Happy Birthday to me! My first task on my birthday was to pack up my bags and check into the Portobello Hotel. Unlike most of the ritzy hotel’s clients, I arrived with a backpack on, having walked from The Notting Hill Gate tube station. Often, in an establishment such as this, the staff will treat someone who looks like a smelly backpacker, like a smelly backpacker, less important than their wealthy celebrity clients. That didn’t happen to me here.

The ladies at the desk were lovely and chatty and asked about my trip – I told them it was my birthday and they said they hoped I had a very special night here and a happy birthday. It was only about 9.30am but they assured me the room would be ready in 20 minutes or so. I was happy just to leave my bags with them and head out for the day. I feared that if I got into the room, I wouldn’t leave and I still had things I wanted to do.

I decided my birthday was going to be about pampering and spoiling myself. I decided against spa treatments or things that I could do in Australia (or more cheaply in Asia). Besides I would have the luxury of the Portobello for the night. So shopping was the first order of the day. I caught another red bus which went past Kensington Palace as well as Hyde Park (which is huge).

I started with Harvey Nichols. Like any AbFab fan worth their salt, I was keen to find out why this store was made famous in the show as the pinnacle of shopping for fashmag queens like Eddie and Pats. The answer was simple – it is the top end of UK department stores – where clothes are categorized by designer rather than type. I have to admit I did look at and love the Vivienne Westwood collection, despite the fact none of it was ever going to fit me. I toyed with the idea that, for me, owning a pair of Vivienne Westwood shoes would be like Jimmy Choos to others. The only problem was that this season, Vivienne has quite a thing for plastic shoes. They were very cute and well designed but man-made fibres, let alone plastic, don’t really work too well for me. [‘Anarchy in the UK’ – The Sex Pistols – OK yes, now my scrawling is prompting the music choices but this is appropriate as Vivienne Westwood had almost as much of a profile in the UK punk movement as Malcolm McLaren.]

From Harvey Nichols, it was time for the other end of the scale with Top Shop. As you would expect, it is filled to the brim with cheap clothing inspired by the catwalk. And if Topshop is anything to go by, there is still some life left in both the balloon skirt’s second coming and the inspiration from vintage dressing, not to mention actual vintage dressing – Topshop has a range of vintage (second-hand) clothes as well but nothing in sizes over 14.

Then it was on to Selfridges, yet another huge department store full of designer labels. It was here that for the first time I felt sickened by the excess. There was a guard, guarding the handbags. When society gets to the stage that a device used to carry your stuff around needs someone to guard it in a store, things have gone too far. I am sure those that love their handbags will disagree with me – my faithful tardis handbag, which cost me about $12 and can probably go in the washing machine (or at least be wiped down) has served me well throughout this trip. Yes I have a suede number that cost about $40 from a local designer in Balmain but I’m too afraid to wear it that I might spill stuff on it. The idea of a handbag that costs more than I will probably ever spend on a car seems a bit excessive to me. Don’t buy the handbag, save on the guard’s salary and send the money to vaccinate children dying of AIDS in Africa. Sure I have a sneaker collection but they are well worn (and I have never paid over $100 for a pair – most were sample bargains at about $50). [‘Minister for Planets’ – Augie March and Archie Roach from the album Corroboration which teams indigenous artists with white Australian artists – it’s worth a spin if you haven’t heard it – there is also a great Deborah Cheetham and Wicked Beat Sound System track.]

From here I wandered along excess street, better known as Sloane Street which stretches from Hyde Park to the Kings Road (my next iconic destination). You name the label and they have a store here – Prada, Pucci, Armani… and every store has a cute young male attendant at the door – I surmised this was for the following reasons – a) as a guard, like the handbag guard at Liberty), b) to charm middle aged cashed up women and gay men into parting with a fortune and c) to keep undesirables including smelly backpackers, such as myself, out of the store. I will point out that for my shopping trip I had eschewed the army pants and (for me at least) I was quite chic – in boots, black tights, a denim skirt, a funky All Tomorrow’s Parties t-shirt and my black jacket from Germany. I was carrying my fleece jacket for when it was really cold and windy.

From here I sauntered along the Kings Road, once the home of punk culture in England – Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s infamous shop was located here – but now sadly, just a regular shopping strip with a few boutiques and some chain stores. Down one end was the shop at Bluebird, which features clothes and accessories by up and coming designers. There was some fabulous stuff in here, particularly some of the really original marquisette jewellery, but it all had a price tag to match the opulent décor.

I did buy a pair of shoes in the Kings Road but they were from a chain store I had seen all over London. The sales assistant was really nice and at least I can say I bought them in the Kings Road. I believe Vivienne Westwood still had an outlet in the Kings Road for a long time but alas no longer. [‘Stranded’ – The Saints – Australia’s contribution to the London punk scene – I have seen the saints three times in the past couple of years and can report the shows that included Ed Keupper were awesome and the one without was terrible.]

From the Kings Road I headed for London’s shopping institution, Harrods. It is as twee as you expect with 1920s doormen still at each entrance and similar uniforms for staff, particularly in the food halls. Harrods is renowned for carrying quite conservative clothing ranges but they were the first place to offer a plus size range. Unfortunately, despite having some designer stuff in there, the clothes were aimed at your Maggie Tabberer style larger woman. I know as an (eep) 40 year-old fat clothes shopper, I am never going to be able to wear over the knee socks with skirts that barely cover my bum but isn’t there a happy medium? Do I have to look like someone off a soap opera with big hair and big swathes of fabric?

After my disappointing foray into Harrods fashion, I headed for the food halls. Harrods food halls may not be regarded as the best in Britain but they far outdo either the Myer or David Jones food halls. You could have a gourmet lunch or dinner here (or pick it up to take it home). Along with all manner of deli items, there were pre-prepared curries, quiches etc and exquisitely decorated cakes. Instead of cake that could get squashed on my travels, I chose a small pack of Harrods chocolate pralines, decorated with the store’s name in gold.

From here I headed to my birthday indulgence, a proper afternoon tea in the Laudree tea rooms at Harrods. Laudree is a French patisserie that has a concession in Harrods. It was wonderful – delicious smoked salmon and cucumber sandwiches, mini pastries and an array of tarts, cakes and macaroons, accompanied by yea. My favourite was the rose flavoured macaroon, with fresh raspberries and lychees and rose-flavoured cream. It was scrumptious. It was a lovely indulgence and one I think should be repeated. I have grown quite fond of tea. Now I just need to purchase a teapot so I can do tea the proper way at home. Harrods (and most other stores in London) had plenty of teapots – I just wasn’t sure they would make it home in one piece. [‘This Charming Man’ – The Smiths – Up against some of my music from the 90s, The Smiths don’t seem quite as depressing as I thought they were at the time. The same can’t be said for another early 80s fave of mine – Tears for Fears]

After my afternoon tea, I decided it was high time I headed back to Notting Hill to enjoy my other five star indulgence. I hopped on a bus that was supposed to take me there but I got on the wrong bus and ended up in Putney. I realized I was going the wrong way when we passed Earl’s Court. I had purposely avoided going to the home of Australians in London but ended up passing through by accident. It wasn’t hard to tell this was a backpacker haven – the streets were strewn with takeaways and Western Union outlets. Eventually we reached Putney Bridge where I decided to get off the bus (fortuitously as it was very close to the tube station and right on the edge of Zone 2. From here I could get a direct train to Notting Hill on the district line so it worked out well – I got to see another part of London and it didn’t delay me too much.

The Kings Road

Harvey Nichols

The shop at Bluebird

My new car (I wish)

Harrods

Dominion Theatre where the show has been running since 2002

It turned out ‘We will Rock You’ was the perfect musical choice for me. I have long been a Ben Elton fan (his writing not his acting) ever since The Young Ones and Blackadder days. I was one of those people that watched Stark more than once as well. This was laced with the same kind of humour and pop culture references that litter Elton’s work and also as many references to Queen as he could jam in.

It followed the story of how two misfits – a boy and girl – saved the world from the banality of the Killer Queen and her mass-produced banal Radio Ga-ga (300 years in the future) by playing real music on real instruments (a topic close to my heart). And it was amazing how many songs they managed to shoe-horn in. Highlander got another Guernsey with ‘Who wants to live forever’, the intro to ‘Flash Gordon’ featured in a mind control scene and they even managed to get ‘Fat-bottomed girls’ in there. [‘Another one bites the dust’ – Queen – this was my introduction to Queen and still remains one of my favourite songs. Queen have long been out of favour with those that are cool but there are some great tunes amongst their catalogue. And throughout my lifetime, through many different Queen fans, they have provided a soundtrack to various parts of my life. I have had more than one boyfriend who favoured Queen.]

My favourite bit was in the names the rebel Bohemians had given themselves, after rock stars. There was a guy named Madonna, complete with conical bustier, a girl named after Freddy, the female lead, Meat(loaf), Bob the Builder and the leader, which got a lot of laughs for their misinterpretation of history, was called Britney Spears. They also had a bit of a tribute to ‘Only the Good Die Young’ which mentioned Buddy Holly, Kurt Cobain and of course Freddy Mercury, amongst others.

The Dominion Theatre, one of the West End’s biggest,  was one of those old style theatres with leather seats that folded up (I was seated in the stalls), a balcony and really ornate boxes in the wings (like the ones on The Muppets). I giggled my way through the three hour show (there was an intermission). It was definitely a good way to spend my birthday eve. I had thought about seeing a band while I was in London but hadn’t seen anything that appealed to me – it was a Monday night after all – and decided a west-end show was a quintessential London experience. Besides I have the V Festival to look forward to. Yay! Madness! I have been looking at flights to go to at least one sideshow (as I have just had five weeks off, I need to schedule around work) but I’m not sure my bank manager would like that very much.

The Buckingham Palace pooper scooper

Carnaby Street entrance

Liberty Department store

Trafalgar Square

Th rear of the guard marching up Pall Mall

The gates to Buckingham Palace

Topiary in the Queen’s gardens

Westminster Abbey

Bog Ben and the London Eye

The big ferris wheel

The Thames

The world’s best adhoc skating venue under a building on the South Bank

Flats on the South Bank with the tower of Tate Modern in the background

Globe Theatre

London post box in Sloane Square

Day three in London was about getting out and seeing all those iconic places I had heard about throughout my life (and a few monuments as well – you can’t really go to London without seeing Big Ben.). My first stop was Carnaby Street – the once famed corridor of fashion shopping is now filled with international chain stores and has an archway at either end proudly announcing that you have reached the iconic street. Carnaby was Liberty, one of Britain’s many department stores. Liberty is housed in a Tudor building, one of the few I saw in London.

From here I walked down Oxford Street towards Leicester Square. I had heard there were ticket boxes in Leicester Square where you could get half-priced tickets to that evening’s shows. I decided that seeing a west-end show would be a fun thing to do in London and a fun way to spend my birthday eve. I could have gone for a really serious play but that, to me, is not what the West end is about. When I think West End, I think musicals. Monty Python’s Spamalot and Tim Firth’s Our House (which features the music of Madness) weren’t showing. There were about 30 musicals based directly on films including Dirty Dancing and Zorro – seeing a film on stage was not really what I had in mind. I chose the Ben Elton penned ‘We will Rock You’, based on the music of Queen.

From the box office, I headed to Trafalgar Square. Like the Italians, the British aren’t afraid to erect a monument or two to their heroes, such as the statue of Lord Nelson high atop the thing in Trafalgar Square. I didn’t see too many of the famed pigeons. As a matter of fact I didn’t see many at Il Duomo either. So there you go – winter is a good time to visit if you want to avoid pigeons.

This was the point at which I realised two things a) I wasn’t all that far from Buckingham Palace b) the changing of the guard was due to start in about 10 minutes so with these things in mind, I headed towards the Palace. I didn’t really see the changing of the guard. Like lots of other monuments, you have to be there really early and stand around for hours for that. I wasn’t that interested in the pomp and ceremony. However, I did manage to follow the mounted regiment up to the gate. In order to keep things nice and clean for the Queen (and the tourists), there is a special pooper scooper vehicle that follows the horses up the mall in front of Buckingham Palace. [‘The Few’ – Billy Bragg – Billy is one of my favourite singer songwriters and he’s someone who puts his effort where his mouth is, running grassroots campaigns to make a difference. One of the most pertinent things I ever heard him say was about violent protest action. He said if you blow up a McDonalds for exploiting its workers, there’s another McDonalds around the corner. He suggested that organizing a trade union inside McDonalds was a better solution.]

From here I headed towards Westminster Abbey. Unfortunately it was closed for a service for Commonwealth Day. I did manage to see the tail end of a parade of Commonwealth flags being taken into the abbey for the event. I was informed by the two London bobbies at the gate that if I cam back in a few hours and braved the crowds, I might get a glimpse of the Queen or PM ahead of the 3.30pm service.

I walked on to the houses of parliament (and Big Ben of course). It’s not until you get this close to the big clock that you realize there is a lot of gold gilt edging shining in the sunlight. In fact, I was quite surprised at the amount of gold decoration I saw on the outside of palaces and government buildings like parliament in Britain. I had expected it in Italy but not here. I have no idea whether it is actually real gold. I suspect not anymore but probably originally. I wasn’t as repulsed by the opulence here in the same way as I was by the Vatican. It’s probably because the majority of British people support this system of government with a monarch as head of state, that the Queen actually pays tax to the state and that a large portion of the wealth actually belongs to the people of Britain rather than the royal family personally and that the government actually has some say in determining how much money the royals receive. The Vatican doesn’t have these sorts of controls and church members play no part in determining the political direction of the church or how its money is spent.

There was an interesting juxtaposition of images standing on the edge of Parliament Square out the front of Westminster Abbey. In the foreground, in front of Big Ben were the flags of the Commonwealth nations flickering in the breeze. In the background, on the other side of the river, you could see the London Eye, which is essentially a massive ferris wheel. The whole thing looked like a carnival, which is probably quite appropriate for parliament. [‘Sexuality’ – Billy Bragg – one the easiest interviews I have ever done was with Billy. What you see is what you get. I spoke to him just days after 9/11 and it was one of the most interesting interview conversations I’ve ever had.]

I decided to see if I could get a glimpse of Gordon Brown collecting the paper at Number 10. The humble nature of the terraced house as the PM’s residence in Britain has always appealed to me against the opulence of the royal palaces. Don’t even bother – there is tighter security there than at the lodge. All those news shots you get of media packs hounding the PM outside his front door must be gathered by people with appropriate security clearances. Not only are there guards and those pylons with the red lights across the top at the entrance to Downing Street, there is also a double gate arrangement and a guard house. Lucky only other politicians live on the street these days.

Just around the corner from Number 10 are the Cabinet War Rooms. This was one of the most interesting museums I have ever seen. It is in the bunkers built to house Winston Churchill and his cabinet during WWII. It was recreated in enormous detail with each room laid out as it would have been during the war, right down to the implements in the kitchen, the typewriters and telephones and the war strategy maps on the walls. I stopped in a t the café to have afternoon tea of finger sandwiches and jam sponge. The menu (which they wouldn’t let me souvenir) was written like a ration book. The museum also had the best gift shop I have seen, including recreations of metal advertising signs from the period, ration books, cookbooks featuring wartime recipes using rations and books created by the government with helpful hints about health and making your clothing rations go further. My favourite was the dig for victory campaign which encouraged people to build home gardens to feed themselves during the war. [‘Zoot Suit Riot’ – Cherry Poppin’ Daddies – swing is such great dancing music – if only I was a slightly better dancer. And I love the clothes. For the record, I bought my first piece of vintage clothing, a lace dress from Route 66, back in 1989 so you can see why I was enamored with the London vintage clothing craze.]

From here I walked across the Westminster Bridge and along the South Bank of the Thames to Tate Modern. The interior design in the building is amazing, even more impressive than the Powerhouse in Sydney which also utilizes a disused power station. I was a little disappointed with the exhibition though – the minimalist gallery was closed, due to be replaced with another exhibition. Tate Modern works on a timeline of art from the early 20^th century and how you can do that without minimalism is beyond me. Like the Spanish gallery, there is an over-fascination with cubism and surrealism here. Sure I am impressed by Picasso, Dali, Magritte and Duchamp but enough already. There was also a temporary gallery of 80s paintings. It reminded me of the kind of art we studied and worked on at school. Like everything about the 80s, paintings were supposed to be big, huge and mostly abstract. The highlight for me though was the pop art gallery, seeing Roy Lichtenstein’s Whaam and Wall Explosion II up close and personal.

From the Tate, I wandered to Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre – I decided not to pay for the tour and settled on just seeing the outside. In the end it is a recreation, not the real theatre and the experience would be in seeing a play there, recreated in the way it would have been seen in Shakespeare’s time. I decided that it was probably best left for my next visit to London.

I decided to head back to the hostel to get ready for my West End show on a London red bus so a) I could see the territory I had been covering underground on the tube and b) I could actually get to take a ride on a red bus. When there was that huge controversy about the government getting rid of London’s double-decker red buses. It turns out that what they were talking about was the really old buses with the conductor at the back door, as seen in about 100 carry-on movies. There are more modern double-decker red buses everywhere. There are still some of the old ones on a few heritage routes but I didn’t manage to catch one.