Is any condition more aptly named that jetlag? Quite a bit is lagging at this particular moment...such as the day and my consciousness. I rolled up to the desk quite prepared to begin my morning blog, then tilted my wheelchair back, 'just for a moment.' And half an hour later woke up, only to find myself no better rested. Time for something else, I decided, and headed out the door for Sunday morning errands. This included my fortnightly manicure. And, gosh, it was handy to find Glen Park's row of Read more [...]

In eating the flesh of enemies, cannibals believed they were acquiring their courage and strength of their enemies. How else to explain my final English breakfast? Not that it was a full English breakfast...but a deliberate attempt to ingest the morning meal at the retail heart of the British nation, Marks & Spencer. Specifically, the one nearest my hotel in the Edgeware Road. It was one of those tube strike days when the sidewalks look like a swarming refugee camp. I fought my way through the Read more [...]

It’s Leviticus in the streets, I have decided…life and death so very close together…in this my inner journey through London. What else can explain it? I am positively charged up being here. And I am so painfully aware that I may not be here in this, my formative city, many more times…or if the fates are against me…ever. While intellectually inescapable…this basic truth is avoidable in every other way. And there’s something else going on about London for me. I keep thinking I’m going Read more [...]

Great Western’s 12:16 arrival from Hereford dumped me on Paddington’s most northerly platform. Actually, it was the refreshment trolley guy who deployed the wheelchair ramp. In fact, he asked me to guard his goods while he went in search of Network Rail’s finest. I confess it’s a hit and miss, the disabled rail services in the UK. I had booked special assistance for this particular journey weeks ago. I was in their system, as it were, and had an email to prove it. Still, it took a long time Read more [...]

At times I worry that I am slightly narcoleptic. When the lights go down in a theater, I often find myself dozing off. But not this afternoon, for the 1:30 PM matinee at the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Stratford home had me riveted from the very opening.   How do they do it, I always wonder. Ben Jonson’s Volone is 400 years old, after all. The current production starring Henry Goodman…in modern dress with slightly updated text…bursts into exciting life, then flies by…three hours Read more [...]