• They say that travel broadens the mind; I’ve also noticed that it can shrink the wallet. So I’ve been pretty careful about bringing back souvenirs. One big one I’m bringing back is a Billingham camera bag, a used one I found in a camera shop just off Russell Street.

  One of the reasons I thought I’d get one is that a camera bag makes much better sense for carrying a laptop than a laptop bag. The foldable slots for lenses can, in this case, be used for surge protectors, plugs, cables, and other peripherals that conventional laptop bags don’t seem to think of. Which means easier organization.

  I’m sure that, with a little careful thinking, I could turn this into a solo weekend bag: clothes as well as computer. But that can wait for another day.

• I spent the morning wandering around Carnaby Street, a place synonymous with the British Invasion and the Swinging Sixties, and I’m sorry to report that it’s been “malled.”

  There are some nice shops there, a few that are even worth visiting and actually unique. But it’s a lot like Byward Market in Ottawa, or Robson Street in Vancouver: so many retailers there are either franchises or set up as if they expected to sell a franchise. Apart from a few pubs, I didn’t see any shop there that I would consider an independent retailer.

• Notting Hill (you know, where the Julia Roberts / Hugh Grant movie takes place) is slightly better in that respect, more like Fourth Avenue in Kitsilano. I couldn’t take the Underground there because the station is closed for a planned renovation, but it was a pleasant neighbourhood to walk about in, even with the wind and the drizzle. (Yep — it’s Vancouver weather here, though not quite as cold.)
• One thing I do like about London culture: they’re very literate around here; tons of used bookstores about the place, including one called London Review (I think). I will admit to being a book addict, and I think I may have overindulged here. (Which is another reason I bought the Billingham.)

  So now I’m reacquainting myself with Michael Palin and his quest to understand Ernest Hemingway, and I’m getting a brand new introduction to Umberto Eco, courtesy of his essay collection How to Travel With A Salmon. (Yes, I saw The Name of the Rose with Sean Connery and Christian Slater, but I never suspect that Senor Eco could be such a satirist.)

• About the one big annoyance I have with London is something technological: for some reason I can’t recharge my Nintendo DS. I don’t know if it’s because the charger is broken (because I’ve got the laptop plugged in and that seems to be working just fine), or if there’s a compatibility issue. Either way, it puts a damper on what I plan to do on the plane ride back to Ottawa.

I think it was Samuel Johnson who said that the man who was tired of London was also tired of life. Certainly I wouldn’t mind visiting this city again — but I think my next trip to the United Kingdom will focus on Scotland, and Castle Doane. (Must remember to pack coconut shells.)

I gather that MasterChef is a BBC TV show, sort of like Iron Chef except that they have more cooks and double the time to make something with the theme ingredient. I don’t think they have that show in Canada.

Anyway, the food fest: one big difference between the one here and the one in Ottawa is that they’re less uptight about alcohol here. Instead of issuing beer-wine tickets, the local wine sellers either offered free samples (free samples of wine — mmmmmmm) or dealt with you on a strict cash basis. For example, one seller, for ten pounds ($20), let you have four samples of French champagnes (and yes, they were all from the Champagne region) along with a full glass of the one you liked best.

I like that sort of attitude. Much more relaxed, much more mellow, than the way they do it in Ontario.

One thing I also noted was that the portable, disposable wastebins all over the place (where you could dump the plastic biodegradable cups) were all labelled “spittoons.” And that actually taught me something about wine-tasting at these fests: you’re not expected to swallow the entire sample, for fear of being rude. I probably threw out about two-thirds of the samples I’d tasted.

Result: I don’t feel drunk, and I’m not expecting a hangover tomorrow either.

For all intents and purposes, I’ve got one more day in London. I think I may pay a visit to Carnaby Street and see what the fuss is all about.

Honestly, I wasn’t expecting to encounter Canadiana during my vacation. And yet, there he was, right beside the Observatory grounds, on the highest bit of the park area. I gather that the good General was a resident of Greenwich, and the statue, apparently, was a presentation of the Marquis de Montcalm in 1930.

Anyway, about the Observatory: it’s definitely worth the rail trip over. (Something I didn’t know: not all of London’s public transport systems are integrated into the Oyster Card scheme. Certainly the Southeastern trains to Greenwich aren’t, although apparently that’s going to change next year.) That’s because although London’s very urban, the park happens to be one of the bigger bits of green space around, and it makes for a welcome hike, though perhaps a bit steep.

It’s a good exhibition they’ve got there, because there are two parts to it: a Meridian walk, and an Astronomy walk. The Meridian walk is important because Greenwich happens to be the Prime Meridian; Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is headquartered here. There’s quite a lot of history on display here, particularly about the development of the chronometer or mechanical clock. (The English had a vested interest, since they needed clocks to help calculate longitude for their fleet of ships. It’s fascinating, the type of engineering breakthroughs that needed to be achieved.)

I also had a chance to look at the Maritime Museum, and I have to be honest: I didn’t find it as compelling as the Observatory. That could be because a lot of the galleries were being renovated for a new exhibition that would be opened next year, and it also could be that it was a more generalized cover than say, a naval museum. There’s a difference: although there’s quite a bit of naval material on display, much more focused on the sea and shipboard exploration. The big exhibit, when I visited, was a display about the search for the Northwest Passage, which was a bit more superficial than I would have liked.

* * * * *

Since I had some time in the afternoon, I sort of figured on going to the Baker Street underground station. And, seeing the wall tiles there displaying silhouettes of the Street’s most famous (fictional) residence, I elected to visit 221B. I was fairly certain that some enterprising fans of the consulting detective Mr. Sherlock Holmes would have set up something for his devoted fans.

And sure enough, they did. At the Sherlock Holmes Museum, they do sell a lot of Holmes memorabilia (deerstalkers, bowler hats, tea cosies, and so on), but if you pay 6 pounds you also get to tour the site — and what a site!

They’ve put a lot of money into recreating the place as a facsimile of what fans of Sherlock Holmes expected to see: the drawing room with “VR” bulletholes in one of the walls, Doctor Watson’s study complete with writing desk, and so on. On the top floor, you can see recreations of famous scenes from Conan Doyle’s short stories, such as the Man with the Twisted Lip, Irene Adler meeting the masked Bohemian prince, the death of Charles Augustus Milverton, and the first picture of the notorious Professor Moriarty. (There’s also a grey-haired actor/guide playing Holmes, in a casual smoking jacket of the period, not very convincingly compared with Rathbone or Brett. Just be polite and smile.)

There’s a pub called the Sherlock Holmes on Northumberland Street, which also recreated the Baker Street setting, but I don’t believe they’re quite as thorough as this one. They do pull a decent pint, though.

Mind you, it’d be absolutely foolish to compare Sir Winston Churchill to John George Diefenbaker. For all the Chief’s virtues and longevity (a point which does favourably compare with Sir Winston), he simply didn’t do as much to merit greatness in the eyes of the world. Certainly not when compared with the Lion.

The Cabinet War Rooms is a unique place to tour, justifying its expense with thoroughness and thoughtfulness in presentation. The price entitles you to a cell-phone like device that’s used to narrate the entire experience, with a male voice sounding suspiciously like one of those middle-aged British actors you see in PBS murder mysteries.

Sometimes it can be a pretty entertaining experience. Because they made a very serious attempt to recreate the “look and feel” of the War Rooms as they would have been in 1940, there are some signage and other materials that require quite a bit of explanation. “You’ll see a sign in that passage telling you to ‘turn off that light,’” says the narrator. “You can ignore that. It’s just a warning during a time of air raids, so that the German bombers won’t have a light to target at night.” Or: “On that post beside the chalkboard, you’ll see something like a doorbell beside a set of loose wires. That’s actually a wall-mounted cigarette lighter. You pressed the button, the wires would glow and you could light your cigarette.”

Of bigger interest, though, is the Churchill Museum located inside the War Rooms, completely dedicated to the life and times of Sir Winston. This is an impressive bit of public scholarship, and it doesn’t pull its punches when discussing Sir Winston’s foibles and faults. (For example, there was a time during his political career when Sir Winston self-identified as a big-L Liberal, in favour of such measures as the minimum wage. He also supported King Edward in his affair with Wallis Simpson.)

There’s quite a lot of interactivity, certainly when compared with our own Canadian War Museum: lots of touch-sensitive displays, recordings of Churchill’s speeches set off by a body proximity sensor, and so on. School-age children learning history could learn a lot from stuff like that.

The War Rooms are a branch of the Imperial War Museum, and I visited the main building this morning. Most of its focus was on the 20th century of warfare, which surprised me a bit until I realized that World Wars I and II were simply the most analyzed and archaeologic of all Britain’s battles; the 20th century battlefield is the one with the most relevance towards the 21st.

I went through an cartoon exhibit on World War I trench warfare. Yes, I said cartoon: it was, strictly speaking, aimed at 10-12 year old students trying to learn, so the cartoons added a sense of fun, a sugar coating for the bitter medicine of learning. A touch-sensitive display on the floor featured cartoon rats scurrying about; stomp hard enough (an apparent pastime of the troops in trenches) and the rats turn into bloody puddles. Nice, friendly stuff to keep the kids interested, but I’ll bet you won’t see that sort of thing in our war museum.

Tomorrow: a look at the Maritime Museum and Greenwich. With maybe a peep at Baker Street if there’s time.

I also have to admit that I was lucky — the clerk at the Jurys Inn Heathrow allowed me to check in early in the morning. Usually hotels don’t do that, and I’m grateful that this one did; it made it a lot easier to adjust my body clock to five hours ahead. (This is not something that can be done, in five hours, in economy class on Air Canada.)

The hotel I’m staying at, the Jurys Inn Heathrow, is a five-minute walk away from the Hatton Cross Underground station, which is very convenient if you’re travelling carry-on only but a bit worrisome if you’re like my senior aunts, who tend to move like icebergs and who get flobbery at the mere mention of the word “exercise.” As to the amenities, so far it’s sorta like the Irish version of a Days Inn or a TraveLodge, with one notable exception: when you come into the room, there’s a plastic slotbox for your hotel passcard. If you don’t park the passcard there, the power doesn’t come on in the room. I gather that this is a sort of environmental policy thing over here.

So today was essentially a decompression day, when all activity was directed towards self-orientation — adjusting the body clock, feeding, doing the stuff that can more readily be got out of the way.

Things like going to Harrods, where I tried out their champagne and oyster bar (English rock oysters are very nice with Tobasco, by the way), and where I picked up a couple of Nintendo DS games that they simply don’t have in North America. One is published by HarperCollins, called the 100 Classic Book Collection, featuring 100 works in the public domain (Jules Verne, Shakespeare, Conan Doyle, etc.). This essentially turns the DS into a virtual book reader like what Sony and Amazon have put out; I gather it’s not available in North America because “public domain” isn’t the same thing on our continent as it is over there. The other one features Times of London crossword puzzles, and I sort of understand why they don’t believe it’ll sell over there.

And things like visiting restaurants like Wagamama. I’ve probably mentioned this before, but this is still one of the best places to get Japanese-style noodle soup in the City.

So . . . tomorrow it’ll be either the National Maritime Museum, or the Imperial War Museum and the Churchill War Rooms. What I don’t do today, I’ll try to get done tomorrow. For now, however, it’s research time. (I’ve got 24 hours’ worth of Internet for 10 pounds; I want to get my money’s worth here.)

It is a Time of Celebration, in a world where even the most hope-inspiring of political figures has let the side down. Americans don’t let little things like politics get in the way of their right to have a good time — and the Yankees, by being enablers, have earned America’s thanks in that respect.

It’s inevitable, really. Mention “baseball” to a European and inevitable the picture he conjures up is a player in Yankee pinstripes. Manchester United? Richard Petty? The Montreal Canadiens? Aspirants to the iconic status that the Yankees enjoy in their fans’ culture. They have had Broadway musicals named after them. They have had doctoral theses written about them. Like Gray’s Papaya hot dogs, Mom’s apple pie, Coca-Cola and Chevrolet Camaros, they are an American Institution, so ingrained in their iconic status that they’ve gone beyond the simple definition of “good guys” and “bad guys”, “cool” and “uncool”, words that no longer apply. (Please note that I speak of the New York Yankees, the concept, rather than individuals. Steinbrenners? They, too, shall pass.)

There will be very little mourning in Philadelphia tonight. Not because the city doesn’t care about the Phillies, but because even the most partisan of opponents will recognize Greatness in their rivals when they see it. It is that Greatness that they respect, and like, no matter where it manifests, and it manifests more often with the New York Yankees than with most other teams, something only people from Boston (or Bobby Drakes) fail to understand.

God blesses the Yankees. ‘Nuff said.

I did try to get a ticket for a Top Gear taping, but unfortunately demand is so high for those tickets that the odds weren’t all that great that someone from overseas would get in for the first show. Oh well; I’m sure a few more museums won’t hurt the brain.

Of course that means the political aspects of this blog are going to be back-burnered for the next couple of weeks. In fact I’m not entirely certain that I’ll be posting, mainly because the hotel I’ll be staying at charges for Net access, and it looks a tad pricey what with the exchange rate and all.

Ah well. If all goes well, normal business will be resuming on the 16th.

Based on Harper’s support of Israel.

Departing from Canadian political tradition, for instance, the Harper government has abandoned Ottawa’s long-standing attempt at even-handedness in the Middle East conflict, repositioning Canada as unequivocally on Israel’s side.

The Harper government also appears to have embarked on a disturbing and less-reported campaign to silence Canadian critics of Israel, in ways that threaten to undermine Canada’s tradition of open debate, particularly at our universities. The Prime Minister himself set the tone for this by appearing to equate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism.

“I guess my fear is what I see happening in some circles is (an) anti-Israeli sentiment, really just a thinly disguised veil for good old-fashioned anti-Semitism,” Harper told Montreal’s CJAD Radio in May 2008.

Ms. McQuaig then cites Jason Kenney’s use of the word “pogroms” to describe Israeli Apartheid Days, calling it absurd. Literally speaking, there’s a point, but those Star readers politically aware enough to support Israel usually make allowances for overblown rhetoric, from which no politician (even a good one) is immune.

She then weakens her argument further by citing support against Israel from Richard Goldstone’s UN report, and concludes that going after anti-Semitism is bad because it threatens the academic freedom of “open debate” at universities.

The big problem with Ms. McQuaig’s thesis is that her concept of “open debate” has never really existed in academia, particularly the universities of today. Because “debate” implies two or more sides to an issue, and all too often the organizers of such “debates” (if they’re not already members of one side) get swamped by one side, preferring to silence the other rather than rebut. (You only have to look south of the border, with the U.S. armed forces’ ROTC recruitment efforts in California, to truly understand the falsity of “open debate.”)

The other thing is, I’ve yet to see any evidence that Harper’s brand of pro-Israel sentiment is in any way out of the mainstream of Canadian popular thinking. So there’s no real way to characterize his position as an extreme one, despite Ms. McQuaig’s best efforts.

He may be right about that. Lots of folks aren’t fond of McGuinty, but when it comes to respect for talent, I get the feeling that more people are willing to give the Ontario premier props for how he handles the office than they would for the Iggo Waffle.

And the same case could be made for B.C.’s Gordon Campbell, his troubles over the upcoming HST notwithstanding. We see two Liberal premiers struggling with unpopular measures, and yet we respect them far more than we do a national leader who’s made it a point to avoid them.

Don’t laugh; we do. You know we do.

You know we do because, unlike the current Liberal leader, they’ve fought elections and earned their mandates. You know we do because they’ve made unpopular decisions in the past and were perfectly willing to defend those decisions.

So it’s only fair to assume that in the event of Iffy’s political demise (an event that the appointment of Peter Donolo has by no means averted) that these two names should come up as potential successors, and it’s the strength of these two names that the following poll seeks to assess.

I want a country where everyone sets their sights on going overseas at some point in their lives.

JFK, you may remember, thought along the same lines. The result was something that’s still in existence, although we rarely hear of it nowadays: the Peace Corps.

We know that high-speed rail is going to be one plank in Ignatieff’s campaign platform. We can count a government-wide audit as a second, though weaker one. I suspect that Iffy wants to make the creation of a Canadian version of the Peace Corps a third plank. The idea fits with what we know about him (looking to the past for inspiration, admiration for international things), and the JFK fan Peter Donolo would be just the man to work out the details.

But, you may be wondering, don’t we already have a Canadian version of the Peace Corps?

Well . . . sort of. The Canadian International Development Agency operates two programs: their Voluntary Sector initiative helps coordinate voluntary organizations who do the same sort of thing that the Peace Corps does, and their International Youth Internship Program is meant to attract the same type of people who would be attracted to the Peace Corps program had they lived south of the border.

In other words, if I’m right and Iggy’s devoting some serious thought to a Canadian Peace Corps, the infrastructure already exists to set one up. It’s a simple matter of changing program criteria, hiring some more bureaucrats and guaranteeing a budget.

But would the idea fly with Canadians?

It might. You wouldn’t necessarily call it competitive with the private sector, but a Canadian Peace Corps would increase demand for students finishing trades such as carpentry and plumbing, and offer a chance to work abroad to do “good works.” Not only that, but the American program also recruits the recently retired, and when you look at the pool of boomers who want to keep working and want a chance to go abroad . . . well, you can see why there’d be an attraction.