London Calling

Stopped by London for a couple days on the way back from Dublin, because if I'm not there at least twice a year, I don't know what I'm doing with my life.

Maybe a dozen years ago, someone asked me how many times I’d been to London, and I had no idea. It was only a handful of visits back then, but it was still enough that I had lost count. It’s probably my favourite city in the world, so I stop by whenever I’m in the area… or whenever I have an excuse to go for an event… or whenever I’m flying BA and have to change planes at Heathrow anyway… 

Basically, anytime I can find an excuse to be in London, I’m in London.

 

But that usually means I’m just popping by for a day or two in between things, with no time to do anything but meander through the Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A), eat a kebab, and sleep. So I’m pretty much confined to my usual ‘hood or whatever’s a short ride on the Tube. 

 

And the same was true this time, which included stops at the Moco, the Design & Disability exhibition at the V&A, a little shopping, and lots of walking.

 

London, like all major cities, is a collection of distinct neighbourhoods that all have their own personality. My London ‘hood is South Kensington, completely by accident. Many years ago, I got a great deal on a brand new boutique hotel there, when it was a part of the city I’d never been to before, and not only did I love the hotel, I loved the area. So even after the hotel got established and I couldn’t always afford to stay there – or when the ownership changed, making me no longer like the place -- I still find a spot to stay in South Kensington every visit. The big draw is the nearness of the V&A and Hyde Park, but I also can’t underestimate the benefit of knowing this area better than the rest of London. I’ve got certain stores I always shop in and a regular kebab shop, and I even know which lines run through the local Underground stations and where I can or can't go on them, without having to look at the map.

 

I don’t know if I'd recommend South Kensington to everyone – neighbourhoods have a personality just like people do, and everyone has to figure out for themselves what they're compatible with – but I highly recommend finding your ‘hood when you visit London. Especially if you're like me and not out doing a whole bunch of social things with friends all the time, having a place that feels quite homely* makes it as if you’re wandering around holding hands with the city itself.

 

I can't say what it is that makes a human feel like they belong in a particular place, but I have a few cities that I’ve never really lived in, that feel like home to me anyway. London’s very close to the top of that list. 

 

 

*I'm using the British meaning here, which is 'like home', not the old USian way of saying it's not very attractive.

Britpop in Dublin

So... what did you do last weekend? Oh, nothing much? Watched some TV? Well, I just took a quick little jaunt over to Dublin...

No, really, I went all the way to Ireland for less than 2 days. By the time I got settled into the hotel after my halfway-round-the-world journey Friday night, it was 8pm, and only about 38 hours until I had to catch my lift back to the airport Sunday morning. So that didn't leave me much time to do anything but go to the Robbie Williams Britpop tour stop that had brought me to town. 

I wasn't too worried about missing stuff, though; I visited Dublin back in 2016 with my ex-Scotsman, and we did all the touristy things then. We saw Dublin Castle, walked along the River Liffey and crossed a couple of its bridges (but not the famous Liffey Bridge, which we did walk past, but it was either closed or too busy... or not where we needed to cross... I don't remember), and (obviously) visited the Dublinia Viking and Medieval Museum. 

On that trip, I even dragged the man with no interest in anything more artistic than a football jersey on a trek across town to the Irish Museum of Modern Art. But once we got inside the grounds, we started noticing that most of the doors to exhibit rooms were closed and locked, and no one else was around except a few guys with tools and ladders... and it dawned on us that maybe it was not open that day, and we had just slipped in with the renovation crew. But sadly we weren't equipped to use our accidental sneak entry to pull off the world's greatest Irish art heist, so we just found our way to an exit and went on with our turismo. 

So since I already took in (pretty much) all the things I wanted to see last time, I wasn't particularly motivated to go out for anything other than food on the drizzly, muggy afternoon before the main event. 

Because as it should be, Saturday night was Robbie Williams night in Dublin. CAN YOU IMAGINE THE CRAIC?!*

I overheard a local on our walk to the gig saying that to her friend, and I had to steal it.

WHAT A SHOW!!! Croke Park was completely sold out -- 80,000 people -- with an amazing crowd. People always tell me that Irish audiences are the best, but I had to see it for myself. I've been to around 20 Robbie shows in various locations and never heard such loud singing along, to whole songs, not just the choruses that everyone knows. Rob said near the end that it was the best crowd he'd ever had (sincerely, not just working the audience), and I believe it. 

I have to say that the view was a bit jarring for me at first, because I got a seat this time, after being in the front standing section for the last few shows. Rob's truly the most amazing entertainer, and it doesn't matter if you're pressed up against the stage or in the very back of the stadium, you'll have a great time and feel like he's singing directly to you. But even sitting just a couple rows away from the field, I was pretty far from the stage, and it took a minute to adjust to him looking 3 inches tall, after having gotten used to watching an actual sized Robert. On the plus side, since I couldn't take that many good photos with my limited zoom anyway, it gave me a reason to keep my phone in my pocket and enjoy the moment for once.

The set list was pretty much the same as the London Britpop shows (catchup post coming on that later!), with a couple small changes. This tour's tradition of 2 surprise guests continued -- one to duet on Relight my Fire, and one with their own song -- but they were both Irish folks I didn't know anything about. I did catch that the one who got a gigantic roar of welcome from those in attendance was Garron Noone, who led a rousing singalong version of Take Me Home, Country Roads. Never thought I'd hear a John Denver song at a Robbie Williams gig, but those peanut butter cup ads are on to something: putting two things I love together made me love them both even more!

All in all, it was an incredible night, and I was totally in it, singing, dancing, and grinning, even during my I'm-so-beyond-sick-of-this-stupid-cover-please-never-play-it-again song (I won't say which one that is, but it rhymes with Bees the Fun), and had a spring in my step on the long walk back to my hotel afterward.

So I'd say the quick visit to Dublin was a success. The show was one of a kind, and we really did have the craic... far beyond anything I could have imagined.

 

*If you don't know what the craic is, look it up your own self! Kidding. It's basically Irish for super fun-ness, pronounced like crack.

Welcome Back (Globe)Trotter

 We're back, baby!

I never did get around to starting a Substack, and I'm glad I didn't, but I didn't really start posting again here either... which I'm not so glad about. 

So I'm back now (with an option to get this as a newsletter if that's your bag), picking up where I left off. And committing to keep it updated going forward.

Look, the world is ROUGH right now. Personally, socially, politically, globally, this is very much The Darkest Timeline. And while I pretty much spend all my time, and energy, and thought every day trying to make that better, sometimes I need a break. We all do. We need to take time to do something we love, to laugh, to celebrate life's small adventures. So here I am, trying to do a little of that now and then.

For the next little while, I'll be going back through a bunch of unpublished posts from the last 2 years, and sharing them until I'm all caught up.

But don't worry, there aren't that many catch-up posts out there, I'm skipping a few trips. Like both of my annual pre-Christmas visits to London and Edinburgh, the time I holed up in Stockholm with a terrible cold, and the several days I sat around Palm Springs doing nothing but reading. 

But you will get fun travel stories like this: I was all queued up to catch my flight to Edinburgh (Heathrow loves lining people up early!), when they announced a technical issue. Not boarding, no timeline. But it's the UK, so everyone just stayed in the lineup. A few minutes later, when the gate agent guy came over to give an update, he came and spoke directly to me, about 3/4 of the way back in the queue, too quietly for others to hear, and walked away... Like I was somehow the only one who needed to know. The boss of the line, I guess.

Stay Tuned...

Catching Up: Britpop in London

I know, it seems like I only ever go to London. But that's kind of been true for the last couple of years... I still love to go new places, but I'm 100% OVER the actual mechanisms of travel. So most of my plans end up cancelled when even the tiniest hint of a hassle comes up -- flight time change, weather, me waking up with a sniffle -- and the ones I keep are ones where I don't want to miss the event. So mostly when Robbie Williams is involved.

My summer 2025 trip to London was exactly that. Rob's tour for his upcoming Britpop album included two London stadium shows on successive nights, so I got tickets for both.

The trip was just a quick one, arriving at Heathrow on Wednesday afternoon, seeing the popstar Friday and Saturday night, and back home Sunday, so I didn't have time to do much else. I was also hindered by having sprained my knee just one week earlier. By being a klutz walking down the street.

I was on my way home with bags of groceries in each hand, about a block from home, walking super fast like I always do, when I tripped on uneven pavement and became a cartoon character flailing wildly, trying to catch my balance against the weight of the bags and forward momentum. But I failed, and fell flat on my face in the middle of the sidewalk, with my left knee taking most of the impact. After picking myself up and limping home, I took an ibuprofen, put an ice pack on my bruised and swollen kneecap, and went about my day... albeit seated. Once the pain and swelling subsided on the bashed up part of my knee, I noticed that the LCL side was showing all the signs of a sprain. I was a dancer until age 20, and have been clumsy my entire life, so trust me, I know from joint sprains. This one seemed pretty minor, so I dug out a knee brace from one of my previous injuries, went about the same home treatment I've done a dozen times before, and assumed it'd be fine in time to travel. 

Another quick side story here, since I'm already off topic anyway... The first single of the new Robbie album, Rocket, was released about a week before I gracefully injured myself, a couple weeks before I left town. As part of that promotion, Karl Brazil (Rob's drummer, musical director, and frequent collaborator) posted a photo of its four songwriters -- Robbie, Karl, Tony Iommi, and Tom Longworth -- looking super rock and roll, but also, ya know, not 25 years old, saying something like "name this band." I replied with Dad Sabbath, which I found hilarious, but which got no response on Instagram at all. So imagine my surprise when, on my way to London a short time later, I heard Karl Brazil on the Robbie Williams Rewind podcast making a joke about his band Dad Sabbath, and getting a good laugh. He did give credit to it being an IG comment, but still... between that and Robbie Williams himself repeating a joke I'd told him to all his Insta live viewers (a much longer story that happened during the pandemic lockdown), I think I've earned the right to put Comedy Writer for the Robbie Williams Band on my resume. 

But back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Despite the many hours of travel that limited my ability to put my leg up the way I really needed to, my knee wasn't in too bad shape when I arrived in London, but I wouldn't say it was in great form either, with only a week of healing done. Not the best way to find myself in a city where I normally walk several miles every day, where you can't get far without having to climb up or down stairs, and where I had standing tickets to two (at least) 2-hour concerts. 

Nevertheless, I persisted. 

For both nights of the Britpop show, I timed my travel to get to the stadium about 45 minutes before Rob was set to hit the stage, because I didn't want to stand any longer than I had to on my bad knee, especially since the trip there and back included lots of walking. Luckily my ticket was especially for the front of stage section, so even arriving that late, I had a pretty good view for both.

This tour's set is much more cabaret style than some of the previous ones, with interludes of stories and videos, Robbie making his case that he deserves the title King of Entertainment, and lots of guests. It was a mix of originals and covers that he has done in a lot of shows before. I think Old Before I Die was maybe the only old original I hadn't heard live before, and the show opened with the first single off the new album, Rocket, along with Rob taking a (wired) nosedive off a giant rocket on stage. The covers with guests were the most unique part of each night. 

Both shows featured Lulu joining Rob to 'reclaim' Relight My Fire, her duet with Take That, for which Rob was originally supposed to do the lead vocals, but during recording they gave it to Gary Barlow instead. They sounded great and it was super fun to see them together. Friday night also featured a song by 90s British boy band Five, which Rob started, and Five finished -- the group's first performance on stage together in 25 years. Having not grown up in the UK, I didn't know the song, and only knew a little about the band, but the crowd went wild and I could appreciate the moment nonetheless. On Saturday night, instead of Five we got three grime artists doing their grime thing with Rob. I didn't know who they were (not well versed in the genre), and the internet's feelings on the guys were mixed when I went to find out, so.. shrug emoji, I guess.

The only other thing that was different at the Saturday show was getting drenched. It was cold and grey all evening, but right as the band came on stage, it started bucketing down, and continued to soak us for the first 2 or 3 songs. It then switched to more of a drizzle for a couple songs before it quit for the rest of the night, but it was still enough that I hadn't fully dried by the time I got back to the hotel nearly 3 hours later.

But even soaked with a sore knee, I had a smile a mile wide. And that's why these are the trips that never get cancelled.

Catching Up: Last Thanksgiving in London

For the last ten to fifteen years, I've typically spent Thanksgiving either out of the country, or on a long haul flight home, eating airplane food for my holiday dinner. I'm too much of a history buff to buy into the mythology or 'celebrate' the American Thanksgiving holiday, and don't care about missing a day of overeating with friends and/or family, so I prefer to spend the day anywhere but here. 

This year, against all odds, I'm not travelling, but last year I was... and I had a lovely holiday to myself in London.

I started my day at the London Moco Museum, where Robbie Williams had recently had several pieces added to their permanent collection, so obviously I had to go take a look at that. As usual, I loved Rob's stuff, but I think I actually spent more time admiring and photographing their Basquiat and Keith Haring sections. Such a modern art nerd!

Once again, I spent far too much money getting cool art stuff at the gift shop. But I was forced to show some some restraint, because I had limited space in my luggage, and lots more on my (early Christmas) shopping list, which I spent the rest of the afternoon getting as I walked down Oxford Street, away from the museum. 

As usual, I was an excellent shopper and could barely close my suitcase at the end of the day. Luckily this was pre- tariff era, and I didn't have to wonder whether I'd still have a generous personal import allowance when I landed at home, or not...

After dropping all my purchases back at the hotel, I wandered back out for my Thanskgiving dinner: a takeout falafel platter from a Lebanese restaurant, which I greatly enjoyed with a French rosé. No pie for dessert, but mini Christmas puddings were already on sale for the year, which worked well enough for me.

Much better way to spend the day than watching parades or gorging on turkey, if you ask me...

Catching Up: London / BST Hyde Park (Again)

It's been well documented that London is my #1 city, and Robbie Williams is my #1 popstar, so when it was announced that he'd be headlining a night of BST Hyde Park again in July 2024, of course I was there.

I landed at Heathrow on July 4th (because I love spending all the iconic American holidays in foreign lands), to spend a week in London with the Rob show right in the middle, carrying an unexpected bottle of wine in my bag. Along the way I had a chat with the flight attendant about wine, and she recommended a nice Bordeaux that I quite enjoyed, so she gave me a bottle to take with me. Gotta love first class!

Anyway. Aside from the music, I didn't do anything interesting... just a typical few days in my usual London haunts, so on to the show...

As a rule, I hate music festivals, and only Rob can get me to show up to one, even for just a little while. So for BST I did the same as last time and got a ticket that included the 'VIP Garden', giving me a more sparsely populated area to hang out in until I was ready to join the stramash at the front of the stage. I wasn't really interested in anyone playing before the Robbie closing set, so I arrived pretty close to his start time, to avoid awkwardly standing around as a solo VIP, sipping on overpriced beverages. I got there right about the time Seal started playing (the last artist before RW), and listened from the Garden area while I bought a t-shirt and drank a hard cider. I was never that big a fan of Heidi Klum's ex-husband -- I only know those 2 or 3 songs that everyone remembers from the 90s -- but he sounded pretty good from a distance.

When Seal finished and the masses started flooding back into the VIP Garden for the break between performers, I took advantage of the relative sparseness of the crowd to find myself a decent spot in front of the stage. Unfortunately the group of women I ended up standing next to were extremely drunk and kept bumping into everyone, while also being SO LOUD that my right ear hurt from their shouting by the time the show got started. But at the point that I realized I couldn't spend 2 more hours near them, the throngs had returned and I was walled in by humans on all sides. The drunken banshees were also convinced that Kylie Minogue was there as a guest, because they'd heard Kids during the soundcheck and were sure Robbie would never sing it unless she was there. Except that he does, at every show, everywhere, always, with Kylie's parts covered by the backup singers. Since the whole audience couldn't help but overhear, I noticed I wasn't the only one rolling my eyes at their antics.

Then we were given even more time to overhear intoxicated asinine shouting when the show started a bit late, because England had gone to penalties in a knockout game of the Euros, and everyone (most of the crowd, the band, Rob) was watching. So they waited to come on stage until the game finished... which England won, and put everyone in an extra good mood.

Maybe because of the football, or maybe just out of habit, Rob seemed to be having fun, and the performance was great, as always. He mostly did the same set he'd been doing on other shows at the time, but there were a few new things I hadn't heard live before... which isn't that easy to do when my list of RW concerts is in the double digits. 

He had a special Hyde Park intro video at the beginning that hinted at his special guests for the night... none of whom were Kylie. In the middle of the show, he did sort of a 90s interlude starting with his cover of Don't Look Back in Anger that was standard in the set list at that time (including his Liam Gallagher impression which never fails to amuse me) and then going into the Supergrass song Alright with an appearance by Gaz Coombs (out of Supergrass). Then the Britishness went into overload, as the Coldstream Guards Band and Danny Dyer* joined him for a rendition of Blur's Parklife. Other new live experiences were Something Beautiful and Advertising Space (one of my favourites), along with Take That's Back for Good, which I'd heard recordings of in Rob's early solo days as a punk version, but this was the first I'd heard him do it in the original Gary Barlow ballad style. There was also a very sweet moment at the end during Angels where his wife and eldest daughter came on stage and shared a group hug that lasted for most of the instrumental section.

So yeah, always great to see our Rob, especially when he seems to be having as great a time on stage as we are, watching. Well worth the travel and the crowds, every time.

 

*Either you know why Danny Dyer was the perfect person to join on Parklife, or you don't, so I'm just gonna leave it there

Catching Up: Holiday Weekend in Amsterdam, Moco Museum

When the announcement came out in spring of 2024 that Robbie Williams was having his first art exhibition at the Moco museum in Amsterdam, my last few days of vacation for the rest of the year were already all committed to trips I didn't want to change, and the show's run was set to end before I'd get a new grant of time off. So I was faced with the good employee / devoted fanatic's classic conundrum: do I miss the thing and forever feel like a bad fan, take unpaid days off and lose money, or try to fit an entire trip to Amsterdam and back into the Memorial Day long weekend?

Of course I chose the holiday weekend option, resulting in my most unhinged travel plan to date.

I left on Friday night, and since I usually avoid the amateur travel times (ie holiday long weekends), I have never dealt with a more packed airport or longer security lines. They only had one pre-check line open at SeaTac, and it snaked all through the winding ropes and faaaaaaaaaar beyond, out through the hallway and down past two entire check-in sections. It couldn't have been less than 60 minutes wait, probably closer to 90. When I found the end of the line, there was a member of airport staff placed there to direct the bewildered into queue, so I asked if the first class lineup was shorter, and he pointed me to a premium checkpoint where I didn't get pre-check, but only had to wait about 15 minutes. But even that felt like an inordinate amount of hassle, so the whole experience made me immediately sign up for Clear to jump all security lines in the future, and vow to never fly on a holiday weekend again.

I might be a bit of a spoiled traveller. Shrug, not sorry.

To try to make the trip slightly less tiring, I took a direct flight that arrived in rainy Amsterdam early Saturday afternoon, and went straight to standing in more long lines at passport control. Which is where I was able to confirm that the A Black Lady Sketch Show character who is the world's greatest spy, staying completely invisible by just being a regular-looking woman, is 100% possible.

The passport area of Schipol that they herded us into had no electronic gates, just two booths where everyone in the giant queue had to speak to a person. As I got close to the front, I could see that they were asking every non-Dutch citizen for a whole bunch of details about their stay, requiring them to show a return ticket and hotel confirmation. Which was taking FOREVER as person after person approached the desk looking completely befuddled by the need to have all their travel documents organized and available to show. So, pro jetsetter that I am, when I got up to the desk and handed him my passport, I was ready with all my booking apps open in my phone, as well as my museum ticket, because what could spur more suspicion than going to the other side of the world for barely 48 hours? 

The border guy who'd asked every other person ahead of me no less than 28 questions, quickly scanned my passport and disinterestedly asked where I was going. 

"Well, I'm going to the Moco Museum..."

"I mean, are you in transit to somewhere?"

"No, just here for two days and back home."

[Stamping and handing back the passport] "Have a nice day."

So yeah, sometimes it's beneficial to be an invisible regular-looking middle-aged woman.

Anyway. My museum ticket was for Sunday -- my only full day in Amsterdam -- so getting there was my one goal for the day. The museum itself is pretty small, and I'm never that stand and stare at the art for an hour person regardless, so my visit was relatively quick. There wasn't a lot in Rob's section that he hadn't already posted online, but it was cool to see it at full scale on the walls, and take part in the overall experience they'd created around the show.

The museum has a lot of other Modern & Contemporary art (MoCo, get it?), so I walked through the whole place and loved it. Except the small room of Warhols packed wall to wall with people... I rolled my eyes and walked away from that one, but I did spend a minute nerding out in front of the Basquiats. I also spent WAY too much in the gift shop on Williams, Basquiat, and Banksy swag that you can't get anywhere else (however much you think I spent, double it and you'll be closer), and left very satisfied.

With rain non-stop during my brief visit, and really just one reason for going anyway, all I had the time and desire to do was see the museum and go for a couple walks when it wasn't too damp out. Amsterdam is one of those places that has always felt relaxing and homey to me, so I don't much feel like tourist-ing when I go there, anyway.

I then spent all day Monday getting the long-haul flight home, and was back at work Tuesday morning, exhausted, the weekend a blur.

But still, I'm glad I went. All the sleep deprivation and travel crowd chaos was worth it in this case, but would I ever do it again? 

I mean... yeah, if I had a reason. A good fan's work is never done...