Mo & Paul’s Big Night;
or How I met a Dance Diva and was mauled by a D-list TV star!
This trip to London (and Paris) was to attend the Civil Partnership ceremony for my best mates in London, Maurice (aka Mo) and Paul (aka “The Wee One”, or “W1”), who were getting hitched after 14 years (almost all of which I’ve known them.) So not that I need a lot of reasons for going to London, but of all the reasons to go, this is one of the best, seeing two wonderful, generous, sweet guys get married. Awww I’m gonna’ cry….
Fri 1 May
Even though we were flying on Mike’s United miles, he scored us upgrades to First Class to and from Washington (and Business Class to and from London!) So on the Boston to Dulles leg, we were the only two in the first class cabin, and were plied with bloody mary's by the very cute Boston-based gay flight attendant. Was a short, but fun flight! We spent enough time in the United lounge in Dulles to get some food, and then on to our flight to LHR. Actually nicer than even the first class we just flew in, we were in newly redone 767 Business Class cabin: Lay flat beds, a 20” LCD TV with interactive games, TV, films, XM and other music playlists. Very cool and super comfy! All for $10 for all the flights. (The value of having an NSLP with a ridiculous amount of miles cannot be underestimated!) On the flight over, I watched "Last Chance Harvey" (very cute) and "" had a breakfast of fruit, yogurt, croissant, cold cuts and cheese. Dinner later on was also good. We landed early and took Heathrow express and tube to hotel after a little northern line confusion.
The Hoxton Hotel in Islington is loud, contemporary and quite sceney. In short: fabulous! The desk clerk had to shout above the din of the music and Friday night crowds in this admittedly nightlife-deprived part of London (tho’ I do recall some very fun nights at the late, lamented “333 Old Street’, where I came this close to meeting Jean-Paul Gaultier once.) The halls of the Hoxton are bathed in orange light, and we had a nice, predictably small room. It had a cool mural of the Tower of London, a great bathroom, and comfy bed with Frette sheets. After a long day or travelling, going out was not going to happen and we were in bed by midnight.
Sat 2 May
We got up 8:15a to the lovely sounds of the Hackney council bin men and scarfed free breakfast which is left in bag on a hook by your room door. It consisted of a Pret a Manger yogurt pot, some Pret OJ and a banana. We got showered and dressed and headed up the road just a bit to have breakfast with the grooms at Jaime “The Naked Chef” Oliver's “Fifteen” very near Mo & Paul’s place. (Fifteen is a kinda of training program for disadvantaged kids that Oliver runs, with all the proceeds going to charity.) Brekkie was good (I had the full English …. Mmmmm blood sausage!) but no Jamie sightings, unfortunately. I did ask how many people were coming to the wedding, and was told only 50 or so people were invited. As Mo said “everyone invited, including you both, were instrumental in getting us to where we are today.” Awwwww. I was truly flattered to be among the invitees (more on them later!)
After wishing the boys well on their big day, Mike and I walked down to the City and took in an exhibit on Le Corbusier at the Barbican gallery. It confirmed to both of us that he should have stuck to furniture, as there was such a non-human-scale to many of his architectural ideas. Ironically, displayed in a gallery of a super-block development that I personally think is a disaster of out-scale city planning. After that we headed down past St. Paul’s and across the Millennium Bridge to Tate modern bookstore and walked down to Design Museum store, with stop for fish and chips at fish! Kitchen in Borough Market. In what became a recurring theme for this trip, we both noted that with increased globalization and the internet, there is hardly anything unique in stores anywhere, and that the ICA Store in Boston has better merch and both the Tate and Design Museum stores combined! So with no shopping bags in hand, we headed back to the Hoxton to change for Mo & Paul’s big night.
We arrived at Mo’s private club, Century, in Soho about 6:30pm and got a drink and met a few family and friends. We correctly guessed that “business casual” in London mean jackets and ties, so we were glad we’d dressed up. At 6 sharp, they moved us into the other room to do the short, quite formal “ceremony,” with a couple City of Westminster (e.g. London) functionaries reading the “do you take” bit and having Mo and Paul sign the register. One of Mo’s good friends read a funny poem (she’d written) about having a civil union -- as opposed to uncivil. Quite funny. After the obviously nervous boys exchanged rings, signatures and kisses, that was all done.
And of course, we got more drinks. Champers all around. (Quite good, too!) That’s when Mo introduced me to my new best friend Rozalla. As I the 1993 dance smash “Everybody’s Free.” Yes. THAT Rozalla. She is the wife of Mo’s old boss, Alan, who is also a lovely guy. They are an adorable, sweet, friendly couple, and we got on famously. Mo smartly sat Rozalla next to me and Mike, and across the table, 80’s teen TV star Cleo Rocos. She's most famous for her run on the "Kenny Everett Show", and was also on Britains “Celebrity Big Brother”; where she was in a double-eviction with one of the S Club 7 girls. Cleo had her good sport of a Mum in tow. (It's rumoured Cleo's only engagement ended because she kept bringing her Mum on dates.) [For more on Cleo, see her Wikipedia entry, and for more on Rozalla, her Wikipedia and "Everybody's Free", below:]
Our chatter withAlan and Rozalla continued throughout the excellent dinner (the duck was lovely). All the while Cleo kept telling us about being a childhood star on British TV, her madcap adventures with Freddy Murcury, Kenny Everett and Princess Diana. (Once, they snuck Princess Di out to go bowling, or some such rediculousness.) Still an inveterate fag hg (of as they say there “xx”) at nearly 50 -- oh, sorry 39 -- Cleo announced I was to be her new best friend and that she would throw a grand party for me next time I was in London. This might be a good time to remind myself all of the friends mentioned above are now dead.
It was all pretty hilarious. And after getting back, more than a few British friends noted their utter crush on Cleo back in the day. I will admit she looks fantastic, still.
During Mo’s speech, he thanked the couples who came from the furthest away -- which Mike and I won by several thousand miles, and being pretty much drunk by then, this made me break down crying. Rozalla gave me a sweet, comforting hug. Cleo fairly launched herself across the table to “comfort” me. This involved her kissing me, chewing on my ear, and otherwise threatening to open up into a large Doctor Who-ish space alien and devour me. Yipe!
A bunch of open bar, very non-Britishly strong drinks later, Mike and tottered off to find a night bus and head home about 1:30am.
But the takeway for this night was two of the greatest, nicest men I know are now married, and I have Rozalla’s email and mobile number. How cool am I J And I think Cleo has a bit of my ear…
Sun 3 May
We got up 11 AM and had our yogurt/banana/juice, and headed to the newly-hot Marylebone and the Church Street antiques, which was, of course, all closed in Sunday... So instead we headed to the newish Conran shop (child sized Starck “Ghost” Chairs -- OMG so cute!) and down Marylebone High Street, down Oxford Street and finally over to Covent Garden to shop at the Fred Perry store, and the London Transport Museum Shop. Again, back the globalization thing… with Fred Perry’s relatively easy to get in Boston, there was nothing there to get, and I find myself as I age less interested in chotchkies from the LT Museum store, and even have most of the books from there I want. Sigh. Even in the Oxford Street HMV, none of the DVDs or CDs appealed to me, since you can buy them all online or download. Back in the mid-90s, I used to spend hours combing HIV and Virgin for dance CDs I couldn’t get in the states. For good or bad, with peer to peer and music download sites, no more piles of 30 CDs to drag back home.
Finally we met Luca who I’d been chatting up online for a few months for a drink at Compton’s (still my favorite pub!) a little shopping at Prowler and DV8 (same stuff, different stores), and finally an ehhh dinner at Balan's, which was disappointing, because I usually like the food there.
We bid Luca goodbye, and headed back to hotel, and luckily my friend Jonathan was back in town from a weekend trip, and nicely made the effort to head out to Islington to met us for drink in loud fun bar. We caught up and he vowed to come out to Boston meet up this summer to hang out in P’Town (I’m holding you to that, JB!)
Mon 4 May
Short two stop tube ride to King’s Cross/St. Pancras and the new(ish) Eurostar terminal (another reason the Hoxton was such a good choice). The station is quite nice -- apparently has the longest champagne bar in the world -- and definitely more security than Liverpool in ’99. (When I remember basically walking on the train without so much as screening of bags.) We took 9:30 Eurostar to Gare du Nord., Mike agreeing the ride is pretty boring, other than the brilliant yellow fields (of Mustard? or Rapeseed?) along the way.
After navigating the ridiculously efficient (and quiet! yay rubber tires on subways) Metro, we popped out at the Louvre stop etvoila, directly (I mean DIRECTLY) across from the Louvre is our hotel, the Hotel du Louvre. For taking a gable on a 4-star hotel on Priceline, for $150 a night we got an awesome location, nice high-floor, and bright room with a beautiful big bathroom.
We then got egg, tomato and prosciutto baguettes and ate in Tuilleries garden. Perfect! We headed through Les Halles, past the Pompidou Center (where a street artist was painting a large black white and grey portrait of Obama -- upside down!), to the Marais and wander-shopped around for a couple hours, marveling again how not much was unique or hard to get in the states. Takes some of the fun out of it, honestly. We did stumble across what is probably both our new favorite home-accessories store: Fleux in rue St Criox de la Bretonnierie.
Mo and Paul had headed to Paris for their honeymoon, so had mentioned getting together. (At Mike’s insistence that they have their honeymoon “to themselves,” Mo said “Darling Michael, we’ve been together 14 years -- the honeymoon is rather redundant at this point.”) So we took the Metro over to Mo and Paul's (very nice) hotel -- with a very cool blue-lit bar, and then all headed back to the Marias, where dinner at Tresor, which was quite good, and a nightcap at Quetzal. The boys headed back to their hate, and Mike and I chatted with a very cute NYC doctor and his NYC-stereotype friends (neurotic jew, and wide-eyed-midwest transplant.)
Tues 5 May
We took no less than 3 Metro lines out to 13th to see very cool modern park Mike wanted to see (being a landscape architect and city planner.) I love parks, so was more than happy to go (my trip to London and Paris in ’99 was filled with cemetery visits.) Situated at the site of the former Citroen automobile plant, Parc André Citroën is a true urban park with a post-modernist slant. There are several gardens laid out as themed “rooms” on one side, a large central green, (mostly broken) water features on the other side and large conservatories at the top of the park. Really in need of some maintenance (the problem with such hi-design parks) but interesting none the less.
Since we were doing parks, I wanted to see a park that had been mentioned a lot in the hand-wringing over how Boston’s Rose Kennedy Greenway would come together and be programmed. So we headed up to the Gare du Lyon area and Conduit Plantee; a linear park built on a handsome old disused train bridge, with high-end design shops under the arches. It was lovely if a bit repetitive (and buggy!) on the actual park. I wish in Boston we’d done something similar and preserved some of central artery like this.
We walked back the Marais and window-shopped at BHV and BHV Homme - with a very cool vertically planted exterior wall, and nose-bleedingly expensive men’s clothes. Again, more bad shopping karma. We finally ended the day by meeting M&P for drink at the xxxx designed Kong bar and restaurant high (for Paris) over the Pont Nuef bridge. We bid the new-married couple goodbye and headed back to the room for a nap.
We had dinner at Royal Medelaine not far from opera. This is a place Mike had found on a business trip, and he claimed it had the best French onion soup ever. I have to agree (and if you were wondering, in France they call it “authentic onion soup”.) I had a really nice salmon with Asian glaze, rice and crisp veggies, while Mike had a lovely fish that they presented in the pan, then deboned in front of us and replated. So lovely.
To finish out our last night in Paris, we took the metro to back to (you guessed it!) the Marais to go to out clubbing (for the first time on the whole trip.) We ran into a Lebanese cub and his 2 friends (from the Southern US), so ended up hanging out with them. We first went to Le Depot, a big labyrinthine club with quite good music, some cute men but all kind of squirrely. (And it was Tuesday night after all; not the best clubbing might even in Paris.) Everyone wanted to go to Sun City nearby, even uglier men, so after an hour of that we headed back to the hotel at about 3:30am.
Wed 6 May
We got up about 10am, and got backed and checked out of the hotel. After picking up some b’fast (mmmmm pain au chocolate!) and what turned out to be an excellent ham and cheese baguette for lunch we headed for the Eurostar back to London. Another uneventful ride over the fields and under the channel to London. After 3 subway lines in Paris, a train ride on eurostar, and 2 subway lines in London and the Heathrow Express, we were finally at LHR for our trip home. Had the old-un-upgraded business class on a 777. (Amazing how expectations change, isn’t it?) I watched frost /Nixon which was very good, and had dinner of pretty good mustard-crusted chicken, rice and wilted Spinach. Some 7 hours later we landed in Dulles again, then an hour in the United lounge and finally home to Boston, were as much as I can bitch, it is lovely to come home to.
So we returned from our trip happy to have seen Mo and the Wee One wed, happy to have met Rozalla (and yes, Cleo too), and with only 4 bottles of Radox for me and a bottle of Chanel 19 for my friend Oona at work. Of course, the good memories will last longer than either.
London & Paris - May 2009