Where's the Beef?

          After a long day walking through the Camden (on the same day Amy Winehouse was found dead in her Camden home, just to be clear: I was not responsible), all I wanted to do was sink my teeth into a nice, thick juicy burger. This simple desire seemed completely reasonable and attainable. I sat on my friend Sara’s bed as she searched through “London’s Top 10 Burgers.” I wanted them all and I wanted them now. Although the list of burgers was impressive and appetizing, I had my heart set on the Gourmet Burger Kitchen. 

        As I was reading the menu on the restaurant's website, I knew I had to get the avocado bacon burger, cooked medium rare with a side of onion rings. This particular burger kitchen was located near St. Paul’s. Perfect, I thought. We can take the central line to the St. Paul station and walk from there. Unfortunately, Sara had her mind set on walking, and I know better than to cross Sara when her mind is made up. I was tired, but I could walk knowing that there was a purpose to it. A delicious, juicy goal was waiting to be devoured. The walk should have taken about 15 minutes if we had known where we were going. We did not.

     After a few minutes of directionless wandering, we decided it would be best to ask someone for directions. The security guard at a posh clothing store did little but confuse us more. He had no idea what we were talking about, and I could barely understand what he was saying. Security guards are supposed to know everything, especially the location of the nearest Gourmet Burger Kitchen. When I’m done writing this, I should have a talk with his supervisor. I then decided to try to get a WiFi signal on my phone. I’m in the middle of one of the biggest cities in the world, I thought, there must be free WiFi somewhere. Obviously, the universe was playing a cruel joke on me because I found it impossible to connect to the Internet. No Google Maps, no web browser, not a single luxury. It was just like Gilligan’s Island.

   The cashier at a convenience store also proved to be unhelpful. It had been almost 25 minutes since we left the apartment. I needed that burger more than I can articulate. We were tired, and had no idea where to find our burger Mecca. We began walking more and the inevitable began to happen. Anthony suggested we try another restaurant. Sara suggested we turn back and go to the apartments. I couldn’t bear to do this, no burger left behind. At this point I began to go to a very dark place. My hunger manifested itself in strange and unusual ways. I began screaming and gnawing at my jacket. My hands were clenched tightly as my fingernails dug into my sweaty, frustrated skin. It wouldn’t have taken much longer for me to run up to the nearest pedestrian and begin feasting on their flesh.

      I felt as though I would never eat again. I would die right there, on the corner of Cannon and New Change. Perhaps there would be a memorial on the corner reading, “Here lies Christopher James Williams, all he ever wanted was a avocado bacon burger cooked medium rare with a side of onion rings. He bravely died on this corner from a severe case of hunger madness.” The city would be so moved by my story, they would build another Gourmet Burger Kitchen right on that spot so that history need not repeat itself and take any more innocent lives.

      As I prepared to lie down and accept the cruel fate the world had served up, Anthony called one of our roommates who looked up the directions for us. Oh, ok. Maybe my situation wasn’t as bad as I had made it out to be. After walking about 2 minutes, we saw it. It was in the most obvious spot that it could’ve possibly been in. There it was, right across the street from St. Paul’s Cathedral. I placed my order with an unrivaled enthusiasm, sat down, and let out a sigh of relief. Before this journey, if someone had asked me what my favorite part of London was, I would have said just exploring and not really knowing where I’m going. However, if there’s a goal in mind, especially a medium rare avocado bacon goal, I've learned it’s better to know how to get there and the fastest way to do so. 

Go Punt Yourself

      £10 per person for the guided punting tour, £14 for all of us if we do it ourselves.

     “I’ll row the damn boat,” blurted Sara with her usual determined confidence.

     Personally, I was glad she decided to step up to the plate because I did not feel like punting for the next hour. The two-hour train ride to Cambridge required me to wake up early that morning and we had walked a considerable amount that day. I wanted to sit back and enjoy the view of the river.

     I figured Sara would be a good punter. Her cool demeanor and headstrong attitude led me to believe that she could do anything. I was wrong. She cannot punt.

    To be fair, it looks a lot easier than it actually is. Punting requires the person moving the boat to stand in the back and push off of a large pole. We didn’t get too far before the diners at the riverside restaurant began joining us in our laughter. Here we were, a group of arrogant Americans, thinking we could punt. I waved at the diners and smiled at them. We were having fun failing, and they were having fun watching us.

     Sara never really got the hang at punting, but at least there was a paddle I could use in case we needed to steer in a certain direction. We devised a system in which we would aim ourselves towards the stone walls lining the river in order to push off of them.

     After fellow punters futilely tried to give Sara punting tips, we made our way back to the punting office to pay our £14.

    Then, like the classy people that we are, we had tea, tried on hats, and drank gin and tonic from a can on the train ride back.

  

Reviewing BBC’s “The Hour”

         Shortly after making the wisely hermitic decision to watch more good ol’ British telly, I heard about “The Hour” and I was immediately intrigued. I admit the hook for me was the fact that it has been touted as “British Mad Men” and also that “Wire” alum Dominic West holds a starring role. Upon learning that the show is about journalists, I knew I would be tuning in. Although it took me a week after the premiere to watch it on BBC’s online player, for the most part, I was impressed with what I saw.
        “The Hour” centers on the BBC newsroom in 1956. For the time period alone, the series has been inevitably been compared to “Mad Men.” Yes, the costumes and time periods are similar, but “Mad Men” and “The Hour” are very different. “Mad Men” is a quiet character piece while “The Hour” features a faster paced thriller aspect. In fact, “The Hour” more closely resembles AMC’s short-lived series “Rubicon” which centered on an intelligence analyst who slowly works to uncover a conspiracy.

      The premise of “The Hour” features journalist Freddie Lyons (Ben Whishaw) gunning to secure a news series of his own in which he can tell the “real” stories. Lyons is fed up with the cushy superficiality of the BBC News, and decides he needs to reveal the darker, truer stories to the public. Along side Lyons is Bela Rowley (Romola Garai), a seemingly long time colleague and friend. The two banter and bicker a bit, but in the end they share the same goal. As Freddie explains his vision for the new series to a higher up at the BBC, he describes it as “the hour that people won’t want to miss,” and suggests that he be in front of the camera since Bela is already behind the scenes as the producer of the program.

       But the men running the stations have a different idea about who should be in front of the camera. They choose charismatic Hector Madden (West) as the new program’s front man. He clashes with Bela, although there seems to be some type of love triangle being put into place between Freddie, Bela, and Madden. I don’t find this particularly interesting, and is heading into the cliché love triangle formula that TV lovers know all too well.

       Additionally, Madden acts as the mouthpiece for the heavy-handed sexism that feels shoe horned into the script. The show’s writers used this to beat it over the audience’s heads that the show takes place in the 50’s. As if it isn’t obvious enough by the costumes and props, the contrived social commentary is a poor attempt to highlight how workplaces have changed in the past 55 years. It is clear that the writers are trying to contrast Freddie’s radical, forward thinking ideology to the older, more conservative Madden. There are more subtle ways for the writers to do this, and hope they figure out how in the remaining five episodes.

     The episode also introduces a parallel murder mystery/conspiracy story that is tied into Freddie’s quest by the episode’s end. Freddie’s sister alerts him that a professor has been killed and that there is more to the story than meets the eye. How she knows this information is not made clear, and it seems a bit too convenient that she is around to blurt out a bunch of information to Freddie and send him on a mission to figure out what is going on. She is nothing more than a MacGuffin, and the series gets rid of her by the end of the episode.

     For now, “The Hour” is interesting enough for me to check out the next 2 or 3 episodes. I’ll reserve a lot of my judgments until we’re a few episodes into the series; since the mystery storyline is just beginning and we’re still getting to know the characters. Even though I’ve only seen the first episode, I found myself very much enjoying Whishaw’s performance as Freddie. I think if the show can rely less on West, then the series could be worthwhile and less contrived. Overall, though, I’d say “The Hour” is worth a look for anyone interested since it has the potential to become a compelling and interesting series. So go ahead, tune in Tuesday nights at 9 on BBC 2. And for those of you in the States, the series premieres August 17th on BBC America.

Suitable for Thieves Ages 8 and Up

       As tourists exit the vaulted Crown Jewels in the Tower of London, they are herded into the obligatory gift shop. Apparently it’s illegal to let tourists out of an exhibit without presenting them with overpriced trinkets that they will assuredly buy because grandma simply cannot live without a mug with the coronation crown on it. Anyway, there was one item that seemed out of place and downright inappropriate. While the shop was mostly lined with the usual items (mugs, postcards, etc) I noticed a board game called “Outrage!” Well, this looked interesting. I picked up the box and to my surprise, the goal of the game was to steal the Crown Jewels. Seriously? Is this Candid Camera or something? Why on earth would the Tower of London supply their Crown Jewel gift shop with a game encouraging shoppers to steal the priceless jewels? It’s like serving alcohol at an AA meeting.
       I turned the box over to read the description. Like most board games, the back cover featured a picture of the game laid out with all the pieces. The board was a map of the building with all the exits clearly marked. Seriously? I looked around to make sure I wasn’t being laughed at for what was most likely some type of practical joke. No one was laughing, and rightly so. This was no practical joke. This was a very serious situation I had gotten myself into. I placed the game down quietly; making sure no one saw me. If I had been seen, God only knows what would’ve happened to me. Obviously, Scotland Yard had devised a clever plan to plant these board games in the gift shop in order to sniff out potential thieves. I moved stealthy to the other side of the store to stake out the unsuspecting jewel nappers. Being the detective that I am, I knew that anyone who went near those games was obviously a criminal mastermind. Except me, of course, I was the one and only exception.

      It didn’t take long for the first one to strike. An elderly Asian woman in her mid-sixties clad in a kitten sweater picked up the game box and studied its contents. She looked confused, as if she didn’t understand English. Well, that’s only what she wanted me to think. Clearly, she was a greedy criminal looking to get her paws all over the delectable royal jewels. She thought she could outmatch me, but she’s never been up against ol’ Detective Glasses before. As I made my way to tackle her and reveal her evil plans to the other tourists, she placed the game down and walked away. This was puzzling to me at first and then I realized what Scotland Yard was really up to. Anyone can pick up the game and look at it, but the real thieves were the ones who actually purchased it. One quick glance at the shrink-wrapped package was not enough for even the most seasoned criminal to formulate a break-in plan. A plan would require diligent studying of the Tower’s layout, which is only made possible by purchasing the board game (all major credit cards accepted).

        As I watched a Latina mother and her son plan their dastardly team effort, I noticed my class leaving the gift shop. As an aspiring amateur detective, I felt a sense of duty to protect the crown jewels, but realized that Scotland Yard knew what they were doing. I left with a smile on my face knowing that the Latina family would wind up exactly where they belonged, in jail for a very, very long time.

Great Expectations

      The night before our class trip to the British Museum, I sat on my bed and read the section in Rick Steve’s guide to London in which he writes extensively about its many attractions from the Rosetta Stone to the Elgin Marbles to countless other ancient artifacts. The ancient exhibits looked impressive, but I felt removed from Egyptian statues and African tools. As I glanced over the guide’s summary of the museum’s Reading Room I saw that an impressive list of writers including Mark Twain, Virginia Woolf, W.B. Yeats, Oscar Wilde, and Arthur Conan Doyle had used the room. I couldn’t think of any other place I’ve ever visited that had such a rich literary history. It would be amazing to write in the same room as these writers, I thought. I wondered if anything in the room had inspired them and if the same inspiration would come to me when I visited.
     My mind conjured a specific image of the space. I envisioned floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with leather-bound books and a massive sitting area in the middle. Perhaps there would be a roaring fireplace and a large chandelier. I knew the room must be elegant enough to have been worthy of the legendary writers. It would have to be a lot nicer than my local library at home in NJ, which I’m convinced is an undercover halfway house for convicted felons.

        The foyer of the British Museum is a bright clean white filled with natural sunlight from the glass ceiling. The Reading Room is the geographical heart of the museum and is located in the very center. From the outside, the Reading Room is massive white cylinder, shooting up to the enormous glass ceiling. Two sets of curved staircases hug the Reading Room, leading to the upper floor of the museum. As our group dispersed, I made my way to the Reading Room. After walking around the cylinder on the ground floor, I found no main door to get inside. Next, I went upstairs, certain that the entrance would be at the top, but the only thing up there was an expensive restaurant. I briefly wondered if Virginia Woolf and Oscar Wilde had ever shared an £8 burger there. Acknowledging the impossibility of this, I became disheartened and confused. I had admired these writers for so long, and now I wouldn’t be able to be inspired by the room they had once used.

       Somewhere between considering buying a burger that Yeats may or may not have sampled and reaching the bottom of the long spiral staircase, I realized that my experience was similar to the craft of writing. Writing is a search, an exploration. For me, the goal of writing is to achieve the greatness of the authors that once used the unreachable Reading Room. This goal, for the time being, is out of reach, but I’m okay with that. I have more searching to do before I can join the ranks of Woolf, Twain, Yeats, and the rest.

      I made my way over to one of the benches, took out my notepad, and began writing. I had all the inspiration I needed, and I hadn’t even set a foot in the room. After jotting down a few pages, I found out that the Reading Room was holding an exhibition. I could get in, but at the price of £4. I decided to pass; the money would be better spent on a plate of fish and chips. I have some maturing to do as a writer before I go in. Visiting the Reading Room is something to strive for, and it would feel cheap and undeserved if I was just another tourist ogling the architecture.  The Reading Room reopens for general use in 2012. Maybe by then I’ll be ready, but if not, there’s always the year after that. I’m in no rush. Exploring takes time, and it’s what makes writing worthwhile. When the time is right, I want to be able to take a seat in the Reading Room, knowing that I earned my spot there. 

What This Is

This is a blog. I will be posting nonfiction pieces based on my 6 week study abroad program through Fordham. This blog is the main project for a writing course that I am taking, so if you're going to comment, keep it clean. I plan on posting all the pieces that I am submitting for class, with a few additional things thrown in. I'll try to keep it chronological order, but if I don't, get over it. There are more important things to worry about.