Jany’s birthday

Originally uploaded by sf2london.

London is full of these amazing spaces. This one is called the London Bridge Vaults and it’s under the London Bridge overground station. They also call this kind of space “arches” but that seems to refer to less extensive areas. This corridor is about 125 yards long (maybe 80 meters), with cavernous rooms to either side. At one end there's another even more cavernous passageway that's maybe half as long. A group called Shunt stages events here, and this is where our friend Jany had her “Flashdance” birthday party last Friday.

Chandelier, Fat Badger

Originally uploaded by sf2london.

I don't think we've ever occupied the sofas before, so we've never seen this view (looking straight up). BTW, the smoking ban is FABULOUS!

Masia Sumidors laundry

Originally uploaded by sf2london.

Hey there! Check out our Spain pics on flickr! xx -Mark

Buon giorno!

Originally uploaded by sf2london.

We're in Milan for the weekend. Steven had to attend meetings here on Friday and Monday, so I zipped down to meet him. These are tourists on top of the Duomo. Many more pictures on flickr -- just click on this one and explore my "photostream"!

Kildare Gardens Update

Originally uploaded by sf2london.

Patty & Bill stayed at a B&B on this square during their visit to London (the B&B is now closed, and the building appears to be empty). That was a year ago, and these trees had just been severely pruned. I went back in October to check on their progress, and this is what they looked like yesterday...

Pardon the fromage...

Originally uploaded by sf2london.

I know it's cheezey, but I figure somebody might be interested in a couple recent snaps of the furry cuteness.

Amster! Amster!

Originally uploaded by sf2london.

We spent our Bank Holiday weekend in Amsterdam (where we figured out that this particular "Bank Holiday" is actually Pentecost -- but shhhhhhh! They don't do religion here!). Among the many strange and wonderous things we saw was this gigantic crystal chandelier in the shape of a revolver. AWESOME! Amazingly, if you search for "gun chandelier" on flickr or Google, you won't find any other pictures of this... Seems a little odd to me. The guy who did this also did an enormous ship (which is in the Lloyd Hotel) and a big bomb (only heard about this from Elizabeth Pick but haven't seen it). Searching for the others won't give you any satisfaction either, but you might find some pics of a gummi bear chandelier, which is kind of cool...

My current obsession

Originally uploaded by sf2london.

Modernist public housing projects ("council estates" or "social housing" over here) are scattered throughout London. Their presence is a good indicator that any given area was pretty much flattened during the Blitz. Maps are generally posted at key public entrances, and vary in design according to the responsible management authority (usually either the local council or a housing trust). The maps are little bits of visual ephemera that I pass regularly, so I thought I would document them and see if anything emerges...

Au Revoir G&D

We just put Geno & Devin in an estate car (that’s English for station wagon) with one more suitcase than they brought and a bag of Lisboa pastries and sent them off to Heathrow Terminal Three. Last night we tried to give them an inkling of why London’s so totally awesome and now it seems they may be the ambassadors of Bearlesque to San Francisco!
In other developments, my name is on the Conde Nast Traveller website, but no link to the content of my article... So all you people who are interested will have to look harder on the shelves of your local international newsstand or purchase a back issue online...

95 South, Massachusetts

Originally uploaded by sf2london.

Taken aboard the Peter Pan bus from Logan Airport to Providence.

Viterbo

Originally uploaded by sf2london.

Check out the pics from our Easter in Italy!

Condé Nast Traveller - April 2007

Originally uploaded by sf2london.

Just so you know what you're looking for... This is the cover of the issue in which my SF article appears.

Cozy Shack Fund

Please make your donation to LB's cozy shack fund by purchasing your very own awesome mug!

It's official!

Originally uploaded by sf2london.

Steven's "settlement" visa - woo hoo! This means that on the basis of our relationship, Steven is entitled to stay here as long as he likes and do whatever he wants. In a couple more years he can apply for citizenship (and get a UK - i.e. E.U. - passport)!

So innocent looking...

Originally uploaded by sf2london.

Insight

I think this is something you could only fully understand if you’ve spent some time on this island... Remember, “out of my tree” and “pissed” mean drunk here.

After Todd Hido

Originally uploaded by sf2london.

I hope you all know that if you click on one of these images you get whisked to my flickr site, which has pretty much every picture I take. Nobody has looked at this one, which I thought was kinda pretty, so I'm putting it on the blog. Click already.
In other news, Olive was stricken with a half-closed cloudy eye last Sunday. Googling was too scary, so I made an emergency trip to the vet on Monday morning. He did something with fluorescent dye that reminded me of Danceteria in the 80s. Then he recommended a FIV/FeLV test, which involved ten excruciating minutes in the examination room with Olive and a plastic thing waiting for blue dots not to appear. I couldn't watch and did the crossword instead (thank god it was Monday). The result was negative - whew! - and cipro eyedrops were prescribed. After a week of that and a follow-up visit to the vet, everything seems to be back to normal...

Cab-Free Clubbing

Originally uploaded by sf2london.

After a couple years in the neighborhood, Steven & I finally paid a visit to Neighbourhood: a great venue with excellent music and a fun crowd. Since it couldn’t be closer to home, we can kiss those $50 weekend cab fares from Soho and Vauxhall goodbye! We say gay-schmay: now, it’s all about the mix.
Today was grey and gloomy. Except right around dusk the sky turned the prettiest shade of lavender.

Shoe Tree

Originally uploaded by sf2london.

As I stopped to take this picture, an elderly woman carrying a small painting came up to me on the sidewalk and spoke in a thick accent. I didn't really understand what she was saying at first, so I just said "no thanks." Dumb, huh? Turns out she's 82, hails from Portugal, has a cat named Lucy, and this is her garden. She told me it's no good now because there are no flowers. She's going to take all those boots off the tree, repaint, replant, and rehang them. I'll go back over the summer to check on her progress.

Whitstable

Originally uploaded by sf2london.

Last weekend we spent 5 days in and around Whitstable, which is an hour and twenty minutes east of London by train. The town is well-known for many things, including native oysters and these beach huts. On Monday morning we learned that artist Margaret Salmon lives there, because there was an article about her in the Independent. Of course, that might be an English Fact.