12. THEY REALLY DO CALL IT A ROYALE WITH CHEESE: In closing of my European coverage, I give you "20 Things I Learned In Europe."
1. I've softened my verdict on "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang." While the show needs tweaks--the "Child Catcher" character should probably be eliminated altogether, and in order to get Kristin Chenowith to play Truly, which the producers allegedly want, they need to tweak and expand the role considerably. The songs do stick in your head, though, which is the basic start for a show.
2. Courtesy of Rupert Murdoch's flagship paper, "The Sun," an important journalistic lesson--the correct use of the word "funbags" in a sentence. "Glamour Girl Jordan admits that her massive funbags are sagging."
3. Julia Stiles is really freakin' tall (almost as tall as I am, at 6 foot 2). And her performance in the London revival of "Oleanna" opposite Aaron Eckhart as an angry undergraduate student proves that she's probably the best young actress out there right now. Eckhart's quite good, but he's a spitter. I was sitting in the front row, and I think he almost spat on me a couple of times--there was, indeed, visible spit throughout.
4. Bizarre moment of the trip: When at Buckingham Palace to see the Changing of the Guard, the military band closed with a medley of "How Deep Is Your Love," "Tragedy," and "Grease." The medley went on for nearly 20 minutes. Apparently, the Queen had left a little earlier, so perhaps the band decided to cut loose as a result.
5. Sadly, the press here in the U.S. did not pick up on the "Luke Perry Saves The Day" story that got much play in the UK. I did not suffer through "When Harry Met Sally," but apparently, the ceiling started falling, and Perry broke character and helped with the evacuation of the theatre. No word on if Alyson Hannigan managed to use her magical witch powers to reinforce the ceiling.
6. Biggest ripoff? The London Dungeon, a 13 pound "museum," that amounts to a series of bad actors screaming in a low-rent variation of the Madame Tussaud's "chamber of horrors." Yes, there was a neat fire effect at one point, but for the most part, bad acting, poor attempts at frightening an audience, and just pathetic.
7. Brush with major current event #1: I was walking past Westminster and the Houses of Parliament on the afternoon when Tony Blair was attacked with flour filled condoms by "Fathers For Justice."
8. My reaction to the Victoria and Albert Museum?--"Yes, that's another very nice silver pitcher. And another very nice silver platter. Yes, and another one!"
9. If my trips to the various modern art museums in London and Paris taught me only one thing, it's that perhaps our definition of "art" has become a little too expansive. I'll soon be selling the first of my masterpieces--"Dr Pepper in Plexiglas," in which I pour Dr Pepper into a Plexiglas vase, dump a box of styrofoam peanuts in it, and blow it up. The video loop plays in a darkened room as a powerful statement of the meaninglessness of consumerism.
10. "Jerry Springer: The Opera" is brilliantly funny, though I'm not sure how long it can last over here--I'm not sure that the lyrics "This is my Jerry Springer moment/I don't want this moment to end/So dip me in chocolate/and feed me to the lesbians" followed by a tap dancing line of (fully robed) KKK members is going to fly, and the "f**ked in the ass with barbed wire!" chorus is not exactly going to replace the Hallelujah chorus.
11. I passed on "We Will Rock You," the story of Gallileo Figaro, who fights on Planet Mall to show the people how to rock again, with, of course, the music of Queen as his guide, and "Tonight's The Night: The Rod Stewart Musical," which apparently involves a girl named Maggie May. There's also "Jailhouse Rock," the stage version of the Elvis film.
12. In France, they do, in fact, call it a Royale with Cheese. However, McNuggets are McNuggets everywhere, and are not McDelicious anywhere.
13. Yes, Jen's books were available in better bookstores in both England and France. I'm now kicking myself, because I could have picked up Dress Your Family In Corduroy and Denim, David Sedaris's new book, not yet available in the States, in England, but didn't, thinking it must be coming out here.
14. Yes, I saw L'Dejuner Sur L'Herbe. It was not the life-changing experience one might expect. In fact, I preferred some of the sculpture in the Orsay to the work by Manet.
15. I didn't particularly care for many of the Paris museums (particularly Versailles and the Louvre) were the massive tour groups that liked to stand in doorways and around major pieces and stare. These were often Japanese grandmothers with little earpieces in their ears, so they could hear their guide, who was speaking rapid-fire Japanese into a handmike.
16. I also really don't understand the allure of taking pictures of famous artworks. "Oooh! Look, here's my shaky photo of the 'Mona Lisa!' And here's a picture that's half my thumb and half of 'The Raft of the Medusa!'"
17. My general response to Paris: "Yes, that is a very nice ceremonial garden."
18. Tip: When going up the Eiffel Tower, bring a sweater. It was a gorgeous day when I went up, but suddenly, there were a number of gusts of wind, and it gets quite cold. Add to this my moderately severe case of vertigo, and it was perhaps not the most fun experience in the world.
19. My hotel in Paris had two English-language (or close enough) channels. One was CNN International, and the other was German MTV. And honestly, you haven't lived till you've attempted to watch "The Osbournes" in English with German subtitles. If only I read German, I assuredly could finally have answered two questions--first, what the hell is Ozzy saying, and second, what exactly is the vernacular German for certain curse words?
20. Brush with history #2: I flew out of Charles De Gaulle this morning, two terminals down from the one where the roof collapsed. Don't worry--I was at no risk, but I did learn that Paris' airport personnel are almost as friendly as those in New York and efficient as those in Dallas.
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