This is my last day in London. Thanks to everyone for their advice and suggestions. They were very helpful.
I’m currently trying to avoid being dragged to some annoying “hip” club in Chelsea or Belgravia by my friends, who are asleep.
Which brings me to a question about this place…what’s the deal with the 99-year leases in Belgravia and Chelsea and Mayfair? Do people here really accept the fact that the Duke of Westminster (a/k/a Client Number Six) owns so much of the city? Is that what Burkeanism is really about?
Laura W
They tried to make me go to Chelsea, I said, "No no no."
AhabTRuler
I don’t think that I have ever been in a "hip" club in my life. I don’t think I even have the clothes to get into one.
southpaw
What do you mean "accept the fact"? He either has title or he doesn’t. Nation of laws and all that . . .
kommrade reproductive vigor
I don’t know but nice E.C. reference.
guster
I don’t understand the Client Number Six reference …
Comrade Darkness
@guster, he used the same agency as spitzer, apparently.
Could also be confused with The Village, however.
Ugh, to the hip club suggestion. If you relish standing outside for 90 minutes like a pathetic wannabe while some chubby bouncer with a pasted on posh accent decides what class you are, sure, go for it. Probably worth doing once. If you have the cash, and the place does it, some will let you buy a table ahead of time, this is pricey but includes more drinks than you should have anyway. And you can jump the queue, as they say.
woody
In London, I always visit Hampstead Heath and Marx’ grave. I take a bottle of stout and toast the old man.
Part-time Burkean
"Is that what Burkeanism is really about?"
Well, Burke opposed to the idea of decapitating the aristos and grabbing their estates, so, yes, I suppose he has to take responsibility for preserving the Duke’s title to his property.
Zifnab
What are you going to do about it? Take it from him? I mean, Donald Trump owns large chunks of New York. We haven’t bothered him about it.
I mean, the land has been owned by his family for hundreds of years and the country hasn’t gone into communist revolt just yet. And when people got sick of the system, they just fled to areas where land was cheaper and more plentiful.
Svensker
If your friends are asleep, how can they drag you to any club, let alone a hip one? Zombies?
I hate clubs, hip or otherwise, always have done, except for a brief period in the 80s when….oh, never mind.
AhabTRuler
My problem is that I am usually poor, I don’t like to drink, I don’t flirt, I don’t like crowds and I don’t dance. I was never very good at keeping up with the kewl kidz(TM), anyway.
Comrade Darkness
Here play this loud to wake them up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkuAQ8mn89Y
AhabTRuler
As for the Duke of Westminster, Paris Hilton inherited an ass-ton of money, too. I don’t see the harm, but remember, I already have a liberal desire to tax the ever-living shit out of inherited wealth, so what’s the problem?
To the barricades!
PS In honor of the Duke, a photo of the Westminster Underground station. I got tons of these, folks.
Bob In Pacifica
Boy, I was in London almost FORTY years ago now. I was dawdling overseas before submitting to Nixon’s lottery. Others may have called it draft-dodging, but I did eventually go in so I guess it was draft-delaying.
I wonder if I’d be able to find myself around. I stayed in the Kiwi Court Hotel in Earl’s Court Station, at least the first time through. One day I ate at a lunch counter on Shaftsbury Avenue. It was run by Cat Stevens’ dad, who was a bit loony. He yelled at me for being American, then yelled at a couple of Germans for being American. Then he gave me a picture of his son. This was just when Cat Stevens was getting popular worldwide and on the back of the picture it listed Stevens hits like "I Love My Dog."
Hostile youth in youth hostels. The Move on pirate radio. Those were the days. Where are my reading glasses?
MikeJ
If you really don’t want to go, make sure you wear the wrong shoes. First thing bouncers check in the Smoke.
AhabTRuler
@MikeJ: That’s it exactly. I couldn’t tell you what the difference is between the "right" shoes and the "wrong shoes," but I know that my shoes would always be "wrong."
Svensker
I don’t know how to explain it, but I just time traveled. Weird.
Welp, off to din din.
Oh, dang, no, I didn’t. Just had two windows open without realizing it. Whew! Thought I was having a major flashback.
DougJ
Yeah, that’s why I’m trying to avoid going.
gex
@AhabTRuler: I could have written this exact post. I wonder if this blog attracts a larger percentage of non-club goers than the gen pop.
AhabTRuler
@gex: If by that you mean over-intellectualized "loosers" (sic), then yes.
Tom
Let me guess, one’s named Gus and one’s named Alfie.
AhabTRuler
OTOH, if you take a short hop across the North Sea to a little city on the IJ, then I know lots of places to go. But you don’t have to be "cool" (cha-ching) to get into those places. Just buy a grilled-cheese sandwich.
Also, shouldn’t this have the new "Travel" tag? Also?
kommrade reproductive vigor
@DougJ: Your choices are: 1. Spend your last day in London doing something you don’t want to do.
2. Spend your last day in London doing something you want to do.
Gosh. That’s a tough one.
Alexandra
Doug, I live in Chelsea.
Your instincts are right. You do not want to go clubbing in Chelsea. These aren’t clubs, they’re Eurotrash playgrounds for those with money to burn.
Proper clubbing takes place in East and South London. Although if you had come down this way, I would have bought you a pint of London Pride. ;)
Hope you’ve enjoyed your stay and that a little time away from home gave you some needed R&R, as well as a little food for thought.
Tell us what souvenirs you’re taking back! My last friend from the US, over here about a month ago from Maryland, took back a bag full of Crunchie bars, Boots Honey Handwash… and some Muji bits and pieces.
Take care and safe flight home. Cheers! :)
Re: Leases. Yep, that’s the way large parts of posh London work. 99 year lease for a million quid, and you still don’t own a single brick.
AhabTRuler
@Alexandra: Panadol Ultra.
except
Which brings me to a question about this place…what’s the deal with the 99-year leases in Belgravia and Chelsea and Mayfair? Do people here really accept the fact that the Duke of Westminster (a/k/a Client Number Six) owns so much of the city?
Yes.
DougJ
Well played.
AhabTRuler
Jeez, you’d think that you people would have learned with Hong Kong. Sheesh!
sal
A couple private associations in this area (northern Michigan) use 99 year leases for summer homes as well. The association owns everything. One was over a hundred years ago by, I think, Methodists, and still has religious aspects (although you don’t have to partake to get a lease). Not sure what the other one’s basis is.
Rick Massimo
Not much to offer in the way of advice, particularly since you’re just about ready to go, although the Imperial War Museum is awesome if you still have time for it.
As for "hip" places, watch yer money. My girlfriend and I stayed with her cousins, and our last night there we wanted to take them out to dinner to thank them for putting us up. Not paying for six nights of hotel was what made the whole trip possible.
Her cousin said, "I got us a table at the club I go to." Well, that doesn’t sound cheap, but we didn’t want to to go somewhere REALLY cheap, and we really were grateful …
It was a lovely dinner. And the tab for the four of us was more than six nights of hotel for the two of us would have been.
It was one of those infrequent reminders I get of how rich rich people really are.
woody
That’s how it works in Hawai’i, too. 99-year leases for beaucoup bucks. You get to die there.,..Kewl beans…
Steeplejack
@Laura W:
Haw!
Elderta
No to sound like Nancy Reagan or anything, but I dare you to "Just say no." You can do it!
MikeJ
I always made sure I had the footwear for the night I wanted when I lived there. I’ve spent nights at stupidly expensive clubs I would have never gone to without an expense acct, and I’ve gotten high with the minicab drivers in the back of the cab stand in soho. It’s just a matter of planning ahead. Which is one of the things I love about not living in London.
bago
Boy, don’t you go to Goa.
eastriver
God-DAMN you are a whiny bitch.
You seriously took time to post that question? How you can avoid going fucking clubbing in fucking Chelsea?
Go. Don’t go. (sound of gears grinding)
The world is swirling down the bowl and you figured the fanboys and girls at Balloon Juice might forget that you’re in fucking London.
Seriously? Really?
I hope you Go and some czech skankorexic heaves on your Keds.
So the answer is Go.
Done.
If you post asking for suggestions on what reading material you should buy for the plane home I think my eyes will explode upon reading.
Sleep.
Now we are done.
DougJ
I already asked about that.
bago
Retro eyesplosion.
Joe Giblin
Hi,
I currently live in london and about 1 1/2 years ago my partner and I bought a flat (Americans might call it a condo) in a development where the older buildings use to be part of a Victorian hospital complex.
I also never have completely understood the "99 year lease" stuff here but English friends who tried to explain it to me say it goes back to medeval times and the way land was divvied up then when there were still huge landowners and peasants (formerly serfs) looking to own a piece of property. Sometimes it still seems that way.