As I am typing this, BBC America is playing all day coverage of the Queen’s Jubilee, which is sort of awesome. I have sometimes found myself wishing that I could be the Queen for just one day, so that I could run around speaking about myself in the third person plural, and say things like, “We are not amused,” even though everyone would know I was the only one who wasn’t amused. I would find this very amusing… ironically…
I forgot to mention, when I was talking about Windsor castle, that the Queen was gracious enough to throw us a parade when we arrived…
You might expect that to have one parade thrown in your honor would be enough for any group of tourists, but when we went to see Buckingham Palace, the Queen, bless her heart, threw us yet another parade!
She even threw in the Horse Guards, and I do love horses. Thank you, Your Majesty!
What a gracious woman, and a splendid hostess…
Of course we did a lot of the normal tourist things…
We went up in the London eye, so that we could see the big clock and find out what time it was.
Here is Jessica, looking quite fetching, as the English may or may not still say. I didn’t want you to think I just Googled some pictures of London and made this whole thing up.
Here she is in a London phone booth…
My favorite part of this picture is the poor local kid standing to the left, who just wants to call his mates, but being English, is too polite to tell the American tourist to sod off.
I do actually have one piece of advice for you, oh lovely people of Britain. I realize that Lord Nelson is a national hero, and that a monument in his honor was required… but if you make the pedestal too high, no one can even tell who the tiny little statue at the top is supposed to be in honor of…
I mean really, that could be just about anyone up there. Here in America, we get around that problem by making the statues really big.
I don’t want this post to stretch out forever, so I will leave you with one final picture, and some thoughts on England and the English people…
This is the famous White Tower, or the Tower of London. We got to see the crown jewels when we went there. The Queen certainly does know how to pull together a look… with diamonds the size of baseballs…
The Tower was built around the year 1078… (how cool is that?)… by William the Conqueror. He was, I believe, French. Or at least Norman. He and his other friends from Normandy sailed across the channel, you know, like tourists do, but decided to stay and run the place for a while. In his defense, I thought of doing the same thing, but I am too busy with my blog, and a bus-load of teenagers makes a pretty poor conquering army. The White Tower used to really loom over the city, back when the rest of the buildings were quite a bit shorter. This was done intentionally. This was oppression at its finest and most oppressive. This Tower just sort of screamed; ‘We are here! We are French! Or at least Norman! We are not going away any time soon.’
Now I haven’t gone to the trouble of looking any of these facts up on Google or anything, but have you ever wondered why the English language has different words for the animals than the words for the meat from the animals? Well, let me explain. You raise a cow or a sheep. But you eat beef and mutton. I think, and I may be wrong, but the words for cow and sheep are English. But the words for beef and mutton come from French words. That is because the French conquered you… (hence the name William the ‘Conqueror’)… and lived in big white towers eating their fill of beef and mutton whilst you lived in hovels and did all the sheep and cow raising. You didn’t even get to eat any of the good parts, although I am sure they didn’t mind too much it you gnawed on the occasional cow hide or sheep’s hoof.
It is sort of amazing that you actually help the French out in any of their wars. If I was you, being the grudge carrier that I am, I would tell them if they wanted to stop having wars, they should move somewhere farther from Germany… (Just kidding, Germany… I love you, man)…
While I was wandering the streets of London, I saw a Bobby… (an English policeman) arrest a drunk hooligan. He was so polite about it, I thought I was seeing some sort of street performance, or maybe a TV show being filmed. I love the fact that your policemen don’t carry guns. In California, our cops carry pistols, mace, tasers, clubs, smoke grenades, and in their squad cars they have shotguns and automatic rifles… and that is in the good part of town.
I love the fact that the English love to form lines. They are so orderly. If two English people are standing near each other, they form a line… (or que? cue? You have a word for it, but I have no idea how to spell it)… just out of habit. How sweet is that? I have been to Italy a few times, and they do not form lines… they form… I hesitate to use the word mob, but that is close to what it is. It makes buying train tickets a bit of a chore.
At the hotel we stayed at, whenever the elevator doors were closing, a recorded female voice would say, in that delectable English accent, and oh so politely, “Mind the door.” I loved that. In fact, when I used to have my old GPS system in my car, I set it so that it had an English accent instead of an American one… because it just sounded so much friendlier. I guess that sort of says it all, doesn’t it?
Pouring My Art Out 
I have never been, but I want to go. We have a phone booth (sans the crown) just like that at the River Market. One time I got in it and posed like I was Tippi Hedron in “The Birds”
The people in this state seem to be fairly orderly. Not as orderly as the Brits, but there is a tad bit of semblance.
The pictures were fabulous..
We went to the spot where they filmed the birds a few years back.
When I first looked at the picture with the man on the very top, I didn’t even realize it was a statue. Too funny.
There may be more about that later…
can’t wait
I really enjoyed this post…it’s somehow strange seing the uk from a different viewpoint. Oh and for some reason I can’t help but always read ‘william the conqueror’ as ‘Wilhelm der Eroberer’…i have no idea why a famous french king gets automatically translated into german by my weird mind, but thats just how it is.
When we think of conquering, the Germans do tend to come to mind…
das stimmt
Ein klinne schisse
Ich verstehe nicht 😛 but what ever it says, the grammar is out.
My grammar is always out.
No rain in the photos, are they photoshopped! 🙂 Can you see me in the background of any photos, kinda like where’s wally
I don’t remember seeing you. There are a lot of photos. Let me ‘thumb’ through them… ha.
And I now know that you exaggerate your rainfall so less tourists come to bother you. It was bleedin’ hot.
TeeHee… One time when I was driving thru the midwest in the wee hours of the morning with just a tiny dog accompanying me, I had to stop in a tiny burg for a bit to let the car engine cool enough for me to check the oil level and add more if needed. Sucker drank oil like a sailor on shore leave. Ran fine as long as you kept it topped off. Anywho, the local constable happened to spy me, lurking about he thought, and of course had to investigate. I cheerily informed him that “we” were just making a required vehicular pit stop as I peered at him from under the hood. Unfortunately, he was not amused at what he did not perceive to be the royal use of we. Kept thinking there was somebody else concealed nearby just poised to leap out at him in spite of the fact that I repeatedly told him it was just me and the dog. Don’t think he even yet believed it as “we” finally drove off into the night. Probably thought I’d just driven off for show and would be circling back to pick up my cohort. Always wondered how long he lay in wait watching for my return.
Maybe he just thought you were the queen of England.
“Mind the door”. ‘nough said.
Thanks for the sequel. Sequeuel?
I pronounce tomorrow to be ‘Ye Oldde English Spelling Daye’ throughout the land. Let the festivities commence.
Great post.
If I have dementia, and am happily delusional, I shall use the royal we at every opportunity. It’s probably something I should be practicing right now.
You have to do the voice and the accent, or you just sound annoying.
I won’t mind that you’re annoyed, I’ll be delusional.
WE won’t mind that you’re annoyed, WE’LL be delusional… start practicing.
I can only practice one thing at a time, right now I’m practicing being delusional.
Just think of yourself as multiple personalities, and the words will come automatically.
Indeed, your majesty.
Exactly!
Thanks for showing me around! I may never see it otherwise. And yes, it’s queue and I can never remember how to spell it and I have to spell it fairly often when talking about my Netflix.
I am glad to be of help. Thank you.
No… you have to go to Europe at least once. We command it! Or we will not be amused!
Dear pmao,
I love these posts.
We don’t like the French, no, no, no. William the Conqueror – we never forget and we never forgive. The reason we have to help them in wars is geographical rather than out of any sense of comradeship – if the enemy over-run the weedy French, they can get across our moat and ONTO OUR SOIL.
Love Dotty xxx
They make a useful early warning system.
I rode in the London Eye too but when I did, I didn’t notice that the windows tell you which direction you’re looking in. I noticed that in one of Jessica’s photographs.
And did you notice the statue of George Washington off to one side of Trafalgar Square? GW always swore he’d never stand on British soil so they shipped in U.S. soil to put under the statue.
I did see the statue, and I was aware of the story. There is a lot of interesting history in that place.
Great post on London. Love the city. Queue (but I’m guessing you knew that). You are absolutely correct about Italy and mobs but I love that country more than any.
Queue??? That can’t be a real word. Italy is fantastic. Although I did have machine guns pointed at me in Rome… and the Pope wouldn’t let me in his house because I was wearing shorts.
Italians are dramatic. I’ve had the same machine guns pointed at me several times. Best to ignore. The Pope didn’t like my shoulders either! Great pics from most recent post.
Thanks.
I wish I could go there.
Too bad they surrounded the place with a giant moat…
Yeah, losers…except Joe…
They are not losers. They are wonderful people. And the whole country is just so charming and quaint, with their castles and hedges and pubs and great big hats for the women on special occasions. It is like Disneyland… only a little bit bigger.
I was just joking…
Do not make the British angry.Look what they did in the Falkland Islands… and that was just to protect a few of their sheep from the evil Argentinians!
Why are you so surly lately? You go from being all excited and happy to being crabby in the blink of an eye. You don’t have to vent all your feelings in my comment section, do you?
I don’t know. I’ll stay off your blog for a bit. I am not trying to be a bitch. I was just joking, but I seem to be misunderstood a lot lately.
I really do care if something is bothering you, and I will gladly meet you on your blog if you have anything you want to say. I wasn’t kissing anybody’s anything… I love the English. My family is from there. Joe is from there.
I know you weren’t kissing up to them. I was really just teasing you about that. I think you are doing a great job of showing us some highlights of the UK, and I love the photos. There are some things that are bothering me. I guess it’s hard not to let the anger/pain/whatever get out in my writing.
I don’t mean to take it out on you. I think it is just one of those things that I feel safe around here, so I am a little more open than I should be. It is nothing with you or anyone else on WP. Real life stuff.
I hate real life stuff. And I am crazy about you. We all get a little gloomy now and then, and a friend listens. I myself am prone to bouts of depression. So I am always here for you. Just remember that sometimes a post is just supposed to be silly, and the comment section can have its tone significantly altered if one person is not in that same mood. Like a party. That being said, I do care about your problems. And I hate it when you are down. So there, two diametrically opposed points of view in one paragraph. Glad I could clear that up.
Lol, yeah, good point