday papersI'd been going back and forth to Vancouver for 7 years when I suddenly realized why Sundays in Vancouver felt lighter and cheerier than Sundays in London. Of course, in the Canadian city I can see the snow on the mountains when I wake up. And in winter there's the prospect of sno-shoeing on those peaks - in summer there's a dip in the Pacific at the end of the road. But all the Lotus-land pleasures of BC aside, the one enormous difference is that nobody bothers with Sunday papers in Vancouver. This pathetic ritual of loading a stonking great pile of dead tree into your supermarket trolley and lugging it home to read all those opinions of all those dried-up poseurs would be unthinkable in Canada. The leading national paper, The Globe and Mail doesn't even bother publishing a Sunday edition. <div><br /></div><div>I remember once reading a Stephen Fry column (in something like the Spectator NOT a Sunday paper) where he said that he had found himself becoming increasingly more depressed by the Sunday press - all those dismissive opinions - all the cynicism - and had finally called a halt and felt better for it. The prospect of a hike up Mt Seymour makes it easy to ignore the press but even in London, I think the time would be better spent picking dry skin of the soles of my feet.</div>Janette Griffithshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15836983801769722555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-690413613858996656.post-81877357085837754802008-11-30T09:28:00.000-08:002008-11-30T11:18:51.718-08:00When did blue become a Christmas colour?Yes, I know Elvis Presley sang about a "Blue Christmas" but he was looking with dread towards a loveless season of abject misery. We weren't supposed to be aspiring to a few winter weeks of glacial, icy, freezing, cheerless blue. But the good burghers of Ealing, west London (where I'm writing this) , Vancouver, some arrondissements of Paris and various other spots across the globe don't seem to know this. <div><br /></div><div>Blue lights are draped over trees, atop department stores, across shopping malls and in houses on either side of the Atlantic. They are awful and I speak as one whose favourite colour has always been blue. But it doesn't belong at Christmas. Energy saving 'led' lights are blue, I am told. And when they first appeared on the scene several years ago, they were. But since then we have red and green and gold. After all, if we can put a man on the....etc etc, well surely we can make some energy friendly white gold lights?</div><div><br /></div><div>When I lived in Chicago, the small white/gold lights covered the trees on Michigan Avenue and were known as Italian lights. They cover New York's Tavern on the Green year round and give off magic and warmth. And they are all over the 'historical centres' of most Italian towns at this time of year. I'm guessing at a market ploy for the garish bright blue. The poor old consumer couldn't be allowed to go through the ritual of pulling out the old white lights, testing them, finding out which bulbs had failed, replacing them so a new colour was foisted upon the public and the poor old public bought it. Too bad...like many adults, despite the inevitable disappointment and cynicism that will eventually accompany the season, I still find the first days of Christmas lights in even the most depressed centre to be strangely cheering. But a lot less so when they are the colour of an Alaskan iceberg</div>Janette Griffithshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15836983801769722555noreply@blogger.com1