June 4th Part I

On my way to Heathrow, I barely slept. I had a chance to watch Arthur and the Invisibles, and The Last King of Scottland. I enjoyed both of them, guess which of those has Madonna in it? Then, a four hour stay in London.

I transferred perfectly, unfortunately, I didn't eat anything on my ride over the pond so I had to jettison some snacks to make room for a giant black purse. I bought water, Smirnoff, and Johnny Walker Red. I also got the latest issue of NME, which has a totally nude cover of Beth Ditto, the lovely plump singer of The Gossip. I got into an awesome conversation with the clerk about her.

I had the pleasure of seeing the Gossip for $3 at Under the Volcano, a festival for arts and activism. Some of you might have been disappointed that it didn't happen last year, but it's going strong this summer. Beth Ditto is jaw-dropping, voice, body, songs. This is what I was telling the clerk, and his reply was "Eck, how many stone is that?"

I didn't care for the food in the airport. I thought that I played it safe, had a panini with chicken, avocado, tomato. Ok, When I see avocado on the menu, I assume that the cook actually has avocados in the kitchen. I was not prepared for the pasty off yellow sludge that was artfully squished between the sliced soy chicken and the "focaccia," a white bread with speckles of burnt herbs. The tomato was real.

And then I was off to India.