Blogging / London / Paris

I know I haven't posted in way too long.  I've been keeping the "What I'm Reading" sidebar updated, but that's about it.  Working on a screenplay that I've been bogged down in for a little too long, playing around with another novel, trying to build an audience for a secret blog that's out there, and keeping my fingers crossed about some other stuff.  But I did want to quickly post, in case anyone is still out there checking, in RSS or wherever, since I can't imagine anyone actually coming to the page after so long with no posts... but my wife and I are going for a week to London and Paris next month.  Thought I'd see if anyone had any recommendations for, I don't know, anything.  Food, cultural stuff, cool places to walk around.  We're actually (by accident) going to be in London the day of the Royal Wedding, which should mean lots of stuff is crowded and/or closed, and explained why it was harder to find a hotel months in advance than I expected it would be (didn't realize the date of the wedding when booking the trip).

And now, highlights from a few posts I would have written recently if I was not completely out of the habit of writing blog posts on here:

** I'm confused by The New York Times' decision to put up a paywall, and yet put up a paywall with so many holes that no one who doesn't really want to pay has to pay.  I'm especially confused by the "free for the rest of 2011" offer that has gotten sent to most of the Times readers I have e-mailed with about this.  I suppose in theory it's to make the transition to paying more gentle-- but I don't know what the Times gets from erecting a paywall after two years of saying they're going to erect it, and then making it free for another 10 months to the people most likely to have a reason to pay.

** Funny stuff in Mike Sacks's new book of short comedy pieces, Your Wildest Dreams Within Reason.  My favorite is a set of cartoons about putting together IKEA furniture.  Sacks has a book of interviews with comedy writers that I keep wanting to read and then not taking any action that will help me read it, like buying the book.

** I wish I was at Yale Law School and could check a dog out of the library for 30 minutes to play with.  Or I wish I had a dog.  In the abstract sense.  I don't actually wish I had to walk a dog and take care of a dog.  But it would be nice to have a dog around the apartment who did not have an excretory system.

** Every season of Top Chef is exactly the same, and yet I still watch.

Comments

[Murphy Jacobs]

It's been too long since I was in London (and I was there for much too short a time) to make a decent recommendation (although I did love Watkin's Bookstore off Piccadilly).

Any chance of you being on Goodreads? It has tools to let you cross post any reviews to other places online, and it would be nice to keep up with your reading even if your blogging is on hiatus here.

[Pam Linberg]

Cafe Spice Nameste in London

[Norm]

Rocca's (Italian restaurant) on the Old Brompton Road about two blocks from the South Kensington Tube station (same side of the street as the Lamborghini dealer). Great food & atmosphere; not very expensive.

Churchill Museum & War Rooms. Fascinating, whether or not you liked the man.

[PG]

I haven't tried it because the last time I was in the UK, I was mostly in Oxford and the Lake District, but the Sunday (Up)Market in London's Spitalfields area is supposed to be worthwhile. I heard about it from Phoebe (http://whatwouldphoebedo.blogspot.com/), who is finishing her PhD research in Paris this year and has LOTS of information and recommendations about where to eat/drink/shop in Paris, especially if you don't want to spend too much.

I've heard two diverging predictions about how crowded London will be around April 29:

(1) Actual British people who aren't invited to the wedding will be making use of the string of bank holidays around the time (Good Friday, Easter Monday, day of wedding, May Day) to take their vacations and get the hell out of London.

(2) The young tattooed lady who assisted me at a salon thinks (1) may be true of people with school-age children, but that others will stay in London to enjoy all the block parties that apparently are planned for the time.