London

Had three days in London, kindly staying with The Stig. I’ve been there a few times now so didn’t do much tourist stuff – had a hot curry dinner in Brick Lane Saturday night.

Took Ginga Ninja and German Girl through St James Park, and by coincidence it was the changing of the guard just as we got to Buckingham Palace.

Also went to the old Cabinet War Rooms. They’ve now added on a huge amount of material in the Churchill Museum which is connected to it. A must see. It is where WWII was largely won from.

On Monday morning, a House of Commons staffer kindly took the three of us through the Palace of Westminister on a private tour which lasted around two hours. A huge amount of history there.

We enjoyed some sun next to the Thames at Westminster while waiting to listen to Big Ben. Then had a nice lunch in the parliamentary cafe.

Then met up at around 1 pm with top UK blogger Guido Fawkes (Paul Staines). He has a huge impact on politics in the UK, having brought down a Labour Minister and he is now gunning for the Conservative Party Chairman.

We soon moved to the pub, and as Guido blogged under the apt subject line of Totalled, it became a fairly messy afternoon. Guido was excellent company, as were his companions. We carried on drinking until past 5 pm when we then tubed over to Temple station to have drinks with some Kiwis which was also a fun evening – caught up with Nicola R who I hadn’t seen since the 1990s and various bloggers and readers.

Tuesday saw us take the Eurostar to Paris – a pleasant 2.5 hour trip. I was looking forward to seeing the Chunnel, but all three of us fell asleep before we hit it, and didn’t wake up until we got to France!